If you want to know why I have a problem with Glenn Greenwald, you have to go no further than his recent TED talk last week. There is no room in Greenwald's universe for any criticism of Edward Snowden. He is not interested in debate, only his fanatical, binary absolutism. All those who support Snowden are the good guys. Everyone else is evil. Period.
"I consider [questions about Snowden's motivations] absurd and idiotic," Greenwald after a TED talk. "That accusation comes from people in the U.S. government, from people in the media who are loyalists to these governments, and ... they are saying a lot more about themselves then they are about the target of their accusations because those people ... never act for any reason other then corrupt reasons.
"So they assume that everyone else is plagued by the same disease of soullessness that they are," Greenwald added.
You get that? Here's a recap of what Greenwald believes of critics of Edward Snowden:
They are absurd and idiotic, and by extension there is no such thing as valid criticism of Edward Snowden's motivations. Greenwald simply dismisses all criticism, period. There is no room for debate.
They must be either a US government employee or a media government loyalist. You cannot be an ordinary American outside the government or media and still have criticism of Snowden. You cannot have objective criticism of Snowden because it cannot exist, ergo you have to be a biased individual who blindly supports the US government.
They never act for any reason other than corrupt ones. Everything you therefore do is suspect because you are corrupt, and everything you do is only because you are corrupt. You have no valid argument because you are corrupt, so I can dismiss you out of hand.
They are soulless and assume everyone else is as well. Once again, you are a corrupt, evil person who cannot possibly have a shred of credibility because there is no possible valid criticism of Edward Snowden.
This is not Greenwald being taken out of context, these are his words, that he says, to a crowd at a TED talk. This is not a man who was ever interested in furthering the debate over what oversight the NSA has to have in order to do its job and to protect civil liberties. This is not a man who is interested in answering his critics. This is a man who admits in his own words that he is 100% right, and everyone else is absurd, idiotic, corrupt, and soulless.
The notion that valid criticism of both the NSA and of Edward Snowden exists in a non-binary world cannot be allowed in his head.
This is my problem with Glenn Greenwald.
For that matter, Rachel Maddow reported on $485 million dollars worth of cargo planes that we gave to the Afghan Air Force. They couldn't fly them, or maintain them, so they were recently sold as scrap - for $35,000. Imagine what $484.7 million dollars in, say, land mine removal, road repairs, and other infrastructure projects could have done...
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