Edward Snowden: What To Expect When You're Defecting

[flamingdem]

* Love this title. This is by Mark Ames, a US journalist who lives in Moscow.

https://www.nsfwcorp.com/scribble/5595/4c86cbaf3b57ac2b44925571f9fe068e6626156c/

The latest on Edward Snowden from Newsru.com: officials from the Federal Migration Service (FMS) say that Snowden could be transferred to a refugee center currently overflowing with Syrian war refugees, likely families tied to the Russian-backed regime of Bashir Assad. Or not.

Both Russian officials and Snowden’s Kremlin-tied lawyer are making a big show about how difficult the bureaucratic process is for anyone, even someone like Snowden, to get his temporary asylum papers. If you read the Russian press accounts, the surface statements about the Tsar’s alleged helplessness before the almighty bureaucracy are pure Gogol, without the ha-ha’s, a sort of no-laughter-through-tears. Beneath the surface, there’s something more menacing, a growing sense I get reading the Russian press that Snowden is a kind of Kremlin toy whom they’re intentionally fucking with, out of either contempt, or for the sheer fun of it...

Yasha rightly pointed out last week that the Kremlin gifting Snowden a copy of “Crime and Punishment” is itself a not-subtle mind-fuck on many levels. Dostoevsky’s book is a profoundly reactionary novel about a young foolish and desperate student full of second-hand radical ideas about his superiority against established morality. His name is Raskolnikov and he thinks he’s above ordinary human laws, so he kills his landlord according to these higher laws – and later goes crazy unable to believe in the radical ideas that led him to commit a crime, so he turns himself in to the authorities, and serves his time in Siberia as penance. The name of Dostoevsky’s hero, “Raskolnikov,” itself means “cracked” or “split” – as in his cracked conscience.

Last week Snowden’s lawyer, Anatoly Kucherena, told journalists...

“I bought [for Snowden] Dostoevsky’s ‘Crime and Punishment,’ because I think that Raskolnikov, who murdered his old landlord — I think that he needs to read about this. Not necessarily because of their similarities in their internal contradictions, but nevertheless...”

[randome]

1. Subtitled 'What was I THINKING?'

[hr][font color="blue"][center]You should never stop having childhood dreams.[/center][/font][hr]

[flamingdem]

2. Here's one by Dovstoyevski the lawyer forgot

?w=322&h=428

[randome]

5. Hopefully they gave him some DVDs, too.

[hr][font color="blue"][center]Don't ever underestimate the long-term effects of a good night's sleep.[/center][/font][hr]

[flamingdem]

7. And a soundtrack to read by

[Cali_Democrat]

48. LOL. You guys are hilarious

[Kahuna]

9. Yer killin' me..

[Thinkingabout]

3. Meanwhile GG sits woth his snug self in Brazil and Assauge is holding up in an embassey.

Where is the patsy, holding in a transit center in Moscow. Putin will let him go whenever it pleases himself. Next time don't be their patsy, send them to do their dirty work.

[JackRiddler]

15. Incompetent attempt at character assassination.

[Thinkingabout]

18. I have revealed the truth to you, I don't see myself as a whistleblower, now the truth

Has been made available for the world to hear. Actually there is not any need for me to attempt character assassination on these three, they did a good job without my help.

[MADem]

4. I do think they are fucking with him--they want him to go home. They don't really want to help him.

Meanwhile, they’re pretending that the Federal Migration Service is having a slow time (it’s summer!) processing Snowden’s papers for temporary asylum. Remember, the head of the FMS is an old KGB pal of Putin’s, FSB Lt. General Konstantin Romodanovsky, one of the big “Siloviki” or “Power Security Service Agents” who rule the country since Putin consolidated power in 2003-4. His Federal Migration Service answers directly to the Russian government — if they wanted to give Snowden his papers, no bureaucrat in their right mind would hold up Putin’s and Romodanovsky’s orders.

As I wrote last Friday, the same goon who’s helping lead Snowden’s case before the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), Robert Schlegel, is the same far-right fascist who threatened me in 2008, who pushed through laws censoring and criminalizing critical speech, and who led the Putinjugend “Nashi” group that harassed and threatened critics of the Kremlin.

In another sign of just how unpredictable and menacing “Kremlin protection” can be for Snowden — the Kremlin’s own website RT compared him to some of the most notorious Western traitors from the Cold War, many of whom met miserable ends under Soviet protection. In a piece published today headlined, “Spook out of water: What Snowden can expect if Russia grants him asylum,” the Kremlin website wrote:

Although Moscow is no longer behind the Iron Curtain, and Snowden’s PRISM leaks did not lead to the unmasking of hundreds of secret agents, the parallel that draws itself irresistibly is the Cambridge Four.

“Three of the top-level defectors – motivated by a sincere belief in Communism – were welcomed into the Soviet Union as heroes. Divorced from their members’ clubs in London with nothing in their schedule but the occasional lecture in front of KGB recruits, Kim Philby and Guy Burgess drank themselves to death in their state-allocated flats, awaiting a world revolution that never came. Don Maclean settled in better once he learned Russian - maybe a lesson Snowden could heed if he is in Moscow for the long haul.”

https://www.nsfwcorp.com/scribble/5595/4c86cbaf3b57ac2b44925571f9fe068e6626156c/

That opposition paper's remarks are nothing short of scathing, too.

I do think Putin will keep his promise to not extradite Snowden--he'll just make life miserable for him, by slow and painful degrees, is what it seems like...!

[flamingdem]

6. Yes, it seemed to start when RT said he could stay in the airport indefinately

Then the followup was that he could go live in a refugee camp a thousand miles away.

I think they're attempting to look less hospitable for the sake of US relations. And I think they genuinely don't know what they want to do with him yet.

It's a great time to go fishing and consider options!

[MADem]

10. When Putin's OPPOSITION says "Get the hell outta here," he's got to feel like he's been hung out to

dry: https://www.nsfwcorp.com/scribble/5595/4c86cbaf3b57ac2b44925571f9fe068e6626156c/

And then there’s murdered opposition journalist Anna Politkovskaya’s newspaper, Novaya Gazeta, which broke its sullen silence to tell Snowden to leave Russia, where he’s been making the opposition’s life harder by making Putin look better:

“Well, what can you say? If that infantile leftie Snowden really wanted to be a hero, he should return to the USA: crucify or not crucify, they’d probably give him 10 years, and he’d do five.”

“Snowden wanted to become a digital world’s Christ — without having to hang on the cross. Now Snowden’s going to spend not five years, but the rest of his life as a guest of the FSB.”

That, to me, is rather BRUTAL, particularly the "infantile leftie" and "digital world's Christ" remark. Of course, the more Snowden talks, the less likely it will be that they "give him ten, and he'll do five." He keeps running his mouth, and the damages mount. It's like he has a paint can and a brush, and he''s busily painting himself into a corner!

[struggle4progress]

19. Snowden won't see a reference to Lenin's "Left-Wing Communism: an Infantile Disorder"

if anyone shows him the article, but perhaps a certain proportion of the paper's Russian readers will

[flamingdem]

23. I had to research since I'm not up on Leninism being

an authoritarian and all my preference is for Stalin!

But this came up in a search:

Is libertarianism an infantile disorder?


In the excerpt below the very level-headed Mark Krikorian says it is:
I think libertarianism is an infantile disorder, an "ideology" in the worst, anti-Burkean sense of the word. That is not to say that many Americans who call themselves "libertarians" share that disorder — I think the appeal of the label comes from the Republican Party's pathetic big-government record over the past couple of decades. Despite the many patriotic Americans who call themselves "libertarians" as a kind of protest, the ideology of libertarianISM is a post-American creed that rejects national borders and nationhood itself.

Krikorian is of course alluding to "Left-Wing" Communism: An Infantile Disorder", a book by V.I. Lenin in which Lenin criticizes the more idealistic and less practical Communists of his day.

I am inclined to agree with Krikorian. The level of hate and fanaticism that I regularly read in libertarian publications can sometimes be quite nauseating. Ideas of moderation and compromise are a rarity. As I myself am very much a minimum government conservative I find a lot of libertarian analyses helpful so I will not go on a rampage of finger-pointing and naming names but some of the writers on Lew Rockwell's site (for instance) regularly sound distinctly unpleasant to me. Take this article by Karen de Coster for instance. It absolutely drips hate and dogmatism. She is admittedly an extreme food fanatic as much as she is a libertarian but that seems to pass muster among at least some libertarians. Their very Leftist contempt for the society they live in makes them disrespectful of scientific caution so food and health fads seem to flourish among them.

I will not go on but those who read much libertarian literature will know well why libertarians are and will remain a tiny minority in politics. Which is all the more a pity because a more moderate presentation might help in the great struggle against government and for the individual that is afoot in America today

An important caveat, however, is that there are as many versions of libertarianism as there are libertarians and there are a minority of libertarians who manage to keep their feet on the ground. There are, for instance, some libertarians who oppose unrestricted immigration, though that is far from the majority position among libertarians.

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com/2012/08/is-libertarianism-infantile-disorder-in.html

[JVS]

49. Why would Snowden expect support from the pro-Western faction?

It seems only natural that the segment of Russia's political establishment that aligns itself with Western interests would want to please the US government.

[MADem]

50. People who oppose Pootie aren't necessarily pro-Western.

A lot of 'em are just on Pootie's fringe.

Do you seriously think that the "Pussy Riot" prisoners agree with Uncle Sam on every point?

[JVS]

52. Novaya Gazetta is though.

[MADem]

54. No it isn't. They're an investigative paper. Their focus is Russia--politicians, criminals, etc.

They are the antithesis to Putin, they may agree with USA on some matters, but that doesn't put them in our pocket. Gorbachev and a pal own half the thing. The rest is owned by the employees.

That paper is all about RUSSIA. Not everything that people do is done against a backdrop of our concerns.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novaya_Gazeta


Novaya Gazeta (Russian: Новая газета, translated as New Gazette) is a Russian liberal opposition newspaper well known in the country for its critical and investigative coverage of Russian political and social affairs.[2] Four Novaya Gazeta journalists, including Yury Shchekochikhin and Anna Politkovskaya, have been murdered since 2001.[3]

It is published in Moscow, in regions within Russia, and in some foreign countries. As of 2009, the print edition is published on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays; English articles on the website are published more erratically. Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and State Duma Deputy Alexander Lebedev own 49% of the newspaper and the paper's staff controls the remaining 51% of shares.[citation needed]

[Historic NY]

26. No Russia runs on Russian time....

Adoptions of children have come to a stand still...

http://www.latimes.com/news/columnone/la-fg-russian-adoptions-20130521-dto,0,135831.htmlstory

[MADem]

27. Russia runs on PUTIN time. If Putin wanted Snowden ensconced in a dacha, or a Moscow flat, that's

where he'd be. The guy responsible for his paperwork is subordinate to Putin and one of his old KGB minions.

It's pretty apparent what's happening here.

If Snowden leaves that airport, not on a plane, he'll be shipped off to a refugee "dump" and held under lock and key. But no one is working very hard to make even that work. If I had to guess, I'd say that he's worn out his welcome.

[Marr]

8. lol

[Zorra]

11. Or is it...

[flamingdem]

22. Yum, I love that perfume

It reminds me of Eddie

[Cha]

12. "Crime and Punishment".. imagine that. Doing the crime

and having to take responsibility.

So, is snowden wallowing in Russia just waiting for the proper channels to get him to a warmer climate? Like Venezuela? I may have missed something in this whole big picture thing..

"Edward Snowden welcome in Venezuela? Not so much"

CARACAS, Venezuela -- Does Edward Snowden know what he'd be getting into if he ends up gaining asylum here? Many Venezuelans doubt it.

The former National Security Agency contractor remains in Russia seeking at least temporary asylum. But leaders in Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua have to varying degrees said they would be willing to take him in if he can work out a way to get to those countries.

Venezuelans interviewed in recent days say they have more pressing concerns than taking in Snowden, who is wanted by the U.S. government on espionage charges for having leaked details of the government's efforts to monitor email and voice communications.

"It would be better for Venezuela if he stayed far away," said 57-year-old Caracas bus driver Sergio Chacon.

“But if they do bring him, all I ask is that he keep his mouth shut and not live off the money of Venezuelans,” Chacon said. “I believe his only intention would be to bother people.”More..

http://www.latimes.com/news/world/worldnow/la-fg-wn-snowden-venezuela-20130726,0,2577908.story

What kind of reception is that!

[randome]

13. LOL! He'll be the village idiot of Venezuela!

[hr][font color="blue"][center]Don't ever underestimate the long-term effects of a good night's sleep.[/center][/font][hr]

[dionysus]

14. LEAVE SNOWDEN ALONE!1!!!!

[flamingdem]

21. Vot? Ve luff dese Amerkicaniki Snowski, ve hilp him not lave alone, nyet!

[randome]

24. Ve stomp on gays, yes?

[hr][font color="blue"][center]Don't ever underestimate the long-term effects of a good night's sleep.[/center][/font][hr]

[flamingdem]

25. Da!

Putin seems a tad repressed

[JackRiddler]

16. Doing the crime and taking responsibility?

You mean like the US government and military did after their genocidal invasion of Iraq, the torture and establishment of government by fear and emergency? Like the way those murdering Apache pilots have been made to pay?

You mean like the NSA paying for its grave violations of the US Constitution?

[randome]

17. I agree with the desire to throw Bush, Jr. and Cheney behind bars.

But the Apache pilots asked for, and received, permission to fire in a war zone. And the NSA, so far as we know, is not doing anything illegal or abusive, according to the documents S&G stole and printed.

Even Assange said it looked like the men fired upon were carrying an RPG.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Don't ever underestimate the long-term effects of a good night's sleep.[/center][/font][hr]

[flamingdem]

20. I love that quote!

However, I was so looking forward to hearing about Snowden in the Socialist Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, dang.

?w=450

[sheshe2]

35. Welcome to Venezuela, gringo~

From your link

Caracas hairdresser Jose Molina, 28, said some Venezuelans had become political refugees in other countries to escape persecution at home merely for having opposed the government.

“Everyone has the right to ask for asylum when their life is in danger, but this Mr. Snowden committed a crime, betrayed his country, and should face the consequences,” Molina said.

Andres Schmucke wrote a humorous column in El Universal wondering how Snowden would cope with rampant crime and scarcities.

"He could spend the mornings looking for flour and toilet paper," Schmucke wrote. “Ha! Welcome to Venezuela, gringo!”

Poor Eddie, what's he going to do .

Cha

[Cha]

36. Mahalo, she, for bringing that quote

over. The reality of this is a lit-tle different than when snowden was in China and his egger oners were toasting him on a beach somewhere in Venezuela.

“Everyone has the right to ask for asylum when their life is in danger, but this Mr. Snowden committed a crime, betrayed his country, and should face the consequences,” Molina said.

the only one who says snowden's life is in danger is snowden and greenwald.. well, maybe it is now.. in Russia.

she

[Tarheel_Dem]

37. I am officially in love with this thread!

[flamingdem]

39. Ve aim to pleaz!

[Tarheel_Dem]

43. You crack me up! "FLEE"?

[Number23]

56. Oh my God!! Where did you find that??!

[Cha]

45. Hey Tarheel!

[HangOnKids]

38. The Blah Times Is Quoting A Bus Driver?

Really? Will Eddie get kicked off the bus next? Holy shit what riveting reporting.

[UTUSN]

28. R#9 & K. Gasp, no internet access? -- unbearable!1 n/t

Last edited Sat Aug 3, 2013, 01:38 PM - Edit history (2)

[usGovOwesUs3Trillion]

29. Sanctuary from Torture and Life Imprisonment

Everything is small stuff after that.

[flamingdem]

30. Where's Paul?

Just kiddin'

[usGovOwesUs3Trillion]

31. By special request...

Edward Snowden is a modern day Paul Revere with a thumb drive full of news that Tyranny is coming!

Edward Snowden's Dad Calls Him 'Modern Day Paul Revere'
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/edward-snowdens-dad-calls-modern-day-paul-revere/story?id=19554337

Hmmm... who knew who influential a DU meme could be



Just kiddin'

[flamingdem]

32. We've got our schtick going

kind of comfy like a lounge act!

[msanthrope]

40. I call a Poe. nt

[usGovOwesUs3Trillion]

41. What do you call this? (LINK)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=3378381

[randome]

47. Software.

[brooklynite]

33. I stopped off in Moscow for 10 hours...

Even with confirmed ongoing flights and Visas, it took weeks to get all the Russian paperwork settled. Snowden needs to find a better Travel Agent.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

34. He would be better to come back to PA

At least he won't be beaten.

[Skraxx]

42. No Shit?! His Lawyer Bought Him A Copy of C&P???? LOL!

No, they're not fucking with him. Not at all.

[flamingdem]

44. Nyet in the slightest!

[JVS]

46. Mark Ames is in Moscow again? Last I heard he had gotten the hell out of there after Russian...

police started investigating his newspaper.

[flamingdem]

51. He's married to a Russian journalist

Guess she likes it there?

[JVS]

53. What is the source of information for your asterisked comment?

Because the article mentions nothing about him living in Moscow

[Arctic Dave]

55. This thread is awesome! LOL!

http://onlineslangdictionary.com/meaning-definition-of/circle-jerk


You guys need to find girlfriends.