An insightful piece at reclusive leftist on one of the most prominent  activists against torture….when it’s done by the government   – “libertarian” Glenn Greenwald.

Greenwald has been unmasked as a corporate/intelligence shill and Iraq war-promoter by his own leftist ex-fans.

Update: I have been asked to preface this post with a warning that readers may find it disturbing.)

When I posted a link to Glenn Greenwald’s column the other day, I was unaware of his history as an advocate for torturers. Greenwald has vigorously championed torturers’ rights, has explicitly privileged their version of events over that of their victims, and has asserted — in agreement with the torturers — that “no real pain was inflicted” on the victims.

Of course these aren’t the torturers at Gitmo or Abu Ghraib. It’s the film company of “Max Hardcore,” an extreme pornographer who grossly abused women while filming the proceedings for the entertainment of other men. Hardcore claims his victims were thrilled to be tortured, and Greenwald accepts this point of view unquestioningly.

Amazing what a difference gender makes, huh?

And if you’re thinking that it’s not a question of gender, that the real difference is between prisoners of war and allegedly volunteer performers, think again. I’ll help you:

Imagine that instead of Max Hardcore, we have a U.S. Army dude stationed in Iraq with a sideline in homemade porn. Imagine that this homemade porn is of a very special kind, involving Iraqi boys and young men off the streets, the ones who are scavenging in garbage dumps and living hand-to-mouth. Our imaginary Army pornographer offers these guys $20 each to be in a porn video. Many of them say yes — after all, $20 is a fortune for a street kid.

Each porn video consists of heavy-duty homosexual sadism and racism. The young Iraqi victim in each film is violently penetrated, choked, beaten, urinated on, masturbated on, fed his own feces, and forced to crawl on the floor while saying things like, “I’m a filthy sand n*****” and “Mohammed is a pig-f*****.” The Army pornographer screams racist epithets at the young victim throughout — that is, when he’s not too busy raping and kicking and pissing and force-feeding shit down the Iraqi’s throat. By the end of each video, the Iraqi victim is shrieking in pain and sobbing uncontrollably. When the camera finally shuts off, he collects his $20 and gets the hell out — shocked, shattered, humiliated to his core.

So think about that. Think about this imaginary series of homemade porn from Iraq, and imagine that it’s widely popular — on Army bases, stateside, anywhere white men enjoy fantasizing about torturing exploited Iraqis. How do you think people like Glenn Greenwald would react? Do you think Glenn would be talking loftily about the Army pornographer’s First Amendment rights? Do you think he would say that the videos are simply entertainment? That no harm is being done, to anyone? Would he insist that the central fact of the matter is that the Iraqis are exercising perfect free will? And that by honoring their desire to be humiliated and tortured for $20, he’s respecting them as people?

Of course not. If porn like that existed, there would be an uproar. C*****! People would throw up after 10 seconds of one video. What kind of sick shit is this? The racism! The hatred! The sheer breathtaking cruelty! And the whole surrounding exploitation — god! Paying these garbage dump kids all of $20 to be tortured! It’s too sick to believe. And what kind of insane people get off on this shit anyway? What’s wrong with them? Is our society really that vicious? Liberals all over the blogosphere would be writing long posts about the black heart of American fascism. And people like Glenn Greenwald would be saying that if this shit isn’t illegal somehow, then by god, we need to find a way to make it so.

That’s if the victims were men.

In the real world, of course, there is porn just like that: it’s what Max Hardcore specialized in. But his victims were female, you see. And that makes it okay. You can do anything to a woman — anything at all — and as long as some dude gets an orgasm out of it, it’s okay.

(And I cannot resist noting the extent to which the orgasm, in our current bizarro era of human-rights-as-defined-by-Larry-Flynt, has assumed preternatural importance as a kind of all-purpose salvific justification.

If you’re a guy who likes seeing women get beaten up and raped and mauled, but you don’t get any kind of sexual charge out of it, you’re a creep who hates women. But if it gives you an orgasm, then by god, it’s a healthy and beautiful thing. And anybody who says otherwise is a prude.)”

More here on the so-called “left-libertarian” alliance and what it really fronts for.