Snowden’s Secret – Where Have We Heard This Before?
Source: zengardner.com
Fifty years before NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden captured the world’s attention, the phrase “Snowden’s secret” was already becoming a talisman of American literature and popular culture.
Yet today, as a real-life Snowden leaks secrets right and left, the media has failed to notice that we’ve heard the phrase “Snowden’s secret” before. Incredible as it seems, “Snowden’s secret” is the culminating revelation of one of the masterpieces of American literature: Joseph Heller’s novel Catch-22, first published in 1961.It’s almost as if the deep background to “Snowden’s secret” is being kept secret.
Catch-22 was the greatest antiwar novel of the 1960s – a darkly hilarious marriage of the sensibilities of Mark Twain and Louis-Ferdinand Céline. The story follows the adventures of Yossarian, an American bombardier nearly driven mad by the horrors of World War II and the military-industrial-intelligence bureaucracy.
The themes and events of the novel are tied together by oblique references to “Snowden’s secret.” The brooding, half-crazy Yossarian carries Snowden’s awful secret around in his breast, but it isn’t until the end of the novel that the reader learns what it is. It turns out that Snowden was a member of Yossarian’s bomber crew who was killed in action by shrapnel. Snowden died a terrible death in Yossarian’s arms, his entrails spilling horribly out of his belly.
At the book’s climax, Yossarian, deeply traumatized by Snowden’s awful death, finally explains Snowden’s secret to the reader: “Man was matter, that was Snowden’s secret. Drop him out a window, and he’ll fall. Set fire to him and he’ll burn. Bury him and he’ll rot, like other kinds of garbage. The spirit gone, man is garbage. That was Snowden’s secret. Ripeness was all.”
Pondering “Snowden’s secret” inspires Yossarian to act heroically – by deserting from the US military and thereby refusing to betray his friends to an insane, out-of-control bureaucracy. Yossarian’s courageous act of desertion, inspired by the spilled guts of Snowden, ends the novel on an upbeat note of endless possibility.
Half a century after the publication of Catch-22, a real-life Snowden heroically deserts from the US military (NSA branch), refuses to betray his fellow citizens to an insane, out-of-control bureaucracy, and “spills his guts” to the media. Only this time, there isn’t just one “Snowden’s secret” – there are thousands!
Is this merely a case of life imitating art?
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Read the full article at: zengardner.com
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Jon Rappoport - Hour 1 - The Surveillance State & War on the Individual
Patrick Henningsen - Hour 1 - Syria, Snowden, NSA & the Whistleblower Circus
James Bamford - NSA, U.S. Cyber Command & the Global Brave New World of Surveillance
Russ Baker - Hour 1 - Michael Hastings, Libya Repeating in Syria & JFK
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