7 ms·

Glenn Greenwald is right leaning? I disagree with your appraisal that most would consider him that. He's highly critical of mainstream liberal media which creat

Glenn Greenwald is right leaning? I disagree with your appraisal that most would consider him that. He's highly critical of mainstream liberal media which creates the sense he must be 'on the other side,' but he's definitely a left liberal.

Thorrez 6y ago
I guess you're right that "most" was overly strong. But reading his twitter I can't help but think of him as anything but right leaning. Just today he's got a tweet about "Russiagate"[1], one criticizing "British centrists and liberals"[2], one with him being interviewed positively on Fox News[3], two criticizing Hunter Biden[4][5], one criticizing "House Democrats' HR-1 bill"[6], one criticizing vaccine passports[7]. [1] https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1378820440995549185 https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1378820440995549185 [2] https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1378817844490690562 https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1378817844490690562 [3] https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1378789892638056449 https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1378789892638056449 [4] https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1378785636325470211 https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1378785636325470211 [5] https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1378709242425831426 https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1378709242425831426 [6] https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1378714859957841928 https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1378714859957841928 [7] https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1378714144556335107 https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1378714144556335107
- vxNsr 6y ago
  Maybe it says something about the news and your perceptions that someone who entirely agrees with the progressive social and political agenda is so critical of what is currently passing for progressive ideas and champions these days.
  - Thorrez 6y ago
    Sorry, I accidentally posted my comment before I finished it. Now I finished it with an edit. To your point, his tweets seem to be entirely criticizing liberals; I don't see him criticizing conservatives. I'm not saying criticizing liberals is bad or that he should be criticizing conservatives. I'm saying that someone who spends all their time criticizing liberals and repeating right-leaning talking points is right leaning.
    - merricksb 6y ago
      Aaron Maté, who made the actual tweet about "Russiagate" that Greenwald merely made a passing reply to, is about as solid in his traditional left-wing bonafides as anyone can be, following in the footsteps of his father Gabor, a medical practitioner, researcher and author with a decades-long public profile espousing traditional left-wing values. Aaron Maté's skepticism of the Russia narrative is not out of any support for Trump whatsoever - he's been highly critical of Trump - but is part of a track record of earnest investigative reporting about Russia that few other western journalists can match. One should never forget that as recently as 2012, to consider Russia any kind of threat to the US, which the Romney Republican campaign did back then, attracted mockery and derision from Democrats, and it was only in early 2017, just 4 years ago, that it suddenly flipped such that expressing skepticism about the influence of Russia in US politics suddenly became part of "right-leaning talking points". All Maté is doing is remaining consistent with what has been the accepted Democrat/left-wing position for many years, right up until Clinton lost the unlosable election. When Maté and Greenwald spend their time "criticizing liberals", their criticisms are always focused on the modern-day Democrats' track record of becoming too entangled with the big-corporate and military/intelligence establishment, and in doing so, abandoning their supposed left-wing ideals. Just because some right-wingers criticise the Democrats/liberals for the same reason, does not make Maté and Greenwald right-leaning; they are simply staying true to the left-wing values they've held for decades.
      - cycomanic 6y ago
        Well Greenwald has been posting some antimigration articles messages using language that skims very close to hard-right wording. Maybe he doesn't neatly fit into the (American) left/right schema, but by now he is mainly just a "bad media" propagandist. Also I can't take anyone seriously who claims to criticise mainstream media (almost always the more Liberal slanted one), but goes regularly on Tucker Carlsson without ever seriously criticising them. To see how to properly criticise Fox and Tucker search for the leaked interview with rudger bergman.
        merricksb 6y ago
- vxNsr 6y ago
  As others have said, you’re so enmeshed in “progressive” dogma that you can’t even recognize true liberal ideas. Greenwald is as liberal as they come the fact that the democrat party has become so fascist while pretending to be liberal and progressive doesn’t mean he’s changed. They have and he’s refusing to toe the party line for them. All your examples are him sticking to true liberalism while the ideas he criticizes are extremist autocratic ideology that wouldn’t be out of place in 1935 Italy. I say this as someone who vehemently disagrees with much of both glens ideology and the insanity that is the Democrat party platform. To go line by line on your points: 1) I’m not sure what you’re trying to prove here but as others have said glen is sticking to what has always been liberal Americans stance on Russia, it’s a non-issue. 2) not sure about this one bec I don’t have any knowledge of UK politics 3-5) Hunter Biden is a real story and just bec it hurts the DNC candidate should t prevent reporters from talking about it. The fact that so many have decided to put their head in the sand is worrying. But Greenwald has never shied away from exposing the dirty underbelly of the elites. The fact that this time it exposes Biden to corruption claims shouldn’t stop the sorry from coming to light. 6) Criticizing a DNC bill doesn’t make a you national socialist workers’ party member. It makes you a thinking person. If you can’t criticize a bad bill bec of who sponsored it you’ve got big problems. 7) see above. He’s highlighting problems that a normal progressive person would have, just bec you don’t like it... that just means you’re less progressive than you thought, doesn’t make him a fascist.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
hnbad 6y ago
I think there's a failure of communication here because Americans[0] tend to conflate "liberal" with "left" although liberalism is not at all leftist and is far more compatible with right-wing ideologies than leftism. In the most general sense left-wing ideologies are about abolishing hierarchies whereas right-wing ideologies are about either sustaining or enacting them. The difference between liberalism and conservatism is that the former promotes hierarchies that follow from property rights and the latter infers them from tradition (e.g. God's will or "natural order"). Just like anarchists and state communists can have leftist infighting it's possible for there to be infighting on the right. As the US has literally spent decades fighting leftist ideologies, the predominant political discourse in the US takes place between different flavors of the right. No major media outlet in the US will promote abolishing property ownership or collectivising the means of production. When we talk about "leftism" in US media this usually refers to socially progressive ideas like public healthcare, individualist attitudes to anti-racism, LGBTQIA+ rights and so on. While these ideas naturally follow from most leftist ideologies, they're not addressing the underlying social hierarchies or systemic criticism. Case in point: abolishing the police is a systemic critique if taken literally, but in the public discourse this has been reduced to police reform, which is about tweaking the system, not replacing or abolishing it. [0] While this is not unique to the US, I'm focusing on the US here because of the original context. There are more discussions to be had about how this presents in other countries and how the Cold War affected those but this is not the time.
- bscphil 6y ago
  Great comment. It might be a good summary to say that Greenwald is intensely liberal in his stance on civil rights, so much so that he doesn't fit on the American liberal-conservative spectrum on this issue. He's willing to compromise with both liberals and conservatives to help get his message out. His overall stance is not left wing, because most of his other views (at least the stuff he emphasizes) are more (American) libertarian or liberal/conservative, not genuinely left wing.

Thorrez 6y ago

I guess you're right that "most" was overly strong. But reading his twitter I can't help but think of him as anything but right leaning. Just today he's got a tweet about "Russiagate"[1], one criticizing "British centrists and liberals"[2], one with him being interviewed positively on Fox News[3], two criticizing Hunter Biden[4][5], one criticizing "House Democrats' HR-1 bill"[6], one criticizing vaccine passports[7]. [1] https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1378820440995549185 https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1378820440995549185 [2] https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1378817844490690562 https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1378817844490690562 [3] https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1378789892638056449 https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1378789892638056449 [4] https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1378785636325470211 https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1378785636325470211 [5] https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1378709242425831426 https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1378709242425831426 [6] https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1378714859957841928 https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1378714859957841928 [7] https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1378714144556335107 https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1378714144556335107

vxNsr 6y ago
Maybe it says something about the news and your perceptions that someone who entirely agrees with the progressive social and political agenda is so critical of what is currently passing for progressive ideas and champions these days.
- Thorrez 6y ago
  Sorry, I accidentally posted my comment before I finished it. Now I finished it with an edit. To your point, his tweets seem to be entirely criticizing liberals; I don't see him criticizing conservatives. I'm not saying criticizing liberals is bad or that he should be criticizing conservatives. I'm saying that someone who spends all their time criticizing liberals and repeating right-leaning talking points is right leaning.
  - merricksb 6y ago
    Aaron Maté, who made the actual tweet about "Russiagate" that Greenwald merely made a passing reply to, is about as solid in his traditional left-wing bonafides as anyone can be, following in the footsteps of his father Gabor, a medical practitioner, researcher and author with a decades-long public profile espousing traditional left-wing values. Aaron Maté's skepticism of the Russia narrative is not out of any support for Trump whatsoever - he's been highly critical of Trump - but is part of a track record of earnest investigative reporting about Russia that few other western journalists can match. One should never forget that as recently as 2012, to consider Russia any kind of threat to the US, which the Romney Republican campaign did back then, attracted mockery and derision from Democrats, and it was only in early 2017, just 4 years ago, that it suddenly flipped such that expressing skepticism about the influence of Russia in US politics suddenly became part of "right-leaning talking points". All Maté is doing is remaining consistent with what has been the accepted Democrat/left-wing position for many years, right up until Clinton lost the unlosable election. When Maté and Greenwald spend their time "criticizing liberals", their criticisms are always focused on the modern-day Democrats' track record of becoming too entangled with the big-corporate and military/intelligence establishment, and in doing so, abandoning their supposed left-wing ideals. Just because some right-wingers criticise the Democrats/liberals for the same reason, does not make Maté and Greenwald right-leaning; they are simply staying true to the left-wing values they've held for decades.
    - cycomanic 6y ago
      Well Greenwald has been posting some antimigration articles messages using language that skims very close to hard-right wording. Maybe he doesn't neatly fit into the (American) left/right schema, but by now he is mainly just a "bad media" propagandist. Also I can't take anyone seriously who claims to criticise mainstream media (almost always the more Liberal slanted one), but goes regularly on Tucker Carlsson without ever seriously criticising them. To see how to properly criticise Fox and Tucker search for the leaked interview with rudger bergman.
      - merricksb 6y ago
vxNsr 6y ago
As others have said, you’re so enmeshed in “progressive” dogma that you can’t even recognize true liberal ideas. Greenwald is as liberal as they come the fact that the democrat party has become so fascist while pretending to be liberal and progressive doesn’t mean he’s changed. They have and he’s refusing to toe the party line for them. All your examples are him sticking to true liberalism while the ideas he criticizes are extremist autocratic ideology that wouldn’t be out of place in 1935 Italy. I say this as someone who vehemently disagrees with much of both glens ideology and the insanity that is the Democrat party platform. To go line by line on your points: 1) I’m not sure what you’re trying to prove here but as others have said glen is sticking to what has always been liberal Americans stance on Russia, it’s a non-issue. 2) not sure about this one bec I don’t have any knowledge of UK politics 3-5) Hunter Biden is a real story and just bec it hurts the DNC candidate should t prevent reporters from talking about it. The fact that so many have decided to put their head in the sand is worrying. But Greenwald has never shied away from exposing the dirty underbelly of the elites. The fact that this time it exposes Biden to corruption claims shouldn’t stop the sorry from coming to light. 6) Criticizing a DNC bill doesn’t make a you national socialist workers’ party member. It makes you a thinking person. If you can’t criticize a bad bill bec of who sponsored it you’ve got big problems. 7) see above. He’s highlighting problems that a normal progressive person would have, just bec you don’t like it... that just means you’re less progressive than you thought, doesn’t make him a fascist.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

hnbad 6y ago

I think there's a failure of communication here because Americans[0] tend to conflate "liberal" with "left" although liberalism is not at all leftist and is far more compatible with right-wing ideologies than leftism. In the most general sense left-wing ideologies are about abolishing hierarchies whereas right-wing ideologies are about either sustaining or enacting them. The difference between liberalism and conservatism is that the former promotes hierarchies that follow from property rights and the latter infers them from tradition (e.g. God's will or "natural order"). Just like anarchists and state communists can have leftist infighting it's possible for there to be infighting on the right. As the US has literally spent decades fighting leftist ideologies, the predominant political discourse in the US takes place between different flavors of the right. No major media outlet in the US will promote abolishing property ownership or collectivising the means of production. When we talk about "leftism" in US media this usually refers to socially progressive ideas like public healthcare, individualist attitudes to anti-racism, LGBTQIA+ rights and so on. While these ideas naturally follow from most leftist ideologies, they're not addressing the underlying social hierarchies or systemic criticism. Case in point: abolishing the police is a systemic critique if taken literally, but in the public discourse this has been reduced to police reform, which is about tweaking the system, not replacing or abolishing it. [0] While this is not unique to the US, I'm focusing on the US here because of the original context. There are more discussions to be had about how this presents in other countries and how the Cold War affected those but this is not the time.

bscphil 6y ago
Great comment. It might be a good summary to say that Greenwald is intensely liberal in his stance on civil rights, so much so that he doesn't fit on the American liberal-conservative spectrum on this issue. He's willing to compromise with both liberals and conservatives to help get his message out. His overall stance is not left wing, because most of his other views (at least the stuff he emphasizes) are more (American) libertarian or liberal/conservative, not genuinely left wing.