When it comes to 1/6 and those who were at the Capitol, there is no middle ground. That playbook is not new. "Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists" was the rigidly binary choice which President George W. Bush presented to Americans and the world when addressing Congress shortly after the 9/11 attack. With that framework in place, anything short of unquestioning support for the Bush/Cheney administration and all of its policies was, by definition, tantamount to providing aid and comfort to the terrorists and their allies. There was no middle ground, no third option, no such thing as ambivalence or reluctance: all of that uncertainty or doubt, insisted the new war president, was to be understood as standing with the terrorists.
The coercive and dissent-squashing power of that binary equation has proven irresistible ever since, spanning myriad political positions and cultural issues. Dr. Ibram X. Kendi's insistence that one either fully embrace what he regards as the program of "anti-racism” or be guilty by definition of supporting racism — that there is no middle ground, no space for neutrality, no room for ambivalence about any of the dogmatic planks — perfectly tracks this manipulative formula. As Dr. Kendi described the binary he seeks to impose: “what I'm trying to do with my work is to really get Americans to eliminate the concept of 'not racist’ from their vocabulary, and realize we're either being racist or anti-racist." Eight months after the 1/6 riot — despite the fact that the only people who died that day were Trump supporters and not anyone they killed — that same binary framework shapes our discourse, with a clear message delivered by those purporting to crush an insurrection and confront domestic terrorism. You're either with us, or with the 1/6 terrorists.
ADDED: I tried to trace down the original source of the old slogan "If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem." I got some conflicting results but it's popular to attribute it to a line in Eldridge Cleaver's "Soul on Ice" and say that was misquoted.
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53 comments:
I haven't found the audio or transcript, but hourly radio news played a clip of Biden saying to families of fallen police officers that we owe a special debt to the officers who died defending the country from the January 6th insurrectionists.
The buffalo horn menace.
Maybe the quote is a variation of Jesus's warning that no man can serve two masters?
"Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists" was the rigidly binary choice which President George W. Bush presented to Americans and the world
And as We ALL Know... The Two Days Most similar in History (US History, anyway)...Were
9/11 (~3000 Americans killed by foreign terrorists)
and
1/6 (ONE American Killed by an out of Control Federal Officer)
The two are Peas in a Pod
I’m cool with Kendi’s binary. I’m anti-racist. And the first thing that I notice as an anti-racist, is that Kendi is a racist.
In your day the expression was also “Stick it to the man”. Now that all y’all are the man you like to stick it to everyone who disagrees with you.
Y’all are a bunch of phonies.
If you're not part of the solution you're probably a woman.
"anything short of unquestioning support for the Bush/Cheney administration and all of its policies was, by definition, tantamount to providing aid and comfort to the terrorists and their allies. There was no middle ground, no third option"
I realize Greenwald is trying to talk to lefties, but still: I call BS. From the outset, lots of people questioned the War on Terror, including one Barry Obama, if I recall, who made a pretty good career out of taking the "third option."
That is a very good column by Greenwald. Isn't it interesting how people of the left like Greenwald and Tabbibi are seeing this metamorphosis and the corporate media do not see or are not interested? I am re-evaluating some of my beliefs from the early 2000s.
I like Chemists' take on that line, about being part of the precipitate.
@Sebastian 'From the outset, lots of people questioned the War on Terror, including one Barry Obama, if I recall, who made a pretty good career out of taking the "third option."' You're kidding, no? Maybe you don't understand how Washington DC works. Mr. Barack Obama became President of the United States, claiming his opposition to how Pres. Bush was carrying on the war. Then began carrying on the war himself with his own tweaks (Afghanistan! Libya!) The Democrats opposed the way the war was being handled, just enough to defeat the Republicans, never ever on a vote that counted in any way.
Undercover FBI agents and false flag antifa terrorists.... they get to operate with impunity.
"If you have a problem figuring out whether you're for me or Trump, then you ain't black" - Candidate Joe Biden, May 2020.
In both 9/11 and 1/6, locking the door would have solved the problem and saved us (in the first instance) from the Patriot Act, the TSA, and the nightmare that air travel is today.
Oh, and thousands of U.S. lives, too.
From the article -- "The few 1/6 defendants who have thus far been sentenced after pleading guilty have been subjected to exceptionally punitive sentences, the kind liberal criminal justice reform advocates have been rightly denouncing for years. Several convicted of nothing more than trivial misdemeanors are being sentenced to real prison time; last week, Michigan's Robert Reeder pled guilty to 'one count of parading, demonstrating or picketing in a Capitol building” yet received a jail term of 3 months ...'"
idk. three months doesn't really shock my conscience.
He was charged with at least one felony.
https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/case-multi-defendant/file/1371496/download
https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/case-multi-defendant/file/1424661/download
He pled to a misdemeanor pursuant to a plea agreement. The felony counts were dismissed. Glenn is being disingenuous to ignore the initial charges and suggest that everyone thinks his actions were trivial. He admitted that "we had to battle with the police inside" He told an officer that "you need to retreat."
Three months? I'd be thanking my lawyer.
"If you have a problem figuring out whether you're for me or Trump, then you ain't black" - Candidate Joe Biden, May 2020."
Only a Sith Lord believes in absolutes.
This is another very poor column by Greenwald.
When President George W. Bush was talking about “You are either with us or against us” in the 2001 war on terror, he wasn’t talking about an observation relating to his fellow Americans or domestic politics. He was talking about other nations, and external regions of the world which were then seen as problematic for international terrorism. Here is the entire paragraph from the Bush speech delivered to the Joint Session of Congress on September 20th of 2001:
“Our response involves far more than instant retaliation and isolated strikes. Americans should not expect one battle, but a lengthy campaign, unlike any other we have ever seen. It may include dramatic strikes, visible on TV, and covert operations, secret even in success. We will starve terrorists of funding, turn them
one against another, drive them from place to place, until there is no refuge or no rest. And we will pursue nations that provide aid or safe haven to terrorism. Every nation, in every region, now
has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with
the terrorists. From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime.”
So as for any official policy of, “You’re for us or against us” in the context of the January 6 insurrection, what we see is public, transparent federal court due process being applied. The defendants have counsel. That is, for the ones who aren’t trying to defend themselves while providing testimony which implicates themselves in additional felonies. Let’s go, Brandon!
But let’s not allow the stupidity and the futility and the incompetence of the January 6 rioters diminish their criminality. They wanted to overthrow the regular processes of Congress. And they wanted to see Donald Trump installed for another term. Voiding the 2020 election. And of course many of them wanted to “Hang Mike Pence!”
So yeah; if you are “with” those folks, you are against the United States of America. If you are “pledging allegiance” before a flag that is represented to have been flown by the insurrectionists at their riot, and precisely because that flag had that provenance, you’re not “with” the United States of America.
If you are calling Ashli Babbitt a “Patriot” for her role in the violent insurrection, you’re not with the United States of America. If, in the year 2021, you are calling the national general election of 2020 “stolen,” “rigged,” and “a fraud,” you’re not with the United States of America.
Joe is at 36% approval in polls oversampling leftists heavily.
The team is having a meeting about the vaccine mandate tomorrow.
I am going to speak up for the people I have been on the phone with, some in tears, about losing their livelihood over Joe's Fascist attempt.
The corporations are going to have to make a choice between their employees and this forced government alliance.
And I am going to call out the kneelers.
Enough is enough.
Scanning the NYTimes today, I saw highlighted at the top their past stories about Jan 6, using images of protesters clearly chosen to portray evil and the demonic. The Times is squeezing every last drop of propaganda value out of it. I value the Times for stories in the arts or science; they had a good story today about hospice care. But anything on politics is useless. It's just party propaganda.
Glenn Greenwald’s careening from left-wing bomb-throwing to Trump-wing bomb throwing reminds me very much of David Brock’s careening from right-wing bomb-throwing to left-wing bomb-throwing.
I think that there is likely something mentally deranged with these guys. These aren’t normal political evolutions.
Chuck will not like this one bit.
Excellent article.
As the US is going from a high trust society to a medium trust society, I have gone through the same journey.
20 years ago I would never imagined what has happened.
The depth of corruption and the "Resistance" against Trump, by both parties, still astonishes me. Not to mention how much influence China has in the US.
The FBI spying on a sitting President.
The use of NSA Materials / Information for political purposes.
The stealing of a Presidential Election so blatantly, to force in a Biden that has dementia.
How Zuckerberg spent around $500 Million to help purchase Biden becoming President, and it was not enough, so blatant cheating was needed.
Critical Race Theory being pushed by Private, Government, and Education. Unbelievable.
And how we have two systems of justice.
And how what happened has been ignored for the most part by the Media, Judiciary, and both parties.
Of course 20 years ago I would have never imagined Trump becoming President.
Blogger Achilles said...
Joe is at 36% approval in polls oversampling leftists heavily.
...
The TrumpCult mouth breathers have been howling about that one outlier poll for more than a week. The balanced average of current polls show Biden’s now-reduced approval ratings (44%+) as just a little bit better than... almost all of Trump’s numbers over four years.
MikeR: "Democrats opposed the way the war was being handled"
Hence, a third option was available. Hence, Greenwald was wrong. Of course, far be it from me to carry water for Dems. So take it easy.
Chuck,
Does anything Greenwald has said recently strike you as "mentally deranged"? Anything at all? Well, OK, then.
At the moment he strikes me as about the sanest and most unfailingly articulate political commentator out there. And notice that he ties what he says now to what he has said earlier, about the first WOT and the like. I doubt very much that his own views have changed much, if at all; it's the political surrounds that are now entirely different.
"The balanced average of current polls show Biden’s now-reduced approval ratings (44%+) as just a little bit better than... almost all of Trump’s numbers over four years."
Trump had constant (and in some cases, well deserved) negative press. Biden has a press corp that sees itself as a Praetorian Guard. If Biden had got the same sort of coverage as Trump, 36% would be the high point.
"The TrumpCult mouth breathers have been howling about that one outlier poll for more than a week."
That's amazing since the Zogy poll was just published October 14th.
From the link:
https://zogbyanalytics.com/news/1047-the-zogby-poll-president-biden-s-job-performance
"Our latest polling shows President Biden with a 36% positive job performance rating (excellent-15% and good-21% combined), while his negative rating is 61% (fair-19% and poor-42% combined)...... The party breakdown for this survey is as follows: 38% Democrat, 38% Republican and 24% Independent/unaffiliated."
Pro-msrxist pro-CRT Biden voter LLR Chuck: "The balanced average of current polls..."
Is so statistically unsound as a viable metric that only the most mathematically illiterate amongst us would attempt to use it to buttress a point.
Lets just say LLR Chuck is 100% on board with the obama/Klain 3rd term agenda of Carter-level stagflation, open borders, empowering America's enemies, etc.
Not a surprise of course. As a left wing democratical, LLR Chuck literally called obama "magnificent".
"Magnificent"!
Greenwald is an honest guy: he has changed his front, but not his ground.
Chuck said:
Glenn Greenwald’s careening from left-wing bomb-throwing to Trump-wing bomb throwing ...
Chuck calling Greenwald "Trump-wing" is a perfect illustration of exactly what Greenwald is writing about. If one reads Greenwald with any comprehension at all, such a characterization is ridiculous. But in Chucks's black-and-white world, Greenwald has agreed with the "other" side about one thing, which makes him a traitor and therefore wrong about everything.
The black-and-white thinking is visible on both sides, but Chuck's is such a clear example that it begs for attention. OTOH, I am starting to seriously consider that he may be a long-running troll. No actual human could be so consistently insight-free.
"If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem."
That coercive line of reasoning has morphed into something even harsher,
-------------
so is this how did Hitler come up with solution to the Jew problem
Pro-marxist pro-CRT Biden voter LLR Chuck: "Glenn Greenwald’s careening from left-wing bomb-throwing to Trump-wing bomb throwing reminds me very much of David Brock’s careening from right-wing bomb-throwing to left-wing bomb-throwing."
Greenwald has remained absolutely consistent and principled for the entirety of his career.
He has never deviated.
Only the moron leftists attack him for that consistency....which perfectly describes LLR Chuck.
It would be easy to grab something Greenwald wrote yesrs ago and sbow if it diverged from what he writes now....so easy you have to ask why LLR Chuck didnt do that.
Hint: LLR Chuck is a liar.
Pretty simple really.
Pro-marxist Pro-CRT Biden voter LLR Chuck: "I think that there is likely something mentally deranged with these guys. These aren’t normal political evolutions."
Case in point:
Pro-marxist Pro-CRT Biden voter LLR Chuck in 2016: I am the true and principled lifelong republican conservative!!
Pro-marxist Pro-CRT Biden voter LLR Chuck from 2016 thru today: Vote for democrats at all levels for the next 40 years to "conserve conservatism"
Clearly, that was no "normal evolution" nor even an evolution at all. Rather, just another lefty flying under a false flag.
No amount of "Eddie Haskell"-like suckup posts to Althouse can wipe away that explicit and well documented history.
By the way, is there anything funnier than the leftist FakeCon grifters at the lefty funded Dispatch having an "intellectual" and "principled" feather fight with other leftist FakeCon grifters at the lefty funded Bulwark about where those 25 or so openly leftist (like Charley Sykes, Mac Boot, David French, Tom Nichols, open pedophile Weaver et al) grifters should throw their...."considerable" political "clout" (wink wink) in future elections?
No, there isnt much funnier, and hilariously pathetic, than that.
And spoiler: they are all voting democrat and far left democrat.
"Unexpectedly"......
This Just In:
Assistant House sergeant-at-arms arrested on child pornography charges
https://t.co/IlPrHahqdr
Looks like someone was really hoping to team up with George "The Walrus" Conway, Ric Wilson, Steve Schmidt and the rest of the Pedophile Cover Up Gang at The Lincoln Pedophile Project.
Chuck said:They wanted to overthrow the regular processes of Congress. And they wanted to see Donald Trump installed for another term. Voiding the 2020 election.
Biden's FBI said (paraphrasing): We see no evidence of a conspiracy.
How can you know what protestors wanted to do it there is no evidence of a conspiracy and hence no evidence of their intent?
I am not a man of the left, but I always respected lefties who had documented proof of government malfeasance and wrote about it. Facts are facts and we should all bow to them. It is terrific that lefties are still writing about government malfeasance when the government is a leftist operation. People like Chuck are not respected by credible people on the left or the right. He appears to be a low-IQ follower of the left media's narrative.
If, in the year 2021, you are calling the national general election of 2020 “stolen,” “rigged,” and “a fraud,” you’re not with the United States of America.
Good for you. I suppose you think anyone calling the national general election of 2016 “stolen,” “rigged,” and “a fraud” due to "Russian collusion", you’re not with the United States of America. At least then you'd have consistent principles, like Greenwald.
A Greenwald flat out lie:
With those extremist and alarming premises fully implanted, there has been little tolerance for questions about whether proposed responses for dealing with the 1/6 “domestic terrorists" and their incomparably dangerous ideology are excessive, illegal, unethical, or unconstitutional. Even before Joe Biden was inaugurated, his senior advisers made clear that one of their top priorities was to enact a bill from Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) — now a member of the Select Committee on 1/6 — to import the first War on Terror onto domestic soil. Even without enactment of a new law, there is no doubt that a second War on Terror, this one domestic, has begun and is growing, all in the name of the 1/6 "Insurrection" and with little dissent or even public debate.
Adam Schiff's bill did.not.pass. Worse, the domestic terror war was begun by Donny Trumpists exploiting the Big Lie in an attempt to overthrow an election.
Blogger mishu said...
If, in the year 2021, you are calling the national general election of 2020 “stolen,” “rigged,” and “a fraud,” you’re not with the United States of America.
Good for you. I suppose you think anyone calling the national general election of 2016 “stolen,” “rigged,” and “a fraud” due to "Russian collusion", you’re not with the United States of America. At least then you'd have consistent principles, like Greenwald.
Since I made none of those claims regarding 2016, it’s not a problem for me. Find some other sucker.
Blogger mishu said...
If, in the year 2021, you are calling the national general election of 2020 “stolen,” “rigged,” and “a fraud,” you’re not with the United States of America.
Good for you. I suppose you think anyone calling the national general election of 2016 “stolen,” “rigged,” and “a fraud” due to "Russian collusion", you’re not with the United States of America. At least then you'd have consistent principles, like Greenwald.
Since I made none of those claims regarding 2016, it’s not a problem for me. Find some other sucker.
>> If, in the year 2021, you are calling the national general election of 2020 “stolen,” “rigged,” and “a fraud,” you’re not with the United States of America.
If, in the year 2021, you ignore the massive fraud of "mail in" ballots with no verification at all, then you are not living in reality.
Drago said...
Looks like someone was really hoping to team up with George "The Walrus" Conway, Ric Wilson, Steve Schmidt and the rest of the Pedophile Cover Up Gang at The Lincoln Pedophile Project.
10/17/21, 11:20 PM
Someone from Lawton, Michigan? Heard they have real problems with boy-hungry sickos down there.
The difference between the two systems of justice is most stark in the context of the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation hearings. The judiciary is a co-equal branch of government, and trying to stop the confirmation of a new justice seems pretty equivalent to the notion that the 1/6 protesters were trying to stop the certification of the 2020 election. Yet only one of these protests triggered a crackdown on the protestors, and the other gets memory-holed. I wonder why that is?
Did this blog even have a tag for Glenn Greenwald, pre-Trump (and more precisely around 2017, when Greenwald’s Trump-wing conversion was most apparent)?
I looked, and it appears that the tag is quite recent. The reason that I looked was to see what this blog’s commenters we’re saying about Glenn Greenwald back in 2009-2016 when he was writing for Salon and The Guardian and saying things like, "I think the Trump White House lies more often. I think it lies more readily. I think it lies more blatantly."
Blogger DanTheMan said...
>> If, in the year 2021, you are calling the national general election of 2020 “stolen,” “rigged,” and “a fraud,” you’re not with the United States of America.
If, in the year 2021, you ignore the massive fraud of "mail in" ballots with no verification at all, then you are not living in reality.
I want that to be the main subject of debate every day between now and Election Day, 2022. And then again until 2024.
I was certain animal skin dude was going to over-throw the election. and a bunch of people without guns, too! yikes.
whew! we came so close to insurrection.... and W A R!
Chuck - Greenwald is not in Trump's camp. That you think it, reveals more about you and your new found blind faith in the party of sellouts named Kristol.
fizzymagic 9:58 - nails it.
Chuck stands should er to shoulder with corrupt Pelosi family international grift, corrupt Biden family international grift and corrupt Clinton family international grift.
Chuck also stands shoulder to shoulder with creeps like Clapper and Brennan who are paid whores and liars on the paid whore and liar network called CNN.
Wikipedia has an entry on the idea that "if you're not with us, you're against us."
The Synoptic Gospels attribute the following quote to Jesus: "Whoever is not with Me is against Me, and whoever does not gather with Me scatters" (Matthew 12:30), as well as the corresponding statement, "Whoever is not against us is for us" (Luke 9:50; Mark 9:40).[5]
There are apparently people who believe that pointing out Biden's incompetence is the same as loving the Donald. It isn't. I didn't vote for Orange the Clown in either election, and even I can see the shit show that is the Biden Administration for what it is. Does that suddenly make me a mouth breathing Trumpist? Or does it just mean I am dealing with the world as it is, not as I wish it to be? Either way, dismissing people as "in the Trump camp" will not alter the mess we are in.
High on my de-list: The right side of history.
The Democrats opposed the way the war was being handled, just enough to defeat the Republicans, never ever on a vote that counted in any way.
Now do the Republicans on Obamacare.
Glenn Greenwald back in 2009-2016 when he was writing for Salon and The Guardian and saying things like, "I think the Trump White House lies more often. I think it lies more readily. I think it lies more blatantly."
OK, this has to be a parody account. Sorry I responded at face vaue.
gadfly said...
A Greenwald flat out lie
And then you don’t list any lie. Greenwald doesn't say the Schiff bill passed. And his claim that the “War on Terror” has gone domestic is an expression of opinion, and thus not a lie. Just as your claim that Trump made the “War on Terror” domestic is an opinion.
You gotta up your propaganda game. That was just pathetic.
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