OF JUSTICE FOR EDWARD SNOWDEN may never be concluded to encapsulate the veracity of what he actually did or did not do, or answer the question as to whether it was or was not an act of patriotism or merely the act of an uncaring backstabber. Out there in the scary world, the demons of our imagination will roam freely; and yet many facts will forever be safely locked away in the protective cages of what we call National Security. One day, he may be back on American soil and sitting at the defense table; flanked by his lawyers, dozens of armed court officers and additional protection provided by our government in the form of the Secret Service and others, with the room itself inlaid with metal detectors; and all who sit in the courtroom will, of course, have the highest security clearance; which means that neither your nor I will be present; and if the past is any prologue to this imagined future - Snowden will, as always, look almost serene.
By design or habit, he will be dressed as an ordinary citizen, steel rimmed glasses sliding down his sharp nose. You see people like him every day, passing you in the street, riding with you in a bus or on the subway, neither monstrous or heroic. From time to time, he will whisper to his lawyer. He may even make a note or two on a yellow pad. His eyes will wander around the courtroom, with its civil service design and the words In God We Trust nailed in sans-serif letters on the wall somewhere above where those who will be judging him will be sitting with stone-faced arrogance; and in some curious way, Snowden too, will become a spectator. As will the majority of his lawyers. This is, after all, a unique American procedure wherein the defense will not be provided with all the information that the Government possesses on the defendant, in that he is considered by Uncle Sam to be a renegade-turncoat wh0 committed espionage, a contemporary Benedict Arnold.
And this will be the moment that helps explain the intensity of the public response in the Snowden story. It is one thing to sit back with detached opinions about what he has or has not done, another tabloid soap opera that has little to do with our daily lives; other than, of course, the fact that the basis of our democratic freedom and the real possibility that it has forever been lost by having the folks at the NSA, walking arm in arm with the ever vigilant neo-cons, like twin nocturnal burglars extracting any information they wish to gather about each and every one of us until Snowden leaked to the public what they had been up to.
Naturally, with the way Uncle Sam treats cases such as this, the bet is that Snowden will be found guilty on all counts.
And if you can believe the look on his face, Snowden will most likely seem to be happy, even with a verdict of guilt. What he did by leaking his stolen information, he thought, needed to be done for the safety of his and our country. The fusion of our belief system produces the militant, a warrior fighting for an idea, and those who protest about his breaking the law; the two figures are conjoined: the warrior and those who believe that, right or wrong, the law must always be protected. And whatever that verdict actually turns out to be, most of us will be uneasy with a question about the role of average American, those not in the know of how American intelligence agencies protect us from ourselves.
America, like all countries ruled by secretive politicians and covert agencies of intelligence, can become a oligarchy of the stupid, wherein anyone with opinions not held by those in power can be silenced, jailed, or driven into exile because they are ideologically suspect; while being replaced by mediocrities, ass-kissing careerists, and political hacks. Not so long ago, we too, once had a blacklist that prevented writers, directors, and actors from working in movies or television - on ideological grounds. During the McCarthy era we, too, lost scientists, schoolteachers, and scholars on ideological grounds by those who couldn't challenge the intelligence of a cocker spaniel. Much like those on the political Right these days, who wish to impose the party line on everything from abortion to the content of television shows, and deem those who stand against them as communists or socialists; and in the current political climate, we do not know how dangerous Snowden is or was.
This is not to say that the United States is the moral equivalent of a totalitarian state. That's ludicrous. But all human beings, including Americans, are confronted daily by the temptation of the totalitarian solution, which includes those Good Old Draconian Measures to deal with our disorders. They would gladly surrender the Bill of Rights if that meant clearing the streets of who in any way, shape, or form - disagree with them. Apparently, nothing makes some Americans blood quicken when it comes to revenge. My question is this: which do we prefer, men and women with the courage of their convictions, or those who prefer propaganda and oratory and complete adherence to their world-view?
The answer is up to us...
And this will be the moment that helps explain the intensity of the public response in the Snowden story. It is one thing to sit back with detached opinions about what he has or has not done, another tabloid soap opera that has little to do with our daily lives; other than, of course, the fact that the basis of our democratic freedom and the real possibility that it has forever been lost by having the folks at the NSA, walking arm in arm with the ever vigilant neo-cons, like twin nocturnal burglars extracting any information they wish to gather about each and every one of us until Snowden leaked to the public what they had been up to.
Naturally, with the way Uncle Sam treats cases such as this, the bet is that Snowden will be found guilty on all counts.
And if you can believe the look on his face, Snowden will most likely seem to be happy, even with a verdict of guilt. What he did by leaking his stolen information, he thought, needed to be done for the safety of his and our country. The fusion of our belief system produces the militant, a warrior fighting for an idea, and those who protest about his breaking the law; the two figures are conjoined: the warrior and those who believe that, right or wrong, the law must always be protected. And whatever that verdict actually turns out to be, most of us will be uneasy with a question about the role of average American, those not in the know of how American intelligence agencies protect us from ourselves.
America, like all countries ruled by secretive politicians and covert agencies of intelligence, can become a oligarchy of the stupid, wherein anyone with opinions not held by those in power can be silenced, jailed, or driven into exile because they are ideologically suspect; while being replaced by mediocrities, ass-kissing careerists, and political hacks. Not so long ago, we too, once had a blacklist that prevented writers, directors, and actors from working in movies or television - on ideological grounds. During the McCarthy era we, too, lost scientists, schoolteachers, and scholars on ideological grounds by those who couldn't challenge the intelligence of a cocker spaniel. Much like those on the political Right these days, who wish to impose the party line on everything from abortion to the content of television shows, and deem those who stand against them as communists or socialists; and in the current political climate, we do not know how dangerous Snowden is or was.
This is not to say that the United States is the moral equivalent of a totalitarian state. That's ludicrous. But all human beings, including Americans, are confronted daily by the temptation of the totalitarian solution, which includes those Good Old Draconian Measures to deal with our disorders. They would gladly surrender the Bill of Rights if that meant clearing the streets of who in any way, shape, or form - disagree with them. Apparently, nothing makes some Americans blood quicken when it comes to revenge. My question is this: which do we prefer, men and women with the courage of their convictions, or those who prefer propaganda and oratory and complete adherence to their world-view?
The answer is up to us...
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