one direction of the snowden debate is the question of whether or not he is a conscientious objector or doing a king etc. well, i did compare him to rosa parks, but only sort of. it's wacky how things can get hijacked by words like this. is this civil disobedience? well, we could work on that. i'm willing to. but it doesn't have to be rosa parks to be right, you know? this is not a symbolic or expressive action designed to indpire a mass movement. this is a direct act of resistance to oppression, sufficient as an act unto itself.
so melissa harris-perry on msnbc today etc: a real conscientious objector stays and faces tthe music. he doesn't run. i have respect for that, but not for snowden. look that is not this situation. he has to remain at large and develop and publish the information, you see? it's a project: he wants to get through as much of it as possible before he 'faces the music'. look these people will silence you by whatever means necessary. have we heard the voice of bradley manning? have we? martin luther king was dealing with the public fact of racial apartheid. snowden is trying to deal with a secret world into which you simply disappear and all your beliefs and info along with you. where they'd take him, you write no open letters.
i want to ask melissa etc: is it legitimate that you are yourself being spied upon and searched by the government? ok i can see you're into that. is it right for that fact itself to be a secret? if not, then ed snowden did the right thing. you see how easy it is to slip into totalitarian thinking, melissa; you're doing it right now.
