Mark Zuckerberg - creator and public face of Facebook
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
I saw this image the other day and feel as though this is typical, contemporary American journalism. Laude those whose play ball. Crucify those who don't. After doing a bit more reading on Assange and Zuckerberg, I found out that both were in the running for Time Magazine's 2010 Person of the Year. Assange was a runner-up. Isn't that ridiculous? People who have two completely different motives for expanding their websites were nominated for the same honor? Not so fast, according to Time, the person of the year is the man or woman who had the greatest impact on world events in the previous year "for better or for worse." So is that to say that Julian Assange would've been Man of the Year for having the greatest negative impact on earth in 2011? That's putting him up there with Adolf Hitler (winner in 1938) and Richard Milhous Nixon ('71 & '72, history's only back to back winner). Ludicrous. That also means putting Zuckerberg up in the pantheon of greatness with, just to pick a few names, Mahatma Gandhi (1930), Martin Luther King, Jr (1963), and Pope John Paul II (1994). Equally ludicrous.
Reading their respective articles in Time, Assange is not portrayed as villainously as one would imagine, but he's not declared a pioneer or revolutionary either. I think he deserves both titles. Instead, the magazine's take on his influence is rather... neutral. They use all the clichéd terms such as "whistle-blower" and "mystery hacker" to describe the man with, quite possibly, the biggest nuts in the world. Most of the article highlights how private his life is in contrast to his desire to publicize the inner-workings of US foreign policy. However, Mr. Zuckerberg receives a 10-page hand-job "for creating a new system of exchanging information and for changing how we live our lives." This is American journalism folks. Setting the double-standard for the rest of the world. All I know is that Julian Assange is a man who dares to uncover the absolute truth. But apparently that's not worthy enough to be the most influential man on the planet.
I'd like to end this post, a la Mark Landers (aka m0ehawk)....
Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens) - In the End
You can't bargain with the truth
'Cause whether you're right or you're wrong
We're gonna know what you've done
We're going to see where you belong - in the end
'Cause whether you're right or you're wrong
We're gonna know what you've done
We're going to see where you belong - in the end
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