( – promoted by buhdydharma )
While Julian Assange sits in a mansion celebrated for his release of U.S. State Department Official Cables the person who may have provided them sits in solitary confinement in Virginia. So the person who published the cables and who has become there public face is more important than Bradly Manning? Why is it that no one is celebrating or defending Bradly Manning? Why is it there no celebrity’s like say Micheal Moore who contributed $20,000 to Julian Asange’s bail have done nothing to publicize the plight of Bradly Manning? I guess it’s because he’s in the army and an American so he just doesn’t count.
Bradley Manning spent yesterday, his birthday, alone in a tiny, bare prison cell, without a pillow or sheets on his bed, in weak health and wracked with anxiety at the prospect of a prison sentence of 52 years.The young American soldier has faded into the background as international ructions continue over the hundreds of thousands of pieces of classified material from the US government that he is supposed to have supplied to WikiLeaks.
Now the fate of the whistleblowing website’s founder, Julian Assange, who has very much held the centre-stage, lies in the hands of the 23-year-old former army intelligence analyst.
So remember Julian Assange celebrity! Private Bradly Manning a nobody. The invisible man.
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I am with Eugene V. Debs on this:
Manning deserves at the very least writ of habeas corpus. As it is, he’s all but forgotten. Except that we have to keep his story alive.
with more details of manning’s circumstances in prison. deplorable. http://www.armycourtmartialdef…
Assange represents hope.
Hope that with enough public pressure things can be changed enough to stop things like Manning’s situation from happening, and hope that with enough public education things can be changed enough to get Manning released without charges?
Assange represents an avenue of activism.
?
And thank you! You are sooo correct to point out the absolute inequality of the situations of Assange and Manning! The sad part is that Manning has already been caught, while “they” are still trying to nail Assange.
I think there is some truth to what Edger has said just above.
Assange was/is a conduit for the conscience concerns of a young 22-year old — Assange represented hope for this soul of “moral guts” — you don’t have to look too hard to see that in the face of Bradley Manning. I believe he was so morally, emotionally and mentally shocked by that which he witnessed that he could do no other than what he did. It would have been, perhaps, worse, in a sense, for Manning, had he not been listened to and merely ignored.
Just as those who witnessed the heinous torture at Abu Ghraib, there were those who submitted photographs (proof) of the literal torture and heinous crimes that were being committed, because they were morally, emotionally and mentally shocked by that which they had witnessed.
Perhaps, there is HOPE for Bradley Manning through Assange! Assange has stated clearly he has no intention of reneging on his efforts as concerns WikiLeaks! BRAVO!
I am reminded of some poetry by James Kavanaugh. Although, this particular poetry references other situations, I think it could easily be applicable in the foregoing cirumstances!
“There Are Men Too Gentle to Live Among Wolves” (by James Kavanaugh)
There are Men Too Gentle to Live Among Wolves
“There are men too gentle to live among wolves
Who prey upon them with IBM eyes
And sell their hearts and guts for martinis at noon.
There are men to gentle for a savage world
Who dream instead of snow and children and Halloween
And wonder if the leaves will change their color soon.
There are men to gentle to live among wolves
Who anoint them for burial with greedy claws
And murder them for a merchant’s profit and gain.
There are men to gentle for a corporate world
Who dream instead of Easter eggs and fragrant grass
And pause to hear the distant whistle of a train.
There are men to gentle too live amount wolves
Who devour them with appetite and search
For other men to prey upon and such their childhood dry.
There are men to gentle for an accountant’s world
Who dream instead of Easter eggs and fragrant grass
And search for beauty in the mystery of the sky.
There are men too gentle to live among wolves
Who toss them like a lost and wounded dove
Such gentle men are lonely in a merchant’s world
Unless they have a gentle one to love.”
James Kavanaugh
Thank you, Mishima!