Nothing Snowden said, for instance, was deemed as worthy of attention as the state of his garage and his attentiveness to his girlfriend.

Just deflection, but IMO this tactic has lost any usefulness it may have had, too obvious. So has thread-jacking using criticism of spelling or grammar or a word or phrase. I just scroll past.

I can see it being used when you're discussing another's opinion. I can see the relevance to well he also said...

At least you haven't been called a pedocannibal, yet.

Smears just add to the noise, what English Bob called, "shit and fried eggs."



Only thing that counteracts the smear is to know what's true. Thay can be difficult to convey when time must first be devoted to counter the disinformed mindset.

The Thought Police? Fascist to the core.

But I also think you need to be more vigilant in policing your links.

It makes getting smeared understandable.

ETA: As for my sources, go through my journals on DU3 or DU2 you will find what's needed to indict the warmongers and banksters who make a killing off wars without end for profits without cease.

They have worked hard to make sure that bushco stays loose, and you present a unique quandary via your posts in that all their hard work is made naught. That's why they smear you. They dare not truthfully argue, because they know they lose.

Alerts are no good because the smears are well designed to fly under that radar. They are good at it, but I think most serious DUers are quite aware anymore.

in a much larger universe......

I don't think I'm writing anything particularly original or daring. The few OPs I've had that have gone 'viral' are limited to a distinct sphere.

I think it's always best to keep in mind one's relative place in the universe:

https://m.

Yes.

from the issue at hand (e.g. NSA abuses) to the character of the journalist/whistleblower.

Very useful when one does not have a valid argument.

It has become far too common here on DU.

Snowden and Greenwald have more-or-less claimed the NSA is spying on all of us, everywhere, all of the time.

The documents they released don't quite back them up. For example, they only released one document that actually "spied" on US persons - the telephone metadata program. Which was made legal by the SCOTUS in 1979 - that old ruling declared telephone metadata was not private.

After that, further documents were released with the presumption that they were used on US persons.....but no documents saying that they were. In fact, most of the other documents included how a program specifically excluded US persons.

As a result, a lot of the "leaks" and coverage thereof ends up depending on the messenger. They aren't just putting out documents, they're putting out a story which is (somewhat) backed up by documents. The lack of complete documentation makes their truthfulness relevant.

Adding to the difficulty of unwinding this is people write stories about a story about a story about a document. Each layer of indirection loses accuracy but can increase just how spectacular the claims are. It's how we got Death Panels out of end-of-life counseling. Each layer added a slightly more spectacular twist until the ACA was slaughtering grandma. There's a similar effect with Snowden's leaks.

Which I do not BTW, mainly due to confirmation from other sources, but let's say you're accurate, what is Assange's disqualifying fault? How does that apply to what I said above?

The opinions expressed, including yours are possibly dependent on the messenger, but that wasn't the point of the OP.

You just can't assume everything he says is true or false. Just like any other public figure.

They can't argue against the truth, so tactic #1 is ALWAYS to attack the messenger personally.

The truth doesn't change though, and it keeps on emerging, which is why we are seeing more desperate and more pathetic attempts to distract from it.

The recent flip flop of the Swedish Prosecutor brought forth denials of facts that were amazing to behold.

The answer to tactics, is to keep on telling the truth.