not the same:
One thing that always seems to get swept under the rug about Americans with a progressive bent is that we are, in fact, patriots, with a clear understanding of realpolitik and the necessity of secrecy in statecraft. The “Pentagon Papers” seem to be the impetus for many, of a certain generation, to champion the actions of the holy trinity of righteousness that is Assange/Greenwald/Snowden – but what they forget is that Ellsberg was a different animal entirely: he was judicious where they were slapdash, and he never shied away from the consequences of his actions (quite the contrary in fact). Richard Helms, DCI, had a quip: “there are two things you won’t find at CIA- communists and Republicans.” Meanwhile we have idiots here like llamaspit and jason, trying to troll with minutiae and namecalling- and missing the point entirely…Ellsberg’s actions spoke to a very specific instance of moral turpitude on the part of the DoD (they were lying to themselves about our own troops, and killing more of them because of it). Even so, Ellsberg’s actions were problematic; and he knew that, and owned it. Snowden et al are all about getting off scot-free, with no regard for the real stakes.
What the Wikileaks crowd did was a crime. The machinery of governance is ugly, underneath, but monkeywrenching it indiscriminately serves no one, and endangers everyone. When Ellsberg leaked the Pentagon Papers, it was because he wanted to stop the Vietnam War, so he left out sections about peace negotiations with North Vietnam, so that Nixon couldn’t use the release as an excuse for breaking off negotiations with them. Ellsberg understood that some government documents should remain secret, at least for some period of time. Mr. Assange views the very notion of government secrecy as totalitarian in nature. He has referred to his site as “an uncensorable system for untraceable document leaking and analysis.” WikiLeaks offers no articles of its own, no context of any of the materials it discloses, and no analysis of them other than assertions in press releases or their equivalent. As Princeton historian Sean Wilentz told the Associated Press earlier this month:
“WikiLeaks seems rooted in a “simpleminded idea of secrecy and transparency”.
I would have a lot more respect for Edward Snowden’s actions as acts of civil disobediance if he had faced his accusers rather than tucking himself firmly under Putin’s protective wing. Daniel Ellsberg didn’t flee the country, but rather fought the charges against him in the courts. Dr. King went to jail, not to Cuba. Flight to avoid prosecution is simply not the way civil disobedience achieves it’s goals. Also, pretty sure Daniel Ellsberg knew the content of the carefully selected documents he leaked. Unlike Snowden, who just scooped up as much as he could and forked it on over to people he barely knew. Ellsberg’s resistance actually created legal precedence and King’s changed national policy. Snowden just shotgunned a ton of documents into the public eye with no real, demonstrable change in government practice.
I really don’t see what makes these people part of “the left.” They don’t seem to share any of the priorities or core beliefs of the left, and they generally focus on left governments and politicians to the benefit of the right. Is there a reason we call them “left”? Because “right” seems a lot more applicable. Being insufferable assholes also helps them fit right in with that “right” label too. Assange’s gross alliance with white nationalists — shrieking about “Jews” – Snowden’s gun-nut Ron Paul politics; and Greenwald’s histrionic caterwauling that anyone who pointed out he was making common cause with assholes was “McCarthyite” — a slur that seems to have worked well for him, since now, all these years later, everyone’s using it. The “progressives” on Twitter who think the worst thing to happen to the world is America, and the worst thing to happen to America is the Democrats, particularly Barack Obama and DEFINITELY Hillary Clinton. Thank God Snowden/Assange/Greenwald worshipping “progressives” on twitter helped stop Hillary’s ascendancy, with her calls for every single populist policy their followers claim to demand. They’re currently holding the line in defense of that great humanitarian Vladimir Putin, while explaining to anyone who’ll listen that it’s Barack Obama who can’t be trusted. And lefties are buying it, along with the fiction that the three are anything like progressive themselves. Do avail yourself of the chance to read about how their opposition to American imperialism was totally coincidental to Obama becoming president.
One thing that’s nice is that, whenever someone who claims to be a leftist starts praising Greenwald or Assange, you immediately know that
1) they’re lying about being a leftist and not a self-righteous prick and useful idiot for actual fascists
2) they can be safely ignored (the same is true if they start calling perfectly decent liberal political figures like Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton “neoliberal”, or if they angrily insist that they’re not liberals but leftists, and those are not synonyms but completely different things).