SocraticGadfly: Shaking my head: Green Kool-Aid drinkers who think Glenn Greenwald is a leftist

July 12, 2021

Shaking my head: Green Kool-Aid drinkers who think Glenn Greenwald is a leftist

The latest I've run into over that is former Twitter friend Dave Schwab, eventually unfriended so I could mute him (as the last time I muted someone who was a friend, it didn't work, and I don't know if that's always the case with muting friends) then eventually blocked.

I've run into it before on a private email list, the official Green Party Facebook group and elsewhere.

And, this needed the latest installment of "Kool-Aid Man" Photoshopping!

Most start by citing "but Snowden." The full truth about Snowden, Greenwald, Greenwald's luck, Snowden's possible "using" of him, Glenn's gifting 90 percent of the Snowden treasure to Omidyar and more is all here in an extended review of Glenn's "No Place to Hide." (Ironic title, isn't it.)

I referenced Glenn's defense of Matt Hale (easily findable), the likely truth about his hookup with Miranda, and, after muting Schwab, links to both that and his plutocracy.

Schwab waved away Matt Hale as "Do you know what defense lawyers are supposed to do?" No, really! In part of my tweetstorm after muting him, I told him that, first, it was a civil case and second, Hale was the plaintiff. There's no room to argue with that level of ignorance, whether previously accidental or willful.

I think part of the problem is many peoplc confuse civil libertarianism and leftism. They're not at all the same.

Many L/libertarians are civil libertarians & also hypercapitalists. Besides Greenwald? Take Radley Balko. Same great stuff, but feels lawsuits replace laws, like his wanting to eliminate DWI laws. Yes, really. And, it stems from other libertarian bad concepts of his.

(That said, Balko does have the advantage over Glennwald of not being an online troll, and a grating one at that, nor is he a suckup to Swanson Tucker Carlson and other wingnuts.)

Glenn has long contributed to this confusion, with his touts of speaking to socialist youth events. BUT? As far as I know, he's ONLY talked about civil liberties issues, not actual socialism, nor whatever he thinks his friend, fake "Socialist Swanson Tucker Carlson," preaches.

The reality is that Glenn is not, has not been, and likely never will be a leftist. He is (or was) a civil libertarian. And an economic libertarian of some sort. And a Brazilian 0.1 percenter. (And, related to that, apparently a liar about how he and David Miranda met. And, no, Schwab, it's not a smear against pornography or against Greenwald or Miranda to point out that they likely had a porn producers connection, not an accidental run-in on a beach.)

His buddying up with Swanson Tucker Carlson, his attack on "light on bail" district attorneys like Larry Krasner and other things shows that he's willing to throw his civil libertarianism out the door to suck up to wingnuts. But, he'll keep an on-steroids version of civil libertarianism, wrongly applied, as part of sucking up to wingnuts with his challenging of COVID public health measures. And, Glenn's stance on social media bans show either further hypocrisy or else shallow thinking. (I prefer to say the latter in public, just because calling him a shallow thinker will piss off him and his fanbois more.)

Anyway, I felt like arguing more with Schwab than the people I just block on Facebook when they show their ignorance, or ditto on a Greens-related email list-serve I'm about to leave.

As I stumble across other bad thinking, expect updates.

Beyond that, if you're NOT a fanboi, or at least not so dyed-in-the-wool as to be open to new information, just click the Greenwald tag below.

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