Tag: Glenn Greenwald

On the topic of extra-judicial assassinations of Americans by CIA hit squads, Glenn Greenwald writes:

…government officials often abuse their power and/or err and therefore must prove accusations to be true (with tested evidence) before they’re assumed to be true and the person punished accordingly.

I wonder what he’s talking about.

Veronica Bowers, 35, and her seven-month-old daughter, Charity, were killed when their Cessna was mistaken for a drug plane in 2001…

…A cockpit video tape obtained by ABC News shows how a CIA spotter plane sneaked up behind the Cessna and wrongly identified it as a drug plane. CIA operatives then called in the Peruvian Air Force.

IOZ suggests that all this caterwauling about Constitutional issues could be self-deception from a people who historically were born on third and thought they hit a triple.

I have long thought that “American Exceptionalism” could largely be attributed to historical accident, i.e., the convergence of enlightenment thinking, the industrial revolution and a fresh petri dish.  It all must have seemed so manifest, eh?

It is tempting to leave it at that.

On the other hand.

One might further assume that the exactly ambiguous wording of the Constitution, prior English law, the magna carta, etc., were also accidental.  

Then let’s also assume that crying out in pain under the sharp elbows of conspecifics and the “alarm substance” given off by damaged fish scales to fellow schoolers are also accidental nonsense.

All accidental associations by mere contiguity, nothing more than a pitcher wearing his “lucky” socks.  Those fastballs down the tube never really happened.  He never really could throw gas.

I’m still holding out hope that Compound F will re-publish a clean copy of his excellent essay free from fear that it’s not something Sunstein said, because Compound F deserves that respect and a promotion to our Front Page.

But in the mean time Glenn Greenwald has also picked up on this story and I thought some of you might be interested in his take.

The creepy mindset behind Cass Sunstein’s creepy proposal

By Glenn Greenwald

Friday, Jan 15, 2010 08:16 EST

Sunstein himself — as part of his 2008 paper — explicitly advocates that the Government should pay what he calls “credible independent experts” to advocate on the Government’s behalf, a policy he says would be more effective because people don’t trust the Government itself and would only listen to people they believe are “independent.”  In so arguing, Sunstein cites the Armstrong Williams scandal not as something that is wrong in itself, but as a potential risk of this tactic (i.e., that it might leak out), and thus suggests that “government can supply these independent experts with information and perhaps prod them into action from behind the scenes,” but warns that “too close a connection will be self-defeating if it is exposed.”  In other words, Sunstein wants the Government to replicate the Armstrong Williams arrangement as a means of more credibly disseminating propaganda — i.e., pretending that someone is an “independent” expert when they’re actually being “prodded” and even paid “behind the scenes” by the Government — but he wants to be more careful about how the arrangement is described (don’t make the control explicit) so that embarrassment can be avoided if it ends up being exposed.  

In this 2008 paper, then, Sunstein advocated, in essence, exactly what the Obama administration has been doing all year with Gruber:  covertly paying people who can be falsely held up as “independent” analysts in order to more credibly promote the Government line.  Most Democrats agreed this was a deceitful and dangerous act when Bush did it, but with Obama and some of his supporters, undisclosed arrangements of this sort seem to be different.  Why?  Because, as Sunstein puts it:  we have “a well-motivated government” doing this so that “social welfare is improved.”  Thus, just like state secrets, indefinite detention, military commissions and covert, unauthorized wars, what was once deemed so pernicious during the Bush years — coordinated government/media propaganda — is instantaneously transformed into something Good.

…

Who is it who relentlessly spread “false conspiracy theories” of Saddam-engineered anthrax attacks and Iraq-created mushroom clouds and a Ba’athist/Al-Qaeda alliance — the most destructive conspiracy theories of the last generation?  And who is it who demonized as “conspiracy-mongers” people who warned that the U.S. Government was illegally spying on its citizens, systematically torturing people, attempting to establish permanent bases in the Middle East, or engineering massive bailout plans to transfer extreme wealth to the industries which own the Government?  The most chronic and dangerous purveyors of “conspiracy theory” games are the very people Sunstein thinks should be empowered to control our political debates through deceit and government resources:  namely, the Government itself and the Enlightened Elite like him.

It is this history of government deceit and wrongdoing that renders Sunstein’s desire to use covert propaganda to “undermine” anti-government speech so repugnant.  The reason conspiracy theories resonate so much is precisely because people have learned — rationally — to distrust government actions and statements.  Sunstein’s proposed covert propaganda scheme is a perfect illustration of why that is.  In other words, the reason people don’t trust the Government and why “conspiracy theories” are so pervasive is precisely because government is typically filled with people like Cass Sunstein, who think that systematic deceit and government-sponsored manipulation are justified by their own Goodness and Superior Wisdom.

They are lying to you now.

This is a response to a number of recent statements in the blogosphere about “anti-corporatism,” the belief that what’s wrong with American politics is its domination by corporate power.  Here I argue that the divide between “Left” and “Right” is quite real — but on a wide variety of issues no traction will be gained unless we oppose neoliberalism, the political economy of choice for the corporate order.

(Crossposted at Orange)  

Myth-

A ballpoint pen bomb can be used to completely destroy the top of a mannequin.

Busted-

Using the most powerful explosives they could and a normal sized pen, the Mythbusters demonstrated that a pen bomb could be fatal. However, they needed an unrealistically large pen to completely destroy the top half of the foam dummy they used.

Myth-

Explosive decompression can occur when a bullet is fired through the fuselage of a pressurized airplane, causing the hole to grow dramatically and possibly cause the plane to break up as seen in movies.

Busted-

The pressure is not high enough and the hole is too small. Explosive decompression only occurred when a hole the size of a window was made with explosives. Even then, the rush of air could not suck Buster completely out of the hole. Lastly, there are proven instances of explosive decompression where the plane was still able to maintain control and land.

Fact-

2.8 OZ

Flight 253 terrorist Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s bomb was an explosive-packed condom sewn into underwear near his genitals, where al Qaeda operatives figured airport screeners were too squeamish to look, reports said.

What a package it was.

The condom was filled with a powdery substance called PETN — a relative of nitroglycerine. It was to be ignited by a liquid detonator substance, which Abdulmutallab tried to inject into the condom with a syringe, reports say.

Glenn–

Each time the U.S. bombs a new location in the Muslim world, the same pattern emerges.  First, officials from the U.S. or allied governments run to their favorite media outlet to claim — anonymously — that some big, bad, notorious, “top” Al Qaeda leader “may have been” or “likely was” killed in the strike, and this constitutes a “stinging” or “devastating” blow against the Terrorist group.  These compliant media outlets then sensationalistically trumpet that claim as the dominant theme of their “reporting” on the attack, drowning out every other issue.

…

Yet over and over and over, it turns out that these anonymous government assertions — trumpeted by our mindless media — are completely false.  The Big Bad Guy allegedly killed in the strike ends up nowhere near the bombs and missiles.  Sometimes, the very same Big Bad Guy can be used to justify different strikes over the course of many years (we know we said we killed him four times before, but this time we’re pretty sure we got him), or he can turn up alive when it’s time to re-trumpet the Al Qaeda threat (we said before we killed him in that devastating airstrike, but actually he’s alive and more dangerous than ever!!).  Just like the “we killed 30 extremists” claim or the “we got Al Qaeda’s Number 3” boast, this is propaganda in its purest form, disseminated jointly by the U.S. Government and American media, and it happens over and over, compelling a rational person to conclude that it’s clearly intentional by both parties.

My advice?

Stop being a coke mule you C.O.B.R.A. agent, G.I. Joe is sure to capture you.

Bwah hah hah hah hah.

Crossposted @ The Seminal.

What are journalists supposed to do?

They call handpicked invisible people on the phone and then write columns summarizing what they claim they said without identifying or describing a single one of them.

(They) just faithfully serve(s) as a mindless stenographer for hidden people whose credibility you’re told to accept even as they do nothing but spout manipulative, vapid idiocies about Churchillian Resolve designed to promote endless war.

Colbert–

(A)s excited as I am to be here with the President, I am appalled to be surrounded by the liberal media that is destroying America, with the exception of FOX News. FOX News gives you both sides of every story: the President’s side, and the Vice President’s side.

But the rest of you, what are you thinking? Reporting on NSA wiretapping or secret prisons in Eastern Europe? Those things are secret for a very important reason: they’re super-depressing. And if that’s your goal, well, misery accomplished.

Over the last five years you people were so good, over tax cuts, WMD intelligence, the effect of global warming. We Americans didn’t want to know, and you had the courtesy not to try to find out. Those were good times, as far as we knew.

But, listen, let’s review the rules. Here’s how it works. The President makes decisions. He’s the decider. The press secretary announces those decisions, and you people of the press type those decisions down. Make, announce, type. Just put ’em through a spell check and go home. Get to know your family again. Make love to your wife. Write that novel you got kicking around in your head. You know, the one about the intrepid Washington reporter with the courage to stand up to the administration? You know, fiction!

When I want to be dazzled by human intellect, I read IOZ.  He delivers.  In a similar vein, I love Bernard Chazelle’s posts on music: they make me feel edified in the absence of my own personal knowledge on the topic.  Thus, despite my shortcomings, I feel lifted by them, each in their own way.

However, fuck the fuck off, IOZ, you bitchy fucking cunt.  Gratuitously attacking Glenn Greenwald based on John Caruso’s misplaced bitchiness?  Please, don’t be a spiritless bitch.

IOZ may dazzle, but Glenn Greenwald moves mountains.