Comment by isx726552 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by isx726552 | Hacker News Reader

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Snowden is absolutely a hero for what he did to expose US surveillance. It is also right for people to be suspicious of anything he says at the moment given his current situation. There’s no contradiction between the two.

As I wrote elsewhere in the comments on this story, the atrocities of the CIA are sadly well known. There’s nothing new here.

The beginning of Snowden’s post is a surprisingly poor take on Biden’s recent speech, reposting the same zoomed-in image with the red background, ignoring the additional context[0][1] and comparing the presentation to the Nazis. Although he does call it “unintentional”, he still chooses to amplify the same take as the American right-wing even though it’s been a while since the speech and people have mostly moved on. Snowden also does little to actually address the content of what Biden said regarding new and immediate threats to the US, choosing instead to focus on existing problems with the CIA which, while terrible, are not new and not unknown. He claims this is “consideration of [Biden’s] premises” but I think that’s a stretch to say the least.

In short, I think people are right to be critical of this essay and suspicious of Snowden’s motives in this specific case, without taking anything away from his previous actions.

[0] https://imgur.com/a/m7h2PtO

[1] https://www.politico.com/news/2022/09/02/trump-biden-pennsyl...

The symbolism of the zoomed out context is hilariously not any less ominous or threatening. The blue coasts surrounding and squeezing the extremist red middle of America. It was bad optics all around, unless it was intended to intimidate, in which case it put the intended targets on notice. If your strengths don't include psychology, metaphor, symbolism, power politics, etc... maybe don't swim in that pool and definitely don't volunteer yourself as a lifeguard.

Do you believe that your provided image is what they were going for? Or was it the image was streamed live everywhere? This [1] is C-SPAN's coverage, which is about as impartial as one can get. And they went from the framing that was entirely expected of them once Biden began to speak.

I would urge you to consider just how completely obsessive politicians are about every single aspect of appearance: the color of one's tie, the lapel of choice of the day, how you hold your hands while speaking, even the tint of your skin. That his speech evoked the worst of imagery was, unfortunately, not just an unfortunate accident.

[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JemWkV2Vcic

>the atrocities of the CIA are sadly well known.

Not well-known enough. In my opinion, literally every mention of the CIA in writing or elsewhere in the media should come with the disclaimer (paraphrased from the article):

"...the CIA, mostly known for directing the coverage of American news organizations, overthrowing democratically elected governments, establishing propaganda outfits to manipulate public sentiment, launching a long-running series of mind-control experiments on unwitting human subjects, interfering with foreign elections, wiretapping journalists and compiling files on Americans who opposed its wars...has the following to say about <--insert latest propaganda-->"

This is the kind of thoughtful, rational commentary I think the parent commenter was looking for. Thank you!

You’re welcome, although I think it’s kinda more than this essay really deserves. When it starts off with an already-deconstructed Nazi comparison and then had nothing new to add beyond that, it’s kind of a low effort shitpost. It shouldn’t be too surprising if most of the comments are also low effort shitposts. Happy to elevate things for a moment but this really doesn’t deserve much attention at the end of the day; it’s pretty trollish, sadly.

> reposting the same zoomed-in image with the red background, ignoring the additional context

Biden's team staged it that way intentionally. They knew red would be the only color in the background when Biden was the focus. The other lighting was for plausible deniability only. No one focuses on an entire building when a single person is giving a speech. You cannot see the body language. How often does a presidential address get displayed from any side other than directly from the front? The red and military personnel were entirely intentional.

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?

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