Glenn Greenwald:

To me, as a lawyer, if you think about why Robert Mueller was appointed, it’s because there were potential crimes committed during the 2016 elections. Thus far, he has indicted no American for any crimes in connection with the election. He’s indicted Russians for crimes in connection with the election, and he has indicted Americans for lying during the investigation, or over unrelated crimes like Manafort and his tax evasion and money laundering schemes, unrelated to the election. So, nothing in the past two weeks, or even in the past year, has changed my mind on whether there was criminality as part of the Trump campaign, and the 2016 election, and the Russians.

I thought this whole interview was worth reading for a number of reasons, not least of which is for the extent to which The Observer several times very openly accuses Greenwald of being offside. The Observer’s refusal to engage on the subject of Harding and Manafort was likewise significant to me.

I realized years (decades?) ago how foolish the injunction „If you’re not outraged you’re not paying attention“ was. Perpetual outrage seems as ill-advised as perpetual despair, shock, horror, etc. A nurse friend years ago told me of the black humor she and her colleagues used to deal with the emotions they experienced working with intense pain, suffering, death. The sort of dark humor and heavy irony I constantly see on social media seems as off the mark of „fully human“ attitudes as outrage.

I am drawn to the ways in which classical poets and artists dealt with this question. We are told Odysseus suffered great torment and struggled to join the sirens with all the strength he had. How might he have conditioned himself such that he might have remained untied, ears open, sane?


I originally posted this December 22, 2018. I still like it today.

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