Edward Snowden made a calm, compelling case for clemency last night. He's a patriot.

[liberalmike27]

221. Snowden Did Well

I thought Brian Williams did OK during the interview, and I didn't think Snowden called himself a hero, though he did say Patriot. And he's smart enough to understand that the word "Patriot" means different things to different people. In his case, it meant trying to defend the constitution, and rights people seem to be so willing to give up.

After reading a substantial number of posts on this whole thread, a couple of thoughts come to mind. One, I never see how well our center-right, to far right ideological spectrum in our media works, in getting Americans to fall into line, and follow each-other right over the cliff. When it comes to pushing us into various wars, or the surveillance required because we killed and bombed both innocents and actual potential terrorists alike, the media does a great job in not only getting right-wingers to step in line, and goose-step, but a lot of Democrats too.

Snowden made some great points--it is scary to think, as I type here, even if I correct it before I post, that some guy could be sitting up there, making judgements about what I might type, then take back, never even posting.

The title was probably the most biased thing in the Interview. "Inside the Mind of Edward Snowden." Might as well have just thrown the implied "demented" or "traitorous" into the title.

Maybe we should just not bomb and kill foreigners all over the globe generating enemies rather than angering a people so much they're willing to kill themselves, just to demonstrate how THEY feel when we bomb and kill their people with our Air Force. Of course no right-thinking pundit, who wants to keep their job in the American media, is going to say "See how you feel now? That is what they feel like, when we drop a missile in the middle of their weddings, or social events, killing anyone within a radius, and knowing we're going to be doing that."

If we stop jumping into every war, and serving as the voluntary PoPo for the world, then we'll not need to spend money to spy on EVERYONE, to collect all data. And anyone who think this is intended as ONLY a method of stopping terrorism, is engaging in foolish behavior. This is a sweeping change in our legal system, making previously unconstitutional techniques, now legal. The NSA regularly hands data they collect, to other branches of government. Much like the militarization of our police forces, and their amped up aggression of the last decade, this is just another cudgel to resist the eventual chaos we are so obviously headed toward.

The rich have created this world, where wealth is poorly distributed, where the poor are neglected, their jobs shipped away. Instead of FDR solutions, higher taxes on inheritances and income and putting them into the same tax system everyone else is in, they intend to increase prisons, make more things criminal, and use every resource in all of that collected data, and privatize the prisons, to make money off the misery they are creating, as well.

It's a bad road we're heading down. I know Americans aren't too swift at looking ahead in the game. But we're in an increasingly losing position, and agreeing to surveillance, is just another bad move. Perhaps you can do nothing else--but at least fight against it be not agreeing to this constitutional violation. Save money on the front and back ends. Let's not war, and we won't have to spy.