by MARK GABRISH CONLAN
Copyright © 2013 by Mark Gabrish Conlan for Zenger’s
Newsmagazine • All rights reserved
“Americans Have a
Right to Know”
“I Am Bradley
Manning”
“Bradley Manning,
American Hero”
“You Are the
Resistance”
+and+cop.A.jpg)
Gabe Conaway (right)
and a police officer
Anoki
Brendan
Michael
A committed
group of about 75 San Diego activists turned out on the corner of Sixth and
University in Hillcrest Tuesday afternoon, July 30, to protest the conviction
of Army Private First Class Bradley Manning on 19 of 21 counts, including
espionage, for his role in leaking classified material for print and Internet
publication. Manning’s case has been a cause célèbre since he was arrested three years ago and charged
with releasing U.S. diplomatic documents and footage of American soldiers
allegedly committing war crimes in Iraq to the WikiLeaks Web site.
Manning became a
controversial figure, hailed as a hero by some Americans and denounced as a
traitor by others. During the three years he was held in prison before trial,
he was put in solitary confinement, his clothes were taken away and he was
forced to sleep naked, uncovered, on a concrete floor. U.S. authorities said
this was done to prevent Manning from committing suicide.
Variously
identified as a Gay man and a male-to-female Transgender person — Manning
reportedly embraced a female identity, “Brianna,” in some of his e-mails to
friends before he was arrested and cut off from virtually any contact with the
outside world — Manning has been hailed as a “Queero” by progressives and
radicals in the Queer community. He’s also frequently been compared to Edward
Snowden, who earlier this year leaked the National Security Agency’s (NSA)
collection of records of virtually every telephone call made in the U.S. — and
who fled the U.S. after his leaks, first to Hong Kong and then to Russia,
rather than face Manning’s fate.
During his
court-martial before Col. Denise Lind — Manning and his attorney, David Coombs,
chose to have him tried by a single judge rather than the usual panel — she
acquitted him of the most serious charge against him, “aiding the enemy,” which
could have meant a sentence of life without the possibility of parole. But the
charges on which he was convicted could
carry a sentence of up to 138 years, which in practice would amount to the same
thing. “We won the battle, but we need to go out and win the war,” Coombs said
in a post about the verdict on the Bradley Manning Support Network Web page, www.bradleymanning.org. “Today is a
good day, but Bradley is by no means out of the fire.”
The July 30
rally in San Diego was put on by the San Diego Coalition to Free Bradley Manning in association with other progressive, peace
and Queer organizations. It was MC’d by local organizer Gabe Conaway of Canvass
for a Cause (CFAC), who was able to include not only live speakers but also
statements of support for Manning from organizations and individuals all over
the world. Among them were the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Amnesty
International, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, Manning’s family, and
investigative journalists Glenn Greenwald (who did the interview with Edward
Snowden that led to the revelation that the NSA is spying 24/7 on the phone
calls of all Americans) and Jeremy Scahill.
Conaway kicked
off the rally by reading the statement from the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy and
Technology Project, Ben Wizner. “While we’re relieved that Mr. Manning was
acquitted of the most dangerous charge, the ACLU has long held the view that
leaks to the press in the public interest should not be prosecuted under the
Espionage Act,” Wizner said. “Since [Manning] already pleaded guilty to charges
of leaking information — which carry significant punishment — it seems clear
that the government was seeking to intimidate anyone who might consider
revealing valuable information in the future.”
The first live
speaker, veteran San Diego Queer attorney Charlie Pratt, picked up on that
theme when he called Manning’s court-martial a “show trial.” “The Obama
administration wanted to put Bradley Manning’s head on a pike as a warning to
us all,” Pratt said. He called for a campaign of letters and e-mails to the
Public Affairs Office of Major General Jeffery Buchanan, who as the so-called
“convening authority” of Manning’s court-martial has the authority to reduce
Manning’s sentence after Judge Lind imposes it. Buchanan can be e-mailed at jeffrey.s.buchanan@us.army.mil
or reached by phone at (202) 685-2900. He also suggested that people picket
military bases to demand justice for Manning: “I live near Miramar and there’s
a place to vent your feelings about the military.”
Local activist
Anoki read a statement from Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, who called the
verdict against Manning “the first-ever espionage conviction against a
whistleblower. It is a dangerous precedent and an example of national security
extremism. It is a short-sighted judgment that cannot be tolerated and must be
reversed. It can never be that conveying true information to the public is
‘espionage.’ … The Obama administration has been chipping away democratic
freedom in the United States. With today’s verdict, Obama has hacked off much
more. The administration is intent on deterring and silencing whistleblowers,
intent on weakening freedom of the press. The U.S. First Amendment states that
‘Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech, or of the
press.’ What part of ‘no’ does Barack Obama fail to comprehend?”
Philip Rockwell,
radio personality who hosted a show on the now-defunct Air America affiliate in
San Diego, pointed to a statement Obama posted on his Web site, change.gov,
during his first Presidential campaign in 2008 praising whistleblowers. The
statement, which was quietly removed from the Obama site in June 2012, said,
“Often, the best source of information about waste, fraud and abuse in
government is an existing government employee committed to public integrity and
willing to speak out. Such acts of courage and patriotism, which can sometimes
save lives and often save taxpayers’ dollars, should be encouraged rather than
stifled. We need to empower federal employees as watchdogs of wrongdoing and
partners in performance. Barack Obama will strengthen whistleblowing laws to
protect federal workers who expose waste, fraud and abuse of authority in
government. Obama will make sure federal agencies expedite the process for
reviewing whistleblowers’ claims, and ensure whistleblowers have full access to
federal courts and due process.”
Obama’s record
as President, Rockwell said, has been exactly the opposite. “There has been no
‘change’ whatsoever” from the anti-whistleblower policies of the George W. Bush
administration, he claimed. “When we elected the President on the basis of
‘change,’ it’s not ‘change’ to drop bombs from drones on civilians.” Rockwell
also argued that the mainstream corporate media have served the cause of the
national security state by “dumbing down” the American people and getting them
to accept gross violations of their constitutionally protected civil liberties.
“Bradley Manning
is a hero,” Rockwell said. “He showed us things the Bush crime family should
have shown us. He showed us films of [U.S. soldiers gunning down Iraqi] people
who had cameras — not guns — slung across their backs. The people who did that one are walking around free. The Bush crime family
is walking around free. Bradley Manning chose to tell the truth because the
mainstream media have been taken over. The media are spinning [the Manning
case] the way Obama wants it spun.”
Holly
Hellerstedt of CFAC read a statement from the Center for Constitutional Liberties,
which represents WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, Glenn Greenwald, Jeremy Scahill and
other journalists and activists challenging the U.S. military establishment.
The Center’s statement pointed out that the 1917 Espionage Act under which
Manning was convicted “is a discredited relic of the World War I era, created
as a tool to suppress political dissent and anti-war activism, and it is
outrageous that the government chose to invoke it in the first place against
Manning. Government employees who blew the whistle on war crimes, other abuses
and government incompetence should be protected under the First Amendment.”
“Watching and
listening to the Bradley Manning verdicts on [Amy Goodman’s radio program and
video Webcast] Democracy Now! was
frustrating,” said Chris West of the San Diego Coalition to Free Bradley
Manning. This was because his acquittal on the “aiding the enemy” charge was
announced first — then his conviction on almost all the other charges. “Bradley
Manning took the chance of having one person decide his sentence,” West explained. “He put his neck on the
line and he may get 138 years in prison. The good news is he’s successfully
attacked the government and their attempt to suppress any information
whatsoever. Is this America? Do we care about each other? We need to keep up
the pressure.”
After a speaker
read a short statement of support for Manning from Tom DeChristopher,
environmental activist who served five years in prison for disrupting an oil
and gas lease sale by making phony bids, Activist San Diego (ASD) acting
executive director Martin Eder came up to promote his group’s KNSJ 89.1 FM, a
new alternative radio station in San Diego County that is presenting
progressive programming. “This is all really about freedom of information and
the right of the American people to know about the crimes being committed in
their name,” Eder said. “Bradley Manning is a testament to those of us willing
to put our names on the line to create a real people’s democracy.”
CFAC activist
Shelby read a statement from Amnesty International’s senior director of law and
public policy, Widney Brown. “The government’s priorities are upside down,”
Brown said. “The U.S. government has refused to investigate credible
allegations of torture and other crimes under international law despite
overwhelming evidence. Yet they decided to prosecute Manning, who it seems was
trying to do the right thing — reveal credible evidence of unlawful behavior by
the government. … Since the attacks of September 11, we have seen the U.S.
government use the issue of national security to defend a whole range of
actions that are unlawful under international and domestic law. It’s hard not
to draw the conclusion that Manning’s trial was about sending a message: the
U.S. government will come after you, no holds barred, if you’re thinking of
revealing evidence of its unlawful behavior.”
“We have
witnessed an attack on an individual who blew the whistle on war crimes,” said
Josh Funn of the San Diego chapter of the International Socialist Organization
(ISO). “It’s also an attack directly on everyone here. They want to stop the
free flow of information because they do
commit war crimes. They kill innocent babies with drones. They’re trying to say
investigative journalism is ‘aiding the enemy.’”
“We’re standing
witness to our government painting a picture for us,” said Sean Bohac,
president of SAME Alliance — a radical Queer organization formerly known as San
Diego Alliance for Marriage Equality. “We have to stand up and say, ‘Hell no!,’
to the picture the government is painting for us.”
The rally closed
with a reading of a statement from Bradley Manning’s family thanking the
activist community for their grassroots support of him. “While we are obviously
disappointed in today’s verdicts,” the Manning family statement said, “we are
happy that Judge Lind agreed with us that Brad never intended to help America’s
enemies in any way. Brad loves his country and was proud to wear its uniform.”
The family
thanked attorney Coombs and Manning’s military lawyers, Major Thomas Hurley and
Captain Joshua Tooman, and added, “Most of all, we would like to thank the
thousands of people who rallied to brad’s cause, providing financial and
emotional support throughout this long and difficult time, especially Jeff
Paterson and Courage to Resist and the Bradley Manning Support Network. Their
support has allowed a young Army private to defend himself against the full
might of not only the U.S. army but also the U.S. government.”
To Lobby the Army to
Free Bradley Manning:
The following statement has appeared on the Web page of the
Bradley Manning Support Network, http://www.bradleymanning.org/featured/urgent-call-in-demand-maj-gen-buchanan-free-bradley:
The military is
pulling out all the stops to chill efforts to increase transparency in our
government. Now, we’re asking you to join us to ensure we’re doing all we
can to secure Bradley’s freedom as well as protection for future
whistleblowers.Major General Jeffery S. Buchanan is the Convening Authority for Bradley’s court martial, which means that he has the authority to decrease Bradley’s sentence, no matter what the judge decides. As hundreds of activists join us in DC today to demonstrate at Maj. Gen. Buchanan’s base, Ft. McNair, we’re asking you to join our action demanding he do the right thing by calling, faxing, and e-mailing his Public Affairs Office.
The convening authority can reduce the sentence after the Judge makes her ruling.
Let’s Remind Maj. General Buchanan:
- that Bradley was held for nearly a year in abusive solitary confinement, which the UN torture chief called “cruel, inhuman, and degrading.”
- that President Obama has unlawfully influenced the trial with his declaration of Bradley Manning’s guilt.
- that the media has been continually blocked from transcripts and documents related to the trial and that it has only been through the efforts of Bradley Manning’s supporters that any transcripts exist.
- that under the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) a soldier has the right to a speedy trial and that it was unconscionable to wait three years before starting the court-martial.
- that absolutely no one was harmed by the release of documents that exposed war crimes, unnecessary secrecy and disturbing foreign policy.
- that Bradley Manning is a hero who did the right thing when he revealed truth about wars that had been based on lies.
Please help us reach all these important contacts:
Adrienne Combs, Deputy Officer Public Affairs (202) 685-2900 adrienne.m.combs.civ@mail.milCol. Michelle Martin-Hing, Public Affairs Officer (202) 685-4899 michelle.l.martinhing.mil@mail.mil
The Public Affairs Office fax #: 202-685-0706
Try e-mailing Maj. Gen. Buchanan at jeffrey.s.buchanan@us.army.mil or calling him at (202) 685-2900
The Public Affairs Office is required to report up the chain
of command the number of calls they receive on a particular issue, so please
help us flood the office with support for whistleblower Bradley Manning today!
Emotional Tale Grips
Crowd at Martin Rally
Ten days before
the Bradley Manning rally, on July 20, about 100 activists met on the lawn at
San Diego City College to protest another trial they regarded as a miscarriage
of justice: the acquittal on all counts of George Zimmerman for shooting
Trayvon Martin to death on February 26, 2012, in Sanford, Florida. Zimmerman,
who claimed to be part-Latino but was generally perceived as white, shot and
killed the unarmed Martin, who was African-American, but pleaded self-defense
under Florida’s controversial “stand your ground” law and was set free by a
six-person jury, five of whom were white.
One of the rally
speakers, Ashley Brickes of the United Domestic Workers’ union, quoted a
statement Zimmerman allegedly made when he was arrested in which he told
police, “Those fucking punks, those fucking bastards, they think they can get
away with anything.” Zimmerman was supposedly talking about Black people, but
most of the speakers seemed to believe it was Zimmerman and other whites who
can “get away with anything” as long as their victims are African-Americans or
other people of color.
The most
gripping tale told at the Martin rally was from the opening speaker, who
identified himself only as Valentín from Riverside County. “It’s been almost a
year since my daughter was killed by a federal agent” in Chula Vista, Valentín
said. “We have never got a response — not from the federal government and not
from the Chula Vista Police Department. I’m not looking for vengeance; I’m
looking for justice. I am sorry again to see a young man being killed, whether
he was white, Black or Latino. He should never have died. People are taking the
law into their own hands, with no training” — a reference to Zimmerman’s
membership in a Neighborhood Watch organization and his claim that the sight of
a young Black man wearing a hoodie and walking late at night through a mostly
white neighborhood was “suspicious.”
According to
Valentín, when he contacted the Chula Vista Police Department and tried to get
them to talk about his daughter’s death, they blamed the victim. “They told me,
‘In every family there’s always someone that gets in trouble. Your daughter was
in the wrong place,’” he recalled. “By the time this lieutenant finished
speaking, I felt like I had to apologize for my daughter being born.”
Valentín said he
felt sorry for Trayvon Martin’s parents because “I know their pain. … They put
nine shots in my daughter’s body at close range, and they try to tell me they
had the right to do that. There’s no report from the Chula Vista Police
Department. They’re doing this because they can get away with it. They say, ‘I
have a badge, I’m the government, and I’ll do this because I have the right.’ …
I’m glad you guys are gathering here today. It’s going to take people to make
the government change their ways. They are servants. You guys put them in
power. You have the power, not them.”
Another speaker,
Tokyo Abraja, told a similar story about the death of a relative at the hands
of law enforcement. “My brother was killed in L.A.,” she said. “I watched when
four bullets were put in his back, and the police said it was ‘self-defense.’
We have killers walking the streets, and if we don’t change it, it will
continue. … I will be that one voice in a million to speak for my brother. Let
Trayvon’s death be a wake-up call for everyone.”
“We should be
mindful of the ways to promote safety for all our children,” said rally speaker Amber Burnell. “If our leaders will
not, we will do this on our own. Trayvon Martin’s death was a senseless crime.
… We are all equal, despite where
we live or how we were raised. I stand here to demand changes in the judicial
system. I stand in solidarity with my brother, an inmate in the Pelican Bay SHU
[Special Housing Unit, a euphemism for solitary confinement], and the 100
others who are on a hunger strike. My brother and these others are entombed in
a box, being physically, psychologically and emotionally tortured. Change is
coming. Stay strong and united, today, tomorrow and always.”
Other speakers
from progressive organizations linked the racism allegedly behind Martin’s
killing and Zimmerman’s acquittal to what Amelia Ortega of the women’s group
Affirm called the U.S. government’s “war against people of color, immigrants,
women and youth.” Ortega contrasted the treatment of Zimmerman with that of
African-American woman Marissa Alexander, who fired a gun to warn off an
allegedly abusing husband, pleaded justification under the Florida “stand your
ground” law but was convicted and sentenced to prison; and CeCe MacDonald, a
Black Transgender person in Minnesota who pleaded guilty to second-degree
manslaughter after she used scissors to defend herself against Queer-bashers.
Two union
leaders, Brickes and Alex Hernandez of the historically progressive
International Longshoremen’s and Warehousemen’s Union (ILWU), also spoke. “We
don’t want anyone else to suffer,” Hernandez said. “We were founded on blood in
the 1930’s to bring equal rights for workers. We’re a family union, and a lot
of our friends suffered a lot to bring workers’ rights and rights for
everybody. We are one of the greatest unions because we were founded in blood.
If somebody is suffering — if another union is suffering, we are there. We are
here today to support Trayvon Martin.”
The plan was to
follow the rally with a march, and the final scheduled speaker, San Diego NAACP
chair Christine Griffin, “read” the crowd as so impatient to march that she
canceled her speech and used her time at the microphone to organize the march.
Though the July 20 action was part of a national mobilization to support Martin
and protest the freeing of his killer, local organizers plotted a long march
route that took the protest past the city’s biggest public event, Comic-Con.
They walked from City College to the San Diego Convention Center and then
through the Gaslamp District, encountering many people dressed in superhero
costumes or carrying Comic-Con swag bags.
At one point the
protesters became part of a three-way traffic jam between them, Comic-Con
attendees and a Fundamentalist Christian group staging their own protest
against Comic-Con. The Christian protesters brought along boilerplate signs
describing a wrathful, judgmental, condemnatory Jesus but not making it clear
just what they had against Comic-Con. Judging from prior protests, though, it
seems they object to the sympathetic depictions of the supernatural and the
occult in many of the popular comics, movies and books promoted at Comic-Con.
As the Trayvon
Martin demonstrators marched through the Comic-Con crowds and passed the
Fundamentalist protesters, they improvised slogans with Comic-Con themes, like,
“No justice, no comic books,” and declaring themselves part of the real
“Justice League.” Later, as they walked through the Gaslamp and saw many people
with Comic-Con badges and bags patronizing the outdoor seats at local bars, the
marchers started calling, “Out of the bars and into the streets!” — ironically
echoing one of the classic Queer liberation slogans of the early 1970’s.
For more information on the next nationwide mobilization
for Justice for Trayvon Martin visit: http://peoplespowerassemblies.org/aug-28-mobilization/
JUSTICE
FOR
TRAYVON MARTIN
ASSEMBLIES
WEDNESDAY AUG 28
STOP THE WAR ON YOUTH OF COLOR
JUSTICE FOR TRAYVON MARTIN –
JAIL
ZIMMERMAN!
OVERTURN
‘STAND YOUR GROUND’ LAWS!
JOBS
& EDUCATION
NOT MASS INCARCERATION!
NOT MASS INCARCERATION!
END
RACIAL PROFILING OF ALL FORMS!
STOP RACIST POLICE TERROR INCLUDING STOP-AND-FRISK!
STOP RACIST POLICE TERROR INCLUDING STOP-AND-FRISK!
IMMIGRANT
RIGHTS NOW
STOP DEPORTATIONS!
STOP DEPORTATIONS!
A
LIVING WAGE AND UNION RIGHTS
FOR LOW-WAGE AND ALL WORKERS!
FOR LOW-WAGE AND ALL WORKERS!
On Wed., August 28, after we’ve
marched in Washington on Aug. 24 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the
great march against racism in Washington, D.C., led by the Rev. Dr. Martin
Luther King Jr., the People’s Power Assembly Movement calls on activists across
the U.S. to hold local JUSTICE FOR TRAYVON MARTIN ASSEMBLIES, including
rallies, speak-outs, marches in public squares or in front of federal buildings
or local police headquarters.
One of the most memorable lines
of Dr. King’s famous “I Have A Dream” speech, delivered from the steps of the
Lincoln Monument to over a quarter of a million freedom marchers, was, “I have
a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they
will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their
character.” The Trayvon Martin verdict is only the most recent sign that Dr.
King’s dream is still a nightmare for Black and Brown youth.
There is a racist war against Black & Brown youth
Youth of color are routinely
profiled by the police, security personnel and self-appointed vigilantes like
George Zimmerman. Trayvon Martin has become the face of the many young people
who have been stopped-and-frisked and sometimes beaten and killed by the
police. The police and the courts have created racially motivated drug laws
that have been used as an excuse to incarcerate a huge percentage of young
generations of Black and Brown youth. These same youth have the highest
unemployment rate, and the jobs they are forced to take are low-wage jobs
without benefits, rights or union representation. The anti-youth war also
includes massive cuts in education, including school closings in Black and
Brown communities. We must turn our anger over the lynching of Trayvon Martin
into a new nationwide struggle to stop the war against Black and Brown youth.
This is the best way to honor the legacy of the 50th anniversary of the 1963
March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.
