OK, Snowden is a coward, and a non-coward would have stayed to face justice

[DisgustipatedinCA]

I don't believe that for a minute, but let's hypothetically say it's true.

The obvious follow-up question on this day we celebrate our freedom is: who gives a damn if he's a coward or not? Snowden's alleged cowardice does nothing at all to lessen the impact of the Obama Administration and the NSA spying on Americans. There are posters here who have a need to make Edward Snowden into a coward. If by some miracle, the majority of DUers started to believe that Snowden was a coward based on these exhortations, what does that buy the Snowden haters? Spying is still spying. South America is still highly pissed about the Morales aircraft debacle. And the NSA is still expanding its surveillance programs, both foreign and domestic. Under this scenario, what we have is a coward, plus every single one of the original problems that the coward exposed.

So what's in it for the Snowden-is-a-coward set? Most propaganda sets out to attain some goal. I don't understand this particular brand of propaganda.

[sibelian]

1. It shifts the other pole.

The US security apparatus becomes a victim.

[DisgustipatedinCA]

3. Maybe you're right--I had never considered it

I haven't considered it because its absurd to see our spymasters as a victimized class. But it could be that's what some of these people have in mind.

[sibelian]

10. If he's a rogue and dashing about he looks kinda cool and they look like bozos

If he's under control they can stand in the witness box being all persecuted and say "we's justn doon ur JOOOOB, yeronner" and put a face on. That's why they want a trial, they want a new face.

They can't be both victim and bozo - if you want a story that you can get people behind. Things that stir emotions have to be simple and there's only space for one nice, familiar archetype ... a bit like a nippy sports car you can drive around the narrative stage.

[Skittles]

2. it depends if you care more about Obama or America

that's the difference

[KittyWampus]

4. Not wanting sensitive info to be handed to the Chinese & Russia and diplomatic ties strained

is neither good for Obama OR America.

[Skittles]

8. that is NOT what you are really worried about

NOT EVEN CLOSE

[arely staircase]

27. attacking the messenger, huh

its not about what KW said. its about how you know that's not what she really means or cares about. I see what you are doing but I really wonder if you can.

[Skittles]

29. messenger???

LOLOL

[think]

6. If they cared about Obama they'd wouldn't they care if he got wiretapped?

I've mentioned to many ardent Obama supporters here that Russ Tice recently claimed that Obama and the Supreme court were illegally wiretapped by the NSA. I explained that Tice was the whistleblower that blew the lid off the illegal wiretapping done under Bush.

After that one so called supporter responded by saying Tice shouldn't go blabbing without evidence.



Most of the rest completely ignored the information or brushed it off.

I guess Tice's claims don't fit their meme....

[Downwinder]

5. I have heard:

It is better to be a Live coward than a DEAD hero.

Have I been misled?

[randome]

18. 'Dead'? Someone pointed out in another thread that Snowden would likely get 36 months.

He should stop hiding and get it over with.

[hr]
[font color="blue"][center]I'm always right. When I'm wrong I admit it.
So then I'm right about being wrong.[/center][/font]
[hr]

[dawg]

31. Someone in another thread ...

is *likely* wrong. If you really believe Snowden would only get 36 months, then there are some great investment opportunities I would like to discuss with you.

[Cleita]

7. If our justice system operated like it did back when Daniel Ellsberg leaked secrets,

yeah he should come back and face charges. However, considering what's happened to Bradley Manning, he would have to be really stupid to turn himself in.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

9. Manning v. Ellsberg? No contest.

And Obama's troops have been one of the toughest on leakers and whistle blowers. Far worse than Bush, Clinton, Bush, and others.

[Warren Stupidity]

15. Ellsberg got off on a technicality. He lucked out.

[Cleita]

20. He wasn't tortured while he was under suspicion. n/t

[Warren Stupidity]

28. true, that was a different time.

you might get murdered by the state, but not tortured.

[idwiyo]

11. only someone with an IQ of amoeba would stay to face 'justice'.

[ZombieHorde]

12. Soldiers that take cover are cowards.

Heroic people allow other people to harm them, even if it won't have any beneficial outcome.

This is sarcastic.

[Nay]

13. It's simple character assassination. They hope to divert you to the whistleblower's

personal attributes or deficiencies so you won't focus on what he is saying about the NSA spying system.

[Warren Stupidity]

14. Meanwhile the initial document dump enabled the ACLU to refile

It's suit over the mass collection of phone meta data. It isn't about Snowden, no matter how desperately the authoritarian talking point toadies try to make about Snowden, or Morales, or Greenwald. It is about a national security state that is out of control.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

16. If he's a "coward" what does that make the people who are hunting him? Heroes?

Or, merely, "good Germans", "just following orders"?

[randome]

17. The 'evidence' released so far by S&G is ambiguous at best. That's being charitable.

Why would they not obtain stronger evidence? Maybe because Snowden did not have the access he claimed?

So...no evidence that can stand on its own and a guy who ran to Hong Kong and then Moscow while saying "I am not here to hide from justice."

Why would anyone take these guys' word that the NSA has a vast spying network in place?

There is a reason that even the Wikileaks attorneys turned away from Snowden.

[hr]
[font color="blue"][center]I'm always right. When I'm wrong I admit it.
So then I'm right about being wrong.[/center][/font]
[hr]

[DisgustipatedinCA]

19. Interesting. But your post has nothing at all to do with the question posed in the OP.

[randome]

21. Well, without evidence, the assumption that the NSA is spying on Americans...

...derives from S&G's word that they are, right?

[hr]
[font color="blue"][center]I'm always right. When I'm wrong I admit it.
So then I'm right about being wrong.[/center][/font]
[hr]

[DisgustipatedinCA]

22. We've known all this since 1874, or something!

The question remains, why is there a push to make Snowden to appear a coward? What's the purpose of that particular line of propaganda?

[randome]

25. It's partly a response to those wanting to believe what he says without evidence.

The 'debate' gets strained, positions get hardened and eventually vitriol and insults are all that remain.

It's a reaction in equal measure to what some see as his unwarranted status as 'hero'. I mean, he's been compared to MLK and Paul Revere and some of us think that's such a ridiculous comparison, we sometimes resort to trying to 'prove' it wrong, when all that's really being bandied about are hardened opinions.

[hr]
[font color="blue"][center]I'm always right. When I'm wrong I admit it.
So then I'm right about being wrong.[/center][/font]
[hr]

[backscatter712]

23. Two things:

1. It distracts us from talking about the American Stasi.

2. It demonizes Snowden, making an example of him for the next guy who's thinking about breaking National Security Omerta.

[DisgustipatedinCA]

24. That sounds reasonable

It doesn't sound like a recipe for success, but I don't want these detractors to succeed in their bid anyway.

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

26. Is it an act of cowardice for

the wholesale spying of a government on its own population in a Democracy?

[Cleita]

30. In my humble opinion, if he were a coward, he wouldn't have come forward at all.

He could have just turned the information over to the Guardian or Wikileaks for a price and sunk into the sunset in anonymity. He could have bought a new identity and would be sitting on a beach somewhere in the South Seas.