I agree, but I think there still should be some focus on Snowden. What happens to him and how he’s either revered by the public or trashed by ingrates can and will influence other would-be whistleblowers. Snowden doesn’t have a monopoly on whistleblowing and I, for one, care about his well-being for a number of good reasons. Gratitude being one of them.
If you look at boingboing, there’s been far more posts on the content of the leaks than there has on Snowden himself.
Can’t say the Democrats don’t deserve it, but then again it seems that the top Democrats perhaps like it this way. Perhaps yet another “ping pong” effect coming down the pike again instead of slow, progressive change. A great plan to protect their corporatist masters (and their own corrupt dealings to boot).
What better way for DINO’s and bluedogs to neuter all those in the Democratic party that truly want progressive change and continuously vote against them? Just alienate the base and send the party off a cliff with moronic statements like we see from Kerry so we go even further right with Republicans again. Ping, pong, ping, pong…
Ping, pong, ping, ping, pong, ping, pong…
Perhaps you’re right, Americans will fall for it yet again…
What the public should really do is sweep out the DINOs with liberal Democrats or better yet progressive Independents, but I guess instead the public will continue to embrace false equivalence and enable the DINOs and Republicans to perpetuate the status quo their corporatist masters wanted all along.
Seriously? Suggesting anyone should “man up” is still appropriate?
Man up and out of a hole:
Focusing on the messenger is the government’s diversionary tactic to deflect attention away from the incredibly illegal shit the government has been doing in our name. The leaks haven’t harmed the US’s reputation around the world, the fact that the US government engaged in these activities to begin with is what has.
Well said. Out of the hundreds of thousands of people involved in trashing our civil liberties and Constitutional rights, only a few have risked everything to step up and try and change the course this nation is on. Snowden is 10,000 times more true to the patriotic principles of this country than that sniveling, elitist, flunky Kerry. Does he really think resorting to schoolyard taunts will distract from the fact that the Administration would lock Snowden into a hole and throw away the key?
Everything Snowden said has been true, eloquently stated and faithful to the spirit and letter of the laws of the nation. To hear the president - a supposed Constitutional scholar, and a candidate promising grand changes to typical politics - stand up and defend this parade of lies and thuggery makes me ashamed of this country. Our reputation abroad is in tatters, our rights and economic health are being harmed by the overarching security state, and the best our leaders can do is to smear the messenger and double down on the lies?
At least the “man up” comment was directed at Snowden and not Chelsea Manning.
Sigh
Does he really think resorting to schoolyard taunts will distract from
the fact that the Administration would lock Snowden into a hole and
throw away the key?
I dunno. What do you use schoolyard taunts (as above) to distract from?
“Honestly, I wonder what kind of training and/or brainwashing happens at high-level of government to allow people like Kerry to utter such blatant lies.”
Uh, that Snowden is making a mockery out of the power of the State Department, and Kerry is taking it personally.
No brainwashing needed, that’s just human. It’s bullshit and he should be above it, but it’s a human, failing.
I suspect you are aware of who wrote the Constitution, yes? A bunch of people who wanted to be their own corporatist masters. So it would seem rather obvious for whose benefit it was written.
I think we should return the House of Representatives to a member for every 30K citizens.
Why yes, a House of a 1200ish members would be unwieldy, tempestuous, and ungovernable. It was supposed to be!! That it is a now de facto second senate is a very large bug in the 1911 Apportionment laws. I’d like to see us roll back that ‘upgrade’ and see how that goes.
I suspect you are aware of who wrote the Constitution, yes? A bunch of people who wanted to be their own corporatist masters. So it would seem rather obvious for whose benefit it was written.
Sure, but there was plenty of idealists involved as well. 
Why yes, a House of a 1200ish members would be unwieldy, tempestuous, and ungovernable. It was supposed to be!! That it is a now de facto second senate is a very large bug in the 1911 Apportionment laws. I’d like to see us roll back that ‘upgrade’ and see how that goes.
Shiiiiiiiit… I’d just be happy if we’d get rid of this horrible electoral system that gives hicks in the sticks more power than city slickers just because they’re on bigger stretches of land.
A bunch of cowed (sorry) idealists!
I don’t need a Kucinich or a Nader. Just give me a boring moderate who is anti-police state and isn’t a corporate dog who fills all the regulatory positions with corporate lobbyist. They don’t need to reform entitlement programs, fix healthcare, or touch the tax code. I’d be happy if they just didn’t make it worse. Shit, I would take a moderate Republican who doesn’t install corporate lobbyist into regulatory positions and is virulently anti-police state.
I have a fantasy that in the democratic primaries that someone as boringly moderate as Hillary or Kerry will rise up on a “fuck the NSA platform”. It would be so fucking easy to hammer away at Hillary all day long. She was the secretary of the state. You can merrily dump a large portion of the blame at her feet. Gutted liberals might actually be convinced to vote in the primaries for such a person. In the general election, if they are otherwise boring, they could probably steal a non-trivial portion of moderates and Republicans if they kept hammering away.
It is a fantasy. You know what they say: shit in one hand, wish in the other, see which one fills up first.
The Democratic establishment is so utterly fucked that only the mind fucking incompetence of the Republican party lets them keep their head occasionally above water. The fact that the Republicans almost won last election despite the all star cast of stupid bigots they put on display during the last primary tells you how fucked the democrats are. The only thing saving the Democrats from being crushed is the Republican primary process. With the Democratic establishment busy gutting the soul of their base, I don’t think even the Republican primary process is going to be enough to save the Democrats.
Truth is, we’re all sold to the masters. We are getting sexual equality, by dribs and drabs. That is a truly wonderful thing. It is the lemon drop inside a turd. The turd is everything else we are supposed to swallow: lack of immigration reform, soaring health costs, wars and corruption and graft and cronyism and doublespeak and seeing our heroes demolished, one by one. As much as I love my country, I truly hate how the people who are in charge came to be in charge and what they all do once they are in office. It churns my stomach, so I turn to the Internet to vent my frustration and watch uplifting YouTubes.
(except this guy, Bernie and Liz Warren. I like them. We need more of them.)
As a life long democrat I am once again let down and disgusted by the current administration and feel there is little difference between the two party system. That Kerry can make such a ridiculous statement about how our justice system works( by the way even for more minor offenses your chance of a fair justice depends on the amount of money you have) and use the patriot line on a whistleblower, is further evidence of the governments attempts at dumbing down America. Stop talking to us with such an ignorant stance…frankly it’s embarrassing and makes Americans look ridiculous for having this as our representation of Secretary of State.
This post nailed it!
The Democratic establishment is so utterly fucked that only the mind fucking incompetence of the Republican party lets them keep their head occasionally above water.
The top, Democratic establishment certainly loves it that way. Also, they love keeping the Republican establishment around just so they can have someone to blame for their actions and inactions in order to maintain a corporatist appeasing status quo. In my opinion, the establishment scratches each other’s backs in this manner.
I’ve surmised for a long time that most of the top Democrats basically serve the same excessively rich corporatist interests that the overwhelming majority of the Republican party does. The vital difference is the lower rung Democrats aren’t all playing ball, while most of the entire Republican party is in corporatist lockstep. That’s what, in my opinion, makes the Republican party much more dangerous.
For example, if Romney or McCain were in office, the rubber stamp Republicans in the House and Senate would have already approved an attack on Syria. On the other hand, for Obama, the lower-rung Democrats did not all play ball. Even with a strong push from the overlords, Obama couldn’t get all the Democrats on board. Let’s face it, the evidence shows that if we had elected crazy McCain or Romney, we’d be either dangerously close to outright war with Syria by now or already knee-deep in it. And, that goes for Iran as well.
In other words, until we steer this ship around, in the meantime I’d rather have people like Obama in place who have at least some checks on corporatist agendas than a Republican president that has a rubberstamp Republican posse to push it all through.
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
