I would like to state for the record that I am only going to be talking about the ACTIONS of Edward Snowden, not the information he found and whether or not I think that what the US government was doing is constitutional or not. That is a different issue that will at some point get its own post. But for now I am talking about the ACTIONS of Edward Snowden.
So let’s start with this, who is Edward Snowden is a former technical contractor and CIA employee. In 2013 Snowden disclosed to multiple media sources about a variety of top-secret NSA programs, including the interception of U.S. telephone metadata, Foreign Service Intelligence orders, and the PRISM surveillance program. Snowden in one way or another shared this information with multiple news sources with the majority of this information either being given to or published by The Guardian.
Is Snowden a hero? I think he is a narcissist. He finds what the NSA was doing to be morally wrong, but when it comes to national security there are proper ways to share this information with the right people to get things changed and known. Why didn’t he go to Congress? Why didn’t he go to his superiors? Why didn’t he go to somebody in the government? In January 2013 he went to documentary film maker Laura Poitras, most likely because of her work about another NSA whistle-blower William Binney. Once Snowden knew that the information he leaked was going to be published he left and went to Hon Kong. This brings be to my second point.
Is Edward Snowden a traitor? It depends on your definition of “traitor” but did he break the law, yes he did. Government workers cannot go to the media every time they disagree with something the government does. But I feel as though since we have lived in a Facebook and Twitter world where we believe that if we have information that it should be shared as quickly as possible that he didn’t want to go through the correct channels. He wanted people to believe, that he is some sort of savor of American liberties and a great whistle-blower.
Is he a whistle-blower? No. Whistle-blowers are people who see something wrong and by step chain of command in their company to reveal this wrong-doing and are protected from loosing their jobs or pay because of it. There is a law for whistle-blowing top-secret information as well, you just have specific people to blow the whistle to. And it’s not the Guardian. The truth is that Edward Snowden released top-secret information because he felt it was morally irrehensable and then fled as fast as he could to a country that is not known for freedom of the press, that may try to take the information that Snowden still has with him that hasn’t been released. I would like to reiterate that I do not agree with what the government has been doing. I disagree with how Snowden brought this information to light. He’s a narcissist who wanted attention and he got it. There were better ways for this information to get to the right people and for things to be changed, but he wanted to world to know his name, and now they do.
If you haven’t been living under a rock then you must know that the Supreme Court will be ruling on two major cases dealing with gay rights. One based on California’s ban on same-sex marriage, and the other based on the Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA as you may have heard it. And one can read what will the Supreme Court do, and how liberal will the court be, and how conservative will the court be. I think the judges have to ask themselves a question. Does the right to marry apply to all people of legal age? If the answer to that is yes, then are all marriages equal? Some may argue that marriage that cannot produce children aren’t equal to those that can produce children, but that’s for your conscience to decide and not for the courts to be deciding the nation’s morals. If the answer to both of those questions though are yes then there is no question how the Supreme Court should rule. Yes it will cause initial upheaval, but so did when laws against multi-racial couples were struck down. The supreme Court has the opportunity to show the world that Americans believe in a free and equal society. The majority doesn’t protect the rights of the minority very well, that’s why we have laws. So let the Supreme Court show what the american ideal is, that all men (and now women) are created equal.
Now I would like to ask you a question, I am sure you have seen them, pictures of women either topless or scantily clad with some sort of caption about “making me a sandwich,” somewhere on Facebook. If you haven’t that means that you aren’t friends of friends with somebody under the age of 20. Is this hate speech, or is this funny? A photo of a woman lying at the bottom of the stairs with a caption of “next time don’t get pregnant.” Is that hate speech or funny? I am not even close to naming all of them I have seen, mostly because I have no want to name all the perverted things I have seen on Facebook. Is what I find depraved the same as what everyone else finds depraved? The answer to that is no.
Laura Bates began a campaign against the images of gang rape, abuse, and domestic violence seen on Facebook. I have personally seen some of the things she is listing here:
Images with captions like “Next time don’t get pregnant” and “Now walk it off and get back into the kitchen.”
Groups with names like “Raping a pregnant bitch and telling your friends you had a threesome.”
Images of children, little girls, with black eyes or semen on their faces and jokes about raping or beating them.
Images of disabled girls, with men underneath and the caption “No arms, no legs? No Problem.”
Images of women’s faces contorted in pain, pictures of girls screaming.
I have seen photographs purporting to show actual rape.
Videos of women actually having their heads hacked off with a short knife as you look into their eyes less than a metre from the camera.
The response by most if you ever leave a comment is, it’s just a joke, or learn to take a joke, but really? When is this a joke, when is any of this funny? Facebook has stated that it will begin reviewing it’s policy on hate speech due to advertisers removing their ads from Facebook once this campaign began. Bates and those working with her began to show companies where there ads were being placed and these companies didn’t like where they were placed.
Is a review enough should all hate speech be banned? The question becomes what is hate speech and what is misogyny? A picture of a woman wearing a 1950′s dress with a caption that says “the good ol days,” isn’t hate speech, it’s an opinion, maybe a misogynistic one, but still it’s an opinion. So is hate speech violent. Removing violet content showing rape and not tolerating it is a start, but what about the culture of people who would post those sorts of pictures on a public forum like Facebook. I think that is what we need to look into. Why in this day in age does it seem OK by some to post these sorts of photos? I really wish I had any idea how to figure this one out.
On Thursday the voting members of the executive counsel of the Boy Scouts of America voted to lift its ban on gay scouts, but not on gay scout leaders. 61 percent of the voting members voted to lift the ban on gay members but not on gay leaders siting issues of safety. This ban doesn’t only apply to homosexual males, it applies to homosexual females as well. So, it doesn’t seem to me to be just to be about safety. To quote BSA’s Chief Executive, ”This has been a challenging chapter in our history,” Wayne Brock, said after the vote. “While people have differing opinions on this policy, kids are better off when they’re in Scouting.” While some church groups and very conservative leaders are upset by this decision I think it is a step in the right direction. Scouting may not be the most popular institution anymore, but maybe making this organization more inclusive will help. We are a nation that says “bring me your tired, your poor and your hungry,” and yet an organization, that does receive government subsidies, that bans members based on sexual orientation doesn’t teach this to children. Children should be taught to love one another. Hopefully this lift on gay members, but ban on gay leaders doesn’t cause issues and threats within the ranks of BSA. I hope that once the BSA sees that gay members don’t ruin the organizations, that these gay scouts will fight to become gay scout leaders and this ban will completely be lifted within the next few years.
What is it with the Democrats and getting themselves in these political scandals. I know that some of it is an outgrowth of the 24 hour news media, the “CNN Effect,” as it is now called. Imagine if CNN existed during the Kennedy administration. There would have been Marilyn watch, or maybe it would have been called something funny like “Some like it Hot in the Lincoln Bedroom.” The first president who was, I don’t know the right word for this, subjected to this real scrutiny from the 24 hour media would be Clinton. From day one there was Whitewater, I don’t know how many “gates” they gave him, and then there was Monica, the sweetheart of the news media for a good long while. Now don’t get me wrong, Bush got it just as bad as Clinton did. He did way less stupid things in his personal life. News shows literally had countdowns of stupid things that Bush said or mispronounced. Now we have and all the right wants to do is find something that can cause a scandal in the Obama administration. There have been a few as well, birthers, umbrella bitchers, and church fixators.
I am only commenting on the way the 24 hour news media focuses on the private lives of political officials, or about the parts of their lives that have nothing to do with the way that he runs the country. There are plenty of political controversies that have to do with the way that a president runs his administration. I am only using him because there hasn’t been a her yet. I feel as though policy discourse is a good thing. I feel as though allowing the news to be a circus of “oh my god Obama let a marine hold an umbrella, and it was the same thing when Bush was photographed doing the same, then we are missing the point. The point of the news is to allow the will of the people to be known and to check the power of politicians, by not allowing him or her to do whatever he or she wants in secret. If all the news does is focus of personal scandal and political substance than the news isn’t doing its job.
A topic that seems a little less Washington political but still political none the less is aging. In this day in age with Botox and collagen, and the ability to look like a Barbie doll, is aging beautiful and acceptable, or does a person wake up one day is “over the hill” so to speak. I was looking at my Facebook news feed and saw this article 4 Sisters Take Their Photo Every Year For 36 Years and then went to the Fraenkel Gallery website that has some of the photos of the sister at the photographer Nicholas Nixon’s page. What these pictures asked me is this, is there a beauty in getting older? Does age really bring beauty and wisdom? I know that I wouldn’t want to be 22 again. These women have allowed their aging process to be put on display for the entire world, and what does it show? It shows, to me, the real beauty in aging. That we are a composite of all the moments in our life. We don’t wake up and suddenly we are old. We are all human and we should allow ourselves the beauty of that condition. Recently there has been a horrible loss at our company, a coworker of mine has loss his child, and I am trying to imagine the grief he is going through and I can’t. All I can think about is the fragility of life. And maybe that is the place this post is coming from. I am grateful for my years, all 28 of them. I know that I easily could not be here. And I think we should all celebrate our years, even if we are a little ashamed to admit them.
I have a question for all Americans, what do you think the founding fathers REALLY meant by the second amendment? The truth is we know that these men had not long before fought a war against what they felt was a tyrannical government, and wanted to give the citizens of the United States the ability to protect themselves and the country as a well armed militia. So does that mean that Thomas Jefferson believed that ordinary citizens should have the right to own predator drones and aircraft carriers? We cannot look at the second amendment and assume we know what the founding fathers were thinking because, the didn’t have a clue how technology would change. I seriously do not believe that Thomas Jefferson or James Madison could have even dreamed of semi automatic weapons or predator drones. Alright, lets take the founders out of this. Why should the ordinary American have the right to a weapon? To protect his home and property. Makes since. Should there be restrictions on this, I already made one. I said “ordinary.” The definition of ordinary implies there are people who aren’t ordinary, an other. Who would I personally place in this “other” category, convicted violent felons, the mentally handicapped, those who have not taken a gun safety class, ANYONE under the age of 18 shouldn’t be able to own a gun, and you shouldn’t be able to use a gun without taking a gun safety class, and maybe adult supervision. Do I think the American people would be OK without having the right to own an automatic weapon AT ALL, yes. Politicians and news agents make you think that your “fundamental liberties are being taken away, but I feel more of my liberties being snatched going through airport security then the idea of not owning an assault weapon, or having to have a background check before owning a gun. Where were these politicians when the rules came in saying that we had to take off our shoes? It’s the same idea, a short inconvenience, in order to do something that you want to do. F*ck it, maybe I’ll just move to Australia. Gun control has worked there. The big difference between them and us, that isn’t discussed, they are an island, without a southern border connected to the black market, but maybe, just maybe politicians can learn something from a country that enacted gun control laws that worked.
I am from a generation that has been labeled Generation Y, and as I have spoken about before I want that why to mean “Why not?” instead of ”Why me?” I feel as though we are in a new world, where the rules of, go to school, get good grades, go to university, get a good job, married, kids, etcetera we all know that line of thinking. None of it applies anymore. I am not saying that we are in an era of bums and hobos, or hippies and free love, I think we are in an era of choice. But not just choice, but too many choices and that scares the crap out of people. Let me explain this. I graduated from university in 2003, yes I am aging myself, but I don’t care, and at that time the old model was still applicable, and if you got a job, RIGHT AWAY, you were safe, but if you waited even six months, the economy began to crash around you. The safe money-making jobs that your parents wanted you to get weren’t there anymore to rescue you. You couldn’t just fall into a 9-5 job. So what were to you to do. In reality, anything I wanted. But anything is scarier than nothing. Anything is traveling to world, teaching and writing a book and a blog. Nothing is sitting at home on Facebook waiting for my real life to begin. It took me a few years to figure it out. But what I want to say to people my age, living with their parents waiting for their “real life” to begin, count this as your real life, grab it, and go for it, without fear.
Last night I was having dinner with a bunch of Americans, and at this dinner were four teachers from Boston. We were trying to discuss everything other than this event. This one scary event that all in all just pissed them off. The truth is we don’t know why this happened. Everyday all over the world bombs explode at large events, and we as Americans take pity, maybe even feel sorry for these people, but we feel happy to be in the comfort of America, where things like this don’t happen. Or do we have a short memory. Acts of terror happen all the time in America, but we don’t want to admit it, or maybe the media doesn’t just so they can sell news time and magazines. I don’t like to speculate, and I won’t do it. I hope that whomever is responsible is found out. I hope that this act of terror doesn’t require me to touch my nose and say the hokey pokey whenever I go on an airplane. I hope that rather than having a blame storming session that the Massachusetts government and the federal government can look into what happened and learn from it. I just hope this isn’t another incident that will take more of my liberties as an American.
That is literally a sentence that a friend of mine said to me while I was walking to work today. Why would she say this to me, because North Korea has been threatening to blow up, fire, shoot nuclear weapons at Japan, South Korea, Guam, Austin TX today. Well it’s the 15th of April, almost midnight here, and nope, not dead yet.
Why would North Korea pick what seems to be a random monday? Is it because of tax day? Nope, it’s because it would have been the 101st birthday of North Korea’s first leader. It would be a birthday present for Grandpa? TO START A NUCLEAR WAR. I am sorry, I am just finding this insane. Well, we all are.
Basically this new leader in North Korea is trying to show his might. He is trying to show that he is as brave and as strong as his predecessors, by showing his guns, literally. And the US and the rest of the world, in political spheres aren’t buying it, especially since China isn’t backing them up. Isn’t it funny how a country that is trying to show how powerful it is, only has power when one of its neighbors decides to help it?
We over here at Petdal have finished up the long awaited delivery of The Sexy Politco website. We gave the site it’s own scheme of purple and orange and made it 100% interactive with the users. It’s not just a blog, it’s a place for real knowledge developed by great political commentators. We would like [...]
