Regarding the honesty of Edward Snowden, Bromwich writes: "The first wave of slanders broke as soon as the video interview was released. What was most strange – but predictable once you thought about it – was how far the reactions cut across political lines. This was not a test of Democrat against Republican, or welfare-state liberal versus big-business conservative. Rather it was an infallible marker of the anti-authoritarian instinct against the authoritarian. What was distressing and impossible to predict was the evidence of the way the last few years have worn deep channels of authoritarian acceptance in the mind of the liberal establishment. Every public figure who is psychologically identified with the ways of power in America has condemned Snowden as a traitor, or deplored his actions as merely those of a criminal, someone about whom the judgment ‘he must be prosecuted’ obviates any further judgment and any need for thought. Into this category immediately fell the Democratic and Republican leaders of Congress, Nancy Pelosi, John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, Harry Reid, as well as every lawmaker closely associated with ‘intelligence oversight’ of the War on Terror: Dianne Feinstein, Mike Rogers, Lindsey Graham – here, once again, cutting across party lines. Those who praised Snowden’s action and (in some cases) his courage included the left-wing populist Michael Moore, the right-wing populist Glenn Beck, non-statist liberals such as Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Dick Durbin of Illinois, and non-statist Republicans from the West and South: Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky and Mike Lee of Utah. But there were others in dissent, more than at any time since the vote on the Iraq war, lawmakers who insisted that the secret surveillance by government was a matter of deeper import than anything about the character of Snowden himself."
Posted on: Tue, 30 Jul 2013 19:49:27 +0000