I liked Glenn Greenwald... maybe I still do, I'm not sure. He certainly has done some good stuff in the past but recent events have certainly raised some questions.
Lets go back to the beginning. About a week ago self described Libertarian John Tyner wrote a blog post about an unpleasant encounter with the TSA that he just so happened to have set record devices up on his person before it occurred. This post got a surprisingly large amount of coverage very rapidly. This wasn't especially suspicious because the TSA are far from popular and from time to time the internet does throw up unlikely success stories.
Alas Mark Ames and Yasha Levine of Exiled.com dug up the fact those trumpeting this issue had alterior motives. In short various libertarian Koch Brothers minions were using this as a chance not to push for less security at airports, but privatised security at airports. Their article (which you should read) attracted an awful lot of criticism very quickly. Not just from right wing flaks either; renowned liberal luminary, techno-fetistist and Steam Punk fan Cory Doctorow was among the liberal voices screeching about at the duo for daring to question the narrative of their little pet project. Alas though the most prominent and widely heard critic was Glenn Greenwald.
Greenwald's article is full of very annoyed accusations of baseless criticism on Levine and Ames's part. He then goes on to accuse them of being hardline democrat supporters moved into action by anger at Tyner upsetting Barrack Obama, their favourite person ever's plans.
With a Koch-related mind like that, the next thing you know, Tyner will be calling for endless war in the Muslim world, escalated civilian-slaughtering drone strikes, a covert war in Yemen, war crimes trials for child soldiers, and due-process-free life imprisonment and presidential assassinations. Then maybe he'll decide he can become a Good Democrat and will be able to remove the cloud of suspicion that, in the eyes of these Nation writers, hangs over him.to quote one of several instances.
Yet if one were to do the most cursory of research, say a single search on their website for the word Obama you would realise that they are in no way democratic party allies, fans or even well wishers. Still this isn't the end of the world, Greenwald is a busy man and while Exiled.com is cool they're hardly big fish in the media pond. It is a shame he is wholly unaware of the fact Ames and Levine, through journalistic hard work, were the first to break the news that the Tea Party is an Astro Turfed movement, a sham funded by Billionaire libertarianism proponents the Koch Brothers but you can't expect him to know everything.
Ames and Levine provided a response to Greenwald's letter on The Nation's website which Greenwald then responded to again in Update III of his article. In this Greenwald defends his strident attack on the origianl article and his ignoring the wider facts of Libertarian influence on the anti-TSA movement by claiming he merely wanted to defend the innocence of John Tyner. Which is kinda nice if rather myopic, sure the inference Ames and Levine made about Tyner is perhaps questionable but the wider issue of the right's support for the anti-TSA movement being about privatisation and not loosening of security is noteworthy and perhaps something he should've noted in his attack?
Well it turns out Glenn Greenwald has good reason to be unwilling to criticise the Koch Brothers in regards to Airport Security issues. He wrote a report for the CATO INSTITUTE about Airport security. You can read the report by Glenn Greenwald of the CATO Institute here: http://www.cato-unbound.org/2010/08/09/glenn-greenwald/the-digital-surveillance-state-vast-secret-and-dangerous/. Just in case you are unaware the CATO institute is one of the Koch Brother's principle propaganda mills and sources of succour for academics shills who'll spout the glories of Libertarianism. Greenwald has taken their dime at least once before too.
So what conclusion can we draw from one of the most prominent liberal voices in the US being willing to take at least a sip from the Koch Bros' teat in regards to his strident defence of John Tyner (and just so happening to poo poo the other important criticisms of the Kochs by association?). Well essentially I think theres two main possibilities. Firstly his pride and desire to appear academically consistent have caused him to persist with the CATO point of view and defend other proponents of it, nobody likes to be called on their mistakes and Ames and Levine's usual offensive tone doesn't bring out the best in people generally.
Secondly the money and access his connection to the CATO institute brings to him has lead him to compromise some of his values, maybe he even feels going along with the Libertarian Agenda, with all the media attention and money it is currently getting, can further causes he believes in more than it harms them. In that case attacking relatively minor investigative journalists he hasn't heard of (or at least thats the impression he gives) to further his goals against a creeping surveillance state may be a tradeoff he thinks worth making. Making deals with the devil is seldom wise in any case.
Neither scenario is great but hopefully it is the former.
So in conclusion while I think Greenwald still does a lot of good work my respect for him has dropped considerably and there are major questions hanging over him.
I took two days to write this and in that the hornets' nest seems to have been stirred up even further. Another person mentioned in the original nation article, Peter Eyre, got himself in a tizzy about having some light shined on his activities. He also revealed his ideology is a perverse corporate friendly version of Anarchism oh and he rounds out with a threat of violence against Mark Ames (Yasha Levine is below his notice):
Let me know if you ever want to arm wrestle. And I know Josiah Neff on that page said he’d go a couple rounds of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu if you’re interested.
Sadly the liberal mainstream is siding with these assholes over Levine and Ames because they don't want to acknowledge they got played over hating the TSA.
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