defend the indefensible: glenn fucking greenwald

and their dogs

Sure. But the kids especially. I heard greenwald on a poscast talk about how the extraordinarily homophobic bolsonaro regime uses them as a talking point—you know, calling for the state to “investigate” their parenting. That was the impetus behind the televised “fistfight” a few months ago. Very frightening.

the comments on today's lawyersgunsandmoney post about this are predictably disgusting

those smart commenters are at it again I see

To argue that he's done good work and been disgusting too requires no smarts.

internet commenters are sociopaths

A journalist appearing on Tucker Carlson in 2019 will warp even the most sympathetic liberal listener.

Like I've written many times, I've quoted thousands of his words and between 2005-2009 there was no better chronicler of the Bush administration's malfeasance. He was occasionally good on Obama's extralegal killings too. He's among the five reasons to quit reading Twitter, though.

having scanned said comments,

To argue that he's done good work and been disgusting too requires no smarts.

maybe not, but having a sense of perspective does

i don't think the kind of ppl whose response to this is basically "good, he deserves it, he's a fascist too" were ever particularly sympathetic to greenwald's writing or his focus on civil liberties. i don't think they have much love for snowden either.

This is getting off-topic. Greenwald is a gay man with a family living in a country with a head of state as awful as Trump, and despite his reporting on the evil of Bolsanaro he appears on Tucker Carlson railing against Dems' Russia obsession and to throw a blanket on ways to prosecute him. But for fuck's sake to be charged for crimes by Brazil's government is no excuse to crow.

prosecute him = Trump

you don't have to agree with like or respect a journalist to believe journalists should not be imprisoned for reporting on powerful people

otm

To argue that he's done good work and been disgusting too requires no smarts.

so, like Obama

The Bernie Sanders campaign was the only one to respond to my request for comment about Brazil's decision to prosecute Glenn Greenwald. The Biden, Warren, Buttigieg, Klobuchar, Yang, and Steyer campaigns did not.

Make of that what you will.https://t.co/2YX98x4On9

— Ken Klippenstein (@kenklippenstein) January 22, 2020

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xB26jj0jrjc

this is disturbing. i was uncomfortable with 'russiagate' at first, but tried to keep an open mind. but it does seem now like it was an enormous ruse that completely deflected real, political opposition to trump in favor of a fantasy that he was a manchurian candidate. also, to make it even worse, the thing that motivated the intelligence officials that started this wasn't fear of trump's authoritarianism but rather their concern that he wouldn't be hawkish enough. something similar could happen to a left wing candidate and it was starting to -- the washington post, for a while, was floating some intelligence that russia preffered bernie to the other candidates.

whatever you think of flynn, (i think he is an authoritarian, islamophbic ghoul), and whatever you think of trump, this is a very, very bad look for the 'resistance.'

the most absurd part of this is that trump eventually did 'collude' with a foreign power -- ukraine! and he was impeached for that! so it was all completely for nothing.

I'm going to look for a two hour long video to post in rebuttal

i just don't understand why the opposition to trump had to hinge on RUSSIA.

he was obviously guilty of all manner of crimes, from campaign finance violations (proven, cohen is in prison) to tax fraud, likely on an epic scale. the dossier stuff was so clownish.

you know what really sucks is how western leftists (& certain non-leftists inexplicably respected by the worst of the left) respond to this xenophobic reheated cold war bs by reflexively defending the russian state, its imperialism, its fascist propaganda, etc to the extent that pointing out those things would get me called a neocon or neolib in certain circles

might seem like a non issue in the US compared to annoying russiagate libs tho. which is the problem

on what earth would any ilxor listen to glenn greenwald teeter between unhinged and self-righteous for nearly two hours?

reflexive defense of the russian state is bad. same thing is true of relfexive defense of china, etc

i'm not a greenwald fan, really, but i don't think he is unhinged here. the russia saga was insane and a huge waste of time and energy.

I think the russia pivot point was because there was demonstrable online influence manipulation in form of social media groups, astroturfing, and Trump has notable contacts with Russian oligarchs and had praised Putin, whatever

It was most convenient because Russia's not a real nemesis, but it's also not a non-entity -- a lot of American companies have minimal presence in Russia proper, but Russian interference in countries where US corporations do have a notable presence (read: Ukraine) is an irritant to corporate bottom lines

I'm sure you could show that Trump's business interests have a lot of connections with the Saudis, the Deutsche Bank loan thing is ridiculous, but we're at bff level with the Saudi people for all kinds of questionable reasons, and the US congress isn't going to go after a German bank

and, tbh, if you did this scattershot "look, he's got crooked dealings across the board" thing you lose coherence for your impeachment effort and also put a magnifying lens on the fact that innumerable career politicians have dealings with foreign governments that range anywhere from investment capital to possible nepotism when it comes to getting their children advisory jobs

the russia saga was insane and a huge waste of time and energy.

the point was to kneecap the administration

it was only a waste of time and energy—like most efforts to hold these people accountable—because of the administration's intransigence.

there's a reason SCOTUS is now hearing an argument to keep Deutschebank records locked up. It's because the President has been laundering oligarch money for decades, and I guess coicidentally (?) was amenable to a host of anti-Europe policies that seem only to benefit companies like Gazprom.

Framing this in the context of Cold War hangover and "anti-Russia" sentiment is missing the point. It has nothing to do w/ ideology or borders and everything to do w/ a ganglike consortium of energy- and war profiteers.

Understanding this does not require an inclination twd conspiracy theories, anymore than it suggests a belief that "everything hinges on Russia"

Greenwalk still has his head up his ass

whatabout-ing this is baffling to me. Please someone identify the last elected American official widely believed to have *personally* (not as a cog in grifting U.S. policy machine) laundered tens of millions of foreign mobster dollars

treesh did you ever read the mueller report? (the summaries, i mean)

Framing this in the context of Cold War hangover and "anti-Russia" sentiment is missing the point. It has nothing to do w/ ideology or borders and everything to do w/ a ganglike consortium of energy- and war profiteers.

Understanding this does not require an inclination twd conspiracy theories, anymore than it suggests a belief that "everything hinges on Russia"

― Yanni Xenakis (Hadrian VIII), Monday, May 18, 2020 9:08 AM (nine minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

thanks for putting this so succinctly bc i have felt like i've been going crazy for four years. otm

can we accept this and still say fuck the CIA

yeah otm to Hadrian

The Mueller Report, I thought, made clear what the connections b/w Trump, his minions, and Russia are. This can be true without thinking Putin is Palpatine.

xxp yes and I don't understand how anyone is obtuse enough to think they're mutually exclusive

like a lot of people Greenwald was legit, personally traumatized by the U.S. intel apparatus, but he's defaultng to the same stupid binary that created it in the first place

it's true, Palpatine to my knowledge (?) did not poison journalists and their family members w/ plutonium for looking into these things

everybodyb can suck at the same time!

SAME OL BUGABOOS

sounds simple enough to grasp, in theory, but

It has nothing to do w/ ideology or borders

for putin it def has something to do with borders

Greenwald's lost much of his credibility with me since 2016.

Putin's leadership is both a reaction to and result of the restructuring of the Russian economy in the 90s under Yeltsin, which had a lot of western "advisors" in play at times. He's friendly with the oligarchs, but comes across as more nationalist and populist (?)

I think if you wanted to see where the US was going regarding the power of the moneyed class and public sentiment, Russia as a blueprint isn't completely wrong

I think the way I broke down Greenwald to a friend is that he is not wrong, he just says the most obnoxious part loudly, only admits points other people concentrate on are valid if ephemeral as an aside when he's forced to, and is generally an asshole.

He's generally not wrong, but his framing generally makes his work inaccessible to anyone who doesn't have a lot of the background he takes for granted and accepts as sociopolitical canon

he is frequently wrong, in every sense of the word

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

there's a reason SCOTUS is now hearing an argument to keep Deutschebank records locked up. It's because the President has been laundering oligarch money for decades, and I guess coicidentally (?) was amenable to a host of anti-Europe policies that seem only to benefit companies like Gazprom.

Framing this in the context of Cold War hangover and "anti-Russia" sentiment is missing the point. It has nothing to do w/ ideology or borders and everything to do w/ a ganglike consortium of energy- and war profiteers.

yes, this i can get with. but the narrative pushed at the time was related to espionage and blackmail.

my ideology is profit

treeship, do you feel like the Mueller report documented nothing of substance?

part 1 outlined the "interference," which, i mean, i don't think that is why trump won. part 2 outlined "obstruction" but there wasn't an underlying crime he was covering up related to russia; he was covering up a host of crimes unrelated to russia, because he is a career criminal.

the investigation should have been about trump's finances, not "election interference." the "russian troll farms" were at best amplifying narratives generated by our own right wing media. and there is yet no direct evidence that russia was behind the email hacks. and even if they were why is that connected to trump?

putting russia at the center of this whole thing just muddled the issue, and it did seem like it arose because certain actors in the government wanted to exploit opposition to trump by directing that energy toward their own geopolitcal aims.