Who's the enemy?

[whatchamacallit]

The guy who, for whatever reason, exposed the abuse of our rights, or the rabid authoritarian assholes who want to defend and protect the government's ability to abuse?

[geek tragedy]

1. Straw man and false dichotomy alert.

One can not be a fan of that dude while still believe that the government programs do need to be scaled back and subject to further transparency and institutional checks.

[whatchamacallit]

2. Word Salad Alert!

Try again.

[geek tragedy]

3. You're presupposing that there's this significant group of "rabid authoritarians"

who want to enable fascism.

Also embedded in your question is the idea that someone needs to be the enemy.

[whatchamacallit]

5. As if Snowden isn't being cast as an enemy of the state

and America

[geek tragedy]

6. Enemy is too strong. nt

[Progressive dog]

10. "Enemy of the State" is a movie title

The USA didn't indict him for that. I don't even think there's an indictable crime by that name in the US.
The Federal Government did indict him for actual stuff he's done,." Snowden, 29, is charged with theft of government property, unauthorized communication of national defense information and willful communication of classified communications intelligence information to an unauthorized person, according to court documents.", and it's not secret.

[whatchamacallit]

11. It's an old and appropriate term

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enemy_of_the_state

[Progressive dog]

13. So in your mind Snowdens's been charged with treason.

He has been charged as the common criminal that he is. Thousands of people are charged with worse crimes every year. If we were at war, Snowden could have been charged with Treason, we are not, he is not.

[whatchamacallit]

14. I never referred to charges

The post is about whether you consider his actions harm or good.

[Progressive dog]

18. So the government doesn't think he's an "enemy of the state"

You are confusing your OP with your responses in this thread.
You took the conversation on the "enemy of the state" route. You called people who disagree with you "rabid authoritarian assholes" as an opening and your argument deteriorated from there.
So what if you never referred to "charges" directly.

[whatchamacallit]

19. The OP in a nutshell

People like you are more detrimental to my rights and freedom than Snowden.

[Progressive dog]

20. No, this was your OP in a nutshell

"the rabid authoritarian assholes "

[whatchamacallit]

21. Yep

Deal with it.

[Progressive dog]

22. Deal with what, childish name calling

is all you've got.

[whatchamacallit]

26. Sorry

I seriously believe people who want to make this about the messenger, at the expense of the message, are more despicable than Snowden.

[siligut]

24. I know there is a significant group of "rabid authoritarians"

And the NSA's huge Data Collection Center is being built in their state. I have to hope that ultimately this was also a concern when Snowden decided to go public.

[kentuck]

4. The terrorists!

Remember?

[LanternWaste]

7. I thought enemies were relegated to superheroes and Germany

I don't really have enemies. I thought enemies were relegated only to superheroes and Germany.

I do have idiots though. A lot of them. Most are pretty quiet though, which is always a good idea for idiots (enemies too, Id imagine); but there's always a handful of them who poses a logical fallacy called the 'complex question' in order to trivialize those in disagreement with them.

[whatchamacallit]

8. Apparently I have

idiots too. Thanks for dropping by.

[Octafish]

9. Clearly ''rabid authoritarian assholes'' in search of power and profit.

Stratfor & Goldman Sachs started hedge fund called Stratcap to trade on illegal inside gov't info

"Stratfor’s use of insiders for intelligence soon turned into a money-making scheme of questionable legality. The emails show that in 2009 then-Goldman Sachs Managing Director Shea Morenz and Stratfor CEO George Friedman hatched an idea to "utilise the intelligence" it was pulling in from its insider network to start up a captive strategic investment fund. CEO George Friedman explained in a confidential August 2011 document, marked DO NOT SHARE OR DISCUSS : "What StratCap will do is use our Stratfor’s intelligence and analysis to trade in a range of geopolitical instruments, particularly government bonds, currencies and the like". The emails show that in 2011 Goldman Sach’s Morenz invested "substantially" more than $4million and joined Stratfor’s board of directors. Throughout 2011, a complex offshore share structure extending as far as South Africa was erected, designed to make StratCap appear to be legally independent. But, confidentially, Friedman told StratFor staff : "Do not think of StratCap as an outside organisation. It will be integral... It will be useful to you if, for the sake of convenience, you think of it as another aspect of Stratfor and Shea as another executive in Stratfor... we are already working on mock portfolios and trades". StratCap is due to launch in 2012. "

http://wikileaks.org/the-gifiles.html

[whatchamacallit]

12. Interesting... n/t

[Octafish]

15. WikiLeaks exposed wars without end for profits without end.

War is big business. It's an insider's game. It's why we have so much secret government.

The last remaining enormous wads of cash in the Treasury are to be had for purchasing today's modern military industrial intel complex.



There's more than a trillion to be grabbed -- just for the Lockheed-Martin F-35.

Now keeping tabs on us -- people interested in using some of the nation's treasure for more peaceful purposes -- are for-hire spies. How do I know this? Julian Assange and Anonymous:

WikiLeaks' Stratfor Dump Lifts Lid on Intelligence-Industrial Complex

WikiLeaks' latest release, of hacked emails from Stratfor, shines light on the murky world of private intelligence-gathering

by Pratap Chatterjee
Published on Tuesday, February 28, 2012 by The Guardian/UK

What price bad intelligence? Some 5m internal emails from Stratfor, an Austin, Texas-based company that brands itself as a "global intelligence" provider, were recently obtained by Anonymous, the hacker collective, and are being released in batches by WikiLeaks, the whistleblowing website, starting Monday.

The most striking revelation from the latest disclosure is not simply the military-industrial complex that conspires to spy on citizens, activists and trouble-causers, but the extremely low quality of the information available to the highest bidder. Clients of the company include Dow Chemical, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Raytheon, as well as US government agencies like the Department of Homeland Security, the Defense Intelligence Agency and the Marines.

SNIP...

Assange notes that Stratfor is also seeking to profit directly from this information by partnering in an apparent hedge-fund venture with Shea Morenz, a former Goldman Sachs managing director. He points to an August 2011 document, marked "DO NOT SHARE OR DISCUSS", from Stratfor CEO George Friedman, which says:

"What StratCap will do is use our Stratfor's intelligence and analysis to trade in a range of geopolitical instruments, particularly government bonds, currencies and the like."

CONTINUED...

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/02/28-10?print

If it weren't for Anonymous and WikiLeaks, we probably wouldn't know about any of that.

It's no joke. It's no unimportant story. It's no boring history. Run by insiders, the secret government is key to making the system run on behalf of the few -- the 1-percent of 1-percent. Central to that is intelligence -- economically, politically and military useful information.

Which brings up the nation's purported free press, the only business mentioned by name in the entire United States Constitution, and how the organizations therein have miserably failed to feature prominently the sundry and myriad ways the insiders on Wall Street and their toadies in Washington do the work for Them.

The problem is systemic. The corruption is systemic.

Because it involves oversight of secret organizations -- the Pentagon, Homeland Security, CIA, etc -- Congress and the Administration often have no clue, let alone oversight, to what is happening because the corruption is marked "Top Secret."

Secret government also means We the People can't do our job as citizens, which is to hold them accountable and find the ones responsible in order to vote the crooks out and, it is hoped, the honest ones in.

With no citizen oversight, anything goes. And it doesn't stop.

Remember this fine fellow, US Navy fighter ace Randy "Duke" Cunningham?

Later a member of the United States Congress, he used his position to feather his nest, Big Time.



In his political career, Cunningham was a member of the Appropriations and Intelligence committees, and chaired the House Intelligence Subcommittee on Human Intelligence Analysis and Counterintelligence during the 109th Congress. He was considered a leading Republican expert on national security issues.

Currently, he's in USP Tuscon or another fine facility where he gets three squares, medical and dental.
He's due for release in a year or so. He'll be able to pick up his pension.

"The Duke Cunningham Act, also known as the Federal Pension Forfeiture Act, was introduced by U.S. Senator John F. Kerry in 2006. The bill would have denied pension benefits to any members of Congress convicted of bribery, conspiracy or perjury. The bill died in committee. (Source: The Press Enterprise)

Duke wasn't alone. He really was just one snake in a long line of snakes. Remember Dusty Foggo, Number 3 at CIA and close associate of CIA Director and former Congressman Porter Goss? Swells sitting atop the peak of political and military secrecy and power.

Unfortunately, when it comes to modern governance, no oversight means means the insiders are getting away with murder, and warmongering and treason and all the power that they bring. Appointed pretzeldent George W Bush on Valentine's Day 2007 put it in words: "Money trumps peace."

Secret government warmongering and war profiteering are systemic. Secret government is rotten to the core. What's more, in a democracy that once really was land of the free and home of the brave, secret government poses the greatest threat to true national security.

The fine turds of Corporate McPravda won't run with the story because their owners are stars of the story. More on original DU thread.

[Skidmore]

23. Wikileaks exposed it? I remember long threads discussing

war without end and war for oil and war for profit on DU long before Wikileaks crawled out of the ether. DU was on this and spreading our discontent with the state of current events at every opportunity. I remember we used to call in to Washington Journal at every opportunity and any other call in program to get our two cents in. Pasted up brochures around towns and any posted on any chatboard going. Wikileaks may have filled in some details but this war without end discussion began long before.

[Octafish]

27. True, all that. But WikiLeaks used official stationery (nt)

[cherokeeprogressive]

16. We are.

[sibelian]

17. I don't think it's a question of there being an "enemy". It's about structure.

Some levels of generalised avantage over human populations just shouldn't exist. They invariably attract abusers and become toxic.

Hence democracy rather than kings.

[HappyMe]

25. Oh!

More rabid name calling. How very original.



How shall I recover? My feelings are so hurt!