"John Kerry's Latest Snowden Comments Are Moronic, Offensive, and Dangerous"--Nathasha Lennard [View all]

[KoKo]

(Well I'd drop "Moronic" as OTT but I could go with "Offensive and Dangerous." She makes some good comments in this snip. She also mentions Bradley Manning in the rest of the article and how he "Manned Up.&quot

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John Kerry's Latest Snowden Comments Are Moronic, Offensive, and Dangerous

By Natasha Lennard
May 28, 2014 |

Secretary of State John Kerry repeated his line on NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden Tuesday with the most moronic aplomb to date.

Snowden had commented in an NBC interview that he had not intended to take refuge in Russia, but was stuck there en route to Latin America when the US government suspended his passport.

Kerry responded that the whistleblower should "man up," adding: "The fact is if he cares so much about America and he believes in America, he should trust in the American system of justice."

That our most senior diplomat still finds it acceptable to utter "man up" as a call to bravery is a misogyny-soaked problem enough to deserve its own column.

---snip-----

The underlying logic of his comment conflates "America" with the "American justice system." But if US justice is an avatar for America, it stands not as a representative but rather as an opponent to millions of Americans. And herein, I believe, lies a fundamental difference between those who see Snowden as hero and those who see him as an enemy.

It's a question of allegiance. The sort of care Snowden has exhibited towards the US is a care for its citizens: their rights, freedoms and access to knowledge about how their lives are watched and policed. His, one might say, is an allegiance to that old myth, "America the free." Kerry, meanwhile, shows his colors in aligning uncritically with "America the state."

Unlike Snowden, I'm no patriot. But the secretary of state's assumption that one cannot be patriotic while challenging the misdeeds of state institutions misreads care for a country's purported ideals with its institutional representatives. It's a dangerous logic that opens the door to any number of abuses and oppressions.

Continued at:

https://news.vice.com/article/john-kerrys-moronic-and-dangerous-snowden-comments