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According To YouGov Poll, Snowden Support Declining Among Americans
eldavojohn writes "A recent poll from the YouGov consisting of one thousand responses shows that Snowden's support among Americans has shifted. Now, according to the poll, more Americans think he did the wrong thing rather than the right thing when asked: 'Based on what you've heard, do think Snowden's leak of top-secret information about government surveillance programs to the media was the right thing to do or the wrong thing to do?' The results and breakdown are available online (PDF). Without getting into racial or political breakdowns, the results now show that 38% say he did the wrong thing, 33% say he did the right thing and 29% remain undecided about the results of his actions. Instead of charging the populace into action Snowden may be facing apathy at best and public disapproval at worst."
How about support for prosecuting James Clapper?
That's exactly the kind of psy-op that has been going on for weeks now in discussion forums all around the internets.
Slowly, but steadily comments pop up that put Snowden in a slightly bad light, for no good reason at all. Depending on the target audience of the forum, it's anything from "because 'MURICA" to what you just said.
Doesn't anyone notice that?
That's also why such programs are so enormously dangerous. Who in the world would know best how to manipulate public opinion? Only those whose sole reason of existance it is to peek into other peoples lives ... so even when the programs are known (which happens very rarely), we can't fight it because they have already become too powerful.
Everyone loves to talk a big game. "This country is worth dying for!" "We'll make America strong!" "We love our country!" are all common phrases that you'll hear at campaign rallies, but how many people are actually willing to step up? As it turns out, very few.
Hell, most people aren't even willing to see a 1% increase in their taxes in order to fix this nation's problems. Do you really think that anyone is going to risk their job or their life to do the same?
-1 disagree is not a modifier for a reason. -1 troll, flaimbait, redundant, overrated are NOT acceptable substitutes.
Wow does this headline have things reversed.
Edward Snowden has been subjected to a month long attack campaign. This started with go after his girlfriend for being a pole dancer. It followed with other negative news stories and criticism by major politicians. From there there was a federal espionage indictment. He then had to flee the country and the USA has gone to extraordinary lengths putting pressure on countries to isolate him. The media has been mainly complicit. And after all that is approval rating has dropped a mere 5 points.
That's the story.
Submitter here and I'm afraid I'm going to have to outright disagree with you. I just don't see your events lining up with this recent drop in support. You're talking about months old efforts to discredit him that seemed to have little effect on his popularity. If you read the HuffPo article you'll see:
Much of the drop in support for Snowden's actions since the earlier poll appears to have taken place among Republicans, who were divided, 37 percent to 37 percent, on whether Snowden did the right thing in the previous poll, but in the latest poll said by a 44 percent to 29 percent margin that he did the wrong thing.
As fallout from his revelations ruin our foreign relations I think you'll see a lot of conservatives switch positions. This is simply a more plausible explanation. US as a power player in world politics and economics is simply higher on some people's agendas then their own damned privacy.
My work here is dung.
That's exactly the kind of psy-op that has been going on for weeks now in discussion forums all around the internets.
It is standard propaganda tactics to describe people as unreliable attention whores to place blame on them. It works in various ways.
For example, take the fable "the boy who cried wolf". It is not a tale about a boy lying, but a tale about blaming a boy for the failure of others to build fences to protect the sheep.
Hello, Bob. I'm going to call you Bob. You work for the CIA as part of an organised disinfo op. You might not even know that. You've been hired as a contractor for "information management" or "brand management" or whatever banal words they put on it this time. But even if you don't know, you know, because who the fuck else thinks anyone in their right mind would do something like this for the attention?
You are a tiny part of what is wrong with America. And I'm not even American. Ask your bosses, they know. That's part of the problem. When they say it's damaging your country's national security, they're talking bullshit, but when they say it's damaging your country's national interest, actually they're being accurate. You have the largest covert surveillance and propaganda machine in the world, one that puts Iran and China to shame: and you're part of it, sitting there, at that keyboard, typing what you've been told.
If you know something is wrong, the public have a moral right to know. Edward Snowden is braver than you. Bradley Manning is braver than you. Julian Assange is braver than you. Each of them no longer have their liberty in any normal way, but each of them have advanced humanity in an important way and done what they feel it right: but you, Bob? You're a fucking keyboard warrior fighting on the front lines of the opinions of the American people. Fuck you. Seriously, go fuck yourself.
Maybe if the NSA can secretly record information on billions of people, then rigging a yougov poll would be child's play. 4chan does it about once a month, like how they got kim jong un times people's choice award of 2012.
Rocket Surgeon.
Nonsense.
Zealots, psychotics, and sociopaths that have nothing to live for are willing to "give their lives for what they believe in". The simple willingness to die for a cause bears NO weight on the moral quality of the cause, nor on the worthiness of the person.
History is littered with nutballs who are willing to give their lives for 'a cause'. Unfortunately, they usually convince others to join them, and invariably some non-nutballs die too.
I know it's all charmingly enthusiastic and romantic to be zealous about a cause but personally I commend American apathy. As we've recently been witness to (repeatedly) the world is FULL of people who are so partisan they are willing to DIE for their local interpretation of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Is that commendable?
We rightly mock the Byzantines for the Nika riots (in which tens of thousands of people were slain in street violence over the span of a week, largely over which color team they supported). We stand aghast at today's news about a Brazilian referee stabbing a player because he wouldn't leave the pitch (and then the crowd QUARTERED him and left his head on a stake in the center of the pitch). They certainly "cared" a lot about something, so much so that they were willing as a consensual group to murder a man. Shall we canonize them for their dedication to their beliefs?
America has been accurately characterized as the 'lifeboat from history'. America is where a Jew and an Arab can live next to each other in peace, not brainwashed from birth to destroy each other because of some argument between scruffy goat-herders hundreds of years ago. America is where a Catholic girl can marry a Muslim guy simply because they love each other, and not be bred into fervent hatred because of the faiths of their families. The ESSENCE of this is - dare I say it - an apathy to the fervently-held beliefs and concepts that their parents and homelands were willing to die and kill for.
Partisans of both extremes like to mock what they call the 'apathetic' center, mainly because we won't (whether the reason is intellectual or mere laziness) join their crazy-train of vituperation, spitting at the "other guys" simply because they're "not us".
Well, I'm sorry - I refuse to buy your motivational screed that I "must" care about this or that. I refuse to give a shit about whatever happens to get you all riled up, simply because you're agitated. I'll cheerfully go about my life, earn a living, and celebrate my "apathy" because that's one of the things that make this country great.
I'd stake my life on it.
-Styopa
You Americans deserve what you're about to get.
What they're about to get is nothing to celebrate, and should motivate one towards resisting the trend. The rest of the world either will get the same shortly thereafter, or is getting it already. The difficulty is that a group of persons must interpret the limits expounded in their constitution, and are not doing so well at it. One is reminded of the comparable commands in Orwell's Animal Farm, and their weasely reinterpretation:
And so forth...
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire