I know you are supposed to hate the stupidity of twitter, but where else can you see priceless gems like this:
With @GOPLeader Eric Cantor upset, House loses one of its best Republican thinkers & reformers. Sad loss for party.
— David Gergen (@David_Gergen) June 11, 2014
Boy howdy. But this is almost as good:
In @ggreenwald's Brazil: "2,000 citizens are killed per year by military police, aka ‘Pacification Units.’" http://t.co/uvXGeC96Ys
— Bob Cesca (@bobcesca_go) June 11, 2014
Yes. I blame Greenwald for what the Brazilian police do.
Wag
OT, but Terry Gilliam’s movie Brazil is amazing.
Hunter Gathers
It seems that Cesca was going for a Yakov Smirnoff joke and forgot the punch line.
beltane
In Bob Cesca’s United States, schoolchildren are gunned down on a daily basis thanks to “gun lobby”.
japa21
Have no idea what your comment has to do with the Cesca’s tweet. Very non sequitorish.
Ash Can
I’m laughing at both Gergen’s silliness and your insistence on ignoring Cesca’s point.
BGinCHI
When did Greenwald take over Brazil?
Man, that fucker is busy.
C.S.
@Ash Can: Cesca has a point?
BGinCHI
Suggested Cesca tweet, Godwin style: ggreenwald is a white male and so was Hitler. ggreenwald is a mass murderer by association.
Tommy
Maybe this isn’t the place to post this ….
I read a few comments about immigration here last night that really irked me. These thoughts I am about to write have been in my head the entire time. I need to get them out ….
My last name is Young with a “Y.” I’ve lived in a lot of places as a military brat, this is the only place I had to note this. See around 225 years ago, well Germans founded the town I live in. In 2014 there are still a lot of folks with the same last name, it just starts with a “J.” Jung but Young.
In my town we have an October fest celebration that lasts a month. Heck next week we’re having a Volkswalk for charity. I don’t even know what that is. But pretty sure the name is German :). When I went to high school here in the mid-80s German language classes was required to graduate.
The story of how my town was founded, one of the earliest in the state of IL is just wonderful. We have a museum about it. Germans, Lutherans, sailed to New Orleans and went up the Mississippi to St. Louis. They thought the city was lacking, dirty, godless, so they sold everything they had not already sold to get here. I guess they were all in at that point ….
They started to walk east. They came up on the area that would become my town. They found a wealth of everything. Soil as rich and dark as tar if you just turned it. Streams and rivers. Woods for as far as the eyes can see. They started to write letters back home saying they had found the place god meant them to live in.
Many people came here. It is not an understatement to say boat loads of them. Boat loads. I think that is like the coolest thing I can say. Boat load of people came here …. and why folks don’t need to fear a Hispanic person or so such changes where they live. Embrace it. I don’t know what a Volkswalk for charity is, but I can assure you I will find out :).
BTW: My family came here, well from Scotland in the 1870s. Put up roots in southern Illinois and we’re not leaving. Isles of Skye in Scotland.
Cacti
I just saw that Moscow Eddie Snowden’s Russian Lawyer sold his movie rights to Oliver Stone.
Does Glenn Greenbucks worry that this might cut into his own profits from the deal he made with Sony?
John (MCCARTHY) Cole
@Ash Can: What point?
beltane
@Ash Can: I like Bob Cesca but his point is a silly one. Being that most if not all countries on this earth have a seriously fucked up side to them, his point would seem to imply that no one residing on foreign soil has the right to criticize the United States. This seems like a very right-wing way of thinking. There are far better criticisms of Glenn Greenwald to made than this one.
beltane
I tried to edit the wording of my comment at #12 but it wouldn’t let me.
Morzer
http://onmilwaukee.com/bars/articles/worldcupnomad.html
CONGRATULATIONS!
This was a criticism of Greenwald?
Shit, I’d be floored if the number of people cops kill in this country every year is under 2,000. Is that my fault? According to Cesca, yes.
Buck
Cesca comments on how fucked up the US is all the time. His point is that Greenwald won’t criticize Brazil.
Tommy
@Cacti: and your problem with Greenwald is what?
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@beltane: Actually, I’ve always thought that is a stupid thing to bring up in any discussion of GG. Now, I suppose one could make a argument that an expatriate who has been away from the country for 20-30 years is too unfamiliar with his/her home country to make informed comments about it, but that isn’t what the GG/Brazil comments are doing.
Thomas F
Bob Cesca is a fucking joke
ranchandsyrup
Which country can I move to that will allow me to have completely clean hands?
schrodinger's cat
@Tommy: What comments about immigration irked you? I probably missed the post you are talking about.
Morzer
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
I think the implied criticism of Greenwald is that the Apostle of Liberty is very selective about the forms of liberty he cares about.
Woodrowfan
@Morzer: BINGO! It’s not that Cesca ignores some county’s dirty hands, it’s that Greenwald does…
SatanicPanic
@Tommy: hmmm what’s in this can, the label says worms
beltane
@ranchandsyrup: Israel. No one in the media would have dared criticize him for living in Israel.
max
I know you are supposed to hate the stupidity of twitter
‘Supposed’ to hate the stupidity of Twitter? I was prepared to like it (at least better than Facebook), but wow. Much Stupid. Such Dumb. Very tedium.
but where else can you see priceless gems like this:
On the Sunday Shows, or so I hear. So I hear because I avoid them like the fucking plague, thus leading me to also avoid places were similar idiocy might be routinely encountered.
I blame Greenwald for what the Brazilian police do.
I know Gergen’s just another centrist idiot, so I’d expect something idiotic like that, but WTF is Cesca’s deal? If he actually loved Bush’s policies so much, WTF was he so down on the guy?
max
[‘He’s too inconsistent and incoherent to be a plain old partisan hack.’]
Cacti
Why I love Balloon-Juice…
The site’s proprietor can ask “What’s going on Iraq” without even a hint of irony or self-awareness.
Morzer
@Woodrowfan:
Morzer
@max:
I always miss out on the fucking plagues. My wife is happier that way and she’s strong, principled person with a fine collection of kitchen knives.
SatanicPanic
@Cacti: Maybe Glenn Greenwald has some insights he wants to share on Iraq
ranchandsyrup
@beltane: ooooooh that’s a good ‘un.
Thomas F
@Cacti: You’re a troll who exists only on this site to find decreasingly creative ways to shroud your homophobia against Glenn Greenwald.
Cacti
@Morzer:
I imagine he’ll get to a story on the corruption in his adopted country right about the time his “Freedom of the Press Foundation” offers any criticism of Snowden’s host country.
Mnemosyne
@beltane:
When you claim as an expatriate that the US is a police state, people wonder when you’re going to notice that the country you’re currently living in is a police state, too.
Hypocrisy is just as annoying from the left as it is from the right.
beltane
@Woodrowfan: The thing is, Bob Cesca is writing this from the United States, a country with one of the highest incarceration rates in the world. If we take his point to its logical conclusion, no American should ever feel entitled to criticize the behavior of another country’s police force. If speech became a privilege of the pure, the world would go silent.
jake the anti-soshal soshalist
Just wondering, is there a chance that a Democrat could win the general? Or is the district R enough the Teahadist will win
lurker dean
mister levenson is currently taking a nice big bat to gergen’s big head of nonsense.
https://twitter.com/TomLevenson/status/476832526942879745
Morzer
@Mnemosyne:
I’d be more impressed by Greenwald if he started taking minority vote suppression in the US half as seriously as he has taken boutique white middle class glibertarian issues over the years.
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@Tommy: Where are you going with this?
beltane
@Mnemosyne: I guess there’s no place to run to if you want to criticize the USA.
I can’t believe that I’m defending GG, whom I generally loathe with a passion, but Bob Cesca’s attack is incredibly lame. Cacti has a much better one in his comment above.
Cacti
@jake the anti-soshal soshalist:
Just wondering, is there a chance that a Democrat could win the general?
Cook rates VA-7 as R+10.
Highly unlikely.
Mnemosyne
@beltane:
I think you’re headed in the wrong direction — what Cesca is saying is that Greenwald should be criticizing Brazil’s police since he lives there. Therefore, the logical claim you should be making is that it would lead to saying that no expatriate should ever criticize his/her home country (ETA meaning their country of origin).
John (MCCARTHY) Cole
@Buck: Ahh, the old “so and so isn’t writing about something, so they must support it.”
Violet
@John (MCCARTHY) Cole: I thought the point was that Greenwald criticizes the US for doing things he thinks are bad but lives in a country that also does bad things and he never talks about those things at all. It’s sort of a pot/kettle situation.
Morzer
@beltane:
The actual argument in question is that if you want to set yourself up as the Apostle of Liberty, it helps your credibility if you don’t just focus on a rather narrow and localized understanding of Liberty.
schrodinger's cat
OT: I am tired of Verizon Wireless, I have stayed with them due to inertia, is a prepaid card and an unlocked phone a good substitute?
Morzer
@John (MCCARTHY) Cole:
No, it’s more that Greenwald loves to be holier than thou about his role as the Apostle of Liberty and Cesca is calling him out on his rather limited range of interests when it comes to the Fight for Liberty.
AxelFoley
@Ash Can:
Co-sign on both points. Cole will always come to Greenwald’s rescue.
beltane
@Mnemosyne: But it’s OK for expats of other countries to criticize their homelands while living in the USA? Or is this just another form of American exceptionalism?
Violet
@schrodinger’s cat: Depends what you need or want your phone to do. I needed my phone to work when I got off the plane in the UK. After researching, I was not confident that would happen if I used a prepaid card. Previous to that I added minutes to my phone as needed and it worked great for most of my needs. Figure out what you need first and ask around. I actually visited some of the phone company stores to ask about their plans, in addition to researching online. It was all helpful.
AxelFoley
@beltane:
No, the point is Greenwald spends all his time attacking President Obama and the U.S. (when he went merrily along with Bush’s crime spree), but the fucker won’t say shit about the things going on in his own backyard. The bitch doesn’t live here, so he needs to worry about the country he lives in, which is as fucked up as our country.
beltane
@Morzer: It would be better to criticize Greenwald for his limited range of interests with regards to the United States, which has always been my big problem with Greenwald. Bob Cesca took the lazy way out making it appear that his range of interests are also somewhat limited.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@jake the anti-soshal soshalist: Less so than usual in this case. At least Dems ran someone in the primary – which doesn’t always happen – but there seems to be very little party organization or support, and the candidate was selected by committee, not elected.
Also, FWIW, the candidate doesn’t seem terribly interested in actually getting elected.
burnspbesq
@Thomas F:
Now who’s projecting? Not every criticism of a gay person is based on homophobia. Some of them are based on the fact that said gay person is a bully and a hypocrite, and probably a felon if Eric Holder would just grow some and empanel a grand jury.
Cacti
@AxelFoley:
No, the point is Greenwald spends all his time attacking President Obama and the U.S. (when he went merrily along with Bush’s crime spree)
I think this is the biggest reason for JC’s fanboy tendencies toward GG.
It only took both of them several years and a second term to realize that George W. Bush was an awful POTUS. It makes them blood brothers or something.
beltane
@AxelFoley: I get your point. The next time I hear a foreigner talk about the fucked up shit they’ve seen in their country, I’m going to tell the to STFU until they take on the NRA in this country.
Morzer
@beltane:
So you object to Cesca making it appear that Greenwald has a limited range of interests, when, in fact, you agree that he has a limited range of interests?
I am not wild about Cesca either, but I think he’s got a pretty solid point when it comes to Greenwald being much more into grandstanding than he is into any serious attempt to think through what liberty means at a deeper level.
Morzer
@burnspbesq:
Well done, Burnsie. You’ve just poured conciliatory gasoline on the flames.
Bill Arnold
@ranchandsyrup:
Completely clean, I don’t know. Costa Rica is closer than most, of note for English speakers is Monteverde (founded by Quakers about 60 years ago) (“No permanent standing army” as the wikipedia article puts it.)
ranchandsyrup
@Bill Arnold: i was thinking costa rica as well. traveled there about 15 yrs ago or so (loved monteverde and cloud forest).
Then again, all latin ‘murican countries have the drug trade and that one tourist was killed on the atlantic side and some expats have died. Prolly as close as we’ll get, though (beltane’s Israel suggestion notwithstanding).
White Trash Liberal
http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2005/10/brazilians-refuse-to-give-up-right-to.html?m=1
Ummm Glenn has written previously about Brazil and guns.
beltane
@Morzer: All I’m saying is that you, and several others in this thread, have made far more effective criticisms of Greenwald than Cesca did. There is so much wrong with Glenn Greenwald that he could have done a lot better. My issue with Cesca is one of style over substance; his tweet was weak sauce.
Cacti
@Morzer:
I am not wild about Cesca either, but I think he’s got a pretty solid point when it comes to Greenwald being much more into grandstanding than he is into any serious attempt to think through what liberty means at a deeper level.
The most egregious example being his “Freedom of the Press Foundation,” which seemed to have next to zero interest on any subject unrelated to Bradley Manning.
Fred Fnord
The obvious point here is that it is never okay to criticize anything ever, and certainly not to concentrate criticism on a particular situation that you happen to have researched and feel passionately about. Because there are always other things that are also worthy of criticism that you won’t be criticizing, and they will always be more important to someone than the things you do concentrate on, or will be a sign of your unutterable hypocrisy, or something.
This is a very common tactic among e.g. MRAs: “if feminists are REALLY in favor of equality why aren’t you concentrating on the horrible statistics around black men being shot”. They take a perfectly good cause and trash you for concentrating on something else. It’s an obvious derailing tactic, but it still works on a lot of people.
beltane
@Bill Arnold: People have told me that Costa Rica is a very racist country and not as lovely under the surface as people think. This could apply to just about any country.
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@Fred Fnord:
Or BiP.
schrodinger's cat
I predict a 1000 comments by the end of the evening.
schrodinger's cat
@beltane: True, people suck, kittehs rule.
Morzer
@Fred Fnord:
When you take “liberty” as the defining cause of your life, other people have the right to point out the inconvenient fact that there is more to liberty than a set of white, male libertarian anxieties. That isn’t derailing the topic at all – it’s asking you to take it more seriously.
LAC
@japa21: the magic word “greenwald” was uttered by a philistine and it all hands on deck for the acolytes. The same folks who get giddy when greenwald weighs in on countries he doesn’t swan about in.
the Conster
@lurker dean:
Not on the twitter machine to follow the response, but it’s safe to assume there won’t be one.
David Koch
I’m Shocked! I’m Shocked!
Griftwald won’t say peep about government Death Squads murdering peasants on his own streets?
So much for courage being contagious.
Morzer
@David Koch:
Oh man, you are really determined to get Anne Laurie to come out shooting, aintcha?
D.N. Nation
Greenwald never rises above “occasionally useful horse’s ass with laughable glibertarian tendencies and zero self-reflection” for me, but: Cesca’s point would only have merit if Greenwald actively suggests Brazil as a model to which the United States should subscribe. And as far as I’ve seen, he doesn’t.
Kropadope
@Morzer:
QFT
@Fred Fnord: Having a focus is one thing, but that’s not the problem here. GG went happily along as all these laws that created our awful national security state were passed. Now that he finally noticed that this is awful, he’s concentrating his fire on on the current administration, which inherited this national security behemoth and has been stymied in its efforts to mitigate it by Congress, instead of concentrating fire on people who built or wish to maintain or expand the national security state.
Thomas F
@burnspbesq: I happen to be an attorney as well, although I don’t posture about it with as much flair as you do. You have no idea what you’re talking about. There is no warrant for prosecuting Greenwald, just as there is none for prosecuting Barton Gellman. There is no special deference under federal law for professional journalists.
Now, I don’t make any predictions regarding Eric Holder’s future conduct. Besides being a consummate mediocrity with a subpar intelligence, Holder is also a craven partisan hack. I wouldn’t be surprised if he attempted something along the lines of what you suggest.
beltane
@Kropadope:
Again, you make a much, much better case against GG than Bob Cesca did. Glenn Greenwald presents a target rich environment, but Cesca chose to bomb a hospital. Perhaps because most of the US media is guilty of the same lack of concern for actual civil liberties as Glenn Greenwald. They wouldn’t dare hit him where it hurts so they go after side issues.
Thomas F
@Morzer: No, it’s more about Cesca, like his unhinged colleague Charles Johnson, yet again jumping the shark in his anti-Greenwald jihad. They are quickly becoming the Jim Holts of the center left. Quite sad to watch, really.
Morzer
@Thomas F:
That’s alright, Thomas. You can throw in Eric Holder’s skin color as well, since you are obviously itching to do so.
eemom
omg, the very utterance of the word Greenwald really is some magical shit on this blog. 75 comments in and nary a single WTF for that Gergen tweet…isn’t Gergen supposed to be one of the sorta-passes-for-sane repubs?
Morzer
@Thomas F:
If you mean Jim Hoft, your comparison is bizarre. Cesca’s a gadfly, yes, but he’s far from the mean-spirited ignorance of Hoft, as is Charles Johnson.
Morzer
@eemom:
There are some unintentionally comedic utterances that just can’t be added to or improved by discussion. Gergen’s tweet is one of them.
Gorgon Zola
@beltane: I don’t think that’s Cesca’s point, exactly. I think he’s harping on the fact that GG never writes about abuses in Brazil (or Russia), and therefore GG’s sustained criticisms of the US and the UK are disingenuous. (Gorgon Zola does not endorse this view.)
Or perhaps Mr Cole is correct and that Cesca is blaming GG for whatever happens in Brazil, because that’s totally something Cesca would do.
Kropadope
@eemom: I think Greenwald has way more influence over modern public discourse than Gergen.
Bill Arnold
@beltane:
I’ve never been there so can’t comment directly. A google search suggests some racism, probably less than in the U.S.
The “no standing army” attribute is a draw to any close-to-absolute pacifist who doesn’t want to fund a war machine.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@beltane: My sister lived there for a year. There are places you go, and places you don’t. That much is true everywhere. You also have to pay the private security guards for your block (1 on every corner) because the police are apparently just not that helpful. Also first-floor windows are a no-no. Too easy to get it the house that way.
She loved it, but wouldn’t live there.
chopper
@Thomas F:
i see others are running with the ‘you hate GG because he’s gay’ ball that cole brought to the game.
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@eemom:
Unicorns, fairies, and hodags are far less imaginary than sorta-passes-for-sane repubs.
LT
@Buck: “His point is that Greenwald won’t criticize Brazil.”
You need a transplant.
Morzer
@Kropadope:
He’s part of the buzz right now, but overall Greenwald hasn’t been that influential. Until Snowden came along he was in some danger of becoming a loud, but essentially ignored voice in the libertarian crowd.
Gorgon Zola
Chyron HR
@chopper:
Greenwald’s critics are homophobic
This I know
For Glenn Greenwald
Tells me so
Burma-shave
LT
@beltane: If we take Cesca’s points to their logical conclusions:
1) If Bob Cesca has not written about **every last thing wrong in the U.S.* then he is guilty of what he claims Greenwald is;
2) If you are an American journalist who has for the last decade written primarily about the American government, with a special focus on the myriad problems of government secrecy and associated abuse, and are handed the largest catch of government secrets in history—you must write about Brazil.
Kropadope
@Morzer: Well, I wouldn’t have known due to my lack of watching TV news, but apparently David Gergen is on CNN. I guess that’s not nothing.
Morzer
@LT:
Greenwald has always presented himself as writing about liberty, rather than the American government. That’s Cesca’s point here – that Greenwald has a very restricted understanding of what liberty means and a pretty restricted interest in the region that “liberty” applies to.
Morzer
@Kropadope:
People still watch CNN? Voluntarily? I thought it was due to be humanely killed any day now.
Kropadope
@Morzer: You’re right, that is nothing.
LT
Also note:
If Greenwald had written about Braziliam government problems for years – Cesca would be bitching about something else. Is there any doubt about this?
Also note: What in the fuck does where he lives have to do with the NSA? If he lived in Cleveland, Bob Cesca and Charles Johnson – and half the dipshits here – would still be obsessed, jealous, pro-NSA loons about this.
Morzer
@LT:
You can think that Greenwald is not always honest and not always interested in a number of the more obvious requirements of a meaningful understanding of liberty – without being pro-NSA, or obsessed, or jealous, or, for that matter, homophobic.
LT
@Morzer:
Cesca’s point is to try to find *anything* he can to smear Greenwald. Think of it this way: If Greenwald had been given secrets about an NSA program that actually helped child pornagraphers – would you and Cesca be saying “OOOOH – there’s child pornagraphy in Brazil!!! Why isnt’ he writing about that???”
It’s just ludicrous. If Cesca thinks the NSA story is nothing – fine. I disagree, but fne. Bringing up this other shit – just empty nonsense.
Morzer
@LT:
No, Cesca isn’t smearing Greenwald. He’s pointing out that Greenwald isn’t living up to his own supposedly high standards as a champion of liberty. As for your fantasies about the NSA and child pornography, I think you need to step back and consider why you have to come up with this sort of thing to attack anyone who disagrees with Greenwald’s rather high estimation of himself.
John (MCCARTHY) Cole
@LT: Bingo.
John (MCCARTHY) Cole
Who the hell brought up GG’s sexuality and why? Jeebus, people.
LT
@Morzer: And please note especially what’s at the foundation of this particular smear: that Greenwald doesn’t actually care about liberty, freedom, etc – he **just hates Obama**!
This makes Cesca, and a lot of people here, look silly. And very desperate. Why isn’t just arguing your points – about NSA – enough?
There’s a hint in that.
Kropadope
@John (MCCARTHY) Cole: I think it was someone using it as a shield for GG. Oh, control+F
Kristin
Greenwald’s response to John’s tweet totally misrepresented what Cesca’s article was about. (Did anyone actually read the article?) But, that’s probably okay because Greenwald can’t be criticized. Just ask him.
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@John (MCCARTHY) Cole:
As far as I can tell, this peach of a commenter. As far as why? I guess that’s how he rolls.
LT
@Morzer:
So Cesca is inventing a thing for Greenwald and accusing him of not being that thing. Okay.
Ob Sessed
Rex Everything
@Cacti: Chelsea Manning is currently rotting in Leavenworth for leaking videos of the U.S. Army slaughtering Afghan and Iraqi civilians.
Clearly, she & her supporters like GG need to realize, as Morzer so aptly put it, “that there is more to liberty than a set of white, male libertarian anxieties.”
LT
@John (MCCARTHY) Cole: Homophobia has creeped into GG criticism regularly for months. His “boy toy” Miranda and the like. Not in this thread that I’ve seen.
LT
@Rex Everything: Fuck the ACLU.
Cacti
@Rex Everything:
Chelsea Manning is currently rotting in Leavenworth for leaking videos of the U.S. Army slaughtering Afghan and Iraqi civilians.
And also publishing personally identifiable information on over 70,000 US military personnel.
So, which whistle was being blown on that one?
LT
@John (MCCARTHY) Cole:
gene108 says:
Botsplainer says:
Pinkamena Panic says:
That’s just one Balloon Juice post. There are others.
https://balloon-juice.com/2013/08/18/because-freedom-thats-why/
Kristin
@LT: Well, I guess you are an authority on being “Ob Sessed.”
Morzer
@LT:
You might as well get yourself a chalkboard and see if you can put Glenn Beck out of business, because the fantasies you are coming up with plus the paranoia put you into direct competition with him. So far you’ve been reduced to fantasies about child p0rn and the NSA, plus a lot of yelling about how anyone who disagrees with Greenwald must hate him and be trying to smear him. There’s not much road left before you go over the cliff completely.
LT
@Kristin: I think Bob Cesca – with 50+ articles on Greenwald (articles, whole articles) – is that authority.
Might be Charles Johnson though.
Kropadope
@LT: I think he meant here, on this post. Talk about obsessed.
Rex Everything
@Cacti: Chelsea Manning “published” what? Wow, I didn’t even know she owned and/or controlled media outlets.
Anyway, yeah, case definitely closed on their preoccupation with whiteness, maleness, and libertarian-ness. Well done.
Cacti
@Kropadope:
I think he meant here, on this post. Talk about obsessed.
Keeping count of critical articles written about GG is totally not obsessive!
LT
@Morzer: No, really – if it *were* about child porn – would you say that about Brazil? It’s just a demonstration. Use anything else you like. Pretend it was docs proving, beyond any doubt, that Bush lied us into war in Iraq. Would you say “Yeah but Brazil!!!”?
You do get the point, I’m pretty sure.
Kristin
@Kropadope: Funny how Greenwald’s fans share a lot of the characteristics they abhor in others.
LT
@Cacti: Counting Bob’s articles – today – is more obsessed than writing 50 articles. Okay.
http://thedailybanter.com/?s=greenwald
Kristin
@Cacti: I have to admit, I’m kind of impressed at the level of loyalty that Greenwald inspires in some people.
Cacti
@Rex Everything:
Chelsea Manning “published” what?
Poor attempt at deflection. Publication in his case consisted of making information known, in electronic form, to unauthorized third parties.
Names, unit assignments, and e-mail addresses for more than 70,000 individuals.
Hero? No. Martyr? No. Dupe of wikileaks? Most definitely.
Kropadope
@Kristin:
You know what they say? Birds of a feather read each other.
Cacti
@Kristin:
I have to admit, I’m kind of impressed at the level of loyalty that Greenwald inspires in some people.
Jim Jones managed to convince people to drink poison.
Personality cults are nothing new.
Rex Everything
@Cacti:
Uh… my point was that GG’s focus on Manning is not consistent with his alleged focus on “white male libertarian” concerns.
Which point you’ve done nothing but deflect.
Tool.
Rex Everything
@Cacti: I know; a few a those wackjobs even got Greenwald a Pulitzer prize; can you believe it?
Cacti
@Rex Everything:
Uh… my point was that GG’s focus on Manning is not consistent with his alleged focus on “white male libertarian” concerns
No, your point was that Manning didn’t publish anything because he doesn’t own a media outlet.
Now you’re trying to disown it because your definition of publish was absurdly narrow, and wouldn’t be accepted in any court of law.
Your larger point is, you don’t really have one beyond “I heart GG”.
Cacti
@Rex Everything:
I know; a few a those wackjobs even got Greenwald a Pulitzer prize; can you believe it?
Finally joining the august company of fellow laureates Maureen Dowd and George Will.
Kropadope
@Rex Everything: Media establishmentarians who share GG’s hatred for Obama and love GG’s inept attacking of the national security state (which may well be helping to reinforce the national security state, which the media loves) gave GG a Pulitzer prize? Shocker.
Kropadope
@Cacti: Wow, that’s low. I think I like you.
Rex Everything
@Cacti:
Morzer: [T]here is more to liberty than a set of white, male libertarian anxieties.
Cacti: [GG’s] “Freedom of the Press Foundation” … seemed to have next to zero interest on any subject unrelated to Bradley Manning.
These 2 statements are typical of Greenwald bashers, and they’re not compatible.
(BTW, yeah I forgot how Manning was charged with “publishing” and not “leaking”; God you suck dude)
LT
@Kropadope:
You forgot your hashtag: #90210
Kropadope
@LT: ????
Rex Everything
@Cacti: Maureen Dowd and George Will are cult leaders whose audience would totally be willing to drink poisoned Kool-Aid.
Glenn Greenwald
@Morzer:
As I’ve said before, this is easily one of the most anti-Muslim comment sections anywhere on the internet.
Here are the topics about which I’ve written the most over the last nine years: drones, Guantanamo, renditions, imprisonment without due process, US militarism, torture, and surveillance.
In almost none of those cases are the victims of those injustices white.
In almost all of those cases, the victims of the injustices about which I write are Muslims or other people of color and marginalized communities.
But to many of the Good, Loyal Democratic Progressives who congregate here, Muslims are invisible. They don’t matter. That’s how the injustices which overwhelmingly affect Muslims – the ones I’ve spent the last decade of my life writing about and working on – are repeatedly dismissed and mocked here as “boutique white middle class glibertarian issues.”
The fact is that most of the “white middle class” in America doesn’t care about at all about those issues because – like the Good, Loyal Democratic Progressives who congregate here – they see injustices that happen primarily to Muslims as irrelevant.
Whatever else you want to say about the issues on which I focus – drones, Guantanamo, renditions, imprisonment without due process, US militarism, torture, and surveillance – only the most severe selfishness would lead someone to mock them as “botique white middle class issues” – yes, it’s not YOU and your kids who are endangered by drones, rendition, and indefinite detention, but that’s hardly a valid reason to mock and minimalize their importance.
As for the notion that I endorsed these abuses when Bush was president, that would come as a grave surprise to the readers who read the 3 books I wrote vehemently condemning George Bush and Dick Cheney for these abuses, to say nothing of the thousands of posts I wrote for 4 straight years arguing that they were lawless, radical, and destructive.
As for why I – as an American citizen and an American journalist – focus primarily on American issues rather than those of other countries’, it’s because that’s the first duty of citizenship. I’ll let Noam Chomsky explain.
Morzer
@Rex Everything:
That word compatible you like so much… you can fill in the rest of the quote for yourself.
Rex Everything
@Morzer: Yeah, sure I can.
GG publicized leaks showing the US Army slaughtering Afghanis and Iraqis cause all he cares about is white male libertarianism.
He champions the cause of a court-marshalled transexual because he’s such a white male dudebro.
Compatibility means whatever you say it means, Morzer.
Rex Everything
@Glenn Greenwald: Glenn, don’t you understand?
“Progessive” means you think Joe Biden is a swell guy.
“Left” means you don’t criticize drones because they only affect American white males.
If you want to breathe the rarified air of the BJ comment section, you have to learn the rules!!
Morzer
@Rex Everything:
I see that the Greenwald teahadis are out in force, loyally defending their cult-hero from any possible criticism. How very individual and free-thinking of you. The fact that Greenwald doesn’t give a fuck about minority vote suppression in the USA doesn’t bother you at all. Why is that, I wonder?
Rex Everything
@Morzer: Or you could just avoid my point & try to change the subject…
Kropadope
@Glenn Greenwald: Well, that was overly wordy and missed most people’s points, including the person he quoted. Yup, I believe it was him.
Morzer
@Glenn Greenwald:
Oh please, Glenn, spare me the soft soap about your very occasional interest in Muslims. I’ve read enough of your hogwash over the years to know full well that you are primarily interested in white, male libertarian issues – and always have been. You’ve also developed sanctimonious trollery to a fine art, especially in your attempts to shift the conversation away from your own record. This isn’t remotely one of the worst anti-Muslim comment sections in the world. You want that, try any and all of the assortment of “conservative” blogs across the US blogosphere. As for your supposed concern with the US – you supported the oligarchic Citzens United decision, which enabled the wealthy to buy elections at the expense of everyone else and have been remarkably silent when it came to right wing attempts at minority vote suppression. You claim to care about liberty, but in practice you care only about the liberty of people who look like you.
Morzer
@Rex Everything:
But you don’t have a point. It’s all gullible loyalism towards Greenwald, while you evade Cesca’s original point entirely.
Rex Everything
@Morzer: Morzer: [T]here is more to liberty than a set of white, male libertarian anxieties.
Cacti: [GG’s] “Freedom of the Press Foundation” … seemed to have next to zero interest on any subject unrelated to Bradley Manning.
These 2 statements are typical of Greenwald bashers, and they’re not compatible.
(I can do this all night if you want…)
Corner Stone
@Morzer: Wow.
chopper
@Glenn Greenwald:
Pro tip: bathing in the blood of young Iraqis keeps the skin soft and supple.
Morzer
@Kropadope:
Not to mention the ridiculous claims about how anti-Muslim this site supposedly is. No doubt that made John Cole’s heart beat a little faster when he realized how his happy little community was being described.
Morzer
@Rex Everything:
No-one ever said you were incapable of consistently nonsensical babbling. Please proceed.
I am betting you won’t make it through the night.
LT
@Morzer:
Holy lords, yous.
Corner Stone
I, personally, would not describe it as anti-Muslim, but the blase acceptance of unrestrained drones across 6+ primarily Muslim countries kind of speaks for itself.
LT
@Corner Stone: Yes it does.
ruemara
Jesus, Greenwald. Forget having a thin skin. That’s common knowledge. Could you, for once, drop the hyperbole?
chopper
@Morzer:
I find it funny to hear accusations of ‘anti-Muslim’ from a guy who ‘gave the benefit of the doubt’ to bush’s war in Iraq, a policy responsible for the death of a hundred thousand Muslims, not to mention the turning of another million or so into refugees.
but we’re not sufficiently anti-drone for this guy. LOL.
Rex Everything
@Morzer: How do you reconcile Greenwald’s alleged preoccupation with “white, male libertarian issues” and his foundation that “seemed to have next to zero interest on any subject unrelated to Bradley Manning”?
(Spouting some tired old horseshit about my infatuation with, loyalty to, or worship of Greenwald isn’t an answer, btw.)
Kropadope
@Corner Stone: You mistake our distaste for GG as acceptance of drones. Not reading very closely, I guess. I, for one, have stated on multiple occasions, including on this thread, why I think GG is actually worsening that problem.
Morzer
@Rex Everything:
By pointing out that the two aren’t, in fact, as far apart as you seem to believe. You really should consider having one of your friends explain the meaning of “compatible” to you during recess.
Morzer
@Kropadope:
I really think Greenwald and his acolytes would benefit from discovering how Venn diagrams work. But that might get in the way of their self-righteous schtick.
Corner Stone
@Kropadope: I’m not mistaking your bullshit for anything except what it is.
Bullshit.
Rex Everything
@Morzer: You’re an idiot. The whole point of Manning’s leaks was that the army was killing Muslim civilians. Who, last time I checked, (1) don’t look like Glenn Greenwald and (2) aren’t libertarians.
Morzer
@Rex Everything:
Looks like Greenwald isn’t the only one with a thin skin and an inability to deal with criticism while completely missing the point. Still, the night is young.
Please proceed.
Kristin
@Morzer: Greenwald can’t just argue. He HAS to throw in an ad hominem. Can’t help himself. If it’s totally dishonest to boot, he doesn’t care. Two seconds later, he’ll be whining that someone has “smeared” him, without the slightest bit of irony.
He’s completely and utterly intellectually dishonest.
I can’t believe he deigned to visit Balloon Juice’s comment section. That’s how unwilling he is to brook any criticism of himself. It’s pathetic, honestly.
Kropadope
@Corner Stone: Wow, those are some big, grown-up words you’re using (to say nothing). Your mommy lets you stay up this late?
Corner Stone
@Kropadope: Don’t tell her. Please?
Morzer
@Kropadope:
It’s No Rulez Night in the Greenwald Treehouse for the Glibertarian Kool Kidz.
Glenn Greenwald
@Morzer:
LOL!!!
“Very occasional” – as in: “almost every day for the last nine years.”
You should tell them and them and them about how “occasional” my interest is – it will come as a great shock.
Corner Stone
It’s hilarious to watch people here try and make the argument that arguing against GITMO, torture, drones, executive overreach is a white people’s problem.
Glenn Greenwald
@Kristin:
The Council on American Islamic Relations – the largest Muslim American civil rights organization in the country – says: “Glenn Greenwald has been an outspoken critic of government policies that have dehumanized, and eroded the rights of Muslims in the US and across the world.”
To the selfish, anti-Muslim “progressive” crowd here, such issues are mocked and minimalized as “boutique white middle class issues” — all because you’re not the ones affected by them.
Glenn Greenwald
@Corner Stone:
Indeed. “Hilarious” as in: disgusting.
Rex Everything
@Morzer:
Not much left to do at this stage, except point at you & laugh.
Do you really have no response other than pretending there’s some flaw in my argument too obvious for you to mention? Really?
Corner Stone
Man, those 40 dead people in a Yemeni wedding ceremony, or the local bakery, or one in Pakistan or Afghanistan or Mali or Somalia or, or, or are all now white glibertarians…some Cescites really have a devastating argument.
Rex Everything
@Corner Stone: Hilarious is the word. It always amuses me, anyway.
John (MCCARTHY) Cole
As I just tweeted, flaming Greenwald for not discussing Brazilian issues is like attacking the NFL network for insufficient coverage of the Stanley Cup final (which is ongoing right now as I write it), and if this were a dispassionate argument on issues, I would have said nothing. But this is about personal animus. This is not the first time he has tried to flame him for not paying attention something:
That’s a person with an obsession who is letting personal animus blinker his thinking.
And I like Bob Cesca! I read the Daily Banter daily and he does some really good work and so do his other writers. He’s in my links.
But he has just gone off the rails on this. The hoary old “He’s not writing about X, so thus he must approve of it” is as old and tiresome as nutpicking- “OMG, someone said this in the Balloon Juice comments, clearly John Cole endorses it!”
Christ people.
chopper
@John (MCCARTHY) Cole:
I think it’s been put forward a number of times that cesca isn’t saying “if you don’t criticize it you must be for it”. He’s pointing out that this stuff going unmentioned in your own backyard is evidence of a big blind spot for someone who purports to lecture so many others on being insufficiently pro-rights.
Kristin
@Glenn Greenwald: I don’t know what that has to do with you lying about this community being anti-Muslim, other than keep up the lie (which is also an ad hominem).
Nice appeal to authority there, though.
Yep, pathetic.
chopper
@chopper:
Truth be told, if cesca were talking about someone like john cole it would seem pretty stupid, spiteful and a bit obsessive. But GG has a habit of being a holier-than-thou asshole, which invites others to point out those sort of things.
Corner Stone
@Rex Everything:
It appears that if Morzer can’t write about the issue you mention, then we should have no choice but to strictly apply the Cescite Test of Strength against his “supposed” argument.
Violet
@Glenn Greenwald:
If you can say that, you must not visit any right wing, tea party, or otherwise self-described “conservative” sites with comment sections.
LT
@John (MCCARTHY) Cole: And we’re also supposed to believe that if Greenwald wrote a ton about Brazil’s problems Bob (and all the others) would be totally okay with Greenwald. Remember that Bob and Co have dozens of ludicrous positions to shift to when one runs dry. One of my favorites:
https://twitter.com/bobcesca_go/status/464268112917848064
Glenn Greenwald
@Kristin:
Mocking, minimalizing and dismissing injustices that overwehlmingly affect Muslims – because those here aren’t affected and thus don’t care – is anti-Muslim, exactly as I said. It renders Muslims invisible and views injustices that affect them as worthy of mockery (DROOOONEZ!!!!!).
What is a “lie” – as demonstrated by the evidence I just presented from CAIR – is that the issues on which I focus are “boutique white middle class issues”, which was the original disgusting (and false) accusation to which I was responding.
Rex Everything
@Corner Stone: I dunno, man, he said “the night is young” but I guess that means he’s gonna take all night to answer. Or maybe…even…longer?
dogwood
I don’t think I’ve ever commented in a Greenwald thread, but if anyone here gives a shit as to why some people don’t take him seriously, just read his comment up thread. It was juvenile, hyperbolic, and completely lacking in self-discipline. I care about NSA issues, and that’s why I won’t read Greenwald. No one who is really serious and credible about these issues would be engaging in junior high Twitter wars with Charles Johnson or taking the time for a hyperbolic ad homonym attack on Balloon Juice.
Rex Everything
@Glenn Greenwald: Thank you for both these paragraphs. It’ll be interesting to see how Kristin misconstrues them.
This one was fun:
“You only care about white dudebros.”
“Actually, this Muslim rights org says I’m an outspoken supporter of Muslims.”
“NICE APPEAL TO AUTHORITY, YOU FASCIST!!”
eemom
@John (MCCARTHY) Cole:
fer fuxsake Cole, it is not remotely like that.
You don’t think there’s the tiniest shred of hypocrisy in Greenwald’s condemnations of US actions — which on this very thread he hilariously praises himself for doing in discharge of his “first duty of [US] citizenship” — from the safe distance of expatriation in a place where the exact same things go on to which he is utterly indifferent?
chopper
@eemom:
Apparently, the first duty of Brazilian citizenship is something about soccer.
Bill Owen
Cesca hates the ground Greenwald walks on. That’s his ONLY point.
Corner Stone
@Rex Everything:
No, he’ll definitely be back. Of that I am sure. Back to dispense several one line quips in comments that he thinks are funny.(HINT: You Are Not Funny)
Corner Stone
@dogwood:
Any suggestions for quality reading on NSA issues?
Bill Owen
@Morzer: The fact that Greenwald doesn’t give a fuck about minority vote suppression in the USA doesn’t bother you at all. Why is that, I wonder?
And what about and what about and whatabout.
What about that anyway?
Rex Everything
@Corner Stone: He’s probably trying to construct a syllogism (& accompanying Venn diagram, of course) that shows how you can be concerned with Muslim civilians and gender-identity-disordered soldiers and care about nothing but libertarian dudebros all at the same time.
Which I’m sure is easy to do. It’s all very simple; too simple, really, to need elaboration.
dogwood
@Corner Stone: I know that was snark, but the truth is I don’t think there are enough people writing about it in a serious scholarly manner or enough people who care about it it as anything more than a bludgeon to wield at your political enemies. Here on Balloon Juice Greenwald threads are just proxy fights for something else entirely.
Corner Stone
DUDEBROS!
Kropadope
@Corner Stone: I’m still not fond of the way that term is used here to lump together people and concepts that are quite distinct.
Corner Stone
@dogwood: Ok, thanks. But if it’s an issue you care about, and an issue I care about, then I thought I could ask you for some quality sources. They don’t have to be crazy technical, or from Friends of Martin.
EPIC, BoingBoing, people associated with ACLU, Schneier?
I’m sure there are tons of people I have not had time to find or peruse.
Corner Stone
@Kropadope: I’m sure there is a Venn diagram that displays my amount of fuck given regarding what you are fond of.
You sound stupid, dudebro.
Kropadope
@Corner Stone: All you appear to do is fling insults, but I’m stupid? Whatever you say broseph(ina).
Corner Stone
Just another example of a truth we, as American citizens, would never have known about without some less powerful individual telling us.
Corner Stone
@Kropadope: Dudebro, I appreciates yas. I’m familiar with your work here.
kc
@AxelFoley:
Homophobic much?,
Mandalay
@AxelFoley:
@Morzer: I’d be more impressed by Greenwald if he started taking minority vote suppression in the US half as seriously as he has taken boutique white middle class glibertarian issues over the years.
Heh. Whatever GG writes about, you pompous idiots will attack him for not writing about your priorities.
Kerry Reid
@Morzer: Well, historical awareness and Glenn have never been in close contact. Consider this, for example, from his preface to “How Would a Patriot Act?’
Apparently Glenn was absent or asleep in history class the day that Executive Order 9066 was discussed.
Mandalay
@Morzer:
Just step away from the keyboard. Seriously. You are humiliating yourself.
Allan
.@Glenn Greenwald:
What racist authoritarian wrote this?
The parade of evils caused by illegal immigration is widely known, and it gets worse every day. In short, illegal immigration wreaks havoc economically, socially, and culturally; makes a mockery of the rule of law; and is disgraceful just on basic fairness grounds alone. Few people dispute this, and yet nothing is done.
kc
@Glenn Greenwald:
I’m sure we’ll resume caring about Arab civilians being killed by drones if & when a Republican gets back in the White House.
Corner Stone
@Mandalay: I think Morzer was having a bit of private fantasy there.
Mandalay
@Corner Stone:
More pathetic than hilarious.
Corner Stone
@kc: Shoot. It doesn’t matter who is sworn in for Jan 2017. The absolute caterwauling here will be amazeballs.
ruemara
I’ve found this constant GG: Saint or Sinner threads darkly amusing. I look at it this way, you’re claiming that being critical of a critic is because we are failing to be critical of government we are in favor of. It could just be that if you actually read past a headline, you often find that the facts as presented by GG are not exactly in support of the conclusions drawn. I believe in not believing anyone except what rational application of logic and facts tells you. The fact that the NSA is researching or has facial recognition tech does not make me jump to the NSA is using facial recognition to spy on me. It does make me concerned that corporations are doing facial recognition and we still have no legislation in place to put some controls on that. I don’t believe in “potential”, I want to know about the actual. I’m waiting for more of Mr. Greenwald’s reports, because he has said he has proof of violations of the law. We need to know about that. I am critical of him because either he is drawing out the waiting time because it is of benefit to him (divesting Americans of the ability to discuss and demand during an election year, real changes) or because I have grown ever more suspicious that what he knows-as a lawyer-is that while things are slimy, disgusting, immoral and wrong about surveillance, they were within the letter of the laws that cannot be changed with the current congressional make-up. And no one gets accolades with that bit of truth. I reserve the right to be as skeptical of his overwhelming concern for my civil liberties under government as I am of any other person. I give a fig about concerns. Tell me what’s going on, without visible manipulative language, tell me who to direct my demands for change to and then stay out of my way. And if you really want to help preserve civil liberties, don’t forget how much corporate power is invested in ferreting out every damned thing about me, with no oversight. The NSA wouldn’t have a metadata collection bonanza without a metric fuckton of companies actually reading my emails to sell me bullshit from whatever low wage slave country jobs are being outsourced to.
Amir Khalid
@Glenn Greenwald:
I happened upon this thread a bit late. For what it’s worth, I haven’t noticed any great anti-Muslim prejudice among the commenters here. Rather less than on the typical American political blog, in fact.
Allan
@Amir Khalid: Obot.
Culture of Truth
If criticizing America is Greeenwald’s area of expertise then Cesca has no point. If Greenwald’s area of expertise and concern is civil liberties Cesca has a point.
LT
@Amir Khalid: But there are a LOT here who diss criticism of drones, etc. More than other places? I doubt it. But oh well. Still noteworthy.
Corner Stone
@ruemara:
Just as much of an incoherent moron as always. Thanks.
Kerry Reid
@Allan: Was that before or after he referred to the families of the victims of Matt Hale’s acolytes as “odious and repugnant?”
LT
@Culture of Truth:
Really? “Criticizing America”? Not “criticizing perceived wrongs of government of U.S.”?
And one doesnt’t have to look very hard to see that American government has long been Greenwald’s focus. If you’re implying that one can’t honestly be focused on civil liberties if one is focused on just one government’s wrongs regarding civil liberties, then you’ve just dissed the entire American Civil Rights movement.
Allan
@Kerry Reid: Maybe Glenn will answer that for us!
chopper
@Amir Khalid:
Well, I would think GG knows more about anti-Muslim sentiments than you do Amir, if that really is your name.
Cervantes
@kc: Raises a good question: Which is worse, being opposed to murder half the time or not at all?
Corner Stone
@chopper: No idea how this even makes sense?
chopper
@LT:
see?! a total hive of anti-Muslim scum and villainy.
Corner Stone
@Cervantes: It’s not all that big a deal as long as the govt headed by your guy authorizes it.
Corner Stone
@chopper: This is deceitful in its entirety.
You’re a piece of shit.
Cervantes
@Amir Khalid: If you mean we here don’t generally describe Arabs or Muslims as “towelheads” and so on, you’re right — but that’s a low bar and it’s probably not what Greenwald was talking about.
Cervantes
@Culture of Truth: You’re almost there.
Corner Stone
@Culture of Truth:
Man, stick to rewriting wingnuts. That seems to be the only skillset you have.
LT
@chopper: Here’s a good one, especially as it ends with:
https://balloon-juice.com/2013/06/02/sunday-spinach-reads-not-everybody-agrees-drones-are-a-panacea/#comment-4468499
Lot more comments in that thread along the lines of one at #28:
“I can’t understand why drones are such an issue.”
Corner Stone
Cescites of The World Unite!
chopper
@Cervantes:
i would expect it to be some pretty heavy stuff for this to be “easily one of the most anti-Muslim comment sections anywhere on the internet.”
“having some people who diss criticism over drones, but not any more than other places”, doesn’t seem to rise to the description. OTOH, greenwald is like the adolph hitler of hyperbole, so what do you expect.
Cervantes
@dogwood: “Ad homonym attacks” sound wonderful! (Spell-checkers do have their uses after all.)
chopper
@LT:
that’s anti-muslim all right.
Corner Stone
@Cervantes:
I, personally, thought that was awesome in its execution.
Cervantes
@LT: Had not seen that one. Wish I still hadn’t. Thanks.
chopper
@LT:
wow, it’s practically a klan meeting.
Cervantes
@Corner Stone: Never understood that.
kc
@Cervantes:
We’re just taking a little eight year vacation. When we return to being disgusted by the killings of civilians, we’ll be much more effective due to our long rest.
dogwood
@Cervantes:I always love it when this happens. I thought I typed it correctly but the phone auto corrected it to ad “homonym”. I just left it to see how long before someone would step in to inform me of how stupid I am and how clever they are. Isn’t that what the internet is for?
Cervantes
@chopper:
The killing of civilians is not?
What if they were your neighbors?
Cervantes
@dogwood: Yes, by “spell-checker” I meant your auto-correct thingie. I was appreciating its sense of humor, not trying to correct what I knew was not your mistake.
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
@Wag:
One of the best modern movies, in my opinion.
chopper
@Cervantes:
‘Heavy’ enough to make this one of the most anti-Muslim comment sections on the internet merely because some people here snort at concerns over them? no fucking way.
FlipYrWhig
@Cervantes: I can explain it. It relies on a middle step, like so: many of the people who are vocal in their concern about drones are principally concerned with drones being used against American citizens. Consider the Awlaki stories as a kind of middle ground: targeted assassination of a suspected terrorist who was also a US citizen. Then consider the town in Colorado (IIRC) that debated issuing drone hunting permits. Consider Rand Paul’s speech on the subject. There the idea has become not that drones are being used against innocent Middle Easterners, but that the government might use drones on Americans it decides for some arbitrary reason it doesn’t much like.
IOW, “drones” means something different when it’s “drones overseas,” in which the context is almost always civilian casualties (and often people of color as victims), than when it’s “drones against domestic dissidents,” which is where some people take the discussion.
So some of the drone-related snark is essentially “The government isn’t coming to get you, don’t flatter yourself,” or, in another twist on the same theme, “Worrying that the government will get you with their drones is a white people’s problem.”
Both the claim that drone snark is “anti-Muslim” and the claim that drone concerns are exclusively white people’s problem are blurring those two categories (overseas/WOT vs. domestic/surveillance/suppression) in inflammatory ways.
FlipYrWhig
Also, the Cesca crack is weak in isolation, and does pull the “if you’re so concerned about X why aren’t you trying to do something about Y?” maneuver that no one much likes. But it ain’t like Glenn Greenwald is immune to that maneuver himself. Sometimes the right reaction is to say “Yes, that is a problem, and police excesses are something that outrages me wherever and whenever they occur.”
Cervantes
@chopper: Keep digging — if you must.
chopper
@Cervantes:
‘Digging’ how? do you believe that this is one of the most anti-Muslim comment areas on the internet as he asserted?
what, pray tell, makes this place among the worst? as LT points out above, it isn’t like this place is more ‘pro-drone’ than most.
Cervantes
@FlipYrWhig: Sure, but even (or especially) making the distinction you make, the use of drones to kill from afar is obviously not “a white people’s problem,” so why dismiss it as such? (I don’t mean that you do.)
And what about the prison at Guantanamo, or torture, or executive overreach — each dismissed, incomprehensibly, as “a white people’s problem”?
Cervantes
@chopper:
“One of the most”? I wouldn’t know, as it’s pretty much the only comment area I ever look at.
Betty Cracker
@FlipYrWhig: I think you’ve got it mostly right, but I would add that both the “DROOONZ” and “DUDEBROOOO” framings rely on bad faith interpretations of the opponents’ motivations.
Rand Paul may be primarily concerned that drones might be employed against a white tea party group, but it’s bullshit to say Greenwald, Cole or Freddie de Boer only care about white people.
Similarly, it’s bullshit to accuse this site’s commenters of being the most anti-Muslim on the Internet.
I think the dismissal of drones around here is more about some commenters’ inability to countenance any criticism of the Obama administration than antipathy toward Muslims. Maybe that’s a bad faith interpretation of their motives on my part, but I really think that’s a big part of it.
I can sort of understand why too, what with the batshit crazy opposition. But it does lead to needless misunderstandings and friendly fire.
eemom
@FlipYrWhig:
Were I a betting woman, I would put the odds against GG re-emerging from Brazilian cyberspace to respond to that excellent point at, oh, infinity zillion to -1.
chopper
@Cervantes:
I figured as much.
LT
Are people actually now going to obsess over whether this is really TEH MOST ANTI-MUSLIM PLACE EVAHS!!! ?
Please tell me no.
LT
@Betty Cracker:
But what he actually bsaid, to start off his comment, was:
Can we simply agree that that is over the top? Maybe even a bit angry? Is it really necessary to dissect its exact basis in reality? His larger point, which you’ve eloquently expressed agreement with, was in fact the larger point.
Also – it’s a big broad brush. Very different than the very pointed, personal attacks on Greenwald himself here, right? Not sure it’s entirely fair to use them to balance each other out.
Betty Cracker
@Cervantes: Oh, come on, now. It’s a patently absurd charge. I don’t have to personally view hardcore pr0n sites to conclude this ain’t one of ’em, even if we get the occasional pervy commenter.
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@Cervantes: God help me, I had told myself I would not get into a GG thread in the future, but, the flesh is weak and here I am, I think (having been on the receiving end of it myself) that the white people’s problem comments come from a sort of Maslow’s view. And, damn you, if you weren’t so fucking reasonable with your questions, I would have walked on. The Maslow thing is the idea is that a lot of people who aren’t white, educated, upper-middle class males have so many other problems with which to contend that the use of drones overseas/NSA surveillance/etc., does not register on their list of things about which they should be outraged. It is not an opinion with which I agree.
I think that the Fourth Amendment issues of surveillance, for example, matter because the erosion of the Fourth Amendment anywhere erodes it everywhere. Not every one shares my view. And blogs like this one that are administered by comparatively well off, white people don’t really help by front-paging every NSA issue but touching very seldom things like stop and frisk.
eemom
@Cervantes:
When has anyone here ever dismissed those as such? You are swallowing Greenwald’s own hyperbole like fishbait.
LT
@Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name):
Is it just me or is that demeaning?
Do you actually not get the point that victims of drones are NOT white, educated, upper-middle class males?
LT
@eemom:
Morzer, above: “I’d be more impressed by Greenwald if he started taking minority vote suppression in the US half as seriously as he has taken boutique white middle class glibertarian issues over the years.”
Others have done the same for ages.
Cervantes
@chopper: As I said, keep digging, if you must.
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@LT:
Yes, I do. Did you notice that I said it was an opinion with which I did not agree? Or did you just skip over that part in your urge to attack someone?
eemom
@Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name):
Of the things listed in his comment — drones to kill, Gitmo, torture, executive overreach — the ONLY one I’ve ever seen dismissed here as a white people problem, assuming it comes under the heading “executive overreach”, is NSA surveillance.
I’ve never seen drones to kill dismissed that way here. Many other bases that it has been argued over, e.g., whether it’s better than alternatives — but never “dismissed as a white people’s problem.”
LT
@eemom:
Morzer, above:
Could this be more clear?
Cervantes
@eemom:
Keep reading.
Perhaps, but I doubt it. Thanks, anyway, for your concern.
LT
@Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name): No, I simply missed the “not.” Exacerbated, I think by this:
Which seemed to confirm it. But I missed the “not” – and I apologize.
chopper
@Cervantes:
I don’t understand your condescension given the fact that you just admitted to having zero knowledge of the subject of the assertion we’re currently arguing about.
eemom
@LT:
@Cervantes:
One or both of you will please find me an example of where a commenter on this blog has dismissed one or more of the specific issues Cervantes mentioned — “the use of drones to kill from afar”, “the prison at Guantanamo”, or “torture” — as a “white people problem.”
I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that dismissing GG himself as being concerned with white people problems ain’t the same thing.
LT
@Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name): And just for the record, I simply do not agree with this:
This blog touches a TON of small, every day issues, regularly. NSA is a big story – covered regularly in world’s biggest most repsected papers. You can argue it doesn’t deserve it, but it seems pretty natural for a bit political blog to follow these stories.
chopper
@LT:
Stop and frisk was a pretty notorious issue as well, to be fair.
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@LT: It is cool.
I have been reading this thread for awhile but generally staying out of it. I responded to Cerventes because he(?) tends to be very logical and reasonable even with those with whom he(?) disagrees. Greenwald threads tend to get stupid very quickly. You and I, oddly, ended up in a weird Greenwald argument a while ago that actually caused me to stay clear until now. We agreed, more or less, on the substance, but disagreed about GG. Arguments should be about the argument, not the arguer. Anyway, treat this as you will.
LT
@eemom: Look, we can disagree, if you like, but this:
…arguably speaks to the large body of Greenwald’s work “over the years,” and an enormous chunk of that has demonstrably been focused on the U.S. government’s wrongs in the Muslim world, from Iraq, to Gitmo, drones, and more. In blogging, journalism, and books. If you want to say Morzer’s comment was meant to skip all that – well, okay, I guess.
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@LT: Show me how many times this blog has FPed stop and frisk. And then show me how many times it has FPed the other issues I mentioned.
LT
@chopper: Stop-and-frisk is notorious, horrible, fuckery. Who can argue. Not everybody writes abotu everything. If the arguemnt is “You didn’t write about X!” – who can win against it? People do have areas of focus. I have no problem with this.
Cervantes
@Betty Cracker:
I agree that hyperbole does not work when it is completely untethered from reality. Why would someone call this place “easily one of the most anti-Muslim comment sections anywhere on the internet”? It could be a “patently absurd charge” — or, I suppose, not absurd if one (a) perceives here a lack of anger or seriousness on the question of how our drones are killing Muslim civilians; and (b) places considerable onus on such a lack of anger or seriousness wherever it occurs.
You might not share the perception in (a) but some do.
LT
@Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name): I appreciate it. And I’m sorry that happened between us. For me this is primarily about 1) a whistelblower, and 2) whistleblowing. It is just disheartening to see Dems trash both 1 and 2. Is thered any question where Cesca and teh rest would have been with Ellbserg? I dont’ think there can be. People need to defend whistelblowers, present and future.
LT
@Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name): But “Show me how many times this blog has posted about X” can be used with ANYTHING. Abuse of the developmentaly disabled. Police corruption. On and on. Those are big, important issues. I dont’ think it’s fair to pick on esubject and say that.
And re stop-and-frisk, Elon has coverd it a number of times. Don’t know how many, total, but here are some: https://balloon-juice.com/tag/stop-and-frisk/
LT
@Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name): Here are more: https://balloon-juice.com/tag/stop-and-frisk/
Cervantes
@Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name): Thanks for your comments.
You’re probably right about the relevance of the Maslow thing in the debate but people who frame the argument in that way are simply misguided (at best). You don’t accept the argument — and neither do I. In fact I don’t see that it makes any sense whatsoever; which (to clarify for others) is what I said.
I agree.
Empirical question — and I don’t have the data to address it.
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@LT: Okay, in my view, Ellsberg released only things he believed to be illegal. Neither Manning and Snowden applied that filter. I think it makes a difference. YMMV.
Mandalay
@chopper:
On BJ it is not uncommon that condescension and lack of knowledge on a subject are directly correlated rather than inversely correlated.
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@LT: My point was, and I doubt that you can reasonably disagree, this is not a blog that works the works the “Stop and Frisk” thing as often as it does issues like drones or surveillance.
LT
@Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name):
No, not so. The majority of what he released was about lies of government about the war. That’s not illegal. That’s unethical.
LT
@Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name): Why do you think I can’t reasonably disageree? You are demonstrably right. Of course it does. We disagree on how fair a criticism that is. I think it you want to harangue John with “Hey, why the fuck don’t you cover stop-and-frisk more?” – is entirely fair. Have you, by the way?
Cervantes
@chopper:
That’s your summary? It’s silly.
Cervantes
@eemom:
Just FYI, that list of issues originated not with me but here.
You’re right — you don’t need to tell us that — but so what?
Greenwald says he is concerned with X while others here say he is concerned with “white people problems.” The question arises: Can X be described as “white people problems”?
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@LT: For the purposes of argument, I will grant that. Now what?
John (MCCARTHY) Cole
@Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name):
How can you possibly, after 5000 comments on the topic in multiple threads, speaking with complete authority, not possibly be aware of the fact that Snowden didn’t personally release jack shit? He gave everything to journalists to pour through and selectively release information that WOULD NOT be detrimental. This is well documented. It’s why GG and the other villains won awards.
He didn’t just dump the documents on usenet or bitorrent or do a wikileaks like dump. That’s why it was such a big scoop for the Guardian and the WaPo and as recently as the other day the NY Times was lamenting they were not in on the scoop. Hell, one of the old Cesca and LGF talking points was that it was fucked up that GLENN GREENWALD was the decider on what we knew about the NSA. Quit moving the fucking talking points, bitte.
Question: How can you possibly have an informed opinion on this issue without even knowing that?
Answer: You fucking can’t.
I know I voted for Bush twice, but I go through some of these threads and all I can think of is the scene in Hellraiser where he whispers “Jesus Wept” as I am being tortured by idiocy. And then I get catcalled when I don’t read every comment. Who in their right fucking mind could?
LT
@John (MCCARTHY) Cole:
Yes, this too. Cannot be overestimated how huge a point that is. And how false and flat criticism of Greenwald falls – when it’s not applied to all the other journos who have published Snowden docs and stories on them.
Cervantes
@Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name):
What he released (stole, leaked, etc.) was a history prepared for internal consumption by the Defense Department. It documented what the US government had been doing in Vietnam since WWII. As a work of history, it was somewhat more candid than anything the Defense Department has released since then. (You know all this.)
Ellsberg applied no filter except that he was limited practically in the amount he could steal, and again practically in the amount he (and his friends and allies) could photocopy.
Cervantes
@LT:
I don’t think so — but, apparently, it needs to be.
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@John (MCCARTHY) Cole: John, you are an idiot at times. Ellsberg released documents that he personally had read. As far as I know, that is not true of Manning or Snowden.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@John (MCCARTHY) Cole:
“Release” and “publish” do not mean the same thing. Giving classified documents to anyone- journalist or the security agency of another nation-state- is “releasing” those documents.
LT
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again):
We can take from this that if Snowden had dumped al the docs on the internet you (and Cesca and the rest) wouldn’t screeam HE DUMPED THE DOCS!!!! until your heads popped off?
Mandalay
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again):
Both Manning and Snowden were selective in what they released. But obviously neither had sufficient time or expertise to go through every single document before passing them on.
Mandalay
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again):
Both Manning and Snowden were selective in what they released. But obviously neither had sufficient time or expertise to go through every single document before passing them on.
Mandalay
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again):
Both Manning and Snowden were selective in what they released. But obviously neither had sufficient time or expertise to go through every single document before passing them on.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@LT:
Do you now how it was that the NY Times escaped prosecution in the Pentagon Papers case while Ellsburg did not?
Mandalay
FYWP
FYWP
FYWP
This thread must have melted some of the tubes of WordPress .
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@John (MCCARTHY) Cole: Oh, yeah. I forgot. I didn’t support getting in to a war in the Middle East, so fuck you a bit if we disagree about how to fix the fucking problem.
I know and recognize that you have repented, but I am mentally trying to work with the environment you built.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Mandalay:
But unlike Ellsburg, the judge didn’t dismiss the charges against Manning because of illegalities in the process of gathering evidence. Remember this: Ellsburg was never found “not guilty”. Nixon’s people so fouled the case that Ford’s people couldn’t make a case against Ellsburg independent of evidence that had been dismissed.
LT
@Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name):
I don’t get this. First – you are choosing to believe the side that supports your argument. Snowden says he chose docs carefuly, What supports your arguemtn that he’s lying?
Second, the “How does someone read 50,000 docs??!!” thing has a couple problems. 1) we don’t know how many docsw he leaked, it’s probably at least 50,000, as I think Greenwald has said so; 2) a lot of those docs have very few actual words on them, and lots of graphics. So “reading them” is not as time-consuming as one would think; and 3) Snowden was already familiar with a lot fo this stuff.
And even if he didn’t read every word – so what? If someone leaks a box of docs from, say, the FBI, titled “Surveillance of every mosque in New York” – they don’t, IMO, have to read every doc to be justified gving all of them to journalists.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@LT:
Hell, the easiest case against him isn’t necessarily that Snowden released classified documents- though I don’t think that would be a hard case to make- but that he gained access to those documents illegally.
LT
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again):
Why don’t you go ahead and tell me your point?
LT
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again):
What exactly is your point? And could it be any more clear that you would have supported (still do?) the prosecution of Ellbserg?
Cervantes
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again):
Not sure what you mean.
Given that you must be familiar with the First Amendment and with New York Times Co. v. United States (403 U.S. 713), does your question hinge on the word “prosecution”? Nixon obtained an injunction against the Times (and tried unsuccessfully to obtain one against the Post). The cases were litigated and quashed by the Supreme Court.
Given all that, what’s your question again?
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@LT: I simply doubt that they read everything,
LT
@Cervantes: Pretty sure there’s a double-super-secret point in there somewhere.
LT
@Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name):
This to me is just another “Brazil!” straw man. So what? What if he gave journalists too many docs? So what?
I really wish we could have a straightforward, honest argument about this. You don’t think NSA is doing as bad as others. FINE. OKAY. WE CAN ARGUE ABOUT THAT, AGREE TO DISAGREE ABOUT it. The need to constanlty add al this other stuff – that has no purpose but to take Snowden, the person, down, and which has no bearing on what we’ve learned about the NSA – undermines your position.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@LT:
No, because Ellsberg wasn’t afforded the same avenues to legal whistle-blowing as were Manning and Snowden, both of whom bypassed those avenues created in the wake of- because of- Ellsberg’s case.
To put a fine point on it: Ellsberg and Manning/Snowden are apples and oranges.
Mandalay
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again):
Sure, and I’m not defending (or prosecuting) Manning or Snowden. I’m just making the points that:
– Neither published anything.
– Both were selective in the documents they released, and who received those documents.
The quality of their selectivity is a separate issue, but I think a large chunk of the public have the perception that Snowden and Manning personally published everything they took. That perception is doubly incorrect.
(Snowden also claims that he ensured that the Russians and the Chinese got absolutely nothing. Nobody knows the truth on that, but I find his explanation persuasive and credible.)
LT
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again):
What ones are you talking about?
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@LT: Dude? The fuck?
LT
@Mandalay: “Nobody knows the truth on that, but I find his explanation persuasive and credible.”
Snowden gave a bunch of docs to respected journalists and news organizations; outed himself; has talked to the public, answered questions, been very forthright; has not once that I know of been caught in a lie.
What Cesca and people here and way too many places want us to do is … belive the NSA over this. Beauty, huh?
taylormattd
@Kristin: he’s here because John spent half the day on Twitter kissing his ass.
John, you should be ashamed of yourself for continuing to polish this turd. This is the piece of shit who claimed Imani would gladly cheer on Obama is he raped a nun on live TV. And yet you give him the benefit of the doubt at every turn. Your judgment is garbage.
LT
@Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name): Do I get to have a spirited response to something? I find “I don’t believe he read everything” to be nothing but a smear. A very loaded one, that touches on a lot of other ones: that he’s irresponsible; dishonest; naive; reckless… I think you shouldn’t do that. I feel strongly abotu that. **Whistleblowers allways have to deal with this shit.** Ellsberg had to deal with exactly this.
What *scrap* of evidence do you have that he’s lying?
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@LT:
Let’s talk about it.
Mandalay
@LT:
Exactly. If he had read everything or nothing, what the hell difference would it make in the end? The Guardian and NYT surely had an army of lawyers and security experts reviewing everything before they published, and Snowden’s opinions would be irrelevant at that stage.
Once Snowden handed over the data he also handed over the responsibility for what the world would, and would not, see.
Cervantes
@LT: Triple-ultra, at least.
taylormattd
@LT: yes, yes, because GGs daily 50 Snowden tweets, book deals, and media appearances are about drones in Pakistan. What a load of shit. Absolutely disingenuous trolling from the cult of Greenwald yet again.
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@LT: Who did I say was lying?
LT
@Mandalay: Yes. Exactly. That he **gave the stuff to journos** and demanded careful publication is what matters most about this.
LT
@taylormattd: Kiss kiss
LT
@Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name): When you say you don’t belive he read, or carfeully chose, the docs, you’re saying Snowden is lying.
LT
@Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name):
Snowden: “I carefully evaluated every single document I disclosed to ensure that each was legitimately in the public interest… There are all sorts of documents that would have made a big impact that I didn’t turn over, because harming people isn’t my goal. Transparency is.”
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/09/edward-snowden-nsa-whistleblower-surveillance
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Cervantes:
There was also a grand jury investigation into the legality of the way in which the Times obtained the PP. The grand jury chose not to indict because it couldn’t be shown that the Times conspired with Ellsberg to obtain the PP. So in answer to this from LT:
I was suggesting (and I clarified the point here in the lag) that the manner in which classified documents are obtained can be a separate offense from how they’re disseminated.
LT
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): Can you explain your interest in these other avenues of prosecution? I don’t get it.
LT
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): I think you’re just missing the point on “release” and “publish.” Remeber how this conversaion started:
John objected to that – rightly – because it infers that Snowden irresponsibly *released* docs. How could this NOT infer that he *released* them to the wide public? Pointing out, then, that Snowden in fact gave them only to journalists, demanding that they carefully disseminate them through the journalistic process, is completely fair.
Do you get what I’m saying?
In other words – he did *applied a filter* – by going to journalists.
eemom
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again):
This. And yes I know Ellsberg himself is the first to trumpet how totally the same they are. Which, as I’ve said before, is because Ellsberg is deservedly a hero in American history, but in the sad reality of the present day an old man long forgotten who’s ecstatic to be relevant again.
He leaked/released/published specific documents for a specific and laudable purpose, to show the American public that they’d been lied to about the Vietnam war. I don’t see how that’s comparable to the massive undifferentiated document dumps by Snowden or Manning, even if you credit their alleged motives.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@LT:
Yeah: Snowden using passwords that weren’t his to access classified documents, access to which he was denied clearance, or that he committed fraud in order to get the job which gained him access to those documents.
LT
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): Good for him. I thank him for it. What’s your point? Whistleblowing commonly entails doing illegal, dishonest things. It’s one of the reasons whistleblower protection laws are considered a human right.
You do know that Ellsberg did naughty stuff, too, right?
LT
@eemom:
Ellsberg is “an old man long forgotten who’s ecstatic to be relevant again.”
Hey, you’re kinda ugly.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@LT:
Snowden did release classified documents- to journalists. That’s illegal. He didn’t have the authority to release those documents.
It isn’t illegal for those journalists to release those documents if someone walks up them, hands ’em a sheaf of papers (okay, decidedly old school there) and says, “I think you’ll find this interesting,” but if the guy walks up to the journalist and says, “Hey, if I get you some classified documents, would you publish them?” it’s a different ballgame.
LT
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): So what’s your point?
Cervantes
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again):
Yes, that year-long grand jury “investigation” was convened right here in Boston after (and because) the Supreme Court had told Nixon what to do with his injunctions. I’m familiar with it. After a while, its purpose was simply to intimidate. Virtually every anti-war academic in Cambridge, and some from elsewhere, were called to testify. One spent some time in jail for refusing to incriminate anyone. Dan Ellsberg’s mother-in-law was invited to appear notwithstanding her husband’s long-standing support for Nixon and the Republican Party. She was, to put it mildly, unamused.
Yes, if that was your point, I agree — and I’m sorry if I was not paying enough attention to see that anyone disagreed.
LT
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): “He didn’t have the authority to release those documents.”
Niether did Ellsberg. I thought you said you supported Ellsberg.
LT
@Cervantes: Nobody disagreed with him. Just dont get his point. Seems to be nothing more than e’s hankering for prosecution.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@LT:
Except that there are those legal avenues for whistle-blowing that were opened because of Ellsberg, and Snowden appears to have bypassed them. He claimed to have traveled those avenues, but has shown no evidence to prove those claims.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@LT:
And I put a condition on that support, did I not?
LT
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): Yes, and all evidence says we should believe Snowden, not the constantly lying NSA. That you choose to belive the NSA is honestly preplexing.
And again, obviously, you support Ellsberg being prosecuted. Why don’t you just cme out and say it?
LT
I have to go. Wine.
Good night, all.
Cervantes
@LT:
Not counting the naughty stuff Ellsberg did to the Vietnamese while in Vietnam, you mean?
Yes, apart from — and indeed, beginning in March, 1968, prior to — leaking the Pentagon Papers, Ellsberg leaked (to the Times) a fair amount of classified information about the on-going conduct of the war: one key secret a day, to show LBJ and company that someone could and would expose the escalation then being planned. Not surprisingly, LBJ blamed Bobby and Ted Kennedy for the leaks — but the escalation was canceled. Four days later MLK was shot and the world changed — again.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@LT:
Ahh, the good old fallacy of anachronism…
Mandalay
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again):
Whereas the word of the NSA is good enough for you? From your link:
Why would they lie?
Regardless, the well documented experience of Thomas Drake surely must have been enough to persuade Snowden that going through approved channels at the NSA would not end well.
LT
@Cervantes: Hey, nobody’s perfect. I appreciate him learing the error os hi ways. Did not know about earlier leaks!
By Ellsberg bing naughty I was referring to his *illegally* copying and giving docs to journos. Max seems to be on some mission in which Ellsberg may or may not have – and Snowden defintiely did – I don’t know. I honestly don’t get his point. he mahy be drunk.
Cervantes
@LT:
No kidding: if there’s one thing Dan Ellsberg ever did, it was to learn the error of his ways.
It’s late. Perhaps all will be clear in the morning.
@eemom:
That’s funny. Thanks.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Mandalay:
Why would he lie? Why would he release classified documents pertaining to perfectly legal, perfectly constitutional spying on foreign nationals in foreign nations? Why?
dogwood
The idea that you must either believe Greenwald and Snowden or the NSA is absurd. That’s George “you’re either with us or against us” Bush logic. My distrust of Greenwald has absolutely nothing to do with my views on the security state. My distrust stems from the fact I don’t think he is always committed to telling the complete truth, and I don’t think he has the self- discipline required for credibility. Cesca’s comment todY wasn’t worthy of a response. It was a completely forgettable nothing burger. If you can’t ignore twitter and blog comments without embarrassing yourself, I don’t think you have the discipline to be a serious journalist.
dogwood
@dogwood: I meant if you can’t reply on twitter and blogs without embarrassing yourself.
Chris
@Amir Khalid:
MAFTOON!!!!!!!
Can’t believe I’m the first…
Chris
@FlipYrWhig:
This.
Have not read enough Greenwald to know where he falls on that spectrum. As for the general freakout about drones and the NSA in the last few years, that is, indeed, why I’ve watched the whole thing with such cynicism. That and the fact that back in 2009 when there was actually a politician in Washington who tried to rein in the security state’s excesses on an egregious subject (the detention camp at Gitmo, where quite a few Muslims are imprisoned and most of them without cause), he found himself politically alone. Again, I haven’t read enough Greenwald to know if this applies to him. If he was one of the lone voices in the wilderness calling on people to support Obama, then good for him. Most of the VSPs now baying “NSA! DRONES!” are not, nor will they be after January 2016 (or whenever the next Republican president is inaugurated).
If I notice that and am cynical about it, well, golly gee. Ain’t I a stinker.
Glenn Greenwald
@FlipYrWhig:
Regardless of whether this is true, this can’t possibly justify the comments here claiming I focus on white people’s problems, given that 99% (at least) of the work on drones I’ve done over many years has focused on their lethal use in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, not in the US.
And by the way, the victims of lethal US drones are not “often” people of color; they are almost always people of color. That’s what makes the attempt to mock these issues as “white glibertarian” concerns so offensive.
That said, anyone who thinks that the primary victims of domestic drones in the US will be white people – rather than Muslims and other people of color – doesn’t know the first thing about how police power in the US is exercised.
Identically: anyone who thinks that the primary target of the US Surveillance State is white people must have been in a coma for the last 12 years. You can say a lot of things about the surveillance debate, but the idea that US surveillance is likely aimed at white people – that it’s a white person’s problem – is something that only the extreme ignorant – or those for whom Muslims are invisible and irrelevant – can utter.
This is the nub of the matter.
Some of us are capable of devoting ourselves to injustices even though we ourselves are not likely to be the victims of those injustices. I never thought myself or my family members were the likely targets of most of the injustices I’ve spent the last decade of my life protesting – from drones to indefinite detention to torture to surveillance abuses to renditions and inequities in the US justice system and penal state.
The victims of those abuses are overwhelmingly Muslims and other people of color, not me. I nonetheless devote myself to those issues because I see the victims as human beings whose lives and plight matter. I don’t tell myself that as long as the victims are Muslims and not me, then these issues are trivial and deserving of mockery the way that so many here clearly do.
People who mocked indignation over the extreme indifference to the victims of Hurricane Katrina were able to do so because the victims were largely African-Americans and so they didn’t care – it was just something to trivialize and ignore. The same is true of those who mock and treat with indifference drones and indefinite detention and rendition and surveillance abuses.
The reason – the only reason – I left a comment here was because I saw, yet again, the accusation that the issues on which I focus are “boutique white middle class issues”. That comment, so prevalent here, comes from either extreme ignorance or a view of Muslims as irrelevant and invisible – in most cases, both.
Chris
As for the utterly fatuous piss and wind about this being one of the most anti-Muslim blogs on the Internet – spare me. If religion comes in for a thrashing here, it tends to be religion in general, not Islam, and if any one religion gets singled out, it tends to be Christianity (as that’s where most of the religious nuts America has to deal with spring from). Commenters here are far more likely to call for drone strikes against fascist militia encampments in Nevada than anywhere overseas, and no one but the right wing has called them anti-white for it. And if you really think this is “one of the most” (“easily,” no less) anti-Muslim corners of the Internet by any metric, I can only say you really don’t read much.
But if it trivializes the conversation on drones to notice that it’s a complete political football that almost never has anything to do with the way these drones are being used in Muslim countries in the first place, and then mock it accordingly, then I would say you’ve got me fair and square. Bless me, father, for I have sinned, and in all probability will continue to do so for some time.
Glenn Greenwald
@Betty Cracker:
If it’s really important, I’ll be happy to concede that there are other sites on the internet – Stormfront and Pam Geller’s blog, for instance – where overt anti-Muslim animus is more common. Congratulations on clearing that bar.
But the fact is that – at least of the political blogs with which I’m familiar – there is more comment-section mockery and more explicit dismissiveness of the abuses that overwhelmingly target and victimize Muslims (“white people’s problems” – DROOOOONEZZZZZ) at this blog’s comment section (and sometimes its front page) than most others.
If you want to say, as you have, that partisan loyalty is one big factor in the indifference toward these abuses, that’s fine; I certainly wouldn’t disagree. But the ability to mock and trivialize injustices when they happen only to Others is almost always grounded in the de-valuing of the lives of those Others.
Anyone who can read about a 16-year-old American Muslim in Yemen having his life extinguished by a US drone and then joke about it (DROOOOOONEZZZZ!), or trivialize protests over the torture and lawless detention of Somalian-American kids or systemic humiliation of African-American Muslims as “white glibertarian issues” is someone who has very little regard for the humanity of those affected.
I agree – and have argued explicitly before – that racism is one big reason some Americans object to these abuses only when they think they’re coming to US soil but not when they’re confined to largely Muslim countries. But anti-Muslim animus is and always has been a major reason why so much mockery and dismissiveness is tolerated and sustained over these abuses. And that includes – these days one could say: especially – in Good Progressive circles.
Alex S.
I am going to watch the World Cup in spite of Gleen Greenwald.
Bobby Thomson
@Amir Khalid: Forget it, Amir. Greenwald’s a professional liar.
Bobby Thomson
@LT: Talking out both sides of your mouth again, I see. Snowden carefully limited what he disclosed to reporters, except when he didn’t.
Cervantes
@Glenn Greenwald:
True, and ignorance is a corollary of being young, so it’s sometimes understandable — but don’t dismiss profound stupidity as an additional source.
White Trash Liberal
@Glenn Greenwald:
Any additional comment on Snowden giving information on US hacking of Chinese government systems to Chinese state media as a “gesture of goodwill”?
Or is smearing an entire community like a smarmy dickweed all you’ve got?
Your meal ticket harmed US national security. I’m glad you have made a substantial paycheck fluffing Snowden and conflating the careful submittal of classified docs to journalists with overall patriotism and courage.
For all you say and do to smear the reputations of small communities and decent people alike with your demented fucking verbal abuse, know in your heart that your meal ticket couldn’t survive a week in Hong Kong without betraying his country as a token of good faith.
Fuck you
Cervantes
@Glenn Greenwald: You forgot “dudebro.”
Bobby Thomson
@Mandalay:
Hilarious. And incapable of parody.
LAC
@Glenn Greenwald: You almost make me wish to see a mcclaren 500 word page essay on this site. And no, that is not good.
Cervantes
@Chris:
Being cynical about some people’s appropriation of “drones” as purely an anti-Obama talking point is understandable. Treating everyone’s objections in the same way is not.
(Not being familiar enough with your writing to say where in this spectrum you, specifically, may be, I’m just making a general point here. Also, I assume you meant 2017.)
White Trash Liberal
@Glenn Greenwald:
http://www.salon.com/2013/06/13/snowden_u_s_has_been_hacking_china_for_years/
I’ll drop a link from your former employer. Your meal ticket betrayed his country. You’ve hand waved it away as meaningless without ever demonstrating how, while also maintaining the fiction that Snowden released nothing to the Chinese.
Right there, in black and white, he gave critical national security information to the Chinese government. So, you and Snowden are a pair of fucking liars.
Cervantes
@Glenn Greenwald:
It is a striking possibility (you’ll pardon the pun, I hope).
chopper
@Cervantes:
Why? It’s clear what statement I’ve been arguing about this whole time. It’s very clear. You keep defending his hyperbolic horseshit statement about this place comparing it to numerous others, yet admit that you have no experience with that subject.
Bobby Thomson
@Glenn Greenwald:
Except you don’t. It’s odd, to say the least, that you now try to sell yourself as a champion of issues affecting people of color when at best* you have silent about such issues in your own backyard, where doing so might actually affect your comfort and privilege. Focusing on issues affecting people abroad is easy and costless to you, precisely because there is no threat that it will have any effect on domestic politics or your own privilege.
*And your consistent affiliation with and apologies for white racists don’t exactly inspire.
FlipYrWhig
@Glenn Greenwald: Well, I appreciate the response, but I would refer you back to the earlier statement. Snarky comments about “DRONEZ” are never about Muslim victims overseas.* They are, rather, sarcastic diminutions of the likelihood that American citizens will be victimized by drones — worry over which is somewhere on the spectrum with, on the one hand, police harassment (think of the ever-present helicopter sounds in Boyz in the Hood); on the other, with “black helicopter” paranoia from the 1990s militia/survivalist movement. If I’m characterizing this accurately, and I think I am, a would-be zinger against you for writing about drones** is intended to be a miniature version of the following: “his writing about drones stokes antigovernment paranoia: it’s not about actually-existing innocent victims abroad but hypothetically-existing subversives at home.” Is that fair? It may be hyperbolic, but my impression of your concerns is that you _are_ more engaged with the question of what the US government does or might do to Americans at home than with anything that happens overseas. But I don’t read your stuff comprehensively.
(*That part of the drones debate here has been, in essence, “are drones any different from bombs? If your concern is civilian casualties, are drones more likely to cause those than other weaponry is?” Or, alternatively, “if drones are off the table, then how do you deal with a hypothetical terrorist who’s actively wreaking havoc from an unreachable place?” Both of which have been prominent in discussions here about drones _overseas_.)
(**We’ve gotten tracked onto drones here, but the ‘white people’s problems’ charge is IMHO chiefly about the NSA stories, which, again, rather rapidly become “here are all the things the government does or has the power to do against you,” where the “you” that’s supposed to be appalled by this is more likely to be a computer-literate, politically vocal person — by stereotype, white — than a person of color. In fact, I’d even go so far as to say that some of the traction of the NSA stories in modern American culture comes from people who believe in profiling: “they’re supposed to be spying on terrorists, not on me!”
For comparison’s sake, there’s a way to talk about guns that leads to “white people’s problems”: “the government might decide to take your guns!” There’s also a way to talk about guns that doesn’t lead in that direction at all.)
Damn, that was long. Good thing no one will read it!
Cervantes
@chopper: It seems silly to me because, as you put it yourself, all you’ve been discussing is some “hyperbolic horseshit statement” — and nothing else.
In case the hyperbole aspect per se remains of critical importance to you: I responded briefly above (for what it’s worth).
Cervantes
@FlipYrWhig:
Except insofar as they completely ignore such victims — yes?
(Or rather: one could argue this.)
Oops.
chopper
@Glenn Greenwald:
Alright! We’re just below stormfront, guys. We can be number one if we try a little bit harder.
I’ll start – hey, what’s up with these drones, anyway? You guys talkin about bees or somethin’?
FlipYrWhig
@Bobby Thomson: I don’t know if I agree with all parts of that, but I am also skeptical of the notion that decrying the victimization of persons of color abroad has been a leading strain in the Greenwald oeuvre thus far. I suppose if CAIR sees it differently, they’re the ones with skin in the game, so to speak, so I should defer to them. But I’m dubious myself.
Frankly, if someone wanted to pull the anti-Muslim gambit on any comments or topics that regularly pop up here, it would be more effective to assign to xenophobia or animus the skepticism about involvement in Libya, Syria, and so forth, because in those conflicts innocent Muslims die in droves. If you wanted to be mean-spirited and say that Balloon Juice commenters didn’t care about Muslim suffering, there’s a deep reservoir there. One with substantial overlap with drone concerns and NSA concerns, in fact. But that’s really not the reason why people are skeptical about military intervention, is it? Let’s get the same courtesy on this, then.
FlipYrWhig
@Cervantes: well, no, because DRONEZ as a quip is (virtually?) never about victims and much more often about the paranoia of non-victims. The linchpin is “if the president has a secret kill list with American citizens on it (never mind that the American citizens are overseas and reportedly plotting acts of terror), what’s to stop him from putting you or me on that list?” IOW, DRONEZ is a sort of contraction for “oh no, the drones are coming to get you!” It might be in bad taste, because as we all know, drones do create actual innocent victims. But so do guns, and we still joke about those, or about the paranoia of people who think the government is out to get them.
FlipYrWhig
@Cervantes: yeah, I’m surprised the thread is still active, honestly.
chopper
@Cervantes:
I read your response, but the statement is still patently absurd. The fact that you keep trying to rationalize it, that’s absurd. The fact that you keep doing so in spite of no experience or knowledge of the subject is even more absurd.
Cervantes
@FlipYrWhig: As you know, there are a number of ways to read “anti-Muslim.” Here are two: (1) active derogation of; and (2) passive disregard for.
Cervantes
@chopper: OK, at least one of us sees the other’s point — that’s something, isn’t it?
FlipYrWhig
@Cervantes: Fine, but if “passive disregard for” is the litmus test that renders people who joke about drones anti-Muslim, the same litmus test is going to vaporize the damn test strip when applied to people who decry humanitarian interventions in Middle Eastern countries. So if Glenn Greenwald wants to say that people who joke about drones are notoriously and vilely anti-Muslim, based on this idea of disregard, he’d have to take an honest reckoning of how the people who are most outraged by drones are _also_ the most dedicated to the principle of non-intervention and, as a corollary, the ones most likely to disparage counter-arguments about… saving innocent Muslims. It’s not going to hold up. It’s a sloppy charge against one side whose logic much more directly indicts the other.
chopper
@FlipYrWhig:
Which is typically what people are speaking of when they refer to concerns as a ‘white person problem’. It seems that paranoid white people on the internet are the sort who think that Obama or the next president is going to line up a ‘hot drone strike’ on them because of their loud political disagreement.
FlipYrWhig
@chopper: if I was feeling uncharitable, I’d say that Glenn Greenwald regularly leverages current non-white people’s problems into ominous signs of future white people’s problems. Now, I don’t think it’s only that, or dishonestly that, but I do think it’s sometimes that.
chopper
@Cervantes:
Even assuming that some people snarking about drone strikes equates to ‘passive disregard’, it would be idiotic to conclude that that makes this place one of the most anti-Muslim places on the internet, a bit above stormfront.
Come on.
chopper
@FlipYrWhig:
Exactly. If that makes you anti-Muslim, then a great deal if the internet is far, far worse than this place. Unless your only metric for anti-Muslim sentiment is ‘snarks about drones’.
Chris
@FlipYrWhig:
More to the point, it’s fucking absurd to claim that you’re “passively disregarding” the real victims of drone strikes simply because you mock right wingers afraid of nonexistent drone strikes. When you mock right wingers for their fantasy that ALEC and Chicago thugs and voter fraud are attacking the voting process, no one thinks that you’re belittling or mocking or disregarding the sufferings of those (usually poor and nonwhite) who really have had their right to vote obstructed. When you mock them for believing that white people in the age of Obama are an oppressed minority, no one thinks that you’re mocking or belittling people (read: not white) who really are oppressed minorities in the U.S. When you mock them for believing in UN black helicopters marauding around the Northwest, no one thinks you’re mocking or belittling the Iraqis, Afghans, Somalis and others who really have been killed or maimed by (black or otherwise) UN helicopters.
Like I said: fatuous piss and wind.
Betty Cracker
@FlipYrWhig: To belabor a point I made earlier, this is why we’re all shouting past each other. I think you’re right when you say that commenters here (well, 99%, anyway) don’t mean to express indifference to or contempt for innocent Muslim victims of US drone policy when they go around braying DROOONZ. But here’s the rub: the assumption on which they justify the dig is wrong.
No fair reading of the usual targets of the DROOOONZ catcalls (i.e., Cole, Greenwald, de Boer, et al) could conclude that they’re only concerned about the issue because it affects white people. That’s just demonstrably false. Even if they occasionally make the point that it could lead to targeting dissidents here at home (i.e., a white male blogger), that’s an amplifying rhetorical flourish, much as when the pro-NSA peeps accuse anti-surveillance opponents of being indifferent to the terrorist threat.
Shorter: Greenwald, et al, misunderstand the DROOONZ dumbassery, interpreting it as indifference to Muslim lives and unjustly smearing an entire community because of it. But the DROOONZ people are just as wrongheaded to accuse Greenwald, et al, of indifference to non-whites. It’s an endless circle of misunderstanding and stupidity.
Corner Stone
@FlipYrWhig: I disagree with your contention here. What do you think Zandar’s whole running routine here was about?
He belittled the entire critique of the president’s drone policy by lampooning the idea that people *could* give a shit that unknown people were being killed.
And I myself have made some comments on both their current use, primarily overseas but with some instances here, and their potential future uses. Acknowledging the simple fact that the green to blue pipeline exists, and our recent history has repeatedly proven that tactics and technology developed “over there” inevitably are imported back home isn’t the same as saying the spooky govt is going to target *me*.
But that’s the tack people here take who are on the whole blase about the implementation of drones – whether abroad or domestic.
Arguing against any aspect of the drone policy during the time President Obama is in office routinely gets the same treatment here.
It starts with people belittling the concerns about our drone policy, then it swiftly moves to a deflection about what “tool” would be more appropriate, then in with mocking the critique as DUDEBRO, and ultimately devolves into accusations that no one should give a shit about drones being used “over there” because the USG isn’t going to get *you*, you silly goose.
chopper
@Chris:
Remember when that dude from the bundy militia made a bit of news claiming that Obama was going to line up a ‘hot drone strike’ against him and his militiaman buddies?
Boy howdy we had a good time making fun of that asshole. Who would have thought that in doing so we were being so very anti-Muslim in out passive disregard for drone victims overseas.
Cervantes
@Chris:
“Fatuous piss and wind” or otherwise, I do agree that you should feel free to mock “right-wingers” (i.e., “them”) in all the ways you list here.
Clearly, none of that mockery is a problem.
Corner Stone
@FlipYrWhig:
Woah, woah, woah. Back that truck right the fuck up, partner.
The drone policy is not a corollary of “to intervene” or “to not intervene” in some milieu of saving Mulsim innocent.
The drone policy is in our continued struggle against something we find impossible to define. Because giving it a border or a distinct definition would limit our use of force. Whenever and wherever the fuck we feel like it, with no one able to stop us.
To conflate arguing against drone strikes with military force/intervention discussions is seriously disingenuous.
FlipYrWhig
@Betty Cracker: I think elevating the NSA/surveillance story to a signature liberal priority is pretty much the definition of “white people’s problems,” because, as others above were pointing out, other communities and other interest groups have some pretty fucking pressing problems. Not that it isn’t A problem, but surely it isn’t THE issue of our times or close to it, even for people who identify with civil-liberties framing, unless you’re untouched by such rights-affecting problems as rape, or guns, or work, or voting, etc., etc., etc. There isn’t time to write about All The Problems, so it’s fine to have a niche, but that cuts both ways: if you write about X and not Y, people may well say that you should spend more time on Y, and IMHO the answer to that isn’t “X IS TOO ABOUT Y!” but, “Hey, man, my beat is X, and if you’re looking for Y, go somewhere else.”
FlipYrWhig
@Corner Stone: the discussions aren’t parallel, no, but if “you don’t care about dead Muslims” is going to be a charge that we’re supposed to evaluate seriously, it should rightly be asked of both (1) people who mock drone concerns and (2) people who question military intervention. Because it’s bound to lead nowhere helpful — you’ll note that I said that anti-Muslim attitudes are obviously NOT why people question military intervention — the charge is useless and inflammatory. Greenwald is wrong to bring it up, and if he does, it’ll bite the people who are on his side. So… Fuck it, it’s a stupid thing to say.
Betty Cracker
@FlipYrWhig: If that specious argument is all you’ve got, I guess we’re done here.
Cervantes
@Betty Cracker:
I agree that they do not mean to express any such.
But on the other hand again, as someone said above, “the blasé acceptance of unrestrained drones across 6+ primarily Muslim countries kind of speaks for itself.”
If there is no such “blasé acceptance,” you or anyone can obviously correct the record — thanks.
FlipYrWhig
@Corner Stone: Criticism that drones lead to civilian casualties and eventual blowback is obviously valid. Concern about unchecked “secret kill lists” is also valid. Concern that the secret kill list will morph into a hit list for domestic enemies is heading towards the paranoia of the black helicopter crowd. The charge that Glenn Greenwald cares about “white people’s problems” is intended to highlight that last bit. Maybe some people who say it are also in support of secret kill lists and indifferent to civilian casualties, but I doubt it. I don’t really remember Zandar’s contributions on this subject. You have a better memory than I do.
YAFB
@Cervantes:
“the blasé acceptance of unrestrained drones across 6+ primarily Muslim countries kind of speaks for itself.”
What the hell does the “blasé acceptance” of Brazil’s and Russia’s and other countries’ oppression of journalists, dissidents, the poor, and disenfranchised, as evidenced by the silence of Glenn Greenwald, Snowden, Assange et al., and on some occasions the proud public championing of those oppressive regimes by one or the other of them as epitomes of civil libertarianism, speak for, then?
I mean, it may well be a specious argument, but what’s sauce for the goose …
FlipYrWhig
@Betty Cracker: I think that’s the source of the sneer, yes: that he cares more about hypotheticals affecting white people than actualities affecting persons of color. Is it true? Probably not. But if I think he’s being a dick, I might say it, to be dickish myself.
chopper
assuming that some commenters’ ‘blasé acceptance’ makes this site anti-muslim, explain how it is we are just a notch above stormfront? is this the only comment section on the internet where some people have such an acceptance of drone warfare?
cause i read a lot of comment sections and boy howdy, this place aint shit when it comes to being fine with drone warfare.
chopper
@YAFB:
good point.
FlipYrWhig
@Cervantes: But we were just going over this: by the blasé acceptance, silence = complicity standard, we’re all going to end up being guilty of tacitly endorsing everything we don’t write about. I don’t think you can prove “blasé acceptance” that way.
ETA: Or, what YAFB said.
Bobby Thomson
@FlipYrWhig: In addition to descending to Glenn Reynolds-quality hackery, his accusation that this website is objectively anti-Muslim because drones kill Muslims is like Jesse Helms accusing Planned Parenthood of advocating racist genocide because women of color have abortions.
@FlipYrWhig:
Or that he cares more about hypotheticals affecting abstract people of color who have no potential to become anything more to him than abstractions than actualities affecting persons of color.
Corner Stone
FYWP
Cervantes
@FlipYrWhig: If you look carefully, you’ll see I was not offering any “litmus test.” I do see your broader point but obviously there are complications. For example, when you write that …
… I would note that not all arguments offered in the name of “saving innocent Muslims” actually have saving innocent Muslims as their objective. Look at some of the rhetoric that was offered to you by Cheney and Rumsfeld, for example.
So, if I criticize the way our drones kill innocent Muslims and at the same time disparage a bad-faith argument that pretends to be concerned about saving innocent Muslims, where’s the “sloppy charge”?
Corner Stone
@Bobby Thomson:
Or, hypothetically that he potentially cares more about abstract people of color having imaginary tea parties in his backyard than he does about actual actuals or counterfactuals involving color wheels.
FlipYrWhig
@Bobby Thomson: I think he’s genuinely concerned about both actual and hypothetical abuses of state power, but he’s also something of a demagogue who shapes his rhetoric so that his audience sees itself as imminent victims of those abuses. I don’t think his concern is fake, but I think the way he works to make those concerns your concerns is tendentious and manipulative, and that he knows it, and doesn’t think it’s problematic because it’s all in the service of a greater good.
Cervantes
@YAFB:
Greenwald dealt with this (predictable) objection above, at the end of this comment.
Yes, you’re right — it may well be a specious argument.
Corner Stone
@FlipYrWhig:
But there isn’t an issue of silence=complicity on the matter of drones.
They have been discussed here endlessly. The acceptance comes from actual acceptance (by some number of commenters), after a multitude of discussions and permutations.
chopper
@FlipYrWhig:
or, to put it yet another way, by the blasé acceptance, silence = complicity standard, Cesca had a point.
Cervantes
@FlipYrWhig: That’s a remarkable comment. Even after all these years I can only wish I knew myself half as well as you think you know someone you’ve probably never met!
(It’s not unreasonable to judge a writer by his writing, I know, but still …)
FlipYrWhig
@Cervantes: The “sloppy charge” in this case is “you don’t care about dead brown people.” Without that, there goes the smear about an anti-Muslim comment section. I think it’d be equally valid to fling that charge at people who opposed military involvement in Muslim-majority countries. Which is to say that it should be either valid in both cases, by which token nonintervention has cost many more Muslim lives than drone strikes, or invalid in both cases. I’m going to go with invalid in both cases. And if that works, then the anti-Muslim thing disappears, and with it, Glenn Greenwald’s umbrage… this time.
Cervantes
@FlipYrWhig: When you say things like:
I just have to wonder how you know.
Isn’t the first a hypothetical calculation with a convenient time horizon and the other a raw pile of dead bodies?
chopper
@Cervantes:
so he reports on abuses in america because it’s his duty as an american, but apparently feels no such duty as to the country he has lived in for almost a decade?
FlipYrWhig
@Corner Stone: But even people who accept the use of drones aren’t dismissive about civilian casualties or blowback potential. Clearly there’s nothing of substance linking acceptance of drones to anti-Muslim attitudes, any more than acceptance of bombs brings with it anti-Protestant attitudes because a lot of Protestants died from aerial bombings in England and Germany. Acceptance of drones can be repugnant to principled people, fine, but it’s not going to prove anti-Muslim animus, and that was where Greenwald threw his punch this time.
Cervantes
@FlipYrWhig:
What you’re calling “silence” is what Betty Cracker called “braying.”
Does this clarification help?
dogwood
This is the most amusing thread I’ve ever read here. Greenwald, a Ron Paul defender, comes on Balloon Juice to lecture people about racial insensitivity. A man who thinks tweets about Barack Obama raping nuns is clever repartee. I understand the philosophy of the enemy of my enemy is my friend, but I just can’t subscribe to it when it comes to Greenwald.
Chris
@FlipYrWhig:
This as well.
Bobby Thomson
@chopper: Of course not. He might actually face repercussions for that.
Cervantes
@chopper:
That’s a fair question.
If it were me, I’d say one can only really be a citizen of (at most) one country at a time.
How Greenwald should answer isn’t obvious to me. See what he says.
FlipYrWhig
@Cervantes: yes, that’s a fair point, but we do know that it’s commonplace for many thousands of people to die rapidly in civil conflicts. Again, I don’t want to say that humanitarian intervention is morally necessary or something, but that the standard of caring vs. not caring about dead Muslims is going to lead to some places that I don’t think will reflect well on the people who would impose that standard — ergo, it’s not much of a standard to begin with.
Cervantes
@dogwood:
No idea what you are referring to. What’s a good write-up I could look at?
Bobby Thomson
@Cervantes:
I guess Amnesty International had better close up shop then.
Bobby Thomson
@Cervantes: Here
Cervantes
@FlipYrWhig:
Sure — but it’s also happened before that many thousands of people have died rapidly and over years or decades after US intervention. Look at Iran. Look at Chile. Hell, look at Brazil.
Meanwhile, our pile of droned (Muslim) corpses is growing, and tangible, and tangibly stinking to high heaven.
FlipYrWhig
@Cervantes: I’m not sure braying and blasé can describe the same thing. At any rate, I don’t think “braying” about “drones” has ever been braying about drones as actually used, but rather braying about drones as hypothetically used. (Corner Stone disagrees.) There has ALSO been a debate about whether or not to use drones in operations purportedly about fighting terrorism overseas, with some people accepting them and others finding them anathema, but I don’t think those debates involved the braying of the “DRONEZ” joke. From memory, at least, they were rather different. YMMV.
YAFB
@Cervantes:
Jesus H. Christ, you slobbering fanboys will twist and slant anything to attempt to save the face of your frikkin Idol.* You link to his words like fundies link to the Bible, and in the same way, sophists can read whatever suits them at the time into the verbage and disregard whatever’s inconvenient.
No, he doesn’t address my comment in that comment of his, not least because my specific point hadn’t yet been posed here.
If that comment had been posted in response to mine, it would have been a transparent, weasely attempt to sidetrack.
I don’t give a fig which country Greenwald’s a citizen of in this context, not least because he chooses to live in a country other than the one where he has citizenship. He’s married to a Brazilian citizen last I heard. Does no one in that relationship have any concern for those being oppressed in their own country of residence – including journalists – you know, the same title and privilege Mr. Greenwald claims? If not, well … If so, well …
So let me get this straight: Just because Chomsky says a citizen’s duty is to criticize one’s own country, does that mean one shouldn’t or can’t criticize any other country? Because if so, I don’t think even Chomsky adheres to that standard. Hell, did I hallucinate Greenwald attacking the UK for detaining Miranda etc. etc.?
There’s also a difference between being selectively critical and actively praising regimes which are blatantly oppressive. Do you really need links to get what I’m saying here?
* Greenwaldese for “Hi there, old chap, how’s it hanging?”
kc
@FlipYrWhig:
FYW is correct. Shame on y’all for ignoring the nuance in the reasoned responses of Cacti, et al on the question of DROOOOONEZZZ, dudebros.
FlipYrWhig
@Cervantes: indeed, but the matter at hand was whether the commenter community was “anti-Muslim,” which was itself an attempt (by Greenwald) to take the high ground back from being dinged as over-invested in “white people’s problems.” IOW, “you imply I’m racially insensitive, but really you are.” If the proof of racial insensitivity is acceptance of the use of drones, as Greenwald would seem to be suggesting, that’s just not going to hold up. The debate about whether the commenter community _does_ too readily accept the use of drones is an offshoot from that original insult. It’s not like we haven’t had that debate plenty of times already. But I popped in chiefly to contest (1) the insult, (2) the tormented reasoning behind the insult.
FlipYrWhig
@kc: I didn’t say it was reasoned or nuanced. I said that it was mocking something else than has been alleged.
chopper
@Cervantes:
the existence of dual-citizenship aside, this statement implies that you have no duties towards a place you actually live in unless you’re a citizen.
FlipYrWhig
OK, morning is gone, I have to tear myself away.
Corner Stone
@FlipYrWhig: Fine. Then we’ll simply have to consider your lack of any further reply as silent complicit acceptance.
So sayeth the BJ Dudebro Collective, so sayeth us all!
dogwood
@FlipYrWhig:
That is exactly my problem with Greenwald and why I wouldn’t trust him. But I have to concede that he has devoted followers, John Cole among them, who defend and admire him consistently. I am always skeptical of anyone who can’t take even the most banal criticism without lashing out. It would have been interesting had he come on this thread to talk seriously about his work, but that’s not what he does. He enters the thread to talk about himself, and scold people he sees as his moral inferiors. Why that is inspiring to some people is beyond me, but to each his own I guess.
Cervantes
@Bobby Thomson: Non sequitur, so far as I can tell.
@Bobby Thomson: Thanks. I followed a link:
[Sigh.] So much wrong in fewer than 280 characters. Not to mention ineffective.
By the way, is it known whether the reference to NBC was an allusion to Gore Vidal’s Golgotha or just happenstance?
Cervantes
@chopper:
No, not “really [being] a citizen” does not imply a complete absence of duties.
Rex Everything
This is true; this had to be said; this is why I like GG, warts and all:
Rex Everything
Betty Cracker: I know we’ve had our differences; it’s only fair to tell you I appreciate & admire what you’ve posted above.
chopper
@Cervantes:
fine then, rather than ‘no duties’, at least the duty of revealing abuses by the system.
Cervantes
@YAFB: Ignoring the first four paragraphs and associated footnote, there is this:
No, you haven’t got it straight quite yet. Here’s the crux:
Plus, given physical limits, some of us just choose to look first into what our own tax dollars are funding.
You can, of course, feel free to criticize, say, the Brazilian government instead of your own — but it’s a choice you’d be making, with its own costs and benefits.
If you are criticizing here specific statements Greenwald has made, feel free — but no, I have no idea what those statements might be that you’re thinking of.
dogwood
For the Greenwald dissenters here – arguing that he must write about rights abuses in Brazil or voter suppression here in order to prove his sincerity is a bad faith argument. I can’t think of a single libertarian who gives a shit about voter suppression, and why would they. If you think the civil rights and voting rights acts are essentially unconstitutional, voter suppression laws are’t going to engender much outrage. And considering that when Kay posts here about the subject she is lucky to get 30 comments, it doesn’t seem to be as important around here as some claim.
YAFB
@Cervantes:
Well, if we just ignore what each other says, we can all have extremely cozy chats, huh? Nevermind.
Hmm. Lessee. I’ve been openly, often very publicly, critical of my own government (the UK in case you didn’t know) for the bulk of my adult life, and been subject to state surveillance and sometimes overt physical interference for my pains at times. It hasn’t stopped me criticizing the USA, Russia, and other countries when I’ve felt it warranted, and I’m not done yet, though i’m probably particularly withering about my own country (especially at the moment).
I don’t care who wrote this, it’s nonsense, as organizations like Amnesty International in its time will attest, among a number of other international bodies who espouse and promote human rights, along with journalists who cover those beats, but it’s so transparently fatuous that I can barely be bothered to type in response to it lest I mar its perfection.
I was referring to all three, but it’s a rich field. Quit being lazy and do some searching – it may be revelatory. For Greenwald on Brazil and other South American countries, you’ll probably need to resort to an online Portuguese to English translator as he’s got his own agenda over there.
chopper
@Cervantes:
but with respect to greenwald, Brazil’s government isn’t ‘someone else’. it’s where he lives.
you don’t think he also pays taxes to the government of Brazil?
Cervantes
@chopper:
Remember what I said when you first raised the issue above? Here it is again:
Does that help?
Chris
@Cervantes:
At the risk of being a stinker, my two passports thank you for that opinion and would like to register their disagreement :D
(No, that does not in any way invalidate the rest of your points. I just couldn’t let that one pass).
chopper
@Cervantes:
i didn’t raise the tax issue before.
Cervantes
@YAFB: @Cervantes:
To be fair, I didn’t ignore everything you said — just the parts that I felt merited no response.
Glad to hear about your civic involvement; trust you’ve seen positive results; not at all surprised to hear about the cost.
I can only hope you find that your criticisms of the US, Russia, et al., are equally useful.
The comment was about individual action that a citizen can and should take. It was not directed towards the likes of AI — who, by the way, hardly stop at “denouncing.”
(This is the kind of thing I ignored in your previous comment.)
You want me to spend time detailing criticisms of Greenwald on your behalf? Sorry, I’ll have to pass.
Cervantes
@Chris: To be honest, I don’t see that it invalidates the current point, either.
What would you do if your loyalty to one passport called for the betrayal of the other?
Cervantes
@chopper: [Sigh] No, you didn’t raise the tax issue before — but the tax issue, among others, is what caused me to say then that you were raising a fair question. OK?
YAFB
@Cervantes:
Not really. The issues I’ve been most exercised about (like nuclear armaments) are so deeply imbedded in our state and national psyche that they’ve been tough nuts to crack, though here in Scotland public opinion’s always polled against the UK’s nuclear arsenal, which we unwillingly host.
Like many others, I was ahead of the field (certainly ahead of Glenn Greenwald) in opposing the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq (twice), not least because 9/11 was greeted in our house with a sequence that ran something like: “Oh shit … oh shit again … they’ve constantly rattled a hornet’s nest and now it’s bitten them in the arse … this means a clampdown on civil liberties, to say the least … this means people who even look Middle Eastern are going to be victimized … this means the perfect excuse for further military adventurism … the neocons are going to love this …” yadayadayada.
And all I’ve got to show for it is this shitty T-shirt that says “I told you so.”
Seriously, unless somebody’s popped up with points of hard fact (which I’ve tried to do at times, but not so much today, obviously), I’ve never seen anyone on either or any side change their minds as a result of exchanges like those on this thread, and I’d be glad if somebody piped up to prove me wrong on that. The discourse is terminally infected with tribalism, poisoned by the sort of divisive rhetoric that Glenn Greenwald resorted to earlier on above, which seems to be contagious given the antics I’ve seen from the likes of LT on Twitter, and despite protestations that “it’s about the issues,” it always comes down to personalities and clashes between them, denunciations, and all that crap, which seems to me a waste of time and energy that would be fine if everything else that was going on was hunky-dory. Here we are just about a year after the Snowden grab-bag was opened up, and how much further on are we all? I’d say that’s a failure of activism. Charismatic figures can use that to further their agendas; they can also serve as a total distraction and their actions can be counterproductive, the messenger constantly fouling the pitch. It’s Activism 101 to try to avoid that.
chopper
@Cervantes:
aw, look who’s getting exasperated. jesus christ, man, grow a pair. and look in a mirror while you’re at it sometime.
Cervantes
@YAFB: Thanks, I appreciate the response. More from me later today but for now, just a question or three: if and when Scotland becomes (more) independent from Westminster, do you expect to have (more) success in your activism?
Cervantes
@chopper: Exasperated? No, not that exactly, but thanks for asking (in your inimitable fashion).
YAFB
@Cervantes:
Yeah, I’m about done, too (it’s just past worktime and into beer o’clock here, so I’m likely to go downhill fast anyway).
The reason I moved to Scotland is that politically it’s felt more like home than anywhere else I’ve lived. It was a holdfast for the Labour Party when it actually stood for anything (i.e. pre-Blair; or more accurately, pre-Kinnock). It’s not a perfect country by any means, but the Overton window’s way deflected in terms of basic principles (or at least lipservice to them) like government’s and society’s primary role being to facilitate our looking out for each other, and despite (or perhaps because of) Scots disproportionately staffing our armed services over the centuries, Scotland’s at heart relatively pacifistic. We’re also pretty keen on renewable energy.
I’m one of those people (there are a quite a few of us) who’s going to vote Yes even though I’m by no means wholeheartedly for independence. The rationale is that at least a close vote will give us scope for greater devolution, which has worked well to the extent we’ve had it so far. If enough of us feel that way, of course, I’ll wake up the morning after the vote count to another “Oh shit” moment. Then we’ll just have to figure it out. It’d certainly put the cat among the pigeons in terms of the Scottish nuclear submarine bases …
Corner Stone
@YAFB:
At least the first full quarter was spent with the NSA and USG straight out lying in denial. We also had wave after wave (specifically here) of outraged individuals performing their versions of, “It’s only a flesh wound!”.
IMO, some of the things we’ve found out over the year have been very useful, and may continue to be a kind of foundation for moving forward. Combine that with the hyperbolic claim that Greenwald is saving the best for last, and if true, I’d suggest we have some further interesting avenues for activism ahead.
Cervantes
@Corner Stone:
Has the following developed over the past year? Better (and integrated) public understanding of how dissenters who were long-time career government officials, i.e., not Snowden, were treated when they raised questions about what they were seeing behind the curtain.
YAFB
@Corner Stone:
I’m really going to butt out of here after this as I wasn’t kidding about teh downhill thing, but I’ll read any response later.
What’s been so useful? It seems to me the whole messaging’s been horribly muddled.
The biggest international splashes have concerned surveillance activities that are the purvey (let’s not say “legitimate” or we’ll be here all night) of all states that have the capacity to use technology and human agents to watch whatever other countries, transnational organizations and individuals they’re interested in. A number (like Germany) have ended up with egg on their faces when the revelations showed they were either complicit or comparably implicated in such surveillance.
In the UK, GCHQ’s activities are practically a longstanding sinister national joke. Like the NHS, we’ll prod and criticize and bellyache, but it’s not going anywhere and we’re unlikely to see much more than tinkering around the edges to address its shortcomings. The next domestic successful or near-successsful terrorist attack will most likely eclipse all that (again) anyway.
In the USA, I dunno. Is it a buzz on the streets outside interminable heated online threads? Does anyone even have a clue what specifically any activism should address? What are the chances of reaching a censensus about that when those who aren’t fully – and I mean fully – on board with Greenwald and his followers are instantly (like me on this very blog, can’t be bothered to remember when) dismissed as “paid shills” or worse? And of course there’s retaliation the other way – we’re talking human beings with the POWAR OF THE INTERTUBES at their beck and call here. Is that ironic?
You tell me.
Corner Stone
@YAFB:
Briefly, from a foundational standpoint, I would suggest that certain revelations allowed groups to gain standing so they could actually get into a court with damage or harms claims. IMO, that standing, as much as anything, could lead to years of activism and an overall better understanding of what we allow our government to do.
We also learned that the FISC itself held a finding that mass surveillance (as carried out in this specific area) was likely unconstitutional.
From a messaging standpoint, ISTM that getting elected officials on record as admitting they really *didn’t* know all the things our agencies were doing. That allows for a different kind of discussion after all the loud denials we were treated to when people told us all about effective Congressional oversight.
IMO, we’ve progressed into a much better place for understanding some of what’s revealed. Miles ahead of where we were even 4 to 6 months ago. And as I mentioned, something big is still being promised. That my be hyped to keep eyeballs hooked, or it may really be a new wallop. We’ll have to evaluate it if/when it happens.
I think that to speak of activism in this matter and say that after a year not much has been brought to light seems incorrect, at least to me. I’m fairly positive about some of what’s occurred.
Corner Stone
@Cervantes:
Unfortunately, that seems to be a lesson we are determined to keep forgetting. Repeatedly, as needed.
Cervantes
@Corner Stone:
I agree, more or less, but are you suggesting that the days of “nothingburger” are over?
Allan
OH NO DRONEZ
Did I do it right?
Bobby Thomson
It was looking like a TBU was in reach, but it appears to be slipping away.
But this has been very educational. I had no idea that it was absurd to criticize the policies of a nation of which one was not a citizen. Someone really should have told that to all the people who pushed South African divestment in the 80s. I also learned that Amnesty International, which criticizes the policies of virtually all nation states, really shouldn’t bother to do so, but that drawing that connection from the previous statement is a non sequitur. I learned that for Greenwald to criticize the policies of the country where he has lived for 10 years and continues to live would be akin to me criticizing a historical event, such as the Trail of Tears. I learned that it’s very responsible to give documents you haven’t even read to reporters, and that giving something to a reporter is exactly the same thing as reading it first and exercising one’s own independent judgment as to what should be disclosed to the world, because shut up that’s why. I learned that a prominent advocate of a loud and proud racist presidential candidate has a lot to tell us about racial sensitivity. I learned that Greenwald stating affirmatively that supporters of the current president would defend any atrocity, including him raping a nun, is just fine and anyone who would object to that kind of rhetoric is just a silly person.
Bobby Thomson
@dogwood:
I’ll concede that Greenwald is an asshole and his silence on civil rights isn’t surprising. That just means he isn’t on the side of the angels when it comes to protecting non-whites and views the other as nothing more than a prop, not that the people pointing that out are the ones arguing in bad faith.
Corner Stone
@Bobby Thomson: It would have been more helpful if you had made each Point of Learning its own comment.
Bobby Thomson
@Corner Stone: That would have been juking the stats.
Cervantes
@Corner Stone: A sort of procession of bad-faith summaries, you’re thinking?
I’m not sure. It could just be illiteracy.
LT
@YAFB:
On your slight first, it’s interesting that you call out me, rather than detractors, like Cesca and Johnson, who spent WAY more time on Twittter doing every little thing they can to take Snowden down. Me: I spend too much time fucking off from work on Twitter giving those fuckers shit. Guilty, but it is *interesting* that you go after the likes of me – rather than them.
This is an absurd measure to go by. Government is glacial. This is just fact. By your measure the Civil Rights movement was a collosal failure, as it took *decades* to get results. On a more whistle-blower and intel specific case, the Church Committe wasn’t even convened until years after big “grab-bgs” about much uglier stuff than this was exposed.
And it might move faster if there weren’t so many Dems helping the smear machine against the whistleblower who allowed us have the conversation in the first place.
LT
@YAFB: And it’s pretty funny to that this is about a Cesca tweet that is a denunciation of Greenwald – the person.
Bobby Thomson
@Cervantes:
Oh, I’m pretty sure you can read.
Betty Cracker
@Rex Everything: Kind of you to say so. I figured I’d managed to piss everyone off.
YAFB
@LT:
Dude, your constant rabid hounding and trolling of people on Twitter, along with the rest of the pack o’loons Glenn Greenwald dispatches at anyone he decides worthy of targeting for whatever’s the reason of the day, has probably done more to turn people away from the cause you seemingly espouse than achieving anything else. No matter what the subject, like Mona Holland you’re there with a slavish defense of Snowden, Greenwald et al. and a bag of insults that’s as predictable as tomorrow’s sunrise. It reminds me of the prowls of the PUMAs back in ’08, whose doings first goaded me to start piping up on US blogs etc., and it’s about as effective. You’ve dished out plenty that I’ve seen, and I’ve far from read every tweet of yours, so don’t expect any sympathy here for the fact that you stand out.
I don’t go after Bob Cesca because despite the fact that he’s been pretty relentless in his campaign around the leaks over the past year or so to the point where he frequently loses me, he does have valid points a lot of the time. He’s also somebody I consider an ally on most issues, and I value that. I’m damned if I’m going to let the divisiveness you and Glenn Greenwald seem to thrive on affect that.
I don’t go after Charles Johnson because he’s had a major political turnaround, like our illustrious blog host, and funnily enough, so I’m led to believe, Glenn Greenwald. Johnson knows a lot of the ins and outs of the RW assholes he used to hang out with and winds them up like nobody else around. Again, the relentlessness tends to lose me quite often, but again I consider him an ally on a number of issues that are important to me.
Why should I go after them? What would that achieve? I mentioned you; I’m not going to be hounding you, believe me.
As for Snowden, I don’t trust the guy, I don’t trust his agenda, just as I don’t trust the EFF and all the other incestuous, shady technolibertarian groups who’ve been making hay out of all this with a wink and a nod from the Putin regime any more than I trust the NSA or GCHQ, though we do art least have a chance of trying to exercise some sort of control over them at least. And you’ll have probably gathered that I’ve never had much time for Greenwald, for a host of reasons, though it’s never led me to invest time and energy on Twitter or elsewhere to pursue that, because what the hell, man, life’s too short and I made it through the 2000s up to at least ’08 without even having heard of him that I recall, and when he did eventually start blogging (woohoo!), he was just another Johnny come lately. And since then the quality of what passes for journalism from him has been deeply flawed and marred by outbursts like those up yonder. He’s not unique in that or any notable sense other than the fact he was handed a bunch of documents on a platter and told to go get ’em.
So that’s what you’re up against. And believe me, I’m probably a better ideological bet to get onside than a large proportion of the population who’d need to be swayed if you’re going to see real changes. As ever in these online piefights which I’ve seen too much of over the past year, make a decision and be consistent: Is it about the issues, or the personalities? Because the two combined make a very uneasy mix that’s a hard sell to any but the already convinced.
As it is, I’ve gained some interesting food for thought from Corner Stone up there. See – that’s how it’s done. No need for namecalling or petulance. I’m glad somebody seems to be trying to think about all this strategically, because from what I’ve seen so far, that’s been in short supply.
YAFB
@LT:
Even misrepresented as it was, Cesca was criticizing Greenwald’s activities, or lack of them in certain respects, not Greenwald–the person, as you put it, though he probably has a few things to say about that too. It wasn’t a “denunciation,” it was a barb. You should take a look at Greenwald’s Twitter feed sometime if you want some examples of those.
YAFB
Hmm. Is every comment of mine now going to go into moderation (two in the queue so far)? Let’s see ….
Cervantes
@Betty Cracker:
No, I meant to thank you as well.
Corner Stone
@YAFB: You did mention you were about to go downhill fast…
YAFB
@Corner Stone:
I wasn’t expecting the wheels to come off the handcart.
They’re up now, thanks to whoever. Hope they were worth the wait …
LT
@YAFB: John knew what the tweet meant. He mocked waht it *may as well have said.*
And the tweet was about Greenwald – not the issue. the tweet implied, and Cesca has since said it explicitly, that he meant to show that **Greenwald is a hypocrite**. That’s not abou tthe issue. It’s not. The issue is the NSA. That does actually stand alone. If you think it’s not a big issue – fine. Argeu that. What’s happening in Brazil has absolutely nothing to do with it.
YAFB
@LT:
Hypocrisy is about issues as filtered through a personality, so there’s that for starters.
As for what’s happening in Brazil, the riot footage I saw on telly tonight (as a warm-up to the soccer coverage) didn’t look very good at all. If only I had a relatively high public profile that meant I might get listened to if I piped up about it.
Do sit back a minute and read that back to yourself. Because if we’re all now going to go around mocking things somebody *may as well have said* I have a few real doozies lined up that you *may as well have said*, though I don’t quite see how that’s gonna further teh revolution.
Or shouldn’t you be packswarming some doubleplusungoodthinker on Twitter rather than wasting your time here?
LT
@YAFB: Put it in another context. Say a guy who lives in Iran gives US papers info on a FBI operation that does – just pick something. Something awful. Something we could all agree was awful. More than that: make it personal. Say some guy living in Iran discloses to you that X is raping your sister.
Would it matter to you that the person is in Iran? Of course not.
I know the propensity here: YOU’RE COMPARING THIS TO RAPING MY SISTER???!!!???! So I don’t know why I bother, but I’m begging you – will you do this with me? It’s just an illustration to point out that it isn’t about Greenwald in Brazil, of Snowden in Russia – it’s about you, Cesca, whoever, not believing this is that big of a deal. And *that’s okay*. We can argue **about that**.
My complaint here, and about plenty of other things Cesca has done on this issue, is the dishonest arguments that have been incessantly heaped onto this, like this one about Brazil. The issue of NSA – whether it’s PRISM, or, worse, the fact that NSA are actually reading the content of many thousands of innnocent Americans’ communications on a regular and ongoing basis through back door searches – stands by itself. Or at least I think it does. A lot of others do, too, including others I have a lot of respect for, the ACLU for one.
LT
@YAFB: What’s going on in Brazil is awful. Including that penalty. Hrrm.
And? If “It’s worse somewhere else” is a valid argument against checking ourselves, why bother with *anything*? Why bother with a Civil Rights movemnt? There’s always something awful going on in the world.
LT
@YAFB: Here’s more on the NSA reading the emails and other communications of many thousands of innocent, unsuspected Americans – without warrants, which I failed to note before:
Shouldn’t *that* – as an issue, stand alone? Without any comment about Brazil?
http://www.emptywheel.net/2014/06/06/if-george-bush-can-close-the-back-door-why-cant-barack-obama/
YAFB
@LT:
Dude, I sympathize with dodgy keyboard skills, but I wonder if the wine’s taking its toll, too (I seem relatively immune to beer in that respect).
If some anonymous guy in Iran told me that X was raping my sister, I’d be very concerned, obviously, and I’d probably try to do whatever I could about it immediately, which wouldn’t amount to a whole lot, to be realistic. I’d certainly be upset.
But not quite as upset as if I found out 12 or 24 hours later that my sister wasn’t being raped by X after all, but that for some reason this guy in Iran had decided to tell me that my sister was being raped by X, whereas in reality X merely had the capability to rape my sister.
Meanwhile, if I’ve been resourceful, maybe I’ve gotten on TV making a plea for action to stop X raping my sister, and all the papers have picked up on this. And now the facts have come out and I look like a total lemon, if not a public fraud or loon. But hey, at least my sister’s not getting raped.
If the next week the anonymous guy in Iran then told me that X was raping my mother, I’d probably be a bit more circumspect in my reaction and want to know a hell of a lot more about this guy in Iran and why he might be tormenting me like this. With any luck, my mother might not be being raped, so I wouldn’t end up feeling like an asshole for not doing anything about it this time.
If he carried on doing this, I might eventually lose patience with him and be highly skeptical about anything he said.
Am I doing it right?
Anyway, I don’t think Cesca’s arguments are dishonest. I just think you disagree with him.
And you’re probably barking up the wrong tree here if you want to talk to someone who’s *SHOCKED* that personal communications are being intercepted whatever the circumstances. Hell, we’ve had secret police shacking up with women for years over here while working undercover, and that was demonstrably nothing to do with terrorism. Now THAT’s what I call a scandal. Funnily enough, it all came out because of a whistleblower … can’t remember his name offhand.
LT
@YAFB: It’s 9:44 am. Not that I haven’t started drinking early on occassion, but I’s gots work to do.
LT
@YAFB:
This is you making now a **different** arguement. You’re not saying, “It’s worse in Brazil!” or “It’s not that big of a deal,” you’re saying “It’s not even happening.”
Snowden isn’t anonymous, for starters.
What Snowden revelaed isn’t conjecture. It’s backed up with actual NSA docs. If you don’t think PRISM, or massive metadata collection of any kind, is a problem – fine. I agre to disagree. But there is not a question **that it is hapening**.
As far as your “capability” comment regarding deeper violations than that, I ask you to read the Wyden, Emptywheel comment, and reply directly to that.
YAFB
@LT:
Jeez, dude, I played along with your hypothetical because you implored me to – including the gratuitous and unwelcome thought that a family member might be getting raped – and still you’re unhappy?
OK, OK, let’s redraft that first para and you can take it from there:
Better now?
As for the 12- or 24-hour rule (depending on time zone), it’s legendary, and it’s proven correct time and time again.
BTW, I didn’t see anyone say “it’s worse in Brazil,” more like “shit happens in Brazil too, and some of it’s being beamed into our homes in between matches.” Are civil liberties just for non-Brazilians now?
Anyway, fact is, Snowden might as well have been anonymous when this stuff broke. He’s still pretty shady in my book, along with Jacob Appelbaum, Assange, and the whole coterie of other cyberlibertarians.
Those “actual NSA docs” haven’t been published in full, so I have no context for making full sense of them, though I do have a background in knowing about earlier versions of all this from the reporting of Duncan Campbell and others back in the 1980s. Greenwald himself has admitted they’re incredibly difficult and heavy going to decipher. And he’s the gatekeeper if we’re to believe what we’re told – though it’s still unclear how tight his and the Guardian’s security has been around the docs, since Assange had few problems outing Afghanistan (big surprise) as the redacted country subject to a particular NSA program the other week.
And no, dammit, I’m not going to jump through any more hoops for you by replying directly to whatever Emptywheel comment you’re referring to since you were so ungrateful about my entertaining your hypothetical. We disagree and we have different priorities.
But I will tell you that the bullying I’ve seen online, and particularly on Twitter, directed at anyone who’s chosen as target of the day on all this, and usually at Glenn Greenwald’s behest, is disturbing in the extreme and totally counterproductive. It comes across as trying to silence dissent. You folks say you want a debate. No, you don’t. That means people are going to hold and express contrary views. You want everyone to agree with you. That takes evidence, persuasion, and sometimes time. And if it’s a true debate, there has to be the possibility that you don’t have all the answers or are plain wrong.
LT
@YAFB:
You are killing me. I don’t even know what to say to that.
aimee
@Thomas F:
No, you need to read him. That’s the problem. You don’t read Cesca, his criticisms of Greenwald’s ‘journalism’ is always on point.
Corner Stone
@aimee: Thomas F had it right, thanks.
Corner Stone
@Cervantes:
Oh, mercy me. No.