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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?
From The Q&A Snowden had with readers of The Guardian:
Q: What would you say to others who are in a position to leak classified information that could improve public understanding of the intelligence apparatus of the USA and its effect on civil liberties?
A: This country is worth dying for.
Despite this latest poll, I still think Snowden was right. Future generations will hail him as the hero he is. And that's coming from a non-American...
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.
...when you condider the 24/7 anti-Snowdon propaganda in the US-media.
Shooting the messenger has a long tradition.
Is this really a surprise? Most sections of the media have spent the last month or so trying to portray Snowden as a traitor, who's weakened the national security of several countries, endangered inter-governmental cooperation (because now they know they were all spying on each other rather than just assuming they were), is possibly a bit weird and is now "palling around" with Russian and various South American states who are "enemies of teh freedoms".
In that context, of course peoples' opinions are going to start to shift.
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.
By continuously shifting the attention away in the media from the human rights violations to what Snowdon is doing now (sitting on an airport) or did (show that the government is acting outside the law) people get bored. And especially since the violations of Americans' own rights is covered by law (that is implemented in a completely unaccountable way, though) the American people forget even more. But the European people - not their politicians, of course - are furious. If one chooses to be a diplomat or a politician, one knows there will be eavesdropping. But when I write a letter to someone, a foreign government that is supposed to be an allie should stay the f**k out of my mail: paper and electronic alike. Of course, I'm also blaming the United Kingdom. The western world induces terrorism itself by performing terrorism in other parts of the world. Conquer and divide. Give them weapons, let them fight each other as long as our companies' interests are ensured. Shoot people on flimsy evedence with a drone, without a trial, in countries we're not at war with. And the bloddy mess (innocent civilians) is a don't care. They are not our boys, but theirs. No wonder people start to fight back. People like Snowdon and Bradley Manning are necessary to show that politicians commit war crimes, blackmail countries and violate every possible law that's about humanity. That is because they act not in our interests (the public, the believed to be free people) but in the interest of big companies. Who also happen to own the media. And there goes your information, your well informed opinion and as a result yout humanity. The trend that you're seeing in this article is indifference. Governments are lobby clubs that lie to their people and allies alike. And they succeed.
More to the point, who cares what a YouGov poll says?
YouGov is one of those pollsters that will show whatever you pay them to show by selecting biased samples.
I believe it was them who at the last general election in the UK on the same day put support for the Liberal Democrats at something like 19% and 29% because two different papers had asked for 2 different poll outcomes to support their chosen supported party (FWIW the actual result was 23% at the election). That's not in the realm of legitimate statistical error margins and is proof of outright biased sampling.
So the problem is that whilst this may be an independent study it may also not. Given that we know for a fact they do seem to produce results to order it's impossible to tell which of their polls are and aren't biased. The safest option then is to just ignore them or risk being grossly misinformed.
It is now official. YouGov has confirmed: Edward Snowden support is dying
One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered internet community community when CNN confirmed that support for whistleblowers has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all important people. Coming on the heels of a recent Pew survey which plainly states that...
xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
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.
Push polls are a sign of fear. They're trying to give the impression that protestors are isolated and thus should be afraid of stepping out line by protesting. If people really didn't care, then you wouldn't need to keep the program secret, and continue to lie about it.
The details of the economist poll I could not find, only the claimed single question, which is rarely the full story, there's always pre-questions to remove the 'don't know'.
For example the first poll 'Pew', was heavily loaded with pre-questions to push the person to accept surveillance:
e..g.
"Did you follow reports about the government collecting emails and other online activities directly from large internet companies to track foreign suspects in terror investigations very closely,"
See the "to track foreign suspects in terror investigations" part?
If I told you the surveillance is everyone for everything (which it is), that's different from tracking a few terror suspects (which it isn't). The loaded questions were only able to just take it above 50%.
If they're pushing, then its fear.
Life for most of us is already complex enough. We know we are in a tiny sinking life raft with an insane incompetent captain on a hostile ocean filled with sharks. If someone then starts to show just how leaky the boat is by poking at its holes... well, they can expect a punch in the face.
Those that are upset by all the revelations are the people who thought the captain was competent and sane, the ocean was our natural home, the raft an ocean lines and the sharks to be dolphins.
In reality of course, the spying while much worse then what the dreamers thought is probably in reality far less effective. If it worked, they would be capturing more terrorists and criminals. Most of us in the real world DREAM of an effective secret shadow government ruled by aliens, it would mean that for once somebody intelligent was in charge. Or at least something with a plan. It doesn't matter that the plan is to harvest your organs, at least it is a goddamn plan.
Take the attitude in the US towards veterans. The average American KNOWS the average US veteran is a war criminal. Plenty of examples even very clear once like the Mai Lai masacre. Point out however that just because someone is a vet, they are therefor NOT automatically worthy of worship and they will spout all sorts of nonsense, even going so far as liberals stating that orders are orders.
The same people who cry foul (justly so) over Japan worhshipping its war criminals, can't see the tree in their own eye.
Because it rocks the boat. And people HATE that.
Ideally people want today to be followed by tomorrow and for it to be not to much worse.
If you read about daily life in the death camps of the holocaust, the normalcy of it all is the most shocking. Life went on, even if all around you it didn't. The same is true of children raised in the most appalling conditions. Humans adapt, to ANYTHING. It allows us to survive. Both Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett have written about this, we all need to be slightly drunk all the time because if we ever saw the world sober, we would lose our minds.
Think about this, while you are reading me prattling on, children are being hurt and killed, are dying of hunger RIGHT now and all your are doing is wishing you had mod points to mod me up/down. YOU (and I, because I am prattling on while I could be saving someone) can't deal with the real world all the time.
And snowden tried to force us to do so, to see the man behind the curtain and we hate him for it. Well not hate, just wish he would go away so we can pretend the world ain't that bad after all.
Want proof? Red nose day. A british charity event were they gather money through comedy. It is VERY succesful. Because it offsets the horrors for which the money is needed with plenty of entertainment and happy endings to make us forget how horrid it all is. Charity organizers know this, you show a BIT of misery, the photogenic part because if you just show thousands of dead children, nobody would donate anything because nobody would watch. Show however a story of how a child went from carrying water all day to sitting in a happy classroom and you can't accept the donations fast enough.
Snowden showed us the Auswitz that is our privacy and we can't cope. It is to much, to far. He didn't just rock the boat, he nuked it out of existence. And have us nothing in return. He didn't give us any tools to stop Prism. EVERYONE is in favor. The only ones speaking out against it so far are SOME tea party members and socialist semi-dictators. In Europe NOBODY has spoken out against it.
We can now either face the full machinations of the system OR wish Snowden went away.
I am betting on the latter. Because I am a old middle class man who frankly has every bit of fight beaten out of him. I used to be an activist for a local union, then had people who fought me every way demand that they get all the benefits they didn't fight for... let someone else fight this fight. I am done and frankly I can see why some people walk f
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
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