Greenwald: The American character

[whatchamacallit]

Fareed Zakaria, normally a reliable and pleasant purveyor of conventional “centrist” wisdom, has a genuinely good and surprisingly confrontational CNN column today, in which he disputes the widespread belief that America is ending its War on Terror and explains what this reflects about the American character:

While we will leave the battlefields of the greater Middle East, we are firmly committed to the war on terror at home. What do I mean by that? Well, look at the expansion of federal bureaucracies to tackle this war.

Since September 11, 2001, the U.S. government has created or reconfigured at least 263 organizations to tackle some aspect of the war on terror. Thirty-three new building complexes have been built for the intelligence bureaucracies alone, occupying 17 million square feet – the equivalent of 22 U.S. Capitols or three Pentagons. The largest bureaucracy after the Pentagon and the Department of Veterans Affairs is now the Department of Homeland Security, which has a workforce of 230,000 people.

The rise of this national security state has entailed a vast expansion in the government’s powers that now touch every aspect of American life, even when seemingly unrelated to terrorism. Some 30,000 people, for example, are now employed exclusively to listen in on phone conversations and other communications within the United States. . . .

In the past, the U.S. government has built up for wars, assumed emergency authority and sometimes abused that power, yet always demobilized after the war. But this is, of course, a war without end. . . . We don’t look like people who have won a war. We look like scared, fearful, losers.

http://www.salon.com/2012/05/07/the_american_character/singleton/

[fascisthunter]

1. they are Treating every American as a suspect...

Looking more and more like a fascist police state.

[cali]

2. I really don't like greenwald. I really don't respect him

I know that borders on sacrilege for some here, but that first gratuitous line says it all for me. And he continues to sneer at Zakaria even as he quotes large portions of what Zakaria said.

Here's the thing: I often agree with greenwald. Of course he's right about the surveillance state, and it can surely be argued that that is the single most important issue of this election year, but Zakaria actually puts it far more eloquently than greenwald and he does so in a manner that gets more serious attention and thought than greenwald whose screech- for lack of a better term- deafens people to what he's saying.

I think I understand the impulse that drives greenwald to his use of language as a bludgeon, but I don't admire it. And I think he's often grossly unfair and makes generalizations when he shouldn't, but it's his gratuitous hatefulness that really pushes me away.

[whatchamacallit]

5. To each his/her own

Last edited Mon May 7, 2012, 09:11 PM - Edit history (1)

I understand your impression of Greenwald's style, but to me it's the substance that matters.

[KG]

3. a characteristically american DURec

[stevedeshazer]

4. Glenn

Not Robert.

Big difference.

[joshcryer]

6. I initially rec'd this because I thought he was criticizing American blood lust (he does barely).

Then it came off as a whiney screed against a "surveillance state" when the reality is that Google and Facebook, and yes, Glenn, Twitter have been surveilling his privileged white position in society for almost a decade already. It's SoP already, Glenn. Only thing is, being a white male, you're not likely to wind up being indefinitely detained. Being in the top 5% you're not likely to have to worry about any of these bullshit laws. Welcome to privilege.

[whatchamacallit]

7. You seem confused

Do we not have a surveillance state? Shouldn't everyone be concerned regardless of socioeconomic status? Google, facebook, and twitter are personal choices, so...

[joshcryer]

8. Ahh, yes, the canned "it's OK if corporations do it," response.

It's not OK when anyone does it, to be frank.

[whatchamacallit]

9. What does that have to do with

you disparaging Greenwald for writing about it?

[joshcryer]

10. The article is merely a typical response from a position of privilege.

It offers nothing substantiative or new or interesting or particularly damning. It's standard operating procedure.

Thus why I retracted my poorly thought out rec. I stand by my rec's and I did not stand by that one.