Please Don’t Feed the Trolls

Noting Rosie Gray’s ridiculously smug piece in that learned journal of policy wonkdom known as Buzzfeed, our own Lucy Steigerwald reflects on the burning question of why Sen. Rand Paul and Rep.  Justin Amash, “should-be friends to the whistleblower  remained oddly quiet” on the subject of Bradley Manning’s recent conviction on espionage charges.

Yes, I  wondered about that,  too. From what  I’ve heard, they’ve yet to comment on the campaign to free Mumia Abu Jamal.  And now that you mention it — has anyone asked them about Jonathan Pollard?

As for Rosie Gray and BuzzFeed — however you’re supposed to spell it — they have a history. And here’s my own encounter with the charming Rosie, who, you can probably tell, lives and works in New York  City (I’m guessing Brooklyn). I’ll take their sudden interest in the cause of liberty seriously when @BuzzfeedBen runs an outraged editorial protesting the Manning verdict and demanding Bradley’s immediate pardon.

There isn’t anything “odd” about the “silence” of Paul, Amash, Wyden, et al. What’s really odd is the idea that these political figures have some kind of moral responsibility to speak out about every issue at every point in time.

7 thoughts on “Please Don’t Feed the Trolls”

  1. It would be nice to have Rand P. (& Mr. Amash) speak up about Mr. Manning, but give 'em time. Rand P. at least, seems to be shaping up nicely. Remember, they all have to overcome all that government-form schooling & militaryindustrial complex propaganda – – –

    PsyWar

  2. Considering Rand’s endorsement of dronemonger Mitt Romney in 2012 and his support of crippling economic sanctions against Iran over a nonexistent nuclear weapons program, it is truly baffling to see how anyone considering themselves anti-war could ever support him. It is equally baffling when one considers history: Obama got into office by capitalizing on the horrifying civil liberties record of Bush and the Democrats, and now Rand seems to be playing that same strategy to keep the two-party dictatorship’s hold on America firm. Really look into this guy before supporting him or you may find yourself taking on the role of the Obamabots you once thoroughly despised.

  3. @L. Reichard White: "they all have to overcome all that government-form schooling & militaryindustrial complex propaganda…"

    Me: Yes, where 'they' is defined as "most people in the world within the influence-ambit of the 'Western' MSM (mainstream media (print and broadcast), aka 'corrupt&venal') plus the PFBCs (publicly-financed broadcasters, like the AusBC).

    In plain text: We are forced to live in a lie-cloud.

    Q: What could be worse? A: Totally dysfunctional democracies.

    IF the voters are not fully and fairly informed – in the main, they are not; proof = MSM + PFBCs pushed propaganda paradigm (aka lies),

    IF the voters are not offered a sufficiently wide cross-section of candidates – in the main, they are not; proof = false-dichotomy two-party system whereby Lib = Lab (US Rep = Dem) to too many significant digits, plus major policies (war, economics, banking, climate) are too often bipartisan = un- & anti-democratic (since the voters are given *zero* effective choice),

    IF when elected, our so-called 'representatives' sell-out to the highest bidder = <1%, corporations, rogue-regimes and even 5th column lobbies (latter = treason), and in the main, that's exactly what most reps do,

    THEN our western democracies are total sham; welcome to 'where we're at.'

    One possible solution: Dump all representatives, set up a public utility to detect and counter lies (yeah, a 'MiniTrue' but seriously), randomly select a parliament whereby only a single term, half of the parliament selected each (2 year, say) interval, the 1st half-term spent learning, the 2nd mentoring, and the only function of the parliament is to debate, whereafter the now fully and fairly informed citizens then e-vote per single issue (an 11-point questionnaire; 10 qualifying queries plus 'the question to be put'). That might do it = democracy "of, by, for the (informed and aware) people" = possibly best chance to save the planet.

    One of the hardest problems may be convincing the so-called 'representatives' to go quietly; "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."

    Truth + justice = peace.

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