...somewhere in the world that is in some way related to those who pervert Islam to serve horrific ends, you can always -- and I mean always -- count on two things.
First, America's premier, globe-trotting, indignance-chasing attorney (who, somehow, is still not being held incommunicado in some lightless super-max prison cell) will be johnny-on-the-spot to set up his card table right in the center of it so he can angrily pamphleteer passer's by about the real tragedy.
And, second, virtually no one in either the mainstream media or in the allegedly fearless Liberal blogosphere will dare to whisper a single discouraging word about Mr.Greenwald's relentless, Westboro Baptist Church-level of tragedy-trolling.
So, ISIS commits another act of caught-on-camera medieval horror and cue Mr. Greenwald with "Yeah, but the droooones" in 3...2...1...
BURNING VICTIMS TO DEATH: STILL A COMMON PRACTICEBY GLENN GREENWALD @ggreenwaldThe latest ISIS atrocity – releasing a video of a captured Jordanian fighter pilot being burned alive – prompted substantial discussion yesterday about this particular form of savagery. It is thus worth noting that deliberately burning people to death is achievable – and deliberately achieved – in all sorts of other ways:“Living Under Drones: Death, Injury and Trauma to Civilians From US Drone Practices in Pakistan”, NYU School of Law and Stanford University Law School, 2012...
Go back to before the Boston Marathon bombing and you will find this is always Mr. Greenwald's MO. A terse paragraph to perfunctorily acknowledge that, yes, whatever happened was a real shame blah blah blah...
...then up goes his revival tent right on the still-bloody ground, after which comes the shouty 63 paragraph sermon on what the real crime here was. Which -- always and without exception -- will be one of Mr. Greenwald's two pet issues.
Tacked onto the end of this long tract you will usually find another short, teeth-gritted sentence or two acknowledgement that some misguided idiots may claim some moral distinction between, say, what ISIS does and what the United States does...
...which is immediately followed by a chastising preemptive rebuke of those people as tribalist dupes:
The constant orgy of condemnation aimed at this group seems to have little purpose other than tribal self-affirmation: no matter how many awful acts our government engages in, at least we don’t do something like that, at least we’re not as bad as them. In some instances, that may be true, but even when it is, the differences are usually much more a matter of degree than category (much the way that angry denunciations over the Taliban forsuicide-bombing a funeral of one of its victims hides the fact that the U.S. engages in its own “double tap” practice of bombing rescuers and funeral mourners for its drone victims). To the extent that these denunciation rituals make us forget or further obscure our own governments’ brutality – and that seems to be the overriding effect if not the purpose of these rituals – they are worse than worthless; they are actively harmful.
Enjoy your new, internet-billionaire-funded digital media, America.
12 comments:
The Greenwald Method:
1: The West is bad.
2: Anyone who harms The West is good.
3: Anyone who disagrees is a stooge of The West and is therefore bad.
Time was, you used to be able to call people on that shit and make them publicly answerable for it. Of course, Glennie Pie is hiding out in his ivory tower in Rio, surrounded by the world's worst slums which he gives no fucks about because He Is White Male and Rich So He Is Better Than Them, so we can't even put him in front of a fucking camera and make him answer for a viewpoint that is one stop short of "She shouldn't have worn slutty clothes".
"...America's premier, globe-trotting, indignance-chasing attorney (who, somehow, is still not being held incommunicado in some lightless super-max prison cell)..."
Yeah -- funny thing, that. Why, it's almost as though Glenn had just been spewing a bunch of hyperbolic, self-aggrandizing bullshit. But, of course, it would be blasphemy to even think such a thing... after all, a courageous, noble, heroic investigative journalist and Man of the People like Saint Glenn of Rio would never behave in such a patently dishonest fashion purely for the sake of increasing his own personal fame and wealth... right?
Yep. Thank you Droneglass & Co for your courage in sticking up for the REAL underdog. Stand tall!
USA! USA! USA!
What you have here, Driftglass, is not a comment about horror and moral outrage towards perpetrators of the crime of burning helpless people alive. Oh no, what you have here is yet another excuse to grind your axe on Glenn Greenwald while displaying your indignation that others fail to grind the same axe. Greenwald at least has the moral rectitude to recognize the real shame of how ISIL behaves. I don't see where you are moved to display the same shame over the kinds of human burnings conducted by our own military and it's allies. Greenwald's richly-documented piece is about that long-used tactic which we living here in Central Command rapidly are losing the kind of public outrage once prevalent during the napalm era of Vietnam. I'm old enough to have protested those outrages in the streets. Therefore I hear and agree deeply with every word in Greenwald's excellent exposition. This is why your reaction, putting Greenwald into a frame of some sort of proof of trolling in the manner of, what??, Westboro Baptist????, well, frankly you've managed to turn my stomach today. Expect a letter from me to the podcast as well, where you issued similarly. Note: I am a supporter of your podcast. And I'll continue to be. I still appreciate many of your flares. Too bad this one is so ugly.
And, as usual, the Glennie Pie Junior Defense Brigade is out in force to make sure we all know the REEEEEAL reason why you're posting this. Not because GG is a hack who sees every tragedy as a chance to further his teenage-level agenda; no, it's because OMG U OBSESSIVE HAET STOOGE DRONEGLASS!!1
The Cargo Cult of Saint Glennie Pie continues uneducated.
Greenwald's defenders are missing the point. There's a time and a place for preaching and advocacy of one's pet causes, and this ain't one of them! I can think of some doomer-sermons I might preach inspired by the ghastly immolation of a young man in the prime of his life for the sake of vile political spectacle, but I didn't and I won't because I have some places where I draw the fucking line. Knowing where to do so isn't exactly rocket science, after all.
Is Greenwald wrong? Is our burning up people less evil than their burning up people? Who has burned up more people? Them or us?
You have too preached, Roboto. And here I go again. If you read what Greenwald wrote, he does contrast their political spectacle and our cover-ups. By their nature, cover-ups require difficult research to uncover. Mainly that is what Greenwald does in his piece -- provide you with documentation on where and how the U.S. chooses to burn people. We can disagree, but I think this is an entirely fair exercise. If not now, when? Maybe we can all agree that burning people alive is barbarism, no matter who does it or why they say they do it.
And the Cultists still don't get it. EQUIVOCATION IS NOT A VALID ARGUMENT. END OF DICUSSION.
And besides, countering that criticizing the preaching of a pet cause on account of this atrocity is also preaching, isn't a whole lot more than an "I'm-rubber-you're-glue" rhetorical trick that doesn't really hold any water.
If everything else were the same, but the president was a Reptilian instead of a Dinocrat, I wonder how many of GG's detractors here would be singing his praises?
@IBW: It would make no difference to me because I have royally had my fill of that whole game. And as far as I'm concerned, where a line needs to be drawn, it gets drawn for everybody.
Post a Comment