Obama Admin. admits to surveillance methods: Beating a Dead Horse Pt. 74

[eugene]

what's the deal with constant accusation of trolling ? i'm just picking at something i find interesting in snowden's interview.

[lumpenprol]

did he actually say "the shortcomings of Obamacare are a distraction from the true problem of Gitmo"? If so, then I apologize.

[goDel]

edit: oh i didn't realize that you meant Snowden's job, not Obama. haha but it's also funny you're here projecting what his 'job' ought to be, just like you have in this thread been telling us to stop talking about Greenwald because the thread 'isn't about that'. I'm just glad that people in Snowden's position aren't pussying out on bringing up other horrendous Obama policies, if he throws in a reference to an illegal gulag in there, great. Anything to strengthen the damage of the already egg-faced Obama while snowden is still in the spotlight is fine by me. Obviously hiding their opinions on other important issues hasn't detracted from that happening so far. So my thoughts are just keep piling it on. The way I see it is Greenwald and Snowden have lasted this long grabbing world headlines, they gotta keep the momentum going.

the fact (which you point out) that it takes any political capital whatsoever to exclaim why it's morrally right to close a gulag which exists to circumvent international law, illustrates just how fucked up our political climate is.

 

If you want to seriously discus Gitmo, you might want respond to that post I made a long time ago. Reference is somewhere in this thread.

 

Other than that, I've got no interest in discussing this here. Nor am I projecting what Snowden's job ought to be. He explicitly mentioned his function, right? No projection from my part here. I'm only ranting my opinion about what I feel would be effective. (point being: his political opinions are irrelevant, what's relevant is what he was doing at his job)

 

IMO, this isn't about Greenwald or Snowden either. This is about all the info that is leaking. Partly thanks to them. If you have been following the news, more info has been leaking (outside of Greenwald/Snowden), and supposedly cooperating companies have been responding. How about the Britons spying at the G8, for instance? Ironically the huffpo article I posted earlier says the PRISM stuff is only part of the story. And the other irony is, that lots of information was already out there, but people simply weren't paying attention, or weren't interested.

 

Final imo, if the facts are brought without any accusation, the story still sells itself. No need for accusations whatsoever. Accusations don't help the story, no matter how hard you agree with them. The point is to also get the people disagreeing with you to get the facts as well. Covering them with accusations simply wont help. Pure and simple. I'm not sure why that's not obvious, btw.

 

Snowden and Greenwald DO deserve extra credits for the live online guardian interview. That was a brilliant move, I'll give them that. And Snowden deserves much respect, despite his accusations.

 

I'll be sucking on my gogurts again while I continuously project what everyone ought to do.

 

*mindmelds watmm*

[eugene]

did he actually say "the shortcomings of Obamacare are a distraction from the true problem of Gitmo"? If so, then I apologize.

no, but when you have the attention of the whole world the expectation from him is to focus on something more significant than the well-being of a couple of hundreds of pow's. it's just a minor anthropological observation of mine, you can carry on with glorifying his fight for american constitutional values

[goDel]

But ... but... moral issues are absolute issues! :O

 

You can't put them against eachother. That's not how politics, or the real world, is supposed to work!

 

 

 

[awepittance]

yeah sure, you can keep rationalizing your determination to 'poke holes' in Snowden for having other opinions and talking about them but maybe I've just seen you do this so many times to so many other important issues.I find your and Eugene's attempts disingenuous, simply because I've seen your mostly defensive and apologist opinions on display on almost any other subject remotely related to over steps in executive power. I do get a certain level of entertainment of watching you both, but mostly you Godel obfuscate where your true allegiances or beliefs lie in order to prove your points. And while you sitting here trying to poke more holes, or criticize snowdown for talking about Gitmo or whatever, the story will keep growing, grabbing world headlines, etc. That's ultimately where I take comfort

[goDel]

LOL

 

back at ya bro.

 

thanks for going ad hominem again. like i've seen you doing so many times when you're running out of points. really flattering. who's having troubles with different opinions?

 

i'm only saying snowdens opinions are irrelevant in the news-story. i'm not saying yours are irrelevant. although i'm pretty close to thinking that way at this point.

[eugene]

yeah sure, you can keep rationalizing your determination to 'poke holes' in Snowden for having other opinions and talking about them but maybe I've just seen you do this so many times to so many other important issues.I find your and Eugene's attempts disingenuous, simply because I've seen your mostly defensive and apologist opinions on display on almost any other subject remotely related to over steps in executive power. I do get a certain level of entertainment of watching you both, but mostly you Godel obfuscate where your true allegiances or beliefs lie in order to prove your points. And while you sitting here trying to poke more holes, or criticize snowdown for talking about Gitmo or whatever, the story will keep growing, grabbing world headlines, etc. That's ultimately where I take comfort

 

i'm tired of your misinformed deductions about my allegiances or political attitudes, in the last elections i voted for meretz (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meretz) which is quite analogous to jill stein. so can you please stop blaming my attempts to create some sort of argument and a more critical discussion of various issues in the midst of incessant circle jerks on my supposed right-wing corporatist ultra nationalism ?

[goDel]

Oh come on. Stop addressing his ad hominem points like they are facts. It's complete nonsense. He probably doesn't even understand your opinion. He's got no clue about mine. Or what he calls that I'm being disingenuous. That's code for: "WTF, I don't understand!". But he's so smart, so it has to be us who are being disingenuous.

 

Hey, did you liked my PM about how to set up EJ into thinking all kinds of shit about us?

[brian trageskin]

No need for accusations whatsoever. Accusations don't help the story, no matter how hard you agree with them. The point is to also get the people disagreeing with you to get the facts as well. Covering them with accusations simply wont help.

 

 

while i can understand that Snowden mentionned Guantanamo to connect PRISM with other constitutional violations, i certainly agree with you on that. or else it's political activism, which mostly deviates from his primary goal in this story.

[SR4]

[DerWaschbar]

 

did he actually say "the shortcomings of Obamacare are a distraction from the true problem of Gitmo"? If so, then I apologize.

no, but when you have the attention of the whole world the expectation from him is to focus on something more significant than the well-being of a couple of hundreds of pow's. it's just a minor anthropological observation of mine, you can carry on with glorifying his fight for american constitutional values

 

It seems appropriate that he should mention Gitmo rather than health care as it works as a sort of indicator of there being trend in the government removing/ignoring constitutional rights, no?

[Alcofribas]

to state the obvious: health care is a major political issue in the us and was, for instance, one of the key topics of the recent presidential elections.

 

when was the last time you heard a politician mention guantanamo bay?

[eugene]

 

 

did he actually say "the shortcomings of Obamacare are a distraction from the true problem of Gitmo"? If so, then I apologize.

no, but when you have the attention of the whole world the expectation from him is to focus on something more significant than the well-being of a couple of hundreds of pow's. it's just a minor anthropological observation of mine, you can carry on with glorifying his fight for american constitutional values

It seems appropriate that he should mention Gitmo rather than health care as it works as a sort of indicator of there being trend in the government removing/ignoring constitutional rights, no?

i think that quote awep brought up is a more general critique of obama, not necessarily related to his leakage, like "obama is bad, here's why: x, y, z". so in that context i would expect him (or anyone in such position) to focus on the worst aspects of obama rule and his breaking of the promises, not the most symbolically significant in that "constitution-cherishing" discourse. though it seems like he's deep into it so maybe it would be too much to ask.

[DerWaschbar]

I think it just creates a better narrative to bring up Gitmo. It highlights the possible dangers that are created when the loss of individual privacy is combined with indefinite detention without trial.

[eugene]

if that was his goal then yeah, it sure does, "narrative" is good term to describe this.

[Alcofribas]

what point are you attempting to make exactly? that by mentioning gitmo he missed an opportunity to mention something that is "worse" than gitmo? is that what you're saying?

[luke viia]

It was an interview, it's not as if you can expect someone to make their points to the best of their ability in such a setting. He's just a guy, after all.

 

I mean fucks sake, I edit almost all my posts. If anybody knows how hard it is to make your points as clearly as you had intended, it's message board posters. Shitty counterpoints everywhere around here.

[Alcofribas]

i take issue wih your post, there are many other more important issues on watmm than the points you made. go fuck yourself with a textbook, luke.

[luke viia]

Oh god, it just struck me that my hatred of textbooks probably means I'm just a libertarian guy with no scientific merit and I should step out of the spotlight before my fame-seeking is uncovered. and I still can't stop editing my posts.

[Alcofribas]

flol

[eugene]

what point are you attempting to make exactly? that by mentioning gitmo he missed an opportunity to mention something that is "worse" than gitmo? is that what you're saying?

it's an observation really, not a point. it's just amusing for me how when you have a chance to go hard on obama you fail to mention the elephant in the room. it's like criticizing nazis for poor animal treatment during ww2 or something.

[Alcofribas]

well, since you just made that ridiculous quasi-racist comparison i think I'm done here.

[eugene]

i take issue wih your post, there are many other more important issues on watmm than the points you made. go fuck yourself with a textbook, luke.

you do realize you're just making fun of your poor reading comprehension, right ?

[eugene]

well, since you just made that ridiculous quasi-racist comparison i think I'm done here.

seriously wtf? i really don't understand if you're just trolling in those threads or just daft.