I don't really 100% agree with you - though am disgusted by Taibbi's silence re Gaza. However, I don't feel either Taibbi or Greenwald vacated the left, but rather were left behind on the liberal hard shift to the right.
Free Speech used to be a LEFTIST position, even to the point of near absolutism. I think both Matt and Glenn are getting smeared as right-wingers for NOT swallowing dominant narratives about every liberal idea.
For a while I kept telling myself Taibbi must be undercover, like when he became a member of that evangelical church in one of his Bush-era books. No, no deep undercover... He'll be coming up for air any day now...
The problem with both Greenwald and Taibbi, since they changed their spots, is that both have become unreadable and simply not producing worthwhile, journalistic copy, as distinct from clumsy propaganda. I'm sure that their current readers will continue to prop them up with paid subs, but how sustainable is their output within a megaverse of competing voices?
The hour or so I spent reading through this post and following up on the various leads that emerged from it was some of the most productive work I have done this week.
Thanks! Much appreciated, especially as the post drew a fair amount of hate mail from the usual dimwits who still think GG and MT are icons of independent journalism and are impervious to all evidence to the contrary (which few bother to read). Nice to get your note.
Agreed. The hate mail is inevitable & it doesn't bother me (tbh I enjoy mocking the most idiotic shit) but obviously I enjoy messages like yours much more. Thanks again.
I'm surprised to see so much indignation in the comments. Greenwald's multiple appearances on Tucker Carlson's show should be evidence enough that he's become a creature of right-wing media. Indeed, he spews forth bitter condemnation of figures like AOC while ignoring Carlson's undisguised racism. That's no hallucination.
I’d like to know what the actual evidence is that Taibbi “sent message that they wanted sent” regarding the Twitter files. Taibbi has repeatedly said Musk did not curate which files he saw or tell him what to release to the public. Are you and Higgins saying Taibbi is lying? Quite a bold accusation with no proof. Yes, they knew if Taibbi found something that reflected unfavorably on the Biden administration, he would release it. That’s a bad thing? Taibbi did not represent as definitive or complete the files his team had the chance to review out of the 1,000s that exist. Your depiction of why his review ended is a distortion. Musk, not Taibbi, severed the relationship abruptly over the Substack links.
The leftsphere silence on the CONTENT of the released files is jaw dropping. That makes you look like you’re mostly concerned that points were scored for the Other Team. I care that the administration I voted for weaponized federal agencies to clamp down on narratives they didn’t like. Why don’t you? Why is there so little discussion of that? Do you really hold that Musk made up the damning Twitter files out of whole cloth?
Actually you're like every other idiot on social media who falsely summarizes an argument & says there's no evidence to support it because you're too lazy to actually read a book, so get back to me after you've pretended to read Eoin's....
The interview you did, where you only drew out a string of ad hominem partisan narratives, was the thing that was supposed to make people want to read the book? On what, the hope that there's more substance than you were interested in?
Good discussion, but I think both of you are a little too centered on the Left-Right paradigm. We are encouraged to always think in these Left-Right terms and pick a side. Much better is admitting our own choices would likely find us with the (as traditionally defined) Left on some things, with the Right on others. Right now, for example, we have a crowd out there who has been propagandized into being against anything that Trump is for, just because, well, TRUMP. I swear that if Trump came out today and said he was siding with Gaza and that the genocide should stop, the people at those demonstrations would be out on the street the next day expressing full support of Israel.
We should try to avoid trying so hard to bin people in one of these two slots.
We should also allow people the space to have opinions that evolve over time. My own views on some issues have changed rather dramatically over the last decade or so. I am retired and have more time to explore the nuances.
We might want to try putting a LITTLE less emphasis on motive. Analyzing motive has its uses, but to some extent everyone acts in their perceived best interests. So if a billionaire makes a change happen and I see that change as a desirable one, I'll simply pocket that as a positive rather than reflexively condemning it just because his motive might be different from mine.
Add this, Ken — and to all commenters, especially those defending Glennwald.
What Eoin writes is nothing new. As Ken may remember, Mark Ames and Yasha Levine kicked his ass thoroughly already a dozen years ago, and I've got the receipts (with links updated via the Internet Archive).
Since this "Dissident" substack has attacked Higgins' book, and its comments are populated largely by Greenwald tankies (you can thank me later, Ken) I'm writing something new myself.
1: the parties represent two coherent and opposed political ideologies.
2: Person A's arguments can be reduced to just being positive or negative about party figures and policies.
3: person A used to "say more positive things" about one of the parties and "more negative things" about the other, but at some point in time that ratio changed.
4: person A's political ideology has changed.
They dont make political and moral arguments about Gaza, Gaetz, etc, they're just "better" or "worse" on them. Easy peasy.
It is the gossip column equivilent to political writing. Tell us how they're dressed and who they're dating while you're at it. If these two figures, with a large corpus of reporting and arguments spanning decades, can be reduced to a highschool level of "Who is talking more shit on who this week?", then just get on with it and give us the rest of the details. Which one has a dirty bedroom habit I wonder?
I don't understand how it isn't obvious to writers like this just how condescending this style of coverage is.
If greenwald had done an article "10 innovations hitler made in goemetry," nobody needs some author to come along and write a whole think piece saying "Hitler was bad. Greenwald said good things about Hitler, ergo Greenwald is bad".
Having whatever position you do as a reporter or author gives you no superior insight into moral character. The only benefit you are actually positioned to deliver to readers is an analysis of the case: was the article correctly stating those ten things or not.
You'll get subscribers, sure, excited to hear you confirming their existing moral judgements. But if these things are gonna be more than clickbait slop, the core content needs to be a critical analysis of the relevant claims and reporting by the figures in question.
You can actually just leave it at that, because your readers are perfectly capable of coming to their own character judgements without your guiding hand. They aren't children.
I don't really 100% agree with you - though am disgusted by Taibbi's silence re Gaza. However, I don't feel either Taibbi or Greenwald vacated the left, but rather were left behind on the liberal hard shift to the right.
Free Speech used to be a LEFTIST position, even to the point of near absolutism. I think both Matt and Glenn are getting smeared as right-wingers for NOT swallowing dominant narratives about every liberal idea.
Just my 2 cents.
Disagree but appreciate your remarks.
For a while I kept telling myself Taibbi must be undercover, like when he became a member of that evangelical church in one of his Bush-era books. No, no deep undercover... He'll be coming up for air any day now...
Haha. Understandable.
The problem with both Greenwald and Taibbi, since they changed their spots, is that both have become unreadable and simply not producing worthwhile, journalistic copy, as distinct from clumsy propaganda. I'm sure that their current readers will continue to prop them up with paid subs, but how sustainable is their output within a megaverse of competing voices?
Taibbi used to be funny, now he's just a boring Archie Bunker NIMBY suburbanite.
The hour or so I spent reading through this post and following up on the various leads that emerged from it was some of the most productive work I have done this week.
Very much appreciate this post!!
Thanks! Much appreciated, especially as the post drew a fair amount of hate mail from the usual dimwits who still think GG and MT are icons of independent journalism and are impervious to all evidence to the contrary (which few bother to read). Nice to get your note.
The Truth often offends people...but as always, it DOES NOT CARE. It never does and never will...not even a little bit.
Keep up this great work 💪
Agreed. The hate mail is inevitable & it doesn't bother me (tbh I enjoy mocking the most idiotic shit) but obviously I enjoy messages like yours much more. Thanks again.
Per the link I just posted, Ken? Ames and Levine got that same hate mail a dozen years ago. That's why I decided to call them the Glennwald tankies.
Taibbi somehow just gets balder and balder
Haha, I noticed that. I think it's a variant of Dorian Gray Syndrome.
Mystery solved
I'm surprised to see so much indignation in the comments. Greenwald's multiple appearances on Tucker Carlson's show should be evidence enough that he's become a creature of right-wing media. Indeed, he spews forth bitter condemnation of figures like AOC while ignoring Carlson's undisguised racism. That's no hallucination.
I'm with you, at this point the outrage is a bit much, requires a level of cynicism or flat out stupidity that's hard to fathom.
I’d like to know what the actual evidence is that Taibbi “sent message that they wanted sent” regarding the Twitter files. Taibbi has repeatedly said Musk did not curate which files he saw or tell him what to release to the public. Are you and Higgins saying Taibbi is lying? Quite a bold accusation with no proof. Yes, they knew if Taibbi found something that reflected unfavorably on the Biden administration, he would release it. That’s a bad thing? Taibbi did not represent as definitive or complete the files his team had the chance to review out of the 1,000s that exist. Your depiction of why his review ended is a distortion. Musk, not Taibbi, severed the relationship abruptly over the Substack links.
The leftsphere silence on the CONTENT of the released files is jaw dropping. That makes you look like you’re mostly concerned that points were scored for the Other Team. I care that the administration I voted for weaponized federal agencies to clamp down on narratives they didn’t like. Why don’t you? Why is there so little discussion of that? Do you really hold that Musk made up the damning Twitter files out of whole cloth?
I want to upvote this 10000 times.
I was upvoting Meg here - you know that, right?
Actually you're like every other idiot on social media who falsely summarizes an argument & says there's no evidence to support it because you're too lazy to actually read a book, so get back to me after you've pretended to read Eoin's....
The interview you did, where you only drew out a string of ad hominem partisan narratives, was the thing that was supposed to make people want to read the book? On what, the hope that there's more substance than you were interested in?
This is a disgusting propaganda “article”
Actually it’s just an article you disagree with, so in your mind that makes it propaganda.
Don’t lie. You are asserting lies and fabrications without any example — just spewing your hateful hallucinations. A truly disgusting person you are.
Bullshit. Ames and Levine called out Glennwald on the same shit a dozen years ago.
Good discussion, but I think both of you are a little too centered on the Left-Right paradigm. We are encouraged to always think in these Left-Right terms and pick a side. Much better is admitting our own choices would likely find us with the (as traditionally defined) Left on some things, with the Right on others. Right now, for example, we have a crowd out there who has been propagandized into being against anything that Trump is for, just because, well, TRUMP. I swear that if Trump came out today and said he was siding with Gaza and that the genocide should stop, the people at those demonstrations would be out on the street the next day expressing full support of Israel.
We should try to avoid trying so hard to bin people in one of these two slots.
We should also allow people the space to have opinions that evolve over time. My own views on some issues have changed rather dramatically over the last decade or so. I am retired and have more time to explore the nuances.
We might want to try putting a LITTLE less emphasis on motive. Analyzing motive has its uses, but to some extent everyone acts in their perceived best interests. So if a billionaire makes a change happen and I see that change as a desirable one, I'll simply pocket that as a positive rather than reflexively condemning it just because his motive might be different from mine.
Add this, Ken — and to all commenters, especially those defending Glennwald.
What Eoin writes is nothing new. As Ken may remember, Mark Ames and Yasha Levine kicked his ass thoroughly already a dozen years ago, and I've got the receipts (with links updated via the Internet Archive).
Since this "Dissident" substack has attacked Higgins' book, and its comments are populated largely by Greenwald tankies (you can thank me later, Ken) I'm writing something new myself.
https://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2013/12/yasha-levine-and-pando-take-down-glenn.html
...what? Ok, yeah, if I were you I probably wouldn't waste time defending this partisan clickbait either.
These peices always have the same basis:
1: the parties represent two coherent and opposed political ideologies.
2: Person A's arguments can be reduced to just being positive or negative about party figures and policies.
3: person A used to "say more positive things" about one of the parties and "more negative things" about the other, but at some point in time that ratio changed.
4: person A's political ideology has changed.
They dont make political and moral arguments about Gaza, Gaetz, etc, they're just "better" or "worse" on them. Easy peasy.
It is the gossip column equivilent to political writing. Tell us how they're dressed and who they're dating while you're at it. If these two figures, with a large corpus of reporting and arguments spanning decades, can be reduced to a highschool level of "Who is talking more shit on who this week?", then just get on with it and give us the rest of the details. Which one has a dirty bedroom habit I wonder?
Keep up the good work, you two.
I don't understand how it isn't obvious to writers like this just how condescending this style of coverage is.
If greenwald had done an article "10 innovations hitler made in goemetry," nobody needs some author to come along and write a whole think piece saying "Hitler was bad. Greenwald said good things about Hitler, ergo Greenwald is bad".
Having whatever position you do as a reporter or author gives you no superior insight into moral character. The only benefit you are actually positioned to deliver to readers is an analysis of the case: was the article correctly stating those ten things or not.
You'll get subscribers, sure, excited to hear you confirming their existing moral judgements. But if these things are gonna be more than clickbait slop, the core content needs to be a critical analysis of the relevant claims and reporting by the figures in question.
You can actually just leave it at that, because your readers are perfectly capable of coming to their own character judgements without your guiding hand. They aren't children.
Yeah, most of my readers have a brain superior to a kindergarten like you so you’re in the minority here.