Here’s another variation, @chenille, on what you wrote about how Snowden is both right and wrong every time he opens his mouth.
This time he supposedly made a gaffe, but that gaffe says more about the press courtiers who gleefully strut all over the pages of their (very) mainstream, middlebrow venues… never looking more pathetic because they are trying to keep the focus off the leaked information.
So if Snowden’s question was about the information, and the people who answer the question and report on the question danced around the question, how exactly was that question a gaffe?
I think you should go look up the definition, and spelling, of gaffe.
I’d question David Frum’s motives. He was born in a foreign nation and when he was younger campaigned for a member of a socialist party. His mother worked for a government-funded broadcaster for much of her career. His sister is an un-elected, high-ranking government official in that same foreign country. A country that claims to be democratic but recently introduced legislation to suppress the votes of its opponents.
This is presumptuous of me to ask, but have you ever talked with anyone who knows anything about Russian media?
You can rant and rave about about “American Corporate Media” and unhealthy relationships with government, but in the end you’re comparing a country with a relatively free media market to a autocratic regime lite.
Jesus Christ in a handbag. This is a country where a foreign business man worth millions of dollars can get killed-by-gulag for pissing off the wrong people. RT is a great news network, with some really smart, talented people, which incidentally happens to run their news past the Kremlin as a matter of course. It’s not about the leaks; any government / system has unauthorized information get out, elites dissenting, etc. But in Putin’s world those leaks become part of the script - his system is far much smarter and more resilient than that of the USSR.
And so you pull up the website of Pravoye Delo? How many paid reporters do they have on staff again? For those who don’t know, the Right Party (Right Cause? I hear different translations) is a small, pro-business and pro-western(ish) party with almost zero influence in Russia.
Aaaand then you link to the United Civil Front, another even more harmless opposition party’s website. That one, if memory serves, is the one Kaspoferov (sp?) started. Yes, the chess master.
Neither of your examples vaguely resemble opposition media. The FHI gave Russia a free press score of 81 out of a 100, 100 being the worst ever. It has been getting worse recently.
It seems like you often take the “the West is just as bad” defense, and is some cases I agree with you (sorry that I’m not as vocal then - it’s the way of the internet I suppose). But in this case you are spouting crazy levels of false equivalence. I have absolutely no problem believing Snowden has good intentions, and probably knows very well that the Kremlin is trying to use him. He’s probably trying to do the best that one person can do, when they’re in a foreign country whose language they don’t speak, with few resources or support, and reliant on the good grace of the resident spook-in-chief.
Simple: by airing Snowden on National TV, Putin is using Snowden for political cover. Just like we do with defectors from Venezuela, Russia, Cuba etc. etc.
It’s a pretty effective tactic. I don’t see why this entire thread seems to be struggling with the concept. The Script (which may or may not interact with reality) goes like this:
A) Dissent is unfairly persecuted in their own country for standing up to corruption/fighting for freedom/being a member of an oppressed minority
B) Dissent is welcomed into [Insert Country] of the Free, where they are protected from arrest and oppression by dastardly rulers of their native country.
C) Dissent is paraded around on TV, given interviews, etc. I forget the term but it’s the whole “see, even one of the blue team says the blue team is bad!” trope.
D (extra credit): Allow the dissident to question your country / evil government in a public way - just control the conversation enough that it doesn’t actually threaten the status quo. This shows that you are a just, benevolent evil overlord, as you are willing to allow the kind of dissent that got your dissenter in trouble.
-One last note: consider a situation where a member of the Chinese Internal Secret Police defected, and the US government gave them asylum. That dissent then goes on to critique China for being authoritarian. Fine. But say he does some slight questioning of our system (my system, whatever -hypothetical example). “Who the hell is he to criticize? He doesn’t even speak english!”
That was the point, same as freeing Pussy Riot. Sure, it’s all planned in advance. Just like Reality TV. But that doesn’t besmirch Snowden for just asking the damn questions, like some people are adamant about.
If I got on reality TV for a few seconds, I’d ask the damn questions too, even though the question-asking and question-answering were planned in advance. I’d also secretly rework my pre-planned question into something new, fresh and unexpected… heh heh heh.
This is presumptuous of me to ask, but have you ever talked with anyone who knows anything about Russian media?
Yes. Shall we exchange resumés on this?
relatively free media market
This is presumptuous of me to ask, but have you ever talked with anyone who knows anything about American media?
Because, frankly, it’s obvious you don’t know what you’re talking about in regards to American media as I’ll show below…
RT is a great news network, with some really smart, talented people, which incidentally happens to run their news past the Kremlin as a matter of course.
Go back and read my post, I addressed that and If you go back and read this part of the thread you’ve errantly latched onto, I’ve addressed it multiple times now. Please try to keep up.
This is a country where a foreign business man worth millions of dollars can get killed-by-gulag for pissing off the wrong people.
It’s telling to me that you focus on someone worth millions as if their life is more valuable than others. The United States has a gargantuan problem with oppressing people with small or non-existent bank accounts:
Of course, the poor in America can also look forward to being injured or killed in the USA as well when they’re not fortunate enough to be imprisoned:
Oh, and speaking of American media. It gets distorted and whitewashed. As Fairness and Accuracy in Reportingnotes:
‘’ … So why the discrepancy in coverage? … In Manufacturing Consent, Ed-ward Herman and Noam Chomsky wrote of “worthy” and “unworthy” victims when analyzing the mainstream media’s Cold War coverage. When applied domestically, it’s hard not to see those concepts mapping onto race and ethnicity. … Eventually it becomes clear that even when communities of color get the majority of attention of police officers, their stories will be given a minority of coverage by corporate media. "
So, what was your point? Yeah, Russia killed a rich guy and is evil… so what? As I said in my previous post, in some contexts Russia is certainly less free and in some contexts the USA is perhaps less free than Russia.
It’s complex. The problem I’m focusing on lies with people that ignore problems within their own country out of blind nationalism and xenophobically focus like a laser on trumped-up problems elsewhere based upon their own fear and ignorance.
And so you pull up the website of Pravoye Delo? How many paid reporters do they have on staff again? For those who don’t know, the Right Party (Right Cause? I hear different translations) is a small, pro-business and pro-western(ish) party with almost zero influence in Russia
Aaaand then you link to the United Civil Front, another even more harmless opposition party’s website. That one, if memory serves, is the one Kaspoferov (sp?) started. Yes, the chess master.
I pulled that up as two examples of many. Where you not able to lift a finger to find more examples yourself?
I find it laughable that you focus on the influence of just two examples I gave ripped out of context. That’s not a way to bolster your point of view, it’s just a disingenuous, weasel-worded way of trying to win an argument by ripping things out of context and hoping it floats.
I can play that exact, inane game with you with American media. If you single out most alternative media sources in the United States, they have very little influence up against the corporatist right media (that you really need to educate yourself on).
Compare the influence of any one US alternative media news source against the massive influence of the corporatist right MSNBC news outlet and get back with me.
Similar to Russia, it’s only with the combined effect of many, multiple alternative media sources that the United States alternative media can put a dent into the corporatist right agenda of manufacturing mass consent among US citizens.
You are aware of those issue in the United States, no?
For example:
Observe the part called “Advantages of the corporatist right”. There’s a reason you can gather five teabaggers in a park and it’ll garner far more mainstream media coverage than 5,000 or even 50,000 left-wing protestors of wars, income disparity, etc. in the United States.
Neither of your examples vaguely resemble opposition media. The FHI gave Russia a free press score of 81 out of a 100, 100 being the worst ever. It has been getting worse recently.
Freedom House? Are you kidding?
You just choose an incredibly biased source that has received funding for ‘clandestine activities’ by the US State Department.
In your haste to discredit the Russian media for being influenced by government you used a source that’s heavily influenced by the United States government.
Also, Noam Chomsky criticized “Freedom House” for excessively criticizing states opposed to US interests while being unduly sympathetic to regimes supportive of US interests.
Freedom House was literally mentioned in this manner within the book called Manufacturing Consent.
I strongly advise that you read the book or at least read it much more thoroughly.
That literally made me laugh out loud and made my day. Thanks for that.
It seems like you often take the “the West is just as bad” defense
It may “seem” like that to you if you continue to focus on what I say out of context. For example, I mentioned Kremlin meddling within this thread, but you choose to ignore it.
Also, what do you mean by “defense”, anyway? I’m responding to people that are errantly saying that Snowden’s question won’t start any kind of dialog within Russia. That’s incredibly insulting to the intelligence of the Russian people, xenophobic and based upon ignorance.
Even though I’m not a russophobic, nationalistic and jingoistic attacker of all that is Russia, that doesn’t mean that I think that Russia lacks problems with their press. And, just because I’m trying to show some American russophobes that America also has problems with their press, that shouldn’t imply that either unless we are to throw critical thinking out of the window.
in this case you are spouting crazy levels of false equivalence.
Except I didn’t do that. Finding similarities that bolster my argument isn’t the same as making “insane”, broad false equivalencies.
I don’t think nor have I said that Russia has the same, exact amount of alternative news sources that the United States does. But, I also showed those that xenophobically claim it doesn’t exist at all are spouting nonsense.
If you’d stop taking my points out of context, you’d understand this by now.
Jesus Christ in a handbag. …
I think your problem is in your huffy haste to discredit a fantasy you’ve created of my views, you’ve completely lost the context and point of my views. You should calm down and go back and read my post in context of the various posts I was reply to.
This should have been easy for you in the first place since I often quoted what I was replying to inline within my post(s).
The context of my reply was to others within this thread who literally claimed that there’d be no valid discussion in Russia of their mass surveillance even after Snowden brought it to a forefront on live television.
The context of my reply was also to another within this thread who errantly said that RT wouldn’t cover the issue. I proved them wrong with an actual RT link which covered the issue.
The context of my reply was to someone who errantly implied there was literally no alternative sources for media in Russia. I proved them wrong with actual links and I made it clear there was many more if one bothers to look.
It appears you also didn’t bother to look either.
My point wasn’t to claim that Russia is the bastion of press freedom.
My point was to show that despite the ignorant, russophobic, nationalistic and jingoistic tendencies of Americans to ignore this fact, there really is going to be some discussion in Russia spurred by Snowden’s questions to Putin on live, national TV. To imply otherwise is based upon an indoctrinated fantasy that the Russian people are mindless idiots who entirely lack common sense nor any semblance of an alternative media.
Um, isn’t “Vladimir Putin must be called to account on surveillance just like Obama” a pretty low standard of accountability? i.e. no accountability.
Has Obama actually been called on to account for the surveillance?
