On Dec 1, 2010, at 1:07 PM, lbo83235 wrote:
> The impact of the leaks will occur on two levels. The immediate, concrete impact will not be on large numbers of people (as Carrol rightly understands), but (what he leaves out) on small numbers of the elite who occupy key positions of power - people who *do* pay attention to the kind of information contained in the leaks, because it concretely affects their power / opportunity / prestige within the circles they inhabit. At that level, the leaks will almost certainly destabilize, and lead to realignment of, at least some important power / trust relations, and will create new points of relative political / institutional vulnerability, at least temporarily during that destabilization and realignment process
It may also mean that they won't write things down - just talk in person or over the phone.
People really want to believe that a single event changes everything. It rarely does.
Doug