defend the indefensible: glenn fucking greenwald

I mean, this is just a rephrasing of "hire more women guards" really

Lockheed Martin has an award winning diversity program, a woman as CEO, hasn't changed their behavior helping to bomb women in Yemen

— Lee Fang (@lhfang) August 4, 2017

I certainly get arguing that corrupt systems can't be reformed simply through more diverse hiring strategies, but his tweets could use a bit of uh finesse. I did not see the more obviously batshit sounding ones mentioned upthread.

Liberals disagree w/Richard Spencer's policy outlook but share his core belief that race alone determines your value in society pic.twitter.com/kTyh7DDQDj

— Lee Fang (@lhfang) August 4, 2017

Worth noting the guy he is comparing to Richard Spencer is Jewish...

tired: politicians should have the experience & policies to do the most to help people of color
wired: measure politicians' skull shapes

— Lee Fang (@lhfang) August 4, 2017

Japanese and British empires pacified their colonies with puppet leaders plucked from local ethnic groups. It's a successful strategy.

— Lee Fang (@lhfang) August 4, 2017

Really, the Japanese empire was pacified through mass murder and rape, but, you know. Phrenology!

I'm beginning to think these guys are just stupid? They're just old-school know-nothings, who has no knowledge about history, social movements, and stick together their worldview through cherry picking details. How bad must you're memory be to write something like this: 'Whatever else there is to say about Trump, it is simply a fact that the 2016 election saw elite circles in the U.S., with very few exceptions, lining up with remarkable fervor behind his Democratic opponent.'

I kinda find the Greenwald article fascinating, in the way he seems to think Trump and generals are opposed. Like, Trump is openly an authoritarian, he adores the military, police, everyone who can kill people, except if he thinks they are against him.

As the Atlantic’s Rosie Gray reports, McMaster has successfully fired several national security officials aligned with Steve Bannon and the nationalistic, purportedly non-interventionist foreign policy and anti-Muslim worldview Trump advocated throughout the election. As Gray notes, this has provoked anger among Trump supporters who view the assertion of power by these Generals as an undemocratic attack against the policies for which the electorate voted.

[...]

The combination of the “Goldman Boys” and the Generals has taken over, Wilson crows, and is destroying the Bannon-led agenda on which Trump campaigned.

[...]

Whatever else is true, there is now simply no question that there is open warfare between adherents to the worldview Trump advocated in order to win, and the permanent national security power faction in Washington that – sometimes for good, and sometimes for evil – despises that agenda.

[...]

the military triumvirate of Kelly, Mattis and McMaster has been cast as the noble defenders of American democracy, pitted against those who were actually elected to lead the government.

[...]

In terms of some of the popular terms that are often thrown around these days – such as “authoritarianism” and “democratic norms” and “U.S. traditions” – it’s hard to imagine many things that would pose a greater threat to all of that than empowering the National Security State (what, before Trump, has long been called the Deep State) to exert precisely the power that is supposed to be reserved exclusively for elected officials.

Like, I'm picking sentences out of a long article, but this is kinda chilling. I mean, it's all just different officials Trump has chosen, for one reason or another, but Greenwald is quite openly declaring that anything other than putting Bannonites and the Bannonite ideology in charge would be a subversion of the American democracy.

Yeah, military types slowly taking over the administration is worrisome and some of the press around it has been very dumb, but GG's angle/tone on it is super weird.

Of course he is. That's his job; it's what he is paid to do.

The Intercept is a medium for right-wing psyops: to split the left and encourage true progressive voters to stay home, or waste their ballots on vanity candidates and write-ins. That is the sum of it.

:/

I'm pretty sure it's just an outfit for leftists who sometimes write and express themselves poorly.

El Tomboto, you're sounding worryingly like Lee Fang right now... ;)

But this is so weird that it's not enough for me to say that it's 'just' expressed poorly. There's clearly something pretty fucked up going on here. The support for Bannon, the constant conspiratorial thinking. I mean, partly it's obviously because they're idiots, but it's a very peculiar form of idiocy.

I think about what I would do in my adversary's shoes and much of what The Intercept does fits a model. Coming off strong, right to the precipice of unhinged, is what a Tombot does.

Again: :/

I think GG's (who tbh I do have a lot of respect for from his work on the expansion of the surveillance state) particular strain of deeply contrarian lib-bashing has broken something in his brain. I don't think it's more complicated than that.

Why is The Intercept alive and well when Gawker is not? Why is Wikileaks still a thing when its Dear Leader has been in a basement for years? 🤔

Um, there are plenty of strong leftist outlets that I see get shared around more than The Intercept and no one is suing them out of existence. Again, the simplest explanation is "GG is a bad writer now." It happens.

Greenwald's role in the exposure of FVEY SIGINT overreach is grossly exaggerated. He never had anything to lose, he lives in Brazil. The whistleblowers he rode the coattails of have/had serious charges against them.

I don't care how much danger he was or wasn't in or how involved he was. I'm saying the writing/reporting, as written, was solid (and tonally appropriate for what was being divulged), as opposed to his current work.

He seems to get a pass for a lot of stuff in some quarters (like having supported the Iraq war) because he goes after libs. Greenwald went on Laura Ingraham's show to complain about the democrats "crazy Russia conspiracy" and had Tucker Carlson on the Intercept podcast to do the same. His weighted focus on condemning those conspiracies comes across like running interference for Trump, especially since he hypocritically ignored the Seth Rich stories that Wikileaks pushed.

If every hypocrite was part of a shadowy psyop...

I agree that lefties have a tendency to ignore GG's trespasses (I say this as a commie who's always down for a well-contructed lib takedown).

ftr I do probably also lean toward "broken brain" as the explanation

Lots of busted windbag bloggers out there with no bankroll

I fully agree with the 'broken brain' explanation, though as he supported the Iraq War, I doubt there was that much brain to break to begin with. But I still think it's important to figure out how it is his brain has broken. I mean, he mentions neither the Rothschilds nor the Soros, but erase the stuff on the arms (as Cernovich did), and the whole conspiracy idea is a stones throw away from this:

https://www.adl.org/sites/default/files/2017-08/McMasterLeaksOriginalImage.jpg

To recap, Lee Fang is racist, Glenn Greenwald is an anti-Semite.

The Intercept as a right-wing fifth column sounds like the liberal version of how every lefty org has a guy yelling COINTELPRO about every new person or critical take on the party/group.

tbf, most left orgs aren't bankrolled by libertarian billionaires. It's interesting to ask why Omidyar puts the money up but idk how much editorial input he has.

Twitter is a cesspool and all of Fang's tweets are just horribly worded versions of "the problem is systemic" and he's right that you can't just write off abuse and violence in law enforcement and border security as "racist white cops" - the abuses run deeper and confronting those causes goes well beyond diversity in policing. You can say he's arguing with a liberal strawman there but it's not racism on his part.

He's also less wrong than Fred re: the Japanese. The conquest of Burma was not exactly Manchuria Pt. 2 and the Japanese effectively used anti-colonial sentiment and leadership against the British up until the tides of the war turned and the Japanese used up what goodwill they had started out with among the anti-colonial population. It's not exactly what Fang tried to fit into a Tweet but it's less wrong than just waving your hand and saying the Japanese just used "mass murder and rape."

To recap, Lee Fang is racist, Glenn Greenwald is an anti-Semite.

― Wag1 Shree Rajneesh (ShariVari), 6. august 2017 11:01 (twenty minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Honestly, that seems as good an explanation of any... It fits quite well with Greenwald's support for Bannonite 'nationalism' against a shadowy conspiracy of 'wall street boys'.

milo, you do know the Japanese invaded other places than Burma, right?

As a guiding principle, intemperate arguments between American POC activists on Twitter about the politics of race and representation probably don't need white guys thousands of miles away weighing in with speculation on who has mental health issues and who The Real Racist is.

Is Glenn Greenwald a POC?

Or did your spellcheck change POS?

Perpetually Obtuse Scandinavian

The Intercept is a left leaning website that is highly critical of the American national security state. They don't want to give up this critical posture in the name of solidarity with hawkish Trump opponents. They fear hysteria about Trump is being used as a pretext to foment conflict with Russia and strengthen the neoconservative, Pan-American worldview. Agree or disagree with these sentiments, they're all completely logical and have nothing to do with a Russian plot.

It also has nothing to do with being "pro-Trump." If they think Bannonite paleocon isolationism would be preferable to liberal interventionism it's not out of love for the former but out of a desire to see state violence curbed.

I'm not even sympathetic to the Intercept and I think they suck for all kinds of reasons but I can't abide seeing Louise Mensch style bullshit on ilx.

Nobody but you has used the term "pro-Trump" in this thread...

Greenwald is quite openly declaring that anything other than putting Bannonites and the Bannonite ideology in charge would be a subversion of the American democracy.

- Fred B

Well, Glenn is also kinda going full on trumpkin.

https://theintercept.com/2017/08/05/whats-worse-trumps-campaign-agenda-or-empowering-generals-and-cia-operatives-to-subvert-it/

(this is not a hard question he is posing)

― Frederik B, Saturday, August 5, 2017 9:51 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah, I'm just laughing at your use of quotes.

But the first example is quite factual. I mean, that's what the article is about, read it again if you have to.

With the other example, I don't think it's a good excuse that he is supporting the anti-Muslim and racist Bannonite agenda because he opposes this made up conspiracy he is worried about. I mean, even bigots always have their reasons, don't they?

I don't like Greenwald, but he does not support the anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant parts of Bannon's agenda. He thinks the tendency of that wing of the White House toward non-intervention would lead to better outcomes for, say, the civilians who get killed in US drone strikes.

Whatever else is true, there is now simply no question that there is open warfare between adherents to the worldview Trump advocated in order to win, and the permanent national security power faction in Washington that – sometimes for good, and sometimes for evil – despises that agenda.

Greenwald is objectionable for a ton of reasons. He does tend toward conspiratorial thinking, his worldview is Manichean, and there is a troubling strategic alliance between his people and the far right vis a vis the question of intervention. But collapsing the distinctions between these groups or impugning his motives -- implying that he thinks as he does bc he himself is "racist" -- just takes us further from reality.

Sorry, you used the word "bigot" not racist

can i killfile a thread?

I just said that even bigots claim other reasons for their bigotry. Y'know, they just really like states rights. But the ipso facto way you state that saying this white guy is racist would take us 'further from reality' is really quite fucking weird. Especially when I'm not doing so. And even with the obvious parallels to anti-semitism, if you asked I would say I don't think he believes in these conspiracies because he is an anti-semite. I just note that his conspiratorial thinking has moved to this dark and crazy place, which is worth taking note of.

milo, you do know the Japanese invaded other places than Burma, right?

Fred, does Denmark lack the concept of "an example"?

LOL

simon H otm

greenwald has areas of expertise (mostly constitutional law) on which he is/was legitimately an authority and very readable. when he veers into punditry is when he loses the plot.

lee fang just seems like a troll

How can a guy who has gone on fox news and interviewed tucker carlson say shit like this with a straight face?

Bill Kristol, David Frum & other blood-stained neocons know Trump Era has gifted them with renewed credibility thanks to embrace of Dems: https://t.co/CYJco7DswQ

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) August 10, 2017

I don't know. How can the opinions of Frederik B. who has posted on ilxor.com, a message board rife with racists and pedophiles, be trusted?

how dare u i'm not a racist

I think the amount of shit GG can say with a straight face is limitless. He probably tried to tell a joke once.

And once again: It's extra ironic that he himself supported the Iraq War... It's like the one thing he can't forgive, and he himself did it. He's like a born-again who hates on all his old friends for not having seen the light yet. But being racist, oh well, shit happens.