Ladies And Gentleman... Chris Hedges - 'Edward Snowden's Moral Courage'
Edward Snowden's Moral CourageBy Chris Hedges - OpEdNews
2/24/2014 at 13:25:34
Last Thursday Chris Hedges opened a team debate at the Oxford Union at Oxford University with this speech arguing in favor of the proposition "This house would call Edward Snowden a hero." The others on the Hedges team, which won the debate by an audience vote of 212 to 171, were William E. Binney, a former National Security Agency official and a whistle-blower; Chris Huhne, a former member of the British Parliament; and Annie Machon, a former intelligence officer for the United Kingdom. The opposing team was made up of Philip J. Crowley, a former U.S. State Department officer; Stewart A. Baker, a former chief counsel for the National Security Agency; Jeffrey Toobin, an American television and print commentator; and Oxford student Charles Vaughn.
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I have been to war. I have seen physical courage. But this kind of courage is not moral courage. Very few of even the bravest warriors have moral courage. For moral courage means to defy the crowd, to stand up as a solitary individual, to shun the intoxicating embrace of comradeship, to be disobedient to authority, even at the risk of your life, for a higher principle. And with moral courage comes persecution.
The American Army pilot Hugh Thompson had moral courage. He landed his helicopter between a platoon of U.S. soldiers and 10 terrified Vietnamese civilians during the My Lai massacre. He ordered his gunner to fire his M60 machine gun on the advancing U.S. soldiers if they began to shoot the villagers. And for this act of moral courage, Thompson, like Snowden, was hounded and reviled. Moral courage always looks like this. It is always defined by the state as treason -- the Army attempted to cover up the massacre and court-martial Thompson. It is the courage to act and to speak the truth. Thompson had it. Daniel Ellsberg had it. Martin Luther King had it. What those in authority once said about them they say today about Snowden.
"My country, right or wrong" is the moral equivalent of "my mother, drunk or sober," G.K. Chesterton reminded us.
So let me speak to you about those drunk with the power to sweep up all your email correspondence, your tweets, your Web searches, your phone records, your file transfers, your live chats, your financial data, your medical data, your criminal and civil court records and your movements, those who are awash in billions upon billions of taxpayer dollars, those who have banks of sophisticated computer systems, along with biosensors, scanners, face recognition technologies and miniature drones, those who have obliterated your anonymity, your privacy and, yes, your liberty.
There is no free press without the ability of the reporters to protect the confidentiality of those who have the moral courage to make public the abuse of power. Those few individuals inside government who dared to speak out about the system of mass surveillance have been charged as spies or hounded into exile. An omnipresent surveillance state -- and I covered the East German Stasi state -- creates a climate of paranoia and fear. It makes democratic dissent impossible. Any state that has the ability to inflict full-spectrum dominance on its citizens is not a free state. It does not matter if it does not use this capacity today; it will use it, history has shown, should it feel threatened or seek greater control. The goal of wholesale surveillance, as Hannah Arendt wrote, is not, in the end, to discover crimes, "but to be on hand when the government decides to arrest a certain category of the population." The relationship between those who are constantly watched and tracked and those who watch and track them is the relationship between masters and slaves.
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More: http://www.opednews.com/articles/Edward-Snowden--s-Moral-C-by-Chris-Hedges-Courage_Edward-Snowden_Intelligence_Political-140224-769.html
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Sid
This is the speech he gave to start the debate... and one hell of a speech it is.
And thank you xchrom !!!
(notice I don't ever use the "Circle Small "d" to recommend anything...but our trusted and true "KICKING DONKEY! Our symbol forever.)"
's
"I have been to war. I have seen physical courage. But this kind of courage is not moral courage. Very few of even the bravest warriors have moral courage. For moral courage means to defy the crowd, to stand up as a solitary individual, to shun the intoxicating embrace of comradeship, to be disobedient to authority, even at the risk of your life, for a higher principle. And with moral courage comes persecution."
He has a way with words!
such as my husband's stem cell transplant, and do not have the time to follow politics as closely as before.
But I still think I have a good sense of right and wrong ... no matter which party has control!
I hope everything works out for you and yours.
and I think/hope it will!
Keep us posted on how he's doing.
for your well wishes and kind words, they really mean a lot.
Three and a half years post transplant there is not much to complain about ... we're both here
My postings have mostly switched to the cancer forum, but I do try to read what is going on elsewhere.
Thanks again!
his next treatment plan will be a stem cell transplant so I'm always sensitive when I see someone else enduring that.
anytime in the future. Instead something you have been told is an option ... just in case. They are making advances, even in the last few years, yet it is an interesting and long journey, not one any person would choose.
I hope your husband continues to do well and that you both can stop looking over your shoulder.
Thanks again!
although I'm not holding my breath.
I'll accept changing a few people at a time, it might take awhile!
Thanks for your posts Sabrina
Thank you for posting this. It needs to be spread far and wide.
We just do, what we can DU !!!
WillyT, I do declare, you are beside yourself tonight. I read down the thread a minute ago and you was down there kicking yourself! Wonder if Chris got a standing ovation? One thing's for sure, if you're in any way confused about the concept of "conscience," Chris Hedges can clear it up real quick. To the greatest!
They ARE the protectors of our Democracy!
Chris Hedges agrees with me:
*Rampant Government Secrecy and Democracy can not co-exist.
*Persecution of Whistle Blowers and Democracy can not co-exist.
*Government surveillance of the citizenry and Democracy can not co-exist.
*Secret Laws and Democracy can not co-exist.
*Secret Courts and Democracy can not-co-exist.
*Our Democracy depends on an informed electorate.
You either believe in Democracy,
or you don't.
It IS that simple.
I pray that I would have the courage to do what these patriots did.
It is so much easier to simply do as you are told,
not make any waves,
collect the paycheck,
and take the weekend off.
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