General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Snowden Is No Traitor. What He EXPOSED Is What's TREASON. [View all]HumansAndResources
(229 posts)This is not to disparage Manning, who took a huge risk in leaking the info to Wikileaks, and has paid a terrible price. But he didn't do it and then tell the world he had done it - as Snowden did. His strategy was to do his part in serving humanity and not get caught by the mass-murdering Gestapo for whom he worked - nothing wrong with that.
BUT, if he had planned to be "caught," he might have acted very differently. I would say, if he thought he would be exposed, he SHOULD have gone to a safe-nation first. Only a fool would think that he would get 'justice' in our crony-corporate system, today. Look at the conviction-ratios in Federal Courts. The NSA works for the Transnationals - not you and me - and so do "our" courts - especially post-Reagan. Ellsberg backs Snowden's decision to flee, contrasting what has changed since his time - see his op-ed.
A system with widespread wealth-disparity requires force to sustain it, and that force, today in the USA, is our government. It is easy to tell where governments do not serve the Transnationals, because the corporate-press calls those nations' leaders "Dictators" - even when they are elected and/or clearly preferable to the 'opposition' backed by the West, from the perspective of the vast majority of their citizens. It is similarly easy to tell when the Transnationals do not like a candidate for political office in the USA, because they are labelled, "Unelectable" - and this is repeated over, and over, and over, and over ... until the 'prophecy' is fulfilled (see: Dennis Kucinich).