West censoring Russia in ways it never tried with USSR – Glenn Greenwald
Governments in the West are obsessed with hiding information from their own populations, going so far as to criminalize the platforming of media such as RT, journalist Glenn Greenwald has said.
In an interview with Tucker Carlson posted on Thursday, Greenwald pointed out that throughout the Cold War, the New York Times would publish speeches by Nikita Krhuschev, Leonid Brezhnev and other Soviet leaders, contrasting it with the current situation.
”Now it’s practically criminalized,” Greenwald told Carlson.
When the Russia-Ukraine conflict escalated in February 2022, “one of the very first steps [the EU] took legislatively was to ban the platforming, to criminalize the platforming of Russian media, like RT and Sputnik. They made it a crime, and YouTube immediately pulled it off because they didn't want their citizens hearing any information from the Russian perspective.”
“I mean, you can hate Russia, you can think Russia's evil, you can think whatever you want about Russia, but why wouldn't you want to hear from the other side?” Greenwald added.
Carlson noted that he listened to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s speech announcing the military operation, ahead of interviewing him earlier this year, calling it “remarkable.”
”Most Americans had no idea of his thinking” when it came to Ukraine, Carlson noted, wondering why they would choose to remain ignorant.
Carlson and Greenwald agreed that part of the reason is that “propaganda works,” with many of the people denouncing them as “Russian stooges” becoming convinced of the narratives relentlessly pushed by CNN and other outlets.
The 2021 impeachment of then-President Donald Trump, seemingly pointless at the time, was intended to prevent him from declassifying many documents that the US ruling establishment was “petrified” of and wanted to keep secret, according to Greenwald. He said that Trump “came very close” to pardoning WikiLeaks published Julian Assange and NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.
”But if your greatest fear is transparency, then you’re a criminal,” Carlson chimed in.
Greenwald was responsible for publishing some of Snowden’s revelations about Washington’s domestic spying program in 2013. The following year, he co-founded the Intercept, as a way to publish all of Snowden’s documents. He resigned in late 2020, accusing the outlet of becoming a shill for the Democrats. He currently lives in Brazil and has an online show called System Update.
Carlson had a long career in US cable news, culminating in a Fox News evening show that ruled the ratings between 2016 and April 2023, when he was sacked by the network for reasons never made public. He switched to using the X (formerly Twitter) platform soon after, eventually setting up the Tucker Carlson Network.
