Snowden to NSA: Go ahead, deny I tried to raise the alarm

[tblue37]

244. It is especially foolish--and a RW tactic that all liberals and Dems should

absolutely eschew--to call your opposing interlocutor a "commie," which is what the appellation "Comrade" signifies.

The RW used accusations of communist "fellow traveling" or of actual party membership as a way of attacking (and often destroying) those they disagreed with. What we call that tactic now is McCarthyism. Obviously that label can now be used appropriately for any attempt to smear an opponent using guilt by association, especially when the effort is an organized, focused one, and even more so when those coordinating the effort are powerful or agents of power.

But when such smears are couched *specifically* as accusations of being a "commie pinko," which is what calling someone "Comrade" means in these particular circumstances, then such a smear is not just unconscionable, but also downright absurd.

In case anyone didn't get the memo, the Soviet Union fell apart toward the end of the last century. Though Russia is a dangerous geopolitical entity and in many ways an antagonist and competitor of the US, it is no longer communist, nor does it claim to be.

It is a kleptocratic oligarchy with a powerful autocrat at the top of that oligarchy. But it is also an unashamedly *capitalist* kleptocracy, strikingly similar in many ways to the way our own capitalistic oligarchy operates, although the powerful class in Russia has been able to take their society and its satellites much further down the path toward the oligarchs' desired outcome than our kleptocrats have managed to do here, though our kleptocrats are clearly making progress, and at an accelerating rate, toward their preferred social and economic conditions.

If one wishes to criticize Snowden and/or his actions (and BTW, those are *not* precisely the same thing), then by all means, have at it. But please, especially here on a site that is self-defined as a haven for discussion by liberals and democrats, don't try to smear him as a "commie pinko." That is both offensive and ridiculous.