The smearing of Edward Snowden: What matters more - his actions

or the vagaries of his personality?

[Photo from Beat the Media]

 

 

Question for the New Republic: Who Gives a 'Fart' about What Snowden Thinks? (News, Switzerland)

 

"Who gives a flying fart about what Snowden thinks? Does it really matter whether he is a horrible person or a loving family man - like Heinrich Himmler, who exchanged banalities with his wife in between murders? ... History is replete with repulsive heroes and loveable monsters. If Snowden, Assange, and Greenwald are among the former - then so be it. What is relevant is not "who" exposed the surveillance conducted by the NSA monster, but that it was exposed at all."

 

By Patrik Etschmayer

                                     

 

Translated By Stephanie Martin

 

Jan. 31, 2014

 

Young Edward Snowden: Let's suppose he is an 'extremist right-wing libertarian gun fanatic who supports Ron Paul, and who scorns liberal values.' Should we care?   AL JAZEERA NEWS VIDEO: Does Edward Snowden deserve the Nobel Peace Prize?, Jan. 29, 00:08:09

News – Switzerland – Original Article (German)

Last week, the New Republic published a scathing article on Edward Snowden, Julian Assange, and Glenn Greenwald, questioning their motives in disseminating data stolen from the NSA and other government agencies.

 

Imagine the following scene: It's Sunday, and you're taking a stroll along a river with your family or partner. The snow begins to melt and the water level of the river is high. Your child or partner slips and falls into the raging water, and is immediately carried away. A hundred yards down river, the event is observed by another passerby, who immediately jumps into the water, risking his life and saving your loved one - who you had already given up for lost.

 

You hold a banquet in honor of your savior, and ask him to say a few words to those present - but the speech turns into a disaster: The rescue wasn't motivated by a desire to save the life of someone who was drowning, but rather by a desire to save the lake below from a stinking, bloated corpse - and besides, the man thinks everyone at the banquet is disgusting, but will eat anyway, because if anyone is dumb enough to invite him, he has no one but himself to blame!

 

Shocked silence all around, but ... does it matter? Your loved one is sitting at the table because this vile individual - who has now taken his seat and begun to eat without another word - saved him or her. The alternative would have been a funeral.

 

If we are to take the New Republic article at face value, and assume that Snowden has experienced absolutely no personal development, then we're dealing with a radical, almost extremist right-wing libertarian gun fanatic who supports Ron Paul, among other things. According to the article, he scorns liberal values, thinks automatic weapons should be freely available, and lied to his coworkers to obtain passwords for acquiring data, thereby ruining their careers (although these people ruined their own careers because they failed to adhere to the rules). So the implied conclusion is: Snowden presumably intends to overthrow the Obama government by revealing these secrets.

 

The question that the article opens with would then also be a logical one: "Would you feel differently about Snowden, Greenwald, and Assange, if you knew what they really thought?"

Posted By Worldmeets.US

 

But what isn't asked is: Who gives a flying fart about what Snowden thinks? Does it really matter whether he is a horrible person or a loving family man - like Heinrich Himmler, who exchanged banalities with his wife in between murders?

 

When we begin to correlate historically important actions with private lives, we are suddenly confronted with terribly interesting, completely irrelevant facts. How irrelevant? No matter how pathetic Einstein was as a father, thanks to his work, GPS technology functions and light bends exactly as he predicted. Or how about Reinhard Heydrich? He was cultured, a virtuoso violinist and pianist, and was pushed into Nazism by his wife. Does that make him a better person, or is the only relevant issue that he was responsible for thousands of murders and that he helped organize the Holocaust? Imagine if there was a Facebook hundreds of years ago, and Attila had not only reduced half the world to rubble and ashes, but had also posted cute pictures of cats, causing us to associate his name only with that cute kitten peering out of the skull of one of his victims? Precisely.

 

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This is Edward Snowden's only TV interview since arriving in Russia,

with German public TV. Snowden discusses how intelligence officials

are intent on killing him, how allied intelligence services cooperate to

circumvent laws that limit their capacity to spy on their own citizens,

and asserts that NSA steals trade secrets when it is considered in

the 'national interest' as opposed to the 'national security interest.'

Inexpicably unavailable in the United States or on YouTube, you can

download it at this link: DOWNLOAD HERE.

 

History is replete with repulsive heroes and loveable monsters. If Snowden, Assange, and Greenwald are among the former - then so be it. What is relevant is not "who" exposed the surveillance conducted by the NSA monster, but that it was exposed at all.

 

The New Republic article should therefore cause us no doubts about what has been exposed, because it is a lesson in ad hominem attacks, i.e.: an attempt to silence debate by attacking the individual. Usually, this is the sort of tactic one resorts to when factual arguments are in short supply. Therefore, it confirms rather than discredits, what is alleged by the person being attacked.

 

Returning to the example we began with: No matter how confused, unsympathetic, and contradictory a person may be, it is the action that counts.

 

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Posted By Worldmeets.US Jan. 31, 2014, 1:49am