Thread: Snowden on his way to Venezuela?

Think you are right there warrior, what's coming is something not seen before.
The Presidents, Prime ministers and elected official are not running the show, they may believe they are in charge, but they are being lead by others.

Too many things make no sense, why would Governments knowingly run the countries into the ground. Seems like they went out of the way to break the spirit of their own populations.

Why all the surveillance, all that money for what, certainly not to catch a few potential terrorists. Much cheaper and more effective to spy on potential enemies, but this is blanket surveillance, everyone.

Are they making a computerized dossier on everyone, who they call what the write, watch, political views etc. Big picture stuff, no cold war anymore, no 1,000s of nukes and itchy trigger fingers, but a bunch of nutters on camels holding the world hostage.

Much more to it than we are lead to believe, what the long term goal is, I have no idea, but you can bet it's not for the benifit of personal freedom or human rights. Jim

Originally Posted by Tom Sawyer

It's because the politicians aren't looking after the best interests of their voting constituents, but rather their sponsors (wealthy elites, big business, mafias, etc). Once they can make sure we pose no threat to their interests through constant surveillance of us, they will have total control and then there will be the environment for a no-holds-barred elimination of your (our) rights. We would effectively have no way to resist or launch a counter offensive at that stage. They'd be arresting any dissenters. I believe this has been in the works for a long long time. So the overlords (nobles) and serfs conspiracy theory isn't whacky at all IMO.

Thought that to originally, but it something bigger, it's total control not just keeping the elite at the top.
There is a C change happening, while the world looks on at the Mid East and terror, bad banks etc, they won't see the real reason.

Something has happened that will change how the world works and people have to be controlled when the change comes.
There is a cat in a bag and it will get out. and control will be necessary.

Think it will be a new technology, kept under cover for as long as possible, but world changing when it gets out. Jim

Originally Posted by Warrior

I dont believe that much in conspiracy theories myself.

But Jim, you said some big C change will happen and control will be necessary. Some truth in their, we face over-population combined with over-consumption combined with high polution combined with scarcity of resources (including water).

The control of the masses might not all be planned ahead, but it will come in handy against the rebellion.

That's more or less my read of all the changes in laws and massive surveillance of the masses. The people who run the politicians are demanding this because they know at some point the bottom is going to drop out and they need to be protected from us. Like you say it's protection against a rebellion and insurrection that will be a serious threat at some point in the future. The signs are there. The downgrading if jobs to mere subsistence levels, declining standard of living for most, export of jobs and manufacturing abroad, encouraging people to buy on credit, handing out piles of tax payers cash to big business and Wall Street bankers and bankrupting the nation. No one can possibly say when, but there will come a tipping point when the masses will demand their country - and their tax money - back from corporate elites. The army will step in and start killing protesters and it will go from bad to worse

All very valid points, the world is getting better for the vast majority of it's people. We in the west have gone backward some and are losing rights and freedoms, resources are being used up, but technology seems to be keeping pace with that.

Even war is off the table, know we are shooting and bombing here and there, but there is no threat to of global war, no Hitlers, Stalin's, Roman empires, even the Russians, though they may say things,they have tied there horse to the Western cart.
China is and probably never will become anything more than a big economy, there is no one out there that can stand up to the new world alliance, except it's own people.

I may be getting older and remember things differently, but it seems in the last 20 years the Governments have been hell bend on population control and population monitoring.
I don't just mean the big things, but things like what time of day you can put your garbage out, total control of even the smallest freedoms. This is training, you do not question even the most stupid laws, just obey.

They can and appear to in fact, do monitor everything, phones, computers, movements, spending. Those SiFi shows where you say or do something they [whoever they are ] can electronically erase you.

Question is why are our leaders so afraid of their own people to allow this, what are they hiding that needs this type of blanket control and surveillance.

I may have been in the jungle too long, but from my outside looking in, it appears it's the people that are the enemy. Jim

Yes the control is a concern.

Some risks are beyond control,Meteors,Sun activity etc.
Others need global co-operation eg

Pollution
Standards of legal and legal meds
Euthanasia and Abortion ethics and stem cell use needs educated consensus
How to allow freedom of movement at a pace host communities welcome
Emergency repsonse to known and future crises like SARS,AIDS or Tsunamis

Although there are downsides,the net and its successors will diseminate useful info to all alongside the spam,dross and nonsense

Originally Posted by david44

Yes the control is a concern.

Some risks are beyond control,Meteors,Sun activity etc.
Others need global co-operation eg

Pollution
Standards of legal and legal meds
Euthanasia and Abortion ethics and stem cell use needs educated consensus
How to allow freedom of movement at a pace host communities welcome
Emergency repsonse to known and future crises like SARS,AIDS or Tsunamis

Although there are downsides,the net and its successors will diseminate useful info to all alongside the spam,dross and nonsense

Yes the net is good for dispensing information, but just as good for sending dis information and it's faster than newspapers.
Again, many in the west believe what they read on the net, no proof just a more reliable source.

Opinions are shaped by TV, newspapers and the net, big important things can be made small and trivial things big.
It really is Orwellian, but it happens at near light speed. Jim

^
And the opinions you see and hear are carefully controlled including (and especially) those seen in the US and other western countries (Australia, Canada, UK to name a few). Ask yourself where is the discourse in mass media on logical reasons to nationalize energy, water, minerals for the benefit and profit of the nation rather than allow corporations to control them and dictate prices to us? That's just an obvious example - but clearly where are the debates and informed public decisions on free trade agreements, or socializing private debt as was done with Lehman Brothers and the fall of Wall Street, the auto industry etc in 2007-08? It's on the fringe - not mainstream - it's an outrage!

Hope it is all that simple, but I don't think it is, smoke mirrors and distraction.

Really believe there is a change coming, something out of left field that no one has seen.
Always remember that Discovery channel show on military aircraft.
Ex test pilot of Stealth fighter said. What you can imagine they will have in 50 years, they are 50 years beyond that.

World has changed more in 20 years than in 200 years, people don't like change and a big change may be coming.

This generation of people may not like it and need to be under control, that's us.

Jim

Agree

The ideal education seems to be as a quick change artist or least an early adapter,oddly this transition is in the hands of conservative and older folks in relatively stable societies

^ Oil is running out, thats true.
What is also running out is clean water. For drinking, for agriculture, for manufacturing.
It takes over 2,000 gallon of water to produce one pound of meat.
With the increasing middle classes in China and India, meat consumption is increasing too. Imagine what that will do to water consumption.

Originally Posted by johnwayne

Originally Posted by jamescollister

Thought that to originally, but it something bigger, it's total control not just keeping the elite at the top.
There is a C change happening, while the world looks on at the Mid East and terror, bad banks etc, they won't see the real reason.

Something has happened that will change how the world works and people have to be controlled when the change comes.
There is a cat in a bag and it will get out. and control will be necessary.

Think it will be a new technology, kept under cover for as long as possible, but world changing when it gets out. Jim

The oil is running out. Even before it runs out there are already major 'dislocations' of oil supply (terrorists, wars, accidents, etc). Everything, every economy, almost everything we handle and use throughout the day--roads, cars, medicines, energy, computers---all of it relies on cheap oil.

Someday, perhaps sooner than we think, the money will cease to come out of the ATMS and there will be no more gas at the pumps, and the grocery stores will be empty.

Total chaos, riots, murder, rape, arson. As some have observed, "any society is only three square meals away from anarchy"
“Any society is three square meals away from anarchy” suggests researchers

Think because you have a semi-auto and some ammo you can hold off the hoards if you're unlucky to be caught in a large urban area? Think again. They'll just toss a moltov cocktail at your house in the back while you're firing out the front. You'll be burned alive or shot when you run screaming from your house.

I found on your link:
This Amazing Commercial From Thailand Will Make You Cry



This Amazing Commercial From Thailand Will Make You Cry

I would say:

Snowden for President !

c'mon U.S., you had a peanut farmer, actor, the worst nobel peace price dummy, why not try something new.

Edward Snowden is no traitor

By Richard Cohen, Published: October 22

What are we to make of Edward Snowden? I know what I once made of him. He was no real whistleblower, I wrote, but “ridiculously cinematic” and “narcissistic” as well. As time has proved, my judgments were just plain wrong. Whatever Snowden is, he is curiously modest and has bent over backward to ensure that the information he has divulged has done as little damage as possible. As a “traitor,” he lacks the requisite intent and menace.
But traitor is what Snowden has been roundly called. Harry Reid: “I think Snowden is a traitor.” John Boehner: “He’s a traitor.” Rep. Peter King: “This guy is a traitor; he’s a defector.” And Dick Cheney not only denounced Snowden as a “traitor” but also suggested that he might have shared information with the Chinese. This innuendo, as with Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction, is more proof of Cheney’s unerring determination to be cosmically wrong.
The early denunciations of Snowden now seem both over the top and beside the point. If he is a traitor, then which side did he betray and to whom does he now owe allegiance? Benedict Arnold, America’s most famous traitor, sold out to the British during the Revolutionary War and wound up a general in King George III’s army. Snowden seems to have sold out to no one. In fact, a knowledgeable source says that Snowden has not even sold his life story and has rebuffed offers of cash for interviews. Maybe his most un-American act is passing up a chance at easy money. Someone ought to look into this.
Snowden’s residency in Russia has been forced upon him — he had nowhere else to go. Those people who insist he should come home and go to jail lack a healthy regard for the rigors of imprisonment. After a while it can be no fun. Snowden insists that neither the Russians nor, before them, the Chinese have gotten their grubby hands on his top-secret material, and indeed, this fits with his M.O. He has been careful with his info, doling it out to responsible news organizations — The Post, the New York Times, the Guardian, etc. — and not tossing it up in the air, WikiLeaks style, and echoing the silly mantra “Information wants to be free.” (No. Information, like most of us, wants a home in the Hamptons.)
My initial column on Snowden was predicated on the belief that, really, nothing he revealed was new. Didn’t members of Congress know all this stuff and hadn’t much of it leaked? Yes, that’s largely true. But my mouth is agape at the sheer size of these data-gathering programs — a cascade of news stories that leads me to conclude that this very column was known to the National Security Agency before it was known to my editors. I also wrote that “No one lied about the various programs” Snowden disclosed. But then we found out that James Clapper did. The director of national intelligence was asked at a Senate hearing in March if “the story that we have millions or hundreds of millions of dossiers on people is completely false” and he replied that it was. Actually, it was his answer that was “completely false.”
Snowden is one of those people for whom the conjunction “and” is apt. Normally, I prefer the more emphatic “but” so I could say “Snowden did some good but he did a greater amount of damage.” Trouble is, I’m not sure of that. I am sure, though, that he has instigated a worthwhile debate. I am sure that police powers granted the government will be abused over time and that Snowden is an authentic whistleblower, appalled at what he saw on his computer screen and wishing, like Longfellow’s Paul Revere, to tell “every Middlesex village and farm” what our intelligence agencies were doing. Who do they think they are, Google?
But (and?) I am at a loss to say what should be done with Snowden. He broke the law, this is true. He has been chary with his information, but he cannot know all its ramifications and, anyway, the government can’t allow anyone to decide for himself what should be revealed. That, too, is true. So Snowden is, to my mind, a bit like John Brown, the zealot who intensely felt the inhumanity of slavery and broke the law in an attempt to end the practice. My analogy is not neat — Brown killed some people — but you get the point. I suppose Snowden needs to be punished but not as a traitor. He may have been technically disloyal to America but not, after some reflection, to American values.

Read more from Richard Cohen’s archive.

From what I have seen of Venezuela, I am happy that Snowden will finally get what he deserves. They deserve each other.

RickThai

Originally Posted by RickThai

From what I have seen of Venezuela, I am happy that Snowden will finally get what he deserves. They deserve each other.

RickThai

He is in Russia RT.

And he created some great fuzz.

There is a picture on the net showing Angela Merkel arriving for a Brussels summit in a car with license plate 007.
Merkel arrives in '007' at EU summit amid US spying row - ITV News

I personally am loving how this is being handled by the Guardian etc. In drip feeding it out, with the US and other governments not knowing exactly what they have, they are continually showing the lies that these people say on a daily basis.

The US government in particular; they get confronted with something, they then lie about it. This is then shown to be a lie with their own material, so they try to explain it with another lie. This is then shown to be a lie with their own material. So they lie about this, which is then shown... it's great to see but alas most people are so brainwashed by the puppet show that they are not seeing the real truth - the US is a totalitarian state already with all the systems and laws in place and they are bluffing it out until the day comes when they need to protect their position. At which point, the laws get teeth.

@Rickthai - grow up, lad. Snowden has not harmed the people of the world, only the corrupt governments. Do you forget they are supposed to represent the people?

Snowden needs a medal. Shame is, he will likely get an untimely death unless the US finds a way to smear him completely; after all, it is what the people who have bought into the political muppet show desperately want....proof he is a traitor rather than just a bloke who wants what is best for the people of the world.

And the drip feeding continues: first it was said that Obama had no knowledge of spying on Merkel, but last night the first reports suggest the opposite:

New media report suggests Obama knew NSA spied on Merkel | News | DW.DE | 27.10.2013

Snowden gave us one of the best ongoing spy-stories ever.

Just waiting for the next episode.

There should be a lot more of the Snowdon's and Assnge's

Originally Posted by Gilbert

I personally am loving how this is being handled by the Guardian etc. In drip feeding it out, with the US and other governments not knowing exactly what they have, they are continually showing the lies that these people say on a daily basis.

The US government in particular; they get confronted with something, they then lie about it. This is then shown to be a lie with their own material, so they try to explain it with another lie. This is then shown to be a lie with their own material. So they lie about this, which is then shown... it's great to see but alas most people are so brainwashed by the puppet show that they are not seeing the real truth - the US is a totalitarian state already with all the systems and laws in place and they are bluffing it out until the day comes when they need to protect their position. At which point, the laws get teeth.

@Rickthai - grow up, lad. Snowden has not harmed the people of the world, only the corrupt governments. Do you forget they are supposed to represent the people?

Snowden needs a medal. Shame is, he will likely get an untimely death unless the US finds a way to smear him completely; after all, it is what the people who have bought into the political muppet show desperately want....proof he is a traitor rather than just a bloke who wants what is best for the people of the world.

What gets me is the muppets keep lying even after being caught out.
It's as if some cog in their brain won't let them believe they've actually been caught out so ythey go on believing their own BS.

Originally Posted by RickThai

From what I have seen of Venezuela, I am happy that Snowden will finally get what he deserves. They deserve each other.

I'd much rather live there than the US. Each to their own, I suppose.

So what is Germany other countries doing about it.?

Most of the time when countries are caught spying people or Embassies get expelled from the country, but have we seen or heard anything like this yet, would of thought the likes of Germany with its pull would be furious.