I find the degree of hostility from our journalistic class (largely but not just cable news) to Edward Snowden to be fascinating.
Right on cue, Bobo unleashes a classic, six consecutive paragraphs starting with “He betrayed”. There’sa good Bobo title, too, “The Solitary Leaker” (by I. P. Daily). Bobo writes of:
the distinct strands of libertarianism that are blossoming in this fragmenting age: the deep suspicion of authority, the strong belief that hierarchies and organizations are suspect, the fervent devotion to transparency, the assumption that individual preference should be supreme.
Bobo’s argument that people should always to authority are: (a) you’ll be happier if you do and (b) bitch better recognize.
He’s right that confidence in authorities, institutions, and elites is rapidly eroding. Maybe part of the reason is that no one is making convincing arguments that anyone should have confidence in them.
Emma
Going after Bobo is low hanging fruit. Sheesh. All you need to do to be a good citizen is do the exact opposite of what he advocates. Has nothing to do with the fact that this story is hinkier than a Torchwood plot.
zombie rotten mcdonald
Also, the authorities that Bobo insists we should be obeisant toward are the ones that have fucked things up, are demonstrated as lying bastards, etc. etc.
Villago Delenda Est
Emma is right, BoBo is a clown. A well paid clown, but a clown nevertheless. A clown who is considered “serious” by the assemblage of clowns that is the Village.
I renew my assertion that the world will be a much better place the morning BoBo’s broken and exsanguinated body is found in a back alley somewhere.
But he’s right about the decay of confidence in “authorities”. It’s because they’ve pissed away their credibility and have demonstrated, repeatedly, that they have no honor to speak of.
Punchy
Boy, this Snowden stuff gets funny when I read this from this Yahoo article
I had no idea one could make a profession out of pole dancing that doesn’t involve taking off one’s clothes or getting jiggy in Warsaw.
Cassidy
It’s easy to be a libertarian when you’re young and have few responsibilities. Everything is a reflection of the inherent slefishness of youth: how does this affect me? If you’re still a libertarian as you get older, though, and have obligations and children, etc., it just means you’re an asshole.
Higgs Boson's Mate
The “authorities” don’t seem to feel that we need to know what they’re doing or why they’re doing it. We only get to find that out from leakers or victims afterward.
Suffern ACE
@Punchy: Acrobat. She’s an acrobat.
askew
Apparently, Russia is now considering giving Snowden asylum. Maybe he can go to North Korea next after he gives all the classified info to Russia.
I am having a hard time calling Snowden a hero. A hero doesn’t run away and hide from consequences.
And the guy who had no training of any kind got paid $122,000. The government could save a small fortune and improve national security by getting rid of these contractors and bringing this work back in house to the government.
Alexandra
Heh.
Since David Brooks and others of his ilk have spent years implicitly arguing that government is suspect and, as Margaret Thatcher said ‘There is no such thing as society’… then why should this:
,,,come as any surprise?
White Trash Liberal
Fucking Bobo
I just want an accurate story whereby I can assess wtf is going on. Instead it is being played as a circus. Congress wants to treat it as treason and keep the focus on criminality. The president wants a debate but insists that his administration is abiding by rules so loose it makes Kim Kardashian look like a purse seine net. The Washington Post walked back key details but in secret. Greenwald and the Guardian are doubling down while not addressing the questions about the information. Further, Greenwald is slow playing his hand… Which is incredibly frustrating because if these are truly bombshell matters of individual freedom in the new fascist panopticon, then the public deserves to know AND deserves to have the journalist address questions about the materials without accusing the questioners as sycophants.
Finally, the source of the leaks is living out what appears to me to be a fan fic rewrite of War Games with himself as the all powerful hacker. Nothing is making sense. And now Bobo wants to squirt his fucking humility squid ink into the discussion when the initial story has yet to be fully vetted.
FUCK FUCK FUCKITY FUCK I HATE OUR MEDIA AND GOVERNMENT
karen marie
Maybe part of the reason is that no one is making convincing arguments that anyone should have confidence in them.
It’s worse — Republicans have been degrading confidence in public institutions for a long time now. One example of many.
Rex Everything
The Obots around here wish & pray that a decent liberal pundit, any decent liberal pundit, anyone but OH GOD NO David Brooks, will start spewing the anti-Snowden garbage that Brooks is spewing, the anti-Snowden garbage they so desperately hunger for.
Violet
People like Bobo are part of The Authority. He’s a gatekeeper of information and, as with most people in positions of authority, he likes being there. He likes being the one who decides what the rest of us get to know. And along comes this upstart who leaks a bunch of secrets. At the core of Bobo’s whining is a recognition that his position of authority is jeopardized by people like this.
Joseph Nobles
@White Trash Liberal: Cosign.
danimal
Any conservative moaning about the erosion of authority is, to be kind, a little blind to the real world.
IOW–How much IslamoNaziKenyo-Marxism can teh people take before they get a little skeptical of the UsurperBoy-in-Chief, if you know what I mean.
Scorched earth policies tend to ensure everyone gets burned.
Sly
Bobo is taking the Paleocon argument against libertarianism, which can be summed up as “ANARCHIST! BURN THE ANARCHIST!”
So it’s not exactly surprising that a critique of a stupid ideology from another stupid ideology winds up being… stupid. But the truth is that both are stupid for the same reason; they’re both inherently reactionary. All American conservatism is.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@askew:
I’m not saying that Snowden is a hero. OTOH, he lost his job and his country. “Consequences” seems an apt word for that.
White Trash Liberal
@Rex Everything:
STFU troll. Telepathy into the Obot mind may make you feel like a Super Hipster, but the straw man stinks of your own malaise.
Rex Everything
@White Trash Liberal: Oh please. Two-thirds of you have spent the past few days groping towards Brooks’ arguments yourselves.
YOU KNOW IT’S TRUE.
legion
Bobo sees “…deep suspicion of authority, the strong belief that hierarchies and organizations are suspect…” and assumes it’s suspicion of _all_ authority, when really it’s just mistrust of blatantly transparent tools like himself.
Eric U.
@askew: if he’s getting paid $122000, that means the government is getting soaked for $200k for that job. I think there is low hanging fruit with having contractors with specialized expertise doing something that the government would have trouble doing. Snowden’s job is not one of those things.
Ultraviolet Thunder
Bobo better get used to rewriting that column regularly. The Snowden NSA leak is not an anomaly or an isolated incident. If he appears to get away with it (not land in the Federal sneezer) there will be another, then another. Our security apparatus is peopled with independent thinkers, opportunists, zealots, attention seekers and just plain pissed off people. It could shortly be springing leaks on a regular basis.
rb
@Violet: At the core of Bobo’s whining is a recognition that his position of authority is jeopardized by people like this.
And people like, say, Nate Silver. It’s all very minor variations on a very stable theme concerning uppity kids needing to get off his lawn.
You can’t take anything Bobo writes seriously – hell, you can’t even safely believe the OPPOSITE of what he writes – because he’ll write the same damn thing no matter the facts. He’s worse than a liar; he’s a bullshit artist.
Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS)
We come against this discussion every time Bobo is mentioned on the FP. The reason he’s a focus is because totebagging liberals actually listen to him because he is supposed to be a “reasonable” conservative.
He occupies prime real estate on the op-ed page of THE paper of record for the cognoscenti, and he’s a favorite on NPR and the Sunday morning gabfests.
He may be “low-hanging fruit,” but he’s influential low-hanging fruit, just like that piece of shit Moustache of Understanding.
He should be mocked and his ideas dissected whenever pertinent.
Villago Delenda Est
@Higgs Boson’s Mate:
The “need to know” mentality is very strong in the world of classified information. The problem is that why things need to be classified is so damn ambiguous.. “damage to national security” is the buzzword, but what the hell does it mean? For Dick Cheney, it meant punishing someone who called his bullshit bullshit, and in the process he fucked up an intelligence gathering network that took decades to develop, which in turn SERIOUSLY fucked up what I’d call actual “national security”.
It’s predicated on people being honest, honorable actors. This is a classic example of “makes an ASS out of U and ME.”
White Trash Liberal
@Rex Everything:
Mind reading troll is now Nate Silver troll.
2/3? And how many are card carrying members of the GOP?
Mark S.
Chairman Bobo:
If the state can’t put people to death, it will inevitably revert to older, more barbaric lynching methods.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
it is odd, James Rosen had a political agenda, and he and his source seriously damaged our intelligence relationship with North Korea, and he’s a martyr to the First Amendment! But Snowden is a rogue, if not a traitor (I haven’t seen a clear Villager consensus). Merkley has introduced a bill to get more info public about who the FISA court makes its decisions, so that’s a good thing, and it has some surprising co-sponsors, including Feinstein. Myself, I prefer the goal to be “accountability” rather than “transparency”, I’m all naive and sentimental about the whole checks and balances thing. The government shouldn’t be doing things it can’t justify to the “we, the people”, as Charlie Pierce said today. I suspect most of we people will remain indifferent, but if an authoritarian hawk like Feinstein is calling for a closer look at the process, some good may come of this.
AnonPhenom
The ” the deep suspicion of authority, the strong belief that hierarchies and organizations are suspect, the fervent devotion to transparency” has fuck-all to do with libertarianism as it manifests itself today in our society* and a hell of a lot more to do with the fact that our political leaders are owned (or at a minimum, leased) by the political donor class and that many members of that donor class were/are complicite in the destruction of our economic system (and hence, our lives)
*see: Paul, Ryan and any one of a dozen fucktard teabagging congresscritters who regularly worship at the alter of authority.
askew
@Higgs Boson’s Mate:
He doesn’t seem all the tied to either the job or the country. And I am sure he won’t have to worry about making a living in Russia or China.
That is a huge waste of money. Somehow, I don’t see the media or Congress discussing how to bring these jobs back into the government.
eemom
don’t know that I wiiiill, but untiiiiil I can find me…..
Neil Diamond wrote some great tunes back in the long ago day.
There’s a good Johnny Cash version of this, also too.
Marmot
“He’s right that confidence in authorities, institutions, and elites is rapidly eroding. Maybe part of the reason is that no one is making convincing arguments that anyone should have confidence in them.”
And maybe it has something to do with conservatives constantly crowing about how governments can’t do anything right, only privately employed bureaucrats.
Cacti
Russia has offered to consider an asylum request from Snowden.
I for one think it would be pretty fucking awesome to watch the emo progs tie themselves in knots defending their hero sheltering under the wing of Vladimir Putin.
Rex Everything
@White Trash Liberal: None; that’s why you hate accidentally finding yourselves in agreement with Brooks.
(It doesn’t take a mind-reader, btw; it’s as obvious as the spring in Marcus Bachmann’s step.)
MomSense
@Doug J
So you don’t think overall the Obama administration has been competent?
We criticize Republicans for hating government and then getting elected to destroy it so why on earth would people who claim to be progressives choose to just be reflexively anti-government?
Villago Delenda Est
@Cacti:
It will be hilarious watching Putin’s fan club, to include major assclown Dana Rohrabacher and all those other idiots who attended Steven Seagal arranged meetings in Moscow stumble about trying to explain why looking in Putin’s eyes didn’t predict Snowden’s refuge there.
Redshirt
@Cacti: The Firebaggers will follow their Teabagging brethren and develop a love of the firm, but fair, Leader Putin.
MomSense
@Higgs Boson’s Mate:
He left his job and his country.
Tractarian
If this is between Edward Snowden and Bobo, I hate to say I’m gonna have to side with Bobo.
Here’s the thing. Snowden is no hero. He is no whistleblower. In order to be a “whistleblower”, with all of the righteousness that comes along with that term, you have to be uncovering illegal activity at your workplace. Not just some activity you feel in your gut is wrong and should be publicized despite the fact that you were sworn to secrecy. Otherwise you’re just a blabbermouth.
So I have no sympathy for this guy. Plus, he’s an overpaid, underqualified poster-child for government contractor largesse. And he’s dating a pole dancer, so there’s that.
Frankly, I hope he is punished commensurate with the law. (Just as I had hoped, in vain, that Bush-era officials who authorized torture would be punished according to law.)
suzanne
Can’t say I disagree with Bobo entirely in this instance.
I always loved this MLK quote:
“Communism forgets that life is individual. Capitalism forgets that life is social, and the kingdom of brotherhood is found neither in the thesis of communism nor the antithesis of capitalism but in a higher synthesis. It is found in a higher synthesis that combines the truths of both.”
That, to me, is why I’m a liberal and not a libertarian.
Hoodie
@Ultraviolet Thunder: There are all kinds working in defense related jobs. My brother in law is one, a total loon. We once had a gaggle of tax protesters at our plant in the 80’s, guys who thought they didn’t have to file tax returns because it was unconstitutional. Hell of thing from a bunch a guys feeding at the government trough and members of the IBEW, at that. The FBI actually came in a dragged them away from the plant floor. The problem is that only so many people have the skill sets you need, and you sometimes have to take the good with the crazy. Beside the opportunity for profit, that may be part of the reason for the increasing reliance on contractors; it’s hard to manage the personnel, so government managers outsource it to make it someone else’s problem. Josh Marshall had a few thoughts on the relatively high number of the outside of six sigma types in IT world and the increasing reliance of the defense/intel agencies on their skills and difficulties in managing them in an industry that has always had a pretty hierarchical structure. They’re not like the pocket protector brigade that used to populate the industry.
cvstoner
Spot on.
Dr. Omed
To heck with Bobo. Read this by Ai Weiwei:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jun/11/nsa-surveillance-us-behaving-like-china?guni=Network%20front:network-front%20aux-1%20mini-bento:Bento%20box%208%20col:Position2
“When human beings are scared and feel everything is exposed to the government, we will censor ourselves from free thinking. That’s dangerous for human development.
In the Soviet Union before, in China today, and even in the US, officials always think what they do is necessary, and firmly believe they do what is best for the state and the people. But the lesson that people should learn from history is the need to limit state power.
If a government is elected by the people, and is genuinely working for the people, they should not give in to these temptations.
During my detention in China I was watched 24 hours a day. The light was always on. There were two guards on two-hour shifts standing next to me – even watching when I swallowed a pill; I had to open mouth so they could see my throat. You have to take a shower in front of them; they watch you while you brush your teeth, in the name of making sure you’re not hurting yourself. They had three surveillance cameras to make sure the guards would not communicate with me.
But the guards whispered to me. They told stories about themselves. There is always humanity and privacy, even under the most restrictive conditions.
To limit power is to protect society. It is not only about protecting individuals’ rights but making power healthier.
Civilisation is built on that trust and everyone must fight to defend it, and to protect our vulnerable aspects – our inner feelings, our families. We must not hand over our rights to other people. No state power should be given that kind of trust. Not China. Not the US.” Ai Weiwei
Villago Delenda Est
@Tractarian:
The deserting coward and the Dark Lord committed a far greater crime that is the predicate to these. For that, they should go the way of Keitel, Jodl, and Tojo.
Cacti
@Villago Delenda Est:
One wonders what the Russian Federation might want in exchange for their magnanimous offer.
If nothing comes of it, maybe North Korea can step up and offer him a place.
Mnemosyne
@Rex Everything:
So it gives you no pause whatsoever that Snowden fled to China? He couldn’t possibly have had any but the most innocent of motives for fleeing there, and anyone who wonders why he chose China of all places is just being mmmeeeaaannnnn to poor, innocent Snowden?
mike with a mic
@MomSense:
The Obama administration has been “competent”, well.
Look if you wanted Obama to go after social security and entitlements (we knew he was going to do this he’s always been anit social security), ramp up the killing, continue the Bush administrations programs like this, and be staunchly pro corporate than sure, he’s been competent.
I don’t mind it that much. I’ve always felt the Demcorats are at their best selling off the New Deal as quickly as possible because they can, all while engaging in social liberalism to keep themselves and neoliberals as the “progressive” alternative in this country. And I think it’s great that Democrats are leading the charge to halt the growth and start shrinking social security, I’m very much pro grand bargain and I love that a president who’s called progressive is leading the assault in this area, and thus helping define progressivism as on social issues only. Populism sucks and should be left to the racists on the right.
But then again, I don’t think everyone wants what I wanted out of him. I hear chained CPI and grand bargains and realize I’m getting what I wanted. Others hear that and scream and feel sold out.
cvstoner
@Cassidy:
Exactly. And, given that a lot of our so-call “Tech Geniuses” are still in that “relative youth” category, I wonder how these masters of the universe will change as they get older. Probably even more assholish.
gene108
@askew:
I’ve moved from being indifferent to wanting to punch Snowden in the neck. He didn’t divulge any sort of information about illegal government activity.
Some of our current laws sort of suck, in the post-9/11 hysteria, but meh…it ain’t interfering with my day-to-day activities.
I’m all for theoretical arguments about civil liberties and such, but as far as I can tell the laws that enable this sort of surveillance have already been let out of the bag and aren’t going back in. They don’t screw up my day-to-day life, so my outrage meter is pretty much indifferent towards their existence.
Snowden just screwed up the lives of a lot of folks, who weren’t screwing up my life in any way, for some sort of crazed ego-trip. He broke the law. He broke whatever oaths he took to get that level of security clearance. He’s made life more difficult for anyone, who needs a government security clearance to do their jobs.
I’m really getting close to wanting to indict him for treason.
cleek
Rex Everything gets pied in one. a new record!
Dr. Omed
Meanwhile, as the American punditocracy gnashes its gnatters about traitors against the securtity state, in England:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2339503/Hundreds-riot-police-Londons-streets-officers-raid-squat-HQ-G8-protesters.html …
White Trash Liberal
@Rex Everything:
None of us are decrying the rise of libertarianism as a symptom of distrust in authority. I think you will find that only a few in BJ are arguing that Snowden is a bad man because he’s a rebel against Dear Leader.
Do you remember the wiretapping scandal during the Bush admin? When the administration, from the president down claimed they had the unitary authority to listen to whomever they want because shut up mushroom cloud? Do you remember Greenwald starting that checks and balances needed to be in place, such as the already extant FISA Court? I dunno… How’s your memory? Is it as good as your telepathy into the hivemind?
What has been leaked so far has been narrowed by multiple readings to a FISA warrant issue. No clear answer as to what data is given and what authority is required to peruse this data for investigation purposes has been given… Except by the NSA which insists it only tracks foreign internationals and any additional investigation into the data pool requires its own warrant.
What Snowden has revealed so far appears to be an expansion of collection, but no smoking gun showing the collection is beyond the bounds of law, nor any malfeasance in terms of how the data is analyzed. But this has not penetrated into the major media beyond chasing hypotheticals down a rabbit hole. However, Snowden and Greenwald are insisting they have bombshells. Snowden even going so far as publicly claiming he has the goods to essentially compromise US intelligence beyond repair.
What I have seen in BJ and elsewhere is a healthy skepticism and critical thinking. What I have seen from you is trying to hang Bobo around the community’s neck because he dislikes Snowden for reasons largely rejected by the community.
suzanne
@legion: Bobo sees “…deep suspicion of authority, the strong belief that hierarchies and organizations are suspect…” and assumes it’s suspicion of _all_ authority, when really it’s just mistrust of blatantly transparent tools like himself.
I don’t know about that. The libertarians I know are all undereducated, underemployed, and yet completely convinced of their own brilliance in every arena. Dropped out of English 101? No matter, Tom Clancy novels are fine literature BECAUSE I SAY SO GODDAMNIT. I see distrust of every institution that interferes with that sense of self-superiority, from the DMV to churches to THE GOVERNMENT!!! as if the government was one giant, monolithic, all-encompassing, force for EEEEEEVIL and not a large, often disorganized, but ultimately somewhat effective bureaucracy made up of their fellow citizens and friends.
Hell, one of my friends is a social worker for Job Corps and her husband is a libertarian AND HE STILL THINKS LIKE THAT, even though his wife is a government employee working to help underprivileged kids.
Jim C
While I think we can all guess what you meant, what word were you planning to put in there?
Donald
” you have to be uncovering illegal activity at your workplace.”
Part of the problem here is that what is legal is what is scandalous. Yeah, there’s a FISA court–but it’s a joke. Wyden and Udall wanted to tell us what was happening, but they weren’t allowed to. So much for the debate the President says he wanted.
Though I don’t doubt that most Americans would gladly piss away most of their freedoms if you mutter the words “terrorist threat”. That’s the irony–the President could have publicly announced everything he’s doing and probably the majority of Americans would applaud.
Well, I take that back–if Obama publicly announced it, the Republicans might denounce it. So much of our public debates aren’t about anything but tribal affiliation.
cleek
IMO, Brooks is half-right. he’s too respectful of authority (which is just his old-school conservatism showing through), but stuff like this is right on:
that’s pretty much the common critique of libertarianism.
as is this:
i don’t know if that applies to Snowden or not, since i don’t know much about him. but i do know enough young, male, libertarians to know that this is a pretty good description of the type.
that hyperactive distrust of institutions, a hair-trigger paranoia, a weirdly inflated sense of your own importance and brilliance, and a prickly and over-defensive personality that sees a direct personal threat in everything that doesn’t originate in your own self-important mind.
gg is the perfect example of this. and if Snowden is a gg fan, well… it probably applies to him, too.
Hoodie
Talk about your imperfect vessel, there is some truth in what Bobo says. What he doesn’t acknowledge is his supporting role as the hooker with a heart of gold in the GOP fuck you I got mine screenplay.
gene108
@Dr. Omed:
Did Ai Weiwei tune out the summer of 2009? You had people screaming at members of Congress in face-to-face townhall meetings.
I’m sorry, but the fact I can go into a venue, meet my Congressman and tell him to piss off means we still have a hell of a lot more political freedom than Communist countries and shouldn’t be lumped in with them.
We can still protest our government, without fear of political retribution in ways that are unimaginable in China today.
Cassidy
@Mnemosyne: Prettymuch. This is just another chance for these simpletons to go “Derp! Obama worse than Bush.”
I wouldn’t read into it much more than that.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Wasn’t Brooks one of the great champions of opposing Obamacare because it would create Moral Hazard among the junk-food-junkie ignorant poors in their apartments?
Rex Everything
@Mnemosyne: It does. It just seems pretty fucking obvious that that’s not the big story here.
cleek
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
beats me, i don’t read him.
Comrade Dread
I’m having a rather difficult time giving a damn about this story simply because we knew this was happening (or we should have known if we were paying attention to the news), we’ve had 3 elections to change things and haven’t, so I’m confident that nothing will continue to change despite us ‘having this debate’.
Congress is not going to change the laws that made this legal. They may bloviate a bit. Sen. Aqua Buddha will grandstand about it. But ultimately Congress seems more than cool with this.
With the next election over a year away, any furor about this is likely to die down by then and even if it hasn’t, 90+% of the same congress people are going to be re-elected regardless.
In the meantime, I suppose we can all have the debate on whether Snowden and Glenzilla are Gandhi or Lucifer and work ourselves up into a needless frenzy about it. At the very least, it should entertain the government contractors reading these threads.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Yeah, that’s why I can’t gin up the outrage some people have about this program, even though I think the revelations are a good thing. Skepticism, suspicion, worry about precedents and controls in the system, but not outrage. I also have a bad feeling about Greenwald’s portentous warnings about further revelations. I’m worried he’s gonna give people like McCain and Graham the ammo they need to shut down the debate.
ETA: @ cleek; Heh, me neither, I’m going by Charlie Pierce’s dog posts
Berial
@cleek: Yup. Your filter should be the stuff of legend around here.
TomG
WTF is this nonsense?
So in addition to the usual smears to discredit Snowden, some people (not just Tractarian) are pointing at his girlfriend’s job?
I’m not saying the guy is a hero, and certainly running to Hong Kong would have made more sense prior to 1997, but if you are resorting to attacking pole dancing as a profession (at least it’s an honest living for chrissake) in order to discredit a woman’s boyfriend, I don’t really know what to say.
Doug Milhous J
@Rex Everything:
I’m an Obot and I don’t hope they do…unless Snowden’s story falls apart.
Doug Milhous J
@MomSense:
I think the Obama administration could also do a better job of explaining its policies and why they should work/are working. That’s one of the few criticisms of Obama that I agree with.
cleek
@Berial:
FYI, it was updated yesterday. fixed a little bug.
sherparick
Hearing Brooks, Senator Feinstein, Ralph Peters, and others use the word “treason” I decided to look it up, as it is the only specific criminal offense spelled out in the U.S. Constitution (Article III, Section 3). Snowden may violated his contract and the U.S. Criminal Code by releasing “classified information” without authorization, but I don’t think he is making war, adhering to our enemies, or “Giving them Aid and Comfort.” Since I don’t think either Snowden or Greenwald have joined Al Qaida, or identified with Global Jihad, or provided aid, supplies, and intelligence for a particular attack, I am afraid this does not cut it as treason. Rather it is the stuff James Madison warned us against in Federalist 43.
“…As treason may be committed against the United States, the authority of the United States ought to be enabled to punish it. But as new-fangled and artificial treasons have been the great engines by which violent factions, the natural offspring of free government, have usually wreaked their alternate malignity on each other, the convention have, with great judgment, opposed a barrier to this peculiar danger, by inserting a constitutional definition of the crime, fixing the proof necessary for conviction of it, and restraining the Congress, even in punishing it, from extending the consequences of guilt beyond the person of its author…”
Finally, “Whistleblower” is nice, positive name, we give for individuals who step outside “the Group” and tell its embarrassing secrets. The words we usually give are: “informer,” “fink,” “stool pigeon,” “squealer,” etc, words that help keep group loyalty tight and preserve “omerta.”
cvstoner
I think the current lack of respect for all things institutional and authoritative is a perfect example of just how corrosive the last thirteen years have been to our republic, going back the installation of you-know-who into the white house by the unelected members of our highest court.
SatanicPanic
I actually couldn’t find anything in the first half of Brooks’ column to disagree with. I agree with his diagnosis, I don’t agree with his cure.
ericblair
@cleek: (Bobo)
Which is good as far as it goes, but Bobo’s definition of the “look after the common good” tends toward “kissing Bobo’s ass and doing the grunt work for their betters”.
There was a New Yorker article a couple of weeks ago about Silicon Valley culture, and the kind of libertarian ethic that walled the Valley off socially and physically from the rest of the SF Bay. You’ve got a lot of people who sincerely believe that some social media app they’re working on is going to solve everybody’s problems, and government is always either useless or actively getting in the way. Since most people there are white, male, young, well off, and unattached, you’ve got a lot of tech solutions for the problems of people who are white, male, young, well off, and unattached, and a lot of difficulty coping with other social groups. Political engagement tends to boil down to pushing tax cuts, and there’s a social hierarchy that can be as rigid as (but is different from) anything in New York or DC.
So, with Bobo and the Village, you’ve got the old guard elite with a ton of money and power who have a lot of difficulty understanding, nevermind solving the problems of people outside their narrow clique. Then you’ve got Silicon Valley, who are…the new guard elite with a ton of money and power who have a lot of difficulty understanding or solving the problems outside their narrow clique.
taylormattd
@MomSense: they are decidedly not progressives. They are an amalgamation of Paultard libertarians and despair-porn fetishists. They hate the government just as much s the tea party folks.
SatanicPanic
And I just want to throw this out there, because DougJ left out the last sentence of the paragraph he cited:
Forum Transmitted Disease
I always knew that a submissive bitch like Bobo would finally find that libertarians were worse than Democrats. Democrats still believe in the governmental power structure that gives Bobo that nice warm feeling of safety. Libertarians don’t, and this terrifies Bobo like nothing else can.
On the bonus side, the fact that Snowden is a Paultard may finally discredit that fake libertarian Paul and his vile spawn. No cloud without a silver lining, etc.
Berial
@cleek: Your page says it’s update 3.0.2, but the update link and code says 3.0.1.
Just letting you know there may be some text that needs updating. Thanks SOO MUCH for the filter.
Suffern ACE
@sherparick: Yeah. Coming from Feinstein, the whole “Treason” thing is a bit much. Yes, there are probably a lot of laws being broken by the leaker, but once again, like Manning and Assange, I’m not about to yell “TREASON!” when the person they leaked the information to was me, among others. I mean, not directly, but I’m kind of in the intended audicence. I mean, a definition of foreign power or revolutionary agent that includes me needs some serious reworking.
pokeyblow
People who ask why Snowden ran away, and also know about Bradley Manning, aren’t the smart ones.
That said, I doubt Hong Kong was the optimal sanctuary choice.
Todd
@askew:
Meanwhile, I bet the payment of $150 a month to a single mom on an EBT card gave Paulite Snowden a sad.
Discuss….
Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS)
@pokeyblow:
That is just fucking stupid. Do you even understand that Manning was a member of the armed services?
Bill E Pilgrim
Anyone jumping on the fact that David Brooks used the word “libertarian” to side with him, don’t kid yourself. He’s written the same pro-authoritarian column in the past without any mention of that word, or that particular segment of society.
In a column from last year titled “The Follower Problem“, he slams the following as evils:
To be clear: these are bad things, in his view.
Somewhere in there we also have this:
He then ends with a flourish and a non-sequitur:
This is nothing new with David Brooks. He’s anti-liberal, not just anti-libertarian.
Mark B.
@Cacti: Has anyone heard from him since he checked out of his hotel in Hong Kong? My theory is that he’s already enjoying the hospitality of the PRC, where he will be treated well as long as he’s providing them with useful information.
pokeyblow
@Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS):
Your point being? Do you have secret information which proves Obama will suddenly take a conciliatory/understanding approach toward whistleblowers of any stripe?
I don’t recall, was Jose Padilla in the military when he was shipped off to Cuba?
Suffern ACE
@pokeyblow: Yeah. It’s kind of like arguing that there is a robust investigative process for whistleblowers to go to Congress or some other place to hear these concerns.
http://rt.com/usa/supreme-rumsfeld-vance-court-493/
Sure, one can argue that it was fruitless to bring the torture suit against rumsfeld, but let’s note in the background that what these guys were imprisioned and interrogated for for months was going to the FBI with their concern.
pokeyblow
Apparently Snowden’s girlfriend has a job.
Which puts her in a club unjoinable by many posters here.
pokeyblow
@Suffern ACE: So you think what I said isn’t just fucking stupid?
I’m trying to keep track of who unloads with gratuitous, uncalled-for, unbecoming ad hominem around here the most often.
Cassidy
@Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS): Don’t waste your time. These idiots have a narrative and will force anything into it they can.
Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS)
@pokeyblow: My point being that Manning and Snowden are under completely different judicial systems, dumbass. Padilla wasn’t any kind of whistleblower, which is neither here nor there, but you keep throwing out that chaff, sparky.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Was it Gerson who gave us the idea of “David Brooks giving a seminar at teh Aspen Institute” as the unironic paradigm of Seriousness?
pokeyblow
@Cassidy: It’s hardly a “narrative.” Manning released a bunch of secrets, and got tortured for a long, long time.
Snowden decided the right thing to do was to release a bunch of secrets. He doesn’t particularly want to get tortured for a long, long time.
My sense is, Ockham himself would tell Snowden to get out of Dodge.
pokeyblow
@Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS): Jose Padilla wasn’t covered by any code of military justice. He was “handled” according to the laws applicable to ordinary citizens, as interpreted by Bush (and now being confirmed on a daily basis by Obama).
You’re a bit too wound up. Troubles at home?
Mandalay
I’m really struggling with this paragraph from Brooks….
That is somehow Snowden’s fault? Nothing to do with the government, and the way they enacted backdoor legislation?
Also, I may be reading something that isn’t there, but Brooks did not call Snowden a “traitor”. I wonder if the MSM pundits are carefully holding back on that tag, waiting to see which way the chips fall so they can align themselves accordingly.
MomSense
There have been a ton of front page stories on Snowden and NSA but I wonder why no one put the Toobin piece up for discussion.
Seems like he is a credible person to comment being a constitutional law scholar and such. He provides a different perspective.
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2013/06/edward-snowden-nsa-leaker-is-no-hero.html
Redshirt
When is the next outrage scheduled? I’m tired of this one.
Mark B.
@MomSense: Dammit! I hate agreeing with Jeffrey Toobin.
burnspbesq
@Suffern ACE:
A bit much? it’s a joke. This is almost certainly not what the Framers had in mind as “giving aid and comfort” to the enemy. And it’s absolutely not “levying war.”
I don’t get the near-pathological hatred for Feinstein in some quarters (I’ve voted for her at least three times), but I do wish she wouldn’t go quite so far out of her way to be stupid.
Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS)
@pokeyblow: Nope, just tired of bullshit one-liners trying to draw parallels between disparate cases because Obama Worse Than Bush!
GFY
Chyron HR
@pokeyblow:
Haw! Get a job, you smelly
hippiesObots!Todd
Courageous crusading journalist Glenn Greenwald has blocked LGF from following him on twitter.
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/42114_You_Have_Been_Blocked_From_Following_Glenn_Greenwald/comments/#ctop
Fucking hysterical little drama queen – Johnson was burning his ass up, and he couldn’t take the heat.
dmbeaster
@askew:
This is the modern business model for government – instead of public service, it is viewing government functions as a profit opportunity. It is the same nonsense driving the school “reform” nonsense.
The military industrial complex has gone whole hog on this one (private contracting of government security and defense functions), and the Pentagon is also on board. I just do not see how you reverse this institutional corruption. And in my view, it is one of the many things that clearly makes us weaker, since the idea that private industry does it better or cheaper is just crap. Also, who are the public servants overseeing government operations that are delegated to private industry, which are fundamentally about making a buck? They themselves get hopelessly corrupted since the career track is to leave government and cash in. With Dick Cheney, the circle doubled back on itself, with the corrupt going back into government to make sure government policy maximizes the private profit opportunity.
In talking with conservatives, I like to co-opt their whole mantra about the erosion of public values. Yeah, like the replacement of public service ideals with government operated for a profit motive — that is one of the more serious erosion of values in my lifetime, and its conservatives leading us to hell on this one.
LanceThruster
Sure we’ve been lied to countless times before, but don’t let that color your judgement on their current trustworthiness.
Suffern ACE
@pokeyblow: Well, the Padilla thing doesn’t make much sense as a whistleblower example.
But yeah, it makes sense that Snowden would flee, and it makes some sense to flee to China, although not for the reasons he was giving. He’s basically announced that he has “bombshells” that will bring down the National Security Apparatus of the US. I’m thinking he knows that China is one of the few governments big enough to protect his sorry butt from that which is going hunting for him.
Mandalay
@sherparick:
That column from Brooks did not use the words “treason” or “traitor”.
pokeyblow
@Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS): Obama isn’t worse than Bush. I’ve never said that, never thought that. But Obama is hardly terrific, that’s for sure.
But back to you… something’s wrong. Money problems? Job issues?
Get it off your chest. You’ll feel better.
burnspbesq
@Mark B.:
It could be worse. You could be agreeing with Ross Douthat.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@cleek: Geeze, all that describes about half the GOP base. Also “The Solitary Leaker” sounds like Bobo with a bladder control problem.
ChrisNYC
One thing that makes me uncomfortable about Snowden is that he doesn’t even seem to be aware that there are other opinions or interests than his own; it’s nowhere on his radar.
If one of the leakers would say, “You know, I thought this was the right thing to do and I tried to take into account how it would affect other people, in both good and bad ways and I made a decision that was not really mine to make but really, I have no clue what the consequences of this will be,” I’d find them less creepy and more credible than I do. Instead, they seem to offer only long statements about how much THEY have lost and how THEY have been affected by their own actions. For me, it’s a huge red flag.
Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS)
@pokeyblow: keep fucking that chicken. have some pie, while you’re at it.
Mark B.
@burnspbesq: If I ever found myself doing that, it would kick off an 4 day drinking binge.
pokeyblow
@Suffern ACE: Fair enough, but I’m not calling Padilla a whistleblower. I’m saying he’s a citizen that Obama’s predecessor (and in too many categories, exemplar) wanted disappeared and tortured.
By the way, Obama’s the president who arrogated the right to kill US citizens sans trial. Maybe Snowden read about that someplace.
Suffern ACE
@burnspbesq: I was thinking more about that “Petition” with a few ten thousand signatures calling for Feinstein to be tried for treason for even attempting to write legislation for background checks. She should have a least a little empathy when using that word.
LAC
@Rex Everything: well, we can only hope to have someday what you have with Greenwald – a blind passionate love that cannot and will not be questioned. Le sigh…
pokeyblow
@Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS): Hey, just trying to help. Something’s seriously wrong in your life, and I hope you find a way out.
In any case, whatever the catastrophic, hopeless situation you’re in is, it (by definition) can’t last forever. So you’ve got that going for you.
Yatsuno
@Redshirt: I called green balloons two days ago. The pleas were ignored.
dmbeaster
Just to rant some more, imagine US WWII policy being directed by the likes of Cheney or Haliburton or Booz or Xi (or whatever the hell their current name is now) instead of people like Marshall of Groves (Manhattan project). That war required massive and close cooperation between government and private industry, and it had its fair share of corruption problems. But you did not find that type of corruption in the top leaders, like you do at all levels now.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@burnspbesq:
That is just plain wrong.
Mnemosyne
@Rex Everything:
The Big Story that Greenwald promised us about the government spying on everyone, everywhere, seems to be fading away into the blockbuster exposure of … how FISA warrants work under current law.
It’s starting to look as though there’s no there there, and the whole China aspect looks really bad. Which then makes one start to wonder, cui bono? Was Greenwald an accomplice, or a dupe?
@sherparick:
Giving classified information to foreign countries — even “friendly” ones — is still considered espionage and sometimes treason. Ask Jonathan Pollard if you don’t believe me. And China is not our ally — we are not actively at war with them, but that’s not required for a charge of treason.
Todd
@pokeyblow:
I’m trying to figure out why a quick trip to a needle would be a problem.
LAC
@pokeyblow: And what would yours be? Is chicken fucking really a profession or a hobby?
pokeyblow
@LAC: I’m a bit bored now and again, but don’t have any big complaints.
Life’s been more than fair to me.
me
@gene108: I think he was too busy recovering from a cerebral hemorrhage he got after getting the shit beat out of him by the police.
LAC
@gene108: Moi aussi! I want to nut punch him for making me read and agree with parts of David Brooks’ article. I will just have to hope that Brooks goes back to being the insufferable ass he usually is.
hildebrand
@pokeyblow: You say this:
Then follow it up with this:
Cognitive dissonance, how does it work?
Here is some lovely ad hominem for you – you are an asshole who lives and breaths only to pick fights and piss on people. You have nothing to say and say it repetitively and at great volume. The entire internet is worse off for your ‘contributions’.
El Cid
None of these people get so angry about those who led us into the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, the destruction of Iraqi infrastructure, the loss of thousands of US lives, etc., etc., oh, what’s the point in even mentioning it, none of these fuckers give the slightest shit.
MomSense
@Yatsuno:
Hearing your entreaties, I tried to talk about other things to no avail. We have obsessive repulsive disorder.
? Martin
@ericblair:
I thought that article glossed over the harsh reality that launching startups in entrenched markets is a recipe for failure, as everyone in the valley knows. Nobody is going to fund a startup that’s looking to topple GE or Exxon (or China). The only ones that have (and been successful) are they guys that carry their own money, like Elon Musk.
I disagree that the valley is uninterested in solving bigger problems. Some of them aren’t, obviously, but I think if there was Facebook money in green energy, they’d be all over it. But there isn’t. Of course, the reason for that again points back to those elites in DC, so maybe we’ve just come full circle on that.
Redshirt
I haven’t seen Ben Franklin around here any longer. Does he have a new name?
Suffern ACE
I do get the feeling that what is coming next are that our secrets are secured under the user name “admin” and “network1” is the passcode.
Mandalay
@MomSense:
Because he’s an authoritarian stooge. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about when he writes this:
Before Toobin writes drivel like that he should research how things work out for whistelblowers since Obama became president, and especially NSA employees such as Thomas Drake:
srv
@ericblair: I’ve only seen “Who is John Galt?” bumperstickers 5 times. Every single one was on 101 between SJ and Burlingame.
cleek
@Berial:
crap.
thanks for the tip.
fixed!
pokeyblow
@hildebrand: The phrase “uncalled-for” applies to poor Brother Machine Gun in #81 saying my comment was “just fucking stupid.”
My helpful, reaching-out response to his insult falls into the category of “called-for.”
Let me know whether this helps. I can explain it again if you like.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Redshirt: I was smelling the PUMAbagger who liked to start fights and then whine about civility. Wasn’t Ben Franklin more pompous?
SatanicPanic
@MomSense: Add me to the list of people who find this subject boring and tedious.
pokeyblow
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Oh please. I am not any other people who do or have commented on this blog.
And I didn’t start a fight. I said Snowden likely observed the Manning case and fled the country to avoid his fate.
Poor Brother Machine Gun (I do hope he’s OK) told me I was fucking stupid to believe what I believe.
It’s all right there, upthread, clear as day. Don’t be such silly people.
Redshirt
@Suffern ACE: Got the wrong password. The password is always “cisco”.
Emma
@sherparick: I am really ticked off at Democrats climbing that “treason” platform. Treason is serious business and should be reserved for serious situations.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Twitter tells me Greenwald is now picking a fight with Bart Gelman. Anybody seen this?
@SatanicPanic: I actually find the topic interesting and important, but I do get outrage fatigue pretty quick.
shortstop
@pokeyblow: How very 1968 Republican of you, or perhaps it’s more accurate to say contemporary Republican of you, since they haven’t moved forward emotionally or intellectually since the 1960s. Shouldn’t you also be yelling at people to take baths and get haircuts?
ericblair
@? Martin:
Don’t think that’s really the issue. They’re interested in solving bigger problems, but really do tend to believe that the right mobile app will fix it. They may not want to topple Exxon, but figure that the solution to our energy problems is a real-time energy futures crowdsourced exchange with iOS and Android mobile clients.
pokeyblow
@shortstop: As a matter of fact, I am in favor of baths for sure. Or showers. Sorry to be such a lightning rod.
hildebrand
@pokeyblow: Every post from you is simply an excuse to be an asshole to somebody. It really doesn’t matter what words you actually use, the gist is always the same. If it makes you feel better, pat yourself on the back and tell yourself that your ‘superior intellect’ has vanquished another foe.
gogol's wife
@gene108:
You have summed up my feelings.
pokeyblow
@hildebrand: You poor thing.
It was so mean of me to say, in #79,
“People who ask why Snowden ran away, and also know about Bradley Manning, aren’t the smart ones.
That said, I doubt Hong Kong was the optimal sanctuary choice.”
That was just so awful, such a direct ad hominem attack on one person. It wasn’t just a direct and pointed expression of my opinion.
And it was absolutely wonderful for poor Brother Machine Gun to say my thought was “just fucking stupid.” Because of the grave harm I had done him in my post.
I do hope he’s OK. He seems in a bad way personally, and his friends don’t exactly seem like the resourceful types who might be of any help.
LAC
@pokeyblow: how about self immolation? That would cure your boredom…
gogol's wife
@Redshirt:
You’ve also summed up my feelings!
MomSense
@Yatsuno: @Redshirt: @Suffern ACE:
O/T Jumping out of my chair right now! I mentioned last night that oldest son was auditioning this morning for a music program and I just got the word. He is IN! They loved him, want to record him, and told him they would help him with financial aid or scholarships or whatever he needs.
While I realize that the life of a musician is not easy–he has passion and talent and WTF life is short so we might as well try and make it beautiful.
I blame Obama!
Ok back to the regularly scheduled moaning about how we were sold out and the sky is falling.
pokeyblow
@LAC: Not yet. Life’s still way too interesting. If things get overly boring in ten, twenty years I’ll think about it.
Thanks for the helpful and thoughtful recommendation. Makes me realize all the more what a terrible person I am.
pokeyblow
@MomSense: Congratulations on the good news.
LAC
@pokeyblow: yeah cause Manning was in the military and it is the same thing.
When danger reared its ugly head, Snowden bravely fled? This is what passes for courage in slackerdom?
SatanicPanic
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I like flame wars as much as the next guy, but they get old after a while.
raven
Shortstop and pokeyblow a pie fight match made in heaven. Thanks Cleek!
pokeyblow
@LAC: Bye for now. Lunch date.
shortstop
@MomSense: That is fantastic news — congrats!
LAC
@pokeyblow: Good! Lighter fluid is on sale, btw.
Yatsuno
@MomSense: YEE-HAW!!! Easy life it definitely ain’t but congrats to him! Make sure he gets used to a LOT of closed doors before one finally peeks open. And stay tough.
@LAC:
Brave Sir Snowden ran away…
shortstop
Who is this pokeyblow fellow? Is it Timmy again? OMG, what does Mika think of him!?
Bruce S
The fact is that no group has betrayed this country more relentlessly over the last decade than our “elites” – from the Iraq debacle to the financial meltdown to the Catholic Church – even to relatively trivial shit like David Brooks proving himself to be little more than a blather machine wrapped in an aura of meaningless “civility” or a Presidential candidate demonstrating his contempt for half of the country behind closed doors with his donors- key elites in this country have proven themselves lacking in any meaningful concern for the common good or any vision beyond what they want to hear from themselves to reinforce their sense of entitlement and rationalize their power, greed and unearned advantage. Snowden isn’t my hero, but if he belongs in jail, it’s behind a long list of the people David Brooks has held up for our admiration over the years.
Violet
@MomSense: Wow! Congrats! How exciting for him and for you.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@Redshirt:
When I was contracting I was hired by a small business to clear up their recurring virus problems. The source (Surprise! Surprise!) was their Exchange server. In order to make things easy, they had set the password on every machine in the place, desktops and servers alike, to [Company name]2000. They were so riddled with viruses and other very bad things that I recommended backing up their data, scrubbing it on an outside machine, and then wiping and reloading every machine in the place. When I presented the owner with my estimate of the bill for doing that he said “I’ll take care of it.” He paid me my survey fee.
MomSense
@pokeyblow: @Yatsuno:
Thank you! His younger brother’s response was “Mom, I am going to have to make a lot of money”. Brotherly love for you.
MomSense
@Violet:
Thank you! BTW he was supposed to be a Violet but he had other plans.
Flying Squirrel Girl
Seems to me that this is just more “Obama let you down, libtards!” glee from the conservative side of the aisle. They are outraged by EVERYTHING Obama does, so nothing different there. The “debate” I had with a conservative devolved into, “But Obama said he was gonna be the most transparent administration in history! What do you think about that?” Any attempts by me to inject some logic into the discussion, along the lines of, “Well it seems like it would be very difficult to have a transparent national security administration…” were met with more hopping from one foot to the other to point out that I called Bush a war criminal but give O a pass on this.
When I pointed out that warrantless wiretapping was different than what has been going on here, the reply was, “Oh so just because it’s illegal that makes it worse?”
Violet
@MomSense: Sounds like he knew what he wanted from a very, very early age.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@MomSense:
Congratulations! You’ve raised a talented and courageous young man. I used that word because I’m confident that he already has an idea of how difficult his chosen path might be.
eemom
@Yatsuno:
“I called green balloons two days ago. The pleas were ignored.”
Mrs. Sarah heeded! There is no FPer I would rather have the ear of.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Just saw Uberliberal Superwonk Chris Hayes on EvenTheLiberalMSNBC citing that Pew poll comparing partisan attitudes toward the NSA in ’06 and ’13 as evidence of bias, no mention of warrants and the difference between data-gathering and wire-tapping.
Oh my.
Joseph Nobles
In his interview with Snowden, Greenwald asked him about choosing Hong Kong. Greenwald mentioned that people would consider the possibility he would defect to China, an enemy of the United States. Snowden had a two-part answer. A) China isn’t the United States’ enemy. B) Hong Kong is a great place for free speech.
Notice what’s missing in that answer?
artem1s
@Ultraviolet Thunder:
contractors are also littered with those who will immediately identify that they can turn a huge profit selling the info to whoever, mettling with the data to please or conceal whoever or whatever, and then cover their tracks. But the NSA and grumpy Wallnuts can rest assured, they will never leak it to law abiding citizens via the evil treasonous, liberal press .
Redshirt
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: The general lack of knowledge of computer security is stunning. And while it’s incumbent on every computer user to understand what they’re doing, the tech companies themselves shoulder a good deal of the blame. For a decade, internet connections were provided as is – plug in, turn it on, send pictures to grandma! They knew that these unprotected computers were almost immediately taken over by bots and/or spyware, but did little about it until about 5 years or so ago.
nastybrutishntall
@White Trash Liberal: Damn, if you aren’t a succinct and cogent mofacky.
HEY COLE! GIVE THIS HUMAN A JOB!
+1
Mnemosyne
@Flying Squirrel Girl:
Did you give yourself a concussion when you slapped your forehead after that one, or was it just a bruise?
Me, it probably would have been a verdict of, “Suicide by ramming head repeatedly into brick wall.”
Yatsuno
@Joseph Nobles: Wait wait don’t tell me it’s right on the tip of my tongue…
(I hate you)
Flying Squirrel Girl
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I didn’t even get to point out that I agree with Colbert last night, that the only thing checking our government was a rubber stamp court that would approve every single thing the government wanted to do. By then it seemed pointless, because it wasn’t really about whether I agreed or disagreed, and on what information I based my view. It really was only about Obama being JUST THE SAME!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Violet
@Yatsuno: Yeah. Green balloons. I’m so sick of this topic. I don’t mind having threads available for those who want to discuss it, but there’s other stuff happening in the world. Other thread ideas:
1. Immigration debate
2. Nelson Mandela in hospital
3. Zimmerman trial (I know we have a thread on that)
4. Unrest in Turkey
5. Syria
6. Massachussets Senate election
7. NJ Senate election
8. Farm bill
Those are just off the top of my head. There’s a bunch of other stuff happening too, or general threads on gun violence, climate change, or an action thread like “call your reps on immigration” or whatever. So much else happening out there.
Redshirt
@Violet: There’s always Sully…
Mnemosyne
@Joseph Nobles:
Ay-up. As I’ve said from the beginning, it’s the whole “buggering off to China” part that is making me seriously question Snowden’s motives. The fact that he reportedly asked the Washington Post to include a coded message that would prove to a foreign government that he was serious makes me even more suspicious.
As any con artist will tell you, the easiest mark is the one who thinks he’s smarter than the con artist. The next easiest is the mark who wants to hear what you’re telling him. I am of the strong opinion right now that Greenwald and the WaPo got conned, but time will tell.
eemom
@El Cid:
Have you seen what the Supreme Court did yesterday?
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/06/10/supreme-court-affirms-rumsfelds-immunity-from-torture-lawsuits/
If this blog were less of a bright shiny object du jour chaser 24/7, maybe someone would have mentioned it. Jussayinzall.
nastybrutishntall
@cleek: As much as I detest Bobo OderBroder, his stopped clock has arrived in these paragraphs. But alas, many of the words he uses still don’t mean what he thinks they mean.
shortstop
@burnspbesq: Which Republican did you vote for the other time?
Doug Milhous J
@eemom:
Yeah, but I wasn’t surprised at all by that.
cleek
@Tractarian:
tell that to Glenn Beck, and Michael Moore !
SatanicPanic
@Violet: I read this morning that Marco Rubio wants English proficiency to be a condition for long-term residency. Latino outreach!
Thymezone
confidence in authorities, institutions, and elites is rapidly eroding.
Confidence in blogs frequented by political smalltalk whores, however, is at an all time high. Life is good. Amirite Dougster?
Come on man, Snowden is a criminal and will end up in jail. That’s the result that was guaranteed when the whole country nodded soporifically while the Patronize Act was being constructed. We get the government we have, and not the one we want. Mainly because the one we want changes faster than a fucking chameleon under a heat lamp.
MomSense
@Violet: I should have known from the mash ups of nursery rhymes when he was a toddler!
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: He is already working in the dish pit and figures he will have to do all sorts of jobs to support his music. He’s a blues guitarist and knows the history so I think he figures the suffering is all of apiece.
Bruce S
What I find most bizarre about Brooks’ column is that he doesn’t draw an obvious conclusion. Snowden may well be all of the things Brooks thinks he is, but his being in the position he was hired for is a function mostly of the kind of contempt for government service and the shift from professionalism, whether in the military or in agencies, to privatization of various functions and the hiring of contractors rather than dedicated civil servants. If there are real “national security secrets” involved in certain functions, I would want this to be handled by professionals who had demonstrated a commitment to the culture and values of their agency and the mission, rather than bands of contractors.
Snowden having supposed access to Big Data “secrets” is more a measure of how ill-conceived the program was. I am not shocked or outraged by the “revelations” but I am disgusted by some of the overblown reactions by bureaucrats and politicians. This revelation is hardly “treason” and if the supposed secrecy of this already much-discussed program is as important as alleged by some of these authoritarian dipshits like Feinstein – who it happens I vote for robotically – then the real culprit here is the NSA. Also, when Snowden argues that he could access the President’s emails, he debunks himself and raises serious questions about his own ability to assess the Top Secret Power Point! FWIW, I’m not against the program if it’s administered with some clear rules and oversight by responsible people, nor am I horrified by it’s being made public – because I assume that you’d have to be an idiot not to assume it at some level. There appears to be a lot of theatrics and shortage of responsible people on all sides of this “news” which isn’t new. FWIW no terrorist has been tipped off to anything by Snowden that they wouldn’t have assumed if they have an IQ above room temperature. The hysterics on “both sides” are nonsensical IMHO.
ChrisNYC
@Mandalay: That’s a pretty inaccurate characterization of the Drake case.
He did pursue inside channels for his complaints and he did get an IG investigation and report that made changes. He didn’t like that result. The prosecution started under Bush and was continued post 2008. But most importantly, the guy that led it was the same guy who screwed up the Stevens case, who himself was reprimanded for his conduct on other cases and whose case against Drake fell apart … after which he left the government. Unsurprisingly. I mean, they didn’t fire the prosecutor, true. But there was a lot more going on there than OBAMA HATES WHISTLEBLOWERS. Also, did Drake even use a whistleblowing statute? I thought his defense was that the disclosure wasn’t a violation or at least wasn’t a criminal one.
MomSense
@Violet:
I think the Senate Farm bill includes major cuts to food assistance because nothing provides incentives to the poors like a hungry belly.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@Redshirt:
Satan (A very capable program for scanning and logging computer vulnerabilities) was originally written in the 1990’s. After it went out into the world someone added instructions for the script kiddies who were too inexperienced to use it. That was a long time ago in Moore’s Law terms.
RaflW
The press is full of shit. They wouldn’t have half of their stories with out leakers. Bitter morons.
And Bobo, well he’s beyond redemption.
Mnemosyne
@Bruce S:
I’m guessing that the hysterics from the NSA and other intelligence agencies aren’t about Snowden’s revelations, but about what information he may have taken with him to China. You can fit a whole lot of information on a USB drive these days, and most of what he could get at the NSA would be far more useful to a foreign power like China than it would be to a band of terrorists.
I dunno. I just don’t have a good feeling about Snowden and his motives. The whole “he checked out of his Hong Kong hotel and disappeared” doesn’t smell very good.
Ash Can
This entire subject has become tl:dr for me, including this thread. So I don’t know if anyone has mentioned this yet. It doesn’t surprise me at all that Al Franken is making more sense on this subject than everyone else combined.
ETA: This link comes via LGF, which frankly has blown BJ out of the water with its coverage of this subject, on the part of both Charles Johnson and the commenters there.
Keith Ivey
@Mnemosyne, he asked the Post to post a key that would allow him to prove to an embassy where he might seek asylum that he was the source. It makes perfect sense to me, if you accept the idea that he would be in danger from the US government, which seems pretty obvious.
Thymezone
Snowdon is not a whistleblower. The work he was doing was authorized under laws we all sat still for. As for constitutionality … that’s not his call. Not his decision to make, especially given the job he took. Spooks don’t get to sit around and decide what is constitutional and what isn’t and then peel the cover off the things they don’t like. He’ll end up in jail for it, and rightly so. Who the fuck is he to play judge and jury in a matter this big and this important? Fuck him.
In a spook world populated by Snowdons, we can’t have a spook world. That may be the world we desire, but I wouldn’t count on it. Until that day comes, Snowdon is going to be (first) a fugitive and (lastly) an inmate. That’s the way it works.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@MomSense:
Wow! Blues. He is courageous. Does he listen to David Bromberg?
“You’ve Got to Suffer if You Want to Sing the Blues” – David Bromberg
lol
@Mnemosyne:
And we have Greenwald saying he was “working with” Snowden before he even got a job at Booz Allen and then trying to cover up that he ever said so.
fuckwit
Something fundamental is going on right now. Something very big; a sea change.
Indeed, these stupid institutions are falling down because they’re no longer releavant. That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about what comes after they fall.
I’m talking about a general mainstreaming of social-anarchism of the Internet variety. We’re starting to realize that the old heirarchicaal institutions suck, are inflexible, are corrupt, etc. But what I think is happening is the Internet generation, who grew up with Open Source software and Creative Commons and such, peer-to-peer, social networking, etc, are starting to realize that there are better ways to organize society, more along anarchist lines.
It’s a political shift. I’m seeing it on left and right. Issues like this really do cut across, and it’s not about the spying (really, where ya been, PATRIOT act was 12 years ago!) it’s about the institutions. The institutions have stopped acting respectably, and are losing everyone’s respect.
Churches: bullshit. Military-industrial complex: bullshit. Corporate media: total bullshit, almost by definition. Home ownershp: bullshit. Employment: bullshit. The economy, banks, and Wall Street: bullshit, and theives too. FIat monetary systems: bullshit (that’s what’s behind the bitcoin enthusiasm). We’ve come to realize that all these things are crap.
The one that scares me– and is more of an idea from the right than the left– is the idea of government as bullshit. Because without some kind of structure, some kind of functioning public government, that power vacuum gets filled by private thugs and the private rich: a mafia oligarchy. Then again, that’s kind of what we already have.
So I dunno. I think this is all part of a trend that’s been brewing for decades: Occupy, peace movement, anti-DRM and Open Access, Wikileaks, Snowden, Kickstarter, Bitcoin, growing secularism, and of course blogs (here we are!). And it probably goes back further, to the hippie days, the early 20th century, the 1840s, and all the way back to the Enlightenment at least.
Can we build a structure for true self-government? Non-heirarchical, peer-to-peer, distrbuted, open? Something kind of like the internet type of ideal, the Open Source ideal, really the human ideal?
It’s a geeky utopian question, really, but I’m curious. I feel something is brewing. Something that could either be fantastic and positive, or really dangerous if it gets co-opted or corrupted.
Eric U.
If Snowden does go to Mainland China, I feel sorry for him and hope we manage to catch him.
Mnemosyne
@lol:
Right now, I’m of the opinion that Greenwald was conned, and that contact could easily have been part of the con. I doubt that even Greenwald is dumb enough to directly involve himself in criminal activity, though I’m sure there are a few FBI agents flying to Brazil right now to ask him a few questions about that.
Mnemosyne
Whoops, sorry for the duplicate. No idea how that happened.
MikeJ
@fuckwit:
All of those things happen at the app level. Somebody, somewhere is going to own the fiber. And yes, I recognize metaphor. Somebody is going to own the physical layer underneath the metaphor too.
Cassidy
@fuckwit: The reality is we’re animals. The vacuum gets filled with the strongest and might makes right.
Thymezone
Can we build a structure for true self-government? Non-heirarchical, peer-to-peer, distrbuted, open? Something kind of like the internet type of ideal, the Open Source ideal, really the human ideal?
Probably not in our lifetime. And certainly not in an unstable world in which we have given ourselves the title and role of Most Powerful Nation In Charge. It’s so idealistic, it borders on silly on the scale of political and policy viability.
Of course, there is still time to sign up for the Rand Paul for President bandwagon. I would be surprised if a bunch of Juicers didn’t go that way before it’s over. Idealism is a powerful drug and it’s more or less legal.
MomSense
@Higgs Boson’s Mate:
Oh my I don’t know. Every weekend I get a music lesson which involves recordings of and stories about different blues musicians so I’ll ask him about it. It would be very nice to provide him with a musical offering so I’ll give it a listen.
LAC
@Yatsuno: LOL! Now, I cannot stop thinking about this…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZwuTo7zKM8
Thymezone
@Mnemosyne:
I always assume that Greenwald has been conned. Mainly because he is apparently so easy to con.
Bruce S
@Mnemosyne:
If he can put a bunch of “top secret” shit from an NSA computer on a flash drive and walk out of whatever supposedly “secure” area he worked in, it’s really on the NSA. I think that the entire notion of what’s “secret” needs to be reassessed – it strikes me that the system is broken and if they want to keep real secrets they need to get serious about it. Over-classifying and hiring contractors to administer “secret” data seems like asking for the system not to be taken seriously and to be breached way too easily.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@fuckwit:
Not really. How would 300M+ people make a single decision?
Amir Khalid
@eemom:
When I saw the post headline, I thought it a reference to the title song from a Sidney Poitier movie, although that one goes
…
A friend who taught me right from wrong
And weak from strong, that’s a lot to learn
Doug Milhous J
@Thymezone:
Honestly, I think it’s a while before we should know what to make of the Snowden story.
catclub
@Flying Squirrel Girl: It is odd that apparently ‘most transparent administration ever” [a fairly low bar to exceed], gets translated to “completely transparent administration”. These are not the same things.
Following the law, rather than breaking it, seems to be in the direction of more transparency
(if you know the law, you know the limits of what we are doing).
Higgs Boson's Mate
@Bruce S:
Well said. If everything is secret then nothing is secret.
shortstop
@Amir Khalid: EARWORM!
Mark B.
@Mnemosyne:
Very high chance he is now in the custody of the PRC intelligence community. In that case, the only remaining question is whether the custody is voluntary or not, not that that matters much to them.
cleek
@Ash Can:
thanks for the tip. good stuff over there.
Cassidy
Problem solved. Problem staying solved.
SatanicPanic
@fuckwit: No, we can’t have a P2P society. Not going to happen. This world has real challenges to face, can we work on those first?
Corner Stone
@Doug Milhous J: So DougJ, I’m guessing you got about the reaction you expected on this thread? Lots and lots of people agreeing with Brooks.
Bruce S
@Thymezone:
“In a spook world populated by Snowdons, we can’t have a spook world”
But what kind of “spook world” worthy of the concept would hire a kid like Snowden? I have trouble imagining him getting in the door at the CIA. I could be wrong – I’ve got very sketchy knowledge of this stuff. On the “meta” level of this story, it strikes me that the assumption of “secrecy” on the government’s part is as flawed and borderline nonsensical as the assumption of “privacy” by someone who organizes large chunks of their life on the internet. I want super-sensitive government programs to be administered by people who have to jump through certain hoops to get into that space. This guy getting hired seems like the NSA was doing the equivalent of building contractors picking up day-laborers at Home Depot, the guy’s relatively high pay aside. Frankly, as with the army, I’d rather have grunts doing most stuff rather than mercenaries, assuming the task is truly important and sensitive and our nations security and/or integrity is at stake. This proves the fallacy of privatization rather than professionalization of government responsibilities IMHO.
cleek
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
we could vote! and, because we are all reasonable adults and we all understand that a functioning government is better than slefish anarchy, when the results of the vote were announced we would all respect the will of the majority and temper our disappointment in the knowledge that if things got really bad, future votes would correct them. and if not, the public would rise up and tear down the illegitimate government!
first, we need a set of basic rules to get things in motion. we could call it a “Constitution”.
Corner Stone
@Suffern ACE: Awww, shit. BRB, gotta change a few things.
Hoodie
@SatanicPanic: Yeah, I want my flying car first. Do people actually believe such nonsense?
Corner Stone
The degree of hostility from a number of people is, well, not really instructive as it’s understood they are essentially authoritarians, but it’s certainly demonstrative.
Bruce S
I just want to add before going off to do real stuff, that I admit to pulling most of my opinions about this out of my ass. Have a funny feeling I’m not the only guilty party. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Seems like most of us are going around in speculative circles or showcasing grudges, hobby horses or “very serious judgements” on a story that is still not very clear beyond the obvious hype.
Okay, climb off of high horse and shut down “Balloon Juice” window…
Forum Transmitted Disease
@Joseph Nobles: Hard not to. That would be an extremely unwise move on his part. I had the pleasure of doing business over there for a few years. Best case scenario is that he gets to spend a dozen hours a day for the next year talking to PLA interrogators, and then get extradited back here as a reward for all his hard work.
Worst case scenario is that he gets to become an involuntary organ donor.
The Chinese have millenia of experience dealing with traitors and they’re not held in high regard.
SatanicPanic
@Hoodie: I want one of those food dispensers from Star Trek. Oh, and hoverboard like in Back to the Future.
Forum Transmitted Disease
@fuckwit: are you a timetraveler from 1999? It really has been that long since I’ve read such an impassioned love letter to the high ideals of the internet.
Take a short trip over to 4chan to see what the world’s future would look like, and then come back here and apologize for your gullibility.
Mnemosyne
@Keith Ivey:
It would also prove to a foreign government — like, say, China’s — that he really does have the information that he promised to sell them.
Sorry, but the longer this goes on and the more information that comes out, Snowden sounds less like an “information wants to be free!” idealist and more like a spy trying to sell his information to the highest bidder.
Corner Stone
@Mnemosyne:
Which is clearly why he put his picture out for the entire world to see. Because he’s a spy looking for a paycheck.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Mnemosyne:
I’m leaning toward “naive guy who has rarely had his head out of his computer” who stumbled onto something mundane that he thinks is sellable.
Hawes
@SatanicPanic: And that typifies every Brooks column ever. The reason NPR types like him is that he starts usually with some premise that thoughtful people can agree with, then halfway through he goes Inhofe on you. If you’re paying attention, you’re all WTF! But most people are asleep by the time he slips into nutter mode.
nastybrutishntall
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?: Pardon me sir, but they have reserved an Internet for you, Line 1.
cleek
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism:
and i’m going with: naive idealist who reads too much gg and thinks he’s gonna blow the lid off the whole corrupt can of worms and usher in the new techno-libertarian paradise that every 29 year old programmer thinks is just around the corner.
Bob In Portland
I have a deep suspicion of people who have a career in intelligence who suddenly do a 180. So my question isn’t about PRISM or whether or not he’s a traitor, although I expect that we’ll all get a fuller explanation of PRISM down the road. Having grown up in the 60s, I look at all intelligence turncoats as possible Lee Harvey Oswalds, that is, not defectors but agents on their next assignment.
I notice how everything that is done by the federal government is sewn into a jacket to put on Obama although I suspect he has little if any input into what’s going on over at the NSA or CIA. In fact, with Clapper on the scene you get a glimpse of the permanent government which exists no matter who the President is.
Corner Stone
@Bob In Portland:
He, uh…was nominated in 2010 by Obama to be DNI. Nobody made Obama do that.
Rex Everything
@Doug Milhous J:
Not really. You just don’t like to rock the Obot boat (except maybe when you’re “trolling” anonymously).
Good. But it wasn’t you whose mind I was reading.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@cleek: I was thinking that until the WaPo story about publishing a key for a foreign government. The guy who thinks he’s going to trigger the creation of Utopia doesn’t make that kind of exit strategy.
Forum Transmitted Disease
@Bruce S: You should really stop doing that. She’s the only exception I’ve ever had to my straight-ticket rule. I’ve been voting for whoever the Peace and Freedom party runs for her seat. I know they’ll never win, I know she’s got that seat until she dies, but at least I don’t feel like I took a bath in shit after I leave the voting place.
Barry
@askew: “I am having a hard time calling Snowden a hero. A hero doesn’t run away and hide from consequences.”
Right now he’s a hunted man, with a superpower after him, and certainly using any legal and illegal methods of shutting him up. And there’s no going back.
If you show 1% of that courage, you’ll have the right to b*tch.
Barry
@Cacti:
@Bob In Portland: ” In fact, with Clapper on the scene you get a glimpse of the permanent government which exists no matter who the President is”
“He, uh…was nominated in 2010 by Obama to be DNI. Nobody made Obama do that.”
That’s the whole point of ‘the permanent government’ – people who move through various high offices, with changes in party and administration being minor complications.
Forum Transmitted Disease
@Barry: Like Dr. Mengele. Or Joesph Kony. Carlos the Jackal. Heroes all.
Barry
@artem1s: “But the NSA and grumpy Wallnuts can rest assured, they will never leak it to law abiding citizens via the evil treasonous, liberal press .”
Given the viciousness with which these ‘liberal’ reporters feel towards those who leak, I’d be really hesitant to leak anything to them.
Corner Stone
@Barry: That may be one of the worst insults anyone has dealt me here, calling me Cacti.
Damn.
Thymezone
@Barry:
So running away from the law is called “courage.” So, the Unibomber was a big hero, I suppose. How about Tim McVeigh? I liked his courage for driving away from his crater ……
Corner Stone
@Barry: To your point, yes I understand what a permanent government is. IMO, my contention is still relevant in that no one made Obama nominate Clapper.
Patricia Kayden
@askew: But but but he’s hiding because Big Bad Obama Man will kill him otherwise, doncha know?
If he came back to the US now, he’d get a hero’s welcome from some quarters. I’m sure Rand Paul would meet him at the airport with flowers.
Cassidy
@Thymezone: Don’t forget Eric Rudolph.
Patricia Kayden
@Rex Everything: What exactly do we know is true? I’m curious now.
Thymezone
@Cassidy:
Good point.
Thymezone
@Doug Milhous J:
In what sense do we mean that? Early in the story of his crime and run, or early in the story of the NSA surveillance and related issues?
If A, or One, then … can’t agree. He broke an important law and he is going to end up in jail for it hopefully. Cut and dried as far as I am concerned. Otherwise, why have such laws, why have covert ops, why have classification of docs and ops? No, that story is short and basically over.
If B, then …. meh. Look, the country asks for security, we crafted a clunky beast called Patriot Act / DHS and … here we are. Do we really think now that it’s theoretically possible that NSA might be listening to you call your Mom on Mother’s Day that we didn’t mean it twelve years ago? Or for that matter, when we crafted the biggest monstrosity in our history, the Cold War? Hell yes we meant it, and we can’t ask a military and intelligence machine to pretend like we didn’t mean it. We ask those people to do dangerous jobs and we better damned well stand behind the laws and the practices that protect them … and us. One hundred percent, no exceptions. Period, dot.
Thymezone
@Corner Stone:
Bingo.
LAC
@Barry: that’s your idea of courage? Hey, Nelson Mandela, you were so lame! I am anxious to read Snowden’s “notes from two pillows in Hong Kong” – bet it will blow MLK’s shit out of the water, dude!!
Bob In Portland
@Corner Stone: Corner Stone, of course someone made him do that. You really still think that the President is above the intelligence community in the hierarchy? To continue to embrace these myths will only lead to further anger and regret and confusion for you. You will continually be disappointed.
When the Republican Senate voted unanimously for the FISA bill in 2008 it was pretty clear that the next President would be a Democrat. If the Republicans publicly wring their hands over the petty IRS scandal (which was overseen by a conservative Republican and while a Bush appointee ran the agency) but ignored the likelihood of giving a Democratic President enormous spying powers, how do you explain the disconnect? That they weren’t aware that legalizing and extending the NSA’s powers could be used against them?
No, the Republicans in 2008 knew, as they know now, that the power given to the NSA (and CIA et al) does not accrue to the office of the President. It accrues to the agencies themselves and their political allies. The only place Obama fits in all this is to be the scapegoat. And while Dubya’s class goals dovetail nicely with the intelligence community’s so it may appear that he was somehow in charge, believe me, he wasn’t.
Bob In Portland
@Barry: Thank you, Barry. In fact, by looking at the Obama Administration versus, say, the Clinton Administration, and comparing them both to earlier Democratic administrations, like, say, Kennedy’s or FDR’s, one can observe the erosion of partisanship in favor of the permanent government. And if the permanent government looks more right-wing than left, you are correct.
Bruce S
@Forum Transmitted Disease:
Sorry, but I don’t vote Peace and Freedom or Green. That’s another bath in shit IMHO. I can’t stand Feinstein – couldn’t stand her when she was on the SF city council – but she’s actually not the worst Dem on the planet, if only because she had to deal with the SF electorate for years.
Bob In Portland
@Corner Stone: I see an agent with his entire adult life in Spook World just taking on another assignment.
Corner Stone
@Bob In Portland: Pretty soon people are going to start asking Noah Wyle if he’s Edward Snowden when he’s out in public.
Maybe I’ve read too many Len Deighton novels, but these actions seem to be the opposite of a professional spy furthering his craft or career.
Bob In Portland
@Bruce S: Feinstein is why I voted for Jello Biafra.
Corner Stone
@Bob In Portland:
This seems pretty convenient.
Did the banking industry make Obama appoint Geithner? Did the MIC make Obama nominate Sen Hagel?
If these are all true, then why the exhortations here to give a damn who is president? For the margins?
Bob In Portland
@Corner Stone: This is not furthering his career. It’s following orders. I suspect when the dust settles we’ll find out that PRISM, in the scheme of things in the spyworld, is a small fish, and Obama will get most of the crap from the Left over this even though he’s got little if anything to do with it. The intelligence community runs on autopilot.
Besides, this wouldn’t be the first time that the intelligence community exposed a secret to advance its goals. When that U-2 plane was shot down over the USSR, thus ruining the Paris peace talks in 1959, the CIA got just what it wanted. Since the next technology, spy satellites, was just around the corner, giving up high-flying spy planes was no big deal in exchange for the continuation of the Cold War.
Corner Stone
@Bob In Portland: So you’re saying we’re through the looking glass here?
Bob In Portland
@Corner Stone: At the risk of alienating his own party. Back in the 90s, when I was active in the NALC (letter carriers’ union) I wondered why Clinton didn’t appoint more liberal people to the various boards overseeing the post office.
So we’re left with whether Clinton was really just a Repub in Dem’s clothing or whether he was pressured to make those appointments. Past a point it’s irrelevant. The screening process for the President eliminates anyone who is actually liberal or progressive, although during leap years some may appear to be more liberal in the distance than upon closer inspection.
So where one President’s personal beliefs stop and pressure from the permanent government starts is ambiguous. This is not like gunning down the President in broad daylight.
Bob In Portland
Corner Stone, I have to go to the dentist now. Hope the dentist doesn’t speak with a German accent.
Mnemosyne
@Bob In Portland:
Is it safe?
Metavirus
Trackback: Will Someone Just F*cking Give David Brooks His Reader’s Digest and Metamucil Already!?
[ … I don’t usually comment on David Brooks columns because, well, res ipsa loquitur. But — fucking hellll — did he shit out a doozy this morning … ]
El Cid
@eemom: It was barely news anywhere. It was mentioned, but it would be weird to think about things going all that super-far back when America was new and no one remembered anything.
Bruce S
@Bob In Portland:
I voted for one Green for state assembly – it wasn’t a protest vote. She won and turned out to be the worst state rep I’ve ever had. Lesson learned. In ’68 I wrote in Gene Macarthy – I can explain it in existential terms given the intensity of the times, and in Illinois it didn’t matter, but I still wish like hell Humphrey – whom I had lost all respect for – had won that election. I’d vote for Bernie Sanders in a minute, but he is for all practical purposes the Democratic candidate in Vermont.
Corner Stone
@Bob In Portland:
But by then it will be too late! You’ll be under gas and they will extract all you know about the permanent government and our double-Topps card secret superspy rotation.
You’re endangering us all by maintaining your dental health!
hildebrand
@fuckwit: I believe that is called a true democracy. Ask around – most people think it can’t work.
Jeff C
@askew: Really? After what’s happened to Manning, he should stick around for the same “justice”? Sitting senators are calling him a traitor?
That shit cray.
Bob In Portland
@Mnemosyne: I’m back from the dentist. Is what safe? The dentist? I tell you, dentistry has advanced so far over my lifetime. It’s just amazing. No pain whatsoever. My only regret, being a child of the sixties, is that I’ve never experienced laughing gas.
Bob In Portland
@Corner Stone: No, considering everything is out there if you can manage to use a little logic I suspect that although I’m on some registry and someone in the intelligence services may occasionally read my blog (someone besides my sister, thank god) I am not deemed any kind of threat. Most people self-censor quite adequately to keep things running properly. Carry on.
Mnemosyne
@Bob In Portland:
Sorry, I thought you were referencing this famous movie scene. Do not watch if you have a dental phobia.
Laughing gas is overrated, at least in my experience. I didn’t think it was doing much of anything until they started jabbing the novocaine needle into my gum and, instead of freaking out like I normally would, I thought, “Huh, that hurts. Interesting.”
Corner Stone
@Bob In Portland: They got to you man. They got to you.
[end trans]
Bob In Portland
@Bruce S: I had no hope that Jello would win, but he actually did pretty well, considering. The system is rigged against third party candidates. Occasionally, like in places like San Francisco or here in Portland the two-party system is Dem v. Green, or Dem v. Liberal Dem. I remember voting for a third party candidate when Carter conceded before I got home from work. Thought it was Dr. Spock, but he apparently didn’t run that year, so unless I wrote in his name it must have been someone else. Gus Hall or someone of that ilk.
Bob In Portland
@Mnemosyne: I was, but I don’t have the scene memorized.
Mnemosyne
@Bob In Portland:
Clearly you need to get two film degrees like I did! :-)
danielx
@zombie rotten mcdonald:
This.
If the Very Serious People – you know, the ones who have fucked up virtually everything they’ve touched for the last four five decades – are upset, Bobo develops sympathetic hives. Good; the sycophantic bastard deserves some discomfort.
Bob In Portland
@Mnemosyne: Years ago I was on the GI Bill and supplemented my income by being a projectionist for various classes. My favorite one was film arts class of some sort, and there were lots of European films. Did fine until “Persona”. There was a very sexual monologue by one of the characters, by the nurse about making love to a boy as I recall, and I was so transfixed that I allowed that entire reel to unspool onto the floor.