Look, Bill Maher's 'Real Time' is one of my favorite discussion shows. Readers will note how a number of times I've earlier credited Bill with exposing assorted morons on his show, such as Horace Cooper, Abby Huntsman, 'Kennedy' and others. But there are times Maher gets it wrong, way wrong, and one wonders whether some residue of moron DNA from past guests like Cooper didn't rub off.
A case in point was a brief interlude last night when the issue of the Quinnipiac poll (showing 55% of registered voters believe Snowden is a whistleblower and not a traitor) came up and Bill challenged it and Prof. Cornell West, by asserting: a) Snowden didn't reveal anything we didn't already know and b) he wasn't a whistleblower because that implies revealing lawless actions and the FISA courts approved what he disclosed.
Bill, Bill, Bill!
Look at what you're saying! Let's apply some logic here as well as a knowledge of recent history. First, if it indeed was true that Snowden didn't reveal anything we didn't already know, then how explain that the national security state and its assorted political class enablers and imps went bat shit crazy in the wake? Obviously, he had to have revealed new information, including: that FISA courts were rubber stamping mass search warrants in violation of the 4th amendment - to approve NSA surveillance, and that online companies including Microsoft, Skype, Google, Facebook, etc. were all on board with it, despite their protestations. Also, that NSA had turned its spying eyes to friends - as in the European Union, as well as to South America.
The publication of Snowden's revelations was such that The Guardian newspaper site was even put off limits to U.S. military personnel! See e.g. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/01/us-military-blocks-guardian-troops According to the article, the block is "theater wide" and:
"the Pentagon and the US army told the Guardian that automated content filters installed on Department of Defense (DoD) networks to prevent the unauthorized dissemination of classified information had blocked access to selected aspects of the Guardian’s website."
Hence, it is ludicrous to claim all the material disclosed was already known!
The other Maher claim that the actions disclosed "didn't break any laws", falls afoul in terms of language and semantics. I already explained multiple times how the illegal was made legal in terms of the FISA 1978 laws which had been implemented to ensure civil liberties were protected. But then the Bushies began a series of mass illegal wiretaps in 2005, and when this was revealed, they needed cover to protect their sorry asses.
Instead of holding these vermin war criminals responsible, successive congresses - including DEMS I might add- punked out like the weasels they are. First they rewrote the 1978 FISA law under which the Bush bunch would have been found guilty of criminality (violating their oaths to preserve and protect the constitution), and they made the actions of the Bushies legal. They used the misbegotten "Patriot Act" to try to justify this. That is, the use of an alternative, rubber- stamping FISA "court" (actually more often than not 1 or 2 judges, awakened at night to put their John Hancocks in place) that issued mass warrants as opposed to the selective, individual warrants that are mandated under the 4th amendment.
In this devious way, they managed to produce the illusion of legality without in fact having legality. It was all a bait and switch deception, and the marks were the American People. The congressional traitors to the constitution then compounded this by approving an extension of this FISA law imitation in 2011, which Obama also gave approval to. The sad and true fact here, Bill, is that we have been under the operation of an illegal FISA "law" since 2008. None of our congress rats have told the people this, why would they?
As one percipient Denver Post letter writer put it in the June 19 edition:
"All you need to do is enact legislation approving tyranny and, as if by definition, tyranny becomes lawful. Add to that a “secret interpretation” of the law. Lawful? How are citizens supposed to abide by the law when it is subject to secret interpretation? It doesn’t get much more arbitrary than that. "
That Bill, a self-proclaimed libertarian, couldn't understand that in responding with his diatribe against Snowden last night is deplorable. I thought of all the remaining talking heads at least he might have gotten it right, and recognized Snowden is indeed a whistleblower, never mind what the state-supported propagandists and PR mills say. But evidently he too is overwhelmingly taken in, as too many Americans are.
One last thing: if anyone really believes that Snowden has given us "nothing new" they need to link to the Guardian website (above) and read through all the published disclosures. Then, come back with a straight face and tell me there's nothing new there.
No wonder this country now approaches at least a simple majority having mental illness. If critical thinking is the first casualty of a people, and logic is so deformed by media and gov't PR that it is impossible or rare to see exercised on the broad national stage, then mental illness must result. The only way out of this tragic morass is that more people are able to consistently think for themselves, and that means with criticality- and not trusting anything a gov't or media mouthpiece says unless it can be independently verified!
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