Greenbeanz, nobody is saying China and Ecuador are bastions of freedom nor that Julian Assange is Jesus. What we do know is that there is a man on the run for doing nothing more than reveal the truth about what his country is doing. They are spying on people in a way not too dissimilar to the Orwellian TV's that could monitor you. Snowden hasn't revealed information that is hurting anybody and most would agree that morally he is commendable, though legally in the shit. It is a problem when law and power trump being able to just do the right thing from time to time.

Obama has a hate on for whistleblowers and has taken the steps to go after them in a way that even Bush himself never did. This is the latest one to be going after and he is embarrassing the Obama administration in the process too. Most want Snowden to reach his island and if that means Russia, China and Ecuador are the ones to do it, then good on them. Nobody else was going to do it. Was he going to go to the UK or Canada or Sweden? Those fine noble upholders of human dignity and truth.

The UK and America are no bastions of freedom and truth either. As has been revealed these two countries are spying on their own people, they are stripping away their middle classes, and sell weapons to any regime that will take them. We are hypocrites and liars and are no moral compass. Sure we have education and health care. However, higher education is only there if you will take out a lifetime of debt to subsidise it and if you want any surgery then get on the waiting list.

People in Brazil were protesting in part because of the increase in the costs of public transporation. British public transportation is horribly expensive and getting around costs a fortune, but there has never been a million marcing on London and tearing the place up as a result of it. People in these nations have balls and take to the streets over things that matter. That kind of heart died in Britain in the 1980's where it was shown that you will get beaten up, arrested, and will lose your job anyway. You would have thought the costs of University education would have pushed people over the edge more recently, but they just take it after being kettled in, clobbered and put in a cell. That is not freedom either.

GB talks of democratic process, but the British electoral process is an antiquated one and you have the choice of 2 parties that have sold their nation down the river for 40 years on the trot. Next up? What will it be? Tory again or off the rails Labour doing largely the same thing. Blair was Thatcher in drag and Brown her frumpy sister. Cameron is the tubby offspring of Thatcher. It's largely smoke and mirrors and a fix. Democratic process, my arse.

People in the Arab Spring, Turkey, Brazil etc are tremendous for picking it up as Britain and America have shown what will happen if you don't defend yourselves. You get lazy, ideologically brainwashed, and don't even notice when you are actually living in 1984.