Episode 08: The Human Rights Concern Troll Industrial Complex
Added 2017-09-06 13:50:50 +0000 UTCWe discuss the cynical use of "human rights" to advance US interests with guest Glenn Greenwald.
The conceit that the U.S. has been a dedicated and earnest promoter of “freedom”, “democracy,” and “human rights” throughout the world — even if, at times, a “flawed” one — is a defining narrative, largely taken for granted by major media. But how accurate is this assumption? What do we mean when we talk about human rights? What abuses are highlighted and which aren’t? Where do labor rights fit into the broader discussion of human rights?
On this episode of Citations Needed, we attempt to parse some of these complex questions and how they fit into a broader discussions of soft power and war.
The Guest
Glenn Greenwald is a co-founding editor of The Intercept. He is a journalist, constitutional lawyer, and author of four New York Times best-selling books on politics and law. His most recent book, No Place to Hide, is about the U.S. surveillance state and his experiences reporting on the Snowden documents around the world. Prior to co-founding The Intercept, Glenn’s column was featured at The Guardian and Salon. Along with Laura Poitras, Foreign Policy magazine named him one of the top 100 Global Thinkers for 2013. The NSA reporting he led for The Guardian was awarded the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for public service.
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Show Notes
Media to Trump: Don’t Cozy Up to Dictators — Unless They’re the Right Dictators
Adam Johnson | May 17, 2017 | FAIR
Why Is The Daily Beast’s Russia Critic Silent About So Many Hideous Abuses?
Glenn Greenwald| October 29, 2015 | The Intercept
Hillary Clinton’s Friends and the Kissinger of Death
Nima Shirazi | September 8, 2014 | Wide Asleep in America
WaPo Worships Principled, Humanitarian McCain That’s Never Existed
Adam Johnson | July 24, 2017 | FAIR
Dumbstruck: A Deafening Silence in Defense of American Hypocrisy
Nima Shirazi | May 31, 2017 | Wide Asleep in America
Ideal Illusions: How the U.S. Government Co-opted Human Rights (Excerpt)
James Peck | 2010
Are Your Humanitarian Heartstrings Being Tugged in the Name of Empire?
James Peck | July 19, 2011 | Metropolitan Books/AlterNet
Human Rights Watch denying Palestinians the right to nonviolent resistance
Jonathan Cook | November 30, 2006 | The Electronic Intifada
Vultures over Iran: The Human Rights Campaign follows the money
Scott Long | June 24, 2014 | Paper Bird
Amnesty International Accuses Iraq of Atrocities in Kuwait
Glenn Frankel| December 19, 1990 | The Washington Post
January 15, 1992 | The New York Times
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Comments
I found them also published here: https://citationsneeded.libsyn.com/
2022-03-12 08:34:09 +0000 UTCWhere can I find the first 8 episodes?
emf 303
2021-09-21 20:58:55 +0000 UTCThis human rights trolling goes all the way back in fact. The lead up the the Spanish-American war was filled with this rhetoric. Jefferson Davis' wife and Robert E. Lee's nephew (a general himself) teamed up to demand the release of Evangelina Cisneros in a widely publicized and sensationalized episode. More proximately, senator Redfield Proctor visited Cuba on a 'humanitarian' mission and delivered a speech to Congress afterwards about the conditions which whipped them up to pass a joint resolution demanding Spain leave Cuba. All this to say, this has been America's strategy for developing popular support for war since day one
David Adcock
2017-09-06 19:35:23 +0000 UTCOne minor point: I don’t believe that the major human rights groups have deferred to Israeli gov claims regarding human shields. While the U.S. commentariat has, Amnesty is actually one of the few authoritative data sources for rebutting this specific, oft-peddled claim. It investigated the issue twice, finding evidence of the inverse — Israeli soldiers had overwhelmingly used Palestinians, including children, as human shields during recent incursions into Gaza. Their researchers found no evidence to corroborate claims that Hamas was doing the same. (2009, <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/download/Documents/48000/mde150152009en.pdf," rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://www.amnesty.org/download/Documents/48000/mde150152009en.pdf,</a> section 2.1; 2015, <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/download/Documents/MDE2111782015ENGLISH.PDF," rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://www.amnesty.org/download/Documents/MDE2111782015ENGLISH.PDF,</a> pgs. 47-49). Not sure about HRW on this specific issue, but I’ve never known them to be complete slouches on Israeli human rights abuses, even if they save most of their venom for Assad. But it ain’t like they’re the Oslo Freedom Forum.
Christian Stork
2017-09-06 19:16:02 +0000 UTC
