Over here on the Left, a large and vocal number of people now treat as unassailable fact the assertion that Mr. Greenwald would be instantly Buttled
and tossed incommunicado into a lightless hellhole should he set foot on American soil is (emphasis added):
Wallace Shawn on Artistic Solidarity: As Glenn Greenwald Can’t Return to U.S., I Took My Play to Him...WALLACE SHAWN: Initially, it was just an emotional response to the fact that I had invited this writer, who I deeply admire, to come and see my play. And, you know, people like me in show business, we’re show-offs, and I wanted him to see the play. And he kept not appearing in the audience. And eventually, I realized he was not able to return to the United States because of having received the NSA papers.
What Mr. Shawn did -- taking his play to Brazil to stage it for a writer who he greatly admires -- was an unreservedly kind and generous thing to do. Period.
The problem, is that Mr. Shawn's understanding of Mr. Greenwald's situation is based on a fairy tale, manufactured from one stupid remark by one elected buffoon, and a couple of idiotic comments by media goofs.
So how in the world did Mr. Greenwald's insinuations and unsupported allegations on this specific subject ever become so concretized in the imagination of so many on the Left that it is now stated as offhandedly and axiomatically as "Benghaaaazi!" and "ACORN" and "IRS Scandal!" are referenced on the Right?
Simple.
Mr. Shawn is a gifted dramatist, but in this particular venue Mr. Shawn cannot hold a dramaturgical candle to Mr. Greenwald, who has been trotting all over the planet tirelessly promoting the tale of shadowy conspiracies to keep him exiled from the land of his birth.
Of course, I respect (and sometimes disagree with) the opinion of those who are heartily sick of people who keep trying to distract from the important and consequential story of NSA abuses by dragging the personal dramas of Glenn Greenwald into it.
If you are one of those people --
For the benefit of anyone for whom reading is perhaps not fundamental, Glenn Greenwald's personality, and the peripatetic globe-trotting of Edward Snowden, are not the story here. If you decide to make them the story, then you are taking yourself off the real story, and that's your fault, not Greenwald's or Snowden's...
-- I strongly urge you to direct your comments to:
Amy Goodmanc/o Democracy Now!207 W. 25th St., Floor 11New York, NY 10001
*(For those who don't know who Barton Gellman is, shame on you. He is the Washington Post reporter to whom Edward Snowden also vouchsafed access to his massive trove of stolen documents and who has also written many fine articles about the NSA. When last seen, Mr. Gellman was living his life in New York City and writing stories about the NSA, unmolested and undisappeared by The League of Shadows.)
16 comments:
Thank you. If Greenwald cannot enter the US because of his role in the Snowden revelations, it is not merely because he "received" the papers or writes stories about them. He's either more culpable in their acquisition or he likes the flair it adds to his martyrdom pitch. My personal guess is option B.
But Droooooneglaaaaasss....
Surely the Communist Corporatist Barack O'Bummer sits up at night, reading the Necronomicon and plotting a Bond-villain-style demise for the Good and Noble Greenwald. Any day now, people who aren't sheeple *know* that Obama is going to appear in his Nyarlathotep high-priest robes and have the Elder Sign painted across the White House in the blood of both liberals and conservatives.
Because both sides.
Mike.K.
All good points Mr. Glass.
And if the good Mr. Greenwald were to decide to come to Canada to, say, roll in the snow and/or take possession of any and all remaining Rob Ford tapes (which might just fill the entire cargo hold of an otherwise empty Brazilair 777), he will likely be simultaneously feted and vilified.
Why?
Because, according to none other than the parliamentary secretary to our Prime Minister, Mr. Greenwald is a...
Wait for it...
...Porn Spy!
.
RossK,
Harper and his clowns make me glad the Canadian government hardly has the power to do any real damage.
--Nonny Mouse
Shouldn't I also direct my comments to Charles Pierce? He's every bit as annoying as Amy Goodman.
Drifty -
As me sainted mother used to say to us when we were home avoiding a test, er, sick: "there's a difference between having a pain and being one."
Mr. Greenwald needs to learn the corollary: there's a difference between reporting the story and being the story.
Regards,
Tengrain
I'm sure Chelsea Manning appreciates the distinction. As does John Kiriakou.
Good thing we've got liberals to keep an eye on intelligence abuses and overreach.
By the way, when was Barton Gellman's spouse confined at the airport by state security services? I mean, if that's the comparison being made...
Of course, Doc, the spouse detention episode was actually in England, not in America. So the comparison kind of hinges on traveling to England being the same as traveling to America.
Also, when was Barton Gellman's spouse being used as mule for the documents in question?
Thanks to Doc for reminding us of the soul-chilling ordeal of David Miranda, who suffered the unimaginably shocking treatment of being detained and questioned for nearly nine hours at Heathrow Airport before being released without charges, all because his loving and thoughtful companion Glenn Greenwald had conscripted him into transporting illegally obtained documents on behalf of Glenn Greenwald, thus engineering the perfect opportunity for Glenn Greenwald to once again advance as loudly as possible the narrative that he, Glenn Greenwald, was a Marked Man, a veritable martyr to Journalistic Ethics due to his Commitment to the Truth, and furthermore, that he, Glenn Greenwald, was now being targeted through his loved ones, which was an unconscionable affront against him, Glenn Greenwald, but he, Glenn Greenwald, was NOT THE STORY, so SHUT UP about that!!
I stand ready to be labeled a stooge-licking boot of Empire or whatever.
http://www.propublica.org/special/sealing-loose-lips-charting-obamas-crackdown-on-national-security-leaks
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/05/23/192094/obama-administration-targets-reporters.html
Clearly he should have nothing to fear.
You fucking hack.
Now, now, we all know (Point the First) that Greenwald is a total drama queen, and while this whole government-spying-on-its-own-citizens-while-emphatically-denying-same story could be a Big Thing, it isn't because see Point the First above. And because Greenwald is a total drama queen, it means that Barton Gellman being under the aegis of the Washington Post (did someone mention recently that there is a Club, and that there are benefits to being in it not available to the ordinary reporter - odd that that disappears whenever Point the First is involved) has nothing to do with whether the Administration has or has not molested or disappeared him.
Once again, total astonishment that moneyed interests aren't just beating down the door of Castle Driftglass offering phat contracts for perspicacious insight and obsessive point-missing. Astonishment, I say again.
Oh, I'm convinced now, drifty.
SPYING ON EVERBODY IS GOOD, AS LONG AS OBAMA DOES IT!
~
Funny, I didn't read a single word on the good or bad aspects of spying on everybody or even a mention of Obama in this post. This post is about whether or not GG would be apprehended, thrown into a cage and disappeared forever if he ever re-entered the U.S.
Maybe driftglass has written another post somewhere where he said "SPYING ON EVERYBODY IS GOOD, AS LONG AS OBAMA DOES IT!" but I seem to have missed it.
Maybe driftglass has written another post somewhere where he said "SPYING ON EVERYBODY IS GOOD, AS LONG AS OBAMA DOES IT!" but I seem to have missed it.
To some people, everything driftglass writes says that.
http://www.emptywheel.net/2014/02/04/mike-rogers-aims-to-criminalize-the-only-thing-tat-affords-journalists-protections-getting-paid/
Yup nothing to fear. Move along rubes, nothing to see here. Sheesh what a drama queen.
Fucking hack.
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