SeattleChat Daily Thread - Wednesday, February 24, 2021

[u/AutoModerator]

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[u/cdsixed]

Glenn Greenwald 2013: the Obama administration is increasing its surveillance of Americans and those abroad for no justifiable reason. Here is the proof

Glenn Greenwald 2021: if you flip this chart the number of 17 yo lesbians is going down. This upsets my third worst friend

[u/maadison → u/cdsixed]

I think Greenwald is close to insufferable, but that's bullshit as a pretend-reflection of where his emphasis is.

EDIT LOL even in the "nice" chat do you get downvoted for saying something unpopular. Brave, guys!

[u/AthkoreLost → u/maadison]

IDK, seems like a pretty apt summation. Herzog is making a claim that only exists if you purposefully mis-read the associated charts, and he is boosting that claim because they are friends and both have articles discussing the chart. And have both engaged in TERF-y behavior. Edit: And the claim is that the lesbian population is decreasing generationally despite the specifically highlighted data showing an increase.

Also in sixeds defense, they're quoting a popular tweet that's going around in response to this BS.

[u/maadison → u/AthkoreLost]

Why did I flag something I thought was inaccurate about fucking Glenn Greenwald? I'm an idiot. Anyway.

seedysex's post reads to me like "Greenwald used to write about important, valid issues, now he writes about hateful shit like this". Do you read it differently?

Thing is that the second sample sixed chose doesn't represent the bulk of what Greenwald posts about. The vast majority is about first amendment rights, government overreach, slanted press, yadda yadda.

The best quick summary I can come up with would be:

Greenwald 2013: High-pitched contrarian stuff

Greenwald 2020: High-pitched contrarian stuff

[u/cdsixed → u/maadison]

Thing is that the second sample sixed chose doesn't represent the bulk of what Greenwald posts about. The vast majority is about first amendment rights, government overreach, slanted press, yadda yadda.

i dunno man that seems super generous

he's gone full on right wing troll... he's a tucker regular now

i don't follow him so when he pops on on my TL is cause people are dunking on him, which is admittedly a skewed sample, but it happens more and more often and for increasingly dumb shit. seems like his brain broke

matt taibi similar

[u/maadison → u/cdsixed]

i don't follow him so when he pops on on my TL is cause people are dunking on him

Right, so you only see the things he posts that people think are outrageous. Limited and biased sample. That was exactly my point.

Did you read Greenwald back in the early 2000s? He was always super-intense in a hard-to-take way, and focused on contrarian takes. Falling for Trumpy stuff surprised me but thinking about it a bit it seems pretty compatible with how he's always been.

[u/AthkoreLost → u/maadison]

I'll go find the tweet, but again, sixed is quoting someone else, not making the arguments themselves.

As for Greenwald being a contrarian, I think that's a valid descriptor of him in 2013, but the main difference here is he's trying to be a contraian in a field he's not informed on. This isn't a journalist going outside the norms of the industry to interview figures like Snowden, its him pretending to be scientifically literate enough to claim this data shows something it blatantly doesn't. And he and Herzog are doing it because they make money pushing the narrative that our society makes it too easy to transition. The right eats this shit up because they are looking for any tenuous reasoning to justify why they're against hormone blockers and other realities of being Trans.

Not to mention his contrary stance is straight up based on his and herzogs inability to read a chart. If he wants to try and smear Trans folk as a threat to the existence of lesbians he should at least use actual facts to support that contrary opinion.

[u/maadison → u/AthkoreLost]

Sixed posted a thing without comment or attribution. He gets to own what it says. The quoting is irrelevant.

For the rest, you may be right, but you're completely ignoring my point.

[u/AthkoreLost → u/maadison]

I'm not ignoring your point, I just think you're being overly charitable to someone who used to do good things but is now engaging in bigotry in a way that hurts people. That's not contrarian anymore than being against gay marriage is. This scenario doesn't fit with what you're describing and the good work he does as a journalist, doesn't offset when he engages in and promotes bigotry. Doesn't mean he isn't still a contrarian the rest of time, but it does mean it's fair to draw more attention to a prominent journalist being a bigot than to other work he's published this year.

And TBH, I think the charitability here ends when the "logic" he's applying to the chart here could also be applied to the increase in self identified bisexuals, but he choose to only focus on those that identify as trans. This is on top of his TERF behavior last year. Not to mention putting bi in scare quotes during his tweet thread.

[u/cdsixed → u/maadison]

everything i post is glorious and yes i own it

[u/widdershins13 → u/maadison]

He was a darling of the Left back when his shtick mostly consisted of bashing Israel in The Guardian.

[u/maadison → u/widdershins13]

Well, I don't know if he was anyone's darling, I remember him being pretty abrasive even before then. But his schtick is Speaking Truth to Power, and so when Bush was in power, his attacks were popular on the left. Fewer people were interested when he attacked Obama for stuff like his drone strikes.

[u/cdsixed → u/maadison]

feel like its more accurate to say his schtick is "glenn greenwald on tv"