Where did the meme come from that civil disobedience requires you to sit in jail afterwards?

[sabrina 1]

172. Someone who did exactly as you are suggesting Snowden do, Drake, who went through

ever legal step to report abuses afforded, supposedly, to Whistle Blowers, starting with reporting to Congress first, speaking to the FBI etc, completely DISAGREES with you. He stated just week that what happened to him 'five years of hell' is exactly what would happen to Snowden, with all the power of the Government to smear and attack him through their proxies if not directly.

What an idealist you would have to be to believe, after what we have witnessed re how Whistle Blowers are treated in this country, that what you propose is even remotely likely to happen to even the most respected citizen as Drake was regarding his career in Intelligence and the Military.

THIS is what happens when a Government persecutes Whistle Blowers and Manning is only one in a fairly long string over the past decade. Eventually they lose faith in the 'legal process' and as has happened in other countries at this point, they seek asylum elsewhere. We used to be the country such individuals viewed as a safe place to turn to when their own governments engaged in the behavior towards their truth-telling that OUR Government is now engaging in.

Snowden did exactly the right thing.

As Drake said this week to the National Press Club, the ONLY thing that saved him from decades in jail, after the Government refused to look into his allegations, lied about him, turned him into a 'traitor' and 'coward' despite his long years of impeccable service, WERE THE PEOPLE in the INDEPENDENT MEDIA who, as they are doing now re Snowden, continued to expose the lies being told about HIM.

It's a nice dream, about a country far, far away, which once upon a time treated Whistle Blowers as innocent until proven guilty of SOMETHING. This is not that country, the one even Ellsberg lived in, which was bad enough.