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Again: Greenwald is not the left.
Greenwald is not the left.http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023321760
Repost:
Greenwald: Progressives and the Ron Paul fallacies
http://www.democraticunderground.com/100294827
Then he got defensive.
@Wolfrum Thanks: of course Obama = better than Paul on those issues for progressives - though I do say Endless War jeopradizes entitlements
http://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/153169132471328768
http://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/153169132471328768
Greenwald does exactly this: Hype Ron Paul based on soundbites. One can find any number of clips or writings contradicting these soundbites, as with the anti-war claim. You're opposed to the death penalty, but would let people die without health care?
Let's look at the numbers: There were less than 80 executions in the U.S. last year, the lowest in 40 years. Tens of thousand of people die each year without health care
Greenwald doesn't for a second consider that Paul's positions are propaganda.
"Endless War jeopradizes entitlements"?
What the hell does that mean? You know what jeopardizes "entitlements": getting rid of them and believing they're unconstitutional.
Is slavery an entitlement program?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/100294914
Debunking the "Ron Paul Cares About Civil Liberties" Myth
Last week Glenn Greenwald won the Dumbest Tweet of the Week award with this beauty, about Ron Paul:
<...>
http://angryblacklady.com/2011/12/28/debunking-the-ron-paul-cares-about-civil-liberties-myth/
<...>
http://angryblacklady.com/2011/12/28/debunking-the-ron-paul-cares-about-civil-liberties-myth/
Glenn Greenwald defend Rand Paul against "Democratic myths"
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022485711
Disappointing those who 'stand with Rand'
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022742805
It's Greenwald Day!!!!
195 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
This is some weird shit: https://www.nsfwcorp.com/dispatch/libertarian-bum-fights/
Let's leave aside the crazy and partly-substantiated basis for their "concern" — a deal Greenwald and WikiLeaks reportedly cut with NBC to arrange an exclusive interview with Snowden in Moscow, which came with either a $1,000,000 price tag demand (according to the Feins) or a $50,000 price tag (according to Greenwald). Whatever their unseemly squabbles over access to a high-value asset like Edward Snowden, what I find more interesting is what all the parties in this squabble share in common: their GOP libertarian politics, and their mutual adoration for celebrity father-son libertarians Ron and Rand Paul: Bruce Fein served as "senior legal advisor" for Ron Paul's 2012 presidential campaign; Edward Snowden donated to Ron Paul's 2012 presidential campaign; Julian Assange announced last week that he's "a big admirer of Ron and Rand Paul"; and although Glenn Greenwald is slightly more coy about it, he too is a longtime defender and promoter of both Ron Paul and Rand Paul and the GOP libertarian politics that they espouse.
The squabbling Edward Snowden suitors share more than their mutual adoration for the Paul dynasty. Last year, Glenn Greenwald and Bruce Fein did two major college campus tours together, one in winter 2012, and another in autumn 2012. The Greenwald-Fein tours were by sponsored by two pro-Ron Paul libertarian outfits: Young Americans for Liberty (YAL), a Ron PaulJugend outfit; and the Future of Freedom Foundation (FFF), a libertarian outfit specializing in publishing far-right "historical revisionism" about who's really to blame for the Civil War and World War II, along with the usual libertarian drivel attacking public schools, civil rights laws, social welfare programs, and regulations on the tobacco industry.
....Every traveling circus needs a good emcee, and the Greenwald-Fein-Hornberger "Monsters Of Libertarian Rawq Tour 2012" didn't disappoint: each of their college campus performances featured "moderator" Jack Hunter, a.k.a. "The Southern Avenger." Yes, that Jack Hunter — Rand Paul's white supremacist staffer and ghost writer forced to resign in July after Hunter's bizarre pro-Confederacy puke ("John Wilkes Booth Was Right"
was exposed. The "Southern Avenger" is a staffer at Young Americans for Liberty, sponsor of the Greenwald-Fein-Horberger college campus tour.
....Suddenly it doesn't seem so unlikely that the players on all sides of this epic spy scandal would share the same libertarian worldview, and the same cultish devotion to Ron and Rand Paul. Obviously Bruce Fein would turn on Glenn Greenwald. Obviously Julian Assange would undermine his own Australian political party and form an alliance with the anti-immigrant ex-neo-Nazis. Obviously Vladimir Putin would represent the heroic defense of the "powerless" victims against the "powerful."
....Ron and Rand Paul. Libertarianism. The Confederacy. Revisionist history. Paranoia and alarmist terror over Big Government drones watching your every move, reading your every word....The names and themes repeat themselves over and over, and at some point, if a journalist retains the proper skepticism, you have to wonder where the real story about government surveillance ends, and where the paranoid libertarian fantasies about drones hovering outside their bedroom windows begin, reality and fantasy each bleeding into the other... As our faith in the old 20th century liberal constructs have collapsed without anything to replace it, it's looking more and more like we've been sucked into a far weirder construct, someone else's paranoid reality, like in those early PKD novels — with Ron Paul as our Palmer Eldritch, Rand Paul our Eye In The Sky.
The squabbling Edward Snowden suitors share more than their mutual adoration for the Paul dynasty. Last year, Glenn Greenwald and Bruce Fein did two major college campus tours together, one in winter 2012, and another in autumn 2012. The Greenwald-Fein tours were by sponsored by two pro-Ron Paul libertarian outfits: Young Americans for Liberty (YAL), a Ron PaulJugend outfit; and the Future of Freedom Foundation (FFF), a libertarian outfit specializing in publishing far-right "historical revisionism" about who's really to blame for the Civil War and World War II, along with the usual libertarian drivel attacking public schools, civil rights laws, social welfare programs, and regulations on the tobacco industry.
....Every traveling circus needs a good emcee, and the Greenwald-Fein-Hornberger "Monsters Of Libertarian Rawq Tour 2012" didn't disappoint: each of their college campus performances featured "moderator" Jack Hunter, a.k.a. "The Southern Avenger." Yes, that Jack Hunter — Rand Paul's white supremacist staffer and ghost writer forced to resign in July after Hunter's bizarre pro-Confederacy puke ("John Wilkes Booth Was Right"
was exposed. The "Southern Avenger" is a staffer at Young Americans for Liberty, sponsor of the Greenwald-Fein-Horberger college campus tour.
....Suddenly it doesn't seem so unlikely that the players on all sides of this epic spy scandal would share the same libertarian worldview, and the same cultish devotion to Ron and Rand Paul. Obviously Bruce Fein would turn on Glenn Greenwald. Obviously Julian Assange would undermine his own Australian political party and form an alliance with the anti-immigrant ex-neo-Nazis. Obviously Vladimir Putin would represent the heroic defense of the "powerless" victims against the "powerful."
....Ron and Rand Paul. Libertarianism. The Confederacy. Revisionist history. Paranoia and alarmist terror over Big Government drones watching your every move, reading your every word....The names and themes repeat themselves over and over, and at some point, if a journalist retains the proper skepticism, you have to wonder where the real story about government surveillance ends, and where the paranoid libertarian fantasies about drones hovering outside their bedroom windows begin, reality and fantasy each bleeding into the other... As our faith in the old 20th century liberal constructs have collapsed without anything to replace it, it's looking more and more like we've been sucked into a far weirder construct, someone else's paranoid reality, like in those early PKD novels — with Ron Paul as our Palmer Eldritch, Rand Paul our Eye In The Sky.
I always wondered why these Libertarian types bothered screwing with Dems...this guy (he was with Taibbi on that hedonistic eXile publication in Moscow, so take from that what you will) has a theory:
https://www.nsfwcorp.com/dispatch/lying-to-liberals/
...I wouldn't be the first to point out how embarrassingly easy it has been for rancid Koch libertarian front groups to convince those on the Left that they are all on the same team. As Salon writer Tom Watson wrote, the event is "fatally compromised by the prominent leadership and participation of the Libertarian Party and other libertarian student groups [who stand] in direct opposition to almost everything I believe in as a social democrat."
What hasn't been revealed until now, however, is how the libertarians got so good at fooling their lefty marks. For that you have to look back 35 years, to an amazing series of articles in the Koch brothers' REASON magazine in which prominent libertarians lay out to a new generation of followers a playbook of "tricks" to fool earnest leftists, liberals and hippies into supporting their cause.
One of the most shocking strategy articles comes in a REASON article headlined "Marketing Libertarianism" written by Moshe Kroy, and published in the February 1977 issue. The article begins by acknowledging libertarians’ frustrations:
A paradox most libertarians (if not all) are acutely aware of is the gap between the self-evidence of libertarianism, on the one hand, and the difficulty of communicating it to nonlibertarians on the other hand. The fact that the free market is the only economic-political system which makes human existence possible—as human existence—seems to be very easily demonstrable.
But alas, the sheeple are too thick to grasp what a wonderfully liberating experience the free market offers to non-millionaires. Here’s where the marketing expert lays it all out on the table, reminding his libertarian followers that by its definition, libertarian politics will never catch on with a public brought up on majority rule—not unless you trick them:
This article may seem somewhat cynical and opportunistic—but if you read it closely you will see that it involves no falsity or deception. The point is that you can use tricks—and you'd better, if you really want libertarianism to have a fighting chance.....
That they even had to run two articles in the space of a few months on how to trick Americans into accepting libertarianism shows what a hard time REASON was having selling such a counterintuitive political scam to a generation enamored with its idealism. It also shows a certain impatience on the part of the Kochs and the libertarian movement.....
That's just bits and pieces...but the whole thesis lays out the whole libertarian movement as a ponzi scheme and a con job. Libertarians are some creepy, fucked up, racist people....damn!!!!!! Stop Koching Us, indeed!!!
his minor league grifting helped him attract the attention of a billionaire, who can now buy him anything he wants. He's one helluva businessman.
"Glenn Greenwald, NSA Documents & Checkbook Journalism & Leaking to the Highest Bidder"
"you people", his unhinged haters.
Well said.
Sid
Obama branded a war criminal in the Irish Parliament - read the comments on this one too.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023067394
The Dems are starting to wake up and smell the coffee.
We should join forces.
Don't mention Ron Paul on DU you will get eviscerated (they are still brainwashed over that).
Just mention his policies - the ordinary Dems love lots of them.
Anti bankster
Anti war
Anti Corporatism
etc. etc.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023067394
The Dems are starting to wake up and smell the coffee.
We should join forces.
Don't mention Ron Paul on DU you will get eviscerated (they are still brainwashed over that).
Just mention his policies - the ordinary Dems love lots of them.
Anti bankster
Anti war
Anti Corporatism
etc. etc.
http://www.dailypaul.com/290123/one-rule-for-the-rich-and-one-rule-for-the-rest-banksters-snowden-nsaTake a look on Democratic Underground
They have the gov't paid trolls out, trying to limit the outrage & rebellion on there.
If that is the reaction of hard core Dems to the news stories on the NSA, I want to stoke up some more of it.
Lots of traffic on DU.
It's the most popular Dem internet site, except for Huffy Po - where everything meaningful gets censored.
Response to RufusTFirefly (Reply #30)
now that Eddie has made a conspicuous idiot of himself on Russian TV. Just in time for his book release too.
Convenient. 
Response to scarletwoman (Reply #39)
LOL!
Short, sweet, and right on target.
"If an asshole burst into your living room to tell you that your house was on fire... would you stay put just to spite him?"
If the "asshole" is Greenwald, it's probably an excuse to "burst" into my living room. I'm sure if told that the smoke he saw was boiling water, he'd claim he didn't say "your house was on fire." He'd likely claim that he was simply warning that if the water boils out, there could be a fire.
"Yes, I am the left. Some describe me as 'the last of the bleeding heart left'.
I asked what territory you were in. I didn't expect an answer. Much less a truthful one."
Sure you are "bleeding heart left"/Greenwald defender. Just call me Che!!!
Oh, and as much as I have an aversion to it
It is easy and doesn't take much thought. Much like your replies.
Originally posted here:http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023134060
Glenn Greenwald Responds to Widespread Lies About Him (on Cato, Iraq War, and more)
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/01/30/1182442/-Glenn-Greenwald-Responds-to-Widespread-Lies-About-Him-on-Cato-Iraq-War-and-more#
I supported the Iraq War and/or George Bush
These claim [sic] are absolutely false. They come from a complete distortion of the Preface I wrote to my own 2006 book, How Would a Patriot Act? That book - which was the first book devoted to denouncing the Bush/Cheney executive power theories as radical and lawless - was published a mere six months after I began blogging, so the the purpose of the Preface was to explain where I had come from, why I left my law practice to begin writing about politics, and what my political evolution had been..
The whole point of the Preface was that, before 2004, I had been politically apathetic and indifferent - except for the work I was doing on constitutional law. That's because, while I had no interest in the fights between Democrats and Republicans, I had a basic trust in the American political system and its institutions, such that I devoted my attention and energies to preventing constitutional violations rather than political debates. From the first two paragraphs:
When the Iraq War was debated and then commenced, I was not a writer. I was not a journalist. I was not politically engaged or active. I never played any role in political debates or controversies. Unlike the countless beloved Democrats who actually did support the war - including Obama's Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton - I had no platform or role in politics of any kind.
I never once wrote in favor of the Iraq War or argued for it in any way, shape or form. Ask anyone who claims that I "supported" the Iraq War to point to a single instance where I ever supported or defended it in any way. There is no such instance. It's a pure fabrication.
At the time, I was basically a standard passive consumer of political news: I read The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Atlantic: the journals that I thought high-end consumers of news would read and which I assumed were generally reliable for getting the basic truth.What I explained in the Preface was that I had major objections to the Iraq war when it was being debated:
Nonetheless, because of the general faith I had in political and media institutions, I assumed - since both political parties and media outlets and journalists from across the ideological spectrum were united in support of the war - that there must be some valid basis to the claim that Saddam posed a threat. My basic trust in these institutions neutralized the objections I had and led me to passively acquiesce to what was being done ("I believed then that the president was entitled to have his national security judgment deferred to, and to the extent that I was able to develop a definitive view, I accepted his judgment that American security really would be enhanced by the invasion of this sovereign country." .
Like many people, I became radicalized by those early years of the Bush administration. The Preface recounts that it was the 2002 due-process-free imprisonment of US citizen Jose Padilla and the 2003 Iraq War that caused me to realize the full extent of the government's radicalism and the media's malfeasance: "I developed, for the first time in my life, a sense of urgency about the need to take a stand for our country and its defining principles."
As I recount in the Preface, I stopped practicing law and pursued political writing precisely because those people who had an obligation to act as adversarial checks on the Bush administration during the start of the war on civil liberties and the run-up to the Iraq War - namely, Congress, courts, and the media - were profoundly failing to fulfill that obligation.
I wasn't a journalist or government official during these radical power abuses and the run-up to the Iraq War, and wasn't working in a profession supposedly devoted to serving as watchdog over government claims and abuses. I relied on those people to learn what was going on and to prevent extremism. But I quickly concluded that those who held those positions in politics and journalism were failing in their duties. Read the last six paragraphs of the Preface: I started writing about politics to bring light to these issues and to try to contribute to a real adversarial force against the Bush administration and its blind followers.
It is true that, like 90% of Americans, I did support the war in Afghanistan and, living in New York, believed the rhetoric about the threat of Islamic extremism: those were obvious mistakes. It's also true that one can legitimately criticize me for not having actively opposed the Iraq War at a time when many people were doing so. Martin Luther King, in his 1967 speech explaining why his activism against the Vietnam War was indispensable to his civil rights work, acknowledged that he had been too slow to pay attention to or oppose the war and that he thus felt obligated to work with particular vigor against it once he realized the need ("Over the past two years, as I have moved to break the betrayal of my own silences and to speak from the burnings of my own heart, as I have called for radical departures from the destruction of Vietnam" .
I've often spoken about the prime benefit of writing about political matters full-time: namely, it enables you to examine first-hand sources and not have to rely upon media or political mediators when forming beliefs. That process has been and continues to be very eye-opening for me.
Like most people who do not work on politics or journalism full-time, I had to rely back then on standard political and media venues to form my political impressions of the world. When I first began writing about politics, I had a whole slew of conventional political beliefs that came from lazy ingestion of the false and misleading claims of these conventional political and media sources. Having the time to examine political realities first-hand has led me to realize how many of those former beliefs I held were based on myth or worse, and I've radically changed how I think about a whole slew of issues as a result of that re-examination.
The purpose of the Preface was to publicly explain that evolution. Indeed, the first sentence of this Preface was this quote from Abraham Lincoln: "I do not think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday." When I still trusted and relied upon the claims of the political and media class - when I was basically apolitical and passive - I tacitly accepted all sorts of views which I've come to see are warped and misleading. I've talked often about this process and am proud of this evolution. I have zero interest in hiding it or concealing it. Quite the contrary: I want readers to know about it. That's why I wrote the Preface.
But anyone using this Preface to claim I was a "supporter" of the Iraq War is simply fabricating. At worst, I was guilty of apathy and passivity. I did nothing for or against it because I assumed that those in positions to exercise adversarial scrutiny - in journalism and politics - were doing that. It's precisely my realization of how profoundly deceitful and failed are American political and media institutions that motivated me to begin working on politics, and it's those realizations which continue to motivate me now.
These claim [sic] are absolutely false. They come from a complete distortion of the Preface I wrote to my own 2006 book, How Would a Patriot Act? That book - which was the first book devoted to denouncing the Bush/Cheney executive power theories as radical and lawless - was published a mere six months after I began blogging, so the the purpose of the Preface was to explain where I had come from, why I left my law practice to begin writing about politics, and what my political evolution had been..
The whole point of the Preface was that, before 2004, I had been politically apathetic and indifferent - except for the work I was doing on constitutional law. That's because, while I had no interest in the fights between Democrats and Republicans, I had a basic trust in the American political system and its institutions, such that I devoted my attention and energies to preventing constitutional violations rather than political debates. From the first two paragraphs:
I never voted for George W. Bush — or for any of his political opponents. I believed that voting was not particularly important. Our country, it seemed to me, was essentially on the right track. Whether Democrats or Republicans held the White House or the majorities in Congress made only the most marginal difference. . . .
I firmly believed that our democratic system of government was sufficiently insulated from any real abuse, by our Constitution and by the checks and balances afforded by having three separate but equal branches of government. My primary political belief was that both parties were plagued by extremists who were equally dangerous and destructive, but that as long as neither extreme acquired real political power, our system would function smoothly and more or less tolerably. For that reason, although I always paid attention to political debates, I was never sufficiently moved to become engaged in the electoral process. I had great faith in the stability and resilience of the constitutional republic that the founders created.
When the Iraq War was debated and then commenced, I was not a writer. I was not a journalist. I was not politically engaged or active. I never played any role in political debates or controversies. Unlike the countless beloved Democrats who actually did support the war - including Obama's Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton - I had no platform or role in politics of any kind.
I never once wrote in favor of the Iraq War or argued for it in any way, shape or form. Ask anyone who claims that I "supported" the Iraq War to point to a single instance where I ever supported or defended it in any way. There is no such instance. It's a pure fabrication.
At the time, I was basically a standard passive consumer of political news: I read The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Atlantic: the journals that I thought high-end consumers of news would read and which I assumed were generally reliable for getting the basic truth.What I explained in the Preface was that I had major objections to the Iraq war when it was being debated:
During the lead-up to the invasion, I was concerned that the hell-bent focus on invading Iraq was being driven by agendas and strategic objectives that had nothing to do with terrorism or the 9/11 attacks. The overt rationale for the invasion was exceedingly weak, particularly given that it would lead to an open-ended, incalculably costly, and intensely risky preemptive war. Around the same time, it was revealed that an invasion of Iraq and the removal of Saddam Hussein had been high on the agenda of various senior administration officials long before September 11.
Nonetheless, because of the general faith I had in political and media institutions, I assumed - since both political parties and media outlets and journalists from across the ideological spectrum were united in support of the war - that there must be some valid basis to the claim that Saddam posed a threat. My basic trust in these institutions neutralized the objections I had and led me to passively acquiesce to what was being done ("I believed then that the president was entitled to have his national security judgment deferred to, and to the extent that I was able to develop a definitive view, I accepted his judgment that American security really would be enhanced by the invasion of this sovereign country."
.
Like many people, I became radicalized by those early years of the Bush administration. The Preface recounts that it was the 2002 due-process-free imprisonment of US citizen Jose Padilla and the 2003 Iraq War that caused me to realize the full extent of the government's radicalism and the media's malfeasance: "I developed, for the first time in my life, a sense of urgency about the need to take a stand for our country and its defining principles."
As I recount in the Preface, I stopped practicing law and pursued political writing precisely because those people who had an obligation to act as adversarial checks on the Bush administration during the start of the war on civil liberties and the run-up to the Iraq War - namely, Congress, courts, and the media - were profoundly failing to fulfill that obligation.
I wasn't a journalist or government official during these radical power abuses and the run-up to the Iraq War, and wasn't working in a profession supposedly devoted to serving as watchdog over government claims and abuses. I relied on those people to learn what was going on and to prevent extremism. But I quickly concluded that those who held those positions in politics and journalism were failing in their duties. Read the last six paragraphs of the Preface: I started writing about politics to bring light to these issues and to try to contribute to a real adversarial force against the Bush administration and its blind followers.
It is true that, like 90% of Americans, I did support the war in Afghanistan and, living in New York, believed the rhetoric about the threat of Islamic extremism: those were obvious mistakes. It's also true that one can legitimately criticize me for not having actively opposed the Iraq War at a time when many people were doing so. Martin Luther King, in his 1967 speech explaining why his activism against the Vietnam War was indispensable to his civil rights work, acknowledged that he had been too slow to pay attention to or oppose the war and that he thus felt obligated to work with particular vigor against it once he realized the need ("Over the past two years, as I have moved to break the betrayal of my own silences and to speak from the burnings of my own heart, as I have called for radical departures from the destruction of Vietnam"
.
I've often spoken about the prime benefit of writing about political matters full-time: namely, it enables you to examine first-hand sources and not have to rely upon media or political mediators when forming beliefs. That process has been and continues to be very eye-opening for me.
Like most people who do not work on politics or journalism full-time, I had to rely back then on standard political and media venues to form my political impressions of the world. When I first began writing about politics, I had a whole slew of conventional political beliefs that came from lazy ingestion of the false and misleading claims of these conventional political and media sources. Having the time to examine political realities first-hand has led me to realize how many of those former beliefs I held were based on myth or worse, and I've radically changed how I think about a whole slew of issues as a result of that re-examination.
The purpose of the Preface was to publicly explain that evolution. Indeed, the first sentence of this Preface was this quote from Abraham Lincoln: "I do not think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday." When I still trusted and relied upon the claims of the political and media class - when I was basically apolitical and passive - I tacitly accepted all sorts of views which I've come to see are warped and misleading. I've talked often about this process and am proud of this evolution. I have zero interest in hiding it or concealing it. Quite the contrary: I want readers to know about it. That's why I wrote the Preface.
But anyone using this Preface to claim I was a "supporter" of the Iraq War is simply fabricating. At worst, I was guilty of apathy and passivity. I did nothing for or against it because I assumed that those in positions to exercise adversarial scrutiny - in journalism and politics - were doing that. It's precisely my realization of how profoundly deceitful and failed are American political and media institutions that motivated me to begin working on politics, and it's those realizations which continue to motivate me now.
Think about this claim from above:
I never once wrote in favor of the Iraq War or argued for it in any way, shape or form. Ask anyone who claims that I "supported" the Iraq War to point to a single instance where I ever supported or defended it in any way. There is no such instance. It's a pure fabrication.
At the time, I was basically a standard passive consumer of political news: I read The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Atlantic: the journals that I thought high-end consumers of news would read and which I assumed were generally reliable for getting the basic truth.What I explained in the Preface was that I had major objections to the Iraq war when it was being debated:
At the time, I was basically a standard passive consumer of political news: I read The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Atlantic: the journals that I thought high-end consumers of news would read and which I assumed were generally reliable for getting the basic truth.What I explained in the Preface was that I had major objections to the Iraq war when it was being debated:
He claims he never wrote in support of the war and that he was "a standard passive consumer of political news" who thought "high-end consumers of news" was "reliable."
Really? That's intended to debunk the claim he supported the war? He was clueless and gullible?
From the preface Greenwald links to.
During the lead-up to the invasion, I was concerned that the hell-bent focus on invading Iraq was being driven by agendas and strategic objectives that had nothing to do with terrorism or the 9/11 attacks. The overt rationale for the invasion was exceedingly weak, particularly given that it would lead to an open-ended, incalculably costly, and intensely risky preemptive war. Around the same time, it was revealed that an invasion of Iraq and the removal of Saddam Hussein had been high on the agenda of various senior administration officials long before September 11. Despite these doubts, concerns, and grounds for ambivalence, I had not abandoned my trust in the Bush administration. Between the president’s performance in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, the swift removal of the Taliban in Afghanistan, and the fact that I wanted the president to succeed, because my loyalty is to my country and he was the leader of my country, I still gave the administration the benefit of the doubt. I believed then that the president was entitled to have his national security judgment deferred to, and to the extent that I was able to develop a definitive view, I accepted his judgment that American security really would be enhanced by the invasion of this sovereign country.
<...>
Soon after our invasion of Iraq, when it became apparent that, contrary to Bush administration claims, there were no weapons of mass destruction, I began concluding, reluctantly, that the administration had veered far off course from defending the country against the threats of Muslim extremism. It appeared that in the great national unity the September 11 attacks had engendered, the administration had seen not a historically unique opportunity to renew a sense of national identity and cohesion, but instead a potent political weapon with which to impose upon our citizens a whole series of policies and programs that had nothing to do with terrorism, but that could be rationalized through an appeal to the nation's fear of further terrorist attacks.
<...>
The 9/11 attacks were not the first time our nation has had to face a new and amoral enemy. Throughout our history, we have vanquished numerous enemies at least as strong and as threatening as a group of jihadist terrorists without having the president seize the power to break the law. As a nation, we have triumphed over a series of external enemies and overcome internal struggles, and we have done so not by abandoning our core principles in the name of fear but by insisting on an adherence to our fundamental political values.
<...>
Soon after our invasion of Iraq, when it became apparent that, contrary to Bush administration claims, there were no weapons of mass destruction, I began concluding, reluctantly, that the administration had veered far off course from defending the country against the threats of Muslim extremism. It appeared that in the great national unity the September 11 attacks had engendered, the administration had seen not a historically unique opportunity to renew a sense of national identity and cohesion, but instead a potent political weapon with which to impose upon our citizens a whole series of policies and programs that had nothing to do with terrorism, but that could be rationalized through an appeal to the nation's fear of further terrorist attacks.
<...>
The 9/11 attacks were not the first time our nation has had to face a new and amoral enemy. Throughout our history, we have vanquished numerous enemies at least as strong and as threatening as a group of jihadist terrorists without having the president seize the power to break the law. As a nation, we have triumphed over a series of external enemies and overcome internal struggles, and we have done so not by abandoning our core principles in the name of fear but by insisting on an adherence to our fundamental political values.
So if the war was a legitimate defense against the "threats of Muslim extremism," it would have been OK?
Maybe this explains why he's so touchy about other people supporting President Obama.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=95092
Afghanistan and Iraq wars and Citizens United?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/100293141
Nor have I ever been affiliated with the Cato Institute in any way. The McCarthyite tone of the denials is appropriate given the McCarthyite nature of the lie.
In seven-plus years of political writing, I have written a grand total of twice for Cato: the first was a 2009 report on the success of drug decriminalization in Portugal, and the second was a 2010 online debate in which I argued against former Bush officials about the evils of the surveillance state.
I not only disclosed those writings but wrote about them and featured them multiple times on my blog as it happened: see here and here as but two examples. In 2008, I spoke at a Cato event on the radicalism and destructiveness of Bush/Cheney executive power theories.That's the grand total of all the work I ever did for or with Cato in my life. The fees for those two papers and that one speech were my standard writing and speaking fees. Those payments are a miniscule, microscopic fraction of my writing and speaking income over the last 7 years. I have done no paying work of any kind with them since that online surveillance debate in 2010 (I spoke three times at Cato for free: once to debate the theme of my 2007 book on the failure of the Bush administration, and twice when I presented my paper advocating drug decriminalization).
I have done far more work for, and received far greater payments from, the ACLU, with which I consulted for two years (see here). I spoke at the Socialism Conference twice - once in 2011 and once in 2012 - and will almost certainly do so again in 2013. I'll speak or write basically anywhere where I can have my ideas heard without any constraints. Moreover, I'll work with almost anyone - the ACLU, Cato or anyone else - to end the evils of the Drug War and the Surveillance State. And I'll criticize anyone I think merits it, as I did quite harshly with the Koch Brothers in 2011: here.
The very suggestion that there is something wrong with writing for or speaking at CATO is inane and childish. The claim that it means I "worked at CATO" is just an obvious lie. If writing for or speaking at CATO makes one a right-wing CATO-employed libertarian, then say hello to the following right-wing libertarian CATO employees, all of whom have been writers for or speakers at the CATO Institute in the past:
Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas (Writing for CATO's Unbound: here and here);
Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden (speaking about surveillance issues at CATO in January, 2011, speaking again at CATO in July, 2012 about FISA, and favorably citing CATO);
Democratic Rep. Jared Polis (defending CATO as "a leader in fighting to end the war in Afghanistan and Iraq and helping to end the War on Drugs" .
the ACLU's Legislative Counsel Michelle Richardson (speaking at the CATO Institute's 2011 event on FISA);
Brown University Professor Glenn Loury (writing for CATO's Unbound);
liberal blogger and Clinton Treasury official Brad DeLong (writing for CATO's Unbound);
Harvard law Professor Lawrence Lessig (writing for CATO's Unbound);
liberal blogger and GWU Professor Henry Farrell (writing for CATO's Unbound); and
Wall Street critic and securities professor William Black (writing for CATO's Unbound).
Trying to judge someone for where they write or speak - rather than for the ideas they advocate - is about as anti-intellectual and McCarthyite as it gets. CATO has a far better record of advocacy than the mainstream Democratic Party on vital issues such as opposing the Drug War, secrecy abuses, the Surveillance State, marriage equality for LGBT citizens, anti-war activism, and reforming the excesses of America's penal state. They were attacking Bush and Cheney for power abuses (see here) and aggressive wars (see here) far earlier, and far more loudly, than most mainstream Democratic politicians
In seven-plus years of political writing, I have written a grand total of twice for Cato: the first was a 2009 report on the success of drug decriminalization in Portugal, and the second was a 2010 online debate in which I argued against former Bush officials about the evils of the surveillance state.
I not only disclosed those writings but wrote about them and featured them multiple times on my blog as it happened: see here and here as but two examples. In 2008, I spoke at a Cato event on the radicalism and destructiveness of Bush/Cheney executive power theories.That's the grand total of all the work I ever did for or with Cato in my life. The fees for those two papers and that one speech were my standard writing and speaking fees. Those payments are a miniscule, microscopic fraction of my writing and speaking income over the last 7 years. I have done no paying work of any kind with them since that online surveillance debate in 2010 (I spoke three times at Cato for free: once to debate the theme of my 2007 book on the failure of the Bush administration, and twice when I presented my paper advocating drug decriminalization).
I have done far more work for, and received far greater payments from, the ACLU, with which I consulted for two years (see here). I spoke at the Socialism Conference twice - once in 2011 and once in 2012 - and will almost certainly do so again in 2013. I'll speak or write basically anywhere where I can have my ideas heard without any constraints. Moreover, I'll work with almost anyone - the ACLU, Cato or anyone else - to end the evils of the Drug War and the Surveillance State. And I'll criticize anyone I think merits it, as I did quite harshly with the Koch Brothers in 2011: here.
The very suggestion that there is something wrong with writing for or speaking at CATO is inane and childish. The claim that it means I "worked at CATO" is just an obvious lie. If writing for or speaking at CATO makes one a right-wing CATO-employed libertarian, then say hello to the following right-wing libertarian CATO employees, all of whom have been writers for or speakers at the CATO Institute in the past:
Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas (Writing for CATO's Unbound: here and here);
Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden (speaking about surveillance issues at CATO in January, 2011, speaking again at CATO in July, 2012 about FISA, and favorably citing CATO);
Democratic Rep. Jared Polis (defending CATO as "a leader in fighting to end the war in Afghanistan and Iraq and helping to end the War on Drugs"
.
the ACLU's Legislative Counsel Michelle Richardson (speaking at the CATO Institute's 2011 event on FISA);
Brown University Professor Glenn Loury (writing for CATO's Unbound);
liberal blogger and Clinton Treasury official Brad DeLong (writing for CATO's Unbound);
Harvard law Professor Lawrence Lessig (writing for CATO's Unbound);
liberal blogger and GWU Professor Henry Farrell (writing for CATO's Unbound); and
Wall Street critic and securities professor William Black (writing for CATO's Unbound).
Trying to judge someone for where they write or speak - rather than for the ideas they advocate - is about as anti-intellectual and McCarthyite as it gets. CATO has a far better record of advocacy than the mainstream Democratic Party on vital issues such as opposing the Drug War, secrecy abuses, the Surveillance State, marriage equality for LGBT citizens, anti-war activism, and reforming the excesses of America's penal state. They were attacking Bush and Cheney for power abuses (see here) and aggressive wars (see here) far earlier, and far more loudly, than most mainstream Democratic politicians
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/01/30/1182442/-Glenn-Greenwald-Responds-to-Widespread-Lies-About-Him-on-Cato-Iraq-War-and-more#
how many people who are "not the left" love to define the left, characterize the left, and decide who is and is not "the left."
"It's interesting to me how many people who are 'not the left' love to define the left, characterize the left, and decide who is and is not "the left."
...that you think Greenwald is on the left, and that's the best response you could come up with.
I said anything about what I think about Greenwald being "the left."
You can't, because I didn't. Your psychic abilities are experiencing a malfunction. 
Or you like to establish your "authority" over what others think or say. 
… we have this constant cut and paste response.
Thank you for cutting and pasting again…
Thank you for cutting and pasting again…
Thank you for cutting and pasting again…
Response to ProSense (Original post)
