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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forums"You can only explain Bradley Manning by his virtues."
The Death of Truth by Chris Hedges (Interview with Julian Assange)http://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2013/05/06/the-death-of-truth-by-chris-hedges/
by Chris Hedges
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Truthdig
May 6, 2013
......
The world has been turned upside down. The pestilence of corporate totalitarianism is spreading rapidly over the earth. The criminals have seized power. It is not, in the end, simply Assange or Manning they want. It is all who dare to defy the official narrative, to expose the big lie of the global corporate state. The persecution of Assange and Manning is the harbinger of what is to come, the rise of a bitter world where criminals in Brooks Brothers suits and gangsters in beribboned military uniformspropped up by a vast internal and external security apparatus, a compliant press and a morally bankrupt political elitemonitor and crush those who dissent. Writers, artists, actors, journalists, scientists, intellectuals and workers will be forced to obey or thrown into bondage. I fear for Julian Assange. I fear for Bradley Manning. I fear for us all.
Mnemosyne
(21,363 posts)Luminous Animal
(27,310 posts)I have read.
randome
(34,845 posts)And this?
Writers, artists, actors, journalists, scientists, intellectuals and workers will be forced to obey or thrown into bondage.
Wow. To get from Bradley Manning to the death of society is quite the stretch. The whole thing sounds like he woke from a nightmare and jotted down everything that came to mind.
Luminous Animal
(27,310 posts)randome
(34,845 posts)Common Sense Party
(14,139 posts)That seems really high.
Luminous Animal
(27,310 posts)population estimate.
navarth
(5,927 posts)Once again, Hedges nails it.
Luminous Animal
(27,310 posts)Donald Ian Rankin
(13,598 posts)Every defence I've seen raised for him ignores the heart of the matter: he did not know what was in the papers he released.
He did not find evidence of wrongdoing and expose it, he just released a random collection of classified documents with no idea what was in them. He had no idea what was in them, and hence no idea who he would or wouldn't endanger by doing so, and - critically - no justification whatsoever for doing so.
He *wasn't* a whistleblower.
He took an oath not to do so, knowing what would happen to him if he broke it, and he should be jailed as a result.
leftynyc
(26,060 posts)so I'm going to let you know that at least one person (me) completely agrees with you.
Luminous Animal
(27,310 posts)Bradley Manning: or Guantanamo, Bagram, Bucca, Taji, VBC for that matter
Bradley Manning: things that would have an impact on 6.7 billion people
Bradley Manning: say a database of half a million events during the iraq war from 2004 to 2009 with reports, date time groups, lat-lon locations, casualty figures ? or 260,000 state department cables from embassies and consulates all over the world, explaining how the first world exploits the third, in detail, from an internal perspective?
Adrian Lamo: What sort of content?
Bradley Manning: uhm crazy, almost criminal political backdealings the non-PR-versions of world events and crises uhm all kinds of stuff like everything from the buildup to the Iraq War during Powell, to what the actual content of aid packages is: for instance, PR that the US is sending aid to pakistan includes funding for water/food/clothing that much is true, it includes that, but the other 85% of it is for F-16 fighters and munitions to aid in the Afghanistan effort, so the US can call in Pakistanis to do aerial bombing instead of americans potentially killing civilians and creating a PR crisis
Bradley Manning: theres so much it affects everybody on earth everywhere theres a US post theres a diplomatic scandal that will be revealed Iceland, the Vatican, Spain, Brazil, Madascar, if its a country, and its recognized by the US as a country, its got dirt on it
Adrian Lamo: what kind of scandal?
Bradley Manning: hundreds of them
Adrian Lamo: like what? Im genuinely curious about details.
Bradley Manning: uhmm the Holy See and its position on the Vatican sex scandals
Adrian Lamo: play it by ear
Bradley Manning: the broiling one in Germany
Bradley Manning: im sorry, theres so many its impossible for any one human to read all quarter-million and not feel overwhelmed and possibly desensitized
Bradley Manning: Apache Weapons Team video of 12 JUL 07 airstrike on Reuters Journos some sketchy but fairly normal street-folk and civilians
Bradley Manning: at first glance it was just a bunch of guys getting shot up by a helicopter no big deal about two dozen more where that came from right but something struck me as odd with the van thing and also the fact it was being stored in a JAG officers directory so i looked into it eventually tracked down the date, and then the exact GPS co-ord and i was like ok, so thats what happened cool then i went to the regular internet and it was still on my mind so i typed into goog the date, and the location and then i see this http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/13/world/middleeast/13iraq.html
Adrian Lamo: what do you consider the highlights?
Bradley Manning: The Gharani airstrike videos and full report, Iraq war event log, the Gitmo Papers, and State Department cable database
Recursion
(56,582 posts)To prove that he knew what he was releasing?
Luminous Animal
(27,310 posts)He said it was impossible for any one person to read them all without feeling desensitized.
SidDithers
(44,228 posts)Sid
randome
(34,845 posts)A tiny tip of the vast subterranean network of governmental and intelligence agencies from around the world dedicated to destroying WikiLeaks and arresting its founder, Julian Assange, appears outside...
This is what he calls the police trying to arrest him for skipping bail? Ugh.