Ron Paul, Julian Assange, Glenn Greenwald and the Libertarians’ Electoral Strategy

[struggle4progress]

23. No. I gave examples of three libertarians, all known for pushing a particular complex of crackpot

ideas about Julian Assange. One of them is politician Paul, who just the other day was spouting this nonsense. And another Raimondo, a paleo-conservative libertarian, who spouts exactly the same nonsense. The third is Glenn Greenwald. None are friends of the Democrat

They come from very different backgrounds, so it is odd to find them all spouting the same crackpot nonsense

Greenwald trained as a lawyer, so he's been taught the important of evidence in a narrative. But he's pushing a crackpot narrative without evidence! A look at Greenwald's history gives a clue: Greenwald's stated objective this electoral cycle is to split progressives away from the Democrats -- and his stated strategy for doing that includes the Wikileaks story

What about Paul? Nothing Paul says in Florida this week is accidental. If Paul is pushing the crackpot theory this week, he's doing it for political reasons too. Since Greenwald is a known speaker in Libertarian circles, having no trouble getting international attention for himself, and had regularly admired Paul in print, it's not wild theorizing to say Paul's campaign advisers have heard of Greenwald and are familiar with his ideas: it's a certainty, because competent high-level campaign staff learn who's out there and what ideas they're pushing. Since the Paul campaign has lost the GOP fight this year, so they must be reaching elsewhere this week. So who exactly is Paul trying to reach by pushing crackpot theories about Assange? An entirely reasonable guess is that Paul's gang is following somewhat along the lines of Greenwald's analysis

Raimondo, of course, is a third-tier player. But he's spouting exactly the same nonsense. Crackpot theories usually don't get repeated everywhere, unless there's some mechanism for promoting message discipline. Greenwald's been pushing this nonsense; the Paul campaign is echoing it; again, a natural guess is that a core group of Libertarians has agreed to push it everywhere

Does that mean everybody who pushes the theory is a Libertarian? Of course not