Russia Grants Snowden Asylum; Obama Disappointed. So Are We.

Tuesday, August 6th, 2013 @ 2:44 pm | Human Rights, We Think So

There is irony in the headline above. ^^^^

On Thursday, August 1st 2013, the Russian government granted the request for political asylum to American patriot Edward J. Snowden. Snowden is the the former National Security Agency contractor whose disclosures have caused what can be described as a “snit storm” of grief for the government of President Barack Obama.

“…I can’t in good conscience allow the US government to destroy privacy, internet freedom and basic liberties for people around the world with this massive surveillance machine they’re secretly building.” ~ Ed Snowden American patriot now asylumed in Russia in a June 2013 interview with Glenn Greenwald of British newspaper the Guardian

Snowden performed a remarkable public service in exposing the scope of U.S. electronic domestic surveillance. We believe his actions entitle him to leniency. We believe, in light of the government’s torture treatment of Bradley Manning, if Snowden were somehow returned to the U.S., he might receive the same or worse cruel, inhuman treatment.

And so the irony in the headline is this: an American whistleblower seeks and receives asylum in Russia, a nation we’ve been told is the antithesis of freedom, and the President of the United States is disappointed.

The first part of that statement tells us what we’ve known all along. Our nation has become what we were told the former Soviet Union was. Tyrannical, unyielding and tremendous liars. So much so anyone who reports corruption in business or government suddenly is labeled a malicious person.

The second part of the headline, the part about President Obama’s disappointment, our reaction: we, too, are disappointed.

As citizens of the U.S. we are disappointed to know, our country not only spies on other nations, our government spies on its citizens and tells lies to us about the fact they are snooping on citizens or the extent of its spying activity.

We’re also disappointed our children are criminalized in public schools for any minor infraction; where a school emergency requires a “lock down”. It’s a prison term to describe the condition of an emergency where no one is allowed in or out of the building until the danger subsides.

We are disappointed because the president, when he was candidate Senator Obama, begging for our votes during that competition for POTUS, campaigned on a lofty platform which promised hope and change.

From our point of view we’re now demanding the changes being made stop before everyone in the U.S. is imprisoned, or working at slave wages with little or no chance for improved circumstances. The American dream is being massacred.

We are absolutely disheartened the Congress of the United States is now a living breathing non-functioning oligarchy filled with more than enough people who have forgotten their campaign promises to represent their constituency, the Have-nots who put them in office, rather than the Haves and the Have-mores.

The American people are being told lies by representatives of government. From the president to the National Intelligence director, James Clapper, to the National Security Agency head Keith Alexander, to the judicial members of the secret court to congressional representatives who approve secret legislation, to anyone of the millions of surveillance technicians who have unfettered access to the data and content they’ve collected on average citizens. All of them are telling us they can not do what Ed Snowden has revealed they can do, have done and are doing. Snowden has confirmed our worst fears. Our most frightening suspicions have been verified. Our government is comprised of a bunch of ~~very~~ ~~skilled~~ liars who condone abridging our liberty. The very same ~~leaders~~ liars who wrap themselves tightly in the flag when they are the subject well deserved criticisms.

“…it’s getting to the point where you don’t have to have done anything wrong, you simply have to eventually fall under suspicion from somebody, even by a wrong call, and then they can use this system to go back in time and scrutinize every decision you’ve ever made, every friend you’ve ever discussed something with, and attack you on that basis, to sort of derive suspicion from an innocent life.” ~ Ed Snowden American whistleblower

We consider the actions of Ed Snowden to be patriotic because in this case of whistleblowing he had no other choice. The Obama administration has declared for the last five years a war on those who disclose the corruption of those in whom we citizens have placed our trust; it is logical he would choose to take the circuitous route by revealing his observations to an American journalist, Glenn Greenwald who writes for a British newspaper. We believe if he had done as so many who are ingenuous say he should have done, “follow the chain of command”; “complain to his congressman”; he would have gotten the same rotten treatment as one Bradley Manning who publicly disclosed the wrongdoing of the military in the war(s) being conducted in the name of We the People.

So when we read or hear President Obama is “disappointed” by the decision made by the brave young man who alerted fellow citizens of the government’s iniquitous activities; when we hear the president of the land of the formerly free and the home of a few who are brave say he’s “disappointed” the Russian government has provided a safe place for a freedom loving American patriot; when we see our government, the one we’ve been told is the greatest exemplar of and champion for human rights and human dignity, when we see it is daily demonstrating itself to be as arbitrary as the worst foreign dictatorships in the history of the planet; when we realize our government will wholeheartedly go after a man who reveals illegal acts perpetrated by our government, the one that asks for our loyalty while setting out to harm us, when we hear the man who revealed the criminal actions discovered while performing his job is maligned for alerting the public to such actions, we are disappointed, too. When we reasonably conclude this is the same government entity giving the banksters a pass for disrupting families, whole communities and the entire economy of our nation to satisfy for their greed; we too say, We, the People, are disappointed.

Shame on the United States of America. Shame on all three branches of our form of government for reprehensibly evading their responsibility to the people of the nation.