General Discussion
Showing Original Post only (View all)Greenwald: Democratic Party priorities [View all]
Much of the reaction to the article I wrote last Saturday regarding progressives, the Obama presidency and Ron Paul (as well as reaction to this essay by Matt Stoller and even this tweet from Katrina vanden Heuvel) relied on exactly the sort of blatant distortions that I began that article by anticipating and renouncing: that I was endorsing Paul as the best presidential candidate, that I was urging progressives to sacrifice reproductive rights in order to vote for him over Obama, that I pretend[ed] that the differences between Obama and Paul on economics [and other domestic issues] are marginal; that Pauls bad positions negate the argument I made; that Ron Paul is my hero, etc. etc. So self-evidently petty and slimy are those kinds of distortions that (other than to note their falsehoods for the record) they warrant no discussion; indeed, as I wrote: So potent is this poison that no inoculation against it exists and would thus proceed to make a couple of important points about both candidacies even knowing in advance how wildly they will be distorted.
That said, its hard to believe that these distortions are anything but deliberate deterrence-driven punishment for the ultimate Election Year crime of partisan heresy: i.e., suggesting that someone is uniquely advocating important ideas even though they lack a D after their name given that (a) I expressly renounced in advance the beliefs now being attributed to me and, more important (b) the point I was actually making was clear and not all that complex.
http://www.salon.com/writer/glenn_greenwald/
Let the thrashing begin!