@Frank Apisa,
I"m not terribly worried about the fractiousness. Positions were taken, positions hardened. Not all that unusual. The inevitable attack from the spider creatures of Tau Ceti will bind you folks together again.
The US and its policies and behavior in the world gains unusual attention because of its unusual power and dominance in the world. We all get that, I imagine. And, as with Britain or Spain etc earlier, those policies and behaviors are consequential and, importantly, instruments of what is deemed by the US as good for the US. Who cares what the hell Switzerland or New Zealand or Canada gets up to?
I brought up Assange because I think that Snowden is, in part, an instance of the project that Assange set in motion with Wikileaks. It's a project I support if with some trepidation.
If we understand the conservative dynamic as that which seeks to preserve hierarchies of power and dominance in the face of "threats" from below (eg blacks gaining equality, women rising to equality with males, workers' unions gaining power to determine conditions in factories, the lower classes gaining institutional tools and means to have a say in the structure of society, etc) we can understand why those of privilege are so passionate about any such threat from below. Assange's project has the very real potential to bring about something like a modern world French Revolution. Which is why everybody and their dog is after him; governments around the world, corporate entities, even a lot of the media. My trepidation centers on the unknown aspects of what might follow from such a deep upset of existing orders.
