Foreign policy dissidents have the greatest interest in repealing the Logan Act, not wielding it as a weapon to shield ex-CIA Directors while heralding it as a clearly defined criminal statute.
Good piece, and I think it would have been at least as good if Omar's misguided comments had been relegated to incidental mention. The truth is, almost certainly, that she doesn't have a clue about the reality of the Logan Act and her pronouncements about it just aren't important. Her mainstream-Dem-like instinct to defend liberally-rehabilitated evildoers such as Brennan are more interesting.
I understand the point, but Rep. Omar is a very influential lawmake, who has a very powerful public platform. I don't think it makes sense to treat her as some irrelevant fringe figure. That said, I've never seen her evince any interest in the Logan Act before, and I'd love to know what really prompted that tweet to me despite my frequent defenses of her - I have my theories involving her slimy Communications aide who used to work for Keith Ellison -- but no matter: the claim was sent out under her name and it is a deeply false and damaging message to send.
With respect, Glenn, while it is laudable that you have defended the presence of Omar and Tlaib as dissidents from the prevailing foreign policy orthodoxy, and it is true that the right and ability to dissent from that--or any other--prevailing orthodoxy strengthens all true democracies, it is not surprising that she responded to you as she did, defending the odious hypocrite John Brennan and the use of the Logan Act as a blunt political weapon against her (and the Democratic Party's) political adversaries.
You presume that she shares with you and genuine liberals a reverence for freedom of speech and thought, and that, especially because you have defended her in the past, she should should therefore recognize you as one of the "good guys," and that there must be some other explanation for her tweet other than the most obvious. That being, of course, that she does NOT stand for the same liberal principles that you do, and that she would censor you more quickly, more effectively, and more permanently than the intolerant leftists who drove you to resign from the Intercept if she could and suited her political purposes at any given time to do so.
In short, Omar does not pursue good faith debate and healthy democratic dissent. She only pursues power, by any means necessary.
Based on what a guy (culturally left) I know from her districts said, she gets attention there by spouting idiotic reactionary platitudes ("diversity!") that appeal to ignorant immigrants and dumb leftist college voters (SJWs).
Once she built that momentum, the rest of the idiot leftists and grifters from the nonprofit-industrial-complex jumped on board.
She is a classic example of the lowest common denominator form of (leftist) politics.
"[Omar] does NOT stand for the same liberal principles that you do, and that she would censor you more quickly, more effectively, and more permanently than the intolerant leftists who drove you to resign from the Intercept if she could and suited her political purposes at any given time to do so."
Greenwald does not stand for "liberal principles" unless you mean the classically liberal ones that undergird the Bill of Rights. And if so, there's no evidence that Ilhan Omar does not support those.
As for The Intercept, Greenwald's criticism of them is that they've moved very far into the merely *liberal* camp, and no longer publish leftist voices who advocate non-mainstream-liberal ideas. (That, and that they censored him.)
"Liberals" in long-common, contemporary American parlance are establishment Democrats -- also known as neoliberals. To communicate effectively I generally modify the world "liberal" with the adjective "classical" to make clear that's what I mean when I do.
It is probably as simple as in this particular situation defending Brennan happens to be consistent with her negative sentiment toward Israel. In truth she probably doesn’t know much about the Logan Act, she simply wants Israel to lose some points.
See this is something to explore. We can't be sure Israeli is behind the assassination, can we? I mean, perhaps Israeli, but I wouldn't put it past our own gov't to be behind it. A false flag, of sorts, so stoke tensions in the ME and assure US budget for Israeli and aggression toward Iran on behalf of Israeli. Our CIA is out of controls and only God knows what the hell they are up to. One can't believe ANYTHING they purport to do or not do, and especially one cannot believe John Brennan, an absolute lying menace.
It could well have been anyone. The real perpetrators are unlikely to advertise it openly. It could have been some Ayatollah who figured they didn't need him any more and what better use for a no-longer-productive asset than to make him a martyr?
I'm not saying that is what happened, my point is otherwise; there's no truth-value in speculating as we have no reliable evidence as to what happened and very likely never will have any.
Absolutely. Israel's assassinations are as heinous as Obama's and Trump's. That's why it doesn't help to see such a partisan figure like Omar stoop to defending Brennan and the Logan Act. She could have made the case against assassination without stooping to such a low level.
Yes, targeted killings are bad. But a full-blown nuclear exchange would be the worst war humanity has ever seen. One of the foremost duties of a nation is to protect its citizens. That duty is not overridden by far away commentators favoring a blanket policy against assassination.
In what fantasy world does the continuing existence of a scientist who once led an effort that knowledgeable experts agree ended nearly two decades ago constitute a threat of a nuclear exchange of any size?
And in what fantasy world would the assassination of a single scientist, or a hundred of them, meaningfully reduce such a threat, if it existed?
In the fantasy world where Kiefer Sutherland has to torture your next-door neighbour to save Manhattan from the ticking dirty bomb.
There are so many irrational assumptions in the "full-blown nuclear exchange" between Iran and Israel that it takes some time to catalogue them all. Firstly the Iranians have been steadfast in their view that nuclear weapons are un-islamic, while their enemies who claim this is mere pretext have severe problems with steadfast commitments to their own stated principles. That doesn't mean the Iranians aren't foxing - it just means that if one is going to discount one side's statements out of hand, it ought to be the side with the biggest and most numerous such lapses. (That is not the Iranians, imho.)
Secondly, the assumption that the Iranians are willing to be utterly destroyed by a rain of nuclear warheads from Israeli, American, British, French, etc submarine-launched missiles, just because they consider Israel their enemies and regional rivals is risible at best.
Third, if the Israelis were behind this, they are actively provoking the very thing they claim to want to avoid. Only people who think they cannot lose are that reckless. But there isn't anyone who cannot ever lose. That is a stupidly fatal conceit.
The scientist who was assassinated seems to have had a lot of security for someone with no active role. Do you think Israel or whoever killed him just for kicks? I guess it's possible, but forgive me for not believing your knowledgeable experts. Especially since Iran has very good reasons to want atomic bombs.
One thing Israel has learned from paying attention to Jewish history is, when someone says (repeatedly) that they want/intend to kill you, believe them. It’s amusing to read and listen to all the highly principled opiners (?) who of course would shed gallons of crocodile tears should Iran ever follow through with their open threats to annihilate the Jewish State. Yeah well, thanks but no thanks, we have learned quite nicely thank you that we can count in the end on no one but ourselves. When Egypt blockaded the Straits of Tiran in May of 1967, an unequivocal act of war, and sent massive troops to the Sinai Peninsula on Israel’s border, matching those sent by Syria to the Golan to the edge of the Sea of Galilee, Israel begged President Johnson to see if he could use America’s influence to ease the situation. Crickets. Same with the UN.....louder crickets. Israel had no choice but to deal with what appeared to be imminent war by preempting.
Same with Saddam’s nuclear reactor at Osirik, as well as the one being built by Assad in Syria with NK’s help.
And as I can already “hear” the standard responses of “Israeli occupation” as a result of that 1967 war, I will remind anybody interested in the truth, that immediately following that victory Israel offered every single inch of land taken in exchange for peace. What we got in response was the famous “3 no’s” emanating from the Arab conference in Khartoum.....no peace, no negotiations, and no recognition. As it is, Israel returned over 80%. of the land taken when it gave back the Sinai to Egypt in exchange for what turned out to be a very cold, but stable peace agreement. The Sinai wasn’t just a huge chunk of mountainous desert but a massive defensive barrier as well as a source of oil that Israel discovered and began extracting there that would have kept her energy independent for a hundred years.
Nothing happens in a vacuum, an inconvenient thing to remember when the Israel bashers here begin their traditional rants.
" Israel had no choice but to deal with what appeared to be imminent war by preempting."
Another Zionist embracing Zionist TERRORISM. Your "Jewish State" was founded in terror and ethic cleansing of the native Arabs. Zionist heroes such as Vladimir Jabotinsky in 1920s Palestine explicitly endorsed violence to remove the native Arabs from Palestine -- which is what Zionists then did. And they hold the Arab descendants of that violence in apartheid conditions in Gaza and the West Bank.
See Dr. Juan Cole's analysis of the Farsi statements in question.
The 1967 war was not the most important timeline, Arab resentment over Zionist invasion or colonization goes back to the end of WW1 when the British, French and Russians carved up the territory of the Ottoman empire (defeated German ally), including Palestine and what is now Israel (neither was ever a historical state during 1500 years of Islamic history).
The British wanted to get rid of European Jews so they allowed them to invade/settle and use terrorism steal land from Arabs, both Muslim and Christians, in Palestine.
The religious aspects are that Jerusalem is a holy site for Muslims because Muhammad ascended to heaven there. More generally, Muslims see invasion, colonization and the use of terrorism to steal land that has been Arab/Muslim territory for 1,000+ years as being deeply offensive and dishonorable. (the history of the Crusades is not forgotten)
Both "sides" have a history of arrogance, religious bigotry and ethno-centrism. Historically, Muslims saw Jews and Christians as corrupted and wayward inheritors of the Abrahamic lineage. During the golden age of Islamic civilization Europe was a backwater full of malodorous semi-pagan tribes.
Modern Jews and Christians see Muslims as backward.
The middle east has long been geopolitically significant for military reasons (Russia attempts to harass and interrupt trade to western europe in the middle east) because of the trade routes between China and India (silk road, spice and tea trade, etc.) and the Middle East and Europe. (now oil)
So, the ultimate reality is defined by oil, trade, and geopolitics, raw power and raw greed, but a bunch of fairly silly cultural bs about "saving face", as well as religious and moral rationale is used by all sides to posture and insist that their interests are more legitimate.
The Jewish claim have a right to return to their ancestral homeland and related religious nonsense is particularly absurd given that the Old Testament clearly states that the Israelites (one Phoenician tribe) stole the land of the Cannanites (another Phoenician tribe) to begin with.
The reality is that oil money and geopolitics have forced a rough alignment of:
Sunni Arabs (Saudis, etc), the USA, Israel and western europe
vs
Shi'a Iranians, Syrians, Russia/China
with Turkey sitting on the fence looking at how to gain most from taking one side or the other at various points.
The Iranians are extremely clever people most of the time, and they have managed to extend their influence substantially by exploiting the absurd blunders of the USA for decades (as have the Russians).
Keep in mind that before WW1/WW2, there were no modern nation states (as defined in the Treaty of Westphalia) in the middle east, just ever shifting tribal territories and shifting boundaries of dynasties and empires depending on wars of conquest and disputes over dynastic succession.
I don't think it is useful to talk about stealing land as if the Israelis are the only people to do it. The area-formerly-known-as-Palestine has been fought over by many different tribes, nations, tongues, and peoples, for a very long time. Noting that the current Israeli state is far from unique in this regard does not equate to approving of any specific policies of theirs.
As for the Crusades, they were very small episodes amongst a thousand years of Islamic expansion into the West. Again, not attempting to justify them, but pretending they were some horrific crime against a pacifist Islam quietly minding its own business is doing fairly eye-watering violence to the historical record.
The Battle of Vienna, for example, didn't happen because the Austrians went crusading in Palestine, but because the Muslims went jihadi-ing in Austria.
That the Iranians have threatened to annihilate Israel is strongly disputed. I don't know what all the Iranian heads of state have said on the subject (perhaps you know?) but what Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said was that it deserves such a fate and that there will be no peace until it is gone. One is perfectly entitled to believe he was making a threat without being seen to threaten, and this was just his way of dogwhistling to various Iranian clients in the region, but I also remind you that if you heard the dogwhistle then you're the dog.
Perhaps some people consider living in constant fear of devastation, which fear is only intermittently relieved by assassinating your neighbours, to be peace, but I don't think it qualifies. Peace only occurs when both sides agree to settle their differences without violence. Violence can be one-sided but peace never can be.
The middle east is a very strong contender for being the worst place on the planet.
The climate in generally unsuitable for industrial civilization and modern rationalist culture and democratic-capitalism.
Most of the gene pools are inbred due to cousin marriage and low IQ, the Arabs being even more inbred than other cultures in the region.
As such, it is the worst place imaginable for the USA to try to impose its values or to support an absurd colonial outpost like Israel or various puppet petro-dictatorships.
Her posturing and pandering was obvious from the beginning (dogmatic anti-colonialist rhetoric, race grifting, etc.). Astonishing that anyone buys that kind of crap.
She has a cool turban thingy, which keeps the relentlessly and brutally hot equatorial winter sun in Minnesota from damaging her delicate, active brain cells.
I think you vastly overrate her intellect. I agree with Doug - from following her for some years now, I doubt if she understands much of which she spouts. She's a mirror image of Trump in that regard - she seems to say things to provoke, not because she's thought them through.
I think the entire point of the article was to highlight hypocrisy. Regardless of whether or not Omar understands the legal points of the Logan Act made by Glenn, she certainly knows who Brennan is, and that is point enough don't you think? There are many people here who are, in my opinion, missing the real point of the article (its not about the Logan Act).
I think the point of this article IS the Logan Act - that's what he hammers on. The inherent hypocrisy of politicians is hardly newsworthy enough for Glenn. And we can all agree with the main thrust of Glenn's argument, but find shortcoming in specific parts of the article. That's my observation - just because someone doesn't repeat Glenn's argument doesn't mean they're disagreeing with it. I agree with Glenn that the Logan Act is unconstitutional (or should be - only the Supreme Court can decide that), but think he gives Omar far too much credit as a thinker. She's a flamethrower, not an intellectual, and expecting her to behave otherwise is only going to lead to disappointment.
Lol - seriously? Criticizing a female elected official is now "condescending"? You're really quick to play that victim card. The idea that women public figures should be immune from criticism is itself far more condescending than is describing a flamethrower as a flamethrower.
As far as your description of her as smart, there's damn little evidence of that. Getting caught in multiple financial scandals regarding her campaign funds? Getting caught making anti-Semitic tropes? And now denying that she ever defended the Logan Act or Brennan in her tweets attacking Glenn?
Maybe you and I just have vastly different ideas of what constitutes "smart" ... which would actually explain a LOT of your posts here ...
Glenn's comments here (not the article, but his comments) reflect that the article IS about Omar, not the Logan Act. He addressed TWICE posts which suggest he should have relegated her to a paragraph. Unless you want to argue with the author himself regarding his intentions ....
Strictly speaking, Omar didn't state or imply any opinion on whether the Logan Act was legitimate, constitutional, or desirable. Instead she argued that, looking solely at the present circumstances, Brennan's tweet should not be viewed as in violation of the statute. (Her arguments for this are not legally absurd, though they are subject to doubt.) In some ways an argument like Omar's might have value in protecting someone who might be indicted under the Logan Act.
Greenwald criticizes Omar because her tweet may (quite likely) be meant to undermine Greenwald's comparison between Brennan and Flynn; he also criticizes Omar because Omar's tweet may slightly cut against (perhaps not intentionally) Greenwald's view and strategy that the Logan Act must be thoroughly rejected in its entirety. I suppose that part of the reason Omar did this is because she, like all other Democratic members of Congress, wishes to keep the Trump administration's reputation in the pits and to reject the idea that the Trump administration's Democratic counterparts could be anywhere near as bad. That's basically inevitable when a member of Congress belongs to a major party. Greenwald should not be surprised that Omar's Democrats-over-Trump-administration goal is a much stronger priority than the areas of ideological agreement that Greenwald and Omar share. Many politicians keep on energetically hitting the opposing party both for reasons of sincere belief and also due to pressures of intra-party loyalty and electoral advantage. And it is well known that the Squad tries to have a largely cooperative relationship with Democratic leadership.
Greenwald feels that everyone else who values the right to dissent, including Omar, should be working to repeal the Logan Act, at least if they bother to address the Logan Act at all. That would make sense if people like Omar were political commenters whose job is to speak their mind honestly and act out of principle. But no successful politician can afford to act out of principle on all subjects. I don't find Omar particularly trustworthy, but even if she was as trustworthy as a member of Congress can afford to be, she would still have to pick her battles and sometimes publicly defend points that are kind of at cross-purposes to some of her more principled beliefs. Omar must spend a lot of her effort loyally defending her party even when her party uses some of the shady aspects of the existing system. If you don't like that, you should be working to get away from elected politicians, and I hope that some day we will find a more democratic approach than one that relies on politicians. I think it is somewhat worth appreciating that Omar did not actually do anything to substantially undermine Greenwald's view on the Logan Act.
I could of course mention that Omar, as a black female Muslim immigrant, is in a more vulnerable position than most people in Congress and has greater incentives to pick her battles. That's kind of a cliche, but it's also true. Sometimes politicians in that position need more understanding and forbearance from those of us on the outside. If you want members of Congress to call for repealing the Logan Act in its entirely, it would make sense to look for someone other than Omar to do it, at least as far as the main sponsor goes. Regardless, though, the mere fact that Omar is a major-party politician is pretty much enough on its own to explain why she will sometimes do things like this.
I read your comment in its entirety. I went back to the article and reread the Omar tweet a few times. Based on that, I think the most likely scenario is the Democrats wheeled out Omar to attack Mr. Greenwald for attacking Brennan. They used Mr. Greenwald's past words of support for her, to get people to believe she must really believe Mr. Greenwald is wrong. Maybe a "plum" position was dangled before her.
The mention of this, reminds me of when the Republican establishment was trying to pass flag burning legislation. An opponent of the legislation was Senator Bob Kerrey, a Vietnam War Medal of Honor winner. Republican leadership enlisted freshman Senator Chuck Hagel, a twice decorated Vietnam War veteran, from the same state, to oppose Kerrey on the Senate floor. This stuff happens all the time. I find it reprehensible when it does. The act, as you can tell, tends to live with me a long time.
Keith Ellison, now that's a 2021 story waiting to happen.
I think your "plum" position dangle is the most likely scenario. Sigh-- are there ANY politicians who don't get blinded by" bling" so people will notice them
Trump chased “the bling”, as you put it, for most of his life as a private citizen, and obtained quite a lot of it, in the process. So much so, that he already had it by the time he entered politics. That Donald Trump, with no political experience whatsoever, could surpass at least the last 3 or 4 Presidents we’ve had, not only in productivity & efficiency, but even the morality of his actions while in office, should really be the most scathing indictment of the level of corruption of our bling-chasing political class.
Exactly. Omar did not do what Glenn claims in this piece. It is not "strictly speaking." Glenn dies not cite any evidence for the claims he makes about Omar in this piece. That's a huge problem.
You make a strong case for "3rd" parties in Congress - that is, the worst thing about the Squad, which guarantees they will sometimes disappoint, is that they're Democrats. The same applies to the most-liberal Oregon congresspeople, like DeFazio, my own Rep., or Merkley. The Green Party regularly runs against them for that very reason.
They started off being unprincipled parasites, which they then leveraged to get into power. The worse thing about them is their lack of principles, which is not at all incompatible with being members of the Democratic party.
I get it, Glenn. I just think the focus on Omar tends to distract a bit from what seems to me to be the more-important, central issue of the piece. But it ain't no fatal flaw. ;^)
I agree with Doug here. Of course the commentary on the contradiction of the Democrats' position on the Logan Act is important, but it seemed like a pretty serious rebuke from a single tweet. I suppose having the background knowledge you have, Glenn, can really change how one views such a short test. I just interpreted the Omar tweet as a disagreement on the meaning of a legal text, which seems like a pretty normal thing to happen especially if there is little precedent.
I am still very interested in why Rep. Omar suddenly decided to single out my tweet on the Logan Act — an issue that matters a great deal to me and which I’ve written about a lot but that I’ve never heard her evince any interest in at all — and, in front of her 2.6 million followers, weigh in to (a) create this very fine distinction that doesn’t exist to give the impression that the Logan Act is a clearly defined, finely crafted criminal law and (b) insist that what Brennan did doesn’t fall within its scope but what Flynn did does. Whatever was behind that, I think it was very important that a left-sign member of Congress who herself is a foreign policy dissident — she is that, whatever one’s opinions on the dissent — would say anything to give the appearance that this is a validly used law and that the FBI invocation of it against Flynn was anything other than a total abuse. I get the reaction that this is a long and heavy article in response to a single tweet — it does cover numerous other issues, including Brennan’s posturing and the history of this law — but I felt like there was something significant about as influential a leftist as her tweeting this strange insistence about the definitional precision of the Logan Act and picking a reply-tweet of mine as the springboard to make it.
I really appreciated the piece, and totally understand your reading now, which is one of the reasons im glad you can bounce from twitter back to here and explain your thinking. I'm glad someone is covering the disputable claims popular people on our left are saying, especially if it speaks to a greater truth. I'm also happy to see you talking about these things in a larger context and always look forward to thoughtful critique on leftists from someone who doesn't personally want to see our project fail. Singling out that tweet, in a thread of replies, does seem super weird, and I'm really hoping Omar or her team can tell us why!
And what is shocking is how her one tweet has boxed her in permanently. It will be mercilessly thrown in her face should she commit to any act of dissent from U.S. foreign policy. She's not so dumb that she cannot see what she has irrevocably done.
Omar Dumb? I know a guy that is pretty leftist culturally that lives in her district, who says that she is a reactionary parasite dunce that got elected by haranguing and lying to immigrants and duping college student voters.
Academically, I appreciate your puzzlement. It is not possible to ascertain "why", because it's in her head, and because there are so many possible motives, among which are that you will defend those Who Should Never Be Defended. Kind of like the ACLU used to do. Another possibility is you question those Who Should Never Be Questioned, like the scum bag John Brennan. The bottom line is Omar puts forth an absurd assertion, either out of stupidity or from propagandist motivations.
Your second sentence isn't actually a complete sentence so who knows what you meant? Only you, and you didn't effectively say it. If you disagree, you need to go back to grammar school.
As for your attack on Glenn, I'll leave that for him if he chooses. But as for your last sentence, you have provided zero support, and don't even state what statement she made you don't agree with OR put forward what your purported motivations of hers might be. "Propagandist?" Sorry, that's not worthy of discussion.
She stated her opinion as fact and is literally followed by millions. So it makes sense to me for Glenn to push back directly and forcefully, especially as he actually likes her. She is a grown up after all. To save you looking, she has 2.6 million followers on her personal twitter account.
It just didn't seem that clear to an uninformed observer (me) that she was defending Brennan or that she was making a clear stand on the implementation or the meaning of the law. That's really my biggest problem with the piece in general, that this was a single tweet from her account and she hasn't had any history of expressed belief in Logan Act enforcement, or contradiction on that front. It just kinda seems like this tweet lacks context.
She may be followed by millions, but do you think that the vast majority of her following gave this a second thought? I would have preferred if Mr Greenwald spoke about the Logan Act without bringing her into it, which made the article a bit disjointed.
The article isn't only about the Logan Act. More importantly, I assume, was the point that "ends justifies the means" behavior is at the root of our problems. To illustrate that, involving Omar was more than critical, it was entirely necessary and the very point of the article.
Oh geez wake up-- this is NOT her area of expertise. You either have to get a comment on Logan correct (meaning correct legal commentary) or you just focus on the illegality of Israels actions. The fact she comments on Logan is as another commentator pointed out paying the piper to get a plum appointment (ie no one blocking it).
I agree that it was unreasonable for her to suggest that this issue was generally agreed upon (direct vs indirect communication) but further critique of Omar on this issue required making assumptions about her intentions. I'm interested to see what reason she would have of defending him, besides falling in line with the party stance. I'm interested to hear your thoughts.
The entire point of the article was that the left was "becom[ing] exactly what [they] started off believing [they] were fighting". What more poignant way than to make the point than showing how Omar, of all people, ends up supporting Brennan. Incidental mention? That is the whole article! Did you think that the article was a legal brief on the Logan Act?
What I struggle to understand is the reflexive urge to claim that her words don't mean what she said (which we see a bit of below). This is a woman who is part of the government of the most powerful nation on the planet, a legislator whose words rule the lives of hundreds of millions. If she doesn't mean what she says, or doesn't know what the words she says mean, then ... ???
Maybe a badly misinformed staffer provided the ridiculous Logan Act distinction. If so and she isn't vetting what gets sent out-- it doesn't bode well.
I agree with BDick59 and Doug Salzmann and would add that it is patently evident Omar and all of the New Left with a capital L are bent on the destruction of the Bill of Rights. Omar is not to be imbued as virtuous in any way just because she might, on occasion, take a position on foreign policy or other policy with which GG or I agree. To her and her squad, everything Trump does or says it bad because he says or does it. To them, being "not Trump" is in and of itself a virtue. They are the walking definition of what Nietzsche described as the Slave Morality, the defining of oneself by what one is not. Thus, Omar defends an indefensible person: John Brennan. Trump's biggest mistake, and it proved fatal, was not purging the Security State which was and remains the greatest threat to our real nationaal security with a small S.
No question the goal of the left today is a total and complete dismantling of the enlightenment principles that underlie civilized society. They crave subjugation of of the citizenry and total collectivism. But the so called “conservatives” and especially the neocons probably did as much or more damage in just a few years time: their legacy is the surveillance state and the forever wars, and we are just beginning to see just how dangerous it really is.
Enlightenment principles...that underlie civilized society. Nowhere does that assert that our nation has always lived up to those principles.
To the extent we have DEPARTED from those enlightenment principles there has been “killing of millions” among other injustices.
Are you arguing against enlightenment principles? Then have the courage to actually argue against them. Are you opposed to free speech, dissent, the right to assembly? Are you opposed to the right to be secure in your person and property?
Today’s left is rife with authoritarians who will silence anyone if they can. They despise human liberty. There is simply no way to subjugate people into a collectivist slave pen and do it with voluntary mutual agreement. It ultimately rests on force and compulsion.
"Today’s left is rife with authoritarians who will silence anyone if they can. They despise human liberty"
Yes, a minority on the left today are attracted to the idea of censoring "hate speech." But throughout American history -- and to the present -- it has been the left of various eras that vindicated human rights against a rightwing and status quo that denied them.
What you wrote is absurd, especially this bit :"No question the goal of the left today is a total and complete dismantling of the enlightenment principles that underlie civilized society."
It is. You completely ignore that "the left" -- both now and historically -- advocates for human rights, notwithstanding that some minority of them now favor "hate speech" restrictions.
What is clear is that any ideology eventually descends into the garbage can (Zizek) of human consciousness and corruption, including both leftism and liberalism.
What is also clear is that leftists always engage in backstabbing and infighting.
I'm quite amused by claims that "the left" is antagonistic to "enlightenment" values and attempting to destroy civilization and civilized society. Support is seldom offered for such assertions, and when it is, it is virtually always meritless bilge.
Sure thing, Noam Chomsky -- Destroyer of All that is Good.
Look at Rousseau's utopian romanticism for one of the prime examples of early "leftist" illiberalism and anti-rationalism.
(I'm defining classical/medieval liberalism as Constitutionalism, rule of law, in the context of decentralized politics, pre-1492, pre-empire.)
Prior to that, the counter-reformation was anti-rationalist and illberal, which may have partly inspired Rousseau.
The problem with the left is that it has to create faux religious dogma to replace actual religion because human nature is wired by evolution to seek meaning and purpose.
Given that leftism is a really shitty faux religion with a poor model of human nature, some solutions become obvious.
Any leftist that can't admit that their ideology is like "eating out of the garbage can" (Zizek) is doomed to generate crappy thinking, including bad political ideas.
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Historically, liberalism, leftism and progressivism and their almost infinite offshoots, fragmentations and atomizations*, have been co-emergent features of evolving WEIRD(O) culture: western democratic capitalism and industrialism. Western civilization is unique in that its values are more strongly AGENTIC and individualistic-achievement oriented that traditional cultures, where values are based on communion (nurturance within the clan).
That is why the nuclear family is a crucial part of the modern western mode of culture, it was a break from the extended family system of (Celtic, Druid) clannish cultures.
Classical liberalism is what you got your sense of individualism from.
It also gave the peasant classes more opportunities to become literate and numerate urban commoners with educations.
It also provided industrialization and technological and scientific innovations, including advanced medicine.
It generated the wealth needed for the increase in urban commoner populations, education, technology, and modern rationalism.
It created the participatory, representative political structures needed for Constitutional order and free speech.
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The industrial revolution (1800s) created severe disruptions to that system, leading to the idea that socio-economic "progress" (an expanding corporate-state) would solve the problems that Dickens described, urban slums, industrial wage slavery, and so forth.
Then illiberalism was revived and woven back into "leftist" revolutionary and radical ideologies.
By the end of WW2, "progress" began to lead to a suburban consumer economy, and as increasing numbers of people went off to college by the 1960s, they were indoctrinated into such postmodern illiberalism and anti-rationalism.
By the late 1970s, radical leftists were viciously attacking scientists such as E.O. Wilson for his theory of sociobiology (which undermined the idea that leftist indoctrination of the masses would create a utopia).
Then the culture wars set in and the left permanently began to circle the drain of neomarxist postmodern deconstructive nihilism.
So, "Art's" absurd assertion that the "left" is all good, and "liberalism" (neoliberalism) is all bad is grotesquely farcical, pure bullshit, an oversimplification that is astonishingly bizarre and ridiculous.
Correct. E.O. Wilson's sociobiology provided credible evidence that biology both determines and constrains how people think and what their values are.
That evidence contradicted the "blank slate" ideology of the New Left, who had hoped to create a neomarxist utopia by brainwashing kids in public schools.
Systematic rationalism and institutional science have larger problems with corruption and the collapse/disruption of the "Blue church" model (hierarchies of curated expertise) of collective sense making by network effects (shared learning, open information ecosystems).
(again) far left "woke" cancel culture, CRT, etc. is neomarxist postmodern nihilism.
Because "woke" crap is neomarxist, it is useful to neoliberals in that it can be used to negate the class struggle of real marxists (or anyone else concerned about the working class).
Any major paradigm shift results in social chaos, disruption, violence and wars (which were abundant before the enlightenment).
The era of modern rationalism, which unfortunately appears to have played itself out at this point, has arguably reduced violence, war, disease and starvation beyond any other period in human history (see S. Pinker's data project)
What do we mean here about (Christian) enlightenment principles like, say GENOCIDE of indigenous peoples the world over? Did you even fucking READ and COMpREHEND Greenwalds long column with lots of, uh, WORDS?
Argumentatively speaking, your comment manages to pack a whole bunch of fallacies into short space.
Do you understand that taking the CONCEPT of Enlightenment principles (free speech, due process, etc) and attempting to somehow equate that to advocating “genocide” - is just a demonstration of pathetically bad thinking on your part? You should literally spend some time thinking about and learning basic logic before you say ANYTHING AT ALL TO ANYONE. It will save you a lot of embarrassment.
Thom's point is valid. People can bloviate all they want to about high-minded principles, but the proof is in the pudding. The European "enlightenment principles" that are being discussed must have had some pretty powerful built-in limitations if they could exist alongside genocide and the slave trade. That's not to say that we should throw the baby out with the bathwater, but the period of the Enlightenment cannot and should not be the end of the story of human advancement. It seems like the rightwing screeches just around the time when disenfranchised minorities and populations start to stand on their hind legs in an attempt to expand the principles of the very "enlightenment" the rightwing professes to champion.
TP's assertion that enlightenment values are "Christian" is itself a absurdly scrambled narrative (along with everything else he has ever said that I can recall).
The church engaged in a massive counter-reformation against the people that were creating the enlightenment.
It has been argued that the enlightenment was a revival of greco-roman ("pagan") rationalism and naturalism.
"Christianity" in contrast was in the mythic supernaturalist tradition of the middle east.
That's a bigger conversation than I'm able or willing to tackle. But on the face of it, your suggested formula seems a little simplistic to me. The Abrahamic traditions are complex phenomena which both advanced humanity and held us back.
The word valid has a specific meaning and Thom’s comment has no validity. And Nowhere do I suggest that basic enlightenment principles are the “end all be all”. I would agree they merely allow us to proceed from there on a civilized basis. Whereas if we silence dissent, if we assume guilt until proven innocent, if we can search and seize property at will, etc., then there is no chance at all for a widespread civilized society.
If a nation or specific ruling body (or even the very people espousing them) ignored or departed from basic enlightenment principles, all of which are based on observing basic human rights, if that ruling body did the opposite and crushed human rights, it’s not valid to argue that the principles themselves are their own opposite. It’s argumentatively invalid.
look at countries today that weren't built on enlightenment principles. are they better off? more just? treat minorities better? these are subjective judgements but you get the picture.
attackers of enlightenment principles live in their own reality, one that never existed.
"the period of the Enlightenment cannot and should not be the end of the story of human advancement" principles of individual rights and liberties should be the end goal. that's it. because every attempt to advance further has actually been a march backwards into another version of feudalism.
Your profanity and name-calling show why Leftists want, need and rely on censorship. Ability to reason and argue? Merit? Those concepts are pure "racist". Onward! "Christian" soldiers. Heil, Obama!
Yeah, the first time he saw my comments under a Greenwald article, he started calling me names, impugned my intelligence and, proof of his situation / stature, started talking about the size of my penis. My conclusion is all of those are projections about his own circumstance, just like his calling you a troll - it would explain his rather angry disposition. -shrug-
Art, you actually are a ridiculous dumb fuck, as demonstrated in your inability (as far as I know) to respond to George's deconstruction of that awful article you kept posting about the "political compass" garbage.
Your attempts at defining away the massive dysfunction in leftist subcultures are beyond silly.
Again, the penis remarks were a METAPHOR, which you apparently still do not "get", about the flaccid nature of most of your comments, which are low IQ, dishonest and cowardly.
The left is massively dysfunctional. (groupthink, etc.)
You are massively dysfunctional. (groupthink, etc.)
Your defense of left is massively dysfunctional. (groupthink, etc.)
The astonishing thing about your idiotic comments is that they are in response another leftist goof talking about "wet panties".
LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL
You are such a dumb fuck and so consistently full of limp dick contradictions it is almost beyond belief.
" Leftists want, need and rely on censorship. Ability to reason and argue? "
Directly contrary to my experience, being raised rightwing and eventually deprogramming from of it via reasoned argument and facts. By definition, conservatives favor the status quo and/or harken back to some imagined Golden Age, where the rights of certain humans were not upheld.
While you Liberals cheer for Obama droning the shit out of "towel head" children ("The Terrorists") and comes back to "double tap" the adults trying to dig them out of the rubble with their bare hands. When he's not condemning gay marriage. And let's not forget your FDR's concentration camps for American citizens of Japanese ancestry. And the KKK Wizards like Sen. Robert Byrd, along with those manning the fire hoses, police dogs and standing in the school house door - were not Republicans. It must be nice to be self-worshiping and live in delusion.
Are you familiar with the dozens of socialist countries throughout the last 100 years? Do you understand they are slave pens, in which human rights barely exist? Have you ever been to such countries? Which part of these leftist tyrannies are not understood?
"Are you familiar with the dozens of socialist countries throughout the last 100 years?"
The Communist ones, you mean?
"Do you understand they are slave pens, in which human rights barely exist?"
Yes, when I think Gulag, I think the Nordic countries
Are you aware that in the 20th century, socialist and Communist parties in America opposed Jim Crow -- and accepted black members as equals -- well before either of the two major parties did? That US. leftists favored a halt to persecuting gay people well in advance of other groups? That they supported unions and a living wage, and workplace safety, as against entrenched conservative, capitalist power?
"Have you ever been to such countries? Which part of these leftist tyrannies are not understood?"
Have you ever been to the Jim Crow South? The closet for gay people in most of American history? The conservative establishment's destruction of labor, and labor leaders like Eugene Debs? The left fought conserbvatives and the status quo, and did so effectively. (MLK was a socialist.)
Well, Republicans are now the far left??? U.S. Grant and Warren Harding were the two strongest opponents of the Jim Crow South among all are Presidents after the Civil War, by a wide margin. And they were on the right end of the Republican Party.
And are Democrats now the far right???? Woodrow Wilson was the most extreme opponent of equality of blacks and whites, by far, and most historians consider him to have been on the far left. Yet you consider him to have been on the far right? Franklin Roosevelt was the second strongest opponent of equal rights (and put people of Japanese ancestry into concentration camps), and is usually considered on the left end of the Democratic Party, but now is to be called "far-right"?
If average Americans were more intelligent, they would insist on the social welfare "safety nets" of Western Europe, all of which are "Socialist" by your trailer-park definition.
Ah yes, if only they were smarter they would surrender their lives and liberties to bureaucrats and parasitic politicians (professional con artists) to design their “social welfare states). Those darn people need to be more obedient to the slave masters.
The EU bureaucracy is a totalitarian mess in service of international bank pirates and various industrial oligarchs.
I saw a family textile business in Spain completely destroyed in the 1990s as a result of EU trade policy. Then the family was forced to pay all of the social security retirement and medical for life for all of the 100s of workers they had to layoff, a loss of about $5 to 10 million.
The city hall (BCN socialists) also fined the family about $1/2 million for a bad roof on a derelict industrial building that was going to be demolished and redeveloped into retail and residences. The alternative proposed by the city council was to rebuild the roof (at the cost of $1/2 million) to meet code, then get the demolition and building permits approved for the new construction.
To be fair, the same kind of crap went on during the "fascist" era when the dictator Franco was in power (Franco created enormous dysfunctional, inefficient bureaucracies to give jobs to the his supporters), but such problems could usually be resolved by making obsequious gestures or paying relatively small bribes to petty bureaucrats.
Fuck your fake indignation and authentic prudery. Fascists INVENTED name calling. Look at Herr Trumpf. Imitating the Big Lies of Herr Hitler. And American puffing itself up over being a FAKE NEWS EXCEPTIONAL NATION. Big Lies you trade in, big lies for the credulous, ignorant and stupid. (Not name calling, just descriptions. DO YOU HAVE A DICIONARY?!)
Your righteous anger and witty employment of German to illustrate "Herr Trumpf's" Hitlery orangeness, not to mention your judicious use of ALL CAPS, proves without a doubt that you are correct. Not just in this particular argument, but in all things.
And speaking for myself, who needs a dictionary when there is always someone around like you who can so clearly and logically explain things?
Truly Third Grade. Unwiped Asshole Troll. Too bad actually literate people don’t read Greenwald ... humans armed with more that fevered deranged belief systems and Fourth Grade playground insults. You two-bit, four-flushing losers would have been locked into your lockers and I would not have needed anyone to assist me in doing so.
The unfortunate truth is that Omar and the rest of the "Progressives", from AOC to "trust the intelligence agencies" Ro Khanna, are frauds whose purpose is to sheepdog low-information voters obsessed with the culture war into supporting the DNC. Whether its voting to support Adam Schiff's bill to criminalize reporting the crimes of the CIA, lining up to vote for crypt-keeper Nancy Pelosi, demanding new and overbearing corporate and government restrictions on free speech or refusing to utter the name of Julian Assange, "Progressives" are just another bunch of authoritarians. The only thing defining them from Steny Hoyer is their constant harping on identity politics, their cynical deployment of "social justice" rhetoric and an elixir of youth.
I know about their hatred for free speech, their fealty to the CIA, their undying loyalty to Nancy Pelosi, their silence on the torture and persecution of Julian Assange and their identity politics agenda which serves only to polarize poor and working people against each other based on their skin color and immutable physical characteristics.
That's all anyone with any brains and morality needs to know.
"Art" is emitting his usual mental diarrhea. Go back in time before neoliberalism was in effect in a widespread way (1970s), and the "left" was STILL a giant pile of crap that generated failure after failure when implemented.
Go further back, pre-marxism, and the "left" was simply the literate urban commoners (French National Assembly, 1789).
Yes, the first actual "leftists" were business persons.
Another counter-narrative fact:
In what is arguably the best piece of american writing in history, Henry David Thoreau's _Civil Disobedience_ linked big govt, slavery and imperialism.
Was Thoreau a "classical liberal"? A "leftist"???
By the early 1900s, both Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, insane xenophobes and racists, but "progressives", had made internationalist american imperialism acceptable to the mainstream. The women's movement of the time, post-Victorians, signed on to Wilsonian imperialism in exchange for Wilson supporting prohibition.
For many decades the "left" made all sorts of appalling and silly excuses for Stalinist and Maoist atrocities.
The idea that there is something inherently pure and good about the "left" is beyond absurd.
The best case that can be made for leftism is that modern systematic rationalism is needed to maintain industrial civilization. In the USA that would be a decentralized "small govt" form of anti-imperialist left-libertarianism mixed with right-anarchist natural aristocracy.
The problem with most forms of leftism, progressivism, liberalism and neoliberalism is democracy worship, the corporate-state and state-therapeutism.
"Art's" mental diarrhea is a particularly bizarre, confused example of idiot leftism, but it does illustrate the contradictions, confusions, stupidity and dysfunction typical of most of the left.
I can guarantee that my regular sources of news would never have brought up this or criticized Rep. Omar in this way, which is why I’m so glad I’m subscribed here. I just want the truth and for both sides to be justifiably called out, and to be able to form an opinion based on that.
The good news for the country is Karma is still at work.
Carter Page just sued Brennan, Clapper, Comey, McCabe and gang for $70,000,000.
Sadly the government offers employees no qualified immunity when they do things in their job that are illegal, so the legal fees each of these guys is going to have to pay is going to hit them hard.
$250k retainers and $750/hour legal fees and each of them likely carries $5 million umbrella liability coverage personally.
Carter should end up with $20-$30 million and the country will be made whole...kind of.
I always wondered if the nation would be made whole after 4 years of Russia Russia Russia.
Between the Durham Report, Special Counsel that will likely be appointed next month..and these civil suits, maybe there’s reason to be hopeful.
My primary takeaway from this piece is that Twitter is absolutely the most dangerous, and poorly utilized "tool" ever used to govern regardless of party affiliation (or lack thereof). If Jack Dorsey truly wants to limit the harms that come from "misinformation" he would do the world a favor by shutting down.
Yup. And a multitude of serious thinkers would do themselves and the world of ideas and discourse a huge favor by abandoning that maelstrom of murk and malevolence. Then, if Dorsey wants to keep running it, it can serve us all as an outlet for the crazies and the vapid.
Glenn you are probably giving Omar too much credit to think she was genuinely trying to make a legal argument.
Like most Americans today, both inside and outside of government, she will posture as a defender of the constitution or “our democracy” when it suits a particular situation that furthers their wrestling for power. The next moment they will advocate for sacrificing the crucial enlightenment principles that underlie civilized society, if it furthers their wrestling for power or momentarily helps their “team” gain a point or two in the battle for power in Washington.
In this case she feigns a legal argument which on its face sounds sounds sober and deliberate, yet upon further investigation (thank you Glenn), is nothing more than trying to win a point or two against an Israel government that she abhors.
It’s the common thread today: casual willingness to discard absolutely crucial enlightenment principles (such as due process or the right to dissent) to pick up a point or two against one’s opposition.
I should have added-- you don't need to look any farther re: you last line, than the bizarre politicization of the debate on COVID. As a medical professional we have a saying going around the industry-- the **only** science govt's, public health officials and their funders understand is political science.
You do not want to get into a nuanced intellectual argument with Ilhan Omar.
You’ll win (easily) but you’ll be so much worse for having even tried to engage in a productive conversation intended to seek understanding in order for you and us to be understood on the issue of the Logan Act.
Upon further analysis it turns out that--in a clear violation of the Logan Act, by the way--the unfortunate Iranian physicist was killed by a falling pallet of U.S. currency whose parachute failed to open when it was dropped out of a C-130 by order of the Office of the President-Elect's National Security Transition Team.
When asked for a comment, John Brennan reportedly said, "Oops!"
Alas, America now has two fascist parties, distinguished from each other primarily by one having a vocal socialist wing, and the other having a vocal classical liberal (or as that's called in America, "conservative") wing.
I ended up here after seeing Mr. Greenwald's interviews with Reason and Michael Malice. This type of piece is exactly what the mainstream, self identified liberals need to see. They are missing the the important stories, even when one of their own is shouting from the rooftop trying to showing. As a right libertarian, I truly appreciate the work being done here.
Libertarianism outside the United States generally refers to libertarian socialism and similar schools of thought concerned with social and economic equity. Right libertarianism, in contrast, recognizes private property and by extension opposes most or all government actions.
1. The Logan Act. It reminds me of a part of Canadian Military rules...that one could be charged with(and people were)...”conduct unbecoming a serviceman”.
2. There’s a meme floating around: “Mommy, a man touched me in a bad way.” to which mommy replies, “Was he a Democrat or a Republican?”
"The right to dissent from, and to work against, the official foreign policy of the U.S. Government is vital: foundational to Constitutional liberties."
"Once you start arrogating unto yourself the right to use authoritarian and lawless methods, and to align behind repressive institutions like CIA and FBI, you become exactly what you started off believing you were fighting.”
Glenn: Unless you mistakenly left out the words “openly” and “legally" in your first quote, it is wholly incompatible with the second one. What Donald Trump exposed was a permanent bureaucracy of unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats who, as James Comey put it, answer to a “higher calling” that reeks of your second quote--even as they and their media allies (many of whom are retired spooks to begin with) present themselves as paragons of integrity described by your first quote.
Decent Americans know the difference. They also know that, barring a miracle, justice will be denied. In short, the Constitution is being replaced by an “any means necessary” agenda that definitely includes an attempted coup, and quite possibly the wholesale (and maybe permanent) delegitimization of national elections.
There’s an entire political class of consultants in DC who get paid very well just to coach these politicians from never having to return a call to a reporter if they don’t want to.
The very reason Glenn is here at SubStack is what’s enabled these Establishment types in the bureaucracy to maintain the status quo. Remember, the very nature of the Bureaucracy is self-preservation.
If the 4th Estate is unwilling or unable to hold them accountable, they have free reign to do to us whatever thy want to do without any regard for accountability, let alone morality.
"Consultants" aka Lobbyists, don't just get paid. They write most of the laws. And the wholesale corporatization of the media have transformed them from watchdogs to status quo collaborators.
I think Glenn knows this. I thought the words "openly and legally" were implied and that this very point was made multiple times throughout the article. When speaking of today's CIA and FBI, one can now assume their methods are the very opposite of "open and legal," just look at the Flynn debacle and lying to the FISA court, leaking memos, circular reporting, CIA media plants, fake dossier, etc.
Trump CAMPAIGNED against endless wars and on putting "America first" but he has continued the drone wars, increased the military budget, invaded a sovereign foreign country and killed Gen. Qassem Soleimani, (a war crime), ignored international law and allowed the Christianized, Rapture-Ready Fascists surrounding him to decide policy vis a vis Israel/Palestine, and as he pulled a few troops out of one area, he has increased troops in another. It's not too late, though. He still could bring all of our troops home. NOW! For good! And, pardon Assange, Manning, and Snowden, and close Guantanamo...now that would make him a truly consequential POTUS!
The Logan Act was passed by the same Congress that passed the Alien and Sedition Acts. The Sedition Act criminalized inciting rebellion against lawful authority, which is the very definition of dissent. So I think the intent of Congress was fairly clear; they wished to ensure that the United States was never confused with a democracy. Unfortunately, they have had only mixed success.
The Logan Act was passed after Mr. Logan, a private citizen, proposed to French lawmakers that they could improve relations between the two nations by ending France's trade embargo against the United States. France subsequently did this, Logan was extensively praised in the US press, and Congress in a fit of rage passed the Logan Act. This origin helps to clarify that the explicit intent of the act is to criminalize any actions by private citizens that might reduce the probability of a war. Therefore the test of Mr. Brennan's tweet is whether it reduces the chance of a war with Iran. If so, it clearly violates the Logan Act, so let's consider the content of the tweet.
Mr. Brennan tells Iran to 'wait for the return of responsible American leadership' before acting. In other words, he is telling them to wait for a long time, possibly forever. This is a provocative statement that clearly increases the chance of war, and it is therefore evident that it does not violate the Logan Act.
If i were to play Dr. Frankenstein, hoping to build the most loathsome, smug, vapid, weasel bureaucrat, Brennan would get the part as the monster. Great piece, Glenn. But Omar is a corrupt and despicable politician.
Good piece, and I think it would have been at least as good if Omar's misguided comments had been relegated to incidental mention. The truth is, almost certainly, that she doesn't have a clue about the reality of the Logan Act and her pronouncements about it just aren't important. Her mainstream-Dem-like instinct to defend liberally-rehabilitated evildoers such as Brennan are more interesting.
I understand the point, but Rep. Omar is a very influential lawmake, who has a very powerful public platform. I don't think it makes sense to treat her as some irrelevant fringe figure. That said, I've never seen her evince any interest in the Logan Act before, and I'd love to know what really prompted that tweet to me despite my frequent defenses of her - I have my theories involving her slimy Communications aide who used to work for Keith Ellison -- but no matter: the claim was sent out under her name and it is a deeply false and damaging message to send.
With respect, Glenn, while it is laudable that you have defended the presence of Omar and Tlaib as dissidents from the prevailing foreign policy orthodoxy, and it is true that the right and ability to dissent from that--or any other--prevailing orthodoxy strengthens all true democracies, it is not surprising that she responded to you as she did, defending the odious hypocrite John Brennan and the use of the Logan Act as a blunt political weapon against her (and the Democratic Party's) political adversaries.
You presume that she shares with you and genuine liberals a reverence for freedom of speech and thought, and that, especially because you have defended her in the past, she should should therefore recognize you as one of the "good guys," and that there must be some other explanation for her tweet other than the most obvious. That being, of course, that she does NOT stand for the same liberal principles that you do, and that she would censor you more quickly, more effectively, and more permanently than the intolerant leftists who drove you to resign from the Intercept if she could and suited her political purposes at any given time to do so.
In short, Omar does not pursue good faith debate and healthy democratic dissent. She only pursues power, by any means necessary.
Based on what a guy (culturally left) I know from her districts said, she gets attention there by spouting idiotic reactionary platitudes ("diversity!") that appeal to ignorant immigrants and dumb leftist college voters (SJWs).
Once she built that momentum, the rest of the idiot leftists and grifters from the nonprofit-industrial-complex jumped on board.
She is a classic example of the lowest common denominator form of (leftist) politics.
This betrays some confusion:
"[Omar] does NOT stand for the same liberal principles that you do, and that she would censor you more quickly, more effectively, and more permanently than the intolerant leftists who drove you to resign from the Intercept if she could and suited her political purposes at any given time to do so."
Greenwald does not stand for "liberal principles" unless you mean the classically liberal ones that undergird the Bill of Rights. And if so, there's no evidence that Ilhan Omar does not support those.
As for The Intercept, Greenwald's criticism of them is that they've moved very far into the merely *liberal* camp, and no longer publish leftist voices who advocate non-mainstream-liberal ideas. (That, and that they censored him.)
That is precisely what I mean by "liberal principles." What do you mean when you say that?
"What do you mean when you say that?"
"Liberals" in long-common, contemporary American parlance are establishment Democrats -- also known as neoliberals. To communicate effectively I generally modify the world "liberal" with the adjective "classical" to make clear that's what I mean when I do.
However common this may be, what you're saying is that liberal = illiberal.
I'd prefer Braxton's use of the term to describe actual liberal principles rather than conceding the rhetorical ground to the fake liberals.
This.
It is probably as simple as in this particular situation defending Brennan happens to be consistent with her negative sentiment toward Israel. In truth she probably doesn’t know much about the Logan Act, she simply wants Israel to lose some points.
Whatever one may think of Omar and her motive here, Israel should certainly lose points for yet another targeted killing.
It very well could have been Saudi Arabia that did it or our own CIA.
After all, why would the Crown Prince take a meeting with Netanyahu?
That meeting alone suggests Israel did it (with SA’s blessing).
Truth is, SA has more incentive to to this targeted hit than Israel.
Or Brennan’s old team may still be doing wet work for the Military Industrial complex in the US.
Nothing signals “give the Defense Department more budget” than unrest in the MiddleEast.
See this is something to explore. We can't be sure Israeli is behind the assassination, can we? I mean, perhaps Israeli, but I wouldn't put it past our own gov't to be behind it. A false flag, of sorts, so stoke tensions in the ME and assure US budget for Israeli and aggression toward Iran on behalf of Israeli. Our CIA is out of controls and only God knows what the hell they are up to. One can't believe ANYTHING they purport to do or not do, and especially one cannot believe John Brennan, an absolute lying menace.
It could well have been anyone. The real perpetrators are unlikely to advertise it openly. It could have been some Ayatollah who figured they didn't need him any more and what better use for a no-longer-productive asset than to make him a martyr?
I'm not saying that is what happened, my point is otherwise; there's no truth-value in speculating as we have no reliable evidence as to what happened and very likely never will have any.
You insist on reliable evidence before jumping to a perfectly good conclusion? How unAmerican!
Absolutely. Israel's assassinations are as heinous as Obama's and Trump's. That's why it doesn't help to see such a partisan figure like Omar stoop to defending Brennan and the Logan Act. She could have made the case against assassination without stooping to such a low level.
Exactly-- why opine on the Logan Act?
Presumably because she is turning into the usual D party sell out loyalist for fame and fortune.
Yes, targeted killings are bad. But a full-blown nuclear exchange would be the worst war humanity has ever seen. One of the foremost duties of a nation is to protect its citizens. That duty is not overridden by far away commentators favoring a blanket policy against assassination.
In what fantasy world does the continuing existence of a scientist who once led an effort that knowledgeable experts agree ended nearly two decades ago constitute a threat of a nuclear exchange of any size?
And in what fantasy world would the assassination of a single scientist, or a hundred of them, meaningfully reduce such a threat, if it existed?
In the fantasy world where Kiefer Sutherland has to torture your next-door neighbour to save Manhattan from the ticking dirty bomb.
There are so many irrational assumptions in the "full-blown nuclear exchange" between Iran and Israel that it takes some time to catalogue them all. Firstly the Iranians have been steadfast in their view that nuclear weapons are un-islamic, while their enemies who claim this is mere pretext have severe problems with steadfast commitments to their own stated principles. That doesn't mean the Iranians aren't foxing - it just means that if one is going to discount one side's statements out of hand, it ought to be the side with the biggest and most numerous such lapses. (That is not the Iranians, imho.)
Secondly, the assumption that the Iranians are willing to be utterly destroyed by a rain of nuclear warheads from Israeli, American, British, French, etc submarine-launched missiles, just because they consider Israel their enemies and regional rivals is risible at best.
Third, if the Israelis were behind this, they are actively provoking the very thing they claim to want to avoid. Only people who think they cannot lose are that reckless. But there isn't anyone who cannot ever lose. That is a stupidly fatal conceit.
I could go on. Perhaps you're noticing?
The scientist who was assassinated seems to have had a lot of security for someone with no active role. Do you think Israel or whoever killed him just for kicks? I guess it's possible, but forgive me for not believing your knowledgeable experts. Especially since Iran has very good reasons to want atomic bombs.
One thing Israel has learned from paying attention to Jewish history is, when someone says (repeatedly) that they want/intend to kill you, believe them. It’s amusing to read and listen to all the highly principled opiners (?) who of course would shed gallons of crocodile tears should Iran ever follow through with their open threats to annihilate the Jewish State. Yeah well, thanks but no thanks, we have learned quite nicely thank you that we can count in the end on no one but ourselves. When Egypt blockaded the Straits of Tiran in May of 1967, an unequivocal act of war, and sent massive troops to the Sinai Peninsula on Israel’s border, matching those sent by Syria to the Golan to the edge of the Sea of Galilee, Israel begged President Johnson to see if he could use America’s influence to ease the situation. Crickets. Same with the UN.....louder crickets. Israel had no choice but to deal with what appeared to be imminent war by preempting.
Same with Saddam’s nuclear reactor at Osirik, as well as the one being built by Assad in Syria with NK’s help.
And as I can already “hear” the standard responses of “Israeli occupation” as a result of that 1967 war, I will remind anybody interested in the truth, that immediately following that victory Israel offered every single inch of land taken in exchange for peace. What we got in response was the famous “3 no’s” emanating from the Arab conference in Khartoum.....no peace, no negotiations, and no recognition. As it is, Israel returned over 80%. of the land taken when it gave back the Sinai to Egypt in exchange for what turned out to be a very cold, but stable peace agreement. The Sinai wasn’t just a huge chunk of mountainous desert but a massive defensive barrier as well as a source of oil that Israel discovered and began extracting there that would have kept her energy independent for a hundred years.
Nothing happens in a vacuum, an inconvenient thing to remember when the Israel bashers here begin their traditional rants.
" Israel had no choice but to deal with what appeared to be imminent war by preempting."
Another Zionist embracing Zionist TERRORISM. Your "Jewish State" was founded in terror and ethic cleansing of the native Arabs. Zionist heroes such as Vladimir Jabotinsky in 1920s Palestine explicitly endorsed violence to remove the native Arabs from Palestine -- which is what Zionists then did. And they hold the Arab descendants of that violence in apartheid conditions in Gaza and the West Bank.
See Dr. Juan Cole's analysis of the Farsi statements in question.
The 1967 war was not the most important timeline, Arab resentment over Zionist invasion or colonization goes back to the end of WW1 when the British, French and Russians carved up the territory of the Ottoman empire (defeated German ally), including Palestine and what is now Israel (neither was ever a historical state during 1500 years of Islamic history).
The British wanted to get rid of European Jews so they allowed them to invade/settle and use terrorism steal land from Arabs, both Muslim and Christians, in Palestine.
The religious aspects are that Jerusalem is a holy site for Muslims because Muhammad ascended to heaven there. More generally, Muslims see invasion, colonization and the use of terrorism to steal land that has been Arab/Muslim territory for 1,000+ years as being deeply offensive and dishonorable. (the history of the Crusades is not forgotten)
Both "sides" have a history of arrogance, religious bigotry and ethno-centrism. Historically, Muslims saw Jews and Christians as corrupted and wayward inheritors of the Abrahamic lineage. During the golden age of Islamic civilization Europe was a backwater full of malodorous semi-pagan tribes.
Modern Jews and Christians see Muslims as backward.
The middle east has long been geopolitically significant for military reasons (Russia attempts to harass and interrupt trade to western europe in the middle east) because of the trade routes between China and India (silk road, spice and tea trade, etc.) and the Middle East and Europe. (now oil)
So, the ultimate reality is defined by oil, trade, and geopolitics, raw power and raw greed, but a bunch of fairly silly cultural bs about "saving face", as well as religious and moral rationale is used by all sides to posture and insist that their interests are more legitimate.
The Jewish claim have a right to return to their ancestral homeland and related religious nonsense is particularly absurd given that the Old Testament clearly states that the Israelites (one Phoenician tribe) stole the land of the Cannanites (another Phoenician tribe) to begin with.
The reality is that oil money and geopolitics have forced a rough alignment of:
Sunni Arabs (Saudis, etc), the USA, Israel and western europe
vs
Shi'a Iranians, Syrians, Russia/China
with Turkey sitting on the fence looking at how to gain most from taking one side or the other at various points.
The Iranians are extremely clever people most of the time, and they have managed to extend their influence substantially by exploiting the absurd blunders of the USA for decades (as have the Russians).
Keep in mind that before WW1/WW2, there were no modern nation states (as defined in the Treaty of Westphalia) in the middle east, just ever shifting tribal territories and shifting boundaries of dynasties and empires depending on wars of conquest and disputes over dynastic succession.
I don't think it is useful to talk about stealing land as if the Israelis are the only people to do it. The area-formerly-known-as-Palestine has been fought over by many different tribes, nations, tongues, and peoples, for a very long time. Noting that the current Israeli state is far from unique in this regard does not equate to approving of any specific policies of theirs.
As for the Crusades, they were very small episodes amongst a thousand years of Islamic expansion into the West. Again, not attempting to justify them, but pretending they were some horrific crime against a pacifist Islam quietly minding its own business is doing fairly eye-watering violence to the historical record.
The Battle of Vienna, for example, didn't happen because the Austrians went crusading in Palestine, but because the Muslims went jihadi-ing in Austria.
Shi'a Iranians, [Iraqis,] Syrians, Russia/China
That the Iranians have threatened to annihilate Israel is strongly disputed. I don't know what all the Iranian heads of state have said on the subject (perhaps you know?) but what Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said was that it deserves such a fate and that there will be no peace until it is gone. One is perfectly entitled to believe he was making a threat without being seen to threaten, and this was just his way of dogwhistling to various Iranian clients in the region, but I also remind you that if you heard the dogwhistle then you're the dog.
Perhaps some people consider living in constant fear of devastation, which fear is only intermittently relieved by assassinating your neighbours, to be peace, but I don't think it qualifies. Peace only occurs when both sides agree to settle their differences without violence. Violence can be one-sided but peace never can be.
“That the Iranians have threatened to annihilate Israel is strongly disputed.”
LOL
The middle east is a very strong contender for being the worst place on the planet.
The climate in generally unsuitable for industrial civilization and modern rationalist culture and democratic-capitalism.
Most of the gene pools are inbred due to cousin marriage and low IQ, the Arabs being even more inbred than other cultures in the region.
As such, it is the worst place imaginable for the USA to try to impose its values or to support an absurd colonial outpost like Israel or various puppet petro-dictatorships.
a very bigoted statement from an obviously very intelligent guy.
Yes.
Really she is that simplistic in her views on rights and on foreign policy. If she is that easily waylaid-- god help America
Her posturing and pandering was obvious from the beginning (dogmatic anti-colonialist rhetoric, race grifting, etc.). Astonishing that anyone buys that kind of crap.
That is exactly the reason she has spoken out now.
She is influential.
And she is a lawmaker.
But she is definitely not an influential lawmaker.
Omar is a cross between race grifters such as Tawana Brawley and eco-catastrophist grifters such as Greta.
Rep. Omar is a very influential lawmaker? She is a shiny exotic toy / puppet, and nothing else.
She has a cool turban thingy, which keeps the relentlessly and brutally hot equatorial winter sun in Minnesota from damaging her delicate, active brain cells.
I think you vastly overrate her intellect. I agree with Doug - from following her for some years now, I doubt if she understands much of which she spouts. She's a mirror image of Trump in that regard - she seems to say things to provoke, not because she's thought them through.
I think the entire point of the article was to highlight hypocrisy. Regardless of whether or not Omar understands the legal points of the Logan Act made by Glenn, she certainly knows who Brennan is, and that is point enough don't you think? There are many people here who are, in my opinion, missing the real point of the article (its not about the Logan Act).
I think the point of this article IS the Logan Act - that's what he hammers on. The inherent hypocrisy of politicians is hardly newsworthy enough for Glenn. And we can all agree with the main thrust of Glenn's argument, but find shortcoming in specific parts of the article. That's my observation - just because someone doesn't repeat Glenn's argument doesn't mean they're disagreeing with it. I agree with Glenn that the Logan Act is unconstitutional (or should be - only the Supreme Court can decide that), but think he gives Omar far too much credit as a thinker. She's a flamethrower, not an intellectual, and expecting her to behave otherwise is only going to lead to disappointment.
"She's a flamethrower"
No evidence that she is. What a condescending description of smart, progressive congreswoman who well supports just domestic and foreign policies.
Lol - seriously? Criticizing a female elected official is now "condescending"? You're really quick to play that victim card. The idea that women public figures should be immune from criticism is itself far more condescending than is describing a flamethrower as a flamethrower.
As far as your description of her as smart, there's damn little evidence of that. Getting caught in multiple financial scandals regarding her campaign funds? Getting caught making anti-Semitic tropes? And now denying that she ever defended the Logan Act or Brennan in her tweets attacking Glenn?
Maybe you and I just have vastly different ideas of what constitutes "smart" ... which would actually explain a LOT of your posts here ...
Glenn's comments here (not the article, but his comments) reflect that the article IS about Omar, not the Logan Act. He addressed TWICE posts which suggest he should have relegated her to a paragraph. Unless you want to argue with the author himself regarding his intentions ....
Strictly speaking, Omar didn't state or imply any opinion on whether the Logan Act was legitimate, constitutional, or desirable. Instead she argued that, looking solely at the present circumstances, Brennan's tweet should not be viewed as in violation of the statute. (Her arguments for this are not legally absurd, though they are subject to doubt.) In some ways an argument like Omar's might have value in protecting someone who might be indicted under the Logan Act.
Greenwald criticizes Omar because her tweet may (quite likely) be meant to undermine Greenwald's comparison between Brennan and Flynn; he also criticizes Omar because Omar's tweet may slightly cut against (perhaps not intentionally) Greenwald's view and strategy that the Logan Act must be thoroughly rejected in its entirety. I suppose that part of the reason Omar did this is because she, like all other Democratic members of Congress, wishes to keep the Trump administration's reputation in the pits and to reject the idea that the Trump administration's Democratic counterparts could be anywhere near as bad. That's basically inevitable when a member of Congress belongs to a major party. Greenwald should not be surprised that Omar's Democrats-over-Trump-administration goal is a much stronger priority than the areas of ideological agreement that Greenwald and Omar share. Many politicians keep on energetically hitting the opposing party both for reasons of sincere belief and also due to pressures of intra-party loyalty and electoral advantage. And it is well known that the Squad tries to have a largely cooperative relationship with Democratic leadership.
Greenwald feels that everyone else who values the right to dissent, including Omar, should be working to repeal the Logan Act, at least if they bother to address the Logan Act at all. That would make sense if people like Omar were political commenters whose job is to speak their mind honestly and act out of principle. But no successful politician can afford to act out of principle on all subjects. I don't find Omar particularly trustworthy, but even if she was as trustworthy as a member of Congress can afford to be, she would still have to pick her battles and sometimes publicly defend points that are kind of at cross-purposes to some of her more principled beliefs. Omar must spend a lot of her effort loyally defending her party even when her party uses some of the shady aspects of the existing system. If you don't like that, you should be working to get away from elected politicians, and I hope that some day we will find a more democratic approach than one that relies on politicians. I think it is somewhat worth appreciating that Omar did not actually do anything to substantially undermine Greenwald's view on the Logan Act.
I could of course mention that Omar, as a black female Muslim immigrant, is in a more vulnerable position than most people in Congress and has greater incentives to pick her battles. That's kind of a cliche, but it's also true. Sometimes politicians in that position need more understanding and forbearance from those of us on the outside. If you want members of Congress to call for repealing the Logan Act in its entirely, it would make sense to look for someone other than Omar to do it, at least as far as the main sponsor goes. Regardless, though, the mere fact that Omar is a major-party politician is pretty much enough on its own to explain why she will sometimes do things like this.
I read your comment in its entirety. I went back to the article and reread the Omar tweet a few times. Based on that, I think the most likely scenario is the Democrats wheeled out Omar to attack Mr. Greenwald for attacking Brennan. They used Mr. Greenwald's past words of support for her, to get people to believe she must really believe Mr. Greenwald is wrong. Maybe a "plum" position was dangled before her.
The mention of this, reminds me of when the Republican establishment was trying to pass flag burning legislation. An opponent of the legislation was Senator Bob Kerrey, a Vietnam War Medal of Honor winner. Republican leadership enlisted freshman Senator Chuck Hagel, a twice decorated Vietnam War veteran, from the same state, to oppose Kerrey on the Senate floor. This stuff happens all the time. I find it reprehensible when it does. The act, as you can tell, tends to live with me a long time.
Keith Ellison, now that's a 2021 story waiting to happen.
I think your "plum" position dangle is the most likely scenario. Sigh-- are there ANY politicians who don't get blinded by" bling" so people will notice them
Trump chased “the bling”, as you put it, for most of his life as a private citizen, and obtained quite a lot of it, in the process. So much so, that he already had it by the time he entered politics. That Donald Trump, with no political experience whatsoever, could surpass at least the last 3 or 4 Presidents we’ve had, not only in productivity & efficiency, but even the morality of his actions while in office, should really be the most scathing indictment of the level of corruption of our bling-chasing political class.
If Omar wasn't "black" no one would have ever paid any attention to her. She is, amongst other things, a race grifter.
Exactly. Omar did not do what Glenn claims in this piece. It is not "strictly speaking." Glenn dies not cite any evidence for the claims he makes about Omar in this piece. That's a huge problem.
You make a strong case for "3rd" parties in Congress - that is, the worst thing about the Squad, which guarantees they will sometimes disappoint, is that they're Democrats. The same applies to the most-liberal Oregon congresspeople, like DeFazio, my own Rep., or Merkley. The Green Party regularly runs against them for that very reason.
They started off being unprincipled parasites, which they then leveraged to get into power. The worse thing about them is their lack of principles, which is not at all incompatible with being members of the Democratic party.
I get it, Glenn. I just think the focus on Omar tends to distract a bit from what seems to me to be the more-important, central issue of the piece. But it ain't no fatal flaw. ;^)
I agree with Doug here. Of course the commentary on the contradiction of the Democrats' position on the Logan Act is important, but it seemed like a pretty serious rebuke from a single tweet. I suppose having the background knowledge you have, Glenn, can really change how one views such a short test. I just interpreted the Omar tweet as a disagreement on the meaning of a legal text, which seems like a pretty normal thing to happen especially if there is little precedent.
I am still very interested in why Rep. Omar suddenly decided to single out my tweet on the Logan Act — an issue that matters a great deal to me and which I’ve written about a lot but that I’ve never heard her evince any interest in at all — and, in front of her 2.6 million followers, weigh in to (a) create this very fine distinction that doesn’t exist to give the impression that the Logan Act is a clearly defined, finely crafted criminal law and (b) insist that what Brennan did doesn’t fall within its scope but what Flynn did does. Whatever was behind that, I think it was very important that a left-sign member of Congress who herself is a foreign policy dissident — she is that, whatever one’s opinions on the dissent — would say anything to give the appearance that this is a validly used law and that the FBI invocation of it against Flynn was anything other than a total abuse. I get the reaction that this is a long and heavy article in response to a single tweet — it does cover numerous other issues, including Brennan’s posturing and the history of this law — but I felt like there was something significant about as influential a leftist as her tweeting this strange insistence about the definitional precision of the Logan Act and picking a reply-tweet of mine as the springboard to make it.
I really appreciated the piece, and totally understand your reading now, which is one of the reasons im glad you can bounce from twitter back to here and explain your thinking. I'm glad someone is covering the disputable claims popular people on our left are saying, especially if it speaks to a greater truth. I'm also happy to see you talking about these things in a larger context and always look forward to thoughtful critique on leftists from someone who doesn't personally want to see our project fail. Singling out that tweet, in a thread of replies, does seem super weird, and I'm really hoping Omar or her team can tell us why!
And what is shocking is how her one tweet has boxed her in permanently. It will be mercilessly thrown in her face should she commit to any act of dissent from U.S. foreign policy. She's not so dumb that she cannot see what she has irrevocably done.
Omar Dumb? I know a guy that is pretty leftist culturally that lives in her district, who says that she is a reactionary parasite dunce that got elected by haranguing and lying to immigrants and duping college student voters.
Now she's denying everything: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/ilhan-omar-glenn-greenwald-brennan-logan-act
Great marketing for Glenn, if nothing else ...
Academically, I appreciate your puzzlement. It is not possible to ascertain "why", because it's in her head, and because there are so many possible motives, among which are that you will defend those Who Should Never Be Defended. Kind of like the ACLU used to do. Another possibility is you question those Who Should Never Be Questioned, like the scum bag John Brennan. The bottom line is Omar puts forth an absurd assertion, either out of stupidity or from propagandist motivations.
Your second sentence isn't actually a complete sentence so who knows what you meant? Only you, and you didn't effectively say it. If you disagree, you need to go back to grammar school.
As for your attack on Glenn, I'll leave that for him if he chooses. But as for your last sentence, you have provided zero support, and don't even state what statement she made you don't agree with OR put forward what your purported motivations of hers might be. "Propagandist?" Sorry, that's not worthy of discussion.
She stated her opinion as fact and is literally followed by millions. So it makes sense to me for Glenn to push back directly and forcefully, especially as he actually likes her. She is a grown up after all. To save you looking, she has 2.6 million followers on her personal twitter account.
It just didn't seem that clear to an uninformed observer (me) that she was defending Brennan or that she was making a clear stand on the implementation or the meaning of the law. That's really my biggest problem with the piece in general, that this was a single tweet from her account and she hasn't had any history of expressed belief in Logan Act enforcement, or contradiction on that front. It just kinda seems like this tweet lacks context.
Read it again
She may be followed by millions, but do you think that the vast majority of her following gave this a second thought? I would have preferred if Mr Greenwald spoke about the Logan Act without bringing her into it, which made the article a bit disjointed.
The article isn't only about the Logan Act. More importantly, I assume, was the point that "ends justifies the means" behavior is at the root of our problems. To illustrate that, involving Omar was more than critical, it was entirely necessary and the very point of the article.
Oh geez wake up-- this is NOT her area of expertise. You either have to get a comment on Logan correct (meaning correct legal commentary) or you just focus on the illegality of Israels actions. The fact she comments on Logan is as another commentator pointed out paying the piper to get a plum appointment (ie no one blocking it).
I agree that it was unreasonable for her to suggest that this issue was generally agreed upon (direct vs indirect communication) but further critique of Omar on this issue required making assumptions about her intentions. I'm interested to see what reason she would have of defending him, besides falling in line with the party stance. I'm interested to hear your thoughts.
As long as the unprincipled douchebag D party loyalists keep attacking GG he appears ready to respond by deconstructing their bullshit.
How many liberal darlings were not ultimately co-opted by Team Blue. How many didn’t ultimately excuse everything they do?
Do you want percentages or raw numbers?
The entire point of the article was that the left was "becom[ing] exactly what [they] started off believing [they] were fighting". What more poignant way than to make the point than showing how Omar, of all people, ends up supporting Brennan. Incidental mention? That is the whole article! Did you think that the article was a legal brief on the Logan Act?
No, not "the left", but specifically "liberals" and the two should not be confused or conflated.
Fair enough
"Art", all of your comments, or at least 99% of them, are completely confuzled brain farhtx
your absurd attempt to define "left" and 'liberal" are so farcically bad/wrong that it is beyond ridiculous
preening ninny
What I struggle to understand is the reflexive urge to claim that her words don't mean what she said (which we see a bit of below). This is a woman who is part of the government of the most powerful nation on the planet, a legislator whose words rule the lives of hundreds of millions. If she doesn't mean what she says, or doesn't know what the words she says mean, then ... ???
I couldn't agree more with your statement.
Maybe a badly misinformed staffer provided the ridiculous Logan Act distinction. If so and she isn't vetting what gets sent out-- it doesn't bode well.
I agree with BDick59 and Doug Salzmann and would add that it is patently evident Omar and all of the New Left with a capital L are bent on the destruction of the Bill of Rights. Omar is not to be imbued as virtuous in any way just because she might, on occasion, take a position on foreign policy or other policy with which GG or I agree. To her and her squad, everything Trump does or says it bad because he says or does it. To them, being "not Trump" is in and of itself a virtue. They are the walking definition of what Nietzsche described as the Slave Morality, the defining of oneself by what one is not. Thus, Omar defends an indefensible person: John Brennan. Trump's biggest mistake, and it proved fatal, was not purging the Security State which was and remains the greatest threat to our real nationaal security with a small S.
No question the goal of the left today is a total and complete dismantling of the enlightenment principles that underlie civilized society. They crave subjugation of of the citizenry and total collectivism. But the so called “conservatives” and especially the neocons probably did as much or more damage in just a few years time: their legacy is the surveillance state and the forever wars, and we are just beginning to see just how dangerous it really is.
Oh, yes...”civilized society”...that has killed millions of people since the enlightenment.
Re-read exactly what I said:
Enlightenment principles...that underlie civilized society. Nowhere does that assert that our nation has always lived up to those principles.
To the extent we have DEPARTED from those enlightenment principles there has been “killing of millions” among other injustices.
Are you arguing against enlightenment principles? Then have the courage to actually argue against them. Are you opposed to free speech, dissent, the right to assembly? Are you opposed to the right to be secure in your person and property?
Today’s left is rife with authoritarians who will silence anyone if they can. They despise human liberty. There is simply no way to subjugate people into a collectivist slave pen and do it with voluntary mutual agreement. It ultimately rests on force and compulsion.
This is hyperbolic overstatement:
"Today’s left is rife with authoritarians who will silence anyone if they can. They despise human liberty"
Yes, a minority on the left today are attracted to the idea of censoring "hate speech." But throughout American history -- and to the present -- it has been the left of various eras that vindicated human rights against a rightwing and status quo that denied them.
That’s why I said the “left today”
And my how easy it was for them to suddenly throw out the first amendment. Not just politicians but every day Americans.
I’ve similarly pointed out the about face movements of the conservatives on other issues
'That’s why I said the “left today”"
What you wrote is absurd, especially this bit :"No question the goal of the left today is a total and complete dismantling of the enlightenment principles that underlie civilized society."
Evidence?
It’s not hyperbole just because there are a few exceptions. Hyperbole would be if I found a few exceptions and tried to pass them off as the norm.
"It’s not hyperbole"
It is. You completely ignore that "the left" -- both now and historically -- advocates for human rights, notwithstanding that some minority of them now favor "hate speech" restrictions.
Mona how do you define minority?
There's no reason to imply I'm using some esoteric, non-common usage of "minority."
Mona, it's clear Chris and Gary just don't know what "left" means. My guess is they think neo-liberals are the left.
Take note: I admit the error. I admire GG and he is left.
What is clear is that any ideology eventually descends into the garbage can (Zizek) of human consciousness and corruption, including both leftism and liberalism.
What is also clear is that leftists always engage in backstabbing and infighting.
I'm quite amused by claims that "the left" is antagonistic to "enlightenment" values and attempting to destroy civilization and civilized society. Support is seldom offered for such assertions, and when it is, it is virtually always meritless bilge.
Sure thing, Noam Chomsky -- Destroyer of All that is Good.
Look at Rousseau's utopian romanticism for one of the prime examples of early "leftist" illiberalism and anti-rationalism.
(I'm defining classical/medieval liberalism as Constitutionalism, rule of law, in the context of decentralized politics, pre-1492, pre-empire.)
Prior to that, the counter-reformation was anti-rationalist and illberal, which may have partly inspired Rousseau.
The problem with the left is that it has to create faux religious dogma to replace actual religion because human nature is wired by evolution to seek meaning and purpose.
Given that leftism is a really shitty faux religion with a poor model of human nature, some solutions become obvious.
Any leftist that can't admit that their ideology is like "eating out of the garbage can" (Zizek) is doomed to generate crappy thinking, including bad political ideas.
-----
Historically, liberalism, leftism and progressivism and their almost infinite offshoots, fragmentations and atomizations*, have been co-emergent features of evolving WEIRD(O) culture: western democratic capitalism and industrialism. Western civilization is unique in that its values are more strongly AGENTIC and individualistic-achievement oriented that traditional cultures, where values are based on communion (nurturance within the clan).
That is why the nuclear family is a crucial part of the modern western mode of culture, it was a break from the extended family system of (Celtic, Druid) clannish cultures.
Classical liberalism is what you got your sense of individualism from.
It also gave the peasant classes more opportunities to become literate and numerate urban commoners with educations.
It also provided industrialization and technological and scientific innovations, including advanced medicine.
It generated the wealth needed for the increase in urban commoner populations, education, technology, and modern rationalism.
It created the participatory, representative political structures needed for Constitutional order and free speech.
-----
The industrial revolution (1800s) created severe disruptions to that system, leading to the idea that socio-economic "progress" (an expanding corporate-state) would solve the problems that Dickens described, urban slums, industrial wage slavery, and so forth.
Then illiberalism was revived and woven back into "leftist" revolutionary and radical ideologies.
By the end of WW2, "progress" began to lead to a suburban consumer economy, and as increasing numbers of people went off to college by the 1960s, they were indoctrinated into such postmodern illiberalism and anti-rationalism.
By the late 1970s, radical leftists were viciously attacking scientists such as E.O. Wilson for his theory of sociobiology (which undermined the idea that leftist indoctrination of the masses would create a utopia).
Then the culture wars set in and the left permanently began to circle the drain of neomarxist postmodern deconstructive nihilism.
So, "Art's" absurd assertion that the "left" is all good, and "liberalism" (neoliberalism) is all bad is grotesquely farcical, pure bullshit, an oversimplification that is astonishingly bizarre and ridiculous.
EO Wilson was written about in “the blank slate”. By Stephen Pinker. Along with more modern examples of mainstream ideologies poisoning science
Correct. E.O. Wilson's sociobiology provided credible evidence that biology both determines and constrains how people think and what their values are.
That evidence contradicted the "blank slate" ideology of the New Left, who had hoped to create a neomarxist utopia by brainwashing kids in public schools.
Systematic rationalism and institutional science have larger problems with corruption and the collapse/disruption of the "Blue church" model (hierarchies of curated expertise) of collective sense making by network effects (shared learning, open information ecosystems).
Your ignorance is also amusing.
(again) far left "woke" cancel culture, CRT, etc. is neomarxist postmodern nihilism.
Because "woke" crap is neomarxist, it is useful to neoliberals in that it can be used to negate the class struggle of real marxists (or anyone else concerned about the working class).
Various times in history when they envisioned and implemented a utopia. They certainly don’t deserve a blanket statement though
Any major paradigm shift results in social chaos, disruption, violence and wars (which were abundant before the enlightenment).
The era of modern rationalism, which unfortunately appears to have played itself out at this point, has arguably reduced violence, war, disease and starvation beyond any other period in human history (see S. Pinker's data project)
What do we mean here about (Christian) enlightenment principles like, say GENOCIDE of indigenous peoples the world over? Did you even fucking READ and COMpREHEND Greenwalds long column with lots of, uh, WORDS?
Argumentatively speaking, your comment manages to pack a whole bunch of fallacies into short space.
Do you understand that taking the CONCEPT of Enlightenment principles (free speech, due process, etc) and attempting to somehow equate that to advocating “genocide” - is just a demonstration of pathetically bad thinking on your part? You should literally spend some time thinking about and learning basic logic before you say ANYTHING AT ALL TO ANYONE. It will save you a lot of embarrassment.
Thom's point is valid. People can bloviate all they want to about high-minded principles, but the proof is in the pudding. The European "enlightenment principles" that are being discussed must have had some pretty powerful built-in limitations if they could exist alongside genocide and the slave trade. That's not to say that we should throw the baby out with the bathwater, but the period of the Enlightenment cannot and should not be the end of the story of human advancement. It seems like the rightwing screeches just around the time when disenfranchised minorities and populations start to stand on their hind legs in an attempt to expand the principles of the very "enlightenment" the rightwing professes to champion.
TP's assertion that enlightenment values are "Christian" is itself a absurdly scrambled narrative (along with everything else he has ever said that I can recall).
The church engaged in a massive counter-reformation against the people that were creating the enlightenment.
It has been argued that the enlightenment was a revival of greco-roman ("pagan") rationalism and naturalism.
"Christianity" in contrast was in the mythic supernaturalist tradition of the middle east.
That's a bigger conversation than I'm able or willing to tackle. But on the face of it, your suggested formula seems a little simplistic to me. The Abrahamic traditions are complex phenomena which both advanced humanity and held us back.
The word valid has a specific meaning and Thom’s comment has no validity. And Nowhere do I suggest that basic enlightenment principles are the “end all be all”. I would agree they merely allow us to proceed from there on a civilized basis. Whereas if we silence dissent, if we assume guilt until proven innocent, if we can search and seize property at will, etc., then there is no chance at all for a widespread civilized society.
If a nation or specific ruling body (or even the very people espousing them) ignored or departed from basic enlightenment principles, all of which are based on observing basic human rights, if that ruling body did the opposite and crushed human rights, it’s not valid to argue that the principles themselves are their own opposite. It’s argumentatively invalid.
look at countries today that weren't built on enlightenment principles. are they better off? more just? treat minorities better? these are subjective judgements but you get the picture.
attackers of enlightenment principles live in their own reality, one that never existed.
"the period of the Enlightenment cannot and should not be the end of the story of human advancement" principles of individual rights and liberties should be the end goal. that's it. because every attempt to advance further has actually been a march backwards into another version of feudalism.
TP = Toilet Paper
What "left" is that? I think you're making it up.
THIS. ALL DAY LONG
Horseshit. It is right wing fascisti like you who are anti-democracy and anti-bill, civil and human rights. Pure Trumpian Projection.
Your profanity and name-calling show why Leftists want, need and rely on censorship. Ability to reason and argue? Merit? Those concepts are pure "racist". Onward! "Christian" soldiers. Heil, Obama!
"Thom Prentice" is a troll, and an extremely stupid one. waste of time
Good advice. Thanks.
The cry of the sexually inadequate American (right wing) male who just wet his panties.
Yeah, the first time he saw my comments under a Greenwald article, he started calling me names, impugned my intelligence and, proof of his situation / stature, started talking about the size of my penis. My conclusion is all of those are projections about his own circumstance, just like his calling you a troll - it would explain his rather angry disposition. -shrug-
Art, you actually are a ridiculous dumb fuck, as demonstrated in your inability (as far as I know) to respond to George's deconstruction of that awful article you kept posting about the "political compass" garbage.
Your attempts at defining away the massive dysfunction in leftist subcultures are beyond silly.
Again, the penis remarks were a METAPHOR, which you apparently still do not "get", about the flaccid nature of most of your comments, which are low IQ, dishonest and cowardly.
The left is massively dysfunctional. (groupthink, etc.)
You are massively dysfunctional. (groupthink, etc.)
Your defense of left is massively dysfunctional. (groupthink, etc.)
The astonishing thing about your idiotic comments is that they are in response another leftist goof talking about "wet panties".
LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL
You are such a dumb fuck and so consistently full of limp dick contradictions it is almost beyond belief.
Pure Dunning-Kruger
Again:
Thank you for confirming that you are a wildly psychotic imbecile
SAD ! LOL!
" Leftists want, need and rely on censorship. Ability to reason and argue? "
Directly contrary to my experience, being raised rightwing and eventually deprogramming from of it via reasoned argument and facts. By definition, conservatives favor the status quo and/or harken back to some imagined Golden Age, where the rights of certain humans were not upheld.
While you Liberals cheer for Obama droning the shit out of "towel head" children ("The Terrorists") and comes back to "double tap" the adults trying to dig them out of the rubble with their bare hands. When he's not condemning gay marriage. And let's not forget your FDR's concentration camps for American citizens of Japanese ancestry. And the KKK Wizards like Sen. Robert Byrd, along with those manning the fire hoses, police dogs and standing in the school house door - were not Republicans. It must be nice to be self-worshiping and live in delusion.
This is a misplaced comment:
"While you Liberals cheer for Obama"
No, Mona doesn't do that and neither do I - we're both "left" and the liberals aren't left, no matter what the MSM drones at you.
Again, I stand corrected. Searching now for anyone else who admits to making a mistake . . . .
Are you familiar with the dozens of socialist countries throughout the last 100 years? Do you understand they are slave pens, in which human rights barely exist? Have you ever been to such countries? Which part of these leftist tyrannies are not understood?
"Are you familiar with the dozens of socialist countries throughout the last 100 years?"
The Communist ones, you mean?
"Do you understand they are slave pens, in which human rights barely exist?"
Yes, when I think Gulag, I think the Nordic countries
Are you aware that in the 20th century, socialist and Communist parties in America opposed Jim Crow -- and accepted black members as equals -- well before either of the two major parties did? That US. leftists favored a halt to persecuting gay people well in advance of other groups? That they supported unions and a living wage, and workplace safety, as against entrenched conservative, capitalist power?
"Have you ever been to such countries? Which part of these leftist tyrannies are not understood?"
Have you ever been to the Jim Crow South? The closet for gay people in most of American history? The conservative establishment's destruction of labor, and labor leaders like Eugene Debs? The left fought conserbvatives and the status quo, and did so effectively. (MLK was a socialist.)
Well, Republicans are now the far left??? U.S. Grant and Warren Harding were the two strongest opponents of the Jim Crow South among all are Presidents after the Civil War, by a wide margin. And they were on the right end of the Republican Party.
And are Democrats now the far right???? Woodrow Wilson was the most extreme opponent of equality of blacks and whites, by far, and most historians consider him to have been on the far left. Yet you consider him to have been on the far right? Franklin Roosevelt was the second strongest opponent of equal rights (and put people of Japanese ancestry into concentration camps), and is usually considered on the left end of the Democratic Party, but now is to be called "far-right"?
The contribution to gdp of the Nordic countries is at least half from capitalist sources. Presuming that socialism means state control of production.
they would more correctly be referred to as a mixed economy
If average Americans were more intelligent, they would insist on the social welfare "safety nets" of Western Europe, all of which are "Socialist" by your trailer-park definition.
Ah yes, if only they were smarter they would surrender their lives and liberties to bureaucrats and parasitic politicians (professional con artists) to design their “social welfare states). Those darn people need to be more obedient to the slave masters.
The EU bureaucracy is a totalitarian mess in service of international bank pirates and various industrial oligarchs.
I saw a family textile business in Spain completely destroyed in the 1990s as a result of EU trade policy. Then the family was forced to pay all of the social security retirement and medical for life for all of the 100s of workers they had to layoff, a loss of about $5 to 10 million.
The city hall (BCN socialists) also fined the family about $1/2 million for a bad roof on a derelict industrial building that was going to be demolished and redeveloped into retail and residences. The alternative proposed by the city council was to rebuild the roof (at the cost of $1/2 million) to meet code, then get the demolition and building permits approved for the new construction.
To be fair, the same kind of crap went on during the "fascist" era when the dictator Franco was in power (Franco created enormous dysfunctional, inefficient bureaucracies to give jobs to the his supporters), but such problems could usually be resolved by making obsequious gestures or paying relatively small bribes to petty bureaucrats.
Fuck your fake indignation and authentic prudery. Fascists INVENTED name calling. Look at Herr Trumpf. Imitating the Big Lies of Herr Hitler. And American puffing itself up over being a FAKE NEWS EXCEPTIONAL NATION. Big Lies you trade in, big lies for the credulous, ignorant and stupid. (Not name calling, just descriptions. DO YOU HAVE A DICIONARY?!)
Yeah! FUCK that guy!
Your righteous anger and witty employment of German to illustrate "Herr Trumpf's" Hitlery orangeness, not to mention your judicious use of ALL CAPS, proves without a doubt that you are correct. Not just in this particular argument, but in all things.
And speaking for myself, who needs a dictionary when there is always someone around like you who can so clearly and logically explain things?
I like the fact that Mr Prentice has trouble spelling the word 'dictionary'.
Thanks for nothing, man. Now you've got me on Mr. Prentice's list, too.
Dang!
That USA a typo not a spelling error. Asshole.
Mr. Prentice don't need no stinking dicionary!
And now you're on his list, buddy.
It’s ok, none of us have an editor
"Make America great again." Bill Clinton (Hillary gushing at side).
"Bring 'them' to heel." Hillary
Tulsi Gabbard is a Russian operative. Hillary
Bernie too. Hillary
"Elect Donald Trump". Joe Biden
"I'm running for the U. S. Senate." Joe Biden
Groper of minor girls, while nuzzling their hair. Joe Biden
Orange Man Bad. You.
Obviously you never read anything Greenwald says.
TP = Toilet Paper
TP = Toilet Paper. Troll
Truly Third Grade. Unwiped Asshole Troll. Too bad actually literate people don’t read Greenwald ... humans armed with more that fevered deranged belief systems and Fourth Grade playground insults. You two-bit, four-flushing losers would have been locked into your lockers and I would not have needed anyone to assist me in doing so.
This is an oops:
"Too bad actually literate people don’t read Greenwald"
If you added "only" in the right spot, and changed "read" to "comment on", your comment would be more accurate.
Thank you for confirming that you are a wildly psychotic imbecile
Have a blessed day !
The unfortunate truth is that Omar and the rest of the "Progressives", from AOC to "trust the intelligence agencies" Ro Khanna, are frauds whose purpose is to sheepdog low-information voters obsessed with the culture war into supporting the DNC. Whether its voting to support Adam Schiff's bill to criminalize reporting the crimes of the CIA, lining up to vote for crypt-keeper Nancy Pelosi, demanding new and overbearing corporate and government restrictions on free speech or refusing to utter the name of Julian Assange, "Progressives" are just another bunch of authoritarians. The only thing defining them from Steny Hoyer is their constant harping on identity politics, their cynical deployment of "social justice" rhetoric and an elixir of youth.
https://twitter.com/rokhanna/status/1231010597380206592?lang=en
Power corrupts absolutely. I would add especially if you have never had ANY in your life. Look at the new progressives.
It's very obvious you don't know the first thing about Progressives.
I know about their hatred for free speech, their fealty to the CIA, their undying loyalty to Nancy Pelosi, their silence on the torture and persecution of Julian Assange and their identity politics agenda which serves only to polarize poor and working people against each other based on their skin color and immutable physical characteristics.
That's all anyone with any brains and morality needs to know.
With this, you basically show that you conflate or confuse neo-liberals as being "left". Sorry, wrong.
"Art" is emitting his usual mental diarrhea. Go back in time before neoliberalism was in effect in a widespread way (1970s), and the "left" was STILL a giant pile of crap that generated failure after failure when implemented.
Go further back, pre-marxism, and the "left" was simply the literate urban commoners (French National Assembly, 1789).
Yes, the first actual "leftists" were business persons.
Another counter-narrative fact:
In what is arguably the best piece of american writing in history, Henry David Thoreau's _Civil Disobedience_ linked big govt, slavery and imperialism.
Was Thoreau a "classical liberal"? A "leftist"???
By the early 1900s, both Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, insane xenophobes and racists, but "progressives", had made internationalist american imperialism acceptable to the mainstream. The women's movement of the time, post-Victorians, signed on to Wilsonian imperialism in exchange for Wilson supporting prohibition.
For many decades the "left" made all sorts of appalling and silly excuses for Stalinist and Maoist atrocities.
The idea that there is something inherently pure and good about the "left" is beyond absurd.
The best case that can be made for leftism is that modern systematic rationalism is needed to maintain industrial civilization. In the USA that would be a decentralized "small govt" form of anti-imperialist left-libertarianism mixed with right-anarchist natural aristocracy.
The problem with most forms of leftism, progressivism, liberalism and neoliberalism is democracy worship, the corporate-state and state-therapeutism.
"Art's" mental diarrhea is a particularly bizarre, confused example of idiot leftism, but it does illustrate the contradictions, confusions, stupidity and dysfunction typical of most of the left.
Art, it is very obvious that you don't know what GG has been saying, just like you don't know much of anything beyond your usual delusions:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uHbXMPP0pc&feature=youtu.be
I have to agree. This tweet from Rep Khanna is SO naive and disturbing.
I can guarantee that my regular sources of news would never have brought up this or criticized Rep. Omar in this way, which is why I’m so glad I’m subscribed here. I just want the truth and for both sides to be justifiably called out, and to be able to form an opinion based on that.
Brennan is a criminal...period...full stop
The good news for the country is Karma is still at work.
Carter Page just sued Brennan, Clapper, Comey, McCabe and gang for $70,000,000.
Sadly the government offers employees no qualified immunity when they do things in their job that are illegal, so the legal fees each of these guys is going to have to pay is going to hit them hard.
$250k retainers and $750/hour legal fees and each of them likely carries $5 million umbrella liability coverage personally.
Carter should end up with $20-$30 million and the country will be made whole...kind of.
I always wondered if the nation would be made whole after 4 years of Russia Russia Russia.
Between the Durham Report, Special Counsel that will likely be appointed next month..and these civil suits, maybe there’s reason to be hopeful.
God, I hope. The American ppl need some sort of accountability and resolution to that horrible sham.
I am not optimistic.
My primary takeaway from this piece is that Twitter is absolutely the most dangerous, and poorly utilized "tool" ever used to govern regardless of party affiliation (or lack thereof). If Jack Dorsey truly wants to limit the harms that come from "misinformation" he would do the world a favor by shutting down.
Yup. And a multitude of serious thinkers would do themselves and the world of ideas and discourse a huge favor by abandoning that maelstrom of murk and malevolence. Then, if Dorsey wants to keep running it, it can serve us all as an outlet for the crazies and the vapid.
Well, only the RIGHT crazies and vapid, as curated by Mr. Dorsey's minions. Because Safety, of course.
Glenn you are probably giving Omar too much credit to think she was genuinely trying to make a legal argument.
Like most Americans today, both inside and outside of government, she will posture as a defender of the constitution or “our democracy” when it suits a particular situation that furthers their wrestling for power. The next moment they will advocate for sacrificing the crucial enlightenment principles that underlie civilized society, if it furthers their wrestling for power or momentarily helps their “team” gain a point or two in the battle for power in Washington.
In this case she feigns a legal argument which on its face sounds sounds sober and deliberate, yet upon further investigation (thank you Glenn), is nothing more than trying to win a point or two against an Israel government that she abhors.
It’s the common thread today: casual willingness to discard absolutely crucial enlightenment principles (such as due process or the right to dissent) to pick up a point or two against one’s opposition.
I should have added-- you don't need to look any farther re: you last line, than the bizarre politicization of the debate on COVID. As a medical professional we have a saying going around the industry-- the **only** science govt's, public health officials and their funders understand is political science.
Agreed!
Trust me on this one @GlennGreenwald.
You do not want to get into a nuanced intellectual argument with Ilhan Omar.
You’ll win (easily) but you’ll be so much worse for having even tried to engage in a productive conversation intended to seek understanding in order for you and us to be understood on the issue of the Logan Act.
Yes. And from now on he'd be tagged as being an anti-Islamic bigot, of course.
GG has already taken a stand against the SJWs, so their standard Orwellian narratives are meaningless to anyone except far left SJW kooks.
If the SJWs come to her defense, it makes GG look good to sane people.
Breaking News:
Upon further analysis it turns out that--in a clear violation of the Logan Act, by the way--the unfortunate Iranian physicist was killed by a falling pallet of U.S. currency whose parachute failed to open when it was dropped out of a C-130 by order of the Office of the President-Elect's National Security Transition Team.
When asked for a comment, John Brennan reportedly said, "Oops!"
Alas, America now has two fascist parties, distinguished from each other primarily by one having a vocal socialist wing, and the other having a vocal classical liberal (or as that's called in America, "conservative") wing.
The USA has two totalitarian and authoritarian left-corporate-state parties.
Republicans are neoconfederates that exploit populist resentment of coastal cosmopolitans, not "fascists".
Democrats are an alliance of neoliberal corporate-statists and neomarxist SJWs.
Bingo!
But maybe if Trump starts a war with Iran they'll give him the Nobel Peace Prize. The Establishment's hypocrisy knows no bounds.
I ended up here after seeing Mr. Greenwald's interviews with Reason and Michael Malice. This type of piece is exactly what the mainstream, self identified liberals need to see. They are missing the the important stories, even when one of their own is shouting from the rooftop trying to showing. As a right libertarian, I truly appreciate the work being done here.
Just curious - what is a right libertarian?
Libertarianism outside the United States generally refers to libertarian socialism and similar schools of thought concerned with social and economic equity. Right libertarianism, in contrast, recognizes private property and by extension opposes most or all government actions.
That's a helpful comment, thanks.
Two things.
1. The Logan Act. It reminds me of a part of Canadian Military rules...that one could be charged with(and people were)...”conduct unbecoming a serviceman”.
2. There’s a meme floating around: “Mommy, a man touched me in a bad way.” to which mommy replies, “Was he a Democrat or a Republican?”
"The right to dissent from, and to work against, the official foreign policy of the U.S. Government is vital: foundational to Constitutional liberties."
"Once you start arrogating unto yourself the right to use authoritarian and lawless methods, and to align behind repressive institutions like CIA and FBI, you become exactly what you started off believing you were fighting.”
Glenn: Unless you mistakenly left out the words “openly” and “legally" in your first quote, it is wholly incompatible with the second one. What Donald Trump exposed was a permanent bureaucracy of unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats who, as James Comey put it, answer to a “higher calling” that reeks of your second quote--even as they and their media allies (many of whom are retired spooks to begin with) present themselves as paragons of integrity described by your first quote.
Decent Americans know the difference. They also know that, barring a miracle, justice will be denied. In short, the Constitution is being replaced by an “any means necessary” agenda that definitely includes an attempted coup, and quite possibly the wholesale (and maybe permanent) delegitimization of national elections.
There’s an entire political class of consultants in DC who get paid very well just to coach these politicians from never having to return a call to a reporter if they don’t want to.
The very reason Glenn is here at SubStack is what’s enabled these Establishment types in the bureaucracy to maintain the status quo. Remember, the very nature of the Bureaucracy is self-preservation.
If the 4th Estate is unwilling or unable to hold them accountable, they have free reign to do to us whatever thy want to do without any regard for accountability, let alone morality.
"Consultants" aka Lobbyists, don't just get paid. They write most of the laws. And the wholesale corporatization of the media have transformed them from watchdogs to status quo collaborators.
I think Glenn knows this. I thought the words "openly and legally" were implied and that this very point was made multiple times throughout the article. When speaking of today's CIA and FBI, one can now assume their methods are the very opposite of "open and legal," just look at the Flynn debacle and lying to the FISA court, leaking memos, circular reporting, CIA media plants, fake dossier, etc.
Trump CAMPAIGNED against endless wars and on putting "America first" but he has continued the drone wars, increased the military budget, invaded a sovereign foreign country and killed Gen. Qassem Soleimani, (a war crime), ignored international law and allowed the Christianized, Rapture-Ready Fascists surrounding him to decide policy vis a vis Israel/Palestine, and as he pulled a few troops out of one area, he has increased troops in another. It's not too late, though. He still could bring all of our troops home. NOW! For good! And, pardon Assange, Manning, and Snowden, and close Guantanamo...now that would make him a truly consequential POTUS!
>>"Dissent strengthens all democracies."
The Logan Act was passed by the same Congress that passed the Alien and Sedition Acts. The Sedition Act criminalized inciting rebellion against lawful authority, which is the very definition of dissent. So I think the intent of Congress was fairly clear; they wished to ensure that the United States was never confused with a democracy. Unfortunately, they have had only mixed success.
The Logan Act was passed after Mr. Logan, a private citizen, proposed to French lawmakers that they could improve relations between the two nations by ending France's trade embargo against the United States. France subsequently did this, Logan was extensively praised in the US press, and Congress in a fit of rage passed the Logan Act. This origin helps to clarify that the explicit intent of the act is to criminalize any actions by private citizens that might reduce the probability of a war. Therefore the test of Mr. Brennan's tweet is whether it reduces the chance of a war with Iran. If so, it clearly violates the Logan Act, so let's consider the content of the tweet.
Mr. Brennan tells Iran to 'wait for the return of responsible American leadership' before acting. In other words, he is telling them to wait for a long time, possibly forever. This is a provocative statement that clearly increases the chance of war, and it is therefore evident that it does not violate the Logan Act.
Rep. Omar is correct.
Fun reading this creative twist!
If i were to play Dr. Frankenstein, hoping to build the most loathsome, smug, vapid, weasel bureaucrat, Brennan would get the part as the monster. Great piece, Glenn. But Omar is a corrupt and despicable politician.
And, Jonathan Turley has said countless times the Logan Act is blatantly unconstitutional.