Glenn Greenwald and other anti-anti-Trump "lefties" are right-wingers

[fragment]

Originally Posted by Ari

I read through that stupid thing because of the argument,

Me too. Since I've heard he's a libertarian I'm wondering if he's trying to make an anti-democracy point more than an anti-Roe one. Which would be stupid because the idea of the legal system guaranteeing core liberties is pretty well embedded in the conception of liberal democracy.

[mickthinks]

Originally Posted by erimir

The analogy you're making there ...

Yeah, it's not an analogy. It is a demonstration of the kind of problem that arises if "that's what he said" is allowed to mean "that's what I extrapolate from what he said and what I believe about him".


Here's another way of looking at it. It's a list in descending order of correspondence and hence fidelity :

He said ...

1. ... and I quote:
2. ... (I paraphrase):
3. ... what can only mean ...
4. ... something I think it is reasonable to assume meant ...
5. ... something it is unreasonable to deny could mean ...
6. ... something it is just possible to twist into ...

Now I believe this ladder is a sequence in which any two neighbouring terms can be considered as close enough that if one is accepted as true the next will be equally acceptable, and yet the same cannot be said of non-neighbouring pairs, as is starkly clear in the gap between top and bottom. Though it isn't a continuum, it can be understood in terms of Continuum fallacy - RationalWiki

So we may disagree about where on this list your and @lib_crusher's characterisations of Greenwald's expression of his views sit. (I think you are both on rung 6 or at best 5 as I indicated here, but I think you place yourself on rung 4.) But I think we can agree that in order to claim fairly to be reporting what Greenwald actually said in his piece, you need to be on rung 1 or 2, or on 3 with a huge dollop of goodwill and special license which I am not sure is warranted.

And I believe it is important to recognise that.

Why not just admit that what@lib_crusher and you could have said was something like "Here Greenwald appears to be against Roe v Wade" or "Here Greenwald seems to approve of Dobbs"?

[fragment]

I think it is reasonable to assume @lib_crusher and erimir were engaging in commentary not claiming "fairly to be reporting what Greenwald actually said in his piece".

[viscousmemories]

Not someone I’d want endorsing me if I were Greenwald.

Dave Rubin: "Glenn(Greenwald) was a bananas Lefty, he used to call me a racist on Twitter all the time, now he's just repeating everything I said 5 years ago"

source

[ChuckF]

Poor Dave Rubin. Not only would his conservative peers literally murder him with glee for being a filthy homosexual, but Glenn Greenwald came along, stole his whole grift and is doing it better than he ever did.

[Stephen Maturin]

Noted liberal Glenn Greenwald knows who's REALLY breaking the glass ceiling.

[erimir]

Originally Posted by erimir

The biggest question for me is whether he will, and how long it will take, for him to pivot to being pro-Bolsonaro (or at least anti-anti-Bolsonaro), as it becomes difficult for him to resolve the cognitive dissonance of being pro-Trump (or anti-anti-Trump ) and anti-Bolsonaro, given the strong affinity between Bolsonaro and Trump.

Welp.

pathetic pic.twitter.com/4J74vRg5Tk

— Andrew Lawrence (@ndrew_lawrence) July 6, 2022

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

Aaaaaaaah, whitey and the persecution complex. gg Glenn.

[erimir]

I guess he's not that worried about Bolsonaro wanting him dead (him, specifically) anymore

[ChuckF]

https://twitter.com/bgrueskin/status...7I8U8q4QEdrjlQ

Unafraid to ask the hard questions.

ETA what is the secret for tweet embeddening?

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

HTML privileges

In case you were wondering if Glenn Greenwald was going to ask Alex Jones tough questions about Sandy Hook in their recent chat, well, here's the gist of what they said to each other about Jones' shtick (eg the massacre was a hoax, etc): pic.twitter.com/nkqD8qjYhb

— Bill Grueskin (@BGrueskin) July 26, 2022

The three little dots will give you an embed option and take you to a screen to copy the code.

1C08B81D-384F-4947-8EE7-E1F7FFF29F2C.jpeg3AA3899C-5D57-413E-BA99-3DE8B51567E8.jpeg

If you lack HTML rights, nag VM. Tell him he still smells like Texas. That will motivate him.

[JoeP]

Originally Posted by ChuckF

ETA what is the secret for tweet embeddening?

Originally Posted by Kamilah Hauptmann

HTML privileges

Girly-gang membership

[Ari]

I really identify with how when jewish liars tell you your art is bad, you just want to dig in a little, and make mistakes. -Glenn Greenwald interviews an up and coming Austrian artist in his custom brutalist suite. Probably.

[ChuckF]

Originally Posted by Kamilah Hauptmann

HTML privileges

I think I am in the HTML group.

testes testes one two three

In case you were wondering if Glenn Greenwald was going to ask Alex Jones tough questions about Sandy Hook in their recent chat, well, here's the gist of what they said to each other about Jones' shtick (eg the massacre was a hoax, etc): pic.twitter.com/nkqD8qjYhb

— Bill Grueskin (@BGrueskin) July 26, 2022

[viscousmemories]

I'm so embarrassed that I ever believed Greenwald was a serious journalist.

Matt Taibbi is another one I thought was solid until this year. Another instance of poor judgement.

Matt Taibbi has contacted me regarding this tweet for a piece he is writing (if i had to guess "liberal coastal elites ignore why alex jones so popular") His q's were about whether i had watched the documentary. Please note- my QT is about a tweet RE the Q&A featuring GG 1/2 https://t.co/tqdIAzFNcf

— Sam Seder (@SamSeder) July 26, 2022

[Ari]

Ever since Occupy I’ve been wary of most Journalists who seem to care more about their name being out there and riling people up than they do about the cause (this includes the comedy sector as well). Conservative viewers are outraged because they are outraged, and want people to share that outrage, it’s a lot easier to mine that group than it is people who are outraged over a specific problem that could have complex and legitimate solutions that may bring the outrage to an end, or shift it to the next problem. Outrage for outrage sake is easy, simple, brings in followers and strokes the narcissism.

I know little about Matt Taibbi but I found this interesting,
What Happened to Matt Taibbi? - NYmag 10/2021

NYMag

Some have written critically of two of the best-selling anti-racist authors in America, Ibram X. Kendi and Robin DiAngelo, arguing that they are steering America down a course of unsustainable sectarian warfare, divorced from a humanistic tradition of open debate and respect for free speech. Taibbi has called DiAngelo, the White Fragility author, a purveyor of “tricked-up pseudo-intellectual horseshit.”

It took some time but I realized the “humanistic tradition of open debate and respect for free speech” is nothing more than white male middle/upper class privilege. The ability to be so unaffected by events that everything is just a discussion up for debate in the grand hall, where both sides shake hands in the end because even if one was promoting the extermination of people, it was all in light hearted debate with nothing more than a ‘gentleman’s wager’ at risk.

NY mag

“I do find it extremely interesting. A lot of these developments came up in the last couple of years — they’re the background for why I came to Substack in the first place — and involve this growing discomfort I had with Rolling Stone that started with Russiagate and then became this thing where I was just increasingly aware of this self-censorship going on. You’re increasingly worried about every little thing you say. Every day, there’s this new taboo in blue-leaning media.

This sounds to me like, I wanted the praise but didn’t want to do the constant work especially when people disagreed with me, so instead of settled into this nice comfy rut and decided the world was best at some fixed point in the past, that I refuse to grow beyond.

[specious_reasons]

I had to stop following Matt Tiabbi a while ago.

He got up in arms because "journalists" and "scientists" were being censured over Ivermectin and COVID, but that led him into a sort of antivax wormhole that he couldn't logic himself out of.

IIRC, he lost me when he complained that the invention of Ivermectin won a Nobel prize and he wasn't allowed to write about it. I'm sure any news outlet would let him report about Ivermectin, as long as the story was about its use as an antiparasitic drug, and not dangerous misinformation about COVID.

A lot of otherwise rational people got duped by that Great Barrington Declaration and some prominent scientists who should have known better.

[JoeP]

Originally Posted by Ari

It took some time but I realized the “humanistic tradition of open debate and respect for free speech” is nothing more than white male middle/upper class privilege. The ability to be so unaffected by events that everything is just a discussion up for debate in the grand hall, where both sides shake hands in the end because even if one was promoting the extermination of people, it was all in light hearted debate with nothing more than a ‘gentleman’s wager’ at risk.

Exhibit, all the people who've turned up at for "formal debates" and "free speech (without being criticised in any way)".

[viscousmemories]

Originally Posted by Ari

I know little about Matt Taibbi but I found this interesting

I think a big part of the problem with Taibbi and others of his ilk is that he has heard a reasonable and compelling critique of popular antiracism ala Kendi and DiAngelo*, but he's not quite smart enough, or as you point out, empathetic enough, to articulate the concern that their specific framing of the issue is counterproductive without appearing to condemn antiracism itself. I spend enough time on Twitter that I kind of understand how this happens; Twitter is where nuance goes to die.


*see The Perils of Race Reductionism by Adolph Reed Jr. for instance.

[Ari]

Speaking of the fallen. While not quite faunning all over Alex Jones, questionable activist Shaun King is at the threatening reporters level of crazy,

Shaun King on Facebook

“I know where you live.⁣ Where you used to live. ⁣Where your family lives, …You can attack me. And giggle about it to your peers and your family. That’s fine. ⁣⁣But I’m going to at least make it uncomfortable for you. You aren’t going to post about my personal life without consequence.”

Shaun King Threatens to Dox NY Post Reporters Over Unflattering Stories

Nothing says those stories about me are lies meant to destroy my character like actually posting “I know where you live.”

[viscousmemories]

I didn't even realize he was still active. I've seen so many long twitter threads full of accusations of fraudulent stuff that I stopped paying attention to him many months ago.

[specious_reasons]

I picked up the most recent "Knowledge Fight" episodes on the Alex Jones documentary, the trial, and Greenwald's interview of Jones after the documentary. It's worth a listen if you have the hours to listen to the audio.

Greenwald is so busy processing his own issues about mainstream media through this interview that he makes long, rambling non-questions and then lets Jones riff around the topic. He then ignores Jones' answer and doesn't follow up on anything. To be fair, minus Greenwald's bloviating, this is probably what the audience wants.

Greenwald just loves that Jones hates the same organizations he does. Greenwald doesn't care to know that Jones' critiques of those organization come from an extreme right-wing agenda. If Jones had his way, Greenwald would be strung up like the rest of them, but for now, he's a useful idiot.

[erimir]

Yet another example of MTWIDNS*.

(Mr. Trump, who I do not support.)

So weird how you can predict that a supposed lefty is going to defend a right-wing authoritarian criminal.

[Stephen Maturin]

The "Welcome to the Third World" quip is accurate enough, or will be before too terribly long, but not for the reason ol' Matt is claiming.

[erimir]

This is a sort of different type of person, but when Tulsi endorsed Bernie in 2016, she got a lot of cred with his fans, and people who pointed out all the reasons why she should not be seen as a friend of the left were often shouted down.

Maybe I'm overestimating my acumen, but as A Gay myself, I feel like I'm pretty attuned to some of the red flags for people who claim to be our friends, but don't really accept LGBT people and are just hiding their true feelings (whether they're homophobic/transphobic, or at least, don't really care about us). And I never bought her conversion story on LGBT rights, which always seemed to me to be dishonest pandering because she wanted to win a Democratic primary and she knew she couldn't do that while still publicly espousing the beliefs of the cult she grew up in. Regardless of whether I sometimes get it wrong, in this case I'm very sure I got it right.

show spoiler

What an asshole.

And no, that's not a fake chyron. The clip can be seen on Fox News's website, it's completely real.