In response to Michael Kinsley's anti-journalism review of Greenwald book

[grasswire]

From Gawker review of the review:


Let's be perfectly clear about what is happening here: Michael Kinsley, a man who has become wealthy by working in the field of journalism, asserts that "the private companies that own newspapers, and their employees, should not have the final say over the release of government secrets, and a free pass to make them public with no legal consequences." In other words, Michael Kinsley is coming out in opposition to journalism. Local sports scores? Fine. The weather? Fine. Fireman saves kitten? Fine, fine, fine with Michael Kinsley. But a story about government secrets—the sort of story that every institution of journalism tries to land every day? Not okay.

And why? Because Michael Kinsley does not believe that a free press should be allowed to do that. He believes that the decision to tell government secrets "must ultimately be made by the government."

The decision to report government secrets, says Michael Kinsley, must be made by the government that made these things secret in the first place. I do not even need to mock this position. This position speaks quite clearly for itself. Michael Kinsley fundamentally does not believe in the institution of a free press as a check on government power. Michael Kinsley should consider going into a field of work that does not trouble his conscience as much as the field of journalism does— perhaps PR man, or shoeshine boy, would be more to his liking.

"Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed: everything else is public relations." -George Orwell (or maybe someone else).

http://gawker.com/michael-kinsley-comes-out-against-journalism-1580220672

[MohRokTah]

1. Anything to protect the God of Ego. His holiness Glenn Greenwald.

[Luminous Animal]

2. In other words, Greenwald is a poopie-head.

And just to show him we are happy to erode the Constitutional protections afforded to journalism and journalists.

No poopie-heads allowed!

[scarletwoman]

5. +1000!

Good grief, where do these people come from, China?

Yeah, let's make sure nothing gets published unless the government approves of it.

[Luminous Animal]

7. It is mind-boggling.

[bigtree]

6. As Justice Douglas wrote in 1958:

"Advocacy that is no way brigaded with action should always be protected by the First Amendment. That protection should extend even to the actions we despise."

[neverforget]

9. Deep analysis of an issue that affects our rights under the Constitution

[KG]

12. all analysis is seen through the prism of the president.

[KG]

3. Michael Kinsley, knave.

[Aerows]

8. I will bet you that I can guess the name of the country that Greenwald is about to expose

And no, I will not offer up my guess, but I will be unshocked. Those that didn't think of it, however, WILL be.

[Octafish]

10. Rather un-American type of journalist.

http://www.newrepublic.com/authors/michael-kinsley

Hard to believe, Prototucker's from Detroit.

[Whisp]

11. Kinsley may have become wealthy by journalism but

Greenwald is planning to be wealthy by selling stolen goods and making books and movies and is no journalist - but a check book journalist in all it's blatant form.

hmmmmmmm. One of these things is not like the other.

[zeemike]

20. You mean Kingsley did not get paid by check?

For printing the stories that were approved by government?...and ignoring the ones that were not?
Yep he was in their pocket and Greenwald was not...and Kingsley chose the safer path to wealth and the easier and surer one.

And BTW, that information belongs to us...we paid for it and he gave it back to us...so he is returning stolen property.

[Whisp]

24. doesn't Rachel Maddow get paid by check too?

or the scores of others in that profession that get paid for their work? You think they should work for free? I realize the media in general is not often enough on the side of truth and avoid the difficult questions but Greenwald is not in this category. He is dealing in stolen property to enrich Himself. It's been over a year and yet so very little has been 'revealed' - he's milking the contraband and timing it for his own benefit of books and movies - how revolting that is.

Sybil Edmonds doesn't have much respect for him and she is queen of whistleblowing.

[zeemike]

54. Yes Madow too.

She is constrained by the big paycheck...she knows just how far she can go because they tell her.
Look into Cenk Uyger and his leaving MSNBC and what he had to say about it...

The only journalism left in this country are independent ones...and I don't give a rats ass if they make lots of money doing it...in fact I hope they do...the ones that sell out are making the money and that does not upset you?

But so little has been revealed?...are you joking?...that little has sparked a world wide debate
The mass collection of information on every American was no little thing.
Daniel Elsburg has a lot of respect for him and Snowden, and he knows a lot about the subject too...

[Whisp]

58. It's not a world wide debate,

People struggling don't give a Rat's Ass about Greenwad and his charlatanism when there are issues of women's rights and poverty that the asshole repugs and libertarians like GG and Snowball couldn't give a speck of shit about.

And that mass collection of information is gleaned by corporations rather than the NSA.

The world wide debate is about equality and fairness, not some turd that is capitalizing on stolen government documents. ca-ching!

[zeemike]

61. Well you got me there.

Sense native tribes in the jungles are not talking about it it is not worldwide.
And as long as there is not equality in the whole world we should not care if we are spied on.

And besides the government agencies like NSA have been privatized and so it's OK...not covered by the bill of rights if it is done by private contractors.

You astound me.

[jmowreader]

32. "Checkbook journalism" means paying sources

Has it been proven Greenwald does this?

[Major Hogwash]

70. ALL wealthy journalists should be hung by the neck until they are dead!!!!!!

But, Greenwald, not so much.
He's just a muckraker, not a journalist, per se.

[joshcryer]

13. Well, the legal way means using government, ie, contacting Wyden.

The illegal way is vastly profitable, though.

So pick your method.

[Aerows]

14. Wyden had his chance

He declined to take it. As a US Senator, he COULD release the information he has that would make us all "shocked", but he didn't. He has no credibility on this issue.

[joshcryer]

17. He clearly doesn't think it's as bad as GG or Snowden.

And given the public reaction, it probably isn't. The truly diabolical thing is not that there is spying, but that the NSA is so damn incompetent!

Wyden broke the story by rhetorically asking Clapper about it, and Snowden arrogantly compared himself to Wyden.

Wyden has more integrity in his pinky finger than the entire for profit venture of the Assange/Greenwald crowd.

[Aerows]

19. The public reaction

and backlash has been horrific. I know it is common to try to pretend that it did nothing (while screaming that it harmed US National Security at the same time), but let's be honest about the impact.

And no, Wyden had every opportunity to step up to the plate and did not. Clapper lied to his face and if Wyden respected his office as a US Senator an iota, he would have ruled him in contempt of Congress. He did neither thing.

[joshcryer]

35. What impact? What changes?

Please. Carters FISA courts got empowered by this crap.

Wyden did not hold Clapper in contempt because his question was rhetorical, he knew the answer. Clapper later corrected the record after consulting his lawyers. Unlike Wyden he couldn't rely on congressional immunity.

Wyden hasn't revealed anything because it's not as horrible as the checkbook journalism pretends.

[Aerows]

36. You are dragging Jimmy Carter into this now?

?

Wow, you learn something new every day. Jimmy Carter is still responsible for every single thing the US has ever done with regard to foreign policy that was a failure since his tenure.

Good to know.

[joshcryer]

38. FISA is his pet.

But it had good intentions. Back then the Hoovers really spied on everyone. The problem is Carter did not ensure FISA findings were made public (obscuring details if necessary). Wyden is trying to pass such a law.

[Aerows]

41. I see

It's Jimmy Carter's fault now.

[joshcryer]

45. Yes, FISA court secrecy is.

The cold war was no excuse for it.

[Aerows]

46. Lord have mercy n/t

[joshcryer]

48. Oh, right, Ted Kennedy wrote it up.

And Obama voted for telecom immunity.

Strange how that works out.

Sorry objective fact bugs you so much.

[Aerows]

51. Yes, the dearth of objectivity

seems to be a common thread here. Perhaps not in the way you think, but it is the common thread.

[Luminous Animal]

56. Indeed. Let's look backward instead of forward. Except when it is convenient to look

forward instead of backward. Whatever ruse that keeps us distracted from the matter at hand.

[Aerows]

60. Some folks are lions when they get something right

and some folks are kittens when it comes to doing something wrong.

[joshcryer]

63. The "matter at hand" is itself a distraction.

Where is the blowback?

House votes to reform bulk data collection; Senator Ron Wyden criticizes bill as ‘watered down’

“I am gravely concerned that the changes that have been made to the House version of this bill have watered it down so far that it fails to protect Americans from suspicionless mass surveillance. The new text of the bill states that the government must use a ‘selection term’ to collect Americans’ records, but the bill’s definition of a ‘selection term’ is so vague that it could be used to collect all of the phone records in a particular area code, or all of the credit card records from a particular state.

While this bill’s authors may not intend for it to be interpreted so broadly, the Executive Branch’s long track record of secretly interpreting surveillance laws in incredibly broad ways makes it clear that vague language is ineffective in restraining the Executive Branch. Given the Executive Branch’s record of consistently making inaccurate public statements about these laws in order to conceal ongoing dragnet surveillance of Americans, it would be naïve to trust the Executive Branch to apply new surveillance laws with restraint.

It is unfortunately clear that some of the same officials who were responsible for conducting this dragnet surveillance and misleading the public about it are now working to make sure that any attempt at reform legislation is as limited as possible.

Fortunately, the Senate version of the USA Freedom Act still contains a strong prohibition against bulk collection, as well as a number of other important reforms. In particular, it would close the ‘back-door searches’ loophole that allows intelligence agencies to deliberately read Americans’ emails without a warrant, and it would reform the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and install an advocate to argue for Americans’ constitutional rights when that court is considering major questions of law. While I must oppose the House-passed version of the USA Freedom Act, I will continue to work with my colleagues to advance the Senate version of this legislation, and deliver the comprehensive reforms that the American people deserve.”

http://www.sdjewishworld.com/2014/05/22/congress-votes-reform-bulk-data-collection/

Ron Wyden is a bigger fighter than any of the sniveling profiteers who managed to make a very important issue a twitter mouth off that most people now roll their eyes at and go back to looking at their phones to see what new BS is trending today.

[Luminous Animal]

64. Ron Wyden has been a sniveler for years. Only hinting at gross violations. Never delivering.

He has his career and his paycheck.

Snowden risked his freedom. Greenwald delivered the goods.

[joshcryer]

65. Wyden has been fighting for reform for years.

Snowden risked his freedom and got sucked into a really undesirable situation (he could've gone to Wyden through an intermediary and gone off to Venezuela very easily; Wyden could have published the PRISM files in a recorded comment to the Senate). Snowden says his own efforts are like Wyden's...

Greenwald is a lying profiteer who saw an opportunity (after several attempts to contact him), he got Snowden to do the dumbest shit possible, as we now know Wikileaks has revealed, that they went to Russia because he'd be "safer" there than in South America. Why? Because if Snowden did it the correct way, the respectable way he would've been considered a whistleblower (not revealing secrets as Wyden would have done it the right way), then be hailed as a true hero. No book deals for GG, no covert fiction to tell, none of that. The whole narrative is no longer in GG's control, no longer profitable. GG is scum.

[Luminous Animal]

66. Wyden already knew what Snowden knew but didn't reveal shit. He sniveled Showden delivered.

Your second paragraph is the biggest mish mash of nothing. Really dude? No links?

[joshcryer]

67. Nah, Wyden correctly felt it could be fixed.

But thanks to profiteering GG there will never be a fix. It became a brief issue for a short period of time and like the Patriot Act, Indefinite Detention, etc, it will just become law, forever. People will come to accept it, as they have come to accept the UK's police state. Doesn't harm them, no harm no foul, right?

The only hope we have is that Wyden gets the transparency law passed.

[Luminous Animal]

68. Show me one single thing that Wyden ever did to fix it other than whine about it.

One single thing.

Crazy that you are promoting Wyden as a hero than he did nothing little but waving jazz hands.

[joshcryer]

69. Wyden, elected Senator, whiner.

GG, bloviating pundit liar, fighter for rights.

Wyden drafted the damn amendment which would've stopped bulk data collection, but the House Republicans voted on a draft that gives the NSA its way.

If Wyden was just a whiner why would Snowden refer to himself as Wyden-esque?

[grasswire]

42. you are so, so wrong

....and don't have a clue about Wyden.

[joshcryer]

44. Show me how.

Wyden is the most liberal person in the Senate.

[grasswire]

53. go read these notes and quotes from recent Wyden speech

http://www.oregonlive.com/politics/index.ssf/2014/03/sen_ron_wyden_scorches_senior.html

[joshcryer]

62. Wyden revealed it March 12, 2013.

PRISM was revealed June 6, 2013.


Timelines are important.

Wyden is obviously jumping on the fact that this crap was secret and it took a whistleblower to reveal it. That does not change that he was first to reveal the information, albeit subtly, that no one even recognized until later, because people don't actually care about this sort of thing. Only profiteers who can make money making up a fake media narrative are the ones who do.

Note how Clapper invokes FISA again and again in that video. Wyden knows FISA is limiting Clapper to answer the question but Wyden wants the implied question to be the answer. He is telling the public what is going on by asking a rhetorical question.

Wyden and Udall have been implicitly talking about this bulk data collection for two years, going all the way back to June 12, 2012. They could in theory have simply dumped it into a memo to be entered into the record, of course, but they clearly did not think it was bad enough to merit that.

In other words, they are doing their damn job, and the American public doesn't give two shits about it. All they care about is some idiots who are making serious money off of a fake narrative.

[baldguy]

15. Now Greenwald's sycophants want there to be no consequences for breaking the law?

How very Republican of them.

[JoeyT]

21. I dunno why y'all keep talking about Cheney in these threads.

The issue is settled: He's totally 100% on your side. His opinion on the matter could easily be mistaken for a DU post.

The only people emulating Dick Cheney here are the ones that fawn over the security state.

Your projection fails. Again.

Edited to add: Not to mention we're not the ones defending the refusal to prosecute the Bush administration or the later whitewashing of their crimes. That would be the Obama Can Do No Wrong and Anyone That Thinks He Can Hates America crowd.

[baldguy]

29. Because Greenwald is just as hypocritical as Cheney.

Neither want to suffer the consequences of their actions - at the same time they allow others to suffer, they look to lay blame for their crimes on their critics.

If you're a liberal, Greenwald is not your friend.

[Fred Drum]

31. Greenwald has committed crimes?

would you care to explain

[Aerows]

33. Could you point me to a link

where Glenn Greenwald authorized waterboarding, rendition to Guantanamo without a trial and launched a war in which thousands of American citizens were killed to find non-existent WMD's?

I'll wait.

[bobduca]

37. SMEAR UPGRADE UNLOCKED!!!!!

"GG = POOPIEHEAD" JUST GOT AN UPGRADE!

GG = DARTH CHENEY!11111 (booo hisss)

[grasswire]

43. ^^^

you nailed it!

[Capt. Obvious]

78. LOL

That is perfect

[woo me with science]

80. LOL.

[Fred Drum]

50. "sycophant" isn't really appropriate

sycophant - a person who acts obsequiously toward someone important in order to gain advantage

GG is just a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, hardly someone of importance needed to curry favor

as an aside, an accepted synonym is bootlicker, as in

" the NSA bootlickers attempted to deflect from the exposed illegality by blaming the messenger"

[Luminous Animal]

52. Yep. For the same reasons I didn't want Ellsberg prosecuted

[baldguy]

73. or Scooter Libby?

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

16. "Our people, merely for want of intelligence which they may rely on, are become lethargic

"Our people, merely for want of intelligence which they may rely on, are become lethargic and insensible of the state they are in." Thomas Jefferson

[Luminous Animal]

18. Brilliant detailed take down of Kinsley's review by Barry Eisler

https://pressfreedomfoundation.org/blog/2014/05/journalist-argues-ny-times-publishing-decisions-should-ultimately-be-made-government

Henry James, Michael Frayn, Herbert Marcuse… bingo! And this guy calls Assange a narcissist?), Kinsley comes across most fundamentally as… a simpleton:

"Greenwald doesn't seem to realize that every piece of evidence he musters demonstrating that people agree with him undermines his own argument that 'the authorities' brook no dissent. No one is stopping people from criticizing the government or supporting Greenwald in any way. Nobody is preventing the nation's leading newspaper from publishing a regular column in its own pages dissenting from company or government orthodoxy. If a majority of citizens now agree with Greenwald that dissent is being crushed in this country, and will say so openly to a stranger who rings their doorbell or their phone and says she's a pollster, how can anyone say that dissent is being crushed? What kind of poor excuse for an authoritarian society are we building in which a Glenn Greenwald, proud enemy of conformity and government oppression, can freely promote this book in all media and sell thousands of copies at airport bookstores surrounded by Homeland Security officers?"

There are several problems with this bit of self-indulgence.

First, Greenwald never argues that the authorities (and why the scare quotes? Kinsley's the one who wants the government to be able to enforce total secrecy. If that's not "the authorities," what is?), "brook no dissent." This is just a straw man, the kind of fake argument people trot out when they can't respond to the real one, or when the voices in their heads get so loud they can no longer hear the actual conversation. Greenwald never argues that there is no dissent in America or that the First Amendment Kinsley is so keen to abridge is doing nothing to protect free speech. His argument is more akin to what Noam Chomsky has said about propaganda:

"One of the ways you control what people think is by creating the illusion that there's a debate going on, but making sure that that debate stays within very narrow margins. Namely, you have to make sure that both sides in the debate accept certain assumptions, and those assumptions turn out to be the propaganda system. As long as everyone accepts the propaganda system, then you can have a debate."

Chomsky also had this to say. See if you can recognize Kinsley in here:

"Propaganda very often works better for the educated than it does for the uneducated. This is true on many issues. There are a lot of reasons for this, one being that the educated receive more of the propaganda because they read more. Another thing is that they are the agents of propaganda. After all, their job is that of commissars; they're supposed to be the agents of the propaganda system so they believe it. It's very hard to say something unless you believe it. Other reasons are that, by and large, they are just part of the privileged elite so they share their interests and perceptions."

And here's how Kinsley misinterprets the section on David Gregory's infamous Meet the Press
"To the extent that you have aided and abetted Snowden… why shouldn't you, Mr. Greenwald, be charged with a crime?" question:

"But Greenwald does not deny that he has 'aided and abetted Snowden.' So this particular question was not baseless. Furthermore, it was a question, not an assertion — a perfectly reasonable question that many people were asking, and Gregory was giving Greenwald a chance to answer it: If the leaker can go to prison, why should the leakee be exempt?"

As Greenwald notes in the book, Gregory's "perfectly reasonable question" was in fact a rare textbook instance of "When did you stop beating your wife?" Someone with Kinsley's ostentatious learning ought to know that such a loaded question is by design impossible to answer. It can only be responded to via an attack on the question's false premises, which is what Greenwald did in that interview and then again in the book. Kinsley ignores all this and tries to argue instead that, "A-ha, Greenwald does not deny beating his wife, you see." Which is as asinine as it is dishonest.

[Overseas]

71. K&R. Well said.

[struggle4progress]

22. Let us listen as Gertrude Stein tells us of the making of Americans:

Once an angry man dragged his father along the ground through his own orchard. "Stop!" cried the groaning old man at last, "Stop! I did not drag my father beyond this tree."

It is hard living down the tempers we are born with. We all begin well, for in our youth there is nothing we
are more intolerant of than our own sins writ large in others and we fight them fiercely in ourselves; but we
grow old and we see that these our sins are of all sins the really harmless ones to own, nay that they give a
charm to any character, and so our struggle with them dies away.

[freshwest]

83. That says it all.

[pa28]

23. People like Michael Kinsley and David Gregory are embarrassed by real journalism.

That's the problem. It reminds me of that joke from Stephen Colbert's brilliant appearance at the press club dinner.

"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!"

Stony silence all around the room after that one.

[sabrina 1]

26. He got that right, that's why there wasn't much laughter, what he said was the truth.

[Overseas]

72. That was an amazing moment. Colbert was great that night!

[woo me with science]

79. Whoa. Magnificent.

[Enthusiast]

82. That was epic!

Love Colbert.

[sabrina 1]

25. Mmm, so Michael Kinsley worked for the Government all those years.

It's astounding how many people do not understand the concept and the importance of a free press to a democracy.

[KG]

28. oh, they dig a free press, as long as it doesn't tell the truth about thier fave politico

[WillyT]

27. Well...

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his blowing those who understand it."

- Uton Sinclar

[DisgustipatedinCA]

84. Ok, you have a typo in the quote, but don't change a thing.

I love it.

[Maedhros]

30. Well, there are mewling authoritarian toadies

and then there are real journalists.

Pretty easy to tell which is which, here.

[bobduca]

39. "mewling authoritarian toadies"

Hey now, approximately 35 DU'ers will take offense to that, based on an informal observation of recommendation counts.

[Jefferson23]

34. Kinsley's opinion is trusted based on what? He is pro-austerity measures,how fucking dumb is that?

Kinsley loves austerity because it is “spinach”
The liberal pundit supports a worthless international initiative
http://www.salon.com/2013/05/17/kinsley_loves_austerity_because_it_is_spinach/

[Luminous Animal]

40. It also thinks that it is A-OK to dump toxic waste on poor countries because they get paid for

the "privilege" of being our cesspool and, someday, if they get enough income from the west poisoning their population and destroying their environment, they'll be rich! Like the west!

[Jefferson23]

49. Wonderful. He is a self proclaimed liberal?? Who the hell does he think he's fooling?

So far, he is not leaving a good impression.

[Enthusiast]

74. He played a liberal on TV for a long while.

Remember Crossfire, back in the day, when he weakly allowed Pat Buchanan to destroy his arguments? Back then we called him the weenie.

[Jefferson23]

75. I don't actually recall him or the show..but from what I have read so far, his

opinions seem to reflect that of a tool for the status quo.

Not impressed.

[bobduca]

77. Yup, he was designated liberal fall guy on that show

He pioneered how to frame liberal arguments in the least convincing manner possible on CNN, a tradition they maintain today!

[Enthusiast]

81. At the time I didn't realize how we were being taken in.

We kept saying, "Why don't they get someone on Crossfire with some fight, some spunk?" They had exactly the guy they wanted. This bullshit has been going on for a long time.

[Aerows]

47. I've been told that all of this

is Jimmy Carter's fault. See up thread.

I didn't know the man was responsible for everything horrible under the sun.

[G_j]

55. Michael Kinsley

the anti-journalist, whoopee!

[grasswire]

57. prep school brat, then Harvard, then Oxford

A 99 percenter!

[moondust]

59. Perhaps Kinsley is referring to

the press's lack of deep context within which to judge which compromised information may be truly harmful to national security and which may not. That's a valid point IMO.

[randome]

76. So the press is no better than Wikileaks, is that it?

Just print whatever they can get their hands on and to hell with context or consequences. In other words, they need to behave more like robots.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Stop looking for heroes. BE one.[/center][/font][hr]