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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsEdward Snowden article in, The Guardian - US Edition
I don't know how people on DU feel about Snowden, but I felt this article was important to share. From what I have learned about Snowden and his actions, I believe he is of great service to human rights on the planet.http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/may/03/edward-snowden-assassination-complex-governments-tagged-animals-drone-warfare-whistleblower
Truly unauthorised disclosures are necessarily an act of resistance
brush
(53,968 posts)Last edited Tue May 3, 2016, 01:48 PM - Edit history (1)
revealing details of his own country's covert operations.
Then he would have been a hero instead of the defector he is, stuck in Russia and still tying to extend his 15 minutes.
Here's some additional info on Snowden that is quite revealing.
Spandan Chakrabarti July 2, 2013
Some outlets reported last week that NSA leaker and fugitive Edward Snowden was caught into a bit of hypocrisy: public chat records indicate that back in the ancient times of 2009, he wanted leakers "shot in the balls." Yeah, he said that. But that's not all he said. Oh, no. The Technology site Ars Technica posted extensive public chat logs from Snowden, then using the monkier TheTrueHOOHA, that confirms what I had suspected since finding his campaign contributions to Glenn Greenwald's straight crush Ron Paul.
So let's talk about this man that has been granted hero status by the Left's loudest prognosticators and provocateurs. The transcripts released by Ars Technica are about a lot more than Snowden's previous contempt for leakers. He hated social security, loved Ron Paul and his ideas, and peddled the NRA's garbage about fighting the government with guns. He suggested punishing both leakers and publications that publish the leaks. All in all, Edward Snowden is a right wing, anti-government nutjob who has managed to become the hero of so many on the reactionary Left.
Ars Technica reports that Ed Snowden is not much more than your typical, teabagging, cookie-cutter right wing nutjob who hates Obama. He complained about everything from the president's appointment to the CIA to gun control to how Social Security has turned old people into lazy moochers.
Once Obama took office, Snowden groaned about his policies with increasing frequency. Fears that Obama might revive an assault weapons ban didn't sit well with him as a defender of the Second Amendment. Another sticking point was social security. Snowden was an individualist, even when it was unpopular; he saw little need for a safety net.
Here are just some of the choice quotes from the freakout Left's new hero. I have modified the transcripts only to change "TheTrueHOOHA" to "SNOWDEN" (for ease of following), and to highlight through formatting.
Gun-nut:
User: the restrictions were made to appease the conservatives to get another bill passed. fucking cons.
SNOWDEN: See, that's why I'm goddamned glad for the second amendment. Me and all my lunatic, gun-toting NRA compatriots would be on the steps of Congress before the C-Span feed finished.
Something tells me Edward Snowden is more fit to be a Tea Party candidate for office in the mold of Sharron Angle (of the infamous "Second Amendment remedies" than a liberal icon - if the screaming "progressives" on the Internet were still capable of having a value system other than "we hate Obama," that is.
Choice words for Social Security and the New Deal:
SNOWDEN: save money? cut this social security bullshit
User11: hahahayes
User18: Yeah! Fuck old people!
User11: social security is bullshit
User11: let's just toss old people out in the street
User18: Old people could move in with .
User11: NOOO
User11: they smell funny
SNOWDEN: Somehow, our society managed to make it hundreds of years without social security just fine
SNOWDEN: you fucking retards
SNOWDEN: Magically the world changed after the new deal, and old people became made of glass
SNOWDEN: yeah, that makes sense
User11: wow
User11: you are just so fucking stupid
SNOWDEN: yeah, . and you're quite a gem
User19: and magically, life expectancy has doubled in the last 100 years.funny how that works.
SNOWDEN: , you don't think modern medicine has something to do with that? no? it's social security? wow. I guess I missed that.
User11: hurr wait a second, life expectancy has shot up in recent times along with the dissolution of the communal family unit in exchange for the nuclear family
User11: gee i guess we might need to create a safety net for the sudden glut of helpless elderly????
SNOWDEN: they wouldn't be fucking helpless if you weren't sending them fucking checks to sit on their ass and lay in hospitals all day
User11: you are so goddamned stupd*pid
User11: PUT OLD PEOPLE TO WORK IN THE FIELDS
SNOWDEN: my grandmother is eighty fucking three this year, and you know what? she still supports herself working as a goddamned hairdresser
His grandmother would be so proud, who he also claims doesn't support Social Security.
And his opinion on the racist, wingbat Ron Paul? "Dreamy."
But but but, I can already hear the screamers, you're distracting from the point! It's about government secrecy! I wonder how Snowden felt about that? In January 2009, less than two weeks before Obama took office, the New York Times reported on a leak that President Bush had rejected Israel's request for bunker-busters to hit Iran's nuclear facility. Pointing to that story, Snowden not only advocated for the leakers to be "shot in the balls," but also for the reporting organization (in this case the NY Times) to go out of business.
SNOWDEN: HOLY SHIT
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/11/washington/11iran.html?_r=1&hp
SNOWDEN: WTF NYTIMES
SNOWDEN: Are they TRYING to start a war?
Jesus christ
they're like wikileaks
User19: they're just reporting, dude.
SNOWDEN: They're reporting classified shit
User19: shrugs
SNOWDEN:
User19: meh
SNOWDEN: moreover, who the fuck are the anonymous sources telling them this?
SNOWDEN: those people should be shot in the balls.
Rather lovely sentiments, don't you think? I wonder when Snowden and Wikileaks will explain why he doesn't think he deserves the same punishment he himself prescribed for leakers. That's not all, of course. He lashed out at the New York Times for "blowing" the illegal Bush administration program to warrantlessly wiretap Americans, referring to the Times reporting on the matter in 2006.
SNOWDEN: these are the same people who blew the whole "we could listen to osama's cell phone" thing the same people who screwed us on wiretapping over and over and over again Thank god they're going out of business.
User19: the NYT?
SNOWDEN: Hopefully they'll finally go bankrupt this year.
yeah.
So Snowden was a man all for illegally spying on Americans when Bush was in office, but suddenly when Obama takes office and brings the programs under legal cover and gets a court involved, Saint Snowden can stand it no more. Shocked, shocked I tell you to hear there's gambling in Casa Blanca.
Come to think of it, the Professional Left unites with Edward Snowden on that point exactly - the blind, likely racist, pure demonization of this president. After all, this really isn't about privacy or security, is it? If it were, we would be seeing mobilizations and hearing calls to change the law rather than screams of 'scandals' about a program which even the toughest critic admits is perfectly legal under the law as it stands today. We would be seeing a laser focus not on obtaining the freedom of a criminal but on a vigorous debate about the merits of the law itself. Yet, rarely do we hear those calls on "liberal" sites like Daily Kos or on "liberal" shows coughing up a spleen defending Ed Snowden (I'm talking to you, Chris Hayes). What we hear far more often is the lashing out, the "free Snowden" cheerleading, and the unadulterated contempt for the president as well as rule of law. No, it's not about concerns about privacy. This is about concern-trolling about privacy.
Edward Snowden is a pathetic excuse for a hero or a whistleblower. He is a lunatic libertarian far-right nutjob that compromised national security for his personal fame. He has no values, no ethics, no moral core. He is a right wing blowhard that is playing the Professional Left for everything they are worth (which, thankfully, is not much). He is using their Blind hatred of a black president named Barack Obama to make them do the bidding of his own agenda which has nothing to do with transparency nor democracy. And the Professional Left is running right along, singing the praises of this ring-wing nutjob, licking this traitor's boots.
cantbeserious
(13,039 posts)eom
brush
(53,968 posts)A lowly 29-year-old IT guy deciding he is the one who should make the decision to reveal details of his own country's covert operations, you damn well I see it differently.
If he had stopped with the revelations against domestic spying against US citizens here in this country he would be the hero you think he is.
I don't.
cantbeserious
(13,039 posts)eom
brush
(53,968 posts)Spandan Chakrabarti July 2, 2013
Some outlets reported last week that NSA leaker and fugitive Edward Snowden was caught into a bit of hypocrisy: public chat records indicate that back in the ancient times of 2009, he wanted leakers "shot in the balls." Yeah, he said that. But that's not all he said. Oh, no. The Technology site Ars Technica posted extensive public chat logs from Snowden, then using the monkier TheTrueHOOHA, that confirms what I had suspected since finding his campaign contributions to Glenn Greenwald's straight crush Ron Paul.
So let's talk about this man that has been granted hero status by the Left's loudest prognosticators and provocateurs. The transcripts released by Ars Technica are about a lot more than Snowden's previous contempt for leakers. He hated social security, loved Ron Paul and his ideas, and peddled the NRA's garbage about fighting the government with guns. He suggested punishing both leakers and publications that publish the leaks. All in all, Edward Snowden is a right wing, anti-government nutjob who has managed to become the hero of so many on the reactionary Left.
Ars Technica reports that Ed Snowden is not much more than your typical, teabagging, cookie-cutter right wing nutjob who hates Obama. He complained about everything from the president's appointment to the CIA to gun control to how Social Security has turned old people into lazy moochers.
Once Obama took office, Snowden groaned about his policies with increasing frequency. Fears that Obama might revive an assault weapons ban didn't sit well with him as a defender of the Second Amendment. Another sticking point was social security. Snowden was an individualist, even when it was unpopular; he saw little need for a safety net.
Here are just some of the choice quotes from the freakout Left's new hero. I have modified the transcripts only to change "TheTrueHOOHA" to "SNOWDEN" (for ease of following), and to highlight through formatting.
Gun-nut:
User: the restrictions were made to appease the conservatives to get another bill passed. fucking cons.
SNOWDEN: See, that's why I'm goddamned glad for the second amendment. Me and all my lunatic, gun-toting NRA compatriots would be on the steps of Congress before the C-Span feed finished.
Something tells me Edward Snowden is more fit to be a Tea Party candidate for office in the mold of Sharron Angle (of the infamous "Second Amendment remedies" than a liberal icon - if the screaming "progressives" on the Internet were still capable of having a value system other than "we hate Obama," that is.
Choice words for Social Security and the New Deal:
SNOWDEN: save money? cut this social security bullshit
User11: hahahayes
User18: Yeah! Fuck old people!
User11: social security is bullshit
User11: let's just toss old people out in the street
User18: Old people could move in with [User11].
User11: NOOO
User11: they smell funny
SNOWDEN: Somehow, our society managed to make it hundreds of years without social security just fine
SNOWDEN: you fucking retards
SNOWDEN: Magically the world changed after the new deal, and old people became made of glass
SNOWDEN: yeah, that makes sense
User11: wow
User11: you are just so fucking stupid
SNOWDEN: yeah, [User11]. and you're quite a gem
User19: and magically, life expectancy has doubled in the last 100 years.funny how that works.
SNOWDEN: [User19], you don't think modern medicine has something to do with that? no? it's social security? wow. I guess I missed that.
User11: hurr wait a second, life expectancy has shot up in recent times along with the dissolution of the communal family unit in exchange for the nuclear family
User11: gee i guess we might need to create a safety net for the sudden glut of helpless elderly????
SNOWDEN: they wouldn't be fucking helpless if you weren't sending them fucking checks to sit on their ass and lay in hospitals all day
User11: you are so goddamned stupd*pid
User11: PUT OLD PEOPLE TO WORK IN THE FIELDS
SNOWDEN: my grandmother is eighty fucking three this year, and you know what? she still supports herself working as a goddamned hairdresser
His grandmother would be so proud, who he also claims doesn't support Social Security.
And his opinion on the racist, wingbat Ron Paul? "Dreamy."
But but but, I can already hear the screamers, you're distracting from the point! It's about government secrecy! I wonder how Snowden felt about that? In January 2009, less than two weeks before Obama took office, the New York Times reported on a leak that President Bush had rejected Israel's request for bunker-busters to hit Iran's nuclear facility. Pointing to that story, Snowden not only advocated for the leakers to be "shot in the balls," but also for the reporting organization (in this case the NY Times) to go out of business.
SNOWDEN: HOLY SHIT
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/11/washington/11iran.html?_r=1&hp
SNOWDEN: WTF NYTIMES
SNOWDEN: Are they TRYING to start a war?
Jesus christ
they're like wikileaks
User19: they're just reporting, dude.
SNOWDEN: They're reporting classified shit
User19: shrugs
SNOWDEN:
User19: meh
SNOWDEN: moreover, who the fuck are the anonymous sources telling them this?
SNOWDEN: those people should be shot in the balls.
Rather lovely sentiments, don't you think? I wonder when Snowden and Wikileaks will explain why he doesn't think he deserves the same punishment he himself prescribed for leakers. That's not all, of course. He lashed out at the New York Times for "blowing" the illegal Bush administration program to warrantlessly wiretap Americans, referring to the Times reporting on the matter in 2006.
SNOWDEN: these are the same people who blew the whole "we could listen to osama's cell phone" thing the same people who screwed us on wiretapping over and over and over again [sic] Thank god they're going out of business.
User19: the NYT?
SNOWDEN: Hopefully they'll finally go bankrupt this year.
yeah.
So Snowden was a man all for illegally spying on Americans when Bush was in office, but suddenly when Obama takes office and brings the programs under legal cover and gets a court involved, Saint Snowden can stand it no more. Shocked, shocked I tell you to hear there's gambling in Casa Blanca.
Come to think of it, the Professional Left unites with Edward Snowden on that point exactly - the blind, likely racist, pure demonization of this president. After all, this really isn't about privacy or security, is it? If it were, we would be seeing mobilizations and hearing calls to change the law rather than screams of 'scandals' about a program which even the toughest critic admits is perfectly legal under the law as it stands today. We would be seeing a laser focus not on obtaining the freedom of a criminal but on a vigorous debate about the merits of the law itself. Yet, rarely do we hear those calls on "liberal" sites like Daily Kos or on "liberal" shows coughing up a spleen defending Ed Snowden (I'm talking to you, Chris Hayes). What we hear far more often is the lashing out, the "free Snowden" cheerleading, and the unadulterated contempt for the president as well as rule of law. No, it's not about concerns about privacy. This is about concern-trolling about privacy.
Edward Snowden is a pathetic excuse for a hero or a whistleblower. He is a lunatic libertarian far-right nutjob that compromised national security for his personal fame. He has no values, no ethics, no moral core. He is a right wing blowhard that is playing the Professional Left for everything they are worth (which, thankfully, is not much). He is using their Blind hatred of a black president named Barack Obama to make them do the bidding of his own agenda which has nothing to do with transparency nor democracy. And the Professional Left is running right along, singing the praises of this ring-wing nutjob, licking this traitor's boots.
cantbeserious
(13,039 posts)eom
brush
(53,968 posts)This was discussed thoroughly here back in 2013. He was a right wing Obama hater.
Here's a good, progressive site where you can find this and more info:
http://www.thepeoplesview.net/main/epeoplesview.net/2013/07/how-professional-lefts-blind-obama.html
cantbeserious
(13,039 posts)eom
brush
(53,968 posts)cantbeserious
(13,039 posts)eom
Rex
(65,616 posts)lastone
(588 posts)The one still sitting behind the same desks, fear is a powerful tool unmasked only by truth.
brush
(53,968 posts)He would've been a hero if he had stuck with revealing the domestic spying on US citizens. I have no issue at all with that. I commend him for it.
He didn't stop at that though. He reveal details on covert US operations. Every country spies, even on their allies. Hell Israel spies on us. Ever heard of Jonathan Pollard?
Can't have lowly, 29-year-old IT guys decide that they are the one to make the decision to out details on his own country's covert operations.
lastone
(588 posts)What you either don't know or are not accounting for is he released these docs to multiple respected international news organizations and told them to vet what they could and release what they thought relevant, watch the documentary you'll be better informed.
brush
(53,968 posts)on Greenwald and Poitras instead of the guy who stole the info and fled the country?
Here's some info on your hero that might inform you more.
Spandan Chakrabarti July 2, 2013
Some outlets reported last week that NSA leaker and fugitive Edward Snowden was caught into a bit of hypocrisy: public chat records indicate that back in the ancient times of 2009, he wanted leakers "shot in the balls." Yeah, he said that. But that's not all he said. Oh, no. The Technology site Ars Technica posted extensive public chat logs from Snowden, then using the monkier TheTrueHOOHA, that confirms what I had suspected since finding his campaign contributions to Glenn Greenwald's straight crush Ron Paul.
So let's talk about this man that has been granted hero status by the Left's loudest prognosticators and provocateurs. The transcripts released by Ars Technica are about a lot more than Snowden's previous contempt for leakers. He hated social security, loved Ron Paul and his ideas, and peddled the NRA's garbage about fighting the government with guns. He suggested punishing both leakers and publications that publish the leaks. All in all, Edward Snowden is a right wing, anti-government nutjob who has managed to become the hero of so many on the reactionary Left.
Ars Technica reports that Ed Snowden is not much more than your typical, teabagging, cookie-cutter right wing nutjob who hates Obama. He complained about everything from the president's appointment to the CIA to gun control to how Social Security has turned old people into lazy moochers.
Once Obama took office, Snowden groaned about his policies with increasing frequency. Fears that Obama might revive an assault weapons ban didn't sit well with him as a defender of the Second Amendment. Another sticking point was social security. Snowden was an individualist, even when it was unpopular; he saw little need for a safety net.
Here are just some of the choice quotes from the freakout Left's new hero. I have modified the transcripts only to change "TheTrueHOOHA" to "SNOWDEN" (for ease of following), and to highlight through formatting.
Gun-nut:
User: the restrictions were made to appease the conservatives to get another bill passed. fucking cons.
SNOWDEN: See, that's why I'm goddamned glad for the second amendment. Me and all my lunatic, gun-toting NRA compatriots would be on the steps of Congress before the C-Span feed finished.
Something tells me Edward Snowden is more fit to be a Tea Party candidate for office in the mold of Sharron Angle (of the infamous "Second Amendment remedies" than a liberal icon - if the screaming "progressives" on the Internet were still capable of having a value system other than "we hate Obama," that is.
Choice words for Social Security and the New Deal:
SNOWDEN: save money? cut this social security bullshit
User11: hahahayes
User18: Yeah! Fuck old people!
User11: social security is bullshit
User11: let's just toss old people out in the street
User18: Old people could move in with [User11].
User11: NOOO
User11: they smell funny
SNOWDEN: Somehow, our society managed to make it hundreds of years without social security just fine
SNOWDEN: you fucking retards
SNOWDEN: Magically the world changed after the new deal, and old people became made of glass
SNOWDEN: yeah, that makes sense
User11: wow
User11: you are just so fucking stupid
SNOWDEN: yeah, [User11]. and you're quite a gem
User19: and magically, life expectancy has doubled in the last 100 years.funny how that works.
SNOWDEN: [User19], you don't think modern medicine has something to do with that? no? it's social security? wow. I guess I missed that.
User11: hurr wait a second, life expectancy has shot up in recent times along with the dissolution of the communal family unit in exchange for the nuclear family
User11: gee i guess we might need to create a safety net for the sudden glut of helpless elderly????
SNOWDEN: they wouldn't be fucking helpless if you weren't sending them fucking checks to sit on their ass and lay in hospitals all day
User11: you are so goddamned stupd*pid
User11: PUT OLD PEOPLE TO WORK IN THE FIELDS
SNOWDEN: my grandmother is eighty fucking three this year, and you know what? she still supports herself working as a goddamned hairdresser
His grandmother would be so proud, who he also claims doesn't support Social Security.
And his opinion on the racist, wingbat Ron Paul? "Dreamy."
But but but, I can already hear the screamers, you're distracting from the point! It's about government secrecy! I wonder how Snowden felt about that? In January 2009, less than two weeks before Obama took office, the New York Times reported on a leak that President Bush had rejected Israel's request for bunker-busters to hit Iran's nuclear facility. Pointing to that story, Snowden not only advocated for the leakers to be "shot in the balls," but also for the reporting organization (in this case the NY Times) to go out of business.
SNOWDEN: HOLY SHIT
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/11/washington/11iran.html?_r=1&hp
SNOWDEN: WTF NYTIMES
SNOWDEN: Are they TRYING to start a war?
Jesus christ
they're like wikileaks
User19: they're just reporting, dude.
SNOWDEN: They're reporting classified shit
User19: shrugs
SNOWDEN:
User19: meh
SNOWDEN: moreover, who the fuck are the anonymous sources telling them this?
SNOWDEN: those people should be shot in the balls.
Rather lovely sentiments, don't you think? I wonder when Snowden and Wikileaks will explain why he doesn't think he deserves the same punishment he himself prescribed for leakers. That's not all, of course. He lashed out at the New York Times for "blowing" the illegal Bush administration program to warrantlessly wiretap Americans, referring to the Times reporting on the matter in 2006.
SNOWDEN: these are the same people who blew the whole "we could listen to osama's cell phone" thing the same people who screwed us on wiretapping over and over and over again [sic] Thank god they're going out of business.
User19: the NYT?
SNOWDEN: Hopefully they'll finally go bankrupt this year.
yeah.
So Snowden was a man all for illegally spying on Americans when Bush was in office, but suddenly when Obama takes office and brings the programs under legal cover and gets a court involved, Saint Snowden can stand it no more. Shocked, shocked I tell you to hear there's gambling in Casa Blanca.
Come to think of it, the Professional Left unites with Edward Snowden on that point exactly - the blind, likely racist, pure demonization of this president. After all, this really isn't about privacy or security, is it? If it were, we would be seeing mobilizations and hearing calls to change the law rather than screams of 'scandals' about a program which even the toughest critic admits is perfectly legal under the law as it stands today. We would be seeing a laser focus not on obtaining the freedom of a criminal but on a vigorous debate about the merits of the law itself. Yet, rarely do we hear those calls on "liberal" sites like Daily Kos or on "liberal" shows coughing up a spleen defending Ed Snowden (I'm talking to you, Chris Hayes). What we hear far more often is the lashing out, the "free Snowden" cheerleading, and the unadulterated contempt for the president as well as rule of law. No, it's not about concerns about privacy. This is about concern-trolling about privacy.
Edward Snowden is a pathetic excuse for a hero or a whistleblower. He is a lunatic libertarian far-right nutjob that compromised national security for his personal fame. He has no values, no ethics, no moral core. He is a right wing blowhard that is playing the Professional Left for everything they are worth (which, thankfully, is not much). He is using their Blind hatred of a black president named Barack Obama to make them do the bidding of his own agenda which has nothing to do with transparency nor democracy. And the Professional Left is running right along, singing the praises of this ring-wing nutjob, licking this traitor's boots.
randome
(34,845 posts)Handing over classified information to corporate media conglomerations! Sheer genius!
[hr][font color="blue"][center]A 90% chance of rain means the same as a 10% chance:
It might rain and it might not.[/center][/font][hr]
colorado_ufo
(5,742 posts)However, I object to your continued use of the phrase "lowly 29 year old IT guys." They do not hire the bottom layer for the type of position Snowden was in. This is a highly, highly intelligent and educated man.
The decision that Snowden made, right or wrong, was a very difficult decision. He obviously did not do this for personal gain: He has gained nothing. He knew, when he made his decision, that he was most likely imposing a life sentence on himself - and possibly a death sentence. He left behind everything, and everyone, he knew and loved. What he did, right or wrong, he did for a greater good. This was a dark corner of our government that needed a light shined on it, and Snowden shined that light. Had he not, consider where this would have gone, considering where it had already gone.
brush
(53,968 posts)Spandan Chakrabarti July 2, 2013
Some outlets reported last week that NSA leaker and fugitive Edward Snowden was caught into a bit of hypocrisy: public chat records indicate that back in the ancient times of 2009, he wanted leakers "shot in the balls." Yeah, he said that. But that's not all he said. Oh, no. The Technology site Ars Technica posted extensive public chat logs from Snowden, then using the monkier TheTrueHOOHA, that confirms what I had suspected since finding his campaign contributions to Glenn Greenwald's straight crush Ron Paul.
So let's talk about this man that has been granted hero status by the Left's loudest prognosticators and provocateurs. The transcripts released by Ars Technica are about a lot more than Snowden's previous contempt for leakers. He hated social security, loved Ron Paul and his ideas, and peddled the NRA's garbage about fighting the government with guns. He suggested punishing both leakers and publications that publish the leaks. All in all, Edward Snowden is a right wing, anti-government nutjob who has managed to become the hero of so many on the reactionary Left.
Ars Technica reports that Ed Snowden is not much more than your typical, teabagging, cookie-cutter right wing nutjob who hates Obama. He complained about everything from the president's appointment to the CIA to gun control to how Social Security has turned old people into lazy moochers.
Once Obama took office, Snowden groaned about his policies with increasing frequency. Fears that Obama might revive an assault weapons ban didn't sit well with him as a defender of the Second Amendment. Another sticking point was social security. Snowden was an individualist, even when it was unpopular; he saw little need for a safety net.
Here are just some of the choice quotes from the freakout Left's new hero. I have modified the transcripts only to change "TheTrueHOOHA" to "SNOWDEN" (for ease of following), and to highlight through formatting.
Gun-nut:
User: the restrictions were made to appease the conservatives to get another bill passed. fucking cons.
SNOWDEN: See, that's why I'm goddamned glad for the second amendment. Me and all my lunatic, gun-toting NRA compatriots would be on the steps of Congress before the C-Span feed finished.
Something tells me Edward Snowden is more fit to be a Tea Party candidate for office in the mold of Sharron Angle (of the infamous "Second Amendment remedies" than a liberal icon - if the screaming "progressives" on the Internet were still capable of having a value system other than "we hate Obama," that is.
Choice words for Social Security and the New Deal:
SNOWDEN: save money? cut this social security bullshit
User11: hahahayes
User18: Yeah! Fuck old people!
User11: social security is bullshit
User11: let's just toss old people out in the street
User18: Old people could move in with .
User11: NOOO
User11: they smell funny
SNOWDEN: Somehow, our society managed to make it hundreds of years without social security just fine
SNOWDEN: you fucking retards
SNOWDEN: Magically the world changed after the new deal, and old people became made of glass
SNOWDEN: yeah, that makes sense
User11: wow
User11: you are just so fucking stupid
SNOWDEN: yeah, . and you're quite a gem
User19: and magically, life expectancy has doubled in the last 100 years.funny how that works.
SNOWDEN: , you don't think modern medicine has something to do with that? no? it's social security? wow. I guess I missed that.
User11: hurr wait a second, life expectancy has shot up in recent times along with the dissolution of the communal family unit in exchange for the nuclear family
User11: gee i guess we might need to create a safety net for the sudden glut of helpless elderly????
SNOWDEN: they wouldn't be fucking helpless if you weren't sending them fucking checks to sit on their ass and lay in hospitals all day
User11: you are so goddamned stupd*pid
User11: PUT OLD PEOPLE TO WORK IN THE FIELDS
SNOWDEN: my grandmother is eighty fucking three this year, and you know what? she still supports herself working as a goddamned hairdresser
His grandmother would be so proud, who he also claims doesn't support Social Security.
And his opinion on the racist, wingbat Ron Paul? "Dreamy."
But but but, I can already hear the screamers, you're distracting from the point! It's about government secrecy! I wonder how Snowden felt about that? In January 2009, less than two weeks before Obama took office, the New York Times reported on a leak that President Bush had rejected Israel's request for bunker-busters to hit Iran's nuclear facility. Pointing to that story, Snowden not only advocated for the leakers to be "shot in the balls," but also for the reporting organization (in this case the NY Times) to go out of business.
SNOWDEN: HOLY SHIT
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/11/washington/11iran.html?_r=1&hp
SNOWDEN: WTF NYTIMES
SNOWDEN: Are they TRYING to start a war?
Jesus christ
they're like wikileaks
User19: they're just reporting, dude.
SNOWDEN: They're reporting classified shit
User19: shrugs
SNOWDEN:
User19: meh
SNOWDEN: moreover, who the fuck are the anonymous sources telling them this?
SNOWDEN: those people should be shot in the balls.
Rather lovely sentiments, don't you think? I wonder when Snowden and Wikileaks will explain why he doesn't think he deserves the same punishment he himself prescribed for leakers. That's not all, of course. He lashed out at the New York Times for "blowing" the illegal Bush administration program to warrantlessly wiretap Americans, referring to the Times reporting on the matter in 2006.
SNOWDEN: these are the same people who blew the whole "we could listen to osama's cell phone" thing the same people who screwed us on wiretapping over and over and over again Thank god they're going out of business.
User19: the NYT?
SNOWDEN: Hopefully they'll finally go bankrupt this year.
yeah.
So Snowden was a man all for illegally spying on Americans when Bush was in office, but suddenly when Obama takes office and brings the programs under legal cover and gets a court involved, Saint Snowden can stand it no more. Shocked, shocked I tell you to hear there's gambling in Casa Blanca.
Come to think of it, the Professional Left unites with Edward Snowden on that point exactly - the blind, likely racist, pure demonization of this president. After all, this really isn't about privacy or security, is it? If it were, we would be seeing mobilizations and hearing calls to change the law rather than screams of 'scandals' about a program which even the toughest critic admits is perfectly legal under the law as it stands today. We would be seeing a laser focus not on obtaining the freedom of a criminal but on a vigorous debate about the merits of the law itself. Yet, rarely do we hear those calls on "liberal" sites like Daily Kos or on "liberal" shows coughing up a spleen defending Ed Snowden (I'm talking to you, Chris Hayes). What we hear far more often is the lashing out, the "free Snowden" cheerleading, and the unadulterated contempt for the president as well as rule of law. No, it's not about concerns about privacy. This is about concern-trolling about privacy.
Edward Snowden is a pathetic excuse for a hero or a whistleblower. He is a lunatic libertarian far-right nutjob that compromised national security for his personal fame. He has no values, no ethics, no moral core. He is a right wing blowhard that is playing the Professional Left for everything they are worth (which, thankfully, is not much). He is using their Blind hatred of a black president named Barack Obama to make them do the bidding of his own agenda which has nothing to do with transparency nor democracy. And the Professional Left is running right along, singing the praises of this ring-wing nutjob, licking this traitor's boots.
brush
(53,968 posts)It was discussed here quite a bit in 2013 when the story broke.
Him and Greenwald are both Obama haters, plus all the other stuff.
Rex
(65,616 posts)I'm surprised you didn't know this stuff.
brush
(53,968 posts)You have nothing to say about that. This stuff was discussed here in 2013.
How is handing over secret info to journalists smart?
Why keep popping up every few months?
I find it strange that someone in Russia would just simply hire him to work on their computer systems after he stole all this data from his employer.
Why did he lie about his pay?
The award he didnt receive in the army?
Why did he make it appear he was suffering in sacrifice for his country being away from his girlfriend, who turned out to be with him the whole time.
Why "unleash" documents from 2006 when we already knew then the govt was illegally spying on its citizens via Cheney's insistence that it was neded to fight terrorism . Unwarranted wiretapping they called it then.
Why run to China? Russia?
Why not the Vatican like Julian Assange?
or just about any other South American country that more than likely will not extrdite?
John Oliver proved Snowden hasn't a clue what's in all of the data he down loaded.
Snowden is no hero
brush
(53,968 posts)Seems like he's got a "sponsor".
Why do people just take his word at face value when he has already lied so much?
fasttense
(17,301 posts)The uber rich can not abide whistle blowers. It means they can't buy people, or pay them hush money, or threaten them into submission. They can't trust all the legal jumbo they put into contracts to force people to be quiet about crimes and immoral actions.
Whistle blowers are people with their own set of morals and the rich want people like themselves. They want people who put money over everything else. Whistle blowers have real standards that the rich can never match with their money. It makes their money worth less.
99th_Monkey
(19,326 posts)whether we know it, or acknowledge it, or not.
Which reminds me I've been intending to watch this movie about him that's
been highly recommended by fellow DUers.
Equinox Moon
(6,344 posts)Citizenfour and Terminal F compliment each other sequentially.
1monster
(11,012 posts)99th_Monkey
(19,326 posts)that other video -- ported by Equinox Moon -- (CitiznenFour) I hear is
pretty good too. I haven't gotten around to watching either of them yet,
but plan to do so soonish.
brush
(53,968 posts)He was a right wing nut job who was all right with the spying until Obama was elected and he thought his guns might get taken away.
http://www.thepeoplesview.net/main/epeoplesview.net/2013/07/how-professional-lefts-blind-obama.html
Not a hero.
Rex
(65,616 posts)Du banned trolls are garbage, but go on with your misinformed self.
brush
(53,968 posts)You have nothing to say about that?
Electric Monk
(13,869 posts)brush
(53,968 posts)And what's you proof that it is garbage?
Anyway, that doesn't matter. Here's a url from another site with the same and even more info on your hero.
It's "The Guardian". Now tell me that site is a banned troll site:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/01/edward-snowden-intelligence-leak-nsa-contractor-extract
He seemed to travel all over the world long before he fled the US, as if he had money coming from some source.
Face it, he's no hero.
brush
(53,968 posts)The info on Snowden is not garbage. This all was discussed here on DU in 2013
So here's a url from another site with the same and even more info on your hero.
It's "The Guardian". Now tell me that site is a banned troll site:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/01/edward-snowden-intelligence-leak-nsa-contractor-extract
He seemed to travel all over the world long before he fled the US, as if he had money coming from some source.
Face it, he's no hero.
grasswire
(50,130 posts)FairWinds
(1,717 posts)have no business getting involved in national security issues
like the Vietnam War (so I wound up there), the invasion of
Iraq (I was called a traitor for opposing it), nuclear weapons
(they are in fact satanic), and much else.
Guess what, all those suits were and are lying psychopaths !!
Go Edward Snowden !!
Veterans For Peace (solidly anti-drone and anti-nuke)
brush
(53,968 posts)He had no problem with what was going on until Obama became president.
http://www.thepeoplesview.net/main/epeoplesview.net/2013/07/how-professional-lefts-blind-obama.html
Rex
(65,616 posts)My my the company we keep...
brush
(53,968 posts)Bush but when the black president takes over, all of a sudden he puts his right wing, gun nut, anti-leaker history in the past and suddenly can't abide the NSA and becomes a leaker himself?
Sorry to burst you bubble but he's no hero. And who is sponsoring him in Russia and why?
FairWinds
(1,717 posts)OOOoooooo - what a bad guy!!
Seriously, the ad hominem thing is pathetic.
brush
(53,968 posts)under a white president but when a black president took over he suddenly couldn't abide the NSA's operations?
Sorry to burst you bubble but he's no hero. And who is sponsoring him in Russia and why?
FairWinds
(1,717 posts)Patraeus, Libby and Armitage, among others, walking the streets for
revealing TOP SECRET info.
brush
(53,968 posts)Last edited Wed May 4, 2016, 03:12 PM - Edit history (1)
I said in my first response that Snowden should be commended for revealing THE DOMESTIC SPYING being done here on US citizens.
Why I don't consider him a hero is that he didn't stop there. He revealed details of our covert, INTERNATIONAL operations (undercover operatives).
Also the fact that he was okay with Patraeus, Libby and Armitage walking the streets under Bush but when a black president took over he had a huge problem with it.
FairWinds
(1,717 posts)(Valerie Plame).
I've seen no evidence that Snowden did.
You seem to have a lot more confidence than I do in the claims of
the Extra-Legal Murder and Torture State.
Back in the day the same sort of suits lied me all the way to
Vietnam - never again.
Which is a main reason I joined Veterans For Peace, which by the way
counts among its members many former intelligence honchos such as
Ray McGovern.
Thanks for helping me keep this exchange civil.
brush
(53,968 posts)Libby and Armitage should have been jailed.
Here's another url with info on Snowden's shady history since there are other posters here trying to suppress the info by trying to discredit the first source.
This is the "Guardian", definitely not a banned troll site. All this info was discussed here on DU in 2013:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/01/edward-snowden-intelligence-leak-nsa-contractor-extract
He seemed to travel all over the world long before he fled the US, as if he had money coming from some source.
He's no hero.