Is Edward Snowden a modern Martin Luther?

[unhappycamper]

http://www.juancole.com/2013/12/edward-snowden-modern.html

Is Edward Snowden a modern Martin Luther?
By Juan Cole | Dec. 19, 2013
(By J.M. Porup)

~snip~

The parallels between the two men — and the two systems — are striking. The Catholic Church in the Middle Ages preached Christ’s teachings of brotherly love, chastity, and poverty, all the while engaging in war crimes, torture, and a grisly Inquisition. Popes with bastards? Drunken debauchery in Rome? Rapine and plunder in the name of Christ? What a joke!

But nowhere near as funny as the good ol’ US of A. Written by a pantheon of now-divine Founding Fathers, whose words are quoted as scripture, our holy document has Ten Commandments, too — whoops, I mean Ten Amendments — none of which we show the slightest interest in following. America has become a laughingstock. Freedom? What freedom? Honestly, you couldn’t write a funnier satire if you tried (and believe me, I have). The land of the free and the home of the brave is now a totalitarian dictatorship run by the secret police. Oh, and with a sugar coating of democracy for appearances’ sake.

We’ve even got our own version of the Inquisition, and it’s been going on for decades. The Catholic Church pursued, harassed, tortured, and murdered heretics — thought criminals who dared to think different. The CIA pursues, harasses, tortures, and murders heretics — thought criminals who dare to think different. How many hundreds of thousands of people have died of “accidents” or “heart attacks” merely for supporting, say, trade unionism in Latin America? How many millions were purged in Indonesia because they believed in the Communist Heresy? How many dissidents and activists are being murdered right now, today, inside our borders, in plausibly deniable ways?

Likewise, the Church had a global spying apparatus. It was called the confessional, and it was mandatory to confess your sins at least once a year. Since society believed that an all-seeing God watched their every move — and would damn them to eternal hellfire if a priest excommunicated them — the secretive priesthood had dirt on everyone. This gave them untold political power.

[JoePhilly]

1. But I thought he was Paul Revere ....

The land of the free and the home of the brave is now a totalitarian dictatorship run by the secret police.

Lines like this make Cole hard to take seriously.

[curlyred]

2. Maybe

Luther was a nutjob who hallucinated about the devil while in the privy and threw shit at the hallucinations. He was sane enough, however, to give impetus to the church reform movement sweeping Europe. His first major gripe was the selling of indulgences, wherein one could buy your way, or anyone's way, out of hell or purgatory. The Pope was even seling forgiveness for sins people hadn't even thought of committing.

He was, however, only one of several such reformers, some of whom were burned at the stake.

[TreasonousBastard]

3. This is just silly...

Where's Snowdon's 95 Theses?

Where's the movement he's leading?

[MisterP]

4. Porup seems to have read his William Manchester

and that's the problem