I...stand in awe that that kid left his comfortable life, his warm bed with his lovely girlfriend, his family, his friends, everything but his body and mind to stand up and say no.
At first, I was furious that Snowden was creating yet another scandal for Obama, due to the timing. When I watched the interview online, though, I sensed a sincere effort on his part to do the right thing, that his motivation wasn't political.
So I got curious, & with an open mind, began to research. Funny thing is, a not-so-complimentary OP with a link to an article the other day led me to another article about the HUGE amount of money that is poured into just the facilities used for surveillance in Utah & across the country. (Since then, I'm learning that that was the tip of the iceberg -- there are tens of thousands of facilities around the world -- we must be paying trillions of dollars on this venture.)
That got my dander up. While the Republicans in congress are showing the utmost contempt for the most vulnerable people, bellyaching about the deficit, they have no problem spending trillions of dollars to watch for "terrorists" -- & the word "terrorists" in their mindset seems to be arbitrary; it's whoever
they think of as a "security threat", which is scary considering how horribly mean & punitive they can be outside of their bubble.
If one takes the president out of the equation (I believe this goes beyond any president's power) & gave serious thought about this, they would be as startled about this as I am. This isn't about politics; this is about how our country's priorities have been desecrated. The Hooverites in congress are contemptuous about the most vulnerable citizens, which happens to be the majority, yet they're willing to spend trillions of dollars on a what-if scenario.
Yet MrScorpio's recent OP about our naivete was depressingly spot on. This venture is so huge, with so much money thrown into it, I don't see any turning back.
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