Vài Lời Giới Thiệu và Đề Nghị về GNU-Linux

Khi Tôi dùng Gnu-Linux Ubuntu khoảng vài năm trước đây do một số bạn bè giới thiệu, cũng như bao nhiêu kẻ vô tâm khác, Tôi đã không lưu tâm tìm hiểu. Chỉ dùng vì sự tò mò kỹ thuật. Sau sự vụ NSA, và đặc biệt từ bài viết Cryptology của Jullian Assange, và sau đó theo dõi buổi thuyết trình của Richard Matthew Stallman, người xướng lập phong trào tự do của GNU-  tôi mới lưu tâm tìm hiểu sâu hơn và nhận ra cả một triết thuyết và tiến trình nền tảng chính trị đã được phát động từ năm 1983. Triết thuyết Thông Tin Tự Do, Chủ Quyền Cá Nhân và Tương Quan Công Chúng được đặt làm nền tảng cho tiến trình này. Phần căn bản Nhân Chủ đã trình bày trong bài giới thiệu trước. Bài viết giới thiệu này chỉ nêu lên những kinh nghiệm thực tiễn để những độc giả quan tâm có cơ hội xét nghiệm theo nhu cầu cá nhân. Đây là kinh nghiệm bản thân về KIẾN THỨC BAO LA, nếu không lưu tâm, sẽ trở thành kém cõi lầm lạc, và DÙ KHỞI ĐẦU CHẬM TRỄ, CÒN HƠN KHÔNG BAO GIỜ!




Hiện nay, Gnu-Linux đã có đến trên dưới một ngàn bộ điều hành (OS) GỌI LÀ DISTROS. Gnu-Linux là bộ điều hành chính, các ứng liệu khác tùy vào nhu cầu, những người sử dụng có trình độ hoặc nhóm nghiên cứu sẽ tự nguyện viết ra đáp ứng. Hoàn toàn tự do, tự nguyện, không ràng huộc giới hạn hay dấu diếm mưu toan lợi, quyền.

Những Khiếm Khuyết- "Bất Tiện"

-Một trong những điểm không được ưa chuộng của LinUx là nguyên tắc Đọc- Viết-Chờ của nó (Read-Write-Wait) khiến người dùng có cảm giác nó chậm hơn Windows.
-Linux, do nhiều người chưa đặt thêm nhu cầu, nên có nhiều chức năng như tải hồ sơ đa dạng hàng loạt (batch download) CHƯA ĐƯỢC viết cho Linux như Internet Download Manager..
- Một số nhu cầu cài đặt, điều chỉnh, chưa được giao diện hóa (GUI), cần người sử dụng viết ngữ lệnh (scripts-command lines). Nhưng nói chung tất cả các nhu cầu thông dụng khác đều đã giao diện hóa giống như MS Windows.

Ngoài những "bất tiện" trên, GNU Linux nói chung vượt trội hơn MS Windows và Apple Mac ở các lãnh vực khác.. như KHÔNG BỊ RÀNG BUỘC LUẬT LỆ, MIỄN PHÍ và KHÔNG BỊ ĐE DỌA HOẠI TÍN..V.V

Cá nhân Tôi, khởi đầu dùng Ubuntu, sau này Ubuntu có nỗ lực thương mại hóa viết ra bộ "UNITY", Tôi không thích nên không dùng nữa.

Tuy nhiên, Ubuntu là bộ được đa số sử dụng vì nó song hành, nếu chưa muốn nói là vượt qua hẳn cả Apple Mac và Microsoft Windows về nhiều mặt. Vì Ubuntu cạnh tranh để người sử dụng có đủ những thứ "tiện dụng" giải trí như MS Windows. Những ai chuyển từ Windows qua Ubunti hầu như không gặp bất cứ trở ngại lớn nào trừ việc lúng túng do "khác lạ" với thói quen trước đây đã có với MS Windows.  Facebook, Paltalk, Skype v.v đều tương tích rất tốt. Nhưng phải chịu nhiều quảng cáo trực tiếp, đột nhập thông tin riêng tư  từ các công ty bảo trợ như Amazon v.v

Hiện nay Tôi dùng 4 loại Linux Distros cho 4 máy khác nhau, để thử nghiệm và tìm lỗi (bugs) và thông báo giúp cho cộng đồng Linux.

Bộ thứ nhất là Kubuntu, có nền tảng là Ubuntu, được một nhóm khai triển thêm đặt giao diện KDE làm nền và gỡ hẳn UNITY đi.. (Linux mở rộng tự do như thế đấy .. Nếu quí vị có khả năng viết bản lệnh tu sửa hay thay đổi, đặt tên khác cho vui- xin cứ tự tiện- không có ai, điều luật nào cột buộc ngăn cấm quí vị)

Bộ thứ hai, Mageia, do nhóm Pháp thực hiện, rất chuyên môn và trang nhã. Thích hợp cho những ai kỹ lưỡng , không ham mê giải trí, chuyên tâm vào công việc chuyên biệt.

Bộ thú 3, là Mint, có gốc là Red Hat- Fedora, được đơn giản gọn nhẹ đi cho thích hợp với một số người sử dụng.

Bộ thứ tư, là bộ Tôi thích nhất, và dùng trong máy chính hàng ngày, bộ FEDORA 20... Có gốc từ Red Hat, cải tiến trang nhã và đa dạng cho các bộ giao diện khác nhau (desktops) Gnome, KDE, LDE, v.v  tùy nhu cầu ý thích và độ mạnh của từng máy...nhưng vẫn giữ nguyên lý tự do... Tôi dùng không thấy trở ngại gì.

Theo KINH NGHIỆM, Nếu quí vị muốn dùng thử nghiệm, xin lưu ý những ĐIỂM THEN CHỐT sau đây:

Gnu-Linux, KHÔNG CẦN MÁY MỚI, MẠNH.
Gnu-Linux KHÔNG CẦN PHẢI CÀI ĐẶT 64bits để tận dụng lượng bộ nhớ hơn 3G RAMS...

Vì vậy những ai trong quí vị không thích kỹ thuật- chỉ nên dùng bộ 32bits cho dễ dãi điều hành và tương tích.

1- Nếu có thể được, nên dùng một máy riêng biệt cho GNU LINUX. Sau một đôi tuần nếu đã quen và thấy thích hợp, sẽ chuyển các hồ sơ phim ảnh v.v riêng, từ MSwindows qua sau.. Thường chỉ cần một tuần chú tâm dùng là đã thuần thục.

2-Trong trường hợp không dư thừa máy, và vẫn còn một số công việc buộc phải dùng MS Windows-  Qui vị vẫn cứ an toàn dùng chung với Ms Windows (dual boot) trong một máy.

Như vậy, khi gặp trở ngại, qui vị có thể trực tiếp sao chép từ MS Windows, hoặc khởi động máy trở lại MS Windows để hoàn tất công viêc..

Đây chỉ là theo KINH NGHIỆM CHỦ QUAN CÁ NHÂN của Tôi.

Quí vị có thể còn tìm ra nhiều điều thú vị và thích hợp hơn nữa trong gần 1000 bộ Gnu-Linux khác mà Tôi chưa biết đến. Tôi dùng Gnu-Fedora rất thoải mái và đã trút hết được những bực mình khi dùng MSWindows từ trước đến nay.

Chỉ có một điều cần nói, là Tôi phải cảm tạ Edward Snwoden, Julian Assange đã gián tiếp mở trí cho Tôi về lãnh vực dùng GNu-Linux này- và nhu cầu MẬT MÃ HÓA các thông tin riêng của Tôi (Encryption- Cryptology) Kiến thức và kinh nghiệm mà chính Glenn Greenwald khi may mắn gặp được Snowden mới hiểu và học thêm.

Đặc biệt cảm tạ Richard Matthew Stallman, và hàng trăm ngàn những con người yêu tự do khắp thế giới ĐÃ và ĐANG đóng góp cho GNU-Linux tự nguyện vô vi lợi- trong tinh thần Vô Lợi Hiến Tác.

Sự kiện trên dưới 1000 bản GNU-Distro đang tiếp tục được cải tiến hàng ngày từ hơn 30 năm qua, bởi hàng trăm ngàn, hàng triệu con người tự nguyện phi lợi nhuận , đã chứng tỏ hùng hôn  LẬP LUẬN  rằng TIẾN BỘ CẠNH TRANH chỉ CÓ khi có sự KHÍCH LỆ của LỢI NHUẬN  là SAI. Ngay cả MS Windows cũng phải dựa vào công trình sáng tạo của "chùa miễn phí"  Assembly, C, C++^.  Apple Machintos cũng không ngoại lệ... nhưng cả hai nhóm lợi nhuận này đã lạm dụng độc quyền và đoạt lợi hàng ngàn tỉ mỹ kim cho đến nay bằng cách tận dụng "pháp luật" nhà nước bảo vệ để ngăn chặn cạnh tranh sáng tạo của nhhững người khác và đặt người sử dụng vào tình trạng nô lệ, mất tự do, và mất quyền riêng tư.

GNU-LINUX và những chuyên gia "trẻ" đã minh chứng, tâm lực phục vụ yêu tự do, yêu nhân bản, đã thúc đẩy sáng tạo, cạnh tranh phi lợi nhuận để đạt đến chí thiện. Pasteur đã thực hiện, và cả nhân loại này hưởng thành quả, và bọn thương buôn dựa vào đó làm giầu;  Nicholas Tesla đã minh chứng qua các công trình, đặc biệt điện AC, mà ngày nay chúng ta đang dùng nhưng phải trả hàng ngàn tỉ cho các "công ty" độc quyền khai thác thành quả của Nicholas Tesla- và hàng triệu chuyên gia trẻ trong  cộng đồng GNU- Hàng triệu các trang mạng độc lập, các cây bút , ký giả độc lập cũng đã và đang chứng minh hùng hồn rõ rệt rằng cạnh tranh, đạt đến phẩm chất tối đa KHÔNG CẦN LỢI NHUẬN THÚC ĐẨY- Nó cần NHÂN TÂM và NHẬN THỨC GIÁ TRỊ TỰ THÂN - tất cả đang hiện diện ở thế kỷ này và tương lai đang đến.

Tôi cũng chỉ là một người đi sau, học lỏm thêm mà thôi.

NKPTC

The rise of GNU/Linux-powered mobile OSes in 2013

Darshak Parikh

on 31 December, 2013 at 22:27

There’s no such thing as a saturated market — not at least for gadgets. And in the world of gadgets, there’s one field that happens to be a hot battlefield: MOBILE OPERATING SYSTEMS.

While Blackberry and Microsoft have been struggling to break through the Android-iOS duopoly, they find they are not the only ones in the race. Three new OSes are here to challenge the norms and redefine the word “smart”. This post talks about what these new GNU/Linux powered players have in store for us.
Firefox OS
App Ecosystem: HTML5
The Trump Card: Already being eyed by giants like Huawei and Foxconn
The goal of Firefox OS is not to attract the users away from other platforms but to make life easier for app developers (and consequently for users) by bridging the gap between different platforms.
All apps for Firefox OS are coded in HTML5 and CSS3, which means that web developers can easily port their webapps to Firefox OS without having to learn another programming language. Giants like Wikipedia, Twitter, Soundcloud and Cut The Rope already have their official apps ready and working on Firefox OS.
What’s more, any platforms (yes, even PC’s) which can run Firefox browser, can run most of its apps out of the box. For instance, Android users can already access the Firefox Marketplace by simply installing the Firefox browser, and it might come to other platforms as well.
Ubuntu Touch
App Ecosystem: QtQuick and HTML5
The Trump Card: Makes your work easier by seamless integration across devices
In the very beginning of 2013, Mark Shuttleworth stunned everyone with the announcement of Ubuntu Touch OS, which promised seamless convergence among all kinds of devices. The concept of Ubuntu Touch is to provide a fullblown OS for PC’s and TV’s right from your smartphone.
Ubuntu Touch features a buttonless UI to navigate around the system. The absence of buttons is filled by gestures, in that a swipe from each of the four edges performs a specific task.
In July-August this year, Canonical started a crowdfunding campaign aiming to raise a whopping $32 million, so that they could make their own smartphone, the Ubuntu Edge, with hardware specs that paralleled those of an average laptop. However, the campaign ended in a bittersweet situation, in that it collected only $12.8 million, which is the highest crowdfund ever received in history: but a failure is still a failure. The Ubuntu Edge won’t happen, and Canonical will have to rely on other OEM’s to manufacture Ubuntu devices.
Sailfish OS
App Ecosystem: QtQuick
The Trump Card: Supports most Android apps out of the box
Despite being a new company, Jolla is not to be considered a minnow. Earlier this year, Jolla started taking preorders for their first device, also called Jolla, and guess what? They sold out. Towards the end of the year, the Jolla was launched in Europe, and received positive reviews.
Jolla introduces a unique design, where the theme of your phone can change based on the backplate (“The Other Half” as they call it) you use. This is done by an NFC tag embedded inside The Other Half.
Sailfish OS runs on the Mer core and is based on the code of the now abandoned MeeGo project. It has a refreshing UI, and like Ubuntu Touch, the focus here is on swipe-based interaction rather than touch-based. The fact that it can run Android apps, gives it quite a jumpstart above its competitors.

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What next?
While each of the above OSes tries to do something new, it is hard to tell which one people will accept and who will bite the dust. Moreover, we are yet to see what they have to offer at CES and MWC in early 2014. It will be interesting to see who succeeds in making a mark in the cutthroat competition of mobile OSes.

Tham Khảo Quan Trọng : Bệnh Lý của Những Kẻ Giầu Có Quyền Lực

Đầu năm mới, nối tiếp chuyện cũ, Nhân Chủ cố gắng trình bày những vấn nạn quan trọng nền tảng của xã hội, những vấn nạn đang diễn tiến trong xã hội chúng ta một cách toàn cầu- đang được tranh luận để tìm ra giải pháp chung.

Cuộc trao đổi giữa Chris Hedges và chủ bút đài TRN là một bước nền tảng quan trọng trong tiến trình truy tìm giải pháp này. Nó chưa phải là giải pháp, như Tôi vừa trình bày trong bài khai bút đầu năm đối thoại nho nhỏ với ông Paul Craig Roberts.

Trọng tâm của cuộc đối thoại, và cũng là trọng tâm của tất cả những ai đang lưu tâm hướng giải pháp- là tình trạng BẾ TẮC VỀ MỘT MÔ THỨC THẾ CHẤP (alternative paradigm) khiến quần chúng hầu như tê liệt- dù trước mắt họ đầy những phơi bày về tội phạm và tội ác của giới tập đoàn đại bản cầm quyền chính xã hội, do Wikileaks, Edward Snowden phơi bày đầy đủ.

Câu hỏi nền tảng về sự bế tắc này, một nhà vận động vô chính phủ (anarchist) Alexander Berkman (21-11- 1870 – 28-6- 1936), đã từng đặt ra cách đây gần 100 năm vào đầu thế kỷ 20:

 "Quí vị đã có bao giờ tự hỏi chính mình là làm thế nào mà chính phủ và chủ nghĩa tư bản tiếp tục hiện hữu cho dù tất cả những ác độc và tai họa chúng đang gây ra cho thế giới? (Did you ever ask yourself how it happens that government and capitalism continue to exist in spite of all the evil and trouble they are causing in the world?")

Dĩ nhiên câu trả lời không đơn giản, nhưng một phần nền tảng của nó, như Tôi đã nhận định trong lời đầu năm "Trong hệ thống này, nền giáo dục và “văn hóa” thường trực huân tập con người một cách tế vi về một lối sống vi lợi, trọng thương, và thị quyền" . Cái tính thị quyền vi lợi trọng thương, khiến chúng ta chỉ có khả năng nhìn thấy những tội lỗi khiếm khuyết nho nhỏ (petty mistakes, petty crimes) nơi chung quanh gần cận hàng xóm, nhưng không thấy và/ hoặc, mặc nhiên tảng lờ những tội phạm lớn hơn, những tội phạm lớn thường nằm trong qui trình quyền lợi của chính chúng ta, nằm trong hành xử và ước mơ, trong nỗ lực bản thân chính chúng ta, gia đình chúng ta... đang nỗ lực muốn có- và mặc nhiên bảo vệ một cách tiềm thức! Nó khiến chúng ta đánh mất lòng bao dung, tính thâm cảm để lý giải sáng suốt.


Đây chính là lý do tại sao chúng ta, những kẻ trung lưu no đủ êm ấm thường lên án những NGƯỜI NGHÈO (the poor) làm điều sai này, việc xấu kia v.v những "sai, xấu" mà có thể chính mình đã từng trải qua trong thời gian khốn khó chưa "ngoi" lên được- nhưng không hề lên án CÁI NGHÈO (poverty), tình trạng nghèo khổ và truy nguyên nó.


Bởi chống kẻ NGHÈO (the poor), dễ dãi, thuận tiện hơn chống CÁI NGHÈO (poverty). Chống cái nghèo đòi hỏi nhận thức, sự hiểu biết-kiến thức, và lòng can đảm từ chính bản thân, chống cả hệ thống, định chế, và ngay chính thói quen huân tập của chính mình để dấn thân!


Chúng ta thường lến án KẺ PHẠM TỘI, nhưng không tìm hiểu nguyên nhân TỘI PHẠM để có giải pháp rốt ráo! Trừ những trường hợp hiếm hoi như bản thân Chris Hedges từng sống trong đặc quyền và bước ra khỏi nó để nhận diện nguyên nhân.


Bởi chống "kẻ phạm tội" dễ dãi thuận tiện hơn với đám đông chính qui. Nhưng chống TỘI PHẠM cần nhận thức lòng can đảm chống cái hệ thống nguyên nhân tội phạm, định chế quyền lực chính trị kinh tế mà thường mỗi chúng ta gián tiếp là thành viên "canh giữ" cho nó trong thói quen tiềm thức và vô thức !!! Bởi đa số chính chúng ta, đang mơ ước mong mỏi đạt được cái "vị trí quyền thế" trong hệ thống tội phạm chính qui đó.


Và đây cũng chính là lý do người ta thường tấn công giết NGƯỜI BÁO TIN (the messenger) hơn là chú tâm vào KẺ TỘI PHẠM Ở MỨC ĐỘ QUỐC GIA bị công bố! 

Chúng ta luôn miệng nói yêu Hòa Bình, nhưng chẳng bao giờ tham gia lên án chiến tranh, ngược lại còn thường "dị ứng" với phong trào và nhân sự PHẢN CHIẾN hơn là đối kháng bọn đầu nậu chiến tranh.

Như Bob Dylan bị mỉa mai là "ấu trí" khi chống chiến tranh. Chúng ta luôn ra vẻ ghê tởm tội ác, tội phạm sát nhân, nhưng chỉ đủ "khả năng" quan tâm lên án chì chiết những kẻ sát nhân một mạng người, vài ba nhân mạng, chục mạng nạn nhân v.v nhưng vô cảm, không thấy hoặc bất lực trước những tên sát nhân hàng loạt hàng trăm ngàn, hàng triệu nhân mạng, trẻ em phụ nữ- như bọn nhà nước, quân đội, tập đoàn vũ khí, tập đoàn hóa chất, tập đoàn lương thực như Lockheed, Monsanto v.v


Vì đại đa số chúng ta chỉ thấy những cao trào này, những hành động, những cuộc biểu tình đối kháng của họ, cho dù thật sự vì tất cả chúng ta, nhưng thường "gây trở ngại" cho những "thuận tiện" nho nhỏ trong sinh hoạt thường nhật... và "có thể" "đe đọa" lợi nhuận liên đới, liên quan việc làm của chúng ta hoặc thân nhân chúng ta đang có!


Nguồn gốc tội phạm nằm trong LÒNG THAM và MÊ QUYỀN LỰC sẵn có từ trong mỗi chúng ta. Nguồn gốc tội phạm này được cô đọng chặt chẽ trong ĐỊNH CHẾ NHÀ NƯỚC CHÍNH PHỦ với đặc tính giả định BẤT TỬ và TOÀN NĂNG VÔ HẠN mà mọi người huân tập mặc nhiên thừa nhận. Nhưng chẳng mấy ai lý giải qui kết, người ta chỉ tập trung vào qui trách từng nhóm người trong một chính phủ của từng thời kỳ, và mặc nhiên chấp nhận cái nguồn gốc NHÀ NƯỚC CHÍNH PHỦ phải được bảo vệ, sửa sai, và kiện toàn!!! Dù giờ đây, hầu như ai củng nhận biết rằng "Quyền Lực (bất cứ quyền lực loại nào) cũng băng hoại, và Quyền lực tuyệt đối băng hoại tận cùng" (Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely)... 

Trong khi hàng tỉ con người trong chúng ta hôm nay, cũng đang sống chẳng khác tình trạng bán khai từ ngàn xưa, đó là vẫn như những con thú vật, chỉ biết chăm lo liếm bộ lông của mình mà thôi. 


Riêng với nhóm người Á Châu, đặc biệt là Việt Nam tại các xã hội Âu Mỹ, căn bệnh này đã trở thành chủng tử. Họ từng là thuyền nhân, di dân, lôi thôi lếch thếch, đến định cư xứ người. Ngày nay, khi đã làm đủ cách, từ chính đáng cho đến "phi pháp" để ngoi lên được hàng công dân trung lưu. Thì chính họ, thay vì thâm cảm và bênh vực trợ giúp những di dân, tị nạn đang đến, mới đến- với vòng tay mở rộng như những công dân bản xứ đã từng đối xử tranh đấu cho họ  vài chục năm trước đây, họ quay ra chống chính sách di dân tị nạn, chính sách mà chính bản thân họ là kẻ thụ nhận- tệ hại hơn, họ còn ra vẻ "văn minh" khinh bỉ, dè bĩu những thuyền nhân tị nạn, di dân mới đến- đang trong tình trạng túng thiếu chật vật- làm xấu thế này, sống tệ thế kia..

Tổng quan qui kết là như vậy. Quí độc giả có khả năng Anh ngữ , xin theo tham khảo theo dõi kỹ cuộc trao đổi quan trọng này, và giúp những độc giả chưa có khả năng Anh ngữ nắm bắt được những điểm then chối.


Nhân Chủ sẽ có một bài chi tiết trình bày về vấn đề  này ở một kích thước sâu rộng cần thiết như là một đóng góp trong tiến trình truy tìm giải pháp cho xã hội con người trong những ngày tháng đang đến.


NKPTCThursday, January 2, 2014
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The Pathology of the Rich - Chris Hedges on Reality Asserts Itself

Bio

Chris Hedges, whose column is published Mondays on Truthdig , spent nearly two decades as a foreign correspondent in Central America, the Middle East, Africa and the Balkans. He has reported from more than 50 countries and has worked for The Christian Science Monitor, National Public Radio, The Dallas Morning News and The New York Times, for which he was a foreign correspondent for 15 years. He has written nine books, including "Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle" (2009), "I Don't Believe in Atheists" (2008) and the best-selling "American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America" (2008). His book "War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning" (2003) was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction.

Transcript

PAUL JAY, SENIOR EDITOR, TRNN: Welcome to The Real News Network. I'm Paul Jay in Baltimore. And welcome to Reality Asserts Itself.A few weeks ago, we did a series of interviews with Chris Hedges, and one of the things we talked about was the weakness of the left, the weakness of the people's movement, if you will. Well, we're going to continue that discussion now. And Chris joins us again in the studio. Chris, as everyone probably knows by now, is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and a senior fellow at the Nation Institute. Along with Joe Sacco he wrote the New York Times bestseller Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt. And he writes a weekly column for Truthdig. Thanks for joining us.CHRIS HEDGES, JOURNALIST, SENIOR FELLOW AT THE NATION INSTITUTE: Thank you.JAY: So last time we talked a lot about something you had said in 2008 and you've written more recently about: one of the greatest weaknesses of the left was not creating a viable vision of what an alternative politics and economy looks like, a viable vision of a socialism. But you've written more recently about some other weaknesses, you could say, of the people's movement, and here's one. And I'll read it back. This is a piece you wrote called "Let's Get This Class War Started", which I guess is a play on Pink's song, is it? "Let's Get This Party Started". The quote is: "The inability to grasp the pathology of our oligarchic rulers is one of our gravest faults." What are you talking about?HEDGES: Because we don't understand the pathology of the rich. We've been saturated with cultural images and a kind of cultural deification of wealth and those who have wealth. We are being--you know, they present people of immense wealth as somehow leaders--oracles, even. And we don't grasp internally what it is an oligarchic class is finally about or how venal and morally bankrupt they are. We need to recover the language of class warfare and grasp what is happening to us, and we need to shatter this self-delusion that somehow if, as Obama says, we work hard enough and study hard enough, we can be one of them. The fact is, the people who created the economic mess that we're in were the best-educated people in the country--Larry Summers, a former president of Harvard, and others. The issue is not education. The issue is greed. And I, unfortunately, had the experience of being shipped off to a private boarding school at the age of ten as a scholarship student and live--I was one of 16 kids on scholarship, and I lived among the super-rich and I watched them. And I think much of my hatred of authority and my repugnance for the ruling elite comes from having been among them for so long.JAY: Yeah. People don't understand the elite schools, even at the high school level, that they get--the kids get excellent educations, but they learn the whole culture of hundreds or thousands of years of how to rule. HEDGES: Right.JAY: And a deep, rich understanding of it.HEDGES: Not only that, but they--you know, and George Bush is a perfect example of that.JAY: Well, not so much an example of deep, rich understanding, but--.HEDGES: No, but of how--you know, affirmative action for the rich. And I came--certainly my mother's side of the family--from, you know, lower working class. I mean, people--one of my uncles lived in a trailer in Maine, and certainly people with no means. And I would juxtapose the world I was in with that world. And it was very clear that it wasn't about intelligence or aptitude. The fact is, if you're poor, you only get one chance. If you're wealthy like Bush, you get chance after chance after chance after chance. So you're a C student at Andover, and you go to Yale, and you go to Harvard Business School, and you're AWOL from your National Guard unit, and you're a cokehead, and it doesn't really matter. You don't even really have a job till you're 40 and you become president of the United States. So that was what was particularly insidious, how those small, tight elite oligarchic circles perpetuated themselves and promoted mediocrity (because many of these people like Bush are very mediocre human beings) at the expense of the rest of us, and how with money they game the system. And, of course, now we live in an oligarchic state where we've been rendered utterly powerless, and the judiciary, the legislative, the executive branches all subservient to an oligarchic corporate elite. And the press is owned by an oligarchic corporate elite, which makes sure that any critique of them is never broadcast over the airwaves.JAY: And it's not some, like, inherent evilness or something, but you are brought up as a super-rich or very rich in a culture, in a school, in a milieu where everyone's there to serve you. It's your right to be served.HEDGES: Yeah. It's very distasteful to see, because, you know, I would go to the homes of friends of mine and watch--and let's remember they're children, 11, 12 years old, ordering around adults--their servants, their nannies. And I begin that piece by talking about Fitzgerald, who came from the Midwest to Princeton and went through much of the experience that I went through, and that apocryphal exchange--which didn't take place, but it does represent the difference between Hemingway and Fitzgerald--where Fitzgerald at one point had written--the story is that he said the rich aren't like you and I, and Hemingway is supposed to have quipped, yes, they have more money. Well, Hemingway, like on many things, was wrong. The rich are different, because when you have that much money, then human beings become disposable. Even friends and family become disposable and are replaced. And when the rich take absolute power, then the citizens become disposable, which is in essence what's happened. There is a very callous indifference. I mean, these people--and C.Wrights Mills wrote about this in The Power Elite--they're utterly cut off. I mean, the only people they ever meet who are members of the working class are people who work for them--they're gardeners or they're chauffeurs. They live in self-encased bubbles. They have no real contact with reality. I mean, they don't even fly on commercial airlines. And yet they have absolute power. Now, that becomes very dangerous politically because they're so out of touch and they are able to retreat into their enclaves in the same way that you saw in France under Louis XVI, people retreating to Versailles, or the end of the Chinese dynasty when everybody went to the Forbidden City.JAY: He said "Après moi, le déluge," does he not?HEDGES: Yeah. And that's, I think, you know, so that they will extract more and more and more, because they have no self-imposed limits, without understanding the economic, political, and social consequences of what they're doing. So we have a popular uprising through the Occupy movement where people pour into public spaces to express legitimate grievances--student debt, the next bubble to go down, $1 trillion in debt, which we now saw, courtesy of our Congress, debt rates, you know, interest rates will actually go up in a couple of years, I mean, more than if they'd just taken it from a bank. It's insane. And meanwhile the Federal Reserve is buying $85 billion a month worth of junk bonds and giving money at virtually zero percent interest to Goldman Sachs. I mean, it's insane. The failure to address the mortgage and foreclosure crisis, the failure to address the chronic unemployment, underemployment, which--I mean, half of the country now lives in poverty, including the working poor, or near poverty. And what is the response? The response is to physically shut down the encampments, suspend unemployment benefits, cut food stamps, close things like Head Start. It's crazy. And that's what happens when you have an elite that is that unplugged, and which our elite is. So they will push and push and push myopically out of ignorance until something erupts. And that's exactly where we're headed.JAY: It's interesting. There are some children of the some of the super-rich--and I think Occupy had something to do with it--who kind of woken up a bit to the situation and don't want to repeat the pattern of their parents, get some of the insanity of it.HEDGES: I don't know if they're children of the super-rich. I think that Occupy had a lot of children of the middle class.JAY: No, no, I don't mean the majority of Occupy.HEDGES: Oh.JAY: But they'reI actually know who some of these people are. And it's interesting. They're children of very, very wealthy people, and they have decided that, you know, there needs to be more to life than repeating this, living in this bubble.HEDGES: Well, they may be out there, but I don't think they're a majority.JAY: They're a very tiny minority.HEDGES: Most of them get sucked right into that cult of the self, which the super-rich managed to perpetuate at a rather nauseating level.JAY: We were talking off-camera just before we started how we both knew Gore Vidal, and Vidal used to go on about the total amorality of the super-rich.HEDGES: Oh, he would know.JAY: Well, he would know for a lot of reasons, one in terms of his own life, but also in terms of he knew many of these people.HEDGES: Well, so did I. I mean, and I think that's what I'm getting at, exactly. I mean, you know, I wrote in that column about, you know, being at this boarding school and watching these fathers pull up in their limousines, fathers who had very little contact with their sons, with their personal photographers. And these were famous, wealthy men. And that picture of them playing with their son, which was total--you know, a fiction, would be disseminated through the press. Yeah, amorality, hedonism, selfishness, callousness.JAY: And part of it is the total willingness to accept, for example, that ordinary people's families should send their kids off to war to defend the American way of life, which means essentially their way of life, can die for these things. It's almost a kind of racism. I mean, when the British enslaved the Irish--you don't have to be black and of color to be thought of as less than human. And that seems to be what the super-rich think about most other people.HEDGES: Well, and not just the working class, I mean, the kind of disdain for the working class and also the middle class--I mean, in some way the way that they would speak about the middle class. And, you know, in essence, coming out of the middle class, this was something that struck home to me. Yeah, they inhabit another world, and they have very sophisticated mechanisms of public relations and well-publicized acts of philanthropy to hide their private faces. But how they act when the doors close and how they act in public is very different. And having, as Vidal was, as Fitzgerald was, having been behind those closed doors and seen the decadence of the ruling elite, it certainly marked me for the rest of my life and it defined for me at a very early age who my enemies were.JAY: You quote in your article Karl Marx writing, "The ruling ideas are nothing more than the ideal expression of the dominant material relationships," Marx wrote, "the dominant material relationships grasped as ideas." Why did that hit you?HEDGES: Well, because the whole notion of the free market--laissez-faire capitalism, globalization--is a very thin rationale for unmitigated greed by a tiny oligarchic elite. And they have made sure that that ideology is taught in universities across the country. And people, especially economists, who deviate from that ideology have been pushed aside, have become pariahs. And yet the driving ethos of that ideology is really to justify the hoarding of immense amounts of wealth by a very tiny percentage of, you know, the upper ruling class. That's what it is. I mean, the whole lie of globalization, perpetuated by people who popularize it, like Tom Friedman, has already been exposed. I mean, the idea that it's going to lift all of us up and create middle-class and, you know, well-compensated working-class families in the Third World, I mean, all of it's been exposed.JAY: And I think part of it, his point, is that this isn't just some innate ideas that everyone is essentially greedy, these people just happen to be rich, and you're not as lucky you're as smart as they are; it's that it comes from what he calls the material conditions, about, like, how stuff is owned, who has power as a result of concentration of ownership, how things are distributed. It's not that--you know, it doesn't have to be this way. It's a product of how the society is organized.HEDGES: Right. And so in that sense the ideology serves the system, the intellectual class serves the system. Those economists whose voices are heard, who get tenure, serve the system; and those who don't serve the system don't have a job. And that's what Marx was getting at. And I think that's extremely true. I mean, we don't live in a free-market society. We live in a society where corporations at will loot the U.S. Treasury and the Federal Reserve and are bailed out by the taxpayer. And yet that fact of kind of corporate socialism for corporations is ignored. And yet it is--and that's dangerous, because there is an utter disconnect from the language that we use to describe our economic system and the reality of our economic system, which is essentially a system where corporations have become predators on government and taxpayer money. And we're all going to pay for it, because most of this stuff, these bonds that they're buying up, is garbage. You know, it is things like foreclosed homes that on the books are worth $600,000 but in reality, because the electricity has been turned off, the basement's flooded, you'd have to spend money to raise it to put up anything of any kind of value. And that is going to blow right up in our face.JAY: And this idea that you're expressing, that the majority of professional paid intellectuals, professors and writers and pundits, the idea that the free market is the fundamental assumption and starting point, to suggest anything else might work is sacrilegious, and then some people say, well, that's 'cause America's always been like this. America's this center-right country. But it's not true. And, you know, pre-World War II in the 1930s and right after World War II there was a big public debate about what kind of economy, what kind of politics, and there was a real campaign waged to get rid of public intellectuals, get rid of union militants, get rid of actors and directors. Anyone that wanted to have this public discourse was hounded out of office.HEDGES: Well, I write death of the liberal class is really that story, how all of these people were silenced, pushed to the margins, stripped of employment, including, like, even high school teachers. I mean, Ellen Schrecker, the historian, has done a good job on this.JAY: Just quickly, for people who don't know what we're talking about, we're talk about the House Un-American Activities, McCarthyism, and a real campaign to try to move anyone with a kind of progressive socialist idea out of anything.HEDGES: Right. And they were effective, I mean, in a way, far more effective than in Europe. I mean, in Europe, you'll still have a residue. We've been robbed of language by which we can express the reality of what we're undergoing. And that's because, you know, our radical populist dissident movements, those who offered a critique of the power elite, have been banished or silenced.JAY: Now, you write something here which, you know, if you--you would not be allowed to say on mainstream news anywhere. You write:"Class struggle defines most of human history. Marx got this right. The sooner we realize that we are locked in deadly warfare with our ruling, corporate elite, the sooner we will realize that these elites must be overthrown."There's a massive campaign not even to use the words class warfare. In fact, if you talk class, people accuse you of being essentially anti-American.HEDGES: I don't think you can understand the nature of capitalism if you don't understand the nature of class warfare. You know, if I was running a Wall Street firm, I'd only hire Marxian economists, because they understand that capitalism is about exploitation. Marx got that right. And that gets back to the nature of the ruling elite. I mean, we are the most illusioned society on the planet. The airwaves are awash in lies. You know, they very skillfully know how to humanize figures, I mean, even idiots like Donald Trump, to mask what it is they're actually doing to the rest of us. And I think we have to begin to puncture the very effective mirages that have been created--and corporations, of course, spend billions of dollars to create these mirages--to understand our reality. I mean, look at BP. You'd think BP was Greenpeace, given the amount of commercials that they're running about how much they care about the Gulf, when in fact they turned the waters of the Gulf into a dead zone and poisoned the shrimp and all the other which they're selling us to eat. And yet we don't have mechanisms by which--or certainly within the mainstream. What major network is going to go do a serious documentary on BP? You're not going to confront those interests, because at this point, these interests, you know, they own or control the systems of information, as well as the systems of education.JAY: So your article ends with: "The only route left to us, as Aristotle knew, is revolt."HEDGES: Well, because the mechanisms of incremental and piecemeal reform don't work. And you talked about the New Deal. The New Deal was the classic example of that kind of safety valve. And as Roosevelt said, I mean, his greatest achievement was that he saved capitalism. And in the stupidity of the corporate oligarchic elite, they destroyed the liberal class. I mean, we still have a self-identified liberal class, but they no longer do anything to defend the interests of those they claim to represent, whether that's the working class, the middle class, labor, or anyone else. And by destroying that safety valve, by destroying that liberal class, those mechanisms that made piecemeal and incremental reform possible, you no longer can adjust the system. So you can't ameliorate the suffering or the grievances of the underclass. And now we're talking about half the country. Now, that means that if you want to resist, if you want to create change, you can't do it through political parties, you can't do it through the courts, you can't do it through a corporatized media. You have to step outside the system and create popular mechanisms, mass movements that will begin to put pressure in a cruder way on the centers of power. That is the only hope we have left.JAY: You say you can't do incremental reform. The elite can't even pass regulations that would serve their own interests, in terms of controlling financial speculation, for example, a simple change in terms of position limits at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, that anyone that wants some kind of functioning capitalist system would want to have this so that you don't have another financial collapse as 2008. They can't even pass that.HEDGES: But they don't--the people who are running Wall Street don't give a damn about--they know it's going to collapse. And what they're doing is stealing as fast, as much as they can on the way out the door. There's a very deep cynicism.JAY: Well, they make money--they make money after the collapse as well, 'cause they know the state's there to bail them out.HEDGES: Right. But, you know, this time around it's going to be a little harder to pilfer state funds. I mean, they'll certainly attempt to do that. But, you know, the goal is so self-centered. You have--I think the head of United Healthcare made $1 billion--I mean, it's insane---last year. I think I have that right. But certainly hundreds of millions of dollars [incompr.] And it's all about amassing little monuments to themselves, little empires to themselves. You know, I have relatives who work on Wall Street, and their critique is not any different from mine. The difference is they're just grabbing is much as they can on the way out the door. And I think that is always symptomatic of a kind of dying civilization.JAY: Yeah. Marx was asked once to describe the psychology of a capitalist, and it was what we talked about a little earlier: après moi, le déluge, after me, come the floods. I'll get what I can today, and if the society is toast later, too bad.HEDGES: And I think they know it's going to be toast. And I think they think that they're going to retreat into their, you know, gated compounds and survive it. And they may survive it longer than the rest of us, but in the end, climate change alone is going to get us.JAY: So it's up to us. Don't expect anything from the oligarchs.HEDGES: No. And not only that, they are creating systems in terms of exploitation not only of us but of the ecosystem that, if left unchecked, will ensure the extinction of the human species. It may already be too late, of course. But, you know, allowing the fossil fuel industry or these corporations to determine our relationship to the environment is a form of collective insanity at this point.JAY: Thanks for joining us.HEDGES: Thank you.JAY: And thank you for joining us on Reality Asserts Itself on The Real News Network.Don't forget, we're in our year-end fundraising campaign. For every dollar you donate, another dollar will be donated. That means up to $100,000, which means at the end of all this process, if we're successful, we'll raise $200,000. And have all kinds of things planned for 2014, which we'll tell you about in other videos. If you want to see more interviews like this one with Chris Hedges, please click on the Donate button, pick up your phone. There's all kinds of ways to donate. But now's the time.JAY: Thanks for joining us on The Real News Network. ---

Transcript

PAUL JAY, SENIOR EDITOR, TRNN: Welcome to The Real News Network. I'm Paul Jay in Baltimore. And welcome to Reality Asserts Itself, continuing our discussion with Chris Hedges about the people's movement, the left, its weaknesses--and I guess at some point we'd better get around to its strengths, too. Now joining us in the studio is Chris Hedges. He's a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and a senior fellow at the Nation Institute. He's the author with Joe Sacco of the New York Times bestseller Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt. He also writes a weekly column for Truthdig. Thanks for joining us again. CHRIS HEDGES, JOURNALIST, SENIOR FELLOW AT THE NATION INSTITUTE: Thank you. JAY: So you wrote a column in Truthdig. The title of it is "Our Invisible Revolution", and you quote, to start with, Alexander Berkman: "Did you ever ask yourself how it happens that government and capitalism continue to exist in spite of all the evil and trouble they are causing in the world?" And let me add to that. We've had these enormous revelations recently, WikiLeaks and Snowden, and Hammond's leaks of the Stratfor files. And it should, one would think--and enough of this has gotten into the mainstream media, you know, enough of the revelations, that you would have had, you'd think, a fundamental shaking of masses of people's belief in the American narrative. But not so much. Like, we've not really seen a change in the political landscape at the mass scale that one might have thought.HEDGES: Well, this was what Berkman--this essay is called "The Idea Is the Thing"--is playing out, that as long as the ideas that sustain the power elite have currency or relevancy, the institutions that hold up that system of power are unassailable. Once those ideas are utterly discredited, those institutions collapse. And Berkman draws the analogy of heating water on a kettle, that you can't make a revolution, you can't decide that next Monday is the revolution. Revolutions are organic. And they take place through this change within the culture whereby the ideas that sustain a particular ruling class are so thoroughly discredited that the ruling class is finally only able to sustain itself through the use of force and violence, that it's kind of--it resorts to the most naked forms of repression to hold on to power, which, as you can see with the rise of the security and surveillance state, we are moving towards. And so what you have in a pre-revolutionary society, which I think we're in, is a kind of invisible revolution, whereby the state, the ideology of the state, in this case capitalism, the fiction of American democracy, larger and larger numbers of people--and I think we are also seeing this across the political spectrum--wake up and understand the hollowness of the language that's used to describe their own economic, political, and social reality. What's important is that in this process you need to present an alternative vision, an alternative language, so that people can orient themselves toward something. Otherwise, any kind of eruption is nihilistic. Without that kind of vision, ultimately it doesn't represent any kind of a threat to the ruling elite, because it doesn't drive towards something. And I think that, you know, opinion polls point this out in terms of, like, the approval rating of Congress, which is below 10 percent, the utter disgust at the inability of the centers of power to respond to the most basic concerns and needs of the citizenry. All of that is there. And I think that it's incorrect to say that nothing's happening, that there is no ferment. I think this is the ferment. And it's extremely dangerous for the ruling elite, because their credibility--and Obama, the current disaster with Obamacare is just adding to that--is being shredded.JAY: One of your main points in the article "Our Invisible Revolution" is this point you're starting to get at. If there isn't a vision to fight for, one, I don't think you can really get people into motion, because unless things are in absolute desperation for more people than are--because many people are desperate, but it's not the majority that a desperate. Even if unemployment, the real unemployment is 20, 25 percent, there's still 75 percent of people who have jobs. But if there isn't a vision to fight for, then what are you left with? But what's happening now is there's this sort of right-wing vision, that's kind of carving off a part of this alienation, you know, this idea of the smaller government and that we can all be free and we'll all be able to do what we want, you know, individualism, is--hearken back to these days of America that actually never existed.HEDGES: Right. Well, that's a danger. I mean, you know, in situations of collapse or turmoil, we could certainly swing to our version of a kind of Christian fascism, which I've spent a lot of time writing about in my book American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America. And these are classically fascist movements, in that they celebrate the language of violence, the gun culture. They fuse the iconography and language of American patriotism with the Christian religion. They demonize and direct a legitimate sense of rage and betrayal at the vulnerable Muslims, homosexuals, undocumented workers, liberals, intellectuals, feminists. And they are funded by the most retrograde elements of American capitalism--the Koch brothers and others. And I think given the fact that progressive, populist, radical movements have been eviscerated throughout the 20th century and destroyed means that those of us who care about an open, egalitarian society are extremely weakened and disadvantaged. So it may very well be that our backlash is a very disturbing kind of quasi-fascist backlash. That indeed may happen. Certainly in breakdown or the breakdown of any society, you are going to see the rise of those kind of vigilante, racist, right-wing elements, and they will employee violence. History has shown that. The question is whether we can build a response with an alternative vision fast enough to counter that kind of implosion. You know, I covered the breakdown of the former Yugoslavia, and I see many scenarios between here and the former Yugoslavia. There you had a self-identified liberal elite that was not able to deal with economic collapse. Hyperinflation took over the former Yugoslavia, and it vomited up these figures like Radovan Karadžić and Slobodan Milošević and others in the same way that Weimar vomited up the Nazi Party. And what happens in moments of breakdown is that people not only turn against an ineffectual liberal elite that is not able--that in essence--that has presided over political and economic paralysis, or certainly political paralysis, but they also jettison the values that elite purports to defend. And that's what's dangerous. And we're certainly barreling towards that kind of a crisis. I worry that we are not only weakened but unprepared.JAY: Well, one thing we're going to do at The Real News is we're going to spend a little less time with the critique. We're not going to stop the critique, but we're going to spend a little less emphasis on the critique and spent a lot more time in terms of investigative journalism and working with, you know, policy experts, front-line workers, the public. We're going to have town halls. And it's part of the reasons. And we'll tell you more about our new building and what we're doing here. But this idea--and you raise it in this article and others--we have to create a viable vision of what the alternative is. But, like, what would you do if you ran a city like Baltimore, what would you do if you ran a state like Maryland, dealing with the real world, not some utopian vision? But what you do the next year? And what do you do for the next three, four years? 'Cause I don't think you can really get a big mass movement going in this country if they don't think what they're fighting for is at least going to be better than what exists.HEDGES: Well, and history has shown that that is absolutely correct. And so I write in the article that I seek to articulate a viable kind of socialism, which is going to have to begin at the local level. And I know that, you know, you're in accordance with this that we're probably going to have to start by taking over city after city, town after town. That's where it's going to begin. We can't compete on a national level anyway. We're shut out. Ralph Nader has amply illustrated what happens when you try and compete in that arena. But on the local level, especially in depressed cities, we can. Now, the problem with cities like Baltimore or other depressed cities is that you have such a large segment of the population incarcerated. And that's done consciously. That bottom sort of 15 percent of people who are considered superfluous in terms of labor, whose bodies are worth nothing on the street, are put into cages where their bodies are worth $40,000 or $50,000 a year to prison contractors and food contractors and private security guard companies and people who build prisons and everyone else. So that has been an effective mechanism by which we have broken our most astute sort of political class, which is the African-Americans, who not only traditionally understand the nature of white supremacy and power, but understand the nature of empire. Figures like Frederick Douglass, King, Malcolm, their critique of empire came from having suffered internally from the mechanisms of empire and having the first chapter--or it was the second chapter of my book Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt takes place in Camden, which per capita is the poorest city in the United States and, not surprisingly, in terms of homicides per capita the most dangerous. And we're talking two, three, four generations where people have been so traumatized by the violence that is taking place within these internal colonies and the violence of mass incarceration that I don't know how effective those communities initially are going to be, given how broken they are. I think that the recipe for revolt will come from a fusion between what Bakunin called the déclassé intellectuals, these kids who, burdened with tens of thousands of dollars of college debt, coming largely out of the middle class, thrown out into the workforce, where they can't get jobs, they can't pay their debts, coupled with service workers who are in essence the working poor.JAY: And I think one of the misconceptions some people have about Baltimore--and it's partly to do with the television--the percentage of African-Americans in Baltimore, if I understand it correctly, who live in these very dispossessed areas and with generation after generation of chronic, you know, addiction to drugs and crime is a real minority. The vast majority of African-Americans in Baltimore are part of a fairly stable working-class.HEDGES: That's not true in Camden. So that provides hope, then. And, you know, we find--I don't want this to be racial, because if you look at the meth labs that are popping up in all these old mill towns where my families are from in Maine, it's the same. And, actually, we're watching now the criminalization, through the war on drugs, of the white poor, the white underclass, who are now being railroaded into these prisons at increasing rates because they've also become superfluous in the neofeudalistic state that we've created. But I think, yes, it's going to come off the ground. It's going to come by stepping out outside of the mainstream. It's going to come by articulating a very different vision about how we relate to each other, how we relate to our economic system, and ultimately how we relate to the ecosystem if we're going to make it. And none of those visions are coming out of traditional centers of academia, traditional political parties, traditional forms of the media. These things are all going to have to be created at the margins of society and then implemented at the margins of society. And then, hopefully, there'll be a kind of contagion where they will spread outwards. And frankly, if they don't--I mean, I just speak as somebody who reads climate change reports--we're finished and we are completely finished.JAY: Well, you kind of just talked about the agenda of The Real News.HEDGES: Good.JAY: Thanks for joining us, Chris.HEDGES: Thank You.JAY: And thank you for joining us. We're in our year-end fundraising campaign. And in 2014, this is essentially what we just discussed is what we're planning to do. If you'd like to see that happen, we need your support. None of this happens without you. So you've got to click the Donate button, which is somewhere around here. If you're watching this video not on the Real News website, down here below the player you'll see a link that takes you back to our site, and you can click the Donate button. Or you can pick up the phone. There's all kinds of ways. Thanks for joining us. And again, we can't do this without you.

Mỗi Chúng Ta Chỉ Cần Làm 1 phần nhỏ Điều Snowden đã làm

Một thách thức cho những nhân viên còn đang làm trong NSA: Làm 1/4 Snowden với một xíu thủ thuật.

Reuters

 

Thật sự nếu MỖI NGƯỜI TRONG CHÚNG TA, thực hiện một đối kháng nho nhỏ thôi- tình hình đã khác, đã tốt hơn... Nhưng ................. 

Trong khi đó NỖ LỰC CHÍNH QUI HÓA Snowden đang tiến mạnh với lời THÚ NHẬN CHÍNH THỨC từ tờ báo chính qui sừng sỏ THE NEW YORK TIME, rằng Edward Snowden đã cống hiến cho đất nước một điều vĩ đại! (New York Times: Edward Snowden ‘Has Done His Country a Great Service’)...

Rằng dù anh "đã phải PHẠM PHÁP" để thực hiện công trình phục vụ xã hội đất nước này. 

Tờ NYT, kêu gọi "Hãy ÂN XÁ" Snowden!!! Luận điệu van xin, THA THỨ khoan hồng khoan đen được tận dụng, làm như nhà nước chính phủ là kẻ VÔ CAN, VÔ TỘI, và chính những tờ báo chính qui như NYT từng sỉ vả, lên án Snowden một cách hạ tiện nhất... trở thành 'tiếng nói chân chính' - là QUAN TÒA!!!

Thật là mỉa mai! Khi chúng không còn chối nổi tội ác dơ bẩn, và thất bại trong nỗ lực triệt hạ người chân chính... chúng quay ra CA NGỢI... Và quần chúng cứ nhẩn nha tiếp tục nuốt chửng!

Edward Snowden và những cộng sự viên cũng như tất cả những ai chân chính ủng hộ việc làm của anh, đang đứng trước một thách đố tế vi nhưng cực kỳ nguy hiểm: Trở thành chính qui- gián tiếp chính đáng hóa vai trò tội phạm chính phủ và tự phủ nhận hành động đúng đắn cần thiết của dân chủ

 ----

A Dare for NSA Staffers: Do the Quarter-Snowden With a Twist

How to register alarm without revealing secrets or risking jail

Conor Friedersdorf Dec 31 2013, 9:02 AM ET

With 2014 upon us, NSA employees are perhaps casting about for a New Year's resolution. Depending on how much they know about mass surveillance on innocent Americans, they may be conflicted. On one hand, they've signed a civil contract to keep their employer's secrets. On the other hand, as federal employees, they've also taken an oath to protect and defend the United States Constitution, and when federal bureaucracies break the law, their staffers are morally obligated to report it.
Edward Snowden is the most famous person to face that dilemma. He decided to leak classified information. In doing so, he gave up a comfortable life in Hawaii with his girlfriend. Now he faces decades in jail and lives in exile to avoid prosecution. There may be other NSA employees who are convinced that their employer needs to be reined in, but are averse to leaking classified information and facing jail time.
Perhaps the full Edward Snowden isn't for them.
But I want to encourage them to execute a different trick in 2014, a little something I've dubbed, in anticipation of the upcoming Olympic Games, the quarter-Snowden with a twist.
It doesn't require leaking classified information. Nor does it violate the law. To pull off the quarter-Snowden with a twist, which requires even less than a quarter of Snowden's courage, an NSA employee need only resign their position, seek out a trustworthy journalist of their choice, and announce that while they aren't at liberty to reveal any state secrets, they believe that Congress ought to rein in the NSA immediately. "If Senators Dianne Feinstein and Ron Wyden, who are permitted to see classified information, are listening," the staffer could say, "I'd like to brief them on my concerns." At least one of those Senate Intelligence Committee members will take the plea seriously.
The quarter-Snowden with a twist requires giving up a lucrative, intellectually challenging job during a time when the economy continues to be slow. But it is the right thing to do. And as far as patriotic sacrifices go, it is far less burdensome than the price many have paid.
In the present political environment, it is also likely to have a powerful effect.
If there are no NSA employees whose consciences are bothering them, then this article can be ignored. I suspect that there are NSA employees who sympathize with Snowden's actions but understandably can't bring themselves to break the law or risk jail. They ought to remember the more conservative course that permits them to register their considered opinion that the NSA goes too far without betraying its secrets.
Let your conscience be your guide.

New York Times: Edward Snowden ‘Has Done His Country a Great Service’

http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/new_york_times_edward_snowden_has_done_his_country_a_great_service_20140102/

Posted on Jan 1, 2014

The New York Times is kicking off 2014 by demanding clemency or a plea deal for Edward Snowden.
“Considering the enormous value of the information he has revealed, and the abuses he has exposed, Mr. Snowden deserves better than a life of permanent exile, fear and flight. He may have committed a crime to do so, but he has done his country a great service. It is time for the United States to offer Mr. Snowden a plea bargain or some form of clemency that would allow him to return home, face at least substantially reduced punishment in light of his role as a whistle-blower, and have the hope of a life advocating for greater privacy and far stronger oversight of the runaway intelligence community.”
That’s from an editorial published Wednesday.
In the same piece, the Times points out that President Obama was plainly wrong when he said Snowden could have blown the whistle internally without breaking the law, because of Obama’s own executive order:

In fact, that executive order did not apply to contractors, only to intelligence employees, rendering its protections useless to Mr. Snowden. More important, Mr. Snowden told The Washington Post earlier this month that he did report his misgivings to two superiors at the agency, showing them the volume of data collected by the N.S.A., and that they took no action. (The N.S.A. says there is no evidence of this.) That’s almost certainly because the agency and its leaders don’t consider these collection programs to be an abuse and would never have acted on Mr. Snowden’s concerns.

Although often ridiculed by the right as a left-wing outfit, The New York Times is the establishment paper of all establishment papers, and its editorials carry weight in Washington, if not elsewhere. Snowden is running out the clock on his one-year asylum in Russia and looking for somewhere safe to go. How appropriate if that place could be the United States, land of the free, home of the brave.
—Posted by Peter Z. Scheer
AP/Jose Luis Magana
Demonstrators hold up banners with photos of Edward Snowden during a protest outside of the Capitol in Washington, D.C

Views On Snowden: Are the Times A-Changin’?

Posted By John Glaser On January 2, 2014 @ 8:32 am In News | 6 Comments

It’s rare that I write about good news. But the editorial from yesterday’s New York Times is really good news.
Entitled “Edward Snowden, Whistle-Blower ^[1],” the Times editorial board praises and defends Snowden’s decision to leak information about the NSA and argue he deserves some kind of clemency or pardon.

Considering the enormous value of the information he has revealed, and the abuses he has exposed, Mr. Snowden deserves better than a life of permanent exile, fear and flight. He may have committed a crime to do so, but he has done his country a great service. It is time for the United States to offer Mr. Snowden a plea bargain or some form of clemency that would allow him to return home…
…The shrill brigade of his critics say Mr. Snowden has done profound damage to intelligence operations of the United States, but none has presented the slightest proof that his disclosures really hurt the nation’s security. Many of the mass-collection programs Mr. Snowden exposed would work just as well if they were reduced in scope and brought under strict outside oversight, as the presidential panel recommended.

When someone reveals that government officials have routinely and deliberately broken the law, that person should not face life in prison at the hands of the same government.

To help make their point, the Times lists the following bullet points as evidence of the value of Snowden’s leaks:

• The N.S.A. broke federal privacy laws, or exceeded its authority, thousands of times per year ^[2], according to the agency’s own internal auditor.
• The agency broke into the communications links ^[3] of major data centers around the world, allowing it to spy on hundreds of millions of user accounts and infuriating the Internet companies that own the centers. Many of those companies are now scrambling to install systems that the N.S.A. cannot yet penetrate.
• The N.S.A. systematically undermined the basic encryption systems of the Internet ^[4], making it impossible to know if sensitive banking or medical data is truly private, damaging businesses that depended on this trust.
• His leaks revealed that James Clapper Jr., the director of national intelligence, lied to Congress  ^[5]when testifying in March that the N.S.A. was not collecting data on millions of Americans. (There has been no discussion of punishment for that lie.)
• The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court rebuked the N.S.A. ^[6] for repeatedly providing misleading information about its surveillance practices, according to a ruling made public because of the Snowden documents. One of the practices violated the Constitution, according to the chief judge of the court.
• A federal district judge ruled earlier this month ^[7] that the phone-records-collection program probably violates the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution. He called the program “almost Orwellian” and said there was no evidence that it stopped any imminent act of terror.

So why is this good news? I think it’s an important sign of where general attitudes in the country are when even the New York Times – usually (but not always) an outlet that upholds the government’s legitimacy and the status quo – defends a dissident whistleblower who is essentially Public Enemy Number 1. I would not necessarily have expected the Times to come down on the side of Snowden like it did and that is encouraging.
Jesselyn Radack of Government Accountability Project, speaks to that at Daily Kos, writing ^[8] “The chorus of voices for rolling back NSA mass surveillance includes leading Members of Congress from both parties, federal judges and the President’s own hand-picked review panel. The voices calling for clemency for Snowden includes NSA Snowden task force leader Rick Ledgett, Silicon Valley’s tech giants, ^[9] the ACLU and now, the New York Times.”
At Reason, J.D. Tuccille argues ^[10] 2013 saw a significant shift in the way people view those who defy the state:

For some high-profile people who publicly told the government to go to hell, 2013 was, personally, a bit rough. Information freedom activist Aaron Swartz took his own life ^[11]under threat of a brutal prison sentence. Revealer of inconvenient government secrets Bradley/Chelsea Manning ^[12] actually ended up in prison. And surveillance whistleblower Edward Snowden went into exile in Russia to escape what promised to be a “fair” trial followed by a first-class hanging ^[13]. But tough consequences aren’t unusual for people who defy the state. What was different and encouraging was how many people rallied behind Swartz, Manning, Snowden, and other rebels, explicitly siding with them over the government, in opposition to the powers-that-be.
…In years past, government officials would have counted on the public to boo and hiss at Snowden on command. You’re not supposed to spill the government’s secrets to the world at large.
But Americans are horrified ^[14] by those secrets—published revelations of NSA snooping have helped drive public revulsion at “big government” to record high levels ^[15]. Snowden himself gets more of a split decision, but over a third of people tell Reason-Rupe that what he did makes him a patriot ^[16] (with even higher support for him among younger Americans). That’s almost equal to the percentage of respondents who give him a thumbs-down. Those would have been unthinkable numbers in a different era.

I agree with that. I think in an earlier era, people like Snowden would be far more universally condemned. As Bob Dylan famously prophesied, the times they are a-changin. And despite the cascade of horrible news that provides endless fodder for my own writing here, it’s important to acknowledge the good.

==========

---

January 1, 2014

Edward Snowden, Whistle-Blower

By THE EDITORIAL BOARD

Seven months ago, the world began to learn the vast scope of the National Security Agency’s reach into the lives of hundreds of millions of people in the United States and around the globe, as it collects information about their phone calls, their email messages, their friends and contacts, how they spend their days and where they spend their nights. The public learned in great detail how the agency has exceeded its mandate and abused its authority, prompting outrage at kitchen tables and at the desks of Congress, which may finally begin to limit these practices.

The revelations have already prompted two federal judges to accuse the N.S.A. of violating the Constitution (although a third, unfortunately, found the dragnet surveillance to be legal). A panel appointed by President Obama issued a powerful indictment of the agency’s invasions of privacy and called for a major overhaul of its operations.

All of this is entirely because of information provided to journalists by Edward Snowden, the former N.S.A. contractor who stole a trove of highly classified documents after he became disillusioned with the agency’s voraciousness. Mr. Snowden is now living in Russia, on the run from American charges of espionage and theft, and he faces the prospect of spending the rest of his life looking over his shoulder.

Considering the enormous value of the information he has revealed, and the abuses he has exposed, Mr. Snowden deserves better than a life of permanent exile, fear and flight. He may have committed a crime to do so, but he has done his country a great service. It is time for the United States to offer Mr. Snowden a plea bargain or some form of clemency that would allow him to return home, face at least substantially reduced punishment in light of his role as a whistle-blower, and have the hope of a life advocating for greater privacy and far stronger oversight of the runaway intelligence community.

•

Mr. Snowden is currently charged in a criminal complaint with two violations of the Espionage Act involving unauthorized communication of classified information, and a charge of theft of government property. Those three charges carry prison sentences of 10 years each, and when the case is presented to a grand jury for indictment, the government is virtually certain to add more charges, probably adding up to a life sentence that Mr. Snowden is understandably trying to avoid.

The president said in August that Mr. Snowden should come home to face those charges in court and suggested that if Mr. Snowden had wanted to avoid criminal charges he could have simply told his superiors about the abuses, acting, in other words, as a whistle-blower.

“If the concern was that somehow this was the only way to get this information out to the public, I signed an executive order well before Mr. Snowden leaked this information that provided whistle-blower protection to the intelligence community for the first time,” Mr. Obama said at a news conference. “So there were other avenues available for somebody whose conscience was stirred and thought that they needed to question government actions.”

In fact, that executive order did not apply to contractors, only to intelligence employees, rendering its protections useless to Mr. Snowden. More important, Mr. Snowden told The Washington Post earlier this month that he did report his misgivings to two superiors at the agency, showing them the volume of data collected by the N.S.A., and that they took no action. (The N.S.A. says there is no evidence of this.) That’s almost certainly because the agency and its leaders don’t consider these collection programs to be an abuse and would never have acted on Mr. Snowden’s concerns.

In retrospect, Mr. Snowden was clearly justified in believing that the only way to blow the whistle on this kind of intelligence-gathering was to expose it to the public and let the resulting furor do the work his superiors would not. Beyond the mass collection of phone and Internet data, consider just a few of the violations he revealed or the legal actions he provoked:

■ The N.S.A. broke federal privacy laws, or exceeded its authority, thousands of times per year, according to the agency’s own internal auditor.

■ The agency broke into the communications links of major data centers around the world, allowing it to spy on hundreds of millions of user accounts and infuriating the Internet companies that own the centers. Many of those companies are now scrambling to install systems that the N.S.A. cannot yet penetrate.

■ The N.S.A. systematically undermined the basic encryption systems of the Internet, making it impossible to know if sensitive banking or medical data is truly private, damaging businesses that depended on this trust.

■ His leaks revealed that James Clapper Jr., the director of national intelligence, lied to Congress when testifying in March that the N.S.A. was not collecting data on millions of Americans. (There has been no discussion of punishment for that lie.)

■ The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court rebuked the N.S.A. for repeatedly providing misleading information about its surveillance practices, according to a ruling made public because of the Snowden documents. One of the practices violated the Constitution, according to the chief judge of the court.

■ A federal district judge ruled earlier this month that the phone-records-collection program probably violates the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution. He called the program “almost Orwellian” and said there was no evidence that it stopped any imminent act of terror.

The shrill brigade of his critics say Mr. Snowden has done profound damage to intelligence operations of the United States, but none has presented the slightest proof that his disclosures really hurt the nation’s security. Many of the mass-collection programs Mr. Snowden exposed would work just as well if they were reduced in scope and brought under strict outside oversight, as the presidential panel recommended.

When someone reveals that government officials have routinely and deliberately broken the law, that person should not face life in prison at the hands of the same government. That’s why Rick Ledgett, who leads the N.S.A.’s task force on the Snowden leaks, recently told CBS News that he would consider amnesty if Mr. Snowden would stop any additional leaks. And it’s why President Obama should tell his aides to begin finding a way to end Mr. Snowden’s vilification and give him an incentive to return home.

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