The Convergence of Glenn Greenwald and Rand Paul’s “Southern Avenger”
Former Rand Paul adviser Jack Hunter, in his “Southern Avenger” mask.In the middle of a pretty fascinating rant about Bruce Fein (who is acting as Lon Snowden’s lawyer, Lon being Edward’s father) on NSFW, I saw something that actually made me lose some more respect for Greenwald, which I didn’t think was possible. His associations with the racist Pauls is pretty bad, but they at least are part of an actual power structure and you can make a case for working with them on legislation.
But the article, rather casually, revealed that Glenn Greenwald had been a speaker on something fatuously named The Young American Liberty Tour “with three civil liberties experts,” titled “The War on Terrorism, Civil Liberties, and the Constitution’.”
That’s a lot of liberty.
The other two experts were that selfsame Bruce Fein, a weird perpetual GOP sleazeball, and Jacob Hornberger, who thinks the US was better off before the Civil War.
The real 5-alarm bell-ringer, though, was the moderator, Jack Hunter, the goddamn luchador of the losers, the Southern Avenger.
The topics covered were:
Habeas corpus, the PATRIOT Act, extraordinary rendition, torture, regime change, and a general discussion about how the war on terrorism has infringed upon the rights of U.S. citizens in the name of making us safe.
I do not think the agenda was big on voting rights, anti-discrimination (since I know that Hornberger supports the right of businesses to discriminate) or other civil liberties for black people.
I do not understand how any man with any shred of integrity as a ‘civil rights’ speaker can share the stage with someone named the Southern Avenger. Even the Southern Defender, I could slightly imagine. But vengeance implies someone who thinks a wrong has been done to the South, that there is some reckoning against the enemies of the South that has to come. And that is the really fucking scary kind of racism.
If people do think the NSA story is super-important, they should be hoping beyond hope that Glenn Greenwald gets distracted by something else. He is a horrible journalist and a worse advocate.
