America's perception management of Europe

Cartoon of Barack Obama by Morten Morland

Glenn Greenwald wrote in October 2012:

"It is almost certainly the case that an Obama-led attack on Iran would generate far more public support than a Romney-led attack, because most Democrats will almost certainly cheer for the former while pretending to be horrified by the latter, will while Republicans would support both (that's the dynamic that made the very same "counter-terrorism" policies that were so divisive in the Bush years become wildly popular once Obama embraced them)."

The protocol, convention and etiquette for public figure deaths

Scanlan's Monthly cover by Ralph Steadman of Richard Nixon getting punched

When a prominent public figure dies we are guaranteed a steam train of piety and praise. The media will compliment where compliment is due, this is right, but it is wrong for the media to allow any public figure eulogy to go unchecked. There must be a recognition, public airing, examination and learning from the bad, their wrongs and their mistakes, their misrule, misdeeds and misbehaviour. The deceased public figure is not untouchable, the deceased public figure is not a sacred cow; a unifying consensus of reverence does a disservice to the public and to posterity.

I will punch that sacred cow. Yet the establishment wont. Glenn Greenwald calls this The Protocol For Public Figure Deaths.  A convention and etiquette that outlaws honest criticism and imposes a vow of silence. In his obituary for Christopher Hitchens, Glenn Greenwald criticised both the convention of non-criticism and Hitchens himself,  saying here:

"The death this week of Christopher Hitchens and the remarkably undiluted, intense praise lavished on him by media discussions... Hitchens was an extremely controversial, polarizing figure. And particularly over the last decade, he expressed views — not ancillary to his writings but central to them — that were nothing short of repellent. 

Subordinating his brave and intellectually rigorous defense of atheism, Hitchens’ glee over violence, bloodshed, and perpetual war dominated the last decade of his life. Dennis Perrin, a friend and former protégée of Hitchens, described all the way back in 2003 how Hitchens’ virtues as a writer and thinker were fully swamped by his pulsating excitement over war and the Bush/Cheney imperial agenda: 

I can barely read him anymore. His pieces in the Brit tabloid The Mirror and in Slate are a mishmash of imperial justifications and plain bombast; the old elegant style is dead. His TV appearances show a smug, nasty scold with little tolerance for those who disagree with him. He looks more and more like a Ralph Steadman sketch. And in addition to all this, he’s now revising what he said during the buildup to the Iraq war."

And so:

"Nobody should have to silently watch someone with this history be converted into some sort of universally beloved literary saint. To enshrine him as worthy of unalloyed admiration is to insist that these actions were either themselves commendable or, at worst, insignificant. Nobody who writes about politics for decades will be entirely free of serious error, but how serious the error is, whether it reflects on their character, and whether they came to regret it, are all vital parts of honestly describing and assessing their work. To demand its exclusion is an act of dishonesty.

Christopher Hitchens on mass, warrantless surveillance

In 2006 the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit in Detroit against the NSA. They accused the NSA of violating the US constitution by eavesdropping on people without court oversight. The case represented the first legal challenge to the surveillance programme. It sought an immediate end to wiretaps, saying they violate constitutional rights to privacy and free speech. 

The ACLU suit included Christopher Hitchens. He said in a full written statement and published on the ACLU website:

"People will say it’s wartime and we have a deadly enemy, and I agree with that. I was in favour of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan very strongly, but it is even more important in such a time that we don’t give away power to the unaccountable agencies that helped get us into this in the first place. It is extremely important we know what the rules are and there has to be a line drawn. You mustn’t turn emergency or panic measures into custom or practice."

He also said here, and echoed the bold words above:

"[It is] imperative that we do not take panic or emergency measures in the short term, and then permit them to become institutionalised."

He spoke briefly of the lawsuit in a speech here: 

"I am currently a plaintiff in a lawsuit brought by the ACLU against the National Security Agency, for doing what it knows how to do, which is bug American citizens instead of doing what it appears not to know how to do which is how to predict terrorist attacks in the United States."

My previous posts on Hitchens on Northern Ireland here, on segregated schools here and on the "parasitic class" here. On Albert Camus and "the rats" here. On Northern Ireland's "barbaric, sectarian leaders" here. His comment that anti-semites are "mentally and morally unwell" here. On Vaclav Havel here. On the US First Amendment here, on the US as an empire and class-based society here, and on how to succeed here. On women and poverty here. On the US Declaration of Independence here. Christopher Hitchens explained that he left the UK in part because of the libel laws, see here. Christopher Hitchens spoke here about the authority of bloggers and online writers (7m30s) (original video in full here). Hitchens on "being bored" as the worst sin here. On why Hitchens is such a compelling writer here. On cliché here. On socialism here. On Iran's "Baby Boomerang", here. On the need to defend the principles of the Enlightenment here. On thought crimes here. On the "encouraging signs of polarisation" here. On feeling "envious of someone who is young and active and starting out" here. Christopher Hitchens on the anti-Columbus movement. On opinion polls here. On the term "political spectrum"here. On Obama's Nobel Peace Prize here. Hitchens on how writing is hard, here. Hitchens on how a writer can never really stop, here. Hitchens explains why he is no longer a socialist, here. On the "some Christians fell into error" excuse here.

Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) and gate-keeping the Snowden leaks

This is the charge repeatedly laid at Greenwald's door. Andrew Sullivan said it:

What the public knows and does not know about the NSA is determined by @ggreenwald, with no checks and balances: http://t.co/H5xAqP1RUb
— Andrew Sullivan (@sullydish) May 29, 2014

Greenwald flatly denies this charge, as he did here:

@sullydish That's false: 1) I collaborate w/editors & colleagues on every story; 2) WashPost, NYT, PP & Guardian all have much > 10,000 docs
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) May 29, 2014

Yet Glenn Greenwald has always insisted on full editorial control. He started blogging in 2005 and by the time he reached Salon he maintained the self-direction and individualism of an independent blogger. This independence continued with his move to the Guardian. As he said:

"I will write daily at the U.S. edition of The Guardian, which is based in New York, and will do so exactly the same way as I have here [Salon]: with full editorial independence and the same type of readership involvement and support upon which I’ve long relied, including a vibrant comment section. In addition to the daily writing, I’ll also write a more traditional once-a-week column there."

Andrew Sullivan further wrote here:

"The way the US government has behaved since 9/11 – its outrageous and criminal secret activity – seems to me to tilt the question in favor of the whistle-blower and the journalist, and some legal leniency – certainly for the journalist. But in all times there is a balance between these two contradictory democratic necessities – government secrecy and transparency – and at some point, the rule of law is the rule of law. It’s not perfect, but it’s better than all the alternatives. 

Right now, for example, what the public knows and does not know about the NSA is determined by Glenn Greenwald. He has in his possession vast troves of information that he is keeping secret, until he decides it will becomes public. He is picking and choosing what to divulge and doing so over an extended period of time. In that sense, he is close to being an alternative government, but without any internal checks and balances, and with no recourse for the public through the democratic system. What Mike is insisting is that this too is a genuine problem from the point of view of the public interest. Who gets to decide what the public knows? Right now, it’s Glenn. And I bet his security system for his data is extremely strong. He doesn’t want any leaks either, does he?"

Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) - Censorship makes a megaphone not a muzzle of speech

Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) said:

"Beyond all the other reasons not to do it, free speech assaults always backfire: they transform bigots into martyrs."

New York Times wrote an article, 'For Hateful Comic in France, Muzzle Becomes a Megaphone.'

Glenn Greenwald - Islamophobia in the United States is pervasive and intense

Scene after fire at the Islamic Society of Joplin, Missouri

Glenn Greenwald wrote in Salon magazine:

"In a trend largely ignored by the American media, hate crimes against American Muslims are at epidemic levels."

He continued:

"All of this reveals a broader truth: Islamophobia in the United States is pervasive and intense, and worse, is as ignored and tolerated as it is destructive The greatest harm from these incidents is not to the property they damage. It’s the climate of fear that is created for Muslims living in the United States. As I’ve written about before, it’s hard to put into words how palpable and paralyzing this fear is in American Muslim communities. It’s infuriating to behold: perfectly law-abiding citizens and legal residents feeling — rationally and accurately — that they are subjected to constant surveillance, monitoring, suspicion, denial of basic rights, hostility and worse solely because of their religion and ethnicity."

More:

"This happens because overt expression of Islamophobia is, far and away, the most accepted form of bigotry in mainstream American precincts. Now and then, certain expressions of it are so extreme as to embarrass mainstream circles — Peter King’s Congressional investigation into The Enemy Within or the Michele Bachmann attacks on Hillary Clinton’s Muslim aide — and are thus roundly condemend, but more often than not, they are perfectly acceptable."

More:

"And, as I wrote about yesterday, America’s foreign policy is, and for the last decade has been, driven by endless violence against Muslims in numerous predominantly Muslim countries, sending a message loudly and clearly to the American citizenry about the Real Enemy."

In full here.

Glenn Greenwald home. Sarah Harrison exiled.



 

Wow @ggreenwald home. @wikileaks Sarah Harrison exiled, Miranda detained by terror law & @guardian forced data destruction. Says a lot re UK
— Richard Tynan (@richietynan) April 11, 2014

This is exactly the contrast that struck me on hearing that Greenwald had returned to the United States without incident, event or arrest.

Glenn Greenwald landed in New York and passed through customs unhindered.

Sarah Harrison cannot return to the UK. This is on the very real fear and very material likelihood of arrest and prosecution as a terrorist under the Terrorism Act 2000. Glenn Greenwald said here (16m) of the risk of arrest and prosecution:

Understanding journalism and the proper role of the Fourth Estate

As Andrew Sullivan said, "Every now and again, it’s perhaps worth revisiting the entire definition of journalism." At present, journalism and the media is out of step with the original and traditional model. The traditional model is based on the premise, as Glenn Greenwald said, that:

"Basic to political science and the American founding and to human nature is that people cannot operate and exercise power without checks or they’ll inevitably abuse it."

As Daniel Ellsberg, the Edward Snowden of the 20th Centruy, said:

"Secrecy corrupts, just as power corrupts." 

Therefore it falls upon journalism and the free press, Edmund Burke's "Fourth Estate", to shine a light upon the powerful and those who want to act in secrecy. Journalists are to be the adversaries and opponents of the powerful. Their job is to be in confrontation against, and not in collaboration with the government. Glenn Greenwald said July 2 2013 on Fox and Friends:

"Thomas Jefferson, 250 years ago, said those who most fear investigations are the ones who attack free press first. This is what journalism is about, shining a light on what the most powerful people in the country are doing to them in the dark. "

Frank Church - Abuse of state power

The Snowden-NSA-leaks revealed a world of vast, systemic, institutionalized, industrial-scale Leviathan mass surveillance. A system of surveillance that has gone far beyond the original mandate to deal with terrorism. Following the Nixon-surveillance scandal, Senator Frank Church led an enqiry into the misuse of state power. This resulted in the Church Committee.

In 1975 Frank Church said:

"[The National Security Agency’s] capability at any time could be turned around on the American people, and no American would have any privacy left, such is the capability to monitor everything: telephone conversations, telegrams, it doesn’t matter. There would be no place to hide."

Thomas Paine said in 'Dissertation on First Principles of Government' (July 1795):

"He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself."

Glenn Greenwald - Privacy is necessary for creativity

In an article in Salon, "Surveillance breeds conformity" Natasha Lennard spoke with Glenn Greenwald. He explained why privacy the prerequisite to being a fully formed human being and the prerequisite to creativity. He explained this with two points.

Firstly, Glenn Greenwald said that the first value of privacy is the personal:

"I think the primary value of privacy is personal as opposed to legalistic or constitutional or political, by which I mean it’s essential to what it means to be human that we have a private life. We interact with other human beings as social animals, and live part of our lives in the public eye — that’s crucial — that’s why if you put someone in solitary confinement for 23 and a half hours a day like we do in U.S. prisons, it’s a form of torture. And it makes people go insane, because we need, as part of our human functioning, to be seen by other human beings and to be perceived by them and understood through the eyes of other people. 

Secondly, it's about being free to explore and express oneself creatively:

Glenn Greenwald - The problem with endorsing abuse of state power

Gore Vidal (at 17 minutes) said:

"Every president wants to be a dictator. It is the nature of power. You don’t accept limited powers unless you’re a very limited man."

Gore Vidal said in 1999:

"I don’t know where the Internet is going to go but I do know that the government is going to try and take it over. You can count on that." 

Glenn Greenwald (at 26 minutes) said there are lots of reasons why people should be concerned about civil liberties, even if theirs aren’t being infringed or abridged. He gave two reasons.

Firstly:

"The first of which, history leaves no doubt that, although civil liberties infringements begin in a very confined way - directed at the most marginalized minorities about whom people don’t care or to whom they direct their hostility – it is inevitable, absolutely inevitable that those civil liberties abridgments, once they are entrenched, will spread ; and they’ll spread far beyond their original intended targets."

He continued:

Glenn Greenwald - US violence is "noble" and "civilised" while Muslim violence is "primitive" and "without rational cause"

Following the murder of drummer Lee Rigby, bloggers Glenn Greenwald and Andrew Sullivan crossed keyboards and battled it out. The issue: Greenwald called it "a barbaric and horrendous act"; but fell short of calling it "terrorism". The premise being that Rigby was a soldier, not a citizen. Since America and Britain had declared the whole globe as a battlefield, the attack was a reaction to this. But as Glenn explained, by highlighting the cause, he does not seek to justify the act. As he said:

"People reflexively try to radically distort the argument beyond recognition in order to smear you as a Terror apologist, a Terrorist-lover or worse, all for the thought crime of raising these issues. To do so, they deceitfully conflate claims of causation (A is one of the causes of B) with justification (B is justified). Anyone operating with the most basic levels of rationality understands that these concepts are distinct. To discuss what motivates a person to engage in Action B is not remotely to justify Action B."

He then approached the related issue that the west has a boundless compulsion to depict others as the "Uniquely Primitive and Violent Evil." He said:

"Our violence is understandable, noble, well-intentioned, necessitated by their pure evil. By stark contrast, their violence is sub-human, senseless, and utterly unrelated to anything we do."

Christopher Hitchens - The anti-Columbus Movement

[UPDATE - Below, with Ann Widdecomb]

I previously wrote about the American Empire, citing Christopher Hitchens who said, "The big secret of the US is class and empire; Everyone knows there's a class system and empire, but it's not officially admitted." Glenn Greenwald wrote an article in the Guardian, 'Afghanistan and American imperialism.' Christopher Hitchens awrote against left wing opposition to American imperialism in

Blogging has enormous depth, Ctd

I've looked at the US bloggers Andrew Sullivan (@SullyDish)and Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) and Christopher Hitchens who all talked about the depth of blogging. I also looked at what Paul Krugman had to say about blogging. I've also looked the the UK legal bloggers David Allen Green (@JackofKent) and Adam Wagner (@AdamWagner1). The internet has had an incredible democratic and levelling effect. As Paul Krugman said:

"Academic credentials are neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for having your ideas taken seriously... if someone without formal credentials consistently makes trenchant, insightful observations, he or she has earned the right to be taken seriously, regardless of background."

All the above have attested to the depth, authority and veracity of the new medium. Daniel Hannan (@DanHannanMEP) added his voice to the debate:

"The separate categorisation of columnists, reporters, bloggers and interested readers is becoming meaningless. Every citizen is now a potential journalist. News and opinion are a conversation. We still hear occasional complaints from Leftie pundits that online media “lack quality control”. In fact, the dialectic element of blogging ensures a higher standard of accuracy than before. Mistakes are ruthlessly exposed and, because of the sheer number of outlets, a plausible new theory can spread with previously unimagined speed. 

Blogs have improved veracity, quality and diversity. They have not led to the segregation by opinion that many predicted: Leftists and Rightists argue online in a way that never happened when people took just one newspaper. It's true that bloggers, being human, are as prone to cruelty, stupidity and error as anyone else. But it has never been easier to go elsewhere: more people are reading more news and comment than at any time in history."

On what blogging is all about, Greenwald put it best:

"I began [blogging] without any plan to become a journalist or writer, but simply to participate as a citizen."

Glenn Greenwald on abuse of state power, Ctd

Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) explained how the whole history of the United States has been a story of abuse of state power. One that begins as the state targets, infringes and erodes the civil liberties of feared minorities, and from their expands and employs those powers on the rest of society. He said in the video here:

"After the 9/11 attacks, the American people became convinced that one of our enemies was Islam, and muslims. And there was lots of talk about how not all muslims are a threat, but nonetheless the fear of Islam and muslims arose and pervaded the country because of the blame that was cast on that group for the 9/11 attacks. And so when it came to the time for government to get the power to do things like put people in prisons without any shred of due process, without the opportunity to be heard in court, or to be charged with a crime, the people they targeted were muslims almost exclusively because of the expectation, which turned out basically to be true, that the fear levels that Americans had of Muslims would make most Americans indifferent to that targetting and would make a lot of other Americans actively supportive of what was being done.

Glenn Greenwald on the abuse of state power through terror laws

Glenn Greenwald said here of the lessons learnt from the Church Committee:

"The lesson of the Church Committee from the 1970s is that when you allow people in government to spy on Americans in the dark with no accountability and without warrant, they abuse that power and that’s what’s happened; it’s rampant abuse and it needs sunlight."

Glenn Greenwald has previously also cited Cicero who said: "Laws are silent in times of war." Andrew Sullivan (@sullydish) said of Glenn Greenwald and the abuse of terrror laws:

"In this respect, I can say this to David Cameron. Thank you for clearing the air on these matters of surveillance. You have now demonstrated beyond any reasonable doubt that these anti-terror provisions are capable of rank abuse. Unless some other facts emerge, there is really no difference in kind between you and Vladimir Putin. You have used police powers granted for anti-terrorism and deployed them to target and intimidate journalists deemed enemies of the state. 

You have proven that these laws can be hideously abused. Which means they must be repealed. You have broken the trust that enables any such legislation to survive in a democracy. By so doing, you have attacked British democracy itself. What on earth do you have to say for yourself? And were you, in any way, encouraged by the US administration to do such a thing?"

Ezra Klein, Glenn Greenwald, Nate Silver - The future of journalism?

Glenn Greenwald has created The Intercept. Nate Silver has left the NYTs to join ESPN where he is editor-in-chief of the FiveThirtyEight site. Bill Keller has left the NYTs to create a blog on the criminal justice system. Ezra Klein (@ezraklein) is launching a new venture with Vox Media. Felix Salmon (@felixsalmon) has said: "We’re at an excitingly early stage in working out how to best produce and provide news in a social world." I looked at Greenwald and his new enterprise here. Ezra Klein is who I want to look at in more detail. This is what Klein has said of his new venture:

"We are just at the beginning of how journalism should be done on the web. We really wanted to build something from the ground up that helps people understand the news better. We are not just trying to scale Wonkblog, we want to improve the technology of news, and Vox has a vision of how to solve some of that.

Glenn Greenwald - Lawyer, blogger, partisan journalist

Glenn Greenwald said in an interview with the FT: 

"The way I entered the public discourse was a fairly untraditional route. I did not get my own column in the New York Times, I created my own blog on Blogspot. In order to break through and be heard and force media figures to respond, there had to be a lot of aggression. I have a bigger platform now than I did several years ago, so I probably should have adjusted my tactics a little bit more. I don’t need to be so acrimonious and aggressive but you do not always realise that your position has changed. I still think of myself as an outsider who is not at The New York Times or Washington Post, so I need to speak loudly and sometimes harshly. Part of it is personality: I enjoy the clash of ideas. I am not looking to be liked by them [Washington journalists] so the acrimony comes a little more easily for me."