Snowden Had a Breaking Point, Where He Decided to Risk It All to Fix This Country -- What's Yours?
Snowden Had a Breaking Point, Where He Decided to Risk It All to Fix This Country -- What's Yours?
Change starts with action, and each of us has a way to contribute.
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Snowden sparked protest, lawsuits, criticism of the administration and US intelligence. His action shows the power that comes when someone inside the system break ranks and tells the truth. Successful movements depend on people breaking ranks: questioning, demurring, disobeying, defecting and withdrawing support. As Ken Butigan writes in Waging Nonviolence, the impact can start a metamorphosis for all of us:
“the individual conscientious objector, the abstainer, and the resister — the one who, as Gandhi said, pits ‘one’s whole soul against the will of a tyrant.’ Not only do the Edward Snowdens of the world help the rest of us see more clearly the realities we are up against — in this case, the institutionalization of unfettered, massive data collection on and profiling of the population — they can shock us into realizing that part of our job description as human beings is our obligation to withdraw our passive or active consent from such policies.”
What is your breaking point? This is the question we must all ask ourselves, especially those who have not yet taken action. As whistleblower Sibel Edmonds wrote this week, the inaction and apathy of people is our greatest enemy: “Apathy is a must ingredient for any police state, authoritarian regime, dictatorship, for abuses of power, for corruption, national atrocities, genocide. . . .”
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One or a few people can make a tremendous difference. Sam Smith, the editor of Progressive Review, reminds us of the unpredictable power of action, recalling: “there was the time in early 1960 when four black college students sat down at a white-only Woolworth’s lunch counter in Greensboro, NC. Within two weeks, there were sit-ins in 15 cities in five southern states and within two months they had spread to 54 cities in nine states. By April the leaders of these protests had come together, heard a moving sermon by Martin Luther King Jr. and formed the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee. Four students did something and America changed. Even they, however, couldn’t know what the result would be.”
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Carl Gibson, founder of US Uncut, recently spoke to Dennis Trainor, Jr. about the uprising in Iceland as a model for a mass movement in the US. Many of the ingredients are in place in the US such as growing wealth inequality and a government corrupted by big finance. Though it seems we are up against a powerful opponent, we have the information and tools we need to create the society in which we want to live.
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Much more here: http://www.alternet.org/activism/whats-your-breaking-point-take-action?paging=off
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Bye now
if that was his angle, he could have sold it off very quietly with no one the wiser for a long time. In the final run though, this is no longer about him but about us. Even if he sells stuff down the road, that won't change what NSA has been doing and the lies they've been telling everyone, especially Congress.
Hope you're not pulling my leg lol and that you're doing well 
"Hong Kong Eddie" won't be the celebrated hero he was a few days ago. Bank on it!
something different. I get that you're prone to hyperbole, but a majority think Snowden should be prosecuted.
"When asked if the government's collection of Americans' phone call records is a necessary tool to help find terrorists, a slight majority of 53 percent say it is.
There is broad support for the government monitoring the internet activities of those living in foreign countries. Seventy-two percent of Americans approve of this practice and there is agreement on this across party lines.
But fewer Americans are concerned about their own personal communications being monitored. Just over a third is at least somewhat concerned about the government collecting their own phone records (38 percent) and monitoring their internet use (35 percent); six in 10 are not concerned.
Asked if the government has gone too far in infringing on people's privacy in its efforts to fight terrorism, 46 percent think the balance is about right, but 36 percent say the government has gone too far. Just 13 percent think the government hasn't gone far enough. Republicans are more likely (42 percent) than Democrats (26 percent) to say the government has gone too far.
But an almost identical number of Americans — 53 percent — still said he should be prosecuted for the leak, compared to 28% who said he should not."
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023016898
Expect that 53% to grow. Hong Kong? Really?
that Americans don't like traitors. He screwed himself by fleeing to Hong Kong, and becoming a tool of the Chinese government. You Occupy types can try and justify that if you like, but as the media keeps digging into Mr. Snowden, the calls for hanging will only grow louder, and will come from some very unlikely sources. 
With your usual technique of deliberate obfuscation, and your tendency to make broad grandiose statements (like Snowden), rarely backed up by fact, you changed the subject of my original post. But that's okay. Americans still don't like traitors, and while they disapprove of widespread "domestic" data collection, an equal number think Snowden should prosecuted, and count me among them.
Is this royal "WE" again? 
More grandiosity from sabrina. I'm shocked! Shocked I say!
Hey, did you ever find that poll to back up your claim that Dennis Kucinich is hugely popular in Europe? 
