A Letter to Edward Snowden Prometheus among the cannibals - Swoon!

[flamingdem]

* Read it and weep!

http://www.thenation.com/article/175339/letter-edward-snowden#

By Rebecca Solnit

Dear Edward Snowden,
?
Billions of us, from prime ministers to hackers, are watching a live espionage movie in which you are the protagonist and perhaps the sacrifice. Your way forward is clear to no one, least of all, I’m sure, you.
?
I fear for you; I think of you with a heavy heart. I imagine hiding you like Anne Frank. I imagine Hollywood movie magic in which a young lookalike would swap places with you and let you flee to safety—if there is any safety in this world of extreme rendition and extrajudicial execution by the government that you and I were born under and that you, until recently, served. I fear you may pay, if not with your death, with your life—with a life that can have no conventional outcome anytime soon, if ever. “Truth is coming, and it cannot be stopped,” you told us, and they are trying to stop you instead.

I am moved by your choice of our future over yours, the world over yourself. You know what few do nowadays: that the self is not the same as self-interest. You are someone who is smart enough, idealistic enough, bold enough to know that living with yourself in a system of utter corruption would destroy that self as an ideal, as something worth being. Doing what you’ve done, on the other hand, would give you a self you could live with, even if it gave you nowhere to live or no life. Which is to say, you have become a hero.

Pity the country that requires a hero, Bertolt Brecht once remarked, but pity the heroes too. They are the other homeless, the people who don’t fit in. They are the ones who see the hardest work and do it, and pay the price we charge those who do what we can’t or won’t. If the old stories were about heroes who saved us from others, modern heroes—Nelson Mandela, Cesar Chavez, Rachel Carson, Ella Baker, Martin Luther King, Aung San Suu Kyi—endeavored to save us from ourselves, from our own governments and systems of power.

more at link

[RobertEarl]

1. Nice find

Wonderful sentiment. Some people are capable of stepping outside their world and trying to experience life as someone else feels it.

Snowden certainly has given up much so we can be free. Cheers to him!!

[flamingdem]

2. Do you think it's a tad over the top?

Maybe I'm a crushed idealist but it seems like the references to Anne Frank and Dr. Martin Luther King go too far.

[RobertEarl]

5. Just your title was OT

He has given up much for our freedom.

[Whisp]

3. ...

Snowden certainly has given up much so we can be free. Cheers to him!!



Did he free you? You don't sound free. When's he gonna do that for you?

[flamingdem]

6. Whisp .. I think I've finally seen the light

You know we really should be open minded and maybe that way we'll .. be free!

[RobertEarl]

7. I feel better already

For years i had been hoping for something to break the spying wide open. And then came Snowden. It's is like a new day! Now it's up to Obama. Will he deliver, or fold?

[flamingdem]

9. I think he will. We know that he's faced many

obstacles. No one better in recent memory that could address the concerns raised, in my opinion.

[Cha]

4. there's more of this dribble at the link I'm sure but I've

had enough bullshit for one day just from reading the first sentence.

[flamingdem]

8. .. but, but Cha don't you want to be free .. free like a bird with no nsa bugging your nest?

[Cha]

12. I want to be Free from

hypocritical types like snowden who think they're the master of the universe but end up spewing propaganda like a stupid robot in Russia.

Big Bird!

[struggle4progress]

15. The Lone Rangers and their silver bullets are a constant nightmare

[struggle4progress]

10. I disagree with her regarding Snowden, but she's not "vote third party or don't vote"

A Letter to My Allies on the Left
It's time we kick the “lesser of two evils” excuse and engage in a true political conversation.
Rebecca Solnit

... One manifestation of this indiscriminate biliousness is the statement that gets aired every four years: that in presidential elections we are asked to choose the lesser of two evils. Now, this is not an analysis or an insight; it is a cliché, and a very tired one, and it often comes in the same package as the insistence that there is no difference between the candidates. You can reframe it, however, by saying: we get a choice, and not choosing at all can be tantamount in its consequences to choosing the greater of two evils ...

I don’t love electoral politics, particularly the national variety. I generally find such elections depressing and look for real hope to the people-powered movements around the globe and subtler social and imaginative shifts toward more compassion and more creativity. Still, every four years we are asked if we want to have our foot trod upon or sawed off at the ankle without anesthetic. The usual reply on the left is that there’s no difference between the two experiences and they prefer that Che Guevara give them a spa pedicure. Now, the Che pedicure is not actually one of the available options, though surely in heaven we will all have our toenails painted camo green by El Jefe ...

An undocumented immigrant writes me, “The Democratic Party is not our friend: it is the only party we can negotiate with.” Or as a Nevada activist friend put it, “Oh my God, go be sanctimonious in California and don't vote or whatever, but those bitching radicals are basically suppressing the vote in states where it matters” ...

You don’t have to participate in this system, but you do have to describe it and its complexities and contradictions accurately, and you do have to understand that when you choose not to participate, it better be for reasons more interesting than the cultivation of your own moral superiority, which is so often also the cultivation of recreational bitterness ...

http://www.thenation.com/article/170202/letter-my-allies-left

[flamingdem]

11. I know the writer and she's good people

but this letter was a bit of a surprise. Anyway, she's very smart so I'm sure she'll be okay! I trust her to come to a reasonable place once the enthusiasm wears off a bit. Thanks for pointing that she has solid politics and isn't another Naderite Bay Area Loon.

[struggle4progress]

13. I don't know what most people actual knew about the NSA. I tend to follow lots of links, so

long before Snowden appeared on the scene, I knew that the NSA might be holding data for five years and that current practice allows retaining intercepts when NSA "believes" it comes from a non-citizen. And I expect that almost anyone of sound mind is concerned about the potential scale of such operations. But there are multiple conflicting principles here IMO. One is that after the lawless behavior of the Bush era, it becomes important to re-establish the rule of law. Another is the importance of exposing the "you should viote third-party or not vote" strategy of the libertarians, who have for several years now been working to strip otherwise progressive voters from the Democratic camp: they cost us NC IMO, and I'm not inclined to cooperate with that wavelength of the political spectrum right now. I think every informed person, who thought carefully about the current state of American politics, knew that Mr Obama would necessarily be a disappointment for many reasons, not least of which is the fact that the country has wandered into a dank and dismal political swamp, from which we will extricate ourselves only by a long determined unenjoyable slog. The methods of the Old Left remain relevant IMO, but they require somewhat tedious analysis and extended nuts-and-bolts grassroots organizing -- compared to which, it is relatively easy to convince oneself that bitching and moaning are productive and morally-superior acts

We can win many of the fights facing us -- including the necessary struggle for privacy, waged not only against the government but against the larger world of corporate data collectors, whether they be marketeers or privatized national security operators -- but the brunt of the work will not be done by self-satisfied keyboard commandos: it's going to require actually talking to lots of people face-to-face and providing accurate information and credible bite-sized bits of strategy

[flamingdem]

14. I like your analysis. My concerns have always been more about citizen power

regarding abominations like Citizen's United. If the NSA issue can get people talking about all of these related issues that would be great. I see it being used to drive a wedge and noticed that the No Labels group is paying for ads already, so the fight is beginning and it won't be pretty. The amount of real face to face effort required might explain why people have latched onto Snowden, for some escapism and wish for instant solutions.

[Benton D Struckcheon]

30. You're not cynical enough.

There's two factions on this board who don't care about the Democratic Party: Greens and Libertarians. I'm past the point of caring what either of them thinks. The discussions around this issue would be a lot more rational and fact-based without their naiveté screwing up the conversation. I didn't sign onto this board to listen to either the Tea Party or its left equivalent. Both are useless.

[flamingdem]

31. I would be but this avalanche of Snowdenmania makes me pause

about the vulnerability of the Democratic Party to these kinds of machinations.

I have been looking at all the connections, a Koch connection wouldn't surprise me, Libertarianism of Left or Right are a danger to the party because young people and the clueless are jumping on board.. just like Nader days.. and they'll start their bs about how it's useless to bother voting soon.

Assange and Co are nihilists, some here play at that, they embrace Russia of all things in their fervor to attack the USA. Meanwhile we have a viable President, but they work to destroy him even while knowing what the Republicans are all about, disgraceful.

[Progressive dog]

16. As violin music softly plays,

Airport Eddie blesses his worshipers at the luggage carousel.

[randome]

17. As Chief Justice, er, I mean Head Deacon Assange passes the hat.

Be generous when it's your turn to donate! Here's my donation:
[hr][font color="blue"][center]There is nothing you can't do if you put your mind to it.
Nothing.[/center][/font][hr]

[flamingdem]

22. Verily, verily, I say unto thee,

Except a man be born of data and [of] the Intel, he cannot enter into the kingdom of Wikileak. John 3:5

[randome]

25. Oh, that's good!

[hr][font color="blue"][center]There is nothing you can't do if you put your mind to it.
Nothing.[/center][/font][hr]

[flamingdem]

26. Glad you liked it!

[flamingdem]

19. This is perfect for the Vanity Fair "Guessing the sentences in GG's new ES" book!

http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2013/07/guessing-the-sentences-in-glenn-greenwald-s-new-edward-snowden-book

[NoPasaran]

18. Let me open up another box of wine

[flamingdem]

23. I needed a few glasses myself after reading that!

[AllINeedIsCoffee]

20. History's heroes are forever tarnished

by this modern and moronic rush to compare everyone to a heroic figure of the past, whether they've earned it or not.

[flamingdem]

21. If he's going to be a Russian citizen let's hope he'll be compared to Lenin

or Trotsky. Or Putin someday!

[randome]

27. They can go on 'rides' together!

[hr][font color="blue"][center]There is nothing you can't do if you put your mind to it.
Nothing.[/center][/font][hr]

[flamingdem]

29. I want to start the

Official Vladimir Putin DU Fanclub!

He's so misunderstood, we just need to give him a chance and make Obama be fair to him!

[Scurrilous]

24. Oh, boy.

Some people are so desperate for a hero they resort to creating ones out of fools and nobodies.


Anne Frank, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, TheTrueHOOHA.


Which one doesn't belong?

[flamingdem]

28. ha ha ha HOOOOHA!

Wonder if he's saying to himself "hoooha, I'm stuck in Russia now, ohh".

[Scurrilous]

36. LOL

[cliffordu]

32. Jesus fucking Christ on a cracker. MLK?? Anne Frank??? Why not Ghandi?

Or Jerry Lee Lewis?

This fucking guy might be a hero, mebbe a zero.


This kind of frotteurism needs to go. Pfthhhh

[flamingdem]

33. Snowden Crackers -

Expand yourself with every glorified bite! (byte?0

[cliffordu]

34. Hero or zero? Not enough info.

I'll wait to canonize him until I know more.

Lotta bullshit making the rounds.

[flamingdem]

35. A binary dilemma 0/1

I haven't seen much reason to canonize him yet, but I find other issues more pressing. I think tracking is obvious considering the digital age. What I've noticed is that the issue is being used as yet another scandal to undermine the administration, so that's suspicious.

There's every reason to look at the Wikileaks connection. Assange has a program on Russian RT television, is friends with anti-semite Israel Shamir, Russian writer, and the FSB Russian security swooped in on the press conference along with ex FSB lawyer etc. so it looks more than convenient as an operation that has done damage to the USA with adversaries Russia and China. So he seems just a bit too hooked up in China and Russia. Demonstrations springing up in Hong Kong with printed signs and the talking points in place so quickly? Please.

My question is more: how innocent is Snowden?