You are not a businessman. You are a representative of the public. Your lack of a funny bone is not the reason you have free reign over artistic expression.
As I said, I don't know the guy and those are just my conclusions based on reading it for myself. By no means am I an expert. It just doesn't vibe with what came before out of Snowden. Not like it's harmful or anything. It's just different.
Linguistics and the language of economic theory have some interesting and different entry points.
As I said, all this does is point out that there are indeed things that are off, as if it's not an American speaking.
Yes, I do speak in different registers and use different terms than what people use to avoid buzzwords and loaded terms. But there's a certain way people speak that you tend to notice.
The comment suggesting that he is "plain spoken" is typical of what I've been watching for the last month
That seems to be addressed to me.
So let me explain. I have nothing against your son or his intelligence. But I do study language. Having to read how people speak and talk is interesting to me. All I've stated is more that he doesn't talk as grandiose as Assange. After watched the Wikileaks documentary from a while back, Assange has certain things that he enjoys doing. It's like a calling card. He likes to accuse the US of these issues as well as speak in a more grandiose manner.
It's not a put down, it's just a different way of talking. No, I don't know your son personally, but I'd love to have a beer with the guy and talk to him about how he worked to save the country similar to other whistleblowers.
It's not an attack on him, it's just saying that there are things he seems to say differently than Assange who I'm making the comparison to.
Sorry, but reading Edward's interview and comparing it to this leaves a feeling of being off. This thing has been embellished.
" This kind of deception from a world leader is not justice, and neither is the extralegal penalty of exile."
This is way to grandiose for the more plain spoken Edward. Edward has a wry humor to him.
Remember how he talked about dying for country? Simple. To the point.
" In the end the Obama administration is not afraid of whistleblowers like me, Bradley Manning or Thomas Drake. We are stateless, imprisoned, or powerless."
Again, this is prose. Poetic. It doesn't vibe with Snowden's history. This is a man that has been more at home with a computer. Analyzing and sifting data uses more analytical thought which doesn't coincide with speech. You learn to talk and I doubt that Edward had that kind of interest.
My thoughts? He had a rough draft, but Assange decided to use Snowden for his own purposes. Take that as you will.
That's not how the Senate works though. You only have 1/3 of the Senate open to elections at a time.
I really think it's high time to change how our bicameral legislative branch works though. It's pretty bad that both of them represent the elites over the public.
We've lost our democracy and corporate interests rule us. How do we get it back?
The courts are against us, the executive and legislative branches work for the rich. So it's time to figure out why our democratic republic was usurped and put corporations and the government back into the power of the people instead of the rich...
I'm sure that Edward Bernays would be proud. He wrote the book on propaganda which is used by the corporate elite to push their agenda.
The fact is that his best student was Richard Nixon. He gave him a three step program to get elected then use the election to push his agenda. And now Obama plays from that same playbook. There's no Frank Church to counter this argument. Now we have the Edward Snowdens and Julian Assanges.
Why? Well, it's mostly because of the "Public Relations" that people have to sift through. I don't think it will end anytime soon. When the public has the means to decipher the BS, they are attacked. Wikileaks? Not as strong as it could be for journalism. Manning? Silenced. Assange? Silenced. Snowden? A traitor for exposing spying.
And from what I've seen, we could have a much better society if it weren't for the fact that it's catered to the richest in America. It's not a surprise that our deficit is the loss of taxes the rich pay. It's not a joke that our public schools are suffering and depriving our children of an education. And it's not all that impressive that people like Snowden have looked into this abyss and seen the power of a profit motive similar to the Stratfor emails or even FISA court processes.
Yet Obama is supposed to be the king here? I don't think that's right. He's going through the motions of protecting the aristocracy. That's the most depressing thing here. We have Google spying on us for their benefit:
The director of Google Ideas, Jared Cohen, was adviser to Condaleeza Rice, the former secretary of state in the Bush administration who lied that Saddam Hussein could attack the US with nuclear weapons.
Cohen and Google's executive chairman, Eric Schmidt ― they met in the ruins of Iraq ― have co-authored a book, The New Digital Age, endorsed as visionary by the former CIA director Michael Hayden and the war criminals Henry Kissinger and Tony Blair.
Yet we go on... The war on the public continues as we have a country catered to the powerful. Yet very few "journalists" exist to curb this, opting instead to make friends and promote what people say without any fact checking. We have a corporate influence, which handles the public relations nightmare and gives us bad information. It's promoted by the state while protecting the powerful.
How much more is the American public going to take before people say enough?
The cognitive dissonance on display here is just awe inspiring... I hadn't thought about this until I read this article but how much more can the public and the government delude themselves that this is okay?
Is there something about their beliefs that make those beliefs apply only in the slavery context?
Slavery was the civil rights issue of the day and it has been handled pretty badly for the past 300 years. I feel that people have to recognize that both of these Founders (or in Henry's context a Framer) weren't very good on the civil rights issues of their day. They failed based on their own personal beliefs. I know that both have people that idolize them but the thing is... Their choices in who could appeal to the government had consequences that we're still facing to this day.
I appreciate TJ for what he's done for copyrights and patents. But having to study what he's done, it hurts sometimes when I have to look at his dark side and recognize that this was the same person.
This is the same man that felt that the Alien Sedition Acts were not fit for the public (it was the Patriot Act of the day) and helped the country to flourish. But every time it came to the civil rights of the weakest and most vulnerable people, he balked.
When his friend died, giving him a chance to free his slaves and mistress, he didn't. In April of 1820, he wrote a letter to John Holmes of Massachusetts predicting the Civil War. He had a LONG time to reflect on this. One of his black slaves had tried to run away three times. His mistress was under his care until he died. He'd been a king in America while alive.
But his actions had consequences. The slaves were separated upon his death. Before the 1800s, he fought for slaves, then he did little for them. His silence on the Declaration that "All men are equal" has little meaning with those who were born with darker skin.
That's the dark side we have to understand in order that we don't repeat the same mistakes in the future.
With that said, writing off the rest of his accomplishments is a stunning act of stupidity.
I'm not. Really, it's not like I'm just saying he isn't above criticism but this:
The man was a brilliant lawyer, doubled the land area of the United States in the space of one day, was a botanist, politician, laid siege to Tripoli, and most importantly was the co-author of the Virginia Statute on Religious Freedom, the very basis for the 1st Amendment.
... Should be considered in the context of the irony of him buying all the land. He didn't. It fell in his lap because he didn't want to help out Haiti.
In 1801, Jefferson became the third President of the United States – and his interests at least temporarily aligned with Napoleon’s. The French dictator wanted to restore French control of St. Domingue and Jefferson wanted to see the slave rebellion crushed. President Jefferson and Secretary of State Madison collaborated with Napoleon through secret diplomatic channels. Napoleon asked Jefferson if the United States would help a French army traveling by sea to St. Domingue. Jefferson replied that “nothing will be easier than to furnish your army and fleet with everything and reduce Toussaint [L’Ouverture] to starvation.”
But Napoleon had a secret second phase of his plan that he didn’t share with Jefferson. Once the French army had subdued L’Ouverture and his rebel force, Napoleon intended to advance to the North American mainland, basing a new French empire in New Orleans and settling the vast territory west of the Mississippi River.
...
By 1803, a frustrated Napoleon – denied his foothold in the New World – agreed to sell New Orleans and the Louisiana territories to Jefferson, a negotiation handled by Madison that ironically required just the sort of expansive interpretation of federal powers that the Jeffersonians ordinarily disdained. However, a greater irony was that the Louisiana Purchase, which opened the heart of the present United States to American settlement and is regarded as possibly Jefferson’s greatest achievement as president, had been made possible despite Jefferson’s misguided – and racist – collaboration with Napoleon.
In short, I don't discredit Jefferson or his accomplishments. I just want it to be understood that he was indeed flawed and I'd argue that Madison is a better person to study based on how he actually wanted a better democratic republic.
Hell, I still acknowledge Alexander Hamilton for his 11 point plan which George Washington implemented. I don't agree with everything he did (calling Aaron Burr names was a bad idea...) but they did a lot to get the first democratic experiment working.
They've done a lot but they had their own issues that have had consequences which is what I want to point out.
What about, "Give me liberty or give me death"? That seems to have been totally forgotten, and certainly foregoes the balance sheet.
There's a reason why... No matter how much we look to the Founding Fathers for guidance in these matters, no matter how much they fought for their own freedoms from British imperialism, you have to remember that they were flawed.
Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry were indeed the worst.
I used to like TJ a lot so I'll start with him. The fact is that if you ever read about Thomas Jefferson, you remember that he wrote in the Declaration that "All men are created equal".
He didn't care much for his slaves, where he had a total of 140 of them to take care of him after his presidency. He had a chance to free his slaves and he balked. Sure, he used pseudo-science for his bigotry, but it didn't stop him from figuring out that for each slave he had, his earnings accrued 4% interest every year. All men were created equal until it came to the ones working for him.
And then you have Patrick Henry. I would spit on his grave. He was a Framer of the Constitution that specifically asked James Madison to change the Second Amendment so that they could keep the business model of slavery. He fought hard with Fear, Ignorance, Bigotry, and Smear to ensure that the people that made the least amount of money in the country were kept as the most destitute, which affected our history for generations. Patrick Henry was the libertarian of his day and he absolutely pushed for the 3/5th Compromise in the Constitution and an Electoral College along with a bicameral court that allows for political inequality in our legislative branch. From those inequalities, we've lost our economic equality. The public has little access to the Courts, the president, or their own legislators. And I blame people like Patrick Henry, who argued (beautifully) that they needed guns to force "their property" to behave.
If I talk about Founders or Framers, I'd rather talk about George Washington who wanted nothing more than to see America succeed. I liked James Madison who figured out the problems of our inherently bad voting system and hoped that we wouldn't form factions (although later on he would be more supportive of democratic institutions).
But Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry shouldn't be studied (imo) unless you want to see the duplicity of actions that comes from people that believe in civil rights for themselves but not for others based on their skin and how much money they make off a business model.
On the post: Ohio AG Gets Urban Outfitters To Pull Satirical Prescription Coffee Mugs From Stores, Citing His Own Lack Of Humor
How about a nice cup of shut the hell up?
You are not a businessman. You are a representative of the public. Your lack of a funny bone is not the reason you have free reign over artistic expression.
Sincerely,
Dis guy on da innernets
On the post: Did Ed Snowden Actually Write His Latest 'Statement'?
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Ed Snowden
On the post: Did Ed Snowden Actually Write His Latest 'Statement'?
Re: Re: Re: Ed Snowden
Linguistics and the language of economic theory have some interesting and different entry points.
As I said, all this does is point out that there are indeed things that are off, as if it's not an American speaking.
Yes, I do speak in different registers and use different terms than what people use to avoid buzzwords and loaded terms. But there's a certain way people speak that you tend to notice.
On the post: A Human Right To Science, Locked Behind A Paywall, Inspires New Meme
Folks, it's simple...
(Dear gods my mouth threw up a little...)
On the post: Did Ed Snowden Actually Write His Latest 'Statement'?
Re: Ed Snowden
That seems to be addressed to me.
So let me explain. I have nothing against your son or his intelligence. But I do study language. Having to read how people speak and talk is interesting to me. All I've stated is more that he doesn't talk as grandiose as Assange. After watched the Wikileaks documentary from a while back, Assange has certain things that he enjoys doing. It's like a calling card. He likes to accuse the US of these issues as well as speak in a more grandiose manner.
It's not a put down, it's just a different way of talking. No, I don't know your son personally, but I'd love to have a beer with the guy and talk to him about how he worked to save the country similar to other whistleblowers.
It's not an attack on him, it's just saying that there are things he seems to say differently than Assange who I'm making the comparison to.
On the post: Did Ed Snowden Actually Write His Latest 'Statement'?
Assange prints...
" This kind of deception from a world leader is not justice, and neither is the extralegal penalty of exile."
This is way to grandiose for the more plain spoken Edward. Edward has a wry humor to him.
Remember how he talked about dying for country? Simple. To the point.
" In the end the Obama administration is not afraid of whistleblowers like me, Bradley Manning or Thomas Drake. We are stateless, imprisoned, or powerless."
Again, this is prose. Poetic. It doesn't vibe with Snowden's history. This is a man that has been more at home with a computer. Analyzing and sifting data uses more analytical thought which doesn't coincide with speech. You learn to talk and I doubt that Edward had that kind of interest.
My thoughts? He had a rough draft, but Assange decided to use Snowden for his own purposes. Take that as you will.
On the post: ChurchHatesTucker's Favorite Techdirt Posts Of The Week
Re:
On the post: Growing Number Of Senators Demand Answers About NSA Surveillance
Re:
I really think it's high time to change how our bicameral legislative branch works though. It's pretty bad that both of them represent the elites over the public.
On the post: Former Second Highest Ranking General In The US Apparently Under Investigation For 'Leaking' Stuxnet Info
Rome
Keith Alexander is going after people to gain more power... Why do I feel that our republic is lost to private actors?
On the post: UK Police Routinely Spy On 9000 'Domestic Terrorists' Very Loosely Defined
I couldn't resist...
It's over 9000!
On the post: How Three Decades Of Conservative Chief Justices Turned The FISA Court Into A Rubber Stamp
Loss
We've lost our democracy and corporate interests rule us. How do we get it back?
The courts are against us, the executive and legislative branches work for the rich. So it's time to figure out why our democratic republic was usurped and put corporations and the government back into the power of the people instead of the rich...
On the post: US Officials Realizing That Snowden May Have Copied Info On Almost Everything The NSA Does
Ha ha...
Ha... HA... HAHAHAHAHA!
*gasp*
*looks at the words again*
HAHAHAHAHAHA!
50 years of secrecy culture upended by one whistleblower while they're in power? We have a LOT of work to do before that happens...
On the post: Shallow Surveillance Efforts Like PRISM Will Only Catch The 'Stupidest, Lowest-Ranking Of Terrorists'
So wait...
What's the point of this program again?
On the post: Journalist Andrew Ross Sorkin Suggests US Should Arrest Glenn Greenwald For Doing Journalism
State propaganda
The fact is that his best student was Richard Nixon. He gave him a three step program to get elected then use the election to push his agenda. And now Obama plays from that same playbook. There's no Frank Church to counter this argument. Now we have the Edward Snowdens and Julian Assanges.
Why? Well, it's mostly because of the "Public Relations" that people have to sift through. I don't think it will end anytime soon. When the public has the means to decipher the BS, they are attacked. Wikileaks? Not as strong as it could be for journalism. Manning? Silenced. Assange? Silenced. Snowden? A traitor for exposing spying.
And from what I've seen, we could have a much better society if it weren't for the fact that it's catered to the richest in America. It's not a surprise that our deficit is the loss of taxes the rich pay. It's not a joke that our public schools are suffering and depriving our children of an education. And it's not all that impressive that people like Snowden have looked into this abyss and seen the power of a profit motive similar to the Stratfor emails or even FISA court processes.
Yet Obama is supposed to be the king here? I don't think that's right. He's going through the motions of protecting the aristocracy. That's the most depressing thing here. We have Google spying on us for their benefit:
The director of Google Ideas, Jared Cohen, was adviser to Condaleeza Rice, the former secretary of state in the Bush administration who lied that Saddam Hussein could attack the US with nuclear weapons.
Cohen and Google's executive chairman, Eric Schmidt ― they met in the ruins of Iraq ― have co-authored a book, The New Digital Age, endorsed as visionary by the former CIA director Michael Hayden and the war criminals Henry Kissinger and Tony Blair.
Yet we go on... The war on the public continues as we have a country catered to the powerful. Yet very few "journalists" exist to curb this, opting instead to make friends and promote what people say without any fact checking. We have a corporate influence, which handles the public relations nightmare and gives us bad information. It's promoted by the state while protecting the powerful.
How much more is the American public going to take before people say enough?
On the post: Irony Abounds: Snowden Charged For Spying When What He Really Did Was Reveal Massive Spying
Wow...
On the post: Trading Lives For Freedom Is The American Way
Re: Re: Re: Re: Debbie Downer
No offense, but that's what essentially brought down Clinton even though his accusers were doing the same thing.
We've lost a lot of progress based on morality points...
On the post: Trading Lives For Freedom Is The American Way
Re: Re: Debbie Downer
Slavery was the civil rights issue of the day and it has been handled pretty badly for the past 300 years. I feel that people have to recognize that both of these Founders (or in Henry's context a Framer) weren't very good on the civil rights issues of their day. They failed based on their own personal beliefs. I know that both have people that idolize them but the thing is... Their choices in who could appeal to the government had consequences that we're still facing to this day.
I appreciate TJ for what he's done for copyrights and patents. But having to study what he's done, it hurts sometimes when I have to look at his dark side and recognize that this was the same person.
This is the same man that felt that the Alien Sedition Acts were not fit for the public (it was the Patriot Act of the day) and helped the country to flourish. But every time it came to the civil rights of the weakest and most vulnerable people, he balked.
When his friend died, giving him a chance to free his slaves and mistress, he didn't. In April of 1820, he wrote a letter to John Holmes of Massachusetts predicting the Civil War. He had a LONG time to reflect on this. One of his black slaves had tried to run away three times. His mistress was under his care until he died. He'd been a king in America while alive.
But his actions had consequences. The slaves were separated upon his death. Before the 1800s, he fought for slaves, then he did little for them. His silence on the Declaration that "All men are equal" has little meaning with those who were born with darker skin.
That's the dark side we have to understand in order that we don't repeat the same mistakes in the future.
On the post: Trading Lives For Freedom Is The American Way
Re: Re: Debbie Downer
I'm not. Really, it's not like I'm just saying he isn't above criticism but this:
The man was a brilliant lawyer, doubled the land area of the United States in the space of one day, was a botanist, politician, laid siege to Tripoli, and most importantly was the co-author of the Virginia Statute on Religious Freedom, the very basis for the 1st Amendment.
... Should be considered in the context of the irony of him buying all the land. He didn't. It fell in his lap because he didn't want to help out Haiti.
In 1801, Jefferson became the third President of the United States – and his interests at least temporarily aligned with Napoleon’s. The French dictator wanted to restore French control of St. Domingue and Jefferson wanted to see the slave rebellion crushed. President Jefferson and Secretary of State Madison collaborated with Napoleon through secret diplomatic channels. Napoleon asked Jefferson if the United States would help a French army traveling by sea to St. Domingue. Jefferson replied that “nothing will be easier than to furnish your army and fleet with everything and reduce Toussaint [L’Ouverture] to starvation.”
But Napoleon had a secret second phase of his plan that he didn’t share with Jefferson. Once the French army had subdued L’Ouverture and his rebel force, Napoleon intended to advance to the North American mainland, basing a new French empire in New Orleans and settling the vast territory west of the Mississippi River.
...
By 1803, a frustrated Napoleon – denied his foothold in the New World – agreed to sell New Orleans and the Louisiana territories to Jefferson, a negotiation handled by Madison that ironically required just the sort of expansive interpretation of federal powers that the Jeffersonians ordinarily disdained. However, a greater irony was that the Louisiana Purchase, which opened the heart of the present United States to American settlement and is regarded as possibly Jefferson’s greatest achievement as president, had been made possible despite Jefferson’s misguided – and racist – collaboration with Napoleon.
In short, I don't discredit Jefferson or his accomplishments. I just want it to be understood that he was indeed flawed and I'd argue that Madison is a better person to study based on how he actually wanted a better democratic republic.
Hell, I still acknowledge Alexander Hamilton for his 11 point plan which George Washington implemented. I don't agree with everything he did (calling Aaron Burr names was a bad idea...) but they did a lot to get the first democratic experiment working.
They've done a lot but they had their own issues that have had consequences which is what I want to point out.
On the post: Trading Lives For Freedom Is The American Way
Debbie Downer
There's a reason why... No matter how much we look to the Founding Fathers for guidance in these matters, no matter how much they fought for their own freedoms from British imperialism, you have to remember that they were flawed.
Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry were indeed the worst.
I used to like TJ a lot so I'll start with him. The fact is that if you ever read about Thomas Jefferson, you remember that he wrote in the Declaration that "All men are created equal".
He didn't care much for his slaves, where he had a total of 140 of them to take care of him after his presidency. He had a chance to free his slaves and he balked. Sure, he used pseudo-science for his bigotry, but it didn't stop him from figuring out that for each slave he had, his earnings accrued 4% interest every year. All men were created equal until it came to the ones working for him.
And then you have Patrick Henry. I would spit on his grave. He was a Framer of the Constitution that specifically asked James Madison to change the Second Amendment so that they could keep the business model of slavery. He fought hard with Fear, Ignorance, Bigotry, and Smear to ensure that the people that made the least amount of money in the country were kept as the most destitute, which affected our history for generations. Patrick Henry was the libertarian of his day and he absolutely pushed for the 3/5th Compromise in the Constitution and an Electoral College along with a bicameral court that allows for political inequality in our legislative branch. From those inequalities, we've lost our economic equality. The public has little access to the Courts, the president, or their own legislators. And I blame people like Patrick Henry, who argued (beautifully) that they needed guns to force "their property" to behave.
If I talk about Founders or Framers, I'd rather talk about George Washington who wanted nothing more than to see America succeed. I liked James Madison who figured out the problems of our inherently bad voting system and hoped that we wouldn't form factions (although later on he would be more supportive of democratic institutions).
But Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry shouldn't be studied (imo) unless you want to see the duplicity of actions that comes from people that believe in civil rights for themselves but not for others based on their skin and how much money they make off a business model.
On the post: Chamber Of Commerce Drops Lawsuit Against Parodists The Yes Men, Who Ask The Chamber To Reconsider
Re:
http://www.thenation.com/article/174851/strange-case-barrett-brown#axzz2WnGkfeJj
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