Michael Ejercito
2020-05-17 15:32:54 UTC
http://ethicsalarms.com/2020/05/17/ethics-quote-of-the-month-matt-taibbi-rolling-stone-columnist/
Ethics Quote Of The Month: Matt Taibbi, “Rolling Stone” Columnist
MAY 17, 2020 / JACK MARSHALL
“I can understand not caring about the plight of Michael Flynn, but cases
like this have turned erstwhile liberals – people who just a decade ago were
marching in the streets over the civil liberties implications of Cheney’s
War on Terror apparatus – into defenders of the spy state. Politicians and
pundits across the last four years have rolled their eyes at attorney-client
privilege, the presumption of innocence, the right to face one’s accuser,
the right to counsel and a host of other issues, regularly denouncing civil
rights worries as red-herring excuses for Trumpism.”
—Progressive “Rolling Stone” columnist Matt Taibbi, in “Democrats Have
Abandoned Civil Liberties: The Blue Party’s Trump-era Embrace of
Authoritarianism Isn’t Just Wrong, it’s a Fatal Political Mistake”
I’m not highlighting Taibbi’s excellent essay as an appeal to authority, not
at all. I’ve written about the situation he’s bemoaning for more than three
years, and I’ve made my case. (Check the “Totalitarianism” tag—Taibbi should
be using that term rather than “authoritarianism”) I don’t need Matt Taibbi
to prove my analysis correct. I’m calling attention to his essay because it’s
a relief: so many people have told me that I am a Fox News, Trumper zombie
for pointing out what should be screamingly apparent. For years I have been
reading fevered warnings that the President was a dangerous authoritarian
endangering democracy, when it seemed apparent that the party those critics
supported were presenting the real threat by undermining our institutions
and ignoring both the Constitution and the law. I was beginning to doubt my
sanity, just like Ingrid Bergman in “Gaslight.” Only a handful of liberal
analysts with courage and integrity—Professors Turley, Dershowitz, Jacobson
and Althouse; journalist Glenn Greenwald, a few liberal pundits like Taibbi
and Andrew Sullivan (sometimes) kept me from self-commitment.
More from Taibbi, on Michael Flynn:
Warrantless surveillance, multiple illegal leaks of classified information,
a false statements charge constructed on the razor’s edge of Miranda, and
the use of never-produced, secret counterintelligence evidence in a domestic
criminal proceeding – this is the “rule of law” we’re being asked to cheer.
Russiagate cases were often two-level offenses: factually bogus or
exaggerated, but also indicative of authoritarian practices. Democrats and
Democrat-friendly pundits in the last four years have been consistently
unable to register objections on either front.
Flynn’s case fit the pattern. We were told his plea was just the “tip of the
iceberg” that would “take the trail of Russian collusion” to the “center of
the plot,” i.e. Trump. It turned out he had no deeper story to tell. In
fact, none of the people prosecutors tossed in jail to get at the Russian
“plot” – some little more than bystanders – had anything to share.
Nah, there’s no mainstream media bias.
Democrats have lately positioned themselves as more aggressive promoters of
strong-arm policies, from control of Internet speech to the embrace of
domestic spying. In the last four years the blue-friendly press has done a
complete 180 on these issues, going from cheering Edward Snowden to
lionizing the CIA, NSA, and FBI and making on-air partners out of
drone-and-surveillance all-stars like John Brennan, James Clapper, and
Michael Hayden. There are now too many ex-spooks on CNN and MSNBC to count,
while there isn’t a single regular contributor on any of the networks one
could describe as antiwar.
Democrats clearly believe constituents will forgive them for abandoning
constitutional principles, so long as the targets of official inquiry are
figures like Flynn or Paul Manafort or Trump himself. In the process, they’ve
raised a generation of followers whose contempt for civil liberties is now
genuine-to-permanent. Blue-staters have gone from dismissing constitutional
concerns as Trumpian ruse to sneering at them, in the manner of French
aristocrats, as evidence of proletarian mental defect.
Exactly.
Thank you.
Ethics Quote Of The Month: Matt Taibbi, “Rolling Stone” Columnist
MAY 17, 2020 / JACK MARSHALL
“I can understand not caring about the plight of Michael Flynn, but cases
like this have turned erstwhile liberals – people who just a decade ago were
marching in the streets over the civil liberties implications of Cheney’s
War on Terror apparatus – into defenders of the spy state. Politicians and
pundits across the last four years have rolled their eyes at attorney-client
privilege, the presumption of innocence, the right to face one’s accuser,
the right to counsel and a host of other issues, regularly denouncing civil
rights worries as red-herring excuses for Trumpism.”
—Progressive “Rolling Stone” columnist Matt Taibbi, in “Democrats Have
Abandoned Civil Liberties: The Blue Party’s Trump-era Embrace of
Authoritarianism Isn’t Just Wrong, it’s a Fatal Political Mistake”
I’m not highlighting Taibbi’s excellent essay as an appeal to authority, not
at all. I’ve written about the situation he’s bemoaning for more than three
years, and I’ve made my case. (Check the “Totalitarianism” tag—Taibbi should
be using that term rather than “authoritarianism”) I don’t need Matt Taibbi
to prove my analysis correct. I’m calling attention to his essay because it’s
a relief: so many people have told me that I am a Fox News, Trumper zombie
for pointing out what should be screamingly apparent. For years I have been
reading fevered warnings that the President was a dangerous authoritarian
endangering democracy, when it seemed apparent that the party those critics
supported were presenting the real threat by undermining our institutions
and ignoring both the Constitution and the law. I was beginning to doubt my
sanity, just like Ingrid Bergman in “Gaslight.” Only a handful of liberal
analysts with courage and integrity—Professors Turley, Dershowitz, Jacobson
and Althouse; journalist Glenn Greenwald, a few liberal pundits like Taibbi
and Andrew Sullivan (sometimes) kept me from self-commitment.
More from Taibbi, on Michael Flynn:
Warrantless surveillance, multiple illegal leaks of classified information,
a false statements charge constructed on the razor’s edge of Miranda, and
the use of never-produced, secret counterintelligence evidence in a domestic
criminal proceeding – this is the “rule of law” we’re being asked to cheer.
Russiagate cases were often two-level offenses: factually bogus or
exaggerated, but also indicative of authoritarian practices. Democrats and
Democrat-friendly pundits in the last four years have been consistently
unable to register objections on either front.
Flynn’s case fit the pattern. We were told his plea was just the “tip of the
iceberg” that would “take the trail of Russian collusion” to the “center of
the plot,” i.e. Trump. It turned out he had no deeper story to tell. In
fact, none of the people prosecutors tossed in jail to get at the Russian
“plot” – some little more than bystanders – had anything to share.
Nah, there’s no mainstream media bias.
Democrats have lately positioned themselves as more aggressive promoters of
strong-arm policies, from control of Internet speech to the embrace of
domestic spying. In the last four years the blue-friendly press has done a
complete 180 on these issues, going from cheering Edward Snowden to
lionizing the CIA, NSA, and FBI and making on-air partners out of
drone-and-surveillance all-stars like John Brennan, James Clapper, and
Michael Hayden. There are now too many ex-spooks on CNN and MSNBC to count,
while there isn’t a single regular contributor on any of the networks one
could describe as antiwar.
Democrats clearly believe constituents will forgive them for abandoning
constitutional principles, so long as the targets of official inquiry are
figures like Flynn or Paul Manafort or Trump himself. In the process, they’ve
raised a generation of followers whose contempt for civil liberties is now
genuine-to-permanent. Blue-staters have gone from dismissing constitutional
concerns as Trumpian ruse to sneering at them, in the manner of French
aristocrats, as evidence of proletarian mental defect.
Exactly.
Thank you.
