The Desperate Times
About Edward Snowden
Normally, I would be dead set against any American who wasn't strictly on "OUR SIDE," but when when "our side" isn't really ON "our side" anymore, I feel we ought to hail anyone who dares to expose the hideous fraud which administers "our" affairs in ways contrary to "our" best interests as somethng of a HERO.
That said, Ed Snowden's prison pallor and nerdy, geeky personality (sort of like that of Jack Loo!) marks him as a loser –– no one I'd want to meet for lunch or dinner.
I admit this is just a snap judgment on my part based on very little reading –– and as always in matters of this sort, "it all depends on who ox is being gored," –– I guess.
I still hate Daniel Ellsberg's and the “Winter Soldier’s” effin’ guts, but I still believed in my country in those bygone days. Sadly, I no longer do, and if there were still a "New World" to escape to, I'd go there in a heartbeat.
LINKS to SNOWDEN ARTICLES at DRUDGE:
"Your country" is still the country Daniel Ellsberg tried to expose.
ReplyDeleteI don't understand why you're upset, FT.
...the difference, duckman, is that Ellsberg's exposure occurred in the midst of an existential crises (the Cold War).
ReplyDeleteHe may have been right. But his "timing" was ALL wrong.
...as for Snowden, I believe that his revelations are "timely". For there are still those "others" who ACTUALLY believe in the concept of privacy... and have not yet been converted to cyber-cynicism.
ReplyDelete.... as those of us with "multiple on-line personalities" have. ;)
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ReplyDeleteThe first time that Snowden's photo appeared and that I glanced at his photo, Jay Carney sprang to mind. Why is that?
ReplyDeleteI don't yet know what "the truth" about Snowden is. I'm still reserving judgment. Of course, "the truth" may never be known. We living in times that make it difficult to discern Truth.
I like this essay about the matter of Snowden: "Snowden’s actions demonstrate how STUPID our political partisan hatreds are."
ReplyDeleteConsidering the depth and breadth of the overreaching power grab by the federal government, I don't consider the revelations of Edward Snowden to be unwarranted,traitorous and treasonous. Rather I believe exposing tyranny in high places to be and should be a requirement of good citizenship. Here's the real world truth: Any "official secrets" that are now said to be a concern of the administration is another diversion of attention away from what is really going on at high levels. With the daily visits of the enemies such as the Muslim Brotherhood to the White House, isn't it unbelievable that this type of enemy would not have already had more information placed in their hands that would be far more deadly and detrimental to the long term health of the United States than the information being exposed by Snowden?
ReplyDeleteThis treasonous behavior has been going on since the beginning of the 20th Century. It gets especially disgusting during times of war when lives are in harms way supposedly defending the ideals upon which the country was founded. Reality shows that the millions of dead and wounded in all those bloody wars were sacrificed for the advancement of a specific agenda—the advancement of tyranny, the burial of individual rights advancing the power of the state into more and more areas of individual life, creating generations of people looking to the state for "safety and security", ignoring the specific warnings in the regard by certain Founding Fathers.
ReplyDeleteTo demonstrate that this despicable treason has been an ongoing problem for a long time, here is an interesting observation from General Douglas MacArthur from the Korean War and the treason that he came face to face with:
ReplyDelete"GENERAL DOUGLAS MACARTHUR SPEAKS:
“I was worried by a series of directives from Washington (Truman) which were greatly decreasing the potential of my Air Force. First I was forbidden “hot” pursuit of enemy planes that attacked our own.
“Manchuria and Siberia were sanctuaries of inviolate protection of all enemy forces and for all enemy purposes, no matter what depredations or assaults might come from there.
“Then I was denied the right (by Soviet General in United Nations) to bomb the hydroelectric plants along the Yalu River. The order was broadened to include every plant in North Korea which was capable of furnishing electric power to Manchuria and Siberia.
“Most incomprehensible of all was the refusal to let me bomb the important supply center at Racin, which was not in Manchuria or Siberia, but many miles from the border, in forwarded supplies from Vladivostok for the North Korean Army. I felt that step-by-step my weapons were being taken away from me.”
This is exactly the same type of “treason” that occurred against our military forces in Vietnam. But Vietnam was far more vile and dirty in length of time that our soldiers were betrayed."
“That there was some leak in intelligence was evident to everyone. (Brigadier General Walton) Walker continually complained to me that his operations were known to the enemy in advance through sources in Washington.
“Information must have been relayed to them, assuring that the Yalu River bridges would continue to enjoy their sanctuary and that their bases would be left intact. They knew they could swarm down across the Yalu River without having to worry about bombers hitting their Manchurian supply lines.”
"HONG KONG (AP) — For months, China has tried to turn the tables on the U.S. to counter accusations that it hacks America's computers and networks.
ReplyDeleteNow, former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden may have handed Beijing a weapon in its cyber war of words with Washington.
In an interview with the South China Morning Post newspaper, Snowden claims the U.S. has long been attacking a Hong Kong university that routes all Internet traffic in and out of the semiautonomous Chinese region.
Snowden said the National Security Agency's 61,000 hacking targets around the world include hundreds in Hong Kong and mainland China, the paper reported late Wednesday.
The Post, Hong Kong's main English-language newspaper, said Snowden had presented documents to support those claims, but it did not describe the documents and said it could not verify them. Snowden's comments were his first since the 29-year-old American revealed himself as the source of a major leak of top-secret information on U.S. surveillance programs."
Is it heroic to give the Communist Chinese America's intelligence secrets?
Yet, this is what Snowden has done. He wasn't content to alert Americans to what the NSA is doing, he also alerted a foreign country, Communist China.
ReplyDeleteYes, Ms Shaw, but we must face reality, and that is there is NO Privacy, NO Secrecy, NO Loyalty, ANYWHERE anymore, and NOTHING is sacrosanct.
You quoted Joe Klein at your blog, who said this:
"This is a difficult issue and will become even more so as technology becomes more sophisticated. I applaud civil libertarians like Glenn Greenwald who draw our attention to it. But it is important to keep it in perspective. Far too many people get their notions of what our government is all about from Hollywood; the paranoid thriller is a wonderful form of entertainment, but it’s a fantasy. The idea that our government is some sort of conspiracy, that it’s a somehow foreign body intent on robbing us of our freedoms, is corrosive and dangerous to our democracy. This remains, and always will be, an extremely libertarian country; it’s encoded in our DNA. We now face a constant, low-level terrorist threat that needs to be monitored. ... our national security is more important than any marginal — indeed, mythical — rights that we may have conceded in the Patriot Act ... In the end, the slippery-slope, all-or-nothing arguments advanced by extreme civil libertarians bear an uncomfortable resemblance to the slippery-slope, all-or-nothing arguments advanced by the National Rifle Association."
I won’t insult Mr. Klein and stoop to calling him names, but if he believes what he’s saying I think he must be extraordinarily naive. If he’s as intelligent as I’ve always assumed him to be, he’s obviously in the pay of internationalist influences working against the best interests of American citizens.
I have in latter years come to believe that incredibly powerful, unimaginably rich individuals with common interests -- both in and out of this country -- have effectively banded together in an effort to to destroy our sovereignty and that of every other nation on earth. They've been cynically pitting various nations, various ethic and religious blocs and competing ideologies against one another for over a century. With disastrous results. The twentieth century was the most violent and destructive in all human history.
That was no mere series of accidents.
I do not believe that there is a nickel's worth of difference between the two parties anymore, except for their rhetoric.
Our congress is not ELECTED it is virtually APPOINTED. It has been bought and paid for by outside interests.
We citizens have been rendered powerless. We have been duped and systematically -- incrementally -- progressively -- taken advantage of since TR was first elected president -- a long slow process that began at a barely-perceptible creeping pace, and is now after a hundred years of ruthless machinations running at full gallop.
Mr. Klein revealed his bias in his last sentence with that cheap crack at the National Rifle Association. I DON’T BELIEVE HIS BLAND REASSURANCES. In Orwell’s Oceana he would function as an emissary from The Ministry of Truth.
I'm still asking the question of how, a high school drop out gets a job at the CIA and the NSA.
ReplyDeleteEven Enterprise Car Rental requires a college degree.
Something just doesn't smell right to me on this.
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DeleteDave, assuming you are right and there are more layers to this than are portrayed in the media, is this another diversion to misdirect attention away from serious acts destroying the remnants of any individual rights left? IMO, that would be a distinct possibility.
ReplyDeleteFar too many people get their notions of what our government is all about from Hollywood ...
ReplyDelete-----
That's a bit rich coming from leftist drooler, a regular guest of "Morning Joe", the self-professed market for your "daily talking points".
For anyone interested in understanding this world today, Hollywood would be about the last place one should look to find in depth meaning and/or truth.
"I'm still asking the question of how, a high school drop out gets a job at the CIA and the NSA."
ReplyDeleteDave, I am thinking he is brilliant on the computer. That doesn't take a high school diploma anymore than being a prodigy in music or art.
The feds are having a difficult time getting their share of brilliant people away from companies like Apple or Google. Heck, those companies are in a bidding war amongst themselves for talent.
In other words, not hard to imagine they promote talent over a degree(s).
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DeleteFT, perhaps the best place to find what a man or woman values is right at home; in our families, in our faith and in small communities.
ReplyDeleteLike Dorothy said, "there no place like home". The Internet is not that kind of home, is it? Closer to chaos :-)
So good to see you, KP. As usual you make a great deal of sense.
ReplyDelete"... they promote talent over a degree(s)."
If so, KP, that os one of the very few encouraging things I've heard anyone say in a long time.
I made quite a post on that very theme over at Shaw's but two or three of her posts down from the top.
Talent, native intelligence, ambition and initiative over "degrees" used to be the criteria for hiring in Industry and other areas. I happen to have earned three college degrees, and frankly, I value what I learned in "the real world" far more than the most of the stuff I went through in graduate school.
It was interesting -- up to a point, but I did better as a complete amateur in real estate and home renovation -- then later as the editor of three publications than I ever did in the field for which I received so much special training.
I believe most of what we know that has any real value e must discover WITHIN ourselves.
Book learning surely has value, but as the old song says, "It don't mean a thing, if it ain't got that zing." ;-)
You could be right KP, but it just doesn't smell right to me.
ReplyDeleteA starting salary of over 100K?
I'll be the first one to second the idea that people w/o a formal degree can be great hires, but usually it is hard to get a chance to impress the person doing the hiring without it.
Call me a conspiracy guy, but I keep wondering if he's a spy...
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Delete"A starting salary of over 100K?"
ReplyDeleteNice starting salary. Apparently it doesn't buy loyalty :-)
You have such a large library of experience. Leaving politics aside for a moment, consider the amount of mentoring you have already done and then how much more is out there. That's where we may find peace.
ReplyDeleteMy last few words were for FT. Keep On Truckin' ...
ReplyDeleteDave Miller said...
ReplyDeleteI'm still asking the question of how, a high school drop out gets a job at the CIA and the NSA.
Dave is right, lets face it Dave even George Bush had a high school school education.
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ReplyDeleteDave,
ReplyDeleteI'm still asking the question of how, a high school drop out gets a job at the CIA and the NSA.
I've asked the same questions.
Something which is not nefarious may be going on, however.
For example, John Elder Robison dropped out of high school, yet he went on to achieve a great deal.
Could Snowden possibly have Asperger Syndrome?
I'm asking because so many gifted techies have some form of Asperger's. If so, his perception as to what is appropriate and what is not could be seriously askew as compared to those who are "normal."
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ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteKP,
ReplyDeleteThe Internet is not that kind of home, is it? Closer to chaos :-)
No kidding!
I find that I'm spending less time on the web now -- especially less time in the toxic blogosphere.
Yes, I've made some dear friends in the blogosphere -- perhaps the most significant of whom have physically helped me with caregiving Mr. AOW or providing me with valuable advice. Offline, of course!
The web certainly has so much potential for good and for research.
Unfortunately, social networking has brought out the worst of human qualities. If there's any way to abuse anything, human beings will find that way! **sigh**
"Only the game fish swims upstream.
ReplyDeleteThe sensible fish swims down."
~ Ogden Nash