General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsOn Glenn Greenwald and His Fans - The Nation
http://www.thenation.com/blog/174860/glenn-greenwald-and-his-fans#axzz2Wrr6twCv--- snip
Glenn Greenwald, Ive been learning, is different. Heres what he said out of the box about my argument that he may have made a mistake in his claim about how PRISM works: that it turns the eagerness of Democratic partisans to defend the NSA as a means of defending President Obama. Im one of the propagandists referred to in his pieces title. Not correct. Not clear. Not profound. But most of all and most importantly, not useful. Let me say a bit as to why.
For one thing, I couldnt care less about defending Barack Obama. I think he sucks at most parts of his job as I understand ittactically, strategically, ideologically, rhetorically, intellectually, ethicallybut Im not going to get caught in a pissing match establishing my bona fides on the subject. Should I link to this so that Ill maybe win the argument? Id rather not. Too late, because I just didthe temptation of intellectuals to make this about us is too great. Were human. We have egos. (If youre reduced to implying that Rick Fking Perlstein is overly solicitous of this administration, its time to lose all the fanboys and come back to the pack a little: Thanks, Charlie Pierce!) But I wish we didnt, because ultimately, its not about us. Our power to unmake a president, or bear him aloft with the sheer power of our prose if thats what we prefer, is nugatory anyway. All we can do it try to tell the truth as we understand it, without fear or favor.
I feel incredibly fortunate to be have been allowed to do so without trimming my sails or looking over my shoulder, which is a good thing, because I have no idea how Id survive if I had to change how I wrote to please a patron. My writing brain, for good or ill, just isnt built that way. Some readers will look at my work and say that isnt possible, pointing to all the ways I fall short of some abstract standard of anti-institutional purity. Its an unfortunate logical fallacy on the left: that you can weigh a writers radicalism on some sort of scale, and from that arrive at a surefire calculation as to whether his or her heart is for sale (How much did Big Data pay u to play Judas?). Some simply cant believe that liberalseven centrists!might arrive at their positions through independent thought.
Now, am I Democratic partisan? Maybe a little bit, sometimes. In the final analysis, yes, Rick Perlstein prefers a strong Democratic Party to a weak one. That said, I think I understand more clearly than most the corporate corrosions that make it such a pathetic vehicle for those who aspire to justice. Unfortunately, given the rules of the American political game, people who try to participate by self-righteously refusing to identify with one or the other of the two parties are like people who say they love to play baseball but refuse to join a team. The name of this gamea loooooong gameis ideological civil war for the soul of each party. And one you cant win if you dont play. I dont write that because Im a partisan, or because I prefer a two-party system. I write that because I think its true.
Read more: On Glenn Greenwald and His Fans | The Nation http://www.thenation.com/blog/174860/glenn-greenwald-and-his-fans#ixzz2WrrJO0Ew
Follow us: @thenation on Twitter | TheNationMagazine on Facebook
randome
(34,845 posts)If Greenwald wants to be a 'real' journalist, his next story should be about that.
[hr]
[font color="blue"][center]You should never stop having childhood dreams.[/center][/font]
[hr]
flamingdem
(39,321 posts)I'm guessing Glenn will end up as a host on cable somewhere
msanthrope
(37,549 posts)Eddie Haskell
(1,628 posts)flamingdem
(39,321 posts)Moonies, I hear
MineralMan
(146,329 posts)Excellent rant!
Tierra_y_Libertad
(50,414 posts)From the blog:
Hes right, and hes wrong. So far Greenwald has been lucky, and because he has been lucky, everyone who cares about fixing our puke-worthy system of oversight of the American states out-of-control spy regime has been lucky too. Yes, clowns like Peter King and irrelevant throwbacks like Dick Cheney cry treason and call for death squads or tumbrels or whatever. But the bottom line is that for whatever reason (reasons I think will only become clear in the light of later history), the American establishment seems ready to think about this storyready to give a hard look at what our surveillance state has become. The evidence is there in thoughtful and detailed reporting and analysis on how PRISM might actually work, for instance in this Associated Press piece (which is far more usefully critical than the typical piece on the Bush administrations lies about Iraqs claimed weapons of mass destruction in 2003, which the American establishment was not ready to think about), and this analysis by technologist Ashkan Soltaniboth of which sort through the available evidence far better than Glenn Greenwald does, but also would not exist without what Greenwald and Edward Snowden courageously did, however flawed Greenwald and Snowden might be as messengers. Life can be complicated that way.
Liberal_Stalwart71
(20,450 posts)credible.
I may take issue with his opinion about Obama "sucking," but that doesn't mean that I dismiss everything he has to say after that. I think he makes a compelling case re: GG.
Tierra_y_Libertad
(50,414 posts)uponit7771
(90,364 posts)Liberal_Stalwart71
(20,450 posts)demand that Congress exercise it's oversight powers and reduce the president's war powers. Valuable in that I hope it brings awareness as to what is happening and that people demand the repeal of the Patriot Act.
Sheila Jackson Lee was on Ed's radio show the other day, and she said that in terms of highlighting this issue, yes, these two men were courageous. However, that they went to the press and now Snowden is in China, no...that's not courageous. She said that she and many others on the progressive side have been hammering Congress to increase its oversight powers, and that includes not only of the NSA but also the FISA Court and how we have allowed private organizations to make a profit off of national security.
The biggest scandal is the latter: that we have shifted our responsibility for national security to privately-owned companies. The Military Industrial Complex is in full effect and has been for many decades. It existed way before Barack Obama was even born.
Enrique
(27,461 posts)Greenwald might end up apologizing to Perlstein, who knows.
whatchamacallit
(15,558 posts)with
?
flamingdem
(39,321 posts)but I guess he thought it was
whatchamacallit
(15,558 posts)Own it.
flamingdem
(39,321 posts)whatchamacallit
(15,558 posts)If you're endorsing this guy's views, don't cherry pick.
flamingdem
(39,321 posts)whatchamacallit
(15,558 posts)bunnies
(15,859 posts)has actually made me lol.
flamingdem
(39,321 posts)making my joke less funny on purpose. Own it!
JaneyVee
(19,877 posts)either then, right?
Gotcha FAIL!
phleshdef
(11,936 posts)You honestly think its all or nothing? The world does not work that way at all.
redqueen
(115,103 posts)That's some contention... that if you don't agree with every word someone writes, that you can't agree with any of it.
flamingdem
(39,321 posts)alrighty then, thanks for accurately observing this latest example of DU lunacy!
BumRushDaShow
(129,444 posts)and try to force you to be a zombie-basher like they are!
flamingdem
(39,321 posts)is this from a teevee program?
BumRushDaShow
(129,444 posts)flamingdem
(39,321 posts)zombie bashurz 2.0 .. "Own it" tm
Tierra_y_Libertad
(50,414 posts)whatchamacallit
(15,558 posts)JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)bloviation about imagined psychology and irrelevant terms. tldr. Does it ever get to a relevant point about the NSA global warrantless spying machine one way or another?
bvar22
(39,909 posts)ALL of THAT to say the Greenwald hurt your feelings, and you're pissed because Greenwald didn't genuflect after you attacked him?
There is no THERE in this opinion piece.
Response to JackRiddler (Reply #10)
seaglass This message was self-deleted by its author.
Octafish
(55,745 posts)All Greenwald's done is help expose massive -- and illegal -- NSA spying.
I'll stand with Greenwald.
Why? Because even if we disagree, he respects my right to do so.
HardTimes99
(2,049 posts)I dispprove is that the spying is 'legal' (not 'illegal'). Please note that its legality does not make it constitutional nor moral. I object to it because it is unconstitutional and immoral. If I thought it were illegal, I would have no choice but to call for Obama's impeachment for 'high crimes and misdemeanors.'
So I must ask, if you think the spying is 'illegal,' are you therefore calling for Obama's impeachment?
I agree with a lot of what you write, but disagree on whether this spying is 'legal'. Not trying to pin you down per se - just tryng to get words used precisely.
kentuck
(111,110 posts)The Congress made it "legal" with a simple vote after it "illegally" used by Bush Jr. However, just as slavery was "legal", it was not moral or constitutional, per se.
The President has followed the letter of the law as far as we know. There is no reason to believe that he hasn't but that doesn't make it right or constitutional.
Octafish
(55,745 posts)Elaine Scarry
Boston Review, June 18, 2013
Editors' note: In 2004, Elaine Scarry described in Boston Review how the Patriot Act inverts the Constitution's commitment to government transparency and citizen opacity. Laws and official actions, Scarry explained, are to be visible for all to see, while individual lives are to be out of government's sightlines. With the recent revelation that the National Security Agency, following authority supposedly granted by the Patriot Act, has been secretly collecting information on millions of Americans, Scarry's idea has been echoed by numerous observers and reporters, such as Glenn Greenwald. Here is an excerpt from her 2004 story, Resolving to Resist. For more, buy Scarry's book Rule of Law, Misrule of Men.
If many members of Congress failed to read the Patriot Act during its swift passage, it is in part because that act is almost unreadable. The Patriot Act is written as an extended sequence of additions to and deletions from previously existing statutes. In making these alterations, it often instructs the bewildered reader to insert three words into paragraph X of statute Y without ever providing the full sentence that is altered either in its original or its amended form. Only someone who had scores of earlier statutes open to the relevant pages could step painstakingly through the revisions. On the issue of electronic surveillance alone, the Patriot Act modifies the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the Cable Act, the Federal Wiretap Statutes, and the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. Reading the Patriot Act is like being forced to spend the night on the steps outside the public library, trying to infer the sentences in the books inside by listening to hundreds of mice chewing away on the pages.
The hundreds of additions and deletions do, despite appearances, have a coherent and unitary direction: many of them increase the power of the Justice Department and decrease the rights of individual persons. The constitutional rights abridged by the Patriot Act are enumerated in the town resolutions, which most often specify violations of the First Amendment guarantee of free speech and assembly, the Fourth Amendment guarantee against search and seizure, the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment guarantees of due process, and (cited somewhat less often) the Sixth and Eighth Amendment guarantees of a speedy and public trial and protection against cruel and unusual punishment.
The unifying work of the Patriot Act is even clearer if, rather than summarizing it as an increase in the power of the Justice Department and a corresponding decrease in the rights of persons, it is understood concretely as making the population visible and the Justice Department invisible.
The Patriot Act inverts the constitutional requirement that people's lives be private and the work of government officials be public; it instead crafts a set of conditions in which our inner lives become transparent and the workings of the government become opaque. Either one of these outcomes would imperil democracy; together they not only injure the country but also cut off the avenues of repair.
CONTINUED...
http://bostonreview.net/blog/transparent-citizens-invisible-government
randome
(34,845 posts)[hr]
[font color="blue"][center]You should never stop having childhood dreams.[/center][/font]
[hr]
Octafish
(55,745 posts)It's no surprise that you don't get that.
kentuck
(111,110 posts)as lenient as they are, then they could be breaking the law. Both the President and the Republicans in Congress have stated what they are legally allowed to do. If they did extraneous spying, outside of those rules, then it the NSA that is acting illegally, not the Congress and not the President, unless he gave them orders to do so. Which I seriously doubt.
Octafish
(55,745 posts)Secret government has thrown checks and balances out the window.
President Obama told Charlie Rose the system is "transparent."
To whom? Him? Certainly not us, as in "We the People."
HardTimes99
(2,049 posts)would merely note that there exists a meaningful distinction between 'legal,' 'Constitutional,' and 'moral.'
Octafish
(55,745 posts)When it comes to the Constitution, there's no place for secret interpretations by secret courts in secret proceedings.
The document makes clear "We the People" are the government. To do our job as citizens, we need the facts. Parts of that comes from open government, a free press, and free expression of ideas.
PS: A hearty welcome to DU, HardTimes99.
HardTimes99
(2,049 posts)many matters large and small.
I would go far as to argue that in a democratic republic, the idea of a 'secret court' is, if not an oxymoron, then certainly an affront, as Jefferson wrote, to "a decent respect to the opinions of mankind." But said secret court is 'legal,' having been duly authorized by Congress.
Interesting and momentous times, eh?
leveymg
(36,418 posts)Yes, there is plenty of obnoxious sentiment out there on both sides of the great Obama NSA partisan-critic divide. Short attention span communications like Twitter just distill all the bile and obnoxiousness down to their most oversimplified, poisonous essence. That's why I do not consider Twitter to be a worthwhile forum for political discourse that requires paragraphs of thought to express intelligence and convey meaning, not a mere 144 characters.
Twitter might be useful for some things: "meetu@6 BYOB," and the NSA likes it because its easy to digest. But, it just destroys the quality of political debate.
flamingdem
(39,321 posts)complex ideas and can lead to inflaming sensibilities.
As on DU but worse!
KoKo
(84,711 posts)that get's misunderstood and then another reporter comes back and other tweeters or their fellow reporters get into the fray. It begins to look like "battle of the ego."
Some seem to use it to keep up a following or create a "buzz" for their articles. They post teasers and such with back and forth banter to attract other twitter followers if they have an article or a book coming up.
It gets misused so much I gave up going over there.
nadinbrzezinski
(154,021 posts)For that, it is ideal.
kentuck
(111,110 posts)Between them?
flamingdem
(39,321 posts).. if he picked it that is - otherwise it might be the work of an anti-Greenwald intern
kentuck
(111,110 posts)As someone said above, it was nothing but a "word salad". Definitely no Will Pitt.
flamingdem
(39,321 posts)he shows his thought process thus making his work a bit more honest, imo
closeupready
(29,503 posts)the story REALLY is the journalists who scooped the story and their personalities.
nadinbrzezinski
(154,021 posts)Oy
Octafish
(55,745 posts)Erase the message.