I have neither sought credit for her release nor gotten it nor thought that I should have it; many other people deserve and have gotten that credit, including President Obama, for commuting her sentence.
Similarly, I'm not about to take the blame for President Obama not having pardoned Edward Snowden, nor am I blaming Mr. Snowden or Ms. Manning for my being about to lose another apartment for having said that I have rights.
I am a pariah, and I have a pariah's anger. If you don't Iike it, don't bully me. I don't bully you.
I am marginalized. I am viciously and relentlessly abused. I am ridiculed. I am victim-blamed. I do not have nor have I sought public attention at the level that Mr. Snowden and Ms. Manning have had; I avoid it, and I was avoiding it before the conglomerate began to repeatedly victimize me with voyeurism. I do not align with powerful people or organizations to further my personal interests, remove me from my plight or promote my social or political convictions. I am not and have never purported to be an authority about anything; much of my consternation since 2010 has been the result of my incredulousness that so many respected people and institutions don't realize or don't care that having sex with children is the worst crime that someone can commit.
I am tired of being demonized for trying to help, expected to accept all forms of minimization as a person in the service of the greater good of someone else's altruism, and treated as if the inhumane conditions that I have lived in since 2010 because I am not corrupt are my fault and not the result of sickening abuse. I am not seeking rescue; I demand my independence, and it's that demand which gets me slapped down over and over, even while the people slapping me are calling me a money-grubbing slut.
There is not a day when I don't think about suicide, and there hasn't been for 7 years. However, I attempt not to fall in love with my martyrdom or to accept a romantic version of my life as depicted by other people. I hate my martyrdom, in all of its lurid misogyny, and if I am occasionally strident in my condemnation of the people who have inflicted it on me, at least I am not basking in the tears of hero-worshippers.
Mr. Snowden and his supporters didn't convince President Obama that Mr. Snowden should be pardoned. Mr. Obama has left office. Perhaps Mr. Snowden and his supporters should spend their time and effort attempting to convince President Trump to pardon him. It seems that it's going to be a tough sell, so why don't you get slogging instead of acting like Mr. Snowden's life is my problem when it really isn't? If there is a prototype for what unchecked surveillance can do to someone, I am that prototype, so why doesn't everyone stop victim-blaming me while I try not to lose my sanity in the midst of living the dystopia that Mr. Snowden warned people about before he fled the country?
If you're not impressed with the results of my raging at President Obama, why don't you attempt another tactic for the next 4 years? There's nothing wrong with learning from someone else's mistakes.
Why don't you also think about whether it's probable that there are media sources that have tepidly supported Mr. Snowden or vehemently attacked him because it is expedient and profitable for the media not to have to worry about anyone's privacy? A future where nobody other than the super-rich is treated as if he or she ever has a reasonable expectation of privacy is a future without arrests and lawsuits for reporters and media sources who descend upon their targets like termites and who turn the lives of those targets into freakshows.
Copyright L. Kochman, January 20, 2017 @ 11:50 p.m./additions January 21, 2017 @ 12:26 a.m.
