America’s Open Wound • Hacker News Board

Re: America’s Open Wound

#331

Post by eternalban » Wed, Sep 21, 2022, 2:01 PM UTC

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #323

eternalban wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are two general critical approaches to a spook agency (thank you Elizabeth I): One is that they are fundamentally evil prone, by very nature of the task. This is your take. It's a plebe take. (I'm a plebe so no offense intended! /g) The other is that the power elite in a society typically reach an understanding on how things are done. And CIA basically is breaking that understanding, via undisclosed 'scope cree…

I don't think that's my take. I'm genuinely interested in what Truman's take was, because this is a public letter by an ex-president. He clearly thinks something is going down. I just don't know if he's worried about something even worse than what we know from the history books. Given the timing you could easily read this as a public announcement that he wouldn't be going along with a CIA coup in the US. You could al…

> I don't think that's my take.

Sorry, my bad.

I'm honestly not sure to what extent Truman was his own man, politically speaking. He was the "senator from Pendagrast" and then some bigwigs in Dem party who hated the idea of Wallace as President pushed him for VP in 1944. So when he writes "when I conceived of CIA" I'm not picturing Harry Truman deep in thought, rather sitting on his designated chair and being schooled by someone from Yale or thereabouts. He's the lesser Wilson, as a type, in my book.

There is no question that power elites in this country clashed after WWII regarding how to operate. But I simply can't see Harry S. Truman in that company.

So another possibility is he was being naive even when he wrote that?

Re: America’s Open Wound

#332

Post by CrazyPyroLinux » Wed, Sep 21, 2022, 3:40 PM UTC

Nexxius wrote: post #325

ebw wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Snowden is a villan. I too held a high security clearance, and swore an oath to protect those national secrets. He completely violated that - undiscriminantly sent very important data to a foreign press, then ran away to Russia. He was a low level tech guy that found an open SharePoint share on a classified network. He is not to be upheld, he is a small, small criminal. This stuff makes me sick.

I'll second your opinion, the amount of BS powerpoint fud we now have to go through because of Snowden et al is fraud waste & abuse of the highest level. The fact that he & Manning are so revered for their crimes is astounding.

Talk about shooting the messenger! You have nothing to say about the crimes they exposed?

Re: America’s Open Wound

#333

Post by adultSwim » Wed, Sep 21, 2022, 5:31 PM UTC

jnovek wrote: post #87

Has everyone on Hacker News lost their minds? I come here to read and sometimes participate in rational discussions. These comments are some of the lowest effort, least rigorous, paranoid bullshit I’ve ever seen on this site. We’re a step above Facebook comments on NPR articles, here. Partisanship, viciousness and lazy conspiracy theories are not a good look for this site.

We are witnessing information warfare unfold in real time.

Every government and many companies are trying to exert pressure. People are responding by picking sides. It's a dangerous situation.

Re: America’s Open Wound

#334

Post by HyperSane » Wed, Sep 21, 2022, 5:54 PM UTC

not1ofU wrote: post #220

HyperSane wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assange has been a Russian asset for a long time. Snowden is a spokesman for Putin now. What a coincidence.

Source?

https://washingtonmonthly.com/2019/07/15/ecuador-concluded-t...

https://www.vox.com/world/2017/1/6/14179240/wikileaks-russia...

Re: America’s Open Wound

#335

Post by pstuart » Wed, Sep 21, 2022, 6:23 PM UTC

fundad wrote: post #329

pstuart wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would be more comforting than the reality that there's a huge overlap. Great power should have great oversight.

I guess economic anxiety didn’t stick so the history of the CIA is the new excuse for people joining racist militias. There is also a splinter group blaming political violence on the red lighting during the speech.

I'm not sure I follow you there.

Confession: I didn't read the OP. I'm a believer in Snowden and what he has to say, but to attack Biden's address to the nation felt like whataboutism.

I've been a political observer for decades, and where we are today feels like we've gone through the mirror to upsidedown land. It borders on crazy-making in how bad and deep the divide is, and I even see plenty of it here on HN (which I think of as a meeting place for intelligent people to have intelligent conversations).

Political dialog is dead and I see no hints it will improve any time soon.

Re: America’s Open Wound

#336

Post by slg » Wed, Sep 21, 2022, 6:32 PM UTC

Chris2048 wrote: post #324

slg wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Snowden could have argued in court that what he did was not a crime or asked for leniency due to the importance of what he did as Manning had done. This eventually worked for Manning and she is now free. However he removed any chance of leniency by leaving the country before the story dropped. Therefore Snowden seems likely to live the rest of his life in exile under an authoritarian regime. It seems like his decisio…

So his option was to roll the dice and hope it turned out like CM? Doesn't sound like that was the wrong choice - you are assuming he would have been pardoned. Arguably even CM didn't get leniency (from the courts) - the president overrode the court. > his decision was wrong from both an ethical Why ethical?

Manning's "crime" was much more severe than Snowden initial "crime". Snowden was more targeted and has a much better case at being a true whistleblower. Manning dumped a bunch of unrelated documents, many of them having little public value. Snowden did a better job of limiting the scope to specific issues. That suggests he would receive better treatment from politicians and the legal system. However he fled the country which eliminated any chance of leniency.

I believe Snowden fleeing was unethical because facing the consequences of breaking the law is an important part of civil disobedience. To quote MLK: "Any man who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust and willingly accepts the penalty by staying in jail to arouse the conscience of the community on the injustice of the law is at that moment expressing the very highest respect for the law." Snowden didn't "willingly accept the penalty" for his actions. At least part of the reason MLK's Letter from Birmingham Jail was so powerful was because it was written from Birmingham Jail and not an apartment in Moscow. Snowden lost complete control of the ethical high ground because he chose exile over fighting this issue head on.

Re: America’s Open Wound

#337

Post by roflyear » Wed, Sep 21, 2022, 6:48 PM UTC

tinco wrote: post #167

roflyear wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, don't jump to conclusions. I just want to understand the full picture.

Ah yeah, of course she could have just been murdered by the enemies she acquired naturally as an 8 year old.

That's not what I'm asking at all. I'm asking if she was purposefully targeted (assassination) or if she was in a house where other's were the targets (seems to be the case).

Why be a jerk?

Re: America’s Open Wound

#338

Post by NaturalPhallacy » Wed, Sep 21, 2022, 6:57 PM UTC

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #306

softcactus wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just finished reading through the whole thing. I am curious which part changed your opinion on him? I'll go through my thoughts: 1. I don't think whistleblower protection would have applied anyways since what the government was doing was technically legal. 2. Snowden seems like an asshole and a nightmare to work with, but I don't think that should factor in to the credibility of any arguments he makes which are backe…

I thought that he had no protections and only leaked what supported his claims. I learned that not only did he not pursue proper channels, he leaked a lot more than required. I have no more good faith left for him. Between this report, and working in the same industry, I no longer believe anything that he says. Whatever good might have come out of this is overshadowed by the harm that he caused.

He gave it to the Intercept/Guardian and let them decide what to publish.

So what it comes down to is would you rather he decide what the public gets to know, or journalists?

I think letting the journalists decide was a decent call. It's what journalists are for.

Re: America’s Open Wound

#339

Post by NaturalPhallacy » Wed, Sep 21, 2022, 7:02 PM UTC

angrycontrarian wrote: post #250

NaturalPhallacy wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

There absolutely are, but in his Philadelphia speech, Biden equated anyone who supports his leading opponent(s) in 2024, with being a domestic terrorist.

Yesterday Shannon Brandt rand over a kid and killed him, claiming the teen was part of a "Republican extremist group": https://www.kvrr.com/2022/09/20/suspect-claims-teen-he-hit-w...

I'm a Pacific Green so I have no allegiance to the Ds or Rs, but from where I sit, everything the left accused Trump and the Republicans of is what the Democrats are actually doing. Fascism is the unity of corporate and government power. And Big Tech, academia, and the Democrats are all on the same side, and it's the left committing terrorist acts (Antifa harassing motorists, Shannon Brandt etc).

If anyone is pushing extremism it's the Democrats.

it's the classic "convince everyone that your opponent is doing what you're guilty of" that both sides use.

Re: America’s Open Wound

#340

Post by AdamH12113 » Wed, Sep 21, 2022, 7:59 PM UTC

somenameforme wrote: post #320

AdamH12113 wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have no idea why they went for this visual, but it's difficult to attribute it to any motivation that is at all desirable. I think Hanlon's Razor is a better explanation. Look at a wider picture[1][2], and the start of the CBS video I linked above. The building was well-lit, including the doorway area. When Biden starts speaking, the doorway light is turned off, plunging the background into darkness. This was pro…

Anything can be made to seem something other than what it is from some angle or another - or some quote or another. The best of intentions can be turned into the worst, and the worst into the best. The question is one of intent. So I'll ask you. This [1] is the CSPAN coverage, which as close as one to get as definitive. And it is effectively identical to all other coverage as well. Do you genuinely believe the long z…

It didn't look particularly creepy to me to begin with. I linked to the wider-angle photos to show what the overall lighting of the building was designed to look like. The close-up video of Biden speaking is pretty standard, I agree.

I looked at the C-SPAN video and saw the same crappy background lighting and the same on-the-fly attempt to fix it, along with occasional crowd shots of people in folding chairs politely applauding.

I think you are overestimating both how much thought the people who prepared this scene put into the visuals and how much control they had over the setting. In order to believe that something sinister is going on, I would have to believe that:

1. The Biden team (or whoever did the lighting) was "obsessed" with the visuals and highly competent, but changed their minds about the lighting two minutes into the speech.

2. The Biden team intended to produce fascist-style visuals for the speech, but instead of having the audience be rows of soldiers they put a bunch of ordinary-looking people in lawn chairs around a circle.

3. CNN is in the tank for Biden, but decided to suddenly ignore his "clear intent" and "fix" the visuals twelve minutes into the speech.

4. Biden decided to use Nazi imagery in a speech opposing fascism and supporting pluralistic democracy, for... some reason?

5. Anyone, anywhere, could ever see Joe Biden (of all people) as a fascist Great Leader figure.

I think you are looking for conflict and complexity where there is none. The simplest and most plausible explanation for the visuals is that someone did a crappy job on the setup.