Constructive Vs. Destructive Criticism.
Yiwu, Zhejiang Province, China, July 18, 2013.
Salaroche


Edward Snowden claimed he squealed on the NSA and the Prism program because he doesn’t “want to live in a world where everything that I say, everything I do, everyone I talk to, every expression of creativity or love or friendship is recorded. And that's not something I'm willing to support, it's not something I'm willing to build and it's not something I'm willing to live under."

So now he’s requesting temporary asylum in Russia, the member of the G8 with the poorest human rights records ever. Just check out Aleksei Navalny's recent conviction and tell me how fun it is to be a dissenter in Russia. Is Snowden’s future going to be better now than it was in the US just a few months ago? No way. Particularly because, in spite of its huge shortcomings, the US is still one of the freest countries in the world when it comes to freedom of expression.

Snowden's present situation only comes to prove that acting on your idealism may get you to feel like a hero, or a saint, or even like the savior of the world, but, in so doing, it may also blind you to some important political realities in this world, namely that all governments that have the technology to spy do it on each other whenever they can.

I frankly wouldn’t have had any quarrel with Snowden’s squealing had he limited his revelations to the domestic aspects of the NSA’s surveillance scheme. On the contrary, I would have welcomed the healthy debate presently discussed openly in Congress and the US media. But once he went on the international arena to provide American industrial and political rivals with ammunition to shoot down US policies abroad, that’s another question.

That’s no longer looking for the betterment of America, that’s already looking to harm America, which, coming from someone who pretends to act in the name of the American people, is blatantly unacceptable and it’s something that can be named with a few different sobriquets, none of them of the flattering kind.

You find American surveillance programs unbearable Edward? What about freedom of speech, you fool? Go spend a few months in Russia and try expressing yourself as openly as you can in the US, or try to express dissent in your beloved Ecuador, if you ever get asylum there, then tell me how it goes.

No, you idiot! It is OK to criticize the American government and it is good to expose any abuses that the American people may be subjected to by the NSA or any other similar government agency, but from there to intentionally try to harm your own country abroad there’s a big gap.

No, Edward Snowden, you’re not a hero, you’re just a deluded fool whose love of country was misguided by your own misplaced idealism and blinded by your own pathetic desire for grandeur. You’re no longer even worthy of your American citizenship, Edward; you’re presently just a stateless pitiful fool.

Salaroche