The COVID-driven centralization of economic power and information control in the hands of a few corporate monopolies poses enduring threats to political freedom.
The danger posed by Mr. Trump was his attempt to bypass the gatekeepers in the media by communicating with the public directly using Twitter. Fortunately, Twitter has now set filters to prevent this from happening again. With any luck, there will be no possibility of future collusion between a President and the citizenry. Democracy, as we know it, has been saved.
Sadly, that is the newest reality.....’Democracy, as we know it”. We now know, for sure, that we can NOT vote them OUT without the approval of the ‘swamp’.
You spelled Facebook wrong. There is a reason Hitlery said she wanted to be in charge of FB not Twitter. Twitter is already under the DNC thumb. FB's lower minions are DNC, but Mark himself is not, I assure you.
Public education is the opium of the people. It’s a drone factory producing meat bags incapable of reason. Of course Donald Trump is a tyrant. Their teachers who are “like really smart” told them so. The professional teleprompter readers also confirm this. And for the especially dim witted, Hollywood follows up with confirmation.
Tyranny is what the left practices. Intolerance of diverse opinions and threats of violence and actual violence from their paramilitary arm, antifa etc.
Tyranny is directly coming from neoliberal, establishment Democrats. To understate, that is not "the left." Indeed, the actual left is the target of much neoliberal repression, including censorship.
Then why were progressives siding with Biden? They hate fascism so much they want to see it come to power? The truth is that corporatism and progressive policies are not that different. And progressives just wanted a slice of that power
Progressives "sided with Biden" (in the sense many voted for him) because they thought he was a better choice than Trump. They were not consciously "voting for fascism." They believed they were voting against it. Part of the point of Glenn's article is that many people don't see the real totalitarianism that we have, and see it instead embodied in Trump. In other words, they mistake the circus for the emperor.
idk then if they couldn't see what was happening and what the biden admin stood for then that should call into question all their ideas, because that's a serious lapse in judgement. Useful idiots
I don't think some people who consider themselves "progressives" making that decision . . . the "lesser of two evils" vote . . . gives me cause to "call into question" all the ideas of a broad group of people that contains those voters.
>>Progressives "sided with Biden" (in the sense many voted for him) because they thought he was a better choice than Trump<<
Exactly. Some like Chomsky and Nathan Robinson detest Biden and all the establishment Dems stand for, but sincerely considered Trump the greater evil. One progressive I know, a research scientist, voted for Biden while retching in a bucket purely out of the belief that Biden is more likely to adhere to sound science in the Covid disaster.
Whether these progressives are right or not, they are not the source of neoliberal authoritarianism and oppose it vehemently.
What you vote for, you support. Whether you hold you nose or retch in a bucket while doing it is irrelevant.
There are exceptions, such as someone being forced to perform an action they find repugnant through coercion, threats to their life or the life of a loved one, etc. But we're talking about voting for goodness' sake, not having someone literally holding a gun to one's head.
They're willfully ignorant! its no secret that the socially acceptable thing to do in progressive circles was to vote and give money to democrats. but it doesn't take a genius in any stretch of the form to see what they were really all about! if a college educated professor couldn't see it, does it make him stupid, a coward, or someone who just doesn't care and is just in it for the likes? Noam chomsky really doesn't see it? come. on. so don't vote if you hate biden so much. but no. most of these people just talk about trump and how evil he is and pretend to be disgusted by biden but they have no real stake in any of this! are their livelihoods affected one way or another? no. somehow there's always a market for useless college degrees in society. they have money, power, are out of touch with most americans, and should just shut up and stop acting so hypocritical all the time. it's getting a little old. these people have done far more harm to our society than anything.
" Biden is more likely to adhere to sound science in the Covid disaster." is a really questionable opinion! Biden's managers have indicated Dr Fauci will be his chief advisor on Covid. Fauci has limited background for this, and lied repeatedly over the past year, even admitting this in a TV interview this past week.
President Trump has done an excellent job in dealing with the virus, despite constant attacks from the Democrats. He worked with leaders of key companies to a) get needed equipment produced and distributed (even Gov. Cuomo praised President Trump for this in mid-April) and b) get the vaccines developed and tested and approved in record time. He recognized the need for states and localities to set their own policies for protecting their residents rather than requiring a counterproductive national lockdown.
In fact the death per million rate for the U.S. was ranked 8th highest among all countries this summer, and is today ranked 14th highest, having death rates that now are lower the the U.K., the Czech Republic, Spain and Bulgaria, that were lower earlier in the year.
"President Trump has done an excellent job in dealing with the virus"
A retired virologist who is also a Glenn fan believes that is rank nonsense; I've seen evidence this is the scientific consensus. (As a Michigander, I was furious and aghast when Trump irrresponsibly tweeted: "Liberate Michigan" in response to our governor's public health orders.) But either way, many progressives who held their vomit down and voted for Biden did so because of Covid, not because progressives don't detest neoliberal authoritarianism.
"retching in a bucket" - was it mentioned on a rider accompanying the vote? Or something like "this is not for you, actually, just against the other guy/girl"?
To this my argument I was once told ballots did not come with riders!
But let's say they did. Would Biden (or whoever) care? Of course not! "You sucker gave me the vote and you can shove your opinion up your ass".
My question is why don't people understand it? Simply not voting is a vote - a vote saying "I do not have a choice". I venture to say this is a large portion of non-voting public (I am one of them). Voting "with a rider" is just continuing to support the system.
I still can’t believe that people think 81 million people voted for a career grifter that didn’t campaign and the few times he spoke showed clear signs of dementia. Biden miraculously got millions of votes only in the handful of Democrat election run swing cities where Republican poll watchers were harassed, threatened and prohibited from doing their job, allowing millions of ballots to be adjudicated without oversight. Republicans won 27 of 27 toss up congressional seats yet Biden won in these same areas? Seriously, how does anyone with a brain believe this actually happened?
Progressives are part of the democratic party and support it. The DNC and the corporatists support many of the same mostly social policies important to progressives. The greens have an out, perhaps, but the left certainly doesn't.
There is a party without an official name that represents the DNC and RNC elites. Some have dubbed it the "Uniparty". It supports the kleptocratic order and the crony capitalism of Bush-Obama. The Uniparty sees the future as Communist China and the fascist forces of Wall Street and Large Multinationals as the ox to hitch its wagon to.
Until people see this reality and stop talking in terms of "Democrats" and "Republicans", these forces will have us right where they want us, divided, ignorant, and powerless.
the green new deal ahh the next big market for corporatists. enjoy bankrupting millions of americans reliant on affordable energy while private interests get richer
If, arguendo, your description of the GND is accurate -- and corresponds to what AOC et al. propose -- it remains true that establishment Dems oppose it, and progressives favor it. Progressives are not the DNC or establishment Dems. The DNC is *not* the left.
Theyre part of the big tent party that the DNC is. They run as democrat. Just because they answer to different special interests doesn't mean they don't both team up to crush any and all opposition to the leftist/democrat narrative, in policy or culture. They both hold power. And they're both responsible for this mess. So are the NeoCons, maybe them the most. But there's virtually no difference between the neocons and the establishment dems anymore. They all don't care about the average American, they all push horrible policies that either do nothing or are actively destructive. So let them squabble among themselves over which ethnic group gets to serve as interior decorator to the biden admin . They're two different strands of corrupt elites, both now have power and are too busy chasing their own egos and trying to centralize power.
I have an idea!! Instead of looking at WHY the costs are so high and trying to reduce them (aka competition), lets just subsidize this totally failed system with our tax dollars! That’ll fix it!
Cuba provides free, state-of-the-art health care and education to anyone in-country, regardless of state of origin.
Americans of wealth manage travel to Cuba for free health care.
How do those filthy Commies manage?
Canada is sliding down the slippery slope with Big Brother, USA, but, like Cuba, we don't turn away American patients, regardless of insurance or pre-existing condition BS.
Because it's utterly true. Antifa, BLM, Environmental Alarmism, Radical Feminism, Islamophilia, Open Borders & unchecked immigration, and a form of student debt cancellation, and internet censorship if favor of these causes. So no totally free university and no MFA, but you're more on board with the DNC than not.
The notion that the DNC is onboard with whatever you imagine "antifa" to be, or with any feminism that could be considered "radical" -- and all the rest of your rightwing framing -- is false, having no correspondence to reality.
well they ignore the existence of antifa, their centrism doesn't allow them to actively endorse domestic terrorism but their willful ignorance allows it to grow.
Since when did you become the only authority on the left? Anyone left of my thinking is the "left". Anyone to the right of my thinking is "the right". This is known as personal opinion. You ought to study the differences of opinion and fact because it seems like you often present one as the other.
Its more building the idea of community without dissent. The entire DNC platform of "you can't hang out with us if you dont think exactly like we do" while then preaching tolerance for outliers out of the other side of their mouth when it suits their interests. Questioning the elite will get you called a Russian agent like they did to Gabbard.
The Democrats are corrupt, but their favourite doomsday scenarios, all of which require us to give more power to central government and big corporations, are all real.
The Republicans are corrupt, but their favourite doomsday scenarios, all of which require us to give more power to central government and big corporations, are all real.
The Quangos, dead billionaire foundations, and think tanks are corrupt, but their favourite doomsday scenarios, all of which require us to give more power to central government and big corporations, are all real.
The corporations and their billionaire shareholders are corrupt, but their favourite doomsday scenarios, all of which require us to give more power to central government and big corporations, are all real.
For those of us who have functioning memories to go with functioning brains, for whom every new day is not [[current year]] zero day:
-I remember when nuclear power was going to kill us all
-I remember when nuclear war was going to kill us all
-I remember when the Chinese were going to kill us all
-I remember when the Russians were going to kill us all
-I remember when running out of oil was going to kill us all
-I remember when too much oil was going to kill us all
-I remember when Fukushima was going to kill us all
-I remember when the Gulf oil spill was going to kill us all
-I remember when rocks from space were going to kill us all
-I remember when polyunsaturated fats were going to kill us all
-I remember when AIDS was going to kill us all
-I remember when bird flu was going to kill us all
-I remember when swine flu was going to kill us all
-I remember when bat flu was going to kill millions of Americans but somehow, even though the official tally could only reach a quarter of a million by administratively re-categorizing motor accidents and gunshot wounds as bat flu deaths, and using a fraudulent test procedure that produces between 70 to 90% false positives to produce an idiotic "case pandemic" with no associated deaths trend, the current Administration is a failure because we're not all dead yet.
Frankly, I long for a journalist with both civil liberties extremism, pattern recognition, AND deep cynicism, but Glenn is still one of the few I know of who has the first two out of the three.
Don't forget the Trans-Alaska pipeline was going to cause untold ecological disasters, but in reality never had a single non-sabotatge issue. I've actually worked in environmental waste and the big DNC areas like Pittsburgh and surrounding areas generate far more toxic things into the ground and oh by the way half the Superfund sites are STILL not clean.
The big existential threats are all concocted to garner more power and money while real problems are ignored because they're not important enough. It's another kind of the "lesser of two evils" con.
"The big existential threats are all concocted," yeah right, and is the ongoing Holocene extinction "concocted" too? There's an enormous amount of information and data you're overlooking, and you're making a serious mistake in thinking existential threat and the consequences of "ecological disaster" happen overnight just because a small number of events in an irrelevantly tiny period of time that you can personally recollect didn't "kill us all" instantaneously. There's a reason the geologic time scale is used instead of your memory when talking about species going extinct or the biosphere facing disaster and imminent collapse, and there's a difference between "cynicism" and ignorance that can trick you into confidence on subjects you know very little about.
No one in power is interested in "existential threats" in the first place. Discussion is mostly incompatible with modern systems of government and economic growth. Research rarely gets funded and mostly by mistake, like some Clathrate gun hypothesis research being a poor investment of Big Oil. Thinking that concern with them leads to "real problems" being ignored makes no sense when it's those problems that lead to existential threats; discussing existential threats leads to nothing but attention brought to real problems that effect everyone and how we live on a daily basis (and even if they didn't, by definition existential risks impact everyone).
funny misdirection and with such fabricated drama no less, the giving of "... more power to central government and big corporations, are all real" and was the work product of the Republican Party and conservative ideology going back to the end of WWII.
Fabulous essay Glenn. Keep up the great work and I'm proud to be giving you a bit of money each month. And thank you for taking care of so many people and dogs in Brazil. You are a real hero of mine. :-)
ANOTHER opinion piece, Glenn? No new news reported?
I certainly agree with your perspective, but DUH!
How about INVESTIGATING and REPORTING real news, for once.
How about INVESTIGATING and REPORTING on all the shocking evidence contained in HUNDREDS of affidavits from election workers presenting evidence of ELECTION FRAUD when the MSM claims there is "no evidence" ?
How about INVESTIGATING and REPORTING on the contents of Hunter Biden's laptop ?
I’m not the person to subscribe to with an expectation that you then can dictate what I write about. I appreciate your passion for this topic but “journalism” isn’t defined as “writing about whatever Jim F. thinks is most important.” There’s a lot of journalism in this article and the others you’ve condemned as “just opinion.” Election fraud isn’t a topic I’ve ever reported on so I’m not sure why you expected that I would suddenly make this my main focus. Nobody can be an expert in every topic and those who try usually produce very mediocre journalism, or worse. There are always many issues deserving journalistic attention, not just the one that has you most excited. I happen to think the growing monopolistic power of tech giants and their use of it to censor, as well as their alliance with the Democratic Party, is quite important and deserves journalistic attention.
It's a great article, Glenn. I'm sending the link to my college age son who has sadly bought into the leftist strain of authoritarianism and is totally naive about its dangers.
Jim F. is wrong. Your article is super. Also, I am in for $60 ($5*12), not $50 like Jim F., so my opinion has more weight on your personal K Street here... Wait, I need to read your piece again.
Mr. Greenwald, you are a big voice. Whereas our voices may, collectively, have some effect on the Censorship Gods (and I doubt it), only the big voices will be readily heard - immediately, and effectively. Like yours. The First Amendment, original thought, freethinking, the marketplace of ideas, freedom itself, and everything else that sounds of melodramatic overplay when we talk about this oligarchical/authoritarian censorship, is at stake. It is not possible to overstate this - it's not possible to be too dramatic. This is a war. If we do not have warriors like you to fight it at the front lines, we are all doomed. This has never happened before. There has always been a left, center and right. We could always choose what we wanted to read, what we wanted to learn. Not now. The internet and cyberspace giveth and taketh away. Just when we have such a vast milieu from which to obtain our information, some clan of the Grand Censor decides for us that it is only as "vast" as it wants it to be. So, some snobs and arm-chair quarterbacks will sling "criticism" at you for not finding a Mark Felt or a Daniel Ellsberg every day, as if they are standing around parking garages everywhere smoking cigarettes in the shadows and waiting for some democracy-loving gumshoe to come along and just ask for inside information. I'm glad you don't buy into that pressure. Let's face it, Ed Snowden found you (though, you earned/deserved being found). The right sources find the right reporter, and it's not necessarily the other way around - except, largely, by chance. But, let's face another thing - Tom Fitton and John Solomon can't write opinion. You are the quintessential all-around quarterback, if you will - you can run and you can pass. Keep fighting censorship, keep fighting crime think, keep reminding the MSM lemmings and automatons that the masses want thinking to stay free. Censorship not only shuts down one person's free speech, it prevents all of us from putting ammunition in our thought weaponry. Censorship inhibits the development of our own thoughts - even if we care never to say one word out loud. Censorship will embolden orthodox conformity, and the pathology we are seeing now will worsen exponentially. The eunuch bureaucrats in D.C. can't stop it (Section 230 is a straw man, it's not what we are worried about, like putting a bandaid on a machete sticking out of your skull). Only people like Greenwald (and his adherents - us) can stop it. Like Huxley said in Brave New World Revisited, "[b]ut the nature of power is such that even those who have not sought it, but have it forced upon them, tend to acquire a taste for more." Censorship will breed censors, and indoctrinated automatons - who will turn out more censors, etc. It's now a vicious cycle. Who would have predicted this scourge to have reached such subterranean depths in so little time? Humans like to be on the side of winners, humans are weak. Censorship is to the free brain as hemlock was to Socrates' wisdom.
Wait- Glenn are you suggesting that you’re not a 20 person strong team of investigative reporters collaborating under a single name? ;-)
There is a point to be made there however. There was some great investigative talent at the TI (before they were purged: https://www.cjr.org/business_of_news/layoffs-the-intercept.php), and I’d love to know your thoughts on reclaiming that type of collaboration. I’d also love to know your take on the dynamics with investigative reporters at TI in general. What actually happened there? You’ve mentioned that there are still plenty of great reporters at TI- and I’m inclined to agree.
The question was how Mr. Greenwald intends to collaborate with people doing the investigative component. He knows a lot of first rate sleuths that can dig through the muck and extract the real story.
Greenwald is right: he can’t be an expert on all things all the time. That’s where collaboration is useful.
Sorry Glenn, but it's a leap to ascribe the motives that you do to me. Giving examples of what I would consider reporting in no way allows one to conclude that I'm attempting to hold you hostage for $50. I could say your comment was a cheap shot intended to virtue signal your "journalistic independence". I could also say the reason you lost control of the Guardian and were forced to move on is because you sold out for the almighty dollar. But then, in both instances, I would be making the same mistake you just did.
Investigating my past comments on this site will allow you to conclude that I have consistently complained about the dearth of reporting and the nonstop opinion pieces. I agree with your opinions, and find that you do a good job piecing together previously established facts in a fair and accurate manner, and putting things in proper context. Good on you. But really, what value does this add other than enlightening a few food bags out there who take liberty, freedom, free speech, democracy, personal privacy, etc., etc. for granted? Because a lot of people like myself recognize how fragile these things are, and have come to the same conclusions you do long before you write your pieces. Doesn't exactly move the ball down the field.
I'm looking for journalism. The kind where reporters investigate, use their sources to break and verify new facts, and report them to the public in a fair and accurate manner. I don't need reporters to rehash existing facts and tell me what I am supposed to think about them. I can think for myself. And there are already a ton of "reporters" today that already, as you have recognized yourself. Take a look at Judicial Watch or Project Veritas for examples of reporters doing reporting.
Please consider my subscription fee as my thanks for your excellent work on the Snowden revelations. Hope one day a break some more news.
Hard to believe you are someone who has sought out left wing news sites in the past, because very often what they provide is a different perspective on mainstream media, corporately owned, which too often lack any sense of validity. It's the right time to access what has been going on during these last 4 crazy years, the crazy being caused by a lack of honest, and objective reporting in the media, since making money usurps truth.
One more thing, Glenn. You write: "Nobody can be an expert in every topic and those who try usually produce very mediocre journalism, or worse."
What a load of crap. As if journalists don't have relationships with experts to guide them through issues they are not experts in themselves. If journalists have to be experts in what they write about, then they would never write about anything.
You yourself made this argument in a previous comment: "This article took a lot of research, interviews, and investigation in order to write properly."
Starting to realize that I have given you a lot more respect for your cognitive and reasoning skills than you deserve.
Where's your blog/page? I'd like to check out your journalistic skills. I assume you have them, since you criticize Glenn's so freely. Your credibility must be enormous! Please put a link in a reply so I can check you out.
Oh you're so right, I'm silly, because I have a sense of humor, enjoy utilizing sarcasm (a form of humor) to prick the balloon of fatuous self importance, and enjoy troll baiting. Silly, silly me.
I simply disagree that Glenn is doing a poor job. You are entitled to your opinion, Jim, but it is simply an opinion, and at any rate, it's impossible for anyone to please and meet the expectations of absolutely everyone who may purchase their work/services.
I could suffer your tone, being full of yourself. However, the suggestion to what investigate reveals your agenda, which is not about journalism. And no, I have not voted for a Democrat for a long time.
I don't agree that Glenn's sole job here is to simply report the facts on this or that topic. His opinions and assessments of prevailing facts are every bit as important as simply uncovering important tidbits of news. I do not only want to know about important facts, but also *why* in Glenn's thinking they are so important in the first place. I pay to see pieces like this one from Glenn as much as I do the type of pieces you requested.
Don't you think it's interesting how he avoids the big issues, like election fraud and the man-made origin of SARS_Covid-2. These are MASSIVE stories, the mainstream media (i.e., propaganda arm of the Democrats) won't touch. Where is GG on these? CRICKETS. Bottom line is Glenn is a pussy who phones it in, telling people like you what you want to hear, for $$$.
As Glenn himself noted, he cannot be expected to have an expertise on every big issue, or to agree with every subscriber as to which issues are more demanding of his time and research. Also, I would think that if Glenn had no courage, he would not have made that expose on corruption in Brazilian politics while actually living in Brazil. And if $$$ was his main motivation for tackling this or that topic, I think he would have stayed at The Intercept and aligned himself with establishment Democrats.
Sounds to me like some BS justification for his little scam money-making venture of a gutless journalist. I would expect a guy like him to take on the biggest issues which are crying out for reporters to investigate. Huge disappointment.
It really is. I hope people understand just how dangerous the self destruction of the MSM is to our Republic. Their willingness to jettison all ethics and integrity, basically every aspect of true journalism, is something we can’t come back from.
I’ve admired your incredible bravery over the last few months, but couldn’t quite bring myself to subscribe because, being libertarian/conservative, my views are opposite yours on many important issues. Then I woke up this morning and realized that it wasn’t a bad dream, & I am now living in a country not much different than CCP China and it’s only going to get worse. So $50/year is my small way of lighting a candle to curse the ever increasing darkness. Thank you Glenn.
But I thought my $50 guaranteed my own personal journalist? No?
In all seriousness though, thank you for all that you do. Your dedication to not only your craft, but your integrity, is rare these days unfortunately.
Lots of ways for people to get attention, and this is one way. Look how much attention journalists received in being critical of Trump. Some of us pick up bad habits.
content is driven by audience expectations in modern day media and is much of the reason for increasing polarization...it is all about eye balls and the bottom line.
Google's advertising analytics is the largest threat to the integrity of our Constitutional democratic republic.
Yep, but I'm pretty sure he has made this comment before, and he may very well have been the one I tried to console, really, and he's back again, but with a response from Greenwald. If he has been on left wing sites these are the types of articles one reads, and they're very interesting and informative. I'm glad Greenwald published this article because he's also bucking his left wing colleagues who have often referenced Trump as a fascist.
Excellent point, well made. People don't comprehend this, generally; they are still stuck in the 50s and 60s when journalism really was being done in (some) newsrooms. One of the most important lessons I got in my college Media class (first class of the first semester, not planned but perfectly done to leave a lasting impression on me!) was that the MSM is owned by corporations that are beyond gigantic. They do indeed use the 'news' as propaganda, as a great commercial and camouflaged PR.
Any naive journalistic aspirations I might have had died on the day CNN launched.
LOL. Glenn, maybe you should INVESTIGATE and REPORT on the masses of STUPID people in this country who make authoritarianism POSSIBLE because they CANNOT think nor can they form LOGICAL ARGUMENTS.
Seriously, this is the only place putting out anything readable right now. Shut the fuck up and pony up the $150 founders money as you clearly need to be more vested not less..
It seems that Glen sums up the potential of the evidence of a fraudulent election here ......“Trump’s terrifying “coup” consisted of a series of failed court challenges based on claims of widespread voter fraud — virtually inevitable with new COVID-based voting rules never previously used — and lame attempts to persuade state officials to overturn certified vote totals. There was never a moment when it appeared even remotely plausible that it would succeed, let alone that he could secure the backing of the institutions he would need to do so, particularly senior military leaders.
ie......it does not matter what the evidence reveals, the case is not going anywhere. The rule of law is gone unless it is in sync with the ‘swamp agenda’. Sadly, we all paid $50 so that Glen could present us with the evidence of THAT reality.
I find Glenn Greenwald's opinion pieces valuable, but I would also like to see investigative reporting from him. I'm already familiar with his view on neoliberalism and I agree with it. I hope Substack doesn't become just another "echo chamber".
I’ve never agreed with the dichotomy that something is either “journalism” or “opinion.” All journalism contains opinion, hidden or explicit, and much opinion writing - particularly the best - contains abundant journalism. This article took a lot of research, interviews, and investigation in order to write properly. I consider it “journalism” in every respect. One form of journalism is getting big leaks, and I’ve done that before and almost certainly will again, but you can’t just order it up like a McDonald’s meal. It happens when it happens. But that, to me, is only one form of journalism. This article is most definitely journalism as I understand it.
Thanks for your thoughtful reply. So as not to be misunderstood, I'll say again that I value your past and current work. In fact, I value it more highly than that of any other journalist, because of the intellectual and moral integrity your work displays, and the fact that you provide relevant links to support your arguments. Not only that, but you often respond directly to your readers - another unusual and admirable trait.
Nevertheless, I would be happy to see future articles from you that break more new ground. I don't mean that critically - I'm expressing my hope.
As someone who spent most of his 30-year career in newspapers on the opinion desk, I can say I always considered myself a journalist. Broke a few stories in my columns, too, which was always good for bragging rights over the news desk at our weekly pickup basketball games. ;-)
Beyond that, there is value - great value, I would add - at holding the Left up to its own standards. This is not something the Left likes very much, but while the Right has its libertarian wing to keep it honest, there isn't anything that organized on the Left.
Absolutely agree with your argument that Big Tech and the Democratic Party are in the early throes of a neo-fascism. And selling it as anti-fascism is the kind of chutzpah even Mussolini and Franco never had ...
>>Beyond that, there is value - great value, I would add - at holding the Left up to its own standards. This is not something the Left likes very much, but while the Right has its libertarian wing to keep it honest, there isn't anything that organized on the Left.<<
This is false on several levels. First, many journalists on the left adhere to facts and truth (and are censored and repressed for doing so). Just a few examples other than Greenwald would be Max Blumenthal, Aaron Mate, Rania Khalek. and (usually) Democracy Now!
Second, I see little evidence (as one who was a libertarian until about 15 years ago) that libertarians push back against the right media on anything other than what are generally dismissed as "social issues."
I hope you realize that Trump supporters, which make up 95% of the current Republican electorate, despise the Koch brothers and the RINO’s you describe as being supported by Libertarians.
"This article took a lot of research, interviews, and investigation in order to write properly." - Right there is the main difference of you as a journalist and the rest of the young writers the current "media" has masquerading as them.
Well at least there's you, Glenn. That's one person not afraid to say you'll do it (again) when the time comes. Gather the energy to prepare because you're on every radar now and so are many of your allies. Clearly it's open season on journalism (and we used to think things were bad in 2010). The world needs someone to be strong, to show integrity and tell the truth. Please mentor as many people as you can in the meantime because it's essentially going to be war.
I would like to mention here that as far as “Green Rooms” are concerned, one of the only reasons I watch Tucker Carlson is that I never know when either you, Jimmy Dore or Aaron Mate might show up. We will never see any of you on any other MSM “news” programs.
How does Judicial Watch “fabricate” the government documents they base all their reporting on? Sounds like you just don’t like what the government documents they have to sue to see have to say.
Don’t judge Project Veritas and Judicial Watch by Jim F. I half wonder if he is on here to make the two look like they are only watched by trolls. Project Veritas let’s people hang themselves. Judicial Watch sues the government for freedom of information act material.
He does that also, Jim. I really appreciate this articulate summary of the essential issue under all the divisive chaos we have just lived through. I am sending it out to my friends and family as an expression of my view which I could not articulate as well. Sometimes it serves well to articulate well basic, if even obvious, problems, because to organize them persuasively using the power of rhetorical principles can help convince others. Seems like you are not thinking of an audience beyond yourself, Jim.
You are expressing my views precisely. I am so excited to refer my liberal friends to this article, because it is so condensed, articulate, sourced and forceful. I have spent at least the last 2 years trying to explain to Democrat acquaintances that while I abhor Trump, their hysteria is baseless. I urge them to cease their non-stop MSNBC and CNN viewing, because those shills are making them insane. I can't convince them that the truth isn't a screaming melodrama but a boring run-of-the-mill seen-this-before stale plot. I've wanted them to know that they were going to be okay. I also want them to see that I'm not the one who is crazy. :)
The contents of the Hunter Biden laptop have been posted repeatedly. The MSM and big tech colluded with the DNC to limit their spread and Joe and Jolene voter hated Trump more than they cared about integrity. You've seen Fox and the New York Post covering Crackhead Biden with limited results. How would Glenn be doing readers a service by covering something already covered, and do it better than the reporters who had the sources in question. I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding of how the media works. You can investigate and report all you want, but without sources and evidence, you are just being CNN. How would Glenn get more access to the laptop than the Post already had?
Congrats - your post is the best indictment of journalists I have seen this year. For yes, a journalist is nothing more than a mouse in a maze, looking for a slice of cheese; one that gives up when they come to a dead end.
Well, journalists make up a lot of their research by utilizing sources. I can't imagine a lot of people in the Deep State are fans of Mr. Greenwald. Every person who could conceivably provide information would likely find it more valuable to NOT provide said information to Glenn. Listen to the state department tape of the Assange call. The entire time they are trying to identify who has the info, what the risk is, and how it can be contained.
99% of the time their sources are other alleged journalists or entirely made up out of thin air. The “wrap up smear” has been used more times by alleged journalists in the last four years than any period in history.
Yep, and its all profit for the media outlets. They get a cheaper, younger, expendable writer to write salacious pieces and then if the writer gets in trouble they just pull a Jayson Blair and pretend like its an isolated incident and not the norm. Meanwhile their costs go down and their views go up.
Despite potential Presidential pardon or commutation, neither Manning, Assange nor Snowden, shall survive, much less endure, repatriation and freedom; their countries of birth being cesspools of corruption.
prove you're not a troll infiltrating this substack. I wouldn't be surprised if you don't care about election fraud at all but are here for other reasons...
Point your ire at Trump, he is weak, be mad at him. I am terribly disappointed in Trump. All he has done is enable the concentration of power in the hands of the few. He is all talk, all hot air.
If you mean President Trump, Are his negotiations that have led to the five Muslim-majority countries recognizing Israel worth nothing??? Just one of several major accomplishments since Covid hit the U.S. in January.
I think he did a lot of things of huge consequence not the least making China fall in line, creating a booming economy and fighting for everyday Americans. Not to mention keeping us out of wars. My only issue with him is he couldn’t stay above the the bullshit. He gave voice to losers and ne’er-do-wells who had no business being blown into any level of importance. His thin skin made him far to many enemies which in turn gave us Biden and Harris. A senile man who sold out his country for money and a VP who is best known for being on her knees and locking up young black men. It’s not that I didn’t want him to fight, I did of course, but like a president not like a 12 year old. He made himself to easy to manipulate and know we will all pay the price for years to come.
No, a former democrat now disgusted with the dnc as much as I am the rnc, 2 sides of the same ugly, ugly coin. It started with them running the hideous hrc, then they forced biden/harris on us along with their disgusting "woke" culture meme. I chose not to vote for them and have resigned from the democratic party. Throwing around labels doesn't help anything, it only stops further discourse. If trump does something courageous before 1/20/2021 I will change my assessment of him. Either way the American people are screwed.
Nailed it on the head. I’m in the same exact boat. Never again will I vote for a democrat (which I’ve blindly done over and over again since I was 18), and after a brief stint with Republicans I’m probably not voting for them again either... my vote is to be earned, not expected or coerced
Trump was the "none of the above" vote in 2016, which is why he won the primary, and he won the vote in the general because he was the "anybody but hillary" vote for many people.
It turns out BOTH of the main candidates of 2016 were super shitty choices, and that, at least in Michigan, as likely many places elsewhere, around ten times the voters as represented the margin of victory went to the polls and voted, but didn't vote for PUTOS on their ballots. ... That tells you something important.
We truly have to stop voting AGAINST someone and only vote FOR someone, and if that means you have to look to "third parties" to find a worthy candidate, well, do that! If not now, when?
Saying 'I'll never vote for a Democrat again!' is almost as bad as saying 'I'll never vote for a Republican!' (The labels are almost interchangeable now anyhow.)
His brand and legacy are now synonymous with failure. Had some good ideas but his own stupidity was his undoing. Now, the next 4 years will be about creating bad policy and blaming the orange monster for it. The past 8 months has been a conditioning period in preparation for the “new miserable” and the “even more miserable” after that. People complain but don’t have the discipline to CANCEL everything. Not just social media but streaming services as well. As a side bar, I tried to find an online article that was published 23 hours ago, now can’t find it. I can find the third party reporting of it that tells me how I should think about it, but not the original. Hmmm. Stop whining and start canceling. Except for GG, of course.
Honestly? I don't think we'll ever know how "stupid" he was while POTUS. People who worked directly for him worked to undercut him daily. It's amazing what the fishbowl in DC can do to your motives and directives. Assuming you even had any.
I'll maintain until the day I die that Donald Trump had to learn a lot in a real short time, because *nothing* is quite like DC, even to a world-weary multi-millionaire New Yorker. I'll go even further and opine that I think he NEVER intended to run for POTUS, that it was the brainchild of his good friend (at the time) Slick Willy, who needed to come up with a candidate so bad that he'd make Hillary look good. And by God, the media tried to help them, but their contrived war on Trump back then had the exact opposite effect--and he started winning primaries.
So just to be clear, you think Trump is incredibly stupid, and Bill Clinton convinced him to run, to ostensibly make his wife look better? Are you currently employed by David Brock?
The sadness is we will never have an outsider again. The spineless, garbage Repubs don’t care. I hope Yang runs for Mayor of NYC and replaces the garbage up there in what used to be one of the greatest cities in the world.
Glenn is not only a top investigative reporter to whom we are all indebted. He is also a top commentator, too, because he can interpret what he sees, describe it as a whole, and discern its significance for key principles such as freedom of speech and representative democracy. Given the corruption of the ACLU and other erstwhile civil rights organizations by ideology, he may be the leading journalistic voice in the country, if not the world, for freedom of speech against the incursions of the corporate national security state.
You're outraged that a journalist is not fighting this battle for us? And what has Hunter Biden's nefarious deeds to do with the election fraud? What weight do affidavits have when wielded by those who hide behind a journalist's pen?
You don't even know who the enemy is. Read this article again, you missed something bigger than the election fraud of 2020.
Obvious election fraud, Biden fraud and your particular flavour of BS has been covered, rather well, by other qualified journalists, worldwide, in great detail.
Providing a $50.00 subscription to Fox News will not garner editorial privilege.
Cancel your subscription and divert elsewhere for the "good boy" pat on the head.
You knew Greenwalds' reputation and investigative scope prior to purchase, che problema?
Darn it, Glenn. If you keep writing a balanced account of the actions and record of the Trumpster's time in office, I am going to be left with a ton of unsold ORANGE MAN BAD! merch. Can't you hold out the slim possibility that millions will die from taking one of the multiple vaccines developed under Operation Warp Speed so we can blame him for SOMETHING FOREVER?!?!! I mean I've got 80 year old neighbors that were promised by the Democrats there wouldn't be a vaccine to take until mid-2021 at the earliest, and now they're already making appointments to get the shot less than two months after the election! How is this even possible??!! What a bummer........
Appreciate the work Glenn. I find it hard not to be demoralized daily with the knowledge that even attempting civil conversation on this very issue (the primary reason I supported Trump over the Democrats after previously never supporting a republican party candidate) will get me lambasted even at home for even considering that Trump was not that bad. That we could and are doing by giving the reigns to someone as corrupt as Biden (China) or as fake as Kamala. The smear campaign of the establishment was so effective that was it clear and obvious fake platitudes and politicking coming from Biden/Harris is eaten up like candy in light of the orange man being bad narrative.
I still consider myself a liberal, but I also recognize that there are other ways to address problems because one viewpoint can't have all the answers to all the social and economic ills of a country. It would be stupid to think otherwise. I see what the policies of one party have historically been doing to the many major cities and it just seems like commone sense to give the other guys a shot, since what has been tried clearly isn't working and may not be intended to work in the first place. But if the people want despots I guess they get what they asked for and deserve.
This is just depressing. I dont know how to get beyond this. Where has BLM gone since the summer? Silence. Yet the people who praised and defended their antics are just as silent. No orange man tp rally against. No more funds to be raised for democrat candidates, rather than local communities that could use them.
What does it take to get the average person to realize they are wrong about something?
I think naturally, more liberals would be thinking like you, but they've been hypnotized by the "liberal" media, which keeps changing its goalposts in order to stay in power. I think true liberals are rare these days. I am personally a conservative (used to be a liberal) with some libertarian leanings in policy, but I can have a real conversation with a liberal. The people who call themselves liberals today which i believe to be a majority of Americans or at least a majority of the voting bloc, have changed their views so fast, they no longer fit the term, and they just march to the beat of the corporate media. They can't think for themselves. It makes you wonder when we stopped being individuals...
I've been reading about and listening to more conservative voices like Thomas Sowell, and still consider myself liberal because I don't see conservatism as contrary to liberalism but something that in part is derived from it (or can reach the same conclusions through different means)
The liberal ethos is often focused on feeling and caring: If I see as a liberal attempts to help people like welfare not succeed, or changes to schools (grading policies, punishment, curriculum) not produced the results expected, then I CHANGE my view about what should be the solution. Perhaps the conservative answer of "self-empowerment" is better than "lets help you" Provide people the tools to help themselves rather than the resources those tools get them.
I also will add that I even attempted once at home to try to turn a discussion of disagreement into a civil discussion of ideas (NOT partisanship, but for some reason being liberal means you must belong to particular party tribe, no it does not) and I asked the person, "What are liberal values?" and the only thing they could say was "there is a liberal party...".... No. LIberal describes a set of values, just as conservatism does. I don't see them as mutually exclusive, just as different principles on how to get to solutions and perspective on the world. To be conservative once meant to support the rule of the king. Not anymore. I wish there were a movie or a series a movies to watch to help facilitate friendly conversations about these things at home because it is frustrating to no end to have convictions I don't feel I can comfortably share without having it understood improperly because of the lack of context the other person has. I started my own substack (free) to even talk about some of these things because I am too nervous to speak openly at home I have to do it somewhere....
I wish you luck - never let ideas of truth and wisdom die just because no one wants to listen and would like to intimidate you - they're the ones who are afraid, because their ideas may be indefensible. You sound like you have a truly kind heart.
One way to explain conservatism and liberalism is that many conservatives are classic liberals in the way that the founders were: the constitution was a radical document breaking away from the traditional monarchy rule, and gave individuals freedom from the state to make their own choices - this is true liberalism. Some conservatives are conservatives in the way that they just defer to hierarchy, and can be very authoritarian. I believe these conservatives are small in number because many of them are now democrats and voted for Biden. True conservatism in America has its root in the constitution: individualism, laissez faire capitalism, small government, and belief in G-d, which means they are morally self-directed, and do not need the government telling them what to do, and this also means that since they believe their individual liberties are G-d given, they cannot be taken away by any mortal, including the president or anyone. But they also believe in the separation of church and state, and no one has the moral authority to tell an individual what to believe. This existed in tension with modern day liberalism for years, and it was okay, and it some ways the liberal party corrected the failures of America, like with segregation - although this is debated whether an constitutional amendment was necessary. But again, these things are debatable, not like what we have now, where we can't even look at each other because of how divided we are. But what's to do? If one side doesn't believe in free speech, then we'll never have a conversation. So here we are.
I'm in a similar situation. And I used to be an organizer on behalf of liberal ("liberal") interest groups for Pete's sake. Leave your Substack info, would like to check it out.
Also if you would ever like to have a discussion over zoom hit me up. I've been trying to get a diverse group of people together to have conversations about philosophy and other related topics. A few of my friends who speak well on these topics are open to it, but undermotivated to do so.
Thanks for asking! I am just getting started and testing the waters so I am not charging anything. I even created a Locals I am trying to create a community around the blog within for communicating with people privately away from traditional censorious social media. Still working on building up both.
Would love input and if you could recommend it to anyone.
"I don't see conservatism as contrary to liberalism" This is a very good and indeed key point.
In my view they are on two different lines, say the x-axis and the y-axis.
Liberalism stands in the middle of the x-axis between libertarianism on the right of it and socialism/communism on the left. These reflect the degree of government control of the public with the most on the left.
Conservatism stands in the middle of the y-axis between reactionary on the right of it and progressive on the left. These reflect the degree of wanting to move to new ideology/policy on the left and degree of wanting to move to older ideology/policy on the right.
Interesting. In the case of the first - I can't blame them for following their interests, but absolutely they need to be honest about it and not virtue signal. The second, sounds like a form of being hypnotized - it just shows how mainstream these ideas are - it's taking the path of least resistance. The third are the ones who are most likely to snap at some point, because of fear - nobody like to live in it, and be afraid to speak their mind - the fear itself is a kind of courage, if you think about it - because at least they know truth - to know truth in a (corporate) world of falsehood is important, because you have to sift through the lies, or stand on principle, at least internally. In a perfect world they'd be brave, we'd all be, and rise up, but it's not a perfect world, and I only hope they won't push their thoughts of change down too much. But in general, I do think we got here because people are hypnotized. And you can tell a lot about society by how their ruling class talks and acts - they reflect us. We had years to change the direction and flow of information - but nothing happened besides for a few lefty/liberal journalists just this year making loud statements. Are they are new silent majority - liberals sick of modern liberalism? It's an important question, true.
Great article, Glenn. Inverted Totalitarianism, as outlined by Sheldon Wolin (RIP) in "Democracy Incorporated" is upon us. Shout-out to Aldous Huxley, who wrote in 1958:
"Under the relentless thrust of accelerating over-population and increasing over-organization, and by means of ever more effective methods of mind-manipulation, the democracies will change their nature; the quaint old forms -- elections, parliaments, Supreme Courts and all the rest -- will remain. The underlying substance will be a new kind of non-violent totalitarianism. All the traditional names, all the hallowed slogans will remain exactly what they were in the good old days. 'Democracy' and 'freedom' will be the theme of every broadcast and editorial -- but democracy and freedom in a strictly Pickwickian sense. Meanwhile the ruling oligarchy and its highly trained elite of soldiers, policemen, thought-manufacturers and mind-manipulators will quietly run the show as they see fit." -- Brave New World Revisited.
I hear a lot of platitudes for “democracy” from all over. I see virtually no one other than some Libertarians - advocating for liberty, indeed in recent years I see only contempt for it from the entire political class (right and left).
The article is spot on - in terms of genuine free market advocates finding this current crony system abhorrent. Every single individual I know who is a genuine free market advocate opposes crony capitalism.
Why does it exist? Because it is legal. It is legal to lobby government for favors of all kinds. It is legal for government to grant them. Virtually all government regulation has a false pretense of “protection from businesses”. And virtually all is actually done to increase political power and to dole out competitive advantage to some businesses at the expense of others.
Guess who is at the table creating Wall St regulation: Wall St - in order to create advantages for themselves.
Guess who is at the table when pharma regulations are being created: pharma.
Guess who created Obamacare: the healthcare industry.
The reality is our “system” and China’s are converging. We are already in a post constitutional authoritarian state. It’s like a snake that completely winds itself around its victim before it squeezes and suffocates. It’s now fully wound. The Covid policies just accelerated it by a decade or more. And naive Americans just handed over their liberties like it was nothing.
Agreed. I would also like to add how many that describe us as a democracy get it wrong because we were never intended to be a pure Democratic rule nation, but a republic. This gets glossed over and often only defended by staunch natationalist types and unfortunately, including the racist ones. It makes it harder to defend something on principled terms was intended to protect the people from tyranny of mob rule when your goals also align in some ways with the undesirables of the public... :(
Good point. No one actually THINKS that, but that imply that they do to their audiences with all the different articles this election cycle suggesting Trump is a threat to democracy by simply issuing challenges that are within his right to challenge. The hyperbole of the media suggests that they believe there are people that think we are a strict democracy. And people do eat that up.
I agree that the media is hysteria driven when it comes to Trump, and that lots of people "eat it up." I don't really see the connection between that and people thinking the US is a "strict democracy," which I assume we are using interchangeably with "pure democracy." I guess we'll agree here -- and disagree a little.
My bad. I am probably not expressing properly the connections I'm seeing in my head (and they may be wrong!).
What I am trying to get at is all the articles I have seen for months about how Trump is destroying democracy, a threat to democracy, and "ending" or "threatening" democracy is also implying that we have a certain form of democracy that we don't have and never have. If anything they are pushing us toward that strict democratic rule (because it favors the establishment currently to empower a low information majority) with the pushed for popular vote compacts. I think that eventually, these compacts may bite the very pushers of them in the ass who insisted upon them because the assumption with them has always been "popular vote always goes one way" but history has shown that can sway, and with a strong, less character-flawed populist could easily overcome that gap.
Of course, the media has to crash and burn likely before all that.
Rather than address human and economic fatalities consequential of draconian, misinformed and arguably unconstitutional restrictions, rather than transparent communication of policies based on real science and data, public demand to cease erosion of rights and freedoms is ignored, while fact-based debate and dissent is censored and attacked.
The World Health Organization has declared no evidence exists for asymptomatic transmission of SARS-CoV-2. The WHO, CDC and the omniscient Drs. Fauci and Birx should be expected to repeat the mask "flip-flop" and advise of their own studies demonstrating harm of prolonged mask use and negligible viral protection.
The CDC website continues to mirror findings of a dubiously retracted Johns Hopkins study, which stated overall death rates have not increased significantly over 2019 and further, "Instead of the expected drastic increase across all causes, there was a significant decrease in deaths due to heart disease [and] all other causes...the total decrease in deaths by other causes almost exactly equals the increase in deaths by COVID-19."
The Johns Hopkins study confirms survival rates of 99.9% within the demographic comprising relatively healthy patients presenting with no co-morbidities susceptible to the corona family. Relatively healthy patients aged 70 and over, demonstrate survival rates of 94%. As with any corona virus, including seasonal influenza and the common cold, death rates increase markedly and correlate directly with presentation of susceptible co-morbidities, especially among the elderly.
Dr. Kary Mullis, received a 1993 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for invention of the polymerase chain reaction technique, or PCR. Prior to his recent passing, Mullis repeatedly and explicitly warned of PCR misuse, stating "Quantitative PCR is an oxymoron." Mullis stated viral identification is impossible with PCR. The technique is not valid as a diagnostic test for infection, as it merely amplifies fragments, or segments of RNA or DNA, which pose no threat to the carrier, nor any chance of transmission. PCR was designed as a scientific research tool, not a medical diagnostic.
Excessive cycle thresholds (Ct), or amplifications, resulting in rampant positive misdiagnoses, render the technique meaningless as measurement of infection, case and death rates. Mullis stated cycle thresholds as high as 30 and 40 allow for "...almost anything" to be found in "almost anyone." Moreover, segments identified at cycles of 30 or greater, simply cannot replicate a virus in culture, which should be the universally accepted medical diagnostic.
The United States and United Kingdom currently certify COVID-19 deaths if the patient tested positive via PCR within 28 days of passing, while underlying co-morbidities are ignored; UK certification requires no lab test, as medical practitioners may certify based solely on opinion. Why waste time and money on invalid PCR?
The WHO Model List of Essential Medicines has included hydroxychloroquine for decades. Studies have proven an hydroxychloroquine, azithromycin and zinc combination, applied during early infection, almost guarantees survival rates similar to those presented by Briand's Johns Hopkins study.
Cui bono? Governments have acquired or simply usurped greater power. Pharmaceutical companies will amass fortunes from tax-payers, to be shared with elected officials and bureaucrats associated and invested with Big Pharma, especially in the US and UK.
The "scamdemic" has been a vehicle for the largest transition of wealth in history. The wealthiest 10,000 individuals world-wide have, since the WHO's pandemic declaration, accrued an estimated US $10 trillion. Vaccines add to that wealth; mandatory vaccines guarantee that wealth, while penalties for dissent provide incentive for compliance.
The "Event 201" media simulation, organized by the Gates Foundation, Johns Hopkins, et al., presented mere months prior to pandemic declaration, mirrors, with almost exact precision and prescience, that which has transpired as a result of declaration. Production value was obvious, demanding months, if not years, of planning.
The Great Barrington Declaration, endorsed by more medical practitioners and scientific academics than the population of Yukon, cannot be ignored. Until the Declaration is acknowledged and adopted as sound policy, the current, destructive response will continue to shred basic human rights and claim far more lives than the virus.
Well, at least your last thought has some semblance of hope.
I dissented against every war since Vietnam, every government injustice that came across my radar screen, never felt so chastised by my social circle and community as I do now, resisting this most gross of injustices being waged on a global scale. My other "anti-activities" were socially acceptable. This one is different. Even when I manage to get someone to listen, the response is always "I don't want to think about it." Can you blame them? When there's a 24/7 drumbeat by local and federal officials, MSM, friends and family, "bodies dying in hallways", healthcare workers losing their minds - how do you push against that tidal wave?
Initial post here was my first on any platform, because I purchased the opportunity and I am not the product. Salutations and a big eat-shit grin to Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Walmart, et al., and their intelligence community peeps.
Near hermitage, resultant of disability, forced wider interest and granular research. Clinton's mass-media conglomeration ended mainstream journalism, inadvertently, perhaps temporarily, gifting it to the "net".
Reader input here and on similar platforms, contributes to the push, despite lack of perceived result.
The post-WWII, gradual creep of authoritarianism was perceived by few "average" Americans and Canadians, much as a frog fails to attempt flight from slow boil demise. But, the concept may reversed.
Technocrats failed to own the internet from inception, prior to a gradual, global enlightenment, the results of which may not bring perception of change during one's life.
The "dumbing-down" of public education by eugenicists, was thoughtfully planned and gradually executed over decades (read: Ford and Rockefeller families/Foundatons); we have been programmed to exist solely as cheap labour, constantly desirous of immediate gratification. Skeptical parsing of digital information is the antithesis of public education and perhaps, foreshadows its equally gradual dissolution.
Absolute assurance empires always cannibalize themselves, at least, guarantees change. Unfortunately, this reader, albeit lacking depth of history scholarship, has yet to learn of an empire successfully resurrected as and/or sustained under, any form of democracy, for a duration exceeding that of the failure.
Those of us unwilling to "think about it" are simply not prepared to endure risk and repercussion and as you stated, cannot be blamed.
The Gutenberg "ideal" of the internet is not dead, nor doomed; nor is journalism.
As practical parents plan for a family's future prosperity, responsible, skeptical citizens must plan for the longer-term, considering not only future decades but, future generations, without expectation of any immediate result. Such forces must, somehow, coalesce, as did the eugenicists, technocrats and other such assorted scum who've been pillaging for centuries.
The fundamental, American "Adamic" ideal of self-sufficiency, put forth by tone and intent of the Constitution and beauty of prose of minds such as Emerson, Thoreau and Whitman, is long dead, unknown to the majority of contemporary Western minds.
This lapse of cultural and philosophical wisdom may have contributed to failure of the Great Experiment.
Post-secondary campuses shelter undergrad scholars in mortal fear of mere punctuation; the period "." is now considered a Snowflake-melting, micro-aggression. Such intellect might implode attempting to comprehend "I Sing the Body Electric".
The next generation will fail, if illiterate and unable to count.
Technocracy has not yet stifled the network of potential for amelioration.
At least one has listened, did "think about it" and provided response with productive intent. Your dissent IS a small success wherever, whenever you act, as the right to informed dissent provides.
That same effort, multiplied globally, gradually and exponentially, represents potential.
Yes. It turns out, Trump isn't a Nazi after all. Our first clue? When the court struck down his Travel Ban, and he reformulated it to comply with the court ruling. But half the country still believes the hysteria. If you look back at the 4-year game that was played, it is clear that someone really, really didn't want him in office. Trump wasn't the usual collegial swapping of Red for Blue (yawn, policies remain the same) and back again. The election of Trump meant the End of the Known World. To Someone. Heaven and earth had to be moved to remove him from office.
Who, do you think, was scared of Trump? And why? CCP and their US business cronies? Eternal War gang? CIA/NSA/FBI?
I was relieved when Obama was elected. "Whew, no more Iraqs." I had that feeling right up until he destroyed Libya. And then Syria. And then Clapper did his lying-to-Congress trick. Kept his job. NSA's programs remain in place. "Hey wait a minute."
Yes, the "Muslim Travel Ban" actually was the "Terrorist Travel Hold". Why anyone called it "Muslim" is unexplainable. After all, Indonesia, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Nigeria and Egypt all were missing from the Hold, and they have the largest Muslim populations in the world.
your comment substantiates the institutions of our democratic republic were strong enough to repel Trump's innate autocratic self not that his instincts aren't the same as those of a Nazi.
Institutions definitely repelled Trump. Were they Democratic? The CIA/FBI/NSA are not at the top of my list in that category. And your claims as to Trump's "innate autocratic self" is evidence-free.
I refer you to the accounts of anyone and everyone who was ever employed by The Trump Organization and more recently the long list of former members of his administration from top to bottom.
I suspect there isn't sufficient quantity or veracity of evidence that will change your clearly made up mind.
Well lacking specifics, its going to be tough to convince me. "Go read everything" isn't evidence. How about an example of something Trump did when in office that looks like Hitler? Like we were promised the whole time by the media? Say, that is equivalent to the invasion of Iraq. Or the destruction of LIbya. You know - like a war which killed a lot of people. For me at least, bombastic tweets don't rise to the level of "Hitler".
Well, if Trump were a Nazi, he would have had the judges shot. Kinda like Hitler did. You know. Hitler the Nazi. But that's not what he did. Hope that helps.
"...in 1933, the German system of justice underwent "coordination" (alignment with Nazi goals). All professional associations involved with the administration of justice were merged into the National Socialist League of German Jurists."
Sounds like The Federalist Society's handiwork to me.
So, no brownshirts, no camps, no "Arbeit macht frei". And yet Trump still is "Hitler". But just deep inside, where only you (and CNN) can see. Your complete inability to provide any actual evidence of "Trump=Hitler" just proves Glenn's point. I gave you every chance. Thanks for playing!
the German constitution to which you refe— the Weimar Constitution—didn't come into existance until August of 1919, the nazis came to power less than a decade later and prior to that Germany was an authoritarian monarchy.
your yawning explains why you missed this detail during your manifestly wasted years of educations.
"While Trump radically escalated bombing campaigns he inherited from Bush and Obama, he started no new wars. "
For the record you are ignoring one important fact: Trump's total bombing campaign accelerated in years one and two but massively dropped of in years 3 and 4. His average bombs dropped is significantly lower than prior presidencies this century.
Trump's increase in Afghanistan bombings also eventually got the Taliban to the negotiating table for peace, which is something prior presidents this century also failed to do.
But Iraq/Syria bombs dropped fell in numbers by an order of magnitude.
You've misread the data. I won't give a president credit for slowing down bombing when he releases only partial data that don't tell us enough to decide, and Trump, like other presidents, isn't releasing much. The Trump administration is flying fewer sorties, but releasing more individual munitions. Data like "what is the total tonnage of bombs released per month" and "how many civilians are being killed per month" would be good to know, but aren't included in your link. Given the fact that some of the info released by Trump's administration looks worse than before, and they're not even releasing other key info, I will tentatively say that he may well be worse than Obama on this. (My point here is somewhat indebted to this link: https://csis-website-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/publication/190904_Progress-Afghanistan.pdf )
I see you are talking about Iraq & Syria and not Afghanistan, so point taken. I had been in an email discussion with other people a while ago about this very same set of data, which had only focused on Afghanistan, so I missed your statement that you weren't claiming a dropoff in Afghanistan. In terms of the total bombing campaign, which had been mainly directed at Iraq & Syria, you're right that there's been something of a dropoff under Trump according to those limited kinds of data that the Trump administration is willing to release. However, since the Trump and Obama administration never told us what is the total tonnage of bombs released per month, nor gave us reliable info on number of civilians killed, and I am not prepared to actually endorse your conclusion that Trump's total bombing campaign dropped off in years 2 and 3 of Trump's term.
"limited kinds of data that the Trump administration is willing to release?"
This is the same data set that has been released for the past 10 years. If you are going to complain about limited data release at least acknowledge that that isn't a Trump administration issue but an issue that has spanned presidencies that covered the full political spectrum to include both houses of Congress.
I already acknowledged that it isn't just a Trump administration issue, but aside from that you're right in both your new comments. Since neither Obama's Pentagon nor Trump's released enough info, I'm not prepared to go "Great, Trump is better than Obama." I would like to see info on military torture under Trump as well.
Are they? "Sorties with at least one weapon released" were more than double in 2019 compared to 2014. And "number of weapons released" was more than triple in 2019 compared to 2014. I haven't looked it all over in depth yet, but those two stats at the top of the presentation really jumped out.
No. Like I wrote, I haven't had the time to really look at it closely. The sortie and weapon stats kind of jumped off the page for me. Can you distill it down for us? And can you explain how the apparent increases in sorties and weapons use from 2019 compared to 2014 show a down trend? Just so there is no misunderstanding, I'm genuinely asking here not trying to be coy. I will look at the materials more closely later . . . I'm juggling a few things right now. But maybe you could explain it.
Perhaps the most interesting thing you missed in your article Glenn is not how Trump has not engaged in the authoritarian behaviors everyone claimed he would eventually do as part of his Evil Plan but how the vast majority of governors did EXACTLY THAT.
Up to and including using photos from prior year gatherings of Jews to target them for executive and legal action (because that always bodes well...)
VERY FEW governors chose a good path through this crisis. Some made some good decisions at some points, but there was a lot of bad to go with the rare bits of good.
This year is going to make the history books when it comes to emergency management as we review the whole of the world and who did what that worked and didn't work within the confines of the freedoms allowed by each country and state.
And the local Mayors and County Judges in mostly blue towns and counties. Gosh they have crushed small independent businesses while allowing the big corporate big box folks to roll over every little guy. Really sad if your job or business wasn't declared "essential". Sick.
As a resident of the California gulag, I appreciate your comments. The damage we see on the surface is bad enough. I fear the explosion of homelessness when the eviction moratoriums inevitably come to an end.
I mostly agree with this critique, but what's the hope when the problem is civilization wide loss of sanity? The whole population is just being herded into authoritarian hell with hardly a complaint. All of my friends on the left spend time wailing about corporatists while at the same time go right along with destroying half the country's businesses. They hate the police but happily usher in a whole new level of police state with far more petty policing then ever before. Our problems are deep and cultural, there's no simple solution.
I’m not easily intimidated about stating my opinion, even when it’s unpopular...until recently. I voted Green but, truthfully, I was more worried about a Biden admin than 4 more years of Trump. It has very little to do with the personal qualities of either man, as I don’t think either of them would be running the show, or even have a good idea of where the show was. Trump has some very powerful, well financed allies and donors, particularly among the religious right, but they’re no match for Silicon Valley, Wall Street, the Pentagon, MSM, and the CIA. On the existential issues of climate change and nuclear holocaust, I give Biden the edge on climate, but Biden’s neocon entourage scares the Hell out of me. Trump is erratic and reckless, but like all bullies and the Cold warriors of my youth there is some sense of self preservation. The neocons surrounding Biden seem to think radiation doesn’t apply to them. As far as providing for the American ppl, I have no reason to believe Biden will be any kinder or gentler to the poor, working class or middle class than Trump. His record suggests a lack of empathy rivaling Trump’s. Neither one will impede the corporate takeover of govt so I’d rather not foam the runways for the most powerful among them: Wall St and Silicon Valley. Stating any of these opinions nowadays will get you attacked and censored, which is why it’s so important to keep sharing them. You’re a mensch, Glenn.
As much as I dislike Trump, he is in his first 4 years of politics. Joe Biden has been in politics since 1972. What is he going to do now that he hasn't done in the last 48 years? Name a single piece of important legislation Joe Biden has done. Trump sucks but lifer politicians suck worse.
I voted Green in 2016 because I had nothing but contempt for the Democratic & Republican parties (which hasn't abated a bit since then), and I got a ton of flak from people I shared that information with -- I was blamed for Hillary's loss, dismissed as being privileged, etc.
It's frustrating because people act like you have to explain yourself for how you voted, or what your beliefs are, but then if you take the time to explain it (like you did in your post) they either just don't get it or they tune you out and just keep giving you shit like it's all they've been trained to do.
At risk of sounding like a rose-tint-spectacled old-timer, I remember it being a lot less socially hazardous to be a 3rd party voter before the digital age, but that may also just be the coincidence of Ralph Nader being blamed a lot for Gore's loss in 2000.
U.S. society has become more tribal in the past few decades. It took me a long time to come to the sad realization that it's not just a lack of awareness - liberal Democrats, or at least the baby boomer cohort, simply do not care about our foreign wars, the lack of universal health care, and many other issues they profess to support. Those living on the upper decks generally don't want to rock the boat.
A milestone in my own understanding occurred when president Obama promised to protect CIA agents who had participated in torture programs ("We need to look forward, not backward"). Once you're willing to acquiesce to the official use of torture in order to maintain the existing social order, you're past the point of no return.
TE O’Connor - I’ve read this entire thread with interest and enjoyment but without comment. I break my silence only to point out that your repetitive contributions are uniquely (in this place, anyway) boorish and boring.
Perhaps a new occupation for your time would be a relief to you and yours in the new year.
The danger posed by Mr. Trump was his attempt to bypass the gatekeepers in the media by communicating with the public directly using Twitter. Fortunately, Twitter has now set filters to prevent this from happening again. With any luck, there will be no possibility of future collusion between a President and the citizenry. Democracy, as we know it, has been saved.
Sadly, that is the newest reality.....’Democracy, as we know it”. We now know, for sure, that we can NOT vote them OUT without the approval of the ‘swamp’.
I wish I could say you're wrong. Alas . . .
NoSuchCommentator, well put! ⭐️
You spelled Facebook wrong. There is a reason Hitlery said she wanted to be in charge of FB not Twitter. Twitter is already under the DNC thumb. FB's lower minions are DNC, but Mark himself is not, I assure you.
Bravo 😁
Public education is the opium of the people. It’s a drone factory producing meat bags incapable of reason. Of course Donald Trump is a tyrant. Their teachers who are “like really smart” told them so. The professional teleprompter readers also confirm this. And for the especially dim witted, Hollywood follows up with confirmation.
Tyranny is what the left practices. Intolerance of diverse opinions and threats of violence and actual violence from their paramilitary arm, antifa etc.
"Tyranny is what the left practices."
No.
Did you read the above article?
Tyranny is directly coming from neoliberal, establishment Democrats. To understate, that is not "the left." Indeed, the actual left is the target of much neoliberal repression, including censorship.
Then why were progressives siding with Biden? They hate fascism so much they want to see it come to power? The truth is that corporatism and progressive policies are not that different. And progressives just wanted a slice of that power
Progressives "sided with Biden" (in the sense many voted for him) because they thought he was a better choice than Trump. They were not consciously "voting for fascism." They believed they were voting against it. Part of the point of Glenn's article is that many people don't see the real totalitarianism that we have, and see it instead embodied in Trump. In other words, they mistake the circus for the emperor.
idk then if they couldn't see what was happening and what the biden admin stood for then that should call into question all their ideas, because that's a serious lapse in judgement. Useful idiots
I don't think some people who consider themselves "progressives" making that decision . . . the "lesser of two evils" vote . . . gives me cause to "call into question" all the ideas of a broad group of people that contains those voters.
>>Progressives "sided with Biden" (in the sense many voted for him) because they thought he was a better choice than Trump<<
Exactly. Some like Chomsky and Nathan Robinson detest Biden and all the establishment Dems stand for, but sincerely considered Trump the greater evil. One progressive I know, a research scientist, voted for Biden while retching in a bucket purely out of the belief that Biden is more likely to adhere to sound science in the Covid disaster.
Whether these progressives are right or not, they are not the source of neoliberal authoritarianism and oppose it vehemently.
What you vote for, you support. Whether you hold you nose or retch in a bucket while doing it is irrelevant.
There are exceptions, such as someone being forced to perform an action they find repugnant through coercion, threats to their life or the life of a loved one, etc. But we're talking about voting for goodness' sake, not having someone literally holding a gun to one's head.
They're willfully ignorant! its no secret that the socially acceptable thing to do in progressive circles was to vote and give money to democrats. but it doesn't take a genius in any stretch of the form to see what they were really all about! if a college educated professor couldn't see it, does it make him stupid, a coward, or someone who just doesn't care and is just in it for the likes? Noam chomsky really doesn't see it? come. on. so don't vote if you hate biden so much. but no. most of these people just talk about trump and how evil he is and pretend to be disgusted by biden but they have no real stake in any of this! are their livelihoods affected one way or another? no. somehow there's always a market for useless college degrees in society. they have money, power, are out of touch with most americans, and should just shut up and stop acting so hypocritical all the time. it's getting a little old. these people have done far more harm to our society than anything.
Word
" Biden is more likely to adhere to sound science in the Covid disaster." is a really questionable opinion! Biden's managers have indicated Dr Fauci will be his chief advisor on Covid. Fauci has limited background for this, and lied repeatedly over the past year, even admitting this in a TV interview this past week.
President Trump has done an excellent job in dealing with the virus, despite constant attacks from the Democrats. He worked with leaders of key companies to a) get needed equipment produced and distributed (even Gov. Cuomo praised President Trump for this in mid-April) and b) get the vaccines developed and tested and approved in record time. He recognized the need for states and localities to set their own policies for protecting their residents rather than requiring a counterproductive national lockdown.
In fact the death per million rate for the U.S. was ranked 8th highest among all countries this summer, and is today ranked 14th highest, having death rates that now are lower the the U.K., the Czech Republic, Spain and Bulgaria, that were lower earlier in the year.
"President Trump has done an excellent job in dealing with the virus"
A retired virologist who is also a Glenn fan believes that is rank nonsense; I've seen evidence this is the scientific consensus. (As a Michigander, I was furious and aghast when Trump irrresponsibly tweeted: "Liberate Michigan" in response to our governor's public health orders.) But either way, many progressives who held their vomit down and voted for Biden did so because of Covid, not because progressives don't detest neoliberal authoritarianism.
"retching in a bucket" - was it mentioned on a rider accompanying the vote? Or something like "this is not for you, actually, just against the other guy/girl"?
To this my argument I was once told ballots did not come with riders!
But let's say they did. Would Biden (or whoever) care? Of course not! "You sucker gave me the vote and you can shove your opinion up your ass".
My question is why don't people understand it? Simply not voting is a vote - a vote saying "I do not have a choice". I venture to say this is a large portion of non-voting public (I am one of them). Voting "with a rider" is just continuing to support the system.
I still can’t believe that people think 81 million people voted for a career grifter that didn’t campaign and the few times he spoke showed clear signs of dementia. Biden miraculously got millions of votes only in the handful of Democrat election run swing cities where Republican poll watchers were harassed, threatened and prohibited from doing their job, allowing millions of ballots to be adjudicated without oversight. Republicans won 27 of 27 toss up congressional seats yet Biden won in these same areas? Seriously, how does anyone with a brain believe this actually happened?
I literally cannot roll my eyes anymore than I can after reading this post.
Good thing you can touch-type.
Trump obeyed (whom?) and no longer speaks of hydroxychloroquine.
A mere lame-duck puppet, betrayed and rendered inert by duopoly.
The Left/Right fascist state periodically switches insertion from any incumbent's posterior, that the other "side" might wash up.
Progressives are part of the democratic party and support it. The DNC and the corporatists support many of the same mostly social policies important to progressives. The greens have an out, perhaps, but the left certainly doesn't.
There is a party without an official name that represents the DNC and RNC elites. Some have dubbed it the "Uniparty". It supports the kleptocratic order and the crony capitalism of Bush-Obama. The Uniparty sees the future as Communist China and the fascist forces of Wall Street and Large Multinationals as the ox to hitch its wagon to.
Until people see this reality and stop talking in terms of "Democrats" and "Republicans", these forces will have us right where they want us, divided, ignorant, and powerless.
"The DNC and the corporatists support many of the same mostly social policies important to progressives. "
That is utterly false. Medicare for all? Across the board student debt cancellation? Free college and trade school? A liveable wage? A Green New Deal?
Establishment Dems ardently oppose all those things.
the green new deal ahh the next big market for corporatists. enjoy bankrupting millions of americans reliant on affordable energy while private interests get richer
BuT iT wORkED sO WeLL fOR SoLaR COmpAnieS!
If, arguendo, your description of the GND is accurate -- and corresponds to what AOC et al. propose -- it remains true that establishment Dems oppose it, and progressives favor it. Progressives are not the DNC or establishment Dems. The DNC is *not* the left.
Theyre part of the big tent party that the DNC is. They run as democrat. Just because they answer to different special interests doesn't mean they don't both team up to crush any and all opposition to the leftist/democrat narrative, in policy or culture. They both hold power. And they're both responsible for this mess. So are the NeoCons, maybe them the most. But there's virtually no difference between the neocons and the establishment dems anymore. They all don't care about the average American, they all push horrible policies that either do nothing or are actively destructive. So let them squabble among themselves over which ethnic group gets to serve as interior decorator to the biden admin . They're two different strands of corrupt elites, both now have power and are too busy chasing their own egos and trying to centralize power.
Again, 0 citations, nothing but opinion passed off as irrefutable fact. You should go work for Mother Jones tbh.
so you are one of those libertarians opposed to market forces.
Healthcare costs are insanely high
College tuition is unaffordable
I have an idea!! Instead of looking at WHY the costs are so high and trying to reduce them (aka competition), lets just subsidize this totally failed system with our tax dollars! That’ll fix it!
Stumble into a Newark, NJ hospital ER, as a black male, or, anyone lacking insurance....
Cuba provides free, state-of-the-art health care and education to anyone in-country, regardless of state of origin.
Americans of wealth manage travel to Cuba for free health care.
How do those filthy Commies manage?
Canada is sliding down the slippery slope with Big Brother, USA, but, like Cuba, we don't turn away American patients, regardless of insurance or pre-existing condition BS.
Or, Canada....
Because it's utterly true. Antifa, BLM, Environmental Alarmism, Radical Feminism, Islamophilia, Open Borders & unchecked immigration, and a form of student debt cancellation, and internet censorship if favor of these causes. So no totally free university and no MFA, but you're more on board with the DNC than not.
"but you're more on board with the DNC than not."
The notion that the DNC is onboard with whatever you imagine "antifa" to be, or with any feminism that could be considered "radical" -- and all the rest of your rightwing framing -- is false, having no correspondence to reality.
"Islamophilia?" Really? pffft
well they ignore the existence of antifa, their centrism doesn't allow them to actively endorse domestic terrorism but their willful ignorance allows it to grow.
Have you ever cited a single, non-opinion piece to support any of the things you have posted in these comments? Legitimate question.
Then who are these alleged 81 million people that allegedly voted for Biden?
Since when did you become the only authority on the left? Anyone left of my thinking is the "left". Anyone to the right of my thinking is "the right". This is known as personal opinion. You ought to study the differences of opinion and fact because it seems like you often present one as the other.
Its more building the idea of community without dissent. The entire DNC platform of "you can't hang out with us if you dont think exactly like we do" while then preaching tolerance for outliers out of the other side of their mouth when it suits their interests. Questioning the elite will get you called a Russian agent like they did to Gabbard.
The Democrats are corrupt, but their favourite doomsday scenarios, all of which require us to give more power to central government and big corporations, are all real.
The Republicans are corrupt, but their favourite doomsday scenarios, all of which require us to give more power to central government and big corporations, are all real.
The Quangos, dead billionaire foundations, and think tanks are corrupt, but their favourite doomsday scenarios, all of which require us to give more power to central government and big corporations, are all real.
The corporations and their billionaire shareholders are corrupt, but their favourite doomsday scenarios, all of which require us to give more power to central government and big corporations, are all real.
For those of us who have functioning memories to go with functioning brains, for whom every new day is not [[current year]] zero day:
-I remember when nuclear power was going to kill us all
-I remember when nuclear war was going to kill us all
-I remember when the Chinese were going to kill us all
-I remember when the Russians were going to kill us all
-I remember when running out of oil was going to kill us all
-I remember when too much oil was going to kill us all
-I remember when Fukushima was going to kill us all
-I remember when the Gulf oil spill was going to kill us all
-I remember when rocks from space were going to kill us all
-I remember when polyunsaturated fats were going to kill us all
-I remember when AIDS was going to kill us all
-I remember when bird flu was going to kill us all
-I remember when swine flu was going to kill us all
-I remember when bat flu was going to kill millions of Americans but somehow, even though the official tally could only reach a quarter of a million by administratively re-categorizing motor accidents and gunshot wounds as bat flu deaths, and using a fraudulent test procedure that produces between 70 to 90% false positives to produce an idiotic "case pandemic" with no associated deaths trend, the current Administration is a failure because we're not all dead yet.
Frankly, I long for a journalist with both civil liberties extremism, pattern recognition, AND deep cynicism, but Glenn is still one of the few I know of who has the first two out of the three.
Merry fucking Christmas everyone.
Don't forget the Trans-Alaska pipeline was going to cause untold ecological disasters, but in reality never had a single non-sabotatge issue. I've actually worked in environmental waste and the big DNC areas like Pittsburgh and surrounding areas generate far more toxic things into the ground and oh by the way half the Superfund sites are STILL not clean.
The big existential threats are all concocted to garner more power and money while real problems are ignored because they're not important enough. It's another kind of the "lesser of two evils" con.
Yep, the lizards love to use misdirection.
Luckily for us, synapsids might all join the fossil record if the end-Holocene manages to be as bad as the end-Permian!
"The big existential threats are all concocted," yeah right, and is the ongoing Holocene extinction "concocted" too? There's an enormous amount of information and data you're overlooking, and you're making a serious mistake in thinking existential threat and the consequences of "ecological disaster" happen overnight just because a small number of events in an irrelevantly tiny period of time that you can personally recollect didn't "kill us all" instantaneously. There's a reason the geologic time scale is used instead of your memory when talking about species going extinct or the biosphere facing disaster and imminent collapse, and there's a difference between "cynicism" and ignorance that can trick you into confidence on subjects you know very little about.
No one in power is interested in "existential threats" in the first place. Discussion is mostly incompatible with modern systems of government and economic growth. Research rarely gets funded and mostly by mistake, like some Clathrate gun hypothesis research being a poor investment of Big Oil. Thinking that concern with them leads to "real problems" being ignored makes no sense when it's those problems that lead to existential threats; discussing existential threats leads to nothing but attention brought to real problems that effect everyone and how we live on a daily basis (and even if they didn't, by definition existential risks impact everyone).
Who is Oceania at war with today...
funny misdirection and with such fabricated drama no less, the giving of "... more power to central government and big corporations, are all real" and was the work product of the Republican Party and conservative ideology going back to the end of WWII.
Open the other eye, for fuck's sake.
"I wrote the damn bill!"
--Joe Biden.
more misdirection and fabricated drama...make your point or shove the fuck off
Go fuck yourself.
TE O’Conner is a leftist troll who got triggered by Glen’s article. Just ignore xir.
ad hominem noted and your admission to having written bull shit screed is appreciated.
do have a blessed day and know I will say a prayer for your misbegotten soul though I fear it will make little difference when accounts are settled.
You're a funny man.
Just FYI: "go fuck yourself" is not ad hominem.
On the plus side, you did spell it right.
Fucksake.
Well since you posted it here with 0 cited evidence it must be 100% true.
Fabulous essay Glenn. Keep up the great work and I'm proud to be giving you a bit of money each month. And thank you for taking care of so many people and dogs in Brazil. You are a real hero of mine. :-)
ANOTHER opinion piece, Glenn? No new news reported?
I certainly agree with your perspective, but DUH!
How about INVESTIGATING and REPORTING real news, for once.
How about INVESTIGATING and REPORTING on all the shocking evidence contained in HUNDREDS of affidavits from election workers presenting evidence of ELECTION FRAUD when the MSM claims there is "no evidence" ?
How about INVESTIGATING and REPORTING on the contents of Hunter Biden's laptop ?
Honestly, I can't believe I paid $50 for this BS.
I’m not the person to subscribe to with an expectation that you then can dictate what I write about. I appreciate your passion for this topic but “journalism” isn’t defined as “writing about whatever Jim F. thinks is most important.” There’s a lot of journalism in this article and the others you’ve condemned as “just opinion.” Election fraud isn’t a topic I’ve ever reported on so I’m not sure why you expected that I would suddenly make this my main focus. Nobody can be an expert in every topic and those who try usually produce very mediocre journalism, or worse. There are always many issues deserving journalistic attention, not just the one that has you most excited. I happen to think the growing monopolistic power of tech giants and their use of it to censor, as well as their alliance with the Democratic Party, is quite important and deserves journalistic attention.
It's a great article, Glenn. I'm sending the link to my college age son who has sadly bought into the leftist strain of authoritarianism and is totally naive about its dangers.
"I’m not the person to subscribe to with an expectation that you then can dictate what I write about."
I think they may have missed why you ended up on substack in the first place...
Glenn, you are the best out there! The best. Including this current piece. Easily, btw.
Jim F. is wrong. Your article is super. Also, I am in for $60 ($5*12), not $50 like Jim F., so my opinion has more weight on your personal K Street here... Wait, I need to read your piece again.
Mr. Greenwald, you are a big voice. Whereas our voices may, collectively, have some effect on the Censorship Gods (and I doubt it), only the big voices will be readily heard - immediately, and effectively. Like yours. The First Amendment, original thought, freethinking, the marketplace of ideas, freedom itself, and everything else that sounds of melodramatic overplay when we talk about this oligarchical/authoritarian censorship, is at stake. It is not possible to overstate this - it's not possible to be too dramatic. This is a war. If we do not have warriors like you to fight it at the front lines, we are all doomed. This has never happened before. There has always been a left, center and right. We could always choose what we wanted to read, what we wanted to learn. Not now. The internet and cyberspace giveth and taketh away. Just when we have such a vast milieu from which to obtain our information, some clan of the Grand Censor decides for us that it is only as "vast" as it wants it to be. So, some snobs and arm-chair quarterbacks will sling "criticism" at you for not finding a Mark Felt or a Daniel Ellsberg every day, as if they are standing around parking garages everywhere smoking cigarettes in the shadows and waiting for some democracy-loving gumshoe to come along and just ask for inside information. I'm glad you don't buy into that pressure. Let's face it, Ed Snowden found you (though, you earned/deserved being found). The right sources find the right reporter, and it's not necessarily the other way around - except, largely, by chance. But, let's face another thing - Tom Fitton and John Solomon can't write opinion. You are the quintessential all-around quarterback, if you will - you can run and you can pass. Keep fighting censorship, keep fighting crime think, keep reminding the MSM lemmings and automatons that the masses want thinking to stay free. Censorship not only shuts down one person's free speech, it prevents all of us from putting ammunition in our thought weaponry. Censorship inhibits the development of our own thoughts - even if we care never to say one word out loud. Censorship will embolden orthodox conformity, and the pathology we are seeing now will worsen exponentially. The eunuch bureaucrats in D.C. can't stop it (Section 230 is a straw man, it's not what we are worried about, like putting a bandaid on a machete sticking out of your skull). Only people like Greenwald (and his adherents - us) can stop it. Like Huxley said in Brave New World Revisited, "[b]ut the nature of power is such that even those who have not sought it, but have it forced upon them, tend to acquire a taste for more." Censorship will breed censors, and indoctrinated automatons - who will turn out more censors, etc. It's now a vicious cycle. Who would have predicted this scourge to have reached such subterranean depths in so little time? Humans like to be on the side of winners, humans are weak. Censorship is to the free brain as hemlock was to Socrates' wisdom.
Sub stack is already under attack by The New Yorker with others soon to follow. I just hope that it is housed somewhere unreachable by its enemies.
Wait- Glenn are you suggesting that you’re not a 20 person strong team of investigative reporters collaborating under a single name? ;-)
There is a point to be made there however. There was some great investigative talent at the TI (before they were purged: https://www.cjr.org/business_of_news/layoffs-the-intercept.php), and I’d love to know your thoughts on reclaiming that type of collaboration. I’d also love to know your take on the dynamics with investigative reporters at TI in general. What actually happened there? You’ve mentioned that there are still plenty of great reporters at TI- and I’m inclined to agree.
Good luck to them getting any investigative content past their own cucked editors.
That really wasn’t the point. Fuck TI.
The question was how Mr. Greenwald intends to collaborate with people doing the investigative component. He knows a lot of first rate sleuths that can dig through the muck and extract the real story.
Greenwald is right: he can’t be an expert on all things all the time. That’s where collaboration is useful.
"He knows a lot of first rate sleuths" - I guess you know that for a fact. And even if so - to know someone does not necessarily imply trust.
I’m sorry, was there a point hidden there?
Collaborating != being “beholden” whatever that means.
He can obviously do whatever he wants to. I was just soliciting his thoughts on working with other people. A team can do more than an individual.
Sorry Glenn, but it's a leap to ascribe the motives that you do to me. Giving examples of what I would consider reporting in no way allows one to conclude that I'm attempting to hold you hostage for $50. I could say your comment was a cheap shot intended to virtue signal your "journalistic independence". I could also say the reason you lost control of the Guardian and were forced to move on is because you sold out for the almighty dollar. But then, in both instances, I would be making the same mistake you just did.
Investigating my past comments on this site will allow you to conclude that I have consistently complained about the dearth of reporting and the nonstop opinion pieces. I agree with your opinions, and find that you do a good job piecing together previously established facts in a fair and accurate manner, and putting things in proper context. Good on you. But really, what value does this add other than enlightening a few food bags out there who take liberty, freedom, free speech, democracy, personal privacy, etc., etc. for granted? Because a lot of people like myself recognize how fragile these things are, and have come to the same conclusions you do long before you write your pieces. Doesn't exactly move the ball down the field.
I'm looking for journalism. The kind where reporters investigate, use their sources to break and verify new facts, and report them to the public in a fair and accurate manner. I don't need reporters to rehash existing facts and tell me what I am supposed to think about them. I can think for myself. And there are already a ton of "reporters" today that already, as you have recognized yourself. Take a look at Judicial Watch or Project Veritas for examples of reporters doing reporting.
Please consider my subscription fee as my thanks for your excellent work on the Snowden revelations. Hope one day a break some more news.
Hard to believe you are someone who has sought out left wing news sites in the past, because very often what they provide is a different perspective on mainstream media, corporately owned, which too often lack any sense of validity. It's the right time to access what has been going on during these last 4 crazy years, the crazy being caused by a lack of honest, and objective reporting in the media, since making money usurps truth.
One more thing, Glenn. You write: "Nobody can be an expert in every topic and those who try usually produce very mediocre journalism, or worse."
What a load of crap. As if journalists don't have relationships with experts to guide them through issues they are not experts in themselves. If journalists have to be experts in what they write about, then they would never write about anything.
You yourself made this argument in a previous comment: "This article took a lot of research, interviews, and investigation in order to write properly."
Starting to realize that I have given you a lot more respect for your cognitive and reasoning skills than you deserve.
Where's your blog/page? I'd like to check out your journalistic skills. I assume you have them, since you criticize Glenn's so freely. Your credibility must be enormous! Please put a link in a reply so I can check you out.
Peace!
How silly. So if you hire guy to paint your house, and he does a crappy job, you can't criticize him because you aren't a professional house painter.
I don't have to be a journalist to recognize when a journalist is phoning it in.
Oh you're so right, I'm silly, because I have a sense of humor, enjoy utilizing sarcasm (a form of humor) to prick the balloon of fatuous self importance, and enjoy troll baiting. Silly, silly me.
Have a nice day now!
I simply disagree that Glenn is doing a poor job. You are entitled to your opinion, Jim, but it is simply an opinion, and at any rate, it's impossible for anyone to please and meet the expectations of absolutely everyone who may purchase their work/services.
Go fuck yourself. You are full of shit and nobody cares about your opinion. Request a refund and disappear.
Great argument.
I could suffer your tone, being full of yourself. However, the suggestion to what investigate reveals your agenda, which is not about journalism. And no, I have not voted for a Democrat for a long time.
Wow. Maybe get a refund if it's that bad?
Karen, I mean Jim. What's your Venmo or Cashapp handle? I'll give you $50 if is SO bad.
Sorry, I meant the Intercept, not the Guardian.
Why not just move on if you're so unhappy with his work? There are plenty of other sources out there that are more tailored to what you seek.
As far as legitimate investigative reporting there is around two or three and they are demeaned and slandered by the MSM regularly. It is bewildering.
Utterly predictable, since they threaten the assumption most audiences have that the MSM still practices journalism.
I don't agree that Glenn's sole job here is to simply report the facts on this or that topic. His opinions and assessments of prevailing facts are every bit as important as simply uncovering important tidbits of news. I do not only want to know about important facts, but also *why* in Glenn's thinking they are so important in the first place. I pay to see pieces like this one from Glenn as much as I do the type of pieces you requested.
Don't you think it's interesting how he avoids the big issues, like election fraud and the man-made origin of SARS_Covid-2. These are MASSIVE stories, the mainstream media (i.e., propaganda arm of the Democrats) won't touch. Where is GG on these? CRICKETS. Bottom line is Glenn is a pussy who phones it in, telling people like you what you want to hear, for $$$.
As Glenn himself noted, he cannot be expected to have an expertise on every big issue, or to agree with every subscriber as to which issues are more demanding of his time and research. Also, I would think that if Glenn had no courage, he would not have made that expose on corruption in Brazilian politics while actually living in Brazil. And if $$$ was his main motivation for tackling this or that topic, I think he would have stayed at The Intercept and aligned himself with establishment Democrats.
Sounds to me like some BS justification for his little scam money-making venture of a gutless journalist. I would expect a guy like him to take on the biggest issues which are crying out for reporters to investigate. Huge disappointment.
It really is. I hope people understand just how dangerous the self destruction of the MSM is to our Republic. Their willingness to jettison all ethics and integrity, basically every aspect of true journalism, is something we can’t come back from.
Yes, we can, it's just harder to do.
All in, right? You start. Which way are we headed and what are we doing?
100%
I’ve admired your incredible bravery over the last few months, but couldn’t quite bring myself to subscribe because, being libertarian/conservative, my views are opposite yours on many important issues. Then I woke up this morning and realized that it wasn’t a bad dream, & I am now living in a country not much different than CCP China and it’s only going to get worse. So $50/year is my small way of lighting a candle to curse the ever increasing darkness. Thank you Glenn.
But I thought my $50 guaranteed my own personal journalist? No?
In all seriousness though, thank you for all that you do. Your dedication to not only your craft, but your integrity, is rare these days unfortunately.
Lots of ways for people to get attention, and this is one way. Look how much attention journalists received in being critical of Trump. Some of us pick up bad habits.
content is driven by audience expectations in modern day media and is much of the reason for increasing polarization...it is all about eye balls and the bottom line.
Google's advertising analytics is the largest threat to the integrity of our Constitutional democratic republic.
Yep, but I'm pretty sure he has made this comment before, and he may very well have been the one I tried to console, really, and he's back again, but with a response from Greenwald. If he has been on left wing sites these are the types of articles one reads, and they're very interesting and informative. I'm glad Greenwald published this article because he's also bucking his left wing colleagues who have often referenced Trump as a fascist.
if it walks like a duck; quacks like a duck and shits like a duck it is a duck
You are referring to Antifa, of course.
I think so!
Excellent point, well made. People don't comprehend this, generally; they are still stuck in the 50s and 60s when journalism really was being done in (some) newsrooms. One of the most important lessons I got in my college Media class (first class of the first semester, not planned but perfectly done to leave a lasting impression on me!) was that the MSM is owned by corporations that are beyond gigantic. They do indeed use the 'news' as propaganda, as a great commercial and camouflaged PR.
Any naive journalistic aspirations I might have had died on the day CNN launched.
Wait. You paid $50, and Glenn is NOT writing the exact stories you demand on your timeline? Outrageous!
LOL! Now watch, Jimmy will ask for a full refund.
Let's not become the very people we despise, by mocking those who dare to think different than us.
LOL. Glenn, maybe you should INVESTIGATE and REPORT on the masses of STUPID people in this country who make authoritarianism POSSIBLE because they CANNOT think nor can they form LOGICAL ARGUMENTS.
Jim, I was just kidding with you. At least Glenn is exploring something other than Orange Man Bad over and over again. Best $50 I spent in 2020.
YOU GO JIMMY! LOVE THE ALL CAPS TOO!
I think I'd pay $50 just to eliminate CapsLk and Shift keys from your keyboard.
even funnier is the fact he put the $50 on his expense account and his employer reimbursed him.
Seriously, this is the only place putting out anything readable right now. Shut the fuck up and pony up the $150 founders money as you clearly need to be more vested not less..
It seems that Glen sums up the potential of the evidence of a fraudulent election here ......“Trump’s terrifying “coup” consisted of a series of failed court challenges based on claims of widespread voter fraud — virtually inevitable with new COVID-based voting rules never previously used — and lame attempts to persuade state officials to overturn certified vote totals. There was never a moment when it appeared even remotely plausible that it would succeed, let alone that he could secure the backing of the institutions he would need to do so, particularly senior military leaders.
ie......it does not matter what the evidence reveals, the case is not going anywhere. The rule of law is gone unless it is in sync with the ‘swamp agenda’. Sadly, we all paid $50 so that Glen could present us with the evidence of THAT reality.
the problem is your expectations, not Glenn's reporting
THIS.
I find Glenn Greenwald's opinion pieces valuable, but I would also like to see investigative reporting from him. I'm already familiar with his view on neoliberalism and I agree with it. I hope Substack doesn't become just another "echo chamber".
I’ve never agreed with the dichotomy that something is either “journalism” or “opinion.” All journalism contains opinion, hidden or explicit, and much opinion writing - particularly the best - contains abundant journalism. This article took a lot of research, interviews, and investigation in order to write properly. I consider it “journalism” in every respect. One form of journalism is getting big leaks, and I’ve done that before and almost certainly will again, but you can’t just order it up like a McDonald’s meal. It happens when it happens. But that, to me, is only one form of journalism. This article is most definitely journalism as I understand it.
Thanks for your thoughtful reply. So as not to be misunderstood, I'll say again that I value your past and current work. In fact, I value it more highly than that of any other journalist, because of the intellectual and moral integrity your work displays, and the fact that you provide relevant links to support your arguments. Not only that, but you often respond directly to your readers - another unusual and admirable trait.
Nevertheless, I would be happy to see future articles from you that break more new ground. I don't mean that critically - I'm expressing my hope.
Glenn - your journalism has been and is among the very best - ever. It is invaluable, done with the highest integrity.
Stay safe and healthy, don't get discouraged -- very best wishes for 2021 and beyond.
As someone who spent most of his 30-year career in newspapers on the opinion desk, I can say I always considered myself a journalist. Broke a few stories in my columns, too, which was always good for bragging rights over the news desk at our weekly pickup basketball games. ;-)
Beyond that, there is value - great value, I would add - at holding the Left up to its own standards. This is not something the Left likes very much, but while the Right has its libertarian wing to keep it honest, there isn't anything that organized on the Left.
Absolutely agree with your argument that Big Tech and the Democratic Party are in the early throes of a neo-fascism. And selling it as anti-fascism is the kind of chutzpah even Mussolini and Franco never had ...
‘If Fascism Ever Comes to America, It Will Come in the Name of Liberalism.’
Ronald Reagan
The Orwellian sale of neo-fascism as anti-fascism: nicely put Jim T.
>>Beyond that, there is value - great value, I would add - at holding the Left up to its own standards. This is not something the Left likes very much, but while the Right has its libertarian wing to keep it honest, there isn't anything that organized on the Left.<<
This is false on several levels. First, many journalists on the left adhere to facts and truth (and are censored and repressed for doing so). Just a few examples other than Greenwald would be Max Blumenthal, Aaron Mate, Rania Khalek. and (usually) Democracy Now!
Second, I see little evidence (as one who was a libertarian until about 15 years ago) that libertarians push back against the right media on anything other than what are generally dismissed as "social issues."
Adding: Libertarians do also push back against the right on criminal justice issues. A minority are anti-war.
I hope you realize that Trump supporters, which make up 95% of the current Republican electorate, despise the Koch brothers and the RINO’s you describe as being supported by Libertarians.
I found it informative. There was a synthesis of information and insight.it is worth sharing.
"This article took a lot of research, interviews, and investigation in order to write properly." - Right there is the main difference of you as a journalist and the rest of the young writers the current "media" has masquerading as them.
Well at least there's you, Glenn. That's one person not afraid to say you'll do it (again) when the time comes. Gather the energy to prepare because you're on every radar now and so are many of your allies. Clearly it's open season on journalism (and we used to think things were bad in 2010). The world needs someone to be strong, to show integrity and tell the truth. Please mentor as many people as you can in the meantime because it's essentially going to be war.
I would like to mention here that as far as “Green Rooms” are concerned, one of the only reasons I watch Tucker Carlson is that I never know when either you, Jimmy Dore or Aaron Mate might show up. We will never see any of you on any other MSM “news” programs.
Glenn, do you find that living in Brazil (versus say the US) positively or negatively impacts your ability to break big leaks?
And yet many wonder why the the elites have such contempt for the people...
You don't "order it up", you work for it. e.g., Project Veritas or Judicial Watch.
Jimmy O'Keefe and judicial watch are fabricators of QAnon worthy fictions
How does Judicial Watch “fabricate” the government documents they base all their reporting on? Sounds like you just don’t like what the government documents they have to sue to see have to say.
Yeah, by now it's clear to me that Glenn would be a lot more successful by moving his schtick to Instagram. Silly me.
Don’t judge Project Veritas and Judicial Watch by Jim F. I half wonder if he is on here to make the two look like they are only watched by trolls. Project Veritas let’s people hang themselves. Judicial Watch sues the government for freedom of information act material.
I love the big leaks!
He does that also, Jim. I really appreciate this articulate summary of the essential issue under all the divisive chaos we have just lived through. I am sending it out to my friends and family as an expression of my view which I could not articulate as well. Sometimes it serves well to articulate well basic, if even obvious, problems, because to organize them persuasively using the power of rhetorical principles can help convince others. Seems like you are not thinking of an audience beyond yourself, Jim.
You are expressing my views precisely. I am so excited to refer my liberal friends to this article, because it is so condensed, articulate, sourced and forceful. I have spent at least the last 2 years trying to explain to Democrat acquaintances that while I abhor Trump, their hysteria is baseless. I urge them to cease their non-stop MSNBC and CNN viewing, because those shills are making them insane. I can't convince them that the truth isn't a screaming melodrama but a boring run-of-the-mill seen-this-before stale plot. I've wanted them to know that they were going to be okay. I also want them to see that I'm not the one who is crazy. :)
The contents of the Hunter Biden laptop have been posted repeatedly. The MSM and big tech colluded with the DNC to limit their spread and Joe and Jolene voter hated Trump more than they cared about integrity. You've seen Fox and the New York Post covering Crackhead Biden with limited results. How would Glenn be doing readers a service by covering something already covered, and do it better than the reporters who had the sources in question. I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding of how the media works. You can investigate and report all you want, but without sources and evidence, you are just being CNN. How would Glenn get more access to the laptop than the Post already had?
Congrats - your post is the best indictment of journalists I have seen this year. For yes, a journalist is nothing more than a mouse in a maze, looking for a slice of cheese; one that gives up when they come to a dead end.
Bravo!
Well, journalists make up a lot of their research by utilizing sources. I can't imagine a lot of people in the Deep State are fans of Mr. Greenwald. Every person who could conceivably provide information would likely find it more valuable to NOT provide said information to Glenn. Listen to the state department tape of the Assange call. The entire time they are trying to identify who has the info, what the risk is, and how it can be contained.
99% of the time their sources are other alleged journalists or entirely made up out of thin air. The “wrap up smear” has been used more times by alleged journalists in the last four years than any period in history.
Yep, and its all profit for the media outlets. They get a cheaper, younger, expendable writer to write salacious pieces and then if the writer gets in trouble they just pull a Jayson Blair and pretend like its an isolated incident and not the norm. Meanwhile their costs go down and their views go up.
Despite potential Presidential pardon or commutation, neither Manning, Assange nor Snowden, shall survive, much less endure, repatriation and freedom; their countries of birth being cesspools of corruption.
prove you're not a troll infiltrating this substack. I wouldn't be surprised if you don't care about election fraud at all but are here for other reasons...
Point your ire at Trump, he is weak, be mad at him. I am terribly disappointed in Trump. All he has done is enable the concentration of power in the hands of the few. He is all talk, all hot air.
Sadly I have to agree, time wasted ever since Covid began he hasn't done a thing. Still, what's the alternative? Selling out to China?(Joe)
If you mean President Trump, Are his negotiations that have led to the five Muslim-majority countries recognizing Israel worth nothing??? Just one of several major accomplishments since Covid hit the U.S. in January.
I think he did a lot of things of huge consequence not the least making China fall in line, creating a booming economy and fighting for everyday Americans. Not to mention keeping us out of wars. My only issue with him is he couldn’t stay above the the bullshit. He gave voice to losers and ne’er-do-wells who had no business being blown into any level of importance. His thin skin made him far to many enemies which in turn gave us Biden and Harris. A senile man who sold out his country for money and a VP who is best known for being on her knees and locking up young black men. It’s not that I didn’t want him to fight, I did of course, but like a president not like a 12 year old. He made himself to easy to manipulate and know we will all pay the price for years to come.
He meant BIDEN, silly!
Why do problems have to be blamed on something foreign?
Trump was Russian president. Biden will be Chinese president. Is there any chance for an American one soon?
Modest correction: "Trump was ANTI-Russian President. Biden will be PRO-Chinese President."
your devotion to posting uncited misinformation on this board would be pretty impressive if it wasn't so typical of social media warriors
Not bloody likely.
Yes both the DNC and RNC suck but so does Trump. This is a problem and the voters should do something about it.
The DNC did that the first three primaries when Bernie was kicking Quid Pro Joe's ass. How did that work out.
-blink-blink- ... WHAT is it you say the DNC did in the first three primaries?
February 3 - Bernie wins the Iowa primary.
February 11 - Bernie wins the New Hampshire primary.
February 22 - Bernie wins the Nevada primary.
Pretty clear, no?
Ahhh...another liberal. https://twitter.com/CoreyRobin/status/779868751839625216?s=20
No, a former democrat now disgusted with the dnc as much as I am the rnc, 2 sides of the same ugly, ugly coin. It started with them running the hideous hrc, then they forced biden/harris on us along with their disgusting "woke" culture meme. I chose not to vote for them and have resigned from the democratic party. Throwing around labels doesn't help anything, it only stops further discourse. If trump does something courageous before 1/20/2021 I will change my assessment of him. Either way the American people are screwed.
Nailed it on the head. I’m in the same exact boat. Never again will I vote for a democrat (which I’ve blindly done over and over again since I was 18), and after a brief stint with Republicans I’m probably not voting for them again either... my vote is to be earned, not expected or coerced
Our votes will truly no longer matter, if the steal is allowed to stand.
I walked away from the DNC in 2016. I didn't go GOP but I was amazed by Trump and his popularity.
Trump was the "none of the above" vote in 2016, which is why he won the primary, and he won the vote in the general because he was the "anybody but hillary" vote for many people.
It turns out BOTH of the main candidates of 2016 were super shitty choices, and that, at least in Michigan, as likely many places elsewhere, around ten times the voters as represented the margin of victory went to the polls and voted, but didn't vote for PUTOS on their ballots. ... That tells you something important.
We truly have to stop voting AGAINST someone and only vote FOR someone, and if that means you have to look to "third parties" to find a worthy candidate, well, do that! If not now, when?
Saying 'I'll never vote for a Democrat again!' is almost as bad as saying 'I'll never vote for a Republican!' (The labels are almost interchangeable now anyhow.)
His brand and legacy are now synonymous with failure. Had some good ideas but his own stupidity was his undoing. Now, the next 4 years will be about creating bad policy and blaming the orange monster for it. The past 8 months has been a conditioning period in preparation for the “new miserable” and the “even more miserable” after that. People complain but don’t have the discipline to CANCEL everything. Not just social media but streaming services as well. As a side bar, I tried to find an online article that was published 23 hours ago, now can’t find it. I can find the third party reporting of it that tells me how I should think about it, but not the original. Hmmm. Stop whining and start canceling. Except for GG, of course.
Honestly? I don't think we'll ever know how "stupid" he was while POTUS. People who worked directly for him worked to undercut him daily. It's amazing what the fishbowl in DC can do to your motives and directives. Assuming you even had any.
I'll maintain until the day I die that Donald Trump had to learn a lot in a real short time, because *nothing* is quite like DC, even to a world-weary multi-millionaire New Yorker. I'll go even further and opine that I think he NEVER intended to run for POTUS, that it was the brainchild of his good friend (at the time) Slick Willy, who needed to come up with a candidate so bad that he'd make Hillary look good. And by God, the media tried to help them, but their contrived war on Trump back then had the exact opposite effect--and he started winning primaries.
After that, everything changed. Everything.
So just to be clear, you think Trump is incredibly stupid, and Bill Clinton convinced him to run, to ostensibly make his wife look better? Are you currently employed by David Brock?
The sadness is we will never have an outsider again. The spineless, garbage Repubs don’t care. I hope Yang runs for Mayor of NYC and replaces the garbage up there in what used to be one of the greatest cities in the world.
I hear you. Disgusted Republican here. I will never donate again.
Glenn is not only a top investigative reporter to whom we are all indebted. He is also a top commentator, too, because he can interpret what he sees, describe it as a whole, and discern its significance for key principles such as freedom of speech and representative democracy. Given the corruption of the ACLU and other erstwhile civil rights organizations by ideology, he may be the leading journalistic voice in the country, if not the world, for freedom of speech against the incursions of the corporate national security state.
Who is paying out to troll this thrash? Tell you what, send me your email and I'll pay you $50 to get rid of you......................
So what's his email?
Jim-F%&$ -- You have started drinking again - please try to better control your infantile thinking when inebriated
You're outraged that a journalist is not fighting this battle for us? And what has Hunter Biden's nefarious deeds to do with the election fraud? What weight do affidavits have when wielded by those who hide behind a journalist's pen?
You don't even know who the enemy is. Read this article again, you missed something bigger than the election fraud of 2020.
Jim, go away.
Obvious election fraud, Biden fraud and your particular flavour of BS has been covered, rather well, by other qualified journalists, worldwide, in great detail.
Providing a $50.00 subscription to Fox News will not garner editorial privilege.
Cancel your subscription and divert elsewhere for the "good boy" pat on the head.
You knew Greenwalds' reputation and investigative scope prior to purchase, che problema?
Correction: "Greenwald's"
Darn it, Glenn. If you keep writing a balanced account of the actions and record of the Trumpster's time in office, I am going to be left with a ton of unsold ORANGE MAN BAD! merch. Can't you hold out the slim possibility that millions will die from taking one of the multiple vaccines developed under Operation Warp Speed so we can blame him for SOMETHING FOREVER?!?!! I mean I've got 80 year old neighbors that were promised by the Democrats there wouldn't be a vaccine to take until mid-2021 at the earliest, and now they're already making appointments to get the shot less than two months after the election! How is this even possible??!! What a bummer........
And this has been obvious for years. If Trump wanted to be Hitler, he was the worst Hitler ever.
But we did see a lot of tyranny this year. Mostly from D governors who were more than happy to step it and take the reins of power.
*step in
Appreciate the work Glenn. I find it hard not to be demoralized daily with the knowledge that even attempting civil conversation on this very issue (the primary reason I supported Trump over the Democrats after previously never supporting a republican party candidate) will get me lambasted even at home for even considering that Trump was not that bad. That we could and are doing by giving the reigns to someone as corrupt as Biden (China) or as fake as Kamala. The smear campaign of the establishment was so effective that was it clear and obvious fake platitudes and politicking coming from Biden/Harris is eaten up like candy in light of the orange man being bad narrative.
I still consider myself a liberal, but I also recognize that there are other ways to address problems because one viewpoint can't have all the answers to all the social and economic ills of a country. It would be stupid to think otherwise. I see what the policies of one party have historically been doing to the many major cities and it just seems like commone sense to give the other guys a shot, since what has been tried clearly isn't working and may not be intended to work in the first place. But if the people want despots I guess they get what they asked for and deserve.
This is just depressing. I dont know how to get beyond this. Where has BLM gone since the summer? Silence. Yet the people who praised and defended their antics are just as silent. No orange man tp rally against. No more funds to be raised for democrat candidates, rather than local communities that could use them.
What does it take to get the average person to realize they are wrong about something?
I think naturally, more liberals would be thinking like you, but they've been hypnotized by the "liberal" media, which keeps changing its goalposts in order to stay in power. I think true liberals are rare these days. I am personally a conservative (used to be a liberal) with some libertarian leanings in policy, but I can have a real conversation with a liberal. The people who call themselves liberals today which i believe to be a majority of Americans or at least a majority of the voting bloc, have changed their views so fast, they no longer fit the term, and they just march to the beat of the corporate media. They can't think for themselves. It makes you wonder when we stopped being individuals...
I've been reading about and listening to more conservative voices like Thomas Sowell, and still consider myself liberal because I don't see conservatism as contrary to liberalism but something that in part is derived from it (or can reach the same conclusions through different means)
The liberal ethos is often focused on feeling and caring: If I see as a liberal attempts to help people like welfare not succeed, or changes to schools (grading policies, punishment, curriculum) not produced the results expected, then I CHANGE my view about what should be the solution. Perhaps the conservative answer of "self-empowerment" is better than "lets help you" Provide people the tools to help themselves rather than the resources those tools get them.
I also will add that I even attempted once at home to try to turn a discussion of disagreement into a civil discussion of ideas (NOT partisanship, but for some reason being liberal means you must belong to particular party tribe, no it does not) and I asked the person, "What are liberal values?" and the only thing they could say was "there is a liberal party...".... No. LIberal describes a set of values, just as conservatism does. I don't see them as mutually exclusive, just as different principles on how to get to solutions and perspective on the world. To be conservative once meant to support the rule of the king. Not anymore. I wish there were a movie or a series a movies to watch to help facilitate friendly conversations about these things at home because it is frustrating to no end to have convictions I don't feel I can comfortably share without having it understood improperly because of the lack of context the other person has. I started my own substack (free) to even talk about some of these things because I am too nervous to speak openly at home I have to do it somewhere....
I wish you luck - never let ideas of truth and wisdom die just because no one wants to listen and would like to intimidate you - they're the ones who are afraid, because their ideas may be indefensible. You sound like you have a truly kind heart.
One way to explain conservatism and liberalism is that many conservatives are classic liberals in the way that the founders were: the constitution was a radical document breaking away from the traditional monarchy rule, and gave individuals freedom from the state to make their own choices - this is true liberalism. Some conservatives are conservatives in the way that they just defer to hierarchy, and can be very authoritarian. I believe these conservatives are small in number because many of them are now democrats and voted for Biden. True conservatism in America has its root in the constitution: individualism, laissez faire capitalism, small government, and belief in G-d, which means they are morally self-directed, and do not need the government telling them what to do, and this also means that since they believe their individual liberties are G-d given, they cannot be taken away by any mortal, including the president or anyone. But they also believe in the separation of church and state, and no one has the moral authority to tell an individual what to believe. This existed in tension with modern day liberalism for years, and it was okay, and it some ways the liberal party corrected the failures of America, like with segregation - although this is debated whether an constitutional amendment was necessary. But again, these things are debatable, not like what we have now, where we can't even look at each other because of how divided we are. But what's to do? If one side doesn't believe in free speech, then we'll never have a conversation. So here we are.
I'm in a similar situation. And I used to be an organizer on behalf of liberal ("liberal") interest groups for Pete's sake. Leave your Substack info, would like to check it out.
Also if you would ever like to have a discussion over zoom hit me up. I've been trying to get a diverse group of people together to have conversations about philosophy and other related topics. A few of my friends who speak well on these topics are open to it, but undermotivated to do so.
https://josephcaskey.substack.com/
Thanks for asking! I am just getting started and testing the waters so I am not charging anything. I even created a Locals I am trying to create a community around the blog within for communicating with people privately away from traditional censorious social media. Still working on building up both.
Would love input and if you could recommend it to anyone.
https://josephc.locals.com/
"I don't see conservatism as contrary to liberalism" This is a very good and indeed key point.
In my view they are on two different lines, say the x-axis and the y-axis.
Liberalism stands in the middle of the x-axis between libertarianism on the right of it and socialism/communism on the left. These reflect the degree of government control of the public with the most on the left.
Conservatism stands in the middle of the y-axis between reactionary on the right of it and progressive on the left. These reflect the degree of wanting to move to new ideology/policy on the left and degree of wanting to move to older ideology/policy on the right.
I like your fire. Minus violence, but fire is good.
Interesting. In the case of the first - I can't blame them for following their interests, but absolutely they need to be honest about it and not virtue signal. The second, sounds like a form of being hypnotized - it just shows how mainstream these ideas are - it's taking the path of least resistance. The third are the ones who are most likely to snap at some point, because of fear - nobody like to live in it, and be afraid to speak their mind - the fear itself is a kind of courage, if you think about it - because at least they know truth - to know truth in a (corporate) world of falsehood is important, because you have to sift through the lies, or stand on principle, at least internally. In a perfect world they'd be brave, we'd all be, and rise up, but it's not a perfect world, and I only hope they won't push their thoughts of change down too much. But in general, I do think we got here because people are hypnotized. And you can tell a lot about society by how their ruling class talks and acts - they reflect us. We had years to change the direction and flow of information - but nothing happened besides for a few lefty/liberal journalists just this year making loud statements. Are they are new silent majority - liberals sick of modern liberalism? It's an important question, true.
Great article, Glenn. Inverted Totalitarianism, as outlined by Sheldon Wolin (RIP) in "Democracy Incorporated" is upon us. Shout-out to Aldous Huxley, who wrote in 1958:
"Under the relentless thrust of accelerating over-population and increasing over-organization, and by means of ever more effective methods of mind-manipulation, the democracies will change their nature; the quaint old forms -- elections, parliaments, Supreme Courts and all the rest -- will remain. The underlying substance will be a new kind of non-violent totalitarianism. All the traditional names, all the hallowed slogans will remain exactly what they were in the good old days. 'Democracy' and 'freedom' will be the theme of every broadcast and editorial -- but democracy and freedom in a strictly Pickwickian sense. Meanwhile the ruling oligarchy and its highly trained elite of soldiers, policemen, thought-manufacturers and mind-manipulators will quietly run the show as they see fit." -- Brave New World Revisited.
I hear a lot of platitudes for “democracy” from all over. I see virtually no one other than some Libertarians - advocating for liberty, indeed in recent years I see only contempt for it from the entire political class (right and left).
The article is spot on - in terms of genuine free market advocates finding this current crony system abhorrent. Every single individual I know who is a genuine free market advocate opposes crony capitalism.
Why does it exist? Because it is legal. It is legal to lobby government for favors of all kinds. It is legal for government to grant them. Virtually all government regulation has a false pretense of “protection from businesses”. And virtually all is actually done to increase political power and to dole out competitive advantage to some businesses at the expense of others.
Guess who is at the table creating Wall St regulation: Wall St - in order to create advantages for themselves.
Guess who is at the table when pharma regulations are being created: pharma.
Guess who created Obamacare: the healthcare industry.
The reality is our “system” and China’s are converging. We are already in a post constitutional authoritarian state. It’s like a snake that completely winds itself around its victim before it squeezes and suffocates. It’s now fully wound. The Covid policies just accelerated it by a decade or more. And naive Americans just handed over their liberties like it was nothing.
The "welfare of humanity" has always been the alibi of tyrants - Albert Camus
Agreed. I would also like to add how many that describe us as a democracy get it wrong because we were never intended to be a pure Democratic rule nation, but a republic. This gets glossed over and often only defended by staunch natationalist types and unfortunately, including the racist ones. It makes it harder to defend something on principled terms was intended to protect the people from tyranny of mob rule when your goals also align in some ways with the undesirables of the public... :(
Nobody thinks the USA is a "pure democracy."
Good point. No one actually THINKS that, but that imply that they do to their audiences with all the different articles this election cycle suggesting Trump is a threat to democracy by simply issuing challenges that are within his right to challenge. The hyperbole of the media suggests that they believe there are people that think we are a strict democracy. And people do eat that up.
I agree that the media is hysteria driven when it comes to Trump, and that lots of people "eat it up." I don't really see the connection between that and people thinking the US is a "strict democracy," which I assume we are using interchangeably with "pure democracy." I guess we'll agree here -- and disagree a little.
My bad. I am probably not expressing properly the connections I'm seeing in my head (and they may be wrong!).
What I am trying to get at is all the articles I have seen for months about how Trump is destroying democracy, a threat to democracy, and "ending" or "threatening" democracy is also implying that we have a certain form of democracy that we don't have and never have. If anything they are pushing us toward that strict democratic rule (because it favors the establishment currently to empower a low information majority) with the pushed for popular vote compacts. I think that eventually, these compacts may bite the very pushers of them in the ass who insisted upon them because the assumption with them has always been "popular vote always goes one way" but history has shown that can sway, and with a strong, less character-flawed populist could easily overcome that gap.
Of course, the media has to crash and burn likely before all that.
The CCP and the ACP. I like it.
Re: Authoritarianism
Rather than address human and economic fatalities consequential of draconian, misinformed and arguably unconstitutional restrictions, rather than transparent communication of policies based on real science and data, public demand to cease erosion of rights and freedoms is ignored, while fact-based debate and dissent is censored and attacked.
The World Health Organization has declared no evidence exists for asymptomatic transmission of SARS-CoV-2. The WHO, CDC and the omniscient Drs. Fauci and Birx should be expected to repeat the mask "flip-flop" and advise of their own studies demonstrating harm of prolonged mask use and negligible viral protection.
The CDC website continues to mirror findings of a dubiously retracted Johns Hopkins study, which stated overall death rates have not increased significantly over 2019 and further, "Instead of the expected drastic increase across all causes, there was a significant decrease in deaths due to heart disease [and] all other causes...the total decrease in deaths by other causes almost exactly equals the increase in deaths by COVID-19."
The Johns Hopkins study confirms survival rates of 99.9% within the demographic comprising relatively healthy patients presenting with no co-morbidities susceptible to the corona family. Relatively healthy patients aged 70 and over, demonstrate survival rates of 94%. As with any corona virus, including seasonal influenza and the common cold, death rates increase markedly and correlate directly with presentation of susceptible co-morbidities, especially among the elderly.
Dr. Kary Mullis, received a 1993 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for invention of the polymerase chain reaction technique, or PCR. Prior to his recent passing, Mullis repeatedly and explicitly warned of PCR misuse, stating "Quantitative PCR is an oxymoron." Mullis stated viral identification is impossible with PCR. The technique is not valid as a diagnostic test for infection, as it merely amplifies fragments, or segments of RNA or DNA, which pose no threat to the carrier, nor any chance of transmission. PCR was designed as a scientific research tool, not a medical diagnostic.
Excessive cycle thresholds (Ct), or amplifications, resulting in rampant positive misdiagnoses, render the technique meaningless as measurement of infection, case and death rates. Mullis stated cycle thresholds as high as 30 and 40 allow for "...almost anything" to be found in "almost anyone." Moreover, segments identified at cycles of 30 or greater, simply cannot replicate a virus in culture, which should be the universally accepted medical diagnostic.
The United States and United Kingdom currently certify COVID-19 deaths if the patient tested positive via PCR within 28 days of passing, while underlying co-morbidities are ignored; UK certification requires no lab test, as medical practitioners may certify based solely on opinion. Why waste time and money on invalid PCR?
The WHO Model List of Essential Medicines has included hydroxychloroquine for decades. Studies have proven an hydroxychloroquine, azithromycin and zinc combination, applied during early infection, almost guarantees survival rates similar to those presented by Briand's Johns Hopkins study.
Cui bono? Governments have acquired or simply usurped greater power. Pharmaceutical companies will amass fortunes from tax-payers, to be shared with elected officials and bureaucrats associated and invested with Big Pharma, especially in the US and UK.
The "scamdemic" has been a vehicle for the largest transition of wealth in history. The wealthiest 10,000 individuals world-wide have, since the WHO's pandemic declaration, accrued an estimated US $10 trillion. Vaccines add to that wealth; mandatory vaccines guarantee that wealth, while penalties for dissent provide incentive for compliance.
The "Event 201" media simulation, organized by the Gates Foundation, Johns Hopkins, et al., presented mere months prior to pandemic declaration, mirrors, with almost exact precision and prescience, that which has transpired as a result of declaration. Production value was obvious, demanding months, if not years, of planning.
The Great Barrington Declaration, endorsed by more medical practitioners and scientific academics than the population of Yukon, cannot be ignored. Until the Declaration is acknowledged and adopted as sound policy, the current, destructive response will continue to shred basic human rights and claim far more lives than the virus.
DIY - Disabled in YT
Beautifully written. What can we do?
"Scamdemic" back-story:
Engineering Contagion - Investigative Series
https://unlimitedhangout.com/engineering-contagion/
Exposes the anthrax scam/scandal and actors guiding current SARS-CoV-2 misinformation/deceit.
Ingest all data with a gut of acidic, concentrated skepticism.
Read Machiavelli, Bernays and C. Wright Mills.
Dissent.
All while acknowledging futility, as the Empire's elite consume themselves, having ravaged the masses.
Hey, maybe that Jungian, collective unconscious, "100th Monkey" thing might manifest?
Well, at least your last thought has some semblance of hope.
I dissented against every war since Vietnam, every government injustice that came across my radar screen, never felt so chastised by my social circle and community as I do now, resisting this most gross of injustices being waged on a global scale. My other "anti-activities" were socially acceptable. This one is different. Even when I manage to get someone to listen, the response is always "I don't want to think about it." Can you blame them? When there's a 24/7 drumbeat by local and federal officials, MSM, friends and family, "bodies dying in hallways", healthcare workers losing their minds - how do you push against that tidal wave?
Initial post here was my first on any platform, because I purchased the opportunity and I am not the product. Salutations and a big eat-shit grin to Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Walmart, et al., and their intelligence community peeps.
Near hermitage, resultant of disability, forced wider interest and granular research. Clinton's mass-media conglomeration ended mainstream journalism, inadvertently, perhaps temporarily, gifting it to the "net".
Reader input here and on similar platforms, contributes to the push, despite lack of perceived result.
The post-WWII, gradual creep of authoritarianism was perceived by few "average" Americans and Canadians, much as a frog fails to attempt flight from slow boil demise. But, the concept may reversed.
Technocrats failed to own the internet from inception, prior to a gradual, global enlightenment, the results of which may not bring perception of change during one's life.
The "dumbing-down" of public education by eugenicists, was thoughtfully planned and gradually executed over decades (read: Ford and Rockefeller families/Foundatons); we have been programmed to exist solely as cheap labour, constantly desirous of immediate gratification. Skeptical parsing of digital information is the antithesis of public education and perhaps, foreshadows its equally gradual dissolution.
Absolute assurance empires always cannibalize themselves, at least, guarantees change. Unfortunately, this reader, albeit lacking depth of history scholarship, has yet to learn of an empire successfully resurrected as and/or sustained under, any form of democracy, for a duration exceeding that of the failure.
Those of us unwilling to "think about it" are simply not prepared to endure risk and repercussion and as you stated, cannot be blamed.
The Gutenberg "ideal" of the internet is not dead, nor doomed; nor is journalism.
As practical parents plan for a family's future prosperity, responsible, skeptical citizens must plan for the longer-term, considering not only future decades but, future generations, without expectation of any immediate result. Such forces must, somehow, coalesce, as did the eugenicists, technocrats and other such assorted scum who've been pillaging for centuries.
50/50?
OK you've re-inspired me. Thanks you for your thoughtful treatise.
The fundamental, American "Adamic" ideal of self-sufficiency, put forth by tone and intent of the Constitution and beauty of prose of minds such as Emerson, Thoreau and Whitman, is long dead, unknown to the majority of contemporary Western minds.
This lapse of cultural and philosophical wisdom may have contributed to failure of the Great Experiment.
Post-secondary campuses shelter undergrad scholars in mortal fear of mere punctuation; the period "." is now considered a Snowflake-melting, micro-aggression. Such intellect might implode attempting to comprehend "I Sing the Body Electric".
The next generation will fail, if illiterate and unable to count.
Technocracy has not yet stifled the network of potential for amelioration.
Your post suggests you may be, by several years, my senior.
Consider a younger generation has heard your experience and continues similar dissent.
At least one has listened, did "think about it" and provided response with productive intent. Your dissent IS a small success wherever, whenever you act, as the right to informed dissent provides.
That same effort, multiplied globally, gradually and exponentially, represents potential.
I really wish I could think of a better answer than "hang a few Dem governors from lamp posts."
E, grazie mille.
Yes. It turns out, Trump isn't a Nazi after all. Our first clue? When the court struck down his Travel Ban, and he reformulated it to comply with the court ruling. But half the country still believes the hysteria. If you look back at the 4-year game that was played, it is clear that someone really, really didn't want him in office. Trump wasn't the usual collegial swapping of Red for Blue (yawn, policies remain the same) and back again. The election of Trump meant the End of the Known World. To Someone. Heaven and earth had to be moved to remove him from office.
Who, do you think, was scared of Trump? And why? CCP and their US business cronies? Eternal War gang? CIA/NSA/FBI?
Some of us are still old enough to remember 2004 when the media told us little Bush was the worst person who ever lived.
I was relieved when Obama was elected. "Whew, no more Iraqs." I had that feeling right up until he destroyed Libya. And then Syria. And then Clapper did his lying-to-Congress trick. Kept his job. NSA's programs remain in place. "Hey wait a minute."
"Kept his job"
Also
"Stayed out of jail"
Actually the first clue was when he moved our embassy to Jerusalem.
The second clue was when he deported an actual Nazi that Obama wouldn't deport.
Yes, the "Muslim Travel Ban" actually was the "Terrorist Travel Hold". Why anyone called it "Muslim" is unexplainable. After all, Indonesia, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Nigeria and Egypt all were missing from the Hold, and they have the largest Muslim populations in the world.
Of course it is explainable. It’s called politics, aka, they lied.
your comment substantiates the institutions of our democratic republic were strong enough to repel Trump's innate autocratic self not that his instincts aren't the same as those of a Nazi.
Institutions definitely repelled Trump. Were they Democratic? The CIA/FBI/NSA are not at the top of my list in that category. And your claims as to Trump's "innate autocratic self" is evidence-free.
I refer you to the accounts of anyone and everyone who was ever employed by The Trump Organization and more recently the long list of former members of his administration from top to bottom.
I suspect there isn't sufficient quantity or veracity of evidence that will change your clearly made up mind.
Well lacking specifics, its going to be tough to convince me. "Go read everything" isn't evidence. How about an example of something Trump did when in office that looks like Hitler? Like we were promised the whole time by the media? Say, that is equivalent to the invasion of Iraq. Or the destruction of LIbya. You know - like a war which killed a lot of people. For me at least, bombastic tweets don't rise to the level of "Hitler".
your willful ignorance noted.
You may as well have typed - "I got nuthin".
Your willful lack of evidence to back up your claim is also noted. You perfectly emulate exactly what Glen described in this piece.
what part of "When the court struck down his Travel Ban, and he reformulated it to comply with the court ruling." don't you understand?
Well, if Trump were a Nazi, he would have had the judges shot. Kinda like Hitler did. You know. Hitler the Nazi. But that's not what he did. Hope that helps.
"...in 1933, the German system of justice underwent "coordination" (alignment with Nazi goals). All professional associations involved with the administration of justice were merged into the National Socialist League of German Jurists."
Sounds like The Federalist Society's handiwork to me.
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/law-and-justice-in-the-third-reich
So, no brownshirts, no camps, no "Arbeit macht frei". And yet Trump still is "Hitler". But just deep inside, where only you (and CNN) can see. Your complete inability to provide any actual evidence of "Trump=Hitler" just proves Glenn's point. I gave you every chance. Thanks for playing!
yawn, the germans had a constitution too, we have martial law, trump could have used it, he didn't, snore.
the German constitution to which you refe— the Weimar Constitution—didn't come into existance until August of 1919, the nazis came to power less than a decade later and prior to that Germany was an authoritarian monarchy.
your yawning explains why you missed this detail during your manifestly wasted years of educations.
that doesn't change the facts.
but it explains your willful ignorance and disregard for facts—which you apparently are quite proud of.
"we have martial law, trump could have used it, he didn't" ur projecting
"While Trump radically escalated bombing campaigns he inherited from Bush and Obama, he started no new wars. "
For the record you are ignoring one important fact: Trump's total bombing campaign accelerated in years one and two but massively dropped of in years 3 and 4. His average bombs dropped is significantly lower than prior presidencies this century.
https://www.afcent.af.mil/Portals/82/Airpower%20Summaries/Feb%202020%20Airpower%20Summary%20FINAL.pdf?ver=2020-03-12-021511-537
Trump's increase in Afghanistan bombings also eventually got the Taliban to the negotiating table for peace, which is something prior presidents this century also failed to do.
But Iraq/Syria bombs dropped fell in numbers by an order of magnitude.
Very nice data. Thanks for posting.
You've misread the data. I won't give a president credit for slowing down bombing when he releases only partial data that don't tell us enough to decide, and Trump, like other presidents, isn't releasing much. The Trump administration is flying fewer sorties, but releasing more individual munitions. Data like "what is the total tonnage of bombs released per month" and "how many civilians are being killed per month" would be good to know, but aren't included in your link. Given the fact that some of the info released by Trump's administration looks worse than before, and they're not even releasing other key info, I will tentatively say that he may well be worse than Obama on this. (My point here is somewhat indebted to this link: https://csis-website-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/publication/190904_Progress-Afghanistan.pdf )
You've misread the data. These are the same airpower statistics that were released under the Obama administration.
You can look at the full historical set here, import it into a spreadsheet, and see the total dropoff is significant.
https://www.afcent.af.mil/About/Airpower-Summaries/
I see you are talking about Iraq & Syria and not Afghanistan, so point taken. I had been in an email discussion with other people a while ago about this very same set of data, which had only focused on Afghanistan, so I missed your statement that you weren't claiming a dropoff in Afghanistan. In terms of the total bombing campaign, which had been mainly directed at Iraq & Syria, you're right that there's been something of a dropoff under Trump according to those limited kinds of data that the Trump administration is willing to release. However, since the Trump and Obama administration never told us what is the total tonnage of bombs released per month, nor gave us reliable info on number of civilians killed, and I am not prepared to actually endorse your conclusion that Trump's total bombing campaign dropped off in years 2 and 3 of Trump's term.
"limited kinds of data that the Trump administration is willing to release?"
This is the same data set that has been released for the past 10 years. If you are going to complain about limited data release at least acknowledge that that isn't a Trump administration issue but an issue that has spanned presidencies that covered the full political spectrum to include both houses of Congress.
(And to be clear I was talking about ALL bombs, not just one campaign or another.)
I already acknowledged that it isn't just a Trump administration issue, but aside from that you're right in both your new comments. Since neither Obama's Pentagon nor Trump's released enough info, I'm not prepared to go "Great, Trump is better than Obama." I would like to see info on military torture under Trump as well.
The 2020 statistics that are linked only include January and February of 2020.
You can still see the 2016-2019 data in full on that report. The trendlines are pretty clear.
Are they? "Sorties with at least one weapon released" were more than double in 2019 compared to 2014. And "number of weapons released" was more than triple in 2019 compared to 2014. I haven't looked it all over in depth yet, but those two stats at the top of the presentation really jumped out.
Read both pages?
No. Like I wrote, I haven't had the time to really look at it closely. The sortie and weapon stats kind of jumped off the page for me. Can you distill it down for us? And can you explain how the apparent increases in sorties and weapons use from 2019 compared to 2014 show a down trend? Just so there is no misunderstanding, I'm genuinely asking here not trying to be coy. I will look at the materials more closely later . . . I'm juggling a few things right now. But maybe you could explain it.
Or here, 2016 total sorties with weapon release:
12,440.
Trump takes office Jan 20 2017.
2019 total sorties with weapon release (last full year of data)
3,410.
Is that an obvious enough trendline?
Number of weapons released:
2016: 32,080
2019: 12,152
Does that paint a clear enough picture?
Throw total bombs released into a spreadsheet and turn it into a chart.
Perhaps the most interesting thing you missed in your article Glenn is not how Trump has not engaged in the authoritarian behaviors everyone claimed he would eventually do as part of his Evil Plan but how the vast majority of governors did EXACTLY THAT.
Up to and including using photos from prior year gatherings of Jews to target them for executive and legal action (because that always bodes well...)
VERY FEW governors chose a good path through this crisis. Some made some good decisions at some points, but there was a lot of bad to go with the rare bits of good.
This year is going to make the history books when it comes to emergency management as we review the whole of the world and who did what that worked and didn't work within the confines of the freedoms allowed by each country and state.
And the local Mayors and County Judges in mostly blue towns and counties. Gosh they have crushed small independent businesses while allowing the big corporate big box folks to roll over every little guy. Really sad if your job or business wasn't declared "essential". Sick.
As a resident of the California gulag, I appreciate your comments. The damage we see on the surface is bad enough. I fear the explosion of homelessness when the eviction moratoriums inevitably come to an end.
I mostly agree with this critique, but what's the hope when the problem is civilization wide loss of sanity? The whole population is just being herded into authoritarian hell with hardly a complaint. All of my friends on the left spend time wailing about corporatists while at the same time go right along with destroying half the country's businesses. They hate the police but happily usher in a whole new level of police state with far more petty policing then ever before. Our problems are deep and cultural, there's no simple solution.
"leading much of the left to miss an opportunity to connect to everyday people...."
Most of them could care less about that "opportunity".
For most of them, hatred of Deplorables is THE point.
Which is why Hillary used that "D" word.
She knew exactly what was really happening.
Fantastic piece GG. Thanks for the brain food. All I want for x-mas is an Assange and Snowden pardon! Hope it is just stuck in the mail.
I’m not easily intimidated about stating my opinion, even when it’s unpopular...until recently. I voted Green but, truthfully, I was more worried about a Biden admin than 4 more years of Trump. It has very little to do with the personal qualities of either man, as I don’t think either of them would be running the show, or even have a good idea of where the show was. Trump has some very powerful, well financed allies and donors, particularly among the religious right, but they’re no match for Silicon Valley, Wall Street, the Pentagon, MSM, and the CIA. On the existential issues of climate change and nuclear holocaust, I give Biden the edge on climate, but Biden’s neocon entourage scares the Hell out of me. Trump is erratic and reckless, but like all bullies and the Cold warriors of my youth there is some sense of self preservation. The neocons surrounding Biden seem to think radiation doesn’t apply to them. As far as providing for the American ppl, I have no reason to believe Biden will be any kinder or gentler to the poor, working class or middle class than Trump. His record suggests a lack of empathy rivaling Trump’s. Neither one will impede the corporate takeover of govt so I’d rather not foam the runways for the most powerful among them: Wall St and Silicon Valley. Stating any of these opinions nowadays will get you attacked and censored, which is why it’s so important to keep sharing them. You’re a mensch, Glenn.
As much as I dislike Trump, he is in his first 4 years of politics. Joe Biden has been in politics since 1972. What is he going to do now that he hasn't done in the last 48 years? Name a single piece of important legislation Joe Biden has done. Trump sucks but lifer politicians suck worse.
"Name a single piece of important legislation Joe Biden has done."
Crime bill
Oh yeah... whoops!
I voted Green in 2016 because I had nothing but contempt for the Democratic & Republican parties (which hasn't abated a bit since then), and I got a ton of flak from people I shared that information with -- I was blamed for Hillary's loss, dismissed as being privileged, etc.
It's frustrating because people act like you have to explain yourself for how you voted, or what your beliefs are, but then if you take the time to explain it (like you did in your post) they either just don't get it or they tune you out and just keep giving you shit like it's all they've been trained to do.
At risk of sounding like a rose-tint-spectacled old-timer, I remember it being a lot less socially hazardous to be a 3rd party voter before the digital age, but that may also just be the coincidence of Ralph Nader being blamed a lot for Gore's loss in 2000.
U.S. society has become more tribal in the past few decades. It took me a long time to come to the sad realization that it's not just a lack of awareness - liberal Democrats, or at least the baby boomer cohort, simply do not care about our foreign wars, the lack of universal health care, and many other issues they profess to support. Those living on the upper decks generally don't want to rock the boat.
A milestone in my own understanding occurred when president Obama promised to protect CIA agents who had participated in torture programs ("We need to look forward, not backward"). Once you're willing to acquiesce to the official use of torture in order to maintain the existing social order, you're past the point of no return.
your comment has all the hallmarks of right wing agitprop.
TE O’Connor - I’ve read this entire thread with interest and enjoyment but without comment. I break my silence only to point out that your repetitive contributions are uniquely (in this place, anyway) boorish and boring.
Perhaps a new occupation for your time would be a relief to you and yours in the new year.
Be well.
Every single comment on this thread of yours is uncited personal attacks of the right. Are you sure you are on the right site? This isn't CNN.