This is not the most substantial diary in the world, for which I tender apologies, but what I just saw makes me so angry I could scream. I think this community should discuss the implications of this particular piece of propaganda--or political messaging, if you will--because the people targeted are in fairly large supply around here. Also, as you will see in a moment, for a very specific reason, this piece of messaging is morally atrocious:
Ugly beyond words.
Take a look at who the third person on this cover of Time is.
It's Aaron Swartz.
The man who was hounded to death by the DOJ.
The man whose crime was to download too many articles. To break the terms of service agreement on JSTOR. The man whose crime was that he wanted information to be free and accessible to all.
The man who was threatened with spending his life in prison for that, while the bankers who destroyed our economy, the oil companies that poisoned our territorial waters, and pieces of shit like John Yoo walk free.
Now he's on a Time magazine cover, branded as an "informer."
Just to remind us all what that means:
Noun 1. informer - one who reveals confidential information in return for money
betrayer, blabber, squealer, rat
canary, fink, snitch, stool pigeon, stoolie, stoolpigeon, sneaker, snitcher, sneak -
The article within, of course, is somewhat more nuanced. But although it says in the article that these men do not peddle facts for money, they are branded "informers" on the cover nonetheless. And an "informer," whether he's a snitch for the cops or a double-agent, is someone who betrays someone, presumably someone who has confidence and trust in him, for personal gain. (Further, at the bottom of the article Time waggishly includes a link to "Geeks Who Leak," conflating again the categories of "leaker" and "whistleblower.")
Neither Bradley Manning nor Ed Snowden deserve to be called "informers." But including Aaron Swartz in that picture is beyond unconscionable. It is evidence of a media that is more than willing to act as a Pravda for any government talking point, no matter how obscene. And it may also be evidence of trying to retroactively create a level of guilt for Aaron Swartz that did not exist, in order to retroactively justify his persecution and subsequent death.
I am beyond disgusted, and call upon Time to change its cover or defend its description of Swartz as an "informer." Actually, I call upon Time to justify its description of any of these three men as "informers." But its tarring of a dead man's reputation is the lowest thing I have seen in a long time.