Is "libertarian" Glenn Greenwald tweeting incessantly about civil rights in Russia?

[Luizy]

I stopped reading anything this guy types ever since he became a Trump-Putin lover, so if you follow him.... Tell me what he's up to.
I assume he's protesting the fact that you go to jail for calling the war in Ukraine a WAR. Or the fact that social media was banned there.
And his followers call him anti-war. His Twitter feed must be full of condemnation against Russia's war, right?
Unless, of course, he's really a Right wing Putin lover posing as a libertarian. If that's the case, then I assume he's just trashing Biden and Democrats for some reason.

[Walleye]

1. Is he protecting the Russian citizen's right to bear arms?

[JohnSJ]

2. Greenwald is another Putin bot. He fooled a good number of people

[honest.abe]

3. His shtick is to appear independent but clearly he is a conservative GOP/Russian mouthpiece.

Probably funded by some Russian oligarch.

[mucifer]

4. I found a book of his on my bookshelf from 10 years ago. I threw it out. Don't want to donate it

I don't think he was always on the take.

[brush]

5. Right. He parlayed the Snowden situation into a...

a big media deal. IMO he used comrade Eddie.

[Miguelito Loveless]

6. A Libertarian is just a Conservative

who is honest about their drug use, and who they sleep with, while being extra-greedy about money.

[benfranklin1776]

7. Nice! But scathingly true, as it's a very apt description.

Gets to the core of their nonessence of humanity. Mind if I borrow it? 😎

[Miguelito Loveless]

10. Help yourself!

[tenderfoot]

18. A libertarian is an Anarchist that wants police protection from their slaves.

eom

[TheBlackAdder]

8. A Libertarian is the most self-affecting form of Republican. They are only out for themselves.

.

If it's so great, why isn't there one government in the world using its principles?

The two small societies that tried it both collapsed, as there was in-fighting because no one wanted to pay taxes, no one wanted to be told what to do, and everyone wanted to be the boss.

.

[ancianita]

11. What were the names of those societies you mention? I ask because I just can't recall.

[TheBlackAdder]

12. There was one in Central America and there was a more recent one in Idaho a few years back.

[ancianita]

13. I looked. Can't find any. Not a fan of Salon, but this explanation suffices.

https://www.salon.com/2013/06/04/the_question_libertarians_just_cant_answer/

Bottom line to save reading:

If socialism is discredited by the failure of communist regimes in the real world, why isn’t libertarianism discredited by the absence of any libertarian regimes in the real world?

[Caliman73]

16. Here are a few.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/bn53b3/atlas-mugged-922-v21n10

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/no-taxes-or-bureaucracy-in-planned-libertarian-paradise-1588142.html

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/06/30/colorado-springs-libertarian-experiment-america-215313

https://newrepublic.com/article/159662/libertarian-walks-into-bear-book-review-free-town-project

[ancianita]

20. Cool. If you call cities and communities "societies." Silver Springs, e.g., doesn't constitute

Colorado society.

I think we'd all agree that Libertarianism has never and will never scale up to national levels anywhere. Herding cats doesn't scale past a herd.

[Caliman73]

21. I personally, do not think that any economic system scales up effectively to national levels.

You can make the argument for Capitalism, but then you can look at the misery the system has caused globally.

[ancianita]

22. Not a valid equivalency argument. I make no argument for capitalism.

Except that for all the bad systems that humans use to steward resources, capitalism has stood almost as long as monarchy.

[Caliman73]

23. I never said you did...

In fact I explicitly said "I personally"

Capitalism seems to be the best of a bad set of systems. Though you can also argue that Capitalists (the wealthiest people) have also fought very hard to poison any other system that might seek to distribute resources more equitably.


One thing that no economic system seems able to predict or manage is simple "greed". Socialism and Communism try to tackle it, but we can look at how attempts in the USSR and China have gone with the leaders enriching themselves while the average person suffers. Same problem.

[ancianita]

24. Thanks.

I missed that.

Yes, controlling greed is a problem in free countries. In Koch's America, money IS freedom.

I've read that China's totalitarian social credit system is the algorithmic solution, but I also doubt it really controls greed.

Yes, how much greed is allowed party leaders seems to vary across the political 'spectrum' of seeing access. From economic usury to governmental kleptocracy, seeing depends on how much information publics are allowed access to.

Add no freedom of speech to that, and it doesn't matter to the greedy what publics see. Only in democracies do limits of access and openness -- "need to know," "redaction," "classified", "censorship," "cancelling," "banning" and document erasure -- become costly problems that distract, and thus prevent us from investigating greed problems.

[tman]

9. Even in the Snowden days, he misled incessantly while being praised by many on the left.

[UTUSN]

14. Bragging here: My b.s. detector went off on him & SNOWDEN from the start and

had to watch out for myself here with all the fan club going on. Have bucked the tide on more. O.K., ending the bragging.

[struggle4progress]

15. No, he's been blathering noisily that anyone who is concerned is a war-monger

[Caliman73]

17. That seems stupid...

Given that Russia is engaging in war with Ukraine, unprovoked and for no valid reason, but anyone who is concerned about Russia's actions is a warmonger.

[MineralMan]

19. A number of people here fell for Greenwald's schtick several years ago.

Some here on DU, however, did not, and called him out as a libertarian and not an asset to progressive politics. That was poorly received by some, most of whom no longer post here, while those who recognized him for what he truly is are still active on DU.

[Hekate]

25. Glenn who?

Crickets