The Convergence of the ‘Glenn Greenwald Left’ and the ‘Alex Jones Right’
http://thedailybanter.com/2013/07/the-convergence-of-the-glenn-greenwald-left-and-the-alex-jones-right/--- snip
Yes, the Summer of ’13 has witnessed the inking of the merger between the Glenn Greenwald Left and the Alex Jones Right.
The paranoia and conspiracy-mongering is truly bizarre coming from the same crowd that loudly blasted President Obama for not including a single-payer system in his healthcare reform legislation. Single-payer, naturally, would be run by the federal government and so a government agency would have access to our medical histories and decide whether we could receive certain forms of medical treatment. Every sexually transmitted disease, every erectile dysfunction prescription and every colon X-ray would be gathered and processed by the government, and since the program would be financed via our tax returns the IRS would provide an investigative and potentially punitive aspect to it. If you don’t pay your taxes, you’re punished for it. In fact, I remember how we laughed at paranoid Republicans who insisted that the IRS would toss people in jail for not abiding the individual mandate.
But now we’ve discovered that the government is potentially gathering metadata from Facebook and this is suddenly cause for a collective nervous breakdown.
The government, they say, is sucking up millions of gigabytes every day, and sifting through your phone calls and your emails. We’re led to believe that simply because NSA is collecting electronic data it automatically means that NSA is gathering your data and doing something with it. We don’t know what, but it’s something creepy and sinister.
This is Alex Jones territory.
The truth of the matter is that NSA doesn’t care nor does it have the capacity to spy on you. But there’s an obvious tendency in the age of social media self-aggrandizement to believe that we’re each important enough for the government to care about what we’re saying online and then to perhaps use this information against us to either blackmail us, to wrongfully imprison us or to extrajudicially kill us.
And all of this began with a man, Snowden, who’s nestled very close to the fringes of the political spectrum, so it’s no wonder we’ve arrived at this intersection. Working primarily in conjunction with Greenwald, this story was crafted to incite fear, outrage and paranoid delusions in people who were already predisposed to such reactions. This kind of manipulation is the centerpiece of Alex Jones’ strategy: take something that’s hugely complicated and difficult for people to fully understand, then design the impression that it’s something more than it is. Repeat. Snowden also convinced people who ought to know better that the U.S. government might actually have him assassinated. Alex Jones also thinks the government is targeting him, Jones, for assassination. In Snowden’s case, it was an idea that was legitimized by Greenwald and supplemented by none other than Snowden’s presidential choice, Ron Paul, who said that such an assassination might take place using a predator drone.
Or maybe the government will think a drone is too obvious and go with chemtrails instead, while also distracting us with a false-flag operation planned by the Illuminati, Raytheon, IBM and Trilateral Commission. [more at link]
= new reply since forum marked as read
I had this happen on FB last night!
What a coup.
He’s never met a conspiracy theory he didn’t like. Or basically never, anyway. Jones believes that a pan-global cabal of the super-rich, with its origins in a century-old cult called the Illuminati, is conspiring to exterminate most of the world’s population and enslave the rest. Among the tools of this so-called New World Order: mind control, water fluoridation, the global warming “hoax,” eugenics, the World Bank and the IMF, flu vaccines, FEMA, the Gates Foundation and psyscho-active drugs, both legal and illegal.
He believes the recent mass shootings in Aurora, Colorado, and Tucson, Arizona, were the work of perpetrators who’d been programmed by the government as part of a plot to deprive Americans of their guns. He believes Sen. Paul Wellstone was killed by a microwave gun and dead before his plane crashed. He believes the federal government engineered the Oklahoma City bombing as a coded reminder of the way it had crushed the Branch Davidians in Waco a year earlier.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbercovici/2013/01/09/who-is-alex-jones-anyway-five-fun-factoids/
A few choice Alex Jones quotes:
"666 is a doubling of 33. And 33 is pi"
"Nerds are the biggest danger in America."
"Devil worshiping pedophiles basically run the New World Order. They love death and they love killing babies."
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Alex_Jones
Yeah, I can see your point. The unwarranted use of the term "direct access" to describe NSA data harvesting is totally akin to believing that the world is being run by a secretive cabal of "devil worshipping pedophiles".
In normal times, this post would be High Comedy.
An entire piece based on conjecture, speculation, and images from a paranoid imagination, used to fabricate a conspiracy composed of the two groups the individual hates the most.
Here, we get a peek into the workings of a fevered imagination:
A Conspiracy Theory attacking another imagined conspiracy of an alliance between imagined enemies.
At another time, the pure unintended irony would cause uncontrolled laughter and hilarity,
but these are not Normal Times.
Representative of most posts from this quarter (The Valueless Mushy Center),
this OP lacks documentation, references, support, logical development, and Tie-Back to foundation Policies or Party Ideals.
In other words, just One, Great Big Ad Hominem attack on groups the author doesn't like.
Allow me to rebut with my own:
[font size=3]CENTRISM!!!....because it is so EASY!
You don't have to STAND for ANYTHING,
And get to insult those who DO!
I would not expect to see people on DU with a hero worship complex towards a Paulbot, Snowden, or a libertarian, Greenwald, but then again these aren't normal times! 
happened to the Occupy website. They were overrun by Paulbots to the point most of the people left of center gave up and left. It was also how Rand Paul won a senate seat in Kentucky. Alex Jones instructed Texans and others to move to Kentucky so to vote Ayn Rand Paul in. 
Olga! Glad for the excuse to dredge her up again
What is your point? 
How would he have their secrets?
But I take it you were trying to be serious, oh well have fun in your 'reality."
is willfully ignorant. 
I think some people post insane @#$% just to make this place look silly.
Somewhere a troll is laughing his/her goose off.
of the "map reference" baiting double standard, despite the and the "who me?" nonsense.
Bullshit hides, IMO....
How DARE they provide security...just because a civil rights icon, a sitting member of Congress, a member of the CBC, happened to be attending the event to autograph a comic book, errr...graphic novel (I guess that's what the kids call it)... that he wrote about the movement?
Buncha Nazi-Stasi-Godwinners....GRRRRR!!!!!!! Fight the POWER! 
Details: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/reliable-source/wp/2013/07/23/rep-john-lewis-makes-comic-con-debut-to-promote-graphic-novel-march/
Rep. John Lewis has been a lot of places and seen a lot of history in his 73 years. But the civil-rights icon had to admit that Comic-Con was something else altogether.
“It’s so different!” he told us Monday. “I have never witnessed anything like it. Hundreds of thousands of people dressed in so many different ways. They looked like people from another planet or from outer space.”
You heard that right: The Georgia Democrat made his debut Saturday at Comic-Con — the freewheeling conclave of pop-culture nerds who gather every summer in San Diego to gorge on the latest samplings of the sci-fi, superhero and fantasy arts.
Lewis, a 26-year veteran of the House, was there to promote his new literary venture, in stores next month. “March” is an account of his early years in the civil-rights movement — as one of the original Freedom Riders, a speaker at the 1963 March on Washington and a chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee — told in the form of a graphic novel: basically, a more sophisticated variation on a comic book......
Even his "liberal" support has increased by 5 pts, from the 1st of the month till now. Liberal "Democrats" give him the highest marks, and their "support" increased a whopping 9 pts, from a month ago, to 90%. Real Democrats are smart, we know exactly what's happening with all the "scandal" bullshit. NSA, coming on the heels of all the other fake scandals seems to have had a rallying effect among the president's core "supporters". So, nobody here is changing anyone's mind. The psyops practiced here at DU don't seem to matter to Democrats in the real world. 
ABC/WP: Poll of 1002 adults taken from 7/18/2013 to 7/21/2013
•Approve 49%
•Disapprove 44%
http://www.washingtonpost.com/page/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2013/07/23/National-Politics/Polling/release_253.xml?uuid=Dc60uvOHEeKB-o6Ds4ZMNg
Analysis: The ABC News/Washington Post survey has the highest marks for President Obama of any of the recent released polls, with positive five net approval rating. What may account for the higher rating, to some degree, is the sample that this pollster uses.
Gallup: Poll of 1500 adults taken from 7/19/2013 to 7/21/2013
•Approve 48%
•Disapprove 44%
http://www.gallup.com/poll/124922/Presidential-Approval-Center.aspx
I think your "hellbent on driving Democrats out of the party" hyperbole is just a bit of rhetorical flourish, much like the whole NSA non scandal.
Last edited Tue Jul 23, 2013, 06:47 PM - Edit history (1)
Its a logical fallacy if its a logical fallacy. It isn't the fault of "law school dropout keyboard warriors" that a significant number of people on this board don't know how to construct a cogent argument.
I can think of only one "substance" that would be commensurate.
Love the pic of Jones, too.
Sid
an interesting twist to this story. 
Hello? 
Ouch! I thought it was pretty run of the mill actually but maybe it's worth a second round.
I'll post it again tomorrow 
Hell, not only should you post it again tomorrow, like I said, this should be pinned to the top of the Welcome and Help section. Because nobody, and I mean NOBODY has nailed GD like this article did. Which is why you've got so many burning calories coming in to this thread posting nasty and moronic comments over and over and over again as well as the low budget copy cat threads.
Well done, flamingdem.
kick the thread over & over to repeat what they've already concluded is "tedious". 
By the way, "tedious" is shorthand for "stop talking about it, cuz it's probably true".
Thanks for that. The effect is unfortunately noticeable on this thread...
Conspiracies are not just "theories", only in America does this silly tag have such meaningless weight.
infinite loops, divide by 0s, and so forth.
IT's true, it's true true true!!
Leftists are afraid of government surveillance because we all know they just want a socialist revolution to set the 1% straight.
I mean, sure, the FBI might have a history of surveillance, intimidating, and maintaining blackmail files on civil rights leaders, peace activists, draft dodgers, Occupy protestors, left-leaning media outlets, and the ACLU, and the American justice system has made a habit of jailing and suppressing democratic socialists and anti-war advocates. But we know they were all plotting overthrows of capitalism and the US government to institute their socialist-commie wealth redistribution.
As one great Alex Jones fan once said:
Down with the bourgeoisie! FEMA camps harble garble
Teabaggerville. I have a dear friend who now lives in that creepy town. Extremely progressive, but now spouts conspiracy theories that would make Glenn Beck proud. Point it out to her and she turns absolutely rabid and says I've been "brainwashed by MSNBC." I miss her 
Very funny!
Cheers!
Actually, the president's numbers have improved with his base since the NSA "scandal". 90% from Liberal Democrats which represents a 9 pt jump from a month ago; +5% for all Liberals; and 84% for all Democrats, up from 81% a month ago. So, this is why the "subsection" is enraged, they can't make people hate Obama enough.
ABC/WP: Poll of 1002 adults taken from 7/18/2013 to 7/21/2013
•Approve 49%
•Disapprove 44%
http://www.washingtonpost.com/page/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2013/07/23/National-Politics/Polling/release_253.xml?uuid=Dc60uvOHEeKB-o6Ds4ZMNg
Analysis: The ABC News/Washington Post survey has the highest marks for President Obama of any of the recent released polls, with positive five net approval rating. What may account for the higher rating, to some degree, is the sample that this pollster uses.
Gallup: Poll of 1500 adults taken from 7/19/2013 to 7/21/2013
•Approve 48%
•Disapprove 44%
http://www.gallup.com/poll/124922/Presidential-Approval-Center.aspx
They can't get him below 40%, and it pisses off all the right people, which is an added benefit.
The fringe has minimal influence.
On a side note...thanks for sticking around my friend.
phonies. Every asshat, from any part of the world, can dump on the US, and you guys get a tingle up the leg. I have no respect for any part of the world that disses my president. Fuck Latin America! Fuck Mother Russia! Fuck Hong Kong! and it's fucked up, conspiracy pushing leaders. You know the CIA gave Chavez cancer, right?
Fuck 'Em. You can't stand that Democrats and Liberals don't hate the president, can you?
I'll be danged! 
I actually forgot to rec this, thanks for reminding me.
Of course you also know that when ever a "we worship Snowden" thread is started we can also see just who his groupies are too!
Your equation of Obama and party critics with idiots like Alex Jones is dishonest at minimum.
You open with a mis-characterization of government run healthcare. Sure, a government agency specifically in place to manage health care, would have access to all of your medical data. So what? As long as privacy safeguards are present, there should be no issues. The VA as an example has managed this for decades. And the IRS? What does that have to do with anything? They can throw your ass in jail now.
The issue with the NSA acquisition of metadata is not that the "government" has access to it but that it is suctioned up for no reason. If the process was transparent (it's not) with specific, open safeguards in place for this data then there might be more palatable to the 'left' that you keep equating with Jones and his ilk. But that is not the case. There is no reason on the earth for the NSA to gather any information about me, my family, or my neighbors if there is not probable cause to gather it. That is the issue here. The NSA has no business obtaining this information unless it is directly related to a crime. Whether it is creepy or sinister is irrelevant. they have no right to possess the data at all unless it is directly related to a criminal investigation. Thus far the administration has done nothing to show that the metadata gathered is relevant to any investigation.
If the truth of the matter is that the "NSA doesn’t care nor does it have the capacity to spy on you", then there is no reason to gather the data at all is there? It has nothing to do with self-aggrandizement to not want my personal data to sit in some NSA storage facility somewhere. Why was it gathered? Who has access to it? What are the safeguards? Why do they have it at all? These are the questions that most of us are asking.
Snowden has done us all a great service by shining a light on the inner workings of programs that have been in place for a decade. Where he is on the political spectrum is irrelevant as are his reasons for exposing the NSA programs. Your right about one thing though: Greenwald and other investigative journalists have indeed been 'crafting' their stories in such a way as to incite fear and outrage. And well they should because the gathering of all this data is an outrageous violation of privacy and due process that should cause us all to fear what the reasons are for the gathering it the first place since the administration has been less than forthcoming as to the reasons.
This story is not complicated or hard to understand. The NSA has been gathering private data on all Americans for no other reason than because modern technology allows them to do so. The data is not relevant to any investigation, therefore it is being collected in violation of the Bill of Rights. It's that simple.
I'll stop here because the rest of your OP descends into poop flinging.
........................................
Good on ya
Sid
& those feathers are kinda easy to ruffle, aren't they?
Sometimes ya realize there are a lot of people lurking at DU. Like Cesca! Nice he's getting inspiration from the place
I've seen people on this site claim this.
Like anyone here is high value enough to waste a $70,000.00 missile on. 
Reach much in order to pardon unConstitutional acts by "the president"? Reach much further and you're going to break something from stretching so unnaturally.
Nice try there. 
Out of respect for Skinner I will refrain from reposting!
We wouldn't want too much of a good thing.
happened to the Occupy website. They were overrun by Paulbots to the point most of the people left of center gave up and left. It was also how Rand Paul won a senate seat in Kentucky. Alex Jones instructed Texans and others to move to Kentucky so to vote Ayn Rand Paul in.
& found it on my first try. Thats just funny. 
I just knew it had to be that one.
