Trump is considering Pardon for Edward Snowden!

Do you have a substantial response? For example, what crime? And what exactly was in violation of the 4th amendment?

 

Read the Amendment Mike, and then think about it. Keep a dictionary by your side so you know the meanings of the words they used in 1787.

 

The Left used to understand these things.

“Since only urgent necessity justifies invasion of First Amendment freedoms, the intelligence establishment, in ironic deference to the need for a justification, consistently exaggerates the threat of revolution and violence. Thus a permanently endangered national security is the illegitimate child of the First Amendment. Political intelligence is a by-product of diplomatic and military conflict, and despite its domestic providence, is marked by a similar hostility toward the intelligence target (itself a revealingly hostile term of art). Like its military model, even though the target is an American national engaged in lawful political activities in his own country, he is viewed in an adversary context. Life in a relatively open society, which boasts of its freedom, makes the target enormously vulnerable when his policies come under hostile investigation by a secret police unit with an anti-subversive Mission.”
THE AGE OF SURVEILLANCE, The Aims and Methods of America's Political intelligence System, Frank J. Donner, Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., New York, 1980. p. 4.

 

Stop thinking of the Left as monolithic.

Among the intellectuals, we understand this is a moving target, and we are always trying to catch up usually with an earlier tech.

We know that introduces lag, and you need to try and avoid over-correcting in either direction.

We know you need to strike a balance between freedom and security, and that is also a moving target.

It's complicated..

 

Good post. IMO, the left had it about right until it took power.

"How self-government is to be organized and how we can manage without a bureaucracy has been shown to us by America and the first French Republic, and is being shown even today by Canada, Australia and the other English colonies." "The State and Revolution", VI Lenin, Penguin, 1992, Lenin, 66.

 

Anyone who has had much access to the official secrets of the Deep State should have a great deal of information about official crimes to share with a grand jury.

"But cheering for the CIA and its shadowy allies to unilaterally subvert the U.S. election and impose its own policy dictates on the elected president is both warped and self-destructive. Empowering the very entities that have produced the most shameful atrocities and systemic deceit over the last six decades is desperation of the worst kind. Demanding that evidence-free, anonymous assertions be instantly venerated as Truth — despite emanating from the very precincts designed to propagandize and lie — is an assault on journalism, democracy, and basic human rationality. And casually branding domestic adversaries who refuse to go along as traitors and disloyal foreign operatives is morally bankrupt and certain to backfire on those doing it."
THE INTERCEPT, The Deep State Goes to War With President-Elect, Using Unverified Claims, as Democrats Cheer, By Glenn Greenwald, January 11 2017.
https://theintercept.com/2017/01/11...-elect-using-unverified-claims-as-dems-cheer/

The existence of the corrupt Deep State was exposed by Eisenhower in his fair well address.
Few still deny the obvious.

 

I think the Brits have a number of bureaucracies working on this.

You might need something more recent.

 

Don’t want to burst any bubbles here, but as someone who served in military intelligence* I can tell you the Deep State is a myth. It doesn’t exist. Period. End of sentence.

What does exist is an entrenched military and civilian bureaucracy. Like all bureaucracies its main mission is justifying its continued existence. When it engages in a cover-up it’s generally to hide indifference and/or incompetence. Previous Presidents learned how to deal with it and moved on without whining.

* I’ve heard all of the jokes, so save your time.

 

Marx and Lenin noted that the The UK and the US did not embrace the European model of "bureaucratism" and that revolutionary change was not needed there.

Large standing militaries and bureaucracy only appeared when UK and US progressives started preparing for entry into WW I.

 

So you don't have a response to my question.

That's OK, I never thought you would.

 

Snowden was an IT guy, not any sort of intelligence professional. He had access to a lot of things he didn't understand because his job didn't require he understand it. But I'm willing to let him come back to the states, stand trial, and make his case then.

 

An entrenched military and civilian bureaucracy seeking to justify it's continued existence seems like a definition of the deep state.

 

We disagree on this one - agree that he has been under attack.from various factions within the Establishment power structure - but not all factions. Trump walks in the hallowed halls of the Establishment - and has done the bidding of what ever faction he happens to work for since day 1 - for the most part.

Folks say "Trump has done this - Trump has done that" The Wall, Abortion, Law and Order - and so on. These are hot button issues. The international financiers who run this clown show do not care about these things as an aggregate (sure different factions will have pet issues) but this is not where you go looking for the Devil.

The Devil is found on which they agree - Trump has not addressed any of the systemic issues - nor upset the status quo - w/r to issues that matter.

 

WW1 simmered for a long time before the inevitable happened.

I'm afraid bureaucracy was the inevitable result of the Modern Era, which is a rather long story.

So when Churchill built his new navy that ran on oil, did that make him a Progressive???

Btw, Lords of Finance offers a lot of perspective on the prewar era:

https://www.amazon.com/Lords-Finance-Bankers-Broke-World/dp/0143116800

 

Trump just won one election. He only controls an executive branch that resists everything he does. All he can do is make deals with the establishment. Trump is better at that than most presidents, but revolutionary change will require a revolution or a massive change in Congress.

The corrupt bipartisan ruling political class now runs almost everything in America.
Trump has to maneuver around an opposition that has openly stated a preference for an economic crash or even nuclear war to Trump in the White House, and executive orders can only go so far. Without a revolution Congress will have to actually want substantive change for it to happen, and it does not want that.

Are there any candidates running for a seat in Congress calling for large cuts to the size and power of government?

 

Snowden had access to the secrets.
I would give him immunity if his lawyer could offer a proffer agreement describing how Snowden's testimony could lead to the conviction of high level government officials for serious crimes.

 

Churchill was certainly a Big Government progressive. He even supported national healthcare.

Some level of bureaucracy is inevitable, but the modern leviathan state evolves from and with a ruling political class. The UK and the US were able to resist the expansion of the state structure for a very long time. We are about to find out if the USA can reverse the transition toward ever bigger government without another revolution.

“Now in 1917, in the epoch of the first great imperialist war, this reservation by Marx is no longer valid. Both England and America, the largest and ultimate representatives – in the world – of Anglo Saxon ‘liberty’ in the sense of an absence of militarism and bureaucratism, have completely sunk into the all- European filthy and bloody morass bureaucratic – military institutions which subordinate everything to themselves and trample everything underfoot. Today both in England and America the preliminary condition for every true people’s revolution, the smashing, the destruction of the ready-made state machine (developed in those countries between 1914 and 1917 to European and general imperialist standards of perfection).” VI Lenin, The State and Revolution, Penguin, 1992p. 35.

 

Umm, no.

1) He was conservative in some ways, liberal in others. Building that 3rd navy was not at all Progressive. It's something historians still argue over, which makes me think it's asking the wrong question.

2) England was able to resist solely because of Gladstone. It's obvious you don't like modern governance, but it works.

3) Revolution?? Puuhhhlease

4) Lenin is an antique.

 

What is the difference between a "conservative" and a "liberal"?

Do you believe that Marx and Lenin are no longer relevant in discussions about socialism - that their writing on the subject should be ignored?

 

And let me guess .... you're going to tell us that you had access to the highest level of secrets, right? Bull crappy. MOS training assigns you to the intelligence corps but not the highest level and I can say with complete certainty that you did not have THAT clearance.

 

.... in other words.

 

That's a good question. But a better one might be how a century has changed what they mean. Those changes make bridging eras with such comparisons moot.

I'm not sure that the language is useful, as a rule of thumb.

 

The problem with "Deep State" is simple. It's the boogeyman.

 

Now you're talking. But if his chances are less than 110% per cent then I advise him to stay put.

 

The real political spectrum stretches from the Big Government factions to the Small Government factions.
Politicians who call themselves conservatives or Republicans are often very attached to and supportive of the Big Bad Government model. For instance, Teddy Roosevelt, Nixon, The Bushes etc.

OTOH, anarchists and communists tend to laud the idea of small or no government, but in practice tend to be mechanisms for the installation of deadly tyrants. Alas.