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Snowden is seems like a student of machiavelli far more than american idealism. He has an objective and is doing the best job he can to make that objective happ
by fleitz 13y ago
Snowden is seems like a student of machiavelli far more than american idealism. He has an objective and is doing the best job he can to make that objective happen.
Which would contrast highly with most whistleblowers who believe that doing the right thing will result in their objective happening.
- discostrings 13y agoPerhaps he looked at the results of other recent whistleblowers "doing the right thing" and realized that releasing information without the right choreography would end in no attention from the media or public about the issue and a ton of trouble for himself? In an ideal world, he could release the information and each individual would engage with it, analyze it, make determinations about it, and judge whether or not it is important. In our world, if he had followed the path of previous whistleblowers and given the information to a newspaper and returned to his house in Hawaii, he likely would have been immediately arrested, and the newspaper would have published very limited yet broad information in a single article in a way that would be easy for the rest of the media to dismiss. Then the character attacks would have overwhelmed the story. Like it or not, presentation is important. Snowden has claimed his objective is making sure people know about these programs so they can decide about them. That objective, and his path thus far, seems perfectly in line with American idealism.
- GHFigs 13y agoIn an ideal world, he could release the information and each individual would engage with it, analyze it, make determinations about it, and judge whether or not it is important. Thats this world, minus the people that keep "choreographing" things so they have the "right" impact.
- rz2k 13y agoIsn't Machiavelli generally accepted to have proposed a recipe for strategically achieving political aims, while he himself supported republics? Do you mean that Snowden is being strategic in how he attempts to further American ideals, as opposed to thinking its the thought that counts, or do you mean that he has some other goal that is not necessarily related to American ideals?
- mst 13y agoSo far as I can see he's basically doing what Assange did, only more so. Assuming his goals are to (a) maximise exposure of the things he's blowing the whistle about and (b) minimise his likelihood of getting screwed over, this seems like a pretty decent strategy (I think other respondents are reading your comment about 'doing the right thing' as indicating that other whistleblowers are somehow more morally pure rather than hopelessly naive; whether you intended it or not I'm definitely on the side of the latter interpretation :)
- fnordfnordfnord 13y agoSo, the US Judiciary seems rather Machiavellian these days. He's got several recent examples of whistleblower treatment to consider.