Two Washington Babylon reporters, Andrew Stewart and Tony Belletier, and I have been writing about “Glenn Greenwald, Other Useful Idiots & Cancel Culture” all week long. I had planned to write a summary of the series today but I’m still processing all the feedback, so I’ll write that up on Monday.
A caveat: Monday’s story might be paywalled — I’m not sure yet — and available only to Washington Babylon supporters, of any dollar amount. We want to keep Washington Babylon free but we need financial support to do that. We’ve received a number of new contributions this week via Patreon (monthly supporters) and PayPal (one-time donors), but we need more to remain a free publication. So, please, if you can contribute anywhere between $1 or $1 million (hey, why not aim high?), please click on one of those links and donate NOW!
Anyway, for today I’m just going to post this story, about a great song by one of my favorite musicians, Kanye West, a true genius and in my view — and this is obvious to everyone except those (white) people who have never heard hip hop — one of the great lyricists and producers of all time.
Obviously, Kanye did not write an “eerie tribute” to Greenwald (henceforth GG) but his song “Hands On” sounds like it was written about him, based on this one line anyway: “Nothing worse than a hypocrite.”
Why is GG a hypocrite? Well, as I wrote yesterday — in a story titled Glenn Greenwald Hates the Tech Oligarchy! OK, but How Did the World’s Biggest Hypocrite Get Rich From Tech Oligarch Money? — Greenwald claims to hate the tech oligarchy but has literally made millions from it, including money from his Substack (henceforth, if I refer to it again, SS) and at least $2 million from “philanthropist” Pierre Omidyar, who in 2013 founded First Look Media, publisher of The Intercept.
But today, I want to chill so I’m just going to pay a brief tribute to Kanye. He’s got issues, like me, which I hope he deals with, but he’s a genius and an absolute original. Click on this link to read the lyrics to Hands On, a great song though not on my Top 25 Kanye Songs List. You can also listen to the full song — and the relevant section about Glenn’s incredible hypocrisy — I mean, hypocrisy — at that link. You want the videotape? I got it.
In closing, the Washington Post had an interesting story about GG today. An excerpt:
In recent days, Greenwald has renewed his feud with the Intercept, engaging in an increasingly bitter war of words. On Twitter and on Fox News, where Greenwald appears frequently, he has accused the publication of exposing private citizens to online harassment through two articles. One was a lengthy exposé of the “Riot Squad,” a group of conservative journalists who shoot video of violent episodes at BLM protests; the second analyzed hacked data about users of Gab, a social media platform favored by white supremacists and other extremists.
“This is repulsive,” Greenwald tweeted to his 1.6 million Twitter followers about the Gab story. He added an expletive to describe his former workplace.
Greenwald’s ex-colleagues at the Intercept say that he has lied about their work. Worse, they say, his attacks have helped stir an angry and dangerous reaction in right-wing circles, leading to harassment of some of the publication’s journalists — the very thing Greenwald accused the Intercept of inciting. In the wake of Greenwald’s criticism, the author of the Gab story was threatened and “doxed,” meaning his personal information was exposed online. It prompted the publication to assign a security detail to him and his wife.
Staffers suggest Greenwald, 54, is motivated by more than just psychic payback for his acrimonious divorce from the Intercept seven months ago. They say he is cynically fomenting controversy to attract subscribers to his online newsletter.
By the way, the Post story included a link to GG’s SS. I took it out. I have no intention of promoting this repellent hack and Crypto Fash leader. My goal, as I have said before, is to help push him — and he’s the main driver of this so in a way I am supporting him — into the right-wing ghetto where he belongs.
Enjoy, have a great weekend and see you Monday.
