The cross-ocean gossip trader

The domestic media has caught the WikiLeaks fever. Newspapers, websites, blogs and TV networks present and comment documents so "explosive" that some of them don"t even fizzle. Information that is really important is below a mountain of so-called "secret cables" which contain synopses of articles published in the media or rumors neatly packaged by characters eager to snitch to American officials. When the major revelation will actually occur, people will probably already be allergic to Wikileaks and no one will be willing to listen or read. This scheme has already been used before and it seems to work perfectly in favor of the few and to the detriment of the many.

In fact, the major problem with these documents is not their contents, but rather the names of those who contributed to their writing. Thus, we find out that various characters of the political world of the government or of the mass-media routinely showed up to spill their guts to the officials of an embassy which restricts itself to saying that it can"t make any statements on whether the documents are authentic or not. It is not known exactly what those who rushed to confess to the heirs of Uncle Sam were hoping to gain from it, but we will probably find out from another wave of documents. It"s obvious that some of our co-nationals have it in their blood to be snitches and that"s all the excuse they need to turn into rats.

Most of the gossips that have made the tour of various media over these past few years are featured in the notorious Wikileaks documents. The interests of some moguls, the politicians" love affairs, alcohol-issues long debated with whispered voices, economic scandals dissected in various investigations of the media, the generalized corruption, brief characterizations of the various domestic leaders, these just about sum up the ingredients of the "WikiLeaks Romania" soup.

All the pickles have been removed from their jars and are now being sold as fresh. Typical. How can one be expected to react to an explosive document, labeled "Confidential", which is titled "Money and politics: who truly owns Romania?", which was supposed to become public on August 2nd, 2017? You find out that Patriciu, Vîntu, Niculae, Becali, Voiculescu are some of the wealthiest people in the country, that they paid money to most political parties, that they have high level political interests. You almost feel like asking, so what. The political ambitions of Mircea Geoană, the viciousness of Vasile Blaga, the deals of Traian Băsescu, the dirty snitching of some nobodies are so well known that you don"t feel any excitement at all when it"s all served freshly translated from English.

Those who constantly look for the half full part of the glass could claim that we are living in such a transparent country that spies wouldn"t have anything to do but read the press and watch TV to get enough "dirt" to earn their paychecks. Researchers of the empty half of the glass will claim that we are doing more harm to ourselves than the enemies who are thus left out of a job. The truth can probably be found somewhere in another set of WikiLeaks documents.