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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."

4 of 658 comments (clear)

  1. Re:hmmm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

    You Americans deserve what you're about to get.

  2. Re:hmmm by WindBourne · · Score: 1, Troll

    First off, the Government is NOT watching you. They are watching for attacks. In fact, the reason why Boston got through is because they have a cleaner separation on what is allowed to be listened to. In a nut shell, it appears to be that if you have a connection with a known terrorists, only then will you be picked up. However, if you talk terrorism, then it will not be picked up.

    Secondly, Snowden has made some accusations and sadly, others, mostly neo-cons, have taken those and blown them up much further than what he said. And of all the accusations that he came up with, he has presented some proof, but nothing substantial.

    Wealthy elite are enslaving you? Politiicans are oppressing you? When did Snowden say that? He did not. BUT, others wrap all sorts of wild things in his statements, which makes him lose his statements.

    BUT then to discredit him, he ran to nations that are generally regarded as NOT friendly towards USA, while telling them how NSA may/may not be spying on them. IOW, he is not seen as a whistleblower, but a traitor. And BTW, in any other nation, that is exactly what he would be considered if he did this to them.

    --
    I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
  3. Re:hmmm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

    Yes because all of us sit around waiting for Americans to teach us everything. Independence Day taught me that. Yanks learn how to destroy things while the rest of the world sit around waiting for those proud Americans to tell everyone else.

    We're just as competent setting up our own invidious spy organisations, thank you very much, and I'd imagine that the American agencies have learned significant amounts from the British in particular (thanks to the information-sharing treaties), as well as the French, Russian, Chinese, Canadian and the rest. And obviously the other way round.

    Pull your head out of your arse. America is not the centre of the fucking world.

  4. Re:hmmm by udachny · · Score: 0, Troll

    If the founders were so worried about the people's decisions, why did they bother mentioning things like "we the people" that emphasized a nation made up of free citizens?

    - yes, 'we, the people', means all people who want to be free individuals, live free from government oppression, people who fought the American revolution.

    I'm not sure who you are saying is being attacked when you say "productive class". Are you saying that only people who own business are productive?

    - 2 parts to answer this:

    1. In absence of savings, which come from overproduction and underconsumption there is no productivity in the world but what one person produces to feed himself, so it's all subsistence. However once somebody saves enough (and I am not going into specifics how they did it, I am sure everybody is aware that while many did it by being clever and hardworking, many others did it by being violent, stealing, things of that nature) once somebody saved enough, they could now provide capital that was used to multiply productive output that one person is capable of and that's what increased productivity - CAPITAL, capital investment.

    2. Yes, a worker can be productive enough to produce more than for his own consumption, that's what modern technology allows, but all of this technology is based around capital that was invested into making the worker more productive. Without capital investment a worker can only rely on himself, he has no tools, no means to do more than just serve himself. It is capital that is used to create, purchase tools and knowledge and other means and instruments, basically organize land, labour and capital in a way that increases efficiency and produces something of value, which is when sold covers the costs of production and leaves some profit (savings) that can be further used to grow the business and thus the economy.

    So yes, workers are also productive people but only when the capitalist puts his savings to work to multiply labour by some amount that would actually make it profitable to run the business, and profit is both: the reward for job well done to the investors and it is an indicator that the company is providing valuable service, product and it's not wasting resources inefficiently (this is why government should never be allowed into any business, the entire point of government is the exact opposite of business. While in business growing efficiency grows profits and increases success in government growing efficiency and success of some program reduces its very raison d'etre, or reason to exist. That's why such things as 'war on poverty' can never be won, because then the war could end and government workers involved in it would lose their jobs, so in reality 'war on poverty' exists to perpetuate and increase poverty, not to eliminate it, that's free market capitalist job).

    How do you explain Dept. of Labor reports that say something like 'productivity increased .3% in the last quarter' then

    - the numbers that come out of various government agencies are nonsense in both, the meaning, the underlying assumptions and in the actual amounts. In any case, whenever government talks about GDP for example, it is misleading, an increase in prices can grow GDP but decrease overall productivity, because growing prices can be only a response to inflation, people paying more for something reduces their purchasing and saving power and actually can mean a reduction in the economy.

    Saying that productivity in USA is growing is the exact opposite of the truth because it is impossible to grow productivity while simultaneously destroy full time manufacturing jobs that actually do produce, while growing part time service sector job numbers and government jobs as well, which are not productive at all, they add to the deficit, they can't be used to export (and whatever some of them export is in the export numbers already and given the huge monthly t