Reflections on a Snowden Rally

At a rally in Berlin

Courage is contagious. Well, apparently not. Greens member of Parliament Hans Christian Stroebel was present and gave an eloquent speech on behalf of Snowden (which I applaud) but when I handed him my business card while stating “I’ve sent your office many mails” and he saw my name, his smile disappeared and his eloquence turned to stone silence. In fact it seemed as though I’d slapped him, judging from his expression. He turned away from me 90 degrees but then nodded as though it were the only acknowledgement he were able to make.

^ Hans Christian Stroebel

It would appear the contagion of courage does not extend to a politician in public forum when faced with his own government’s complicity in international crimes and murder rings tied to CIA, JSOC & MOSSAD allowed to run free in Germany. My many mails to the office of Stroebel have gone unanswered but I had ascertained the mails have been received and Stroebel’s office is in receipt of the information I have forwarded over many months, prior to our meeting at the Snowden rally in Berlin (a meeting Stroebel did not anticipate.) I hate to think it is ok for myself to be hunted in Germany as an anonymous person and only famous whistle-blowers are deserving of any public defense.

Other reflections on the rally

Why only 200 people at this rally in a city and nation widely supportive of Snowden? I don’t know. Perhaps it is because it was planned and implemented on short notice and limited information channels (suppositions.) If so, it should have been more carefully thought out.

When media can state only a couple of hundred people were present, it undermines the reality of German support for Snowden. Consider Parliament has been unable to keep its normal vacation schedule on account of issues raised in Snowden’s case, including a backlash against the Merkel government’s resistance to providing Snowden asylum. Maybe a hasty and ill attended rally is not such a good idea when lying politicians toeing the American anti-Snowden line can use such a rally to point out ‘how little support there is’

More possibilities

I agree Bradley Manning was illegally treated in a USA system with only contempt for its own rule of law. Do I admire Manning? No. Other than his leaking the war crime video of the helicopter attack on the Reuter’s journalists, and certain cables, I cannot support his leaks which have caused incalculable damage around the world. Jeremy Scahill has made sensible use of the ‘cables’ leak (in his work ‘Dirty Wars’) but the cables were not critical to his documentation of American international crimes. Most of the cables leaked have served little purpose. Manning should be, on account of the U.S. military’s flagrant disregard of Manning’s rights, sentenced to time served and given a bad conduct discharge. Many intelligent people who support Snowden 100%, especially (but not only) conservatives, would be turned off by a rally associated with Manning.

In the case of association with Assange, with his acute narcissism coupled to self-aggrandizing behaviors, compulsive lying and beneath amateur intelligence skills, the problem is only compounded. Any Julian Assange association would seriously turn off many people who otherwise would back Snowden. I hope Snowden is able to sort this sooner rather than later and is able to shed WikiLeaks as a support mechanism (he’s had few, perhaps no other options) when it is altogether possible his 24-7 British ‘legal expert’ companion provided by WikiLeaks is MI6.

Meanwhile, a good strategic plan for liberal supporters of Snowden would be to make his case ‘stands alone’ in event of support rallies, to solidify conservative support (trying to gently point out here to the left, not all conservatives are tea party froot-loops but to get them supporting you, you must take into account some ‘principles motivated’ values that are not identical to your own)

Related satire: NOT My Last Tango in Paris

A note on the photos: Apparently photos of Berlin’s 4th Reich headquarters (the US Embassy) are not allowed. The rally was held in front of this location but when uploading a photo of the ‘Benedict Arnold’ building complex, the photo simply vanished-

More Berlin-Snowden rally photos (click on images to enlarge)