I'll confess: I wish I would have come across your writing much sooner. When the Hunter Biden stuff went down, I didn't really see any issues with Facebook and Twitter blocking the post. I viewed it in the context of, "Well, they're a private company, they can do what they want, blah blah blah." Slowly but surely, though, I found myself unsettled by the overreach, to the point where when I finally started asking questions, I realized I was only regurgitating what others were saying. It was embarrassing, to say the least. Incredibly thankful I came across Glenn's writing, which led me to Blocked and Reported, which then led to you as well. It's been challenging and jarring, having to reconsider so much of how I've been raised and conditioned, but the exercise is worth it nonetheless.
We would all be served to recall John Adams' defense of the British soldiers accused during the Boston Massacre. Due process is for us all, even the people we hate/don't agree with/can't understand/revile. Especially then.
If we hadn't become a country full of judgmental aholes, we wouldn't need to be reminded of this. But we have and we do.
Good article, and yes the left is becoming increasingly dystopian and Machiavellian. They are just so assured in their virtue, and the lack of Western civilization's virtue, that they want to take out anyone, for any reason, the doesn't push the narrative forward.
Carlson's spat with the ADL, over their grossly hypocritical position on borders domestically vs. abroad, is just one more example in the last few days. Instead of debating him, Greenblatt is calling for his head and going after sponsors...once again.
It's like nothing was learned from the 20th century.
Thanks for the cold water splashed in my face. I admit I'm so eager to see Goetz go down I see myself nodding and grinning along with every allegation added to the stack. This while knowing the whole thing is wildly irresponsible, and if it were turned around (Khanna or AOC) I'd be livid. It's like M&Ms, where I can't wait to eat the next one even with five in my mouth.
And they picked the perfect target, given Goetz's particular obnoxiousness, vanity, rich kid reek, and personal weirdness (Nestor)... There's a reason you don't see many, or really any, on the Right lining up to defend him. Because what if it's true? Who wants walk back defending *that* POS? Reminds me of WMDgate which at the time smelled like bullshit but always in the back of my mind was, What if it's true? Then I'll be the guy who let America be attacked because I insisted shit make sense.
Due Process Is Good, He Said Controversially ... So They Fired Him:
"Brooklyn Center City Manager Curt Boganey was fired, Monday, after suggesting that the police officer involved in the shooting death of Daunte Wright should be afforded due process before being fired from her job, contradicting Brooklyn Center Mayor Mike Elliott, and, it seems, after the city council expressed fear that the manager’s “due process” comments would spark further violence."
People need to read Glenn's article and respond to it, not to what they would like to think it means in order to excuse their own bigotry. He is spot on. As are you to defend him. He is not defending Gaetz, he is defending due process and the profession of journalism.
I've been banned from a forum for defending both regarding Russiagate and Trump, whom I find personally odious. I rejected Trump in the 70s when he came to public attention because he made his fortune getting politicians to tilt the playing field in his favor, and because he was simply not a good human being in my estimation. I was reviled by my fellow Democrats then because "he's one of us." The only thing that has changed about him is his party affiliation, which justifies denying him due process.
ps - to remain a liberal I left the Democratic Party and now identify as a lower-case L libertarian.
Taibbi and Greenwald are the reasons I started publishing at all, and on Substack particularly. I wrote about Glenn and his coverage of the Taylor Lorenz matter here https://riclexel.substack.com/p/beyond-1984
The usual counter-arguments against either of these guys, or a Michel Tracey, is nothing more than ad hominem attacks. Word control is now creeping quickly into thought control. This is not a slippery slope, this is a black-double-diamond at Aspen. From the questioning of the word "is" 30 years ago, to the expanded definition of bipartisan and infrastructure, we have now arrived at beyond 1984. We are in for s hit-storm.
Matt really said most of what there is to say about this topic. But, one idea is still sticking in my craw a bit. I am still fleshing it out a bit, here is what I came up with:
Why is there this need for "rushed content" to 'foam the runways' for next story? Why can't we as the viewing or reading public just wait until real facts emerge? Being first to a speculative fact right or wrong is like being the smartest Kardashian - who the fuck cares?
Put another way, why is the media prematurely ejaculating all over their coverage? Whether it is the NYT trying to mask and merge story speculation or it is the "duh dun da" alert banners running across television screens - how many of these "news" stories have a beginning, a middle, or an end? It is really Sisyphusian.
Even more, when we go back and think about all the mistakes that are made in all our areas of society when we invite speculation in media without proper attention to facts
1. Weapons of Mass Destruction (taking the word of the intelligence state; Judith Miller)
8. Kim Jong-Un was on his deathbed (remember that one)
9. Anthrax attacks (Kristoff NYT accuses Steven Hatfill)
10. Duke University Lacrosse Rape Case (2007)
11. Entire prosecution of Julian Assange (rework facts backwards to prosecute)
12. James Clapper lying to Congress about Surveillance state (2013)
*** just a few places where the press was either happy to speculate or to ignore facts.
All of these events have one thing in common. If they had been properly researched, reported on accurately and were not rushed in the pursuit of real information, maybe we all might have reached different conclusions.
What does this mean above? We need to delay information gratification long enough to allow real journalists (not scribes) to do their jobs, and avoid the 24 hour cycle, pseudo news orgy to pass speculation off as a trajectory of potential truth and then eventually truth later. As we see in life, all one needs to do is repeat something for long enough in the public mind and it miraculous turns out to be "true". The media need a dick ring. Hold it. Hold it. Think of dead rodents (oh sorry Katie - the necrophiles won't like that reference).
The Concord indictments and their demands for evidence in court was my favorite part of Russiagate. So basically Mueller's team and the media were running wild with all sorts of indictments, especially those against vaguely "Russian" organizations/businesses and private citizens, which they thought would never amount to anything other than adding to the PR angle and keeping the Russia interference narrative alive. Then Concord lawyers up, shows up in court and asks for disclosure upon which request Mueller suddenly drops all indictments against them. As usual hiding behind the phony trope that this evidence would harm national security. LOL Funny how that's one part of the psuedo-scandal that the corpress DIDN'T COVER.
I think you’re spending too much time on Twitter, Matt. Seriously. And I say that as a person who spent too much time on Twitter and finally said,”Fuck this. Twitter’s stupid.” I haven’t looked at Twitter in a couple weeks now and I feel so much better. I never even had an account, but I’d still check it out every day, multiple times a day. Twitter’s a cesspool, filled with morons who don’t care about anything other than reacting to something as quickly as possible, in order to garner the most “likes.” And one of the main reasons I ignore Twitter is because of what you’re referencing here, this,”Let’s put them all in jail!” reaction from, ostensibly, “liberals” who’s go-to reaction to anything they don’t like is,”They should go to prison for life!!” even though the things they’re tweeting in response to aren’t illegal. There’s something inherently wrong with people saying,”Lock them up!” in response to things that aren’t crimes. Hate to break it to you “liberals” tweeting about people you don’t like needing to go to prison, but if you’re first reaction is,”I don’t like them; let’s put them in jail!” you’re basically a trump supporter. Or you sound like them, anyway.
It isn’t even really that Twitter’s stupid, per se, so much as that there are just SO MANY fucking stupid people with outsized platforms there. And too many journalists are responding to fucking tweets as if they’re real life. I can assure you that the average person, the people that journalists claim to care so much about and insist they’re interested in, do not give a fuck about tweets. They don’t. I know I don’t.
I'm (barely) old enough to remember conservative outrage over the Miranda ruling, but "progressive" distaste for due process is not exactly new. Way back in 2006 the Vitter Amendment to the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act of 2007 prohibited the confiscation of citizens' personal property without due process in the wake of a natural disaster. Barbara Boxer, Hillary Clinton (D-NY), Dianne Feinstein and Chuck Schumer, among others, voted against it.
Later the "progressive" media spent most of Trump's time in office ranting about Betsy DeVos' attempts to reintroduce due process to the investigation of on-campus sex crimes (and are now cheering Biden's efforts to reverse DeVos' policies).
And "progressive" enthusiasm for "red flag" laws also reflects a new skepticism over due process.
There is no justice in the justice system if there is no due process people. Anyone with $$ can sue for made up claims. The proof is in the due process.
Sorry, no. Glenn is not worried about due process. His pattern has been showing for a while, and I am not the only one who has noticed. He is appeasing and seeking to validate people on the right who believe Gaetz is a populist, who still believe in the Trump con. Glenn is trying to manipulate the conversation so he can get air time in places like the Tucker Carlson shit show. It is not only in this subject, it is everywhere. Other podcasters on the real left, progressives who don't really care about the democrats and liberal crowd have noticed this pattern as well.
Hillary brought back McCarthyism to destroy Trump and it seems to have spread through the media like corona virus. Thank God there are a few real journalists like Greenwald who keep dragging all the soap opera loving idiots back to actual facts. They hate it, but I pray that he keeps doing it.
I got in an argument on another forum about this same thing. I posited pretty much the same thing-that if Gaetz is guilty of sex with a minor, and transporting her across state lines for sex, he's a disgusting slimeball, and should be convicted and removed from office. The current information is insufficient to say one way or the other and... sad though it may be, the NY Times is no more trustworthy than a host of other news sources with less prestigious reputations. I was immediately attacked for suggesting that I wasn't convinced that Gaetz was guilty from the evidence at hand- the assumptions made by the mob seeming to be that I don't think sex trafficking is bad, that I am a huge Gaetz fan and I must have a MAGA hat and a rifle hidden in my hybrid car somewhere. Having a smug frat-boy attitude doesn't make him guilty of a crime-anymore than it makes him automatically innocent of one.
I'll confess: I wish I would have come across your writing much sooner. When the Hunter Biden stuff went down, I didn't really see any issues with Facebook and Twitter blocking the post. I viewed it in the context of, "Well, they're a private company, they can do what they want, blah blah blah." Slowly but surely, though, I found myself unsettled by the overreach, to the point where when I finally started asking questions, I realized I was only regurgitating what others were saying. It was embarrassing, to say the least. Incredibly thankful I came across Glenn's writing, which led me to Blocked and Reported, which then led to you as well. It's been challenging and jarring, having to reconsider so much of how I've been raised and conditioned, but the exercise is worth it nonetheless.
We would all be served to recall John Adams' defense of the British soldiers accused during the Boston Massacre. Due process is for us all, even the people we hate/don't agree with/can't understand/revile. Especially then.
If we hadn't become a country full of judgmental aholes, we wouldn't need to be reminded of this. But we have and we do.
Didn't the Minnesota city manager get canned for saying something about due process? Due process, scoff scoff. How quaint!
Good article, and yes the left is becoming increasingly dystopian and Machiavellian. They are just so assured in their virtue, and the lack of Western civilization's virtue, that they want to take out anyone, for any reason, the doesn't push the narrative forward.
Carlson's spat with the ADL, over their grossly hypocritical position on borders domestically vs. abroad, is just one more example in the last few days. Instead of debating him, Greenblatt is calling for his head and going after sponsors...once again.
It's like nothing was learned from the 20th century.
Thanks for the cold water splashed in my face. I admit I'm so eager to see Goetz go down I see myself nodding and grinning along with every allegation added to the stack. This while knowing the whole thing is wildly irresponsible, and if it were turned around (Khanna or AOC) I'd be livid. It's like M&Ms, where I can't wait to eat the next one even with five in my mouth.
And they picked the perfect target, given Goetz's particular obnoxiousness, vanity, rich kid reek, and personal weirdness (Nestor)... There's a reason you don't see many, or really any, on the Right lining up to defend him. Because what if it's true? Who wants walk back defending *that* POS? Reminds me of WMDgate which at the time smelled like bullshit but always in the back of my mind was, What if it's true? Then I'll be the guy who let America be attacked because I insisted shit make sense.
Due Process Is Good, He Said Controversially ... So They Fired Him:
"Brooklyn Center City Manager Curt Boganey was fired, Monday, after suggesting that the police officer involved in the shooting death of Daunte Wright should be afforded due process before being fired from her job, contradicting Brooklyn Center Mayor Mike Elliott, and, it seems, after the city council expressed fear that the manager’s “due process” comments would spark further violence."
https://www.dailywire.com/news/brooklyn-center-city-manager-fired-after-calling-for-due-process-in-duane-wright-shooting
People need to read Glenn's article and respond to it, not to what they would like to think it means in order to excuse their own bigotry. He is spot on. As are you to defend him. He is not defending Gaetz, he is defending due process and the profession of journalism.
I've been banned from a forum for defending both regarding Russiagate and Trump, whom I find personally odious. I rejected Trump in the 70s when he came to public attention because he made his fortune getting politicians to tilt the playing field in his favor, and because he was simply not a good human being in my estimation. I was reviled by my fellow Democrats then because "he's one of us." The only thing that has changed about him is his party affiliation, which justifies denying him due process.
ps - to remain a liberal I left the Democratic Party and now identify as a lower-case L libertarian.
Taibbi and Greenwald are the reasons I started publishing at all, and on Substack particularly. I wrote about Glenn and his coverage of the Taylor Lorenz matter here https://riclexel.substack.com/p/beyond-1984
The usual counter-arguments against either of these guys, or a Michel Tracey, is nothing more than ad hominem attacks. Word control is now creeping quickly into thought control. This is not a slippery slope, this is a black-double-diamond at Aspen. From the questioning of the word "is" 30 years ago, to the expanded definition of bipartisan and infrastructure, we have now arrived at beyond 1984. We are in for s hit-storm.
Matt really said most of what there is to say about this topic. But, one idea is still sticking in my craw a bit. I am still fleshing it out a bit, here is what I came up with:
Why is there this need for "rushed content" to 'foam the runways' for next story? Why can't we as the viewing or reading public just wait until real facts emerge? Being first to a speculative fact right or wrong is like being the smartest Kardashian - who the fuck cares?
Put another way, why is the media prematurely ejaculating all over their coverage? Whether it is the NYT trying to mask and merge story speculation or it is the "duh dun da" alert banners running across television screens - how many of these "news" stories have a beginning, a middle, or an end? It is really Sisyphusian.
Even more, when we go back and think about all the mistakes that are made in all our areas of society when we invite speculation in media without proper attention to facts
1. Weapons of Mass Destruction (taking the word of the intelligence state; Judith Miller)
2. Russiagate Hysteria (derangement, MsNBC coverage, Impeachment)
3. CoVid details for Public (do/don't wear masks, where did it originate, schools/restaurants)
4. Fake coup attempt in Venezuela (just a bunch a crazy kids)
5. Elections in Bolivia, Brazil and Honduras over the last decade (partial facts)
6. Opioid crisis (early on, little mention of Purdue Pharma; blamed upon individuals)
7. Iowa caucuses (Buttigeig declares victory, DNC app failure)
8. Kim Jong-Un was on his deathbed (remember that one)
9. Anthrax attacks (Kristoff NYT accuses Steven Hatfill)
10. Duke University Lacrosse Rape Case (2007)
11. Entire prosecution of Julian Assange (rework facts backwards to prosecute)
12. James Clapper lying to Congress about Surveillance state (2013)
*** just a few places where the press was either happy to speculate or to ignore facts.
All of these events have one thing in common. If they had been properly researched, reported on accurately and were not rushed in the pursuit of real information, maybe we all might have reached different conclusions.
What does this mean above? We need to delay information gratification long enough to allow real journalists (not scribes) to do their jobs, and avoid the 24 hour cycle, pseudo news orgy to pass speculation off as a trajectory of potential truth and then eventually truth later. As we see in life, all one needs to do is repeat something for long enough in the public mind and it miraculous turns out to be "true". The media need a dick ring. Hold it. Hold it. Think of dead rodents (oh sorry Katie - the necrophiles won't like that reference).
The Concord indictments and their demands for evidence in court was my favorite part of Russiagate. So basically Mueller's team and the media were running wild with all sorts of indictments, especially those against vaguely "Russian" organizations/businesses and private citizens, which they thought would never amount to anything other than adding to the PR angle and keeping the Russia interference narrative alive. Then Concord lawyers up, shows up in court and asks for disclosure upon which request Mueller suddenly drops all indictments against them. As usual hiding behind the phony trope that this evidence would harm national security. LOL Funny how that's one part of the psuedo-scandal that the corpress DIDN'T COVER.
I think you’re spending too much time on Twitter, Matt. Seriously. And I say that as a person who spent too much time on Twitter and finally said,”Fuck this. Twitter’s stupid.” I haven’t looked at Twitter in a couple weeks now and I feel so much better. I never even had an account, but I’d still check it out every day, multiple times a day. Twitter’s a cesspool, filled with morons who don’t care about anything other than reacting to something as quickly as possible, in order to garner the most “likes.” And one of the main reasons I ignore Twitter is because of what you’re referencing here, this,”Let’s put them all in jail!” reaction from, ostensibly, “liberals” who’s go-to reaction to anything they don’t like is,”They should go to prison for life!!” even though the things they’re tweeting in response to aren’t illegal. There’s something inherently wrong with people saying,”Lock them up!” in response to things that aren’t crimes. Hate to break it to you “liberals” tweeting about people you don’t like needing to go to prison, but if you’re first reaction is,”I don’t like them; let’s put them in jail!” you’re basically a trump supporter. Or you sound like them, anyway.
It isn’t even really that Twitter’s stupid, per se, so much as that there are just SO MANY fucking stupid people with outsized platforms there. And too many journalists are responding to fucking tweets as if they’re real life. I can assure you that the average person, the people that journalists claim to care so much about and insist they’re interested in, do not give a fuck about tweets. They don’t. I know I don’t.
I'm (barely) old enough to remember conservative outrage over the Miranda ruling, but "progressive" distaste for due process is not exactly new. Way back in 2006 the Vitter Amendment to the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act of 2007 prohibited the confiscation of citizens' personal property without due process in the wake of a natural disaster. Barbara Boxer, Hillary Clinton (D-NY), Dianne Feinstein and Chuck Schumer, among others, voted against it.
Later the "progressive" media spent most of Trump's time in office ranting about Betsy DeVos' attempts to reintroduce due process to the investigation of on-campus sex crimes (and are now cheering Biden's efforts to reverse DeVos' policies).
And "progressive" enthusiasm for "red flag" laws also reflects a new skepticism over due process.
Great title!
There is no justice in the justice system if there is no due process people. Anyone with $$ can sue for made up claims. The proof is in the due process.
Sorry, no. Glenn is not worried about due process. His pattern has been showing for a while, and I am not the only one who has noticed. He is appeasing and seeking to validate people on the right who believe Gaetz is a populist, who still believe in the Trump con. Glenn is trying to manipulate the conversation so he can get air time in places like the Tucker Carlson shit show. It is not only in this subject, it is everywhere. Other podcasters on the real left, progressives who don't really care about the democrats and liberal crowd have noticed this pattern as well.
H
Hillary brought back McCarthyism to destroy Trump and it seems to have spread through the media like corona virus. Thank God there are a few real journalists like Greenwald who keep dragging all the soap opera loving idiots back to actual facts. They hate it, but I pray that he keeps doing it.
I got in an argument on another forum about this same thing. I posited pretty much the same thing-that if Gaetz is guilty of sex with a minor, and transporting her across state lines for sex, he's a disgusting slimeball, and should be convicted and removed from office. The current information is insufficient to say one way or the other and... sad though it may be, the NY Times is no more trustworthy than a host of other news sources with less prestigious reputations. I was immediately attacked for suggesting that I wasn't convinced that Gaetz was guilty from the evidence at hand- the assumptions made by the mob seeming to be that I don't think sex trafficking is bad, that I am a huge Gaetz fan and I must have a MAGA hat and a rifle hidden in my hybrid car somewhere. Having a smug frat-boy attitude doesn't make him guilty of a crime-anymore than it makes him automatically innocent of one.