sofa king
sofa king's JournalHa ha! It's a trap!
Here's a fine example of two untrustworthy authorities contradicting one another in public statements. We see this all the time and I'd like to share my own deeply cynical opinion as to what one can do with "dirty information"--lies, propaganda, doubletalk, and evasion between two untrustworthy parties.
The first thing to do is to set aside the debated facts and assume that both of them are lying about them. One cannot easily deduce factual information from a debate between two dishonest parties.
If you made a judgment call as to which one of them is telling the truth, you're automatically wrong! Unless of course you have some secret knowledge that the rest of us don't have--then you're a cult leader.
In this case, proof needs to come through corroboration from a more reliable third party--and neither of these entities, nor the three nuclear superpowers involved, can fill that role. I don't know who the corroborator could be, or how that would work.
So until then, it's safe to assume that most or all of the statements from both sides are heavily tainted with bullshit.
That does not make the statements useless, because there is a deeper truth at work here. Here's what's certainly true: each side's statement, regardless of fact, will represent something close to the best possible interests of the speaker.
So on the surface, it's possible to make some tentative guesses about the objectives of each side. They could still be double-crossing chess-moving ninja-style doublecrossing each other and us, but the statements wouldn't be issued if they were not self-serving in some way.
So here, I think, is what little we can conclude from the interview and the counter-statement:
1) Snowden really really REALLY doesn't want to be tagged as a spy.
2) NSA is using the backfire effect to draw support and erode Snowden's credibility.
NSA's position is easier to hold because by directly contradicting Snowden, they're fueling the backfire effect, a popular (with Republicans) form of psychological manipulation.
Here's some semi-prophetic stuff I wrote about this phenomenon back when Mitt Romney was trying to use it on President Obama.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021469106
It bothers me some because I know that NSA knows what it is doing, and that it comes dangerously close to running a psyops on the American public, which is reputedly illegal.
As for Snowden, I've bored all of you elsewhere with my rantings about how the circumstantial evidence overwhelmingly suggests that Snowden is, in fact, a spy. So I won't repeat that.
(Edit #36: Okay, I will repeat it:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=4900311 )
Bottom line is both of 'em are dirtballs, both of 'em are lying, and neither can ever again be trusted.
I think evil is real.
I think that most humans (as with most animals) have a biological inhibition against killing one another or causing one another severe harm.
That inhibition seems to be very closely related to empathy, the ability to recognize the emotions of other people (and some critters).
So that's evil to me: the willingness to do deliberate harm to people for inadequate reasons. In order to be that way, one has to lack empathy for others most or all of the time (one can also be mechanically trained to do so, which is how most modern soldiers are trained; but the overwhelming majority of those folks do not commit acts of evil in civilized society, as Republican politicians do).
Some of us, like Dick Cheney, have little to no empathy for most others, except of course his own offspring, which is why Cheney's one progressive opinion (in favor of gay marriage) happens to be the one that would benefit his own child. Cheney doesn't give a fuck about any of the rest of us; we're as insignificant to him as the tens of thousands he had tortured, murdered, and dumped in the streets of Iraq.
Dick Cheney has publicly displayed virtually all of the criteria needed for a psychologist to make a diagnosis of anti-social personality disorder--as close as it gets to the Hollywood villain in real life:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisocial_personality_disorder
Cheney's ignorant pawn, George W. Bush, also lacks empathy most of the time. This permitted Bush to okay stealing elections, lying to start a war, torture, murder, frequently dropping his dog onto pavement, and so on. But Bush seems to have publicly displayed most of the criteria needed to make a different diagnosis, of Narcissistic Personality Disorder:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissistic_personality_disorder
The interesting thing about narcissists is that while they also are capable of acting with malice, sooner or later their beat-down Jiminy Cricket of a conscience turns into a locust, and rips the self esteem of the subject to shreds. The narcissist is prone to "moments of clarity" and subsequent deep depression, in part out of regret for their own actions.
That is probably the answer to the question, "why did George W. take two years of vacation during his tenure as President?" My guess is that a team of psychologists and family members were desperately working behind the scenes to re-inflate the ego of this broken and incompetent person, who can only function when he believes the lies he tells about himself.
It's almost certainly why Bush paints now, because unlike Dick Cheney, Shrub is not immune to the scratches of the Furies who will pursue him to his much-deserved grave. Look at this picture again, knowing Bush is a narcissist who has done unspeakable evil, and cannot forget it:
Here's a guy who can't look at himself full in the face in a painting of a reflection in a fucking mirror. Because he hates himself for the evil he has done and it gnaws at his very soul. That's hardly punishment for what he has done, but it's nice to know that W, at least, cannot escape himself.
So there's two evil people and how they excuse themselves for it (Cheney: easily; Bush, never). It's possible to be co-morbid with both APD and NPD. I think Mitt Romney was one of those rare birds; fortunately, his evil was easier for most to see.
You're all fucking wrong.
I don't fully understand why the public cannot see that this was an intelligence operation--a Chinese intelligence operation--from the beginning. Some of the inconvenient facts most of you choose to avoid:
1) Snowden's revelations were made public only hours after the Secretary of State deeply offended the Chinese by discussing the Tiananmen Square massacre.
Mrs. Clinton started a row in September, 2012 by setting up a press conference at the edge of the square itself:
https://tiananmenstremendousachievements.wordpress.com/2012/09/06/chinese-party-media-get-into-a-row-over-clintons-visit/
http://world.time.com/2012/09/05/hillary-clinton-visits-beijing-but-chinas-likely-next-leader-is-a-no-show/
It caused two state newspapers to get in a fight and forced the leader-apparent of China to duck out.
Less than three months later, Snowden first contacted Greenwald.
Then, in June, 2013, Clinton really pissed off the Chinese by commemorating the anniversary yet again after the Chinese had told her not to do it again in 2009:
http://www.nytimes.com/1998/06/27/world/clinton-in-china-the-overview-tiananmen-comment-leads-to-clinton-jiang-debate.html
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/jun/04/tiananmen-clinton-china-meddling-1989
At virtually the same moment that the rhetoric escalated, Greenwald began publishing Snowden's disclosures.
"When he emerged and when he absconded with all that material, I was puzzled because we have all these protections for whistle-blowers. If he were concerned and wanted to be part of the American debate, he could have been," she said. "But it struck me as—I just have to be honest with you—as sort of odd that he would flee to China, because Hong Kong is controlled by China, and that he would then go to Russia—two countries with which we have very difficult cyberrelationships, to put it mildly." Hillary Clinton, April 23, 2014
2) Most if not all of Snowden's disclosures were previously revealed by Glenn Greenwald years previously.
Really, this comes as no surprise to DU readers, who were familiar with virtually everything that Snowden reputedly "disclosed" for the first time.
I'm not going to belabor the point by going back through nine years of posts about Greenwald's own work here at DU. Go look it up if you must.
There is a simple operational reason for this, from an intelligence point of view. Anything useful to the Chinese and the Russians was not disclosed publicly; anything that was already out there was happily repeated.
3) Any claim that China was not involved in the protection and movement of Mr. Snowden after his disclosures is totally false:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/25/hillary-clinton-china-edward-snowden_n_3494482.html
The Chinese appear to have brokered the first in-person contacts between Snowden and Greenwald, then protected Snowden, refused to extradite him to the US, and let him go after months of debriefing.
I'm pointing all of this out because I have seen this sort of psyops being played out on the American people dozens of times. The Man is encouraging lots and lots of you to go out on a limb for these fellows, Snowden and Greenwald. Then, when the time is right, they're going to pull away the curtains and smear most of you with the commie patsy brush.
You can say what you want to me now, but I'll come right back with this thread in the summer of 2016 and remind you that the mass discrediting of liberal journalists was part of the "make lemonade" damage control efforts of US counterintelligence, after the Chinese spanked the shit out of us with this embarrassing event.
And you watch: John Kerrry ain't gonna say jack shit about Tiananmen Square on this year's anniversary.
You may now hate me.
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