At the risk of Snowden overload here on DKos I'd like to point towards what I think is an interesting take on what is happening in Russia.
All the right people in Russia are enjoying Snowden's stay there, and by right I actually mean Right. The Left, not so much.
The author has "unlocked" this article for one day only and as I can only use three paragraphs re: copyright I recommend people go to the original today.
Now whatever you think of what Snowden achieved, some no doubt good (revelations of NSA domestic surveillance) some not so good, this article gives some insight to what is actually happening on the ground in Russia.
I honestly don't want to start a piefight, I just want people to read this article and maybe we can all agree that sometimes there are unfortunate, unforseen consequences to actions.
The author is Mark Ames, whose rogue expat newspaper in Russia, eXile, was shut down by the Kremlin. Here are some excerpts from the article..........
As I’ve reported in a series of articles on Snowden’s disastrous defection, he’s playing directly into the Kremlin’s hands and becoming an incredibly useful tool—Russian state TV news has been running Snowden’s statements praising Russia’s human rights record, showing Amnesty and Human Rights Watch sitting with Snowden giving his defection their blessing (both Amnesty and HRW's local reps later told reporters about their frustration over the sense they'd been used to provide cover for Snowden's defection ) and state TV has been rebroadcasting the interviews Snowden’s father gave — with GOP lobbyist/libertarian Bruce Fein, a paid genocide-denier, by his side — in which, again Snowden’s father praised Putin’s courage and commitment to human rights. This is why Russia’s beleaguered opposition has been either unusually silent about Snowden, sullenly silent; or, in the case of Anna Politkovskaya’s newspaper Novaya Gazeta, outright hostile to Snowden because of the demoralizing effect he’s having on the Russian opposition.
Most recently, as I reported here, Snowden has been taken under the wing of a Kremlin goon in the upper house of parliament who has publicly made Snowden an offer he can’t refuse: Help the Kremlin tighten its control over the Russian Internet.
The sentimental myth is stronger than the facts — even among all the progressives on the left who claim to be so skeptical of sentimental myths and who claim to see through bullshit. The Snowden-as-Jimmy-Stewart myth is made easier by everyone’s ignorance here about Russia, and the shit Snowden is stirring up inside that country. Suddenly all the same people here who claim to care so much about American bull-in-a-china-shop intervention in other cultures are now saying that we should ignore whatever damage the Snowden bull is wreaking on Russia’s opposition. The consensus on preserving this Snowden-as-Jimmy Stewart myth at all costs spans what passes for America's political spectrum — the left, right and middle — Sara Palin and Peggy Noonan to The Nation; from DeVos-funded corporate Republicans, to social media anarcho-"radicals." To me this whole goddamn thing is bizarre, in a Body Snatchers way. I must've been away too long to understand your weird fits.
The author goes on to state that he was being praised when first reporting on Snowden when he was pro but that since he became critical he has been getting nasty mail. He gives an example and his reply.
The article itself has links to back up his assertions.
The ramifications of Snowden being in Russia seem to be bad news for any dissenters there.
Worth the read if you have time.