Stand up for Bradley Manning
WORLDWIDE DEMONSTRATIONS are planned this Saturday, July 27, in solidarity with Pfc. Bradley Manning. Details about a variety of forms of solidarity and event locations are available at www.bradleymanning.org. Anyone who wants to add their own event can register it directly on the website.
I'm writing to encourage you and your readers to publicize and support the demonstrations and campaign in any way they can.
According to the Bradley Manning Support Network, the final ruling will likely take place on or before Wednesday, July 31. But the judge's decisions on the defense's final motions for dismissal amid closing arguments to be presented this Thursday, July 25, will likely auger the results.
The Saturday demonstrations are set on the last weekend before the decision, the last weekend to take a stand before the case is closed. We should join with the campaign in making a final push.
Bradley Manning solidarity is connected to several major political issues of utmost importance. First is the question of the U.S. government's treatment of whistleblowers. Here, there is a direct connection with Edward Snowden and the National Security Agency (NSA) leaks, a story that has gripped and polarized the nation. Anyone appalled by the NSA and supportive of Snowden should stand with Manning.
This is not only a matter of freedom of the press and freedom of speech amid increasing encroachments by the Obama administration against these constitutionally sanctioned rights. It is also about the freedom to speak out against the sprawling and powerful bulwark of U.S. imperialism and its surveillance state established to protect the interests of the U.S. ruling class at home and abroad.
Second is the question of the hypocrisy and injustice of the U.S. system of incarceration. The judge didn't allow discussion of race in the courtroom of George Zimmerman's trial, but in the trial of Bradley Manning, the judge allowed the prosecution absurd degrees of leniency for dubious testimony and hate speech regarding Manning's gender.
Manning has been tortured prior to even being convicted--by the same system torturing Muslims at the U.S. prison camp in Guantánamo Bay, practicing the barbarities of force-feeding during Ramadan and worse. The masters of these blatantly criminal human rights violations not only walk freely, but run the country.
Finally, Manning has been systematically demonized and oppressed by both the military and the trial process for being a gay male and gender queer. The details of this are too diverse to count here, but are ample online. There is no question: feminists, LGBT activists and queer liberationists should be at the front lines of Manning solidarity.
SocialistWorker.org can play an outsize role in mobilizing and making its allies and audience aware of the actions and continue to take a principled stand on all of the key issues highlighted with its support. Everyone attending these demonstrations will have opportunities to meet like-minded people concerned and outraged by the U.S. government, especially regarding recent revelations afforded to us by Edward Snowden, and to build the movement further.
"Bradley Manning" ought to be a household name. It isn't yet. But let that not deter us from the importance of proactively keeping the flame for his freedom and the plight of all queers and whistleblowers alive.
Tom Azalea, from the Internet
