Where is Ames writing these days? I finally canceled my Substack subscription to GG and subscribed here instead exactly because of the stuff about the privatization and profiteering that has happened around the Snowden files and the cover running for Omidyar. Is he on Substack or have I somehow allowed Pando to fade from my regular reading list?
It is actually called War Nerd radio -- but it is not listed in "normal" audio podcasts. If you Google-it -- one can find it but in some strange site which I can't figure out how to use... ;-((
Wow -- many would be interested just why you have "finally canceled your subscription to GG" -- something must have offended your delicate feelings by writings of one of the greatest progressive and free speech advocate journalist of our time. Could you enlighten us all? Many thanks
You might check Yasha and Mark Ames on the topic. I made a similar comment at TK last week and spent an hour doing what ended up feeling like virtue signaling and listing the numerous things I respect in GG's work dating back to his UT blog. I'm not going to waste the time here except to either refer you there (where I was hit with ad hominem attacks kinda like your comment but mostly worse) or back to my OP here where I said specifically because he privatized and monetized the Snowden leaks which are now in the sole possession of Pierre Omidyar (GG and Poitras might still have them but if so neither has any plans to release any more). GG ran cover for Omidyar for too long and when he stopped answering questions about it I gave up on my subscription. Check Pando's archives. Regardless I'll say it again I do respect his other work but after finally doing a deep dive on his relationship with Omidyar and in light of his resignation drama for the Intercept censoring his Hunter Biden story as if that was the first such incident ever to happen there, I decided I must have become even more of a purist than he is on those matters and that I'd still check his Twitter and SS occasionally but I'm not paying him money to read his work anymore.
Something very seedy was being ignored by GG during his entire stint there and even now he rarely if ever writes about Assange anymore. TI has had maybe one article on his political detention but Micah Lee, one of GG's coworkers was seriously anti Assange and Wikileaks. That's far worse in my mind than the stupid Biden laptop story when anyone who was going to vote for either Trump or Biden would have been wilfully ignorant to think they both aren't corrupt AF.
I was familiar with them and have re-read them. Faults might be real or imagined/misread/misunderstood. I view GG or MT or AM or MB work in total -- they are rare, extremely courageous, invaluable activists/journalist of our time since we live in a fascist country be it under DNC or GOP oligarchs -- ruthlessly dangerous.
I don't disagree in large part. I do have all of GG's Bush and Obama era books in my bookcase still. Same with Taibbi. Wonder what his anti-BLM Trump fans would think of "I Can't Breathe"....
P.S. - Until yesterday it had been a long time since Greenwald brought up Julian Assange, a man who created Wikileaks, which is a site that Greenwald's boss and benefactor, Pierre Omidyar actively worked to silence by way of his controlling interest in PayPal. There is just no way that GG wasn't aware of this if he did any digging at all (like YL and Mark Ames among others did). GG has stated that he wasn't involved in PO's decisions or businesses, which is of course true, but never once did he actually address Omidyar's work against Wikileaks. This is the closest he ever came while at TI:
In which he points out that the outlet at which YL and MA was partially funded by another individual who was also somehow participating in anti-Wikileaks business decisions. But this is as far as he goes, and it's very disappointing because Ames DID investigate the business politics of Pando's donors whereas Greenwald did NOT investigate Omidyar at the time he was employed by him:
"So he acknowledges the truly repellent politics of those who fund the media outlet where he does his journalism: Andreessen, a Romney supporter, has become one of the NSA’s most devoted defenders, while the company owned by Paypal founder Thiel, Palantir Technologies, works extensively with the CIA and got caught scheming against journalists, WikiLeaks supporters and Chamber of Commerce critics. But he obviously believes those repellent views and activities do not reflect on him or his journalism. Indeed, any of you who are approvingly citing the Pando article are implicitly saying the same thing: namely, that media outlets funded by government-supporting tech moguls with repugnant histories can produce important journalism, including reporting on other tech moguls.
More generally, you’re endorsing the point that the political ideology of those who fund media outlets, no matter how much you dislike that ideology, does not mean that hard-hitting investigative journalism is precluded or that the journalism reflects the views of those who fund it. Anyone who thinks that The Intercept is or will be some sort of mouthpiece for U.S. foreign policy goals is invited to review the journalism we’ve produced in the 20 days we’ve existed."
If he had, he would have put out something like this:
And to repeat, GG, LP and PO are the only people that could be in possession of the COMPLETE Snowden files, and they could have early on published a piece on how the non-moderate ISIS/Al Nusra/etc. "rebels" in Syria were OFFICIALLY backed, trained and funded in the attempt to remove Bashar Al Assad from power, which would have forced the issue into the mainstream almost certainly early enough to save many lives that were lost because at the time, all we had were theories and suggestions that the US and Saudi governments were - contrary to their public facing statements - knowingly backing those groups despite their FREQUENT public-facing comments that they were not.
Neither of us are presenting just one side of a "binomial" belief. I fully acknowledged what Boris said and agree with it, not only in reply to him, but alluded to in my original comment, here and at TK Substack last week. GG has been and continues to be an important independent voice and a great critic of the mainstream media and their various political affiliations (with much of the corporate media being DNC propaganda and the neocon and Trump arms of the GOP each having their own like Fox and OAN). Greenwald, coming from the left-libertarian angle is naturally going to focus his criticisms more on his own side, since the other side doesn't really offer up logical, facts-based critiques of the Democrats, but rather smears, hyperbole and politicized wedge issues (a model that Fox News created and which has been largely adopted by MSNBC and CNN now, as well as some of the more prominent blogs and sites that sprung up during the Bush/Cheney neocon years).
I agree that any (complete) biography written about GG should cover all the different facets of his life and career, however that's not generally what we see these days. Most biographies, especially those of journalists, focus on their journalism and its effects on the prevailing discourse and narratives.
GG is doing important work on Brazil, but his work on the US has become mainly about pointing out hypocrisy in the DNC and corporate media (something others do just as well). My personal decision not to fund his work by way of Substack contributions was based on the fact that he's already "rich", he's sitting on a trove of secrets, he sat on a particular secret that could have prevented a lot of deaths in Syria, and that there are other Substack authors such as YL who I believe need more support than the "celebrity" authors like Greenwald and Taibbi (although I still subscribe to Taibbi). Hence, my decision was also muti-faceted and took place over a couple of years of reading about his faults, not just his virtues.
Medhi Hassan is extremely repulsive, we agree, but he has NOTHING to do with GG.
As for Yasha -- he is somewhat bitter and critical of also another truly great and courageous journalist, Matt Taibbi. I follow both GG and MT for decades and greatly value their work for high integrity and facts and thoughtfulness.
One can always find real or imagined faults with anybody, including "saints" ;-)) -- one should have a balance and a measure to judge someone in total. With extreme "purity" one ends up in a group of one, alone and embittered.
Fooled again, I guess. Saw your backhanded compliment to Ken today and took it at face value. (I had just read that an article implying that Cellebrite withdrew their iPhone app because Signal closed the hole Cellebrite was exploiting.)
While I was researching another topic, I stumbled upon this article written in 1945 by Jewish journalist, actor, screenwriter, fiction writer and war correspondent Yevgeny Krieger. He died in 1983 at the age of 77.
Is Signal based on open source code? I genuinely don't know, but if so wouldn't it be pretty easy to spot CIA/NSA/FBI hard coded back doors or whatever?
Where is Ames writing these days? I finally canceled my Substack subscription to GG and subscribed here instead exactly because of the stuff about the privatization and profiteering that has happened around the Snowden files and the cover running for Omidyar. Is he on Substack or have I somehow allowed Pando to fade from my regular reading list?
Mark’s not writing much these days but he runs an amazing podcast with John Dolan, Radio War Nerd. I highly recommend it.
It is actually called War Nerd radio -- but it is not listed in "normal" audio podcasts. If you Google-it -- one can find it but in some strange site which I can't figure out how to use... ;-((
https://www.patreon.com/radiowarnerd
Million thanks -- just subscribed
Wow -- many would be interested just why you have "finally canceled your subscription to GG" -- something must have offended your delicate feelings by writings of one of the greatest progressive and free speech advocate journalist of our time. Could you enlighten us all? Many thanks
You might check Yasha and Mark Ames on the topic. I made a similar comment at TK last week and spent an hour doing what ended up feeling like virtue signaling and listing the numerous things I respect in GG's work dating back to his UT blog. I'm not going to waste the time here except to either refer you there (where I was hit with ad hominem attacks kinda like your comment but mostly worse) or back to my OP here where I said specifically because he privatized and monetized the Snowden leaks which are now in the sole possession of Pierre Omidyar (GG and Poitras might still have them but if so neither has any plans to release any more). GG ran cover for Omidyar for too long and when he stopped answering questions about it I gave up on my subscription. Check Pando's archives. Regardless I'll say it again I do respect his other work but after finally doing a deep dive on his relationship with Omidyar and in light of his resignation drama for the Intercept censoring his Hunter Biden story as if that was the first such incident ever to happen there, I decided I must have become even more of a purist than he is on those matters and that I'd still check his Twitter and SS occasionally but I'm not paying him money to read his work anymore.
This is another. https://www.mintpressnews.com/fbi-whistleblower-on-pierre-omidyar-campaign-to-neuter-wikileaks/236414/
Something very seedy was being ignored by GG during his entire stint there and even now he rarely if ever writes about Assange anymore. TI has had maybe one article on his political detention but Micah Lee, one of GG's coworkers was seriously anti Assange and Wikileaks. That's far worse in my mind than the stupid Biden laptop story when anyone who was going to vote for either Trump or Biden would have been wilfully ignorant to think they both aren't corrupt AF.
Thank you for your explanation. I respect your opinion -- although I might not agree with it. Best, Boris
No problem. Seriously I wish you'd read some of those pieces. I'd like to hear what you think.
I was familiar with them and have re-read them. Faults might be real or imagined/misread/misunderstood. I view GG or MT or AM or MB work in total -- they are rare, extremely courageous, invaluable activists/journalist of our time since we live in a fascist country be it under DNC or GOP oligarchs -- ruthlessly dangerous.
PS: See my response to Jason above.... BR, Boris
I don't disagree in large part. I do have all of GG's Bush and Obama era books in my bookcase still. Same with Taibbi. Wonder what his anti-BLM Trump fans would think of "I Can't Breathe"....
https://yasha.substack.com/p/meet-the-billionaire-glenn-greenwald
https://pando.com/2013/11/27/keeping-secrets/
https://pando.com/2016/02/03/all-billionaires-men-or-shattered-glenn/
P.S. - Until yesterday it had been a long time since Greenwald brought up Julian Assange, a man who created Wikileaks, which is a site that Greenwald's boss and benefactor, Pierre Omidyar actively worked to silence by way of his controlling interest in PayPal. There is just no way that GG wasn't aware of this if he did any digging at all (like YL and Mark Ames among others did). GG has stated that he wasn't involved in PO's decisions or businesses, which is of course true, but never once did he actually address Omidyar's work against Wikileaks. This is the closest he ever came while at TI:
https://theintercept.com/2014/03/01/journalistic-independence/
In which he points out that the outlet at which YL and MA was partially funded by another individual who was also somehow participating in anti-Wikileaks business decisions. But this is as far as he goes, and it's very disappointing because Ames DID investigate the business politics of Pando's donors whereas Greenwald did NOT investigate Omidyar at the time he was employed by him:
"So he acknowledges the truly repellent politics of those who fund the media outlet where he does his journalism: Andreessen, a Romney supporter, has become one of the NSA’s most devoted defenders, while the company owned by Paypal founder Thiel, Palantir Technologies, works extensively with the CIA and got caught scheming against journalists, WikiLeaks supporters and Chamber of Commerce critics. But he obviously believes those repellent views and activities do not reflect on him or his journalism. Indeed, any of you who are approvingly citing the Pando article are implicitly saying the same thing: namely, that media outlets funded by government-supporting tech moguls with repugnant histories can produce important journalism, including reporting on other tech moguls.
More generally, you’re endorsing the point that the political ideology of those who fund media outlets, no matter how much you dislike that ideology, does not mean that hard-hitting investigative journalism is precluded or that the journalism reflects the views of those who fund it. Anyone who thinks that The Intercept is or will be some sort of mouthpiece for U.S. foreign policy goals is invited to review the journalism we’ve produced in the 20 days we’ve existed."
If he had, he would have put out something like this:
https://www.mintpressnews.com/fbi-whistleblower-on-pierre-omidyar-campaign-to-neuter-wikileaks/236414/
And to repeat, GG, LP and PO are the only people that could be in possession of the COMPLETE Snowden files, and they could have early on published a piece on how the non-moderate ISIS/Al Nusra/etc. "rebels" in Syria were OFFICIALLY backed, trained and funded in the attempt to remove Bashar Al Assad from power, which would have forced the issue into the mainstream almost certainly early enough to save many lives that were lost because at the time, all we had were theories and suggestions that the US and Saudi governments were - contrary to their public facing statements - knowingly backing those groups despite their FREQUENT public-facing comments that they were not.
Neither of us are presenting just one side of a "binomial" belief. I fully acknowledged what Boris said and agree with it, not only in reply to him, but alluded to in my original comment, here and at TK Substack last week. GG has been and continues to be an important independent voice and a great critic of the mainstream media and their various political affiliations (with much of the corporate media being DNC propaganda and the neocon and Trump arms of the GOP each having their own like Fox and OAN). Greenwald, coming from the left-libertarian angle is naturally going to focus his criticisms more on his own side, since the other side doesn't really offer up logical, facts-based critiques of the Democrats, but rather smears, hyperbole and politicized wedge issues (a model that Fox News created and which has been largely adopted by MSNBC and CNN now, as well as some of the more prominent blogs and sites that sprung up during the Bush/Cheney neocon years).
I agree that any (complete) biography written about GG should cover all the different facets of his life and career, however that's not generally what we see these days. Most biographies, especially those of journalists, focus on their journalism and its effects on the prevailing discourse and narratives.
GG is doing important work on Brazil, but his work on the US has become mainly about pointing out hypocrisy in the DNC and corporate media (something others do just as well). My personal decision not to fund his work by way of Substack contributions was based on the fact that he's already "rich", he's sitting on a trove of secrets, he sat on a particular secret that could have prevented a lot of deaths in Syria, and that there are other Substack authors such as YL who I believe need more support than the "celebrity" authors like Greenwald and Taibbi (although I still subscribe to Taibbi). Hence, my decision was also muti-faceted and took place over a couple of years of reading about his faults, not just his virtues.
Medhi Hassan is extremely repulsive, we agree, but he has NOTHING to do with GG.
As for Yasha -- he is somewhat bitter and critical of also another truly great and courageous journalist, Matt Taibbi. I follow both GG and MT for decades and greatly value their work for high integrity and facts and thoughtfulness.
One can always find real or imagined faults with anybody, including "saints" ;-)) -- one should have a balance and a measure to judge someone in total. With extreme "purity" one ends up in a group of one, alone and embittered.
Fooled again, I guess. Saw your backhanded compliment to Ken today and took it at face value. (I had just read that an article implying that Cellebrite withdrew their iPhone app because Signal closed the hole Cellebrite was exploiting.)
FYI - a beautiful article:
https://historicly.substack.com/p/the-shoemaker-of-stalingrad
While I was researching another topic, I stumbled upon this article written in 1945 by Jewish journalist, actor, screenwriter, fiction writer and war correspondent Yevgeny Krieger. He died in 1983 at the age of 77.
Is Signal based on open source code? I genuinely don't know, but if so wouldn't it be pretty easy to spot CIA/NSA/FBI hard coded back doors or whatever?