Dire Thoughts

We are living in very troubling times. Time fraught with wars, corruption, fraud, waste, abuse, crimes against humanity… Our destinies are shaped by puppet masters like King, who continue to operate with impunity. The Orphan has been very busy dealing with outbreaks of crime all over the city.

And of course, we can’t forget this masked villain, Fury of Solace.  No one knows who he is, what he knows, or how he’s managed to perpetrate these acts of terrorism under our collective nose.  With our world, our very city, shrouded in a seemingly immutable darkness, maybe, just maybe, the Flashlight need to become more than just a beacon of truth.  Maybe it needs to be a facilitator of justice.

Crying Wolf?

In response to our last post, many of you have posed an important question: In the police state that America is swiftly becoming, why is a site like the Flashlight allowed to operate at all?  Some have even made the disturbing allegations that certain people in the intelligence community may actually see conspiracy investigators like you and I as inadvertent allies.  Why?  Because, to the uninitiated, our claims strain credulity to say the least.  People like us are branded as crackpots, so the mindless masses are predisposed to doubt everything that comes out of our mouths.  Has this possibility crossed our mind?  Yes, Constant Readers.  We saw that episode of “X-Files” too.

But know this: If the government leaves us alone because they believe we are a hindrance to our cause, they simultaneously empower us.  As long as the airwaves remain open, we can get our message out to the people who are ready to hear it.  I can’t believe we’re shouting into a vacuum.  I can’t and I won’t.

Leaks or Plants?

A number of you have been asking me to comment on the WikiLeaks phenomema.  Do we at the Flashlight approve of the work of people like Julian Assange, who fight to make classified government secrets available to the general public?  Of course we do.  I thought that would have gone without saying.  Because despite our government’s claims that they’re deceiving, inveigling and obfuscating for “national security” purposes, keeping this information a secret has nothing to with protecting us and everything to do with protecting them.  So yes, we whole-heartedly approve of Assange’s efforts, in theory.  Provided, of course, that WikiLeaks is in fact what it claims to be.

What are we talking about?  For years, forces within our own government have been looking for any excuse to impinge upon our right to free speech and privacy.  Whether or not you believe our government had anything to do with the 9/11 attacks, I dare you to try and tell me they didn’t take advantage of the situation to push through homeland security measures that violate our civil liberties in ways too numerous to count.

So think about it: a major, public leak like this gives the US government all the fodder they need to tighten their stranglehold on the interwebs, and to eradicate the anonymity it provides.  Do you think that a site like the Flashlight would be allowed to exist if our government were able to see the man behind the curtain?

Again, whether Assange is a comrade in arms in the race to shed light on the truth or simply staged these “leaks” for some more nefarious purposes is not the issue.  The question is, how much will our government be able to spin this event to their benefit?  Information wants to be free.  But our government does not agree.