Talk:Glenn Greenwald

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[edit] No

This article contains many ridiculous fallacies. GG has explicitly stated that he opposes Ron Paul at least on th grounds of RP's racism. This article is pretty darn explicit. This article needs serious cleaning in other areas as and I will do some of that cleaning in the very near future, as I do not have the time to do so now. Rand0 (talk) 20:55, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Agree with complete rewrite. The article looks like it was written by some Democrat who wants to falsely paint Greenwald as right wing instead of progressive left. Secret Squirrel (talk) 20:58, 19 March 2012 (UTC)
I suggest looking at the recent edit history of the article and some of the other contributions of the same editor, especially a certain discussion in the Saloon Bar...--ZooGuard (talk) 21:01, 19 March 2012 (UTC)
Ah, never mind, no rewrite needed. Reverted back to the last good version of March 10. Secret Squirrel (talk) 21:02, 19 March 2012 (UTC)
Noted. That is a good thing to look for from now on. Thanks to both of you for teaching this newbie.Rand0 (talk) 08:16, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

In the very article linked to there, Greenwald gives Paul credibility by saying "He's the only candidate who looks at important issues". Opposing Paul's racism is irrelevent. Giving someone like Paul credibility only makes him more powerful, and brings his extreme views into the mainstream. Greenwald, as I pointed out, supported Citizen's United. Greenwald uses many of the same tactics that the right uses, such as cherrypicking evidence and smearing his opponents. Mr. Anon (talk) 21:17, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

"Giving someone like Paul credibility only makes him more powerful and brings his extreme views into the mainstream." First of all, articles written by some journalist about you do not make you credible. Only your own actions can make you credible. Second, if you think that Ron Paul now has credibility as a result of the article, why are you complaining about Paul in the first place? If you simply misspoke in that part of that sentence, then never mind those two points, and also note that I am not trying to scrutinize your rhetoric; I am just making those points in case you did not misspeak. Third, as far as I can tell, Greenwald does not make any false statements in that article as far as his list of issues in which Ron Paul takes a stance which is in line with what he estimates as the views and preferences of most liberals and lefties in the U.S. Fourth, such pointing out is not endorsement. Fifth, whether or not Greenwald pointing all of this out makes Paul "more powerful" is entirely irrelevant to whether or not Greenwald supports the dude. Sixth, I do not know what you mean by "brings ... his views into the mainstream," so please elaborate on that. Now, leaving that part of your comment behind, I will move onto other points. First, saying in that article that you don't support Ron Paul is pretty decent evidence that you don't support Ron Paul. Second, opposing Paul's racism in not irrelevant! It is on those grounds that Greenwald says he does not support the guy. Third, although many of the points brought up in the piece by Smith that is provided as a citation to the claim that Greenwald supports the Citizens United, the piece does not do enough to establish that Greenwald supports the decision. Although the title of this article is "What the Supreme Court got right," (and I am assuming it is this article to which Smith is alluding to since it was published only 3 days prior to Smith's piece) in it Greenwald explains not that he supports the Citizens United decision per se, but that he is "deeply ambivalent." So, before we say he supports the Citizens United ruling, I would like to hammer out the issue further. Fourth as to the point that Greenwald cherry-picks evidence, smears his opponents, and uses other (condemnable?) tactics that have been employed by persons on the right, I do not question your sincerity, but I would like some elaboration. Rand0 (talk) 11:54, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
I'll address your concerns in the order that you bring them. Regarding Greenwald's opinion on Ron Paul.
  1. Perhaps credibility was not the suitable word. Greenwald is bringing Ron Paul into the mainstream, and suggests that he is more to the left than most Democrats, which is ridiculous. He downplays Ron Paul's horrible views on fiscal policy, and his blatently racist, sexist, and homophobic social stances.
  2. Obviously I can't change what Greenwald says on Salon; what I am contesting is RationalWiki's apparent support of him. An earlier version of the article said something along the lines of "he's one of the view good journalists out there". I do concede that parts of my version are biased, and I would be glad to help work out blatent biases or false statements.
  3. Misleading and outright false are two different things; Greenwald misleads us by failing to mention Paul's extreme right wing views and seems to use the racist newsletter allegations as a strawman (in reality, Paul's racism is expressed throughout his actual policies, such as the repeal of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and initial opposition to Martin Luther King day). I could go on about the misleading things he says about Obama, but that would get us off topic.
  4. I concede that Greenwald does not outright support Paul; a more accurate statement would have been something like "is sympathetic towards Ron Paul".
  5. While Greenwald may not outright support Paul, making him more powerful has a very similar effect. If the end result of Greenwald's work is a President who threatens to revert 100 years of progress, then that certainly says quite a bit about Greenwald and at least the effect of his statements.
  6. By "bringing into the mainstream", I mean that if a supposedly progressive journalist is highlighting Ron Paul and making him seem like a moderate or a liberal based on a few individual issues, then that disregards his extreme views on other ones.
Regarding my other comments:
  1. I concede this; I'll reword the statement.
  2. Again, Greenwald fails to highlight other important views progressives might want to consider. In the same article, he seems to downplay the importance of Social Security, Medicare, and other domestic policies.
  3. Greenwald does heavily imply that he agrees with the Supreme Court decision in his article. While he does say that corporate influence has negative effects, he seems to be repeating the same lines that many on the right do - that corporations are expressing "free speech" by running ads in favor of one political party. Effectively, it gives them the same rights that individuals have, even though corporations take money from individuals who do not necessarily agree with them.
  4. There's many concerns I have with Greenwald. One main thing is that he spends much of his time telling fellow liberals whether or not they are being true progressives by supporting President Obama. He frequently uses scare quotes to get his message across, and this ends up as being misleading when he is actually responding to someone's statements. He also uses many misleading or even inflammatory statements, like "Obama is using drones to kill Muslim children" (implying an intent on the government to hurt civilians in Pakistan, when in reality the civilian death-per-drone attack count is not very large). As I said, I'm not going to go into much detail about this, but if you want, I can give more examples.
I apologize for my recent edits to this page which arguably made it even more biased, but I was frustrated with my edits being reverted without explanation. Mr. Anon (talk) 01:24, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

[edit] Hmmmmm

This article reads like he wrote it himself. — Unsigned, by: 86.6.91.123 / talk / contribs

Yeah. Where I come from Glenn Greenwald is best known as an extremist borderline conspiracy nut, not a respectable political commentator. 66.251.25.130 (talk) 03:19, 11 October 2013 (UTC)
So, the New York Times editorial board?
Can you tell Bobo he is unserious? It would mean so much for me. A Real Libertarian (talk) 11:47, 26 December 2013 (UTC)

[edit] Salon

I'm surprised we don't have an article about Salon on here. Goebbels would be proud of that fascist rag. This Greenwald guy sounds alright though. --Let Them Eat Cake (talk) 17:45, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

Salon is fascistic? I wasn't aware of that. Well, I encourage you to start the Salon article. Rand0 (talk) 07:03, 11 October 2013 (UTC)
The user LetThemEatCake is a centrist conservative of the more libertarian persuasion. Hence from that perspective while Greenwald's work on exposing the Government various misdeeds is commendable his work for Salon magazine is not. Salon magazine represents the New Left, this is as clear to conservatives as it is to other leftists. From the perspective of other liberals and leftists (such as myself for instance) Salon magazine represents both everything about the new left that was commendable, but it also represents everything that was wrong with the new left (for instance, from the perspective of other liberals and leftists their criticism of the US Federal Government while often justified, tends to bleed into either outright anti-Americanism, anarchism, or isolationism). From the perspective of a libertarian leaning conservative the only even remotely commendable part of the new left was their vocal distrust of authority. Hence by extension the sole position that both Salon magazine and LetThemEatCake would ever see eye to eye on is an overall distrust of the US Federal Government. Alsto003 (talk) 15:03, 11 September 2014 (UTC) Alex

[edit] Criticism

So I see above that there have been unsuccessful efforts to rewrite this article in a more neutral manner before. Greenwald is quickly going from being an inverse stopped clock to just a regular stopped clock. He's a mini-Ron Paul who believes the federal government should have no power whatsoever, has been repeatedly documented making exaggerations about the nature of the leaks he possesses, and has been widely accused of insulting or belittling his opponents, including random people on Twitter. He's also a borderline conspiracy theorist who accuses everyone who disagrees with him of being part of a secretive military-industrial complex plot. He near-constantly uses words like "liberal" as a smear on anyone who supports any kind of government regulation, to the point that he makes some Fox News commentators look restrained. He also supported the Iraq War and gave talks at the Cato Institute, which this wiki has certified as a crank factory. This guy has totally gone off the deep end since the Snowden leaks and I'd be happy to provide citations in the event the article is rewritten. I suggest molding it in the manner of the Penn & Teller or Richard Dawkins articles, where we describe their positive viewpoints alongside their more crank-y opinions and behaviors. Right now the article is just a total whitewash that is not befitting this wiki. ShadowUltra (talk) 20:55, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

+1 on this, it's fine to plug Greenwald as an opinion columnist but I'm disappointed in how he seems to respond to any and all criticism with ad hominems. I added the new NSA info from 2013 and a Controversy section to the page and deleted the unqualified praise. Insert ad hominem below. Anoxia93 (talk) 11:41, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
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