Booman recently wrote an article titled Is This What It Has Come To?. It is basically an attack on the journalist Charles P. Pierce for declining to join the current set of mainstream media attacks upon Glenn Greenwald. Now…I am no particular fanboy of Pierce. He certainly has a real talent for wordsmithery and I love his Celtic-inspired verbal thrusts and parries, but he does take a paycheck from a mag that uses a ripoff of the little old rich guy Monopoly icon as its logo, and anyone whose Wikipedia article credits include “American sportswriter, political blogger, author, and game show panelist” must immediately be viewed with at least some suspicion by a serious culture watcher.
However…
In his article, Booman wrote:
When I hear people argue that talking about Greenwald is a distraction from the real scandal, I feel like asking if talking about Judith Miller was a distraction from the real scandal. Shitty reporting is shitty reporting, and if you are going to tolerate it when it suits your purpose then you lose the right to complain about it when it doesn’t suit your purpose.
Priscianus jr replied:
Judith Miller was not a distraction from the scandal of Iraq because she herself was a key part of the scandal.
Glenn Greenwald IS a distraction from the NSA scandal because he is actually part of a DIFFERENT scandal, the scandal of shitty journalism so well described by you, but not of the mass violation of personal privacy by the NSA.
Perhaps he does detract from the credibility of the issue, etc., for the reasons you state, but only to very minor degree, because the revelations about the NSA are hardly being ignored. It is the US government that is losing credibility worldwide, by its unconvincing denials, not the media.
And Booman answered:
Your first sentence AGGRESSIVELY misses the point.
Which is where I had to step in.
Read on for more if you so desire.
No Booman, it doesn’t miss the point. In fact…it pins that particular point. Miller has fairly conclusively been proven to have been an intelligence asset who was actively promoting and protecting the plot to invade Iraq under false pretenses. Greenwald is just another…in Jimmy Breslin’s perfect phrase…”pekinese of the press.” Apparently he is the only pekinese-presser of any real standing who realized…for whatever combination of reasons, from personal greed and ambition right on through to a heartfelt desire to help protect the universe…that this was a big story. Maybe he was the only one Snowden approached…I really don’t know because I haven’t been following the backstory. Why not? Because it is already such a thicket of lies and deceit (and has been so at least since the whole Assange sexual brouhaha surfaced) that there is no longer any possibility whatsoever of knowing what “really” happened. However, one thing is certain. The curtain has now been thoroughly ripped off of the massive surveillance and secrecy states that are in the process of being constructed here and also underneath most of the rest of the world as well, and…by clowns and fools, by wise men and heroes alike…I am only too happy to see the pressure continuing to be applied.
Any which way it can be done.
Any which way it can be done.
Bet on it.
The process of disseminating such outrageous information regarding these secrecy/surveillance activities…by the very nature of the population that has to be made aware of them if anything is to change…must be couched in sensationalistic forms and terms. That population primarily consists of people who have become so deadened to outrage, so overloaded by the drumbeat of the Government Media Complex’s constant “HOTTEST THING EVER!!!” bullshit that a calm, rational explanation of what is going on simply will not suffice. Fire must be fought with fire here. Is Greenwald an asshole? Is Assange a prick? Is Snowden a double agent of some kind? Triple? The second coming of Mother Teresa? Mahatma Gandhi reincarnated? I do not give a flying fuck. They are all involved in a sort of revolution (Or perhaps better, a counter-revolution, because the recent technological coup is already thoroughly in power.), and I think that this revolution/counter-revolution needs to be pursued to a victorious end. Will there be all sorts of villainous actors along the way on both sides? Yes. That’s the story of humanity and it is not about to change. Asking for nothing but good guys on your chosen side is a Hollywood-inspired, Government Media Complex-distributed myth.
That’s the way the shit works.
Deal wid it.
You want to oppose Greenwald on the basis of his personal act? Go to it. But remember…you are thus fighting for the other side. There are no “third sides” in such a battle.
Are the various skirmishes that surround the real battle being fought on “honorable” terms? Please. It is now all simply warlordism on other planes. The surveillance state people vs. the rest of us. Keep your eye on the result. Do you think that said result is being compromised by the backbiting? Fine. Make your blog a haven for truthtellers…if you dare. But understand the process. As our wonderful Peace President said about something else entirely (Or was it?)…”This is not a bloodless process.”
Good manners and a certain kind of rationality are going to bleed in this process as well, just as do so many innocent civilians in that PermaGov Peace President’s various Blood For Power/Blood For Oil wars.
Eventually, involvement in any war that you cannot/must not avoid is going to require that you have to deal with characters that might rationally be labelled…”unsavory.” Turn your nose up at them at your own peril and at the peril of your own goals as well.
Station WTFU once again signing off. I am currently visiting that wonderful bastion of a certain kind of truly American civility and intelligence, Ithaca, NY. There are peaceful things to be done here, and a late summer’s day in which to do them.
Peace.
It’s what’s for dinner.
Bet on that as well.
Later…
AG