As part of the nationwide campaign to protest the persecution of Bradley Manning and demand that he be exonerated, thousands of people around the country and around the world have made this declaration:
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| FREE Bradley |
If only.
Let's just take a moment to think about what Bradley Manning has so courageously done, and what a person would have to do to rank with Bradley Manning . . . .
The obvious comparison is Daniel Ellsberg.
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| Vietnam Archive: Pentagon Study Traces 3 Decades of Growing U.S. Involvement The New York Times, June 13, 1971 |
Many people engaged in acts of resistance during the Vietnam War. Ellsberg took it to a new level by figuring out how to use the communications technology that prevailed at the time -- national daily newspapers -- and getting the truth disseminated globally in what passed for "instantaneously" at the time.
Daniel Ellsberg himself has saluted Bradley Manning as a hero "whose example should inspire others."
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| Brad Manning: World Hero |
But what about Paul Revere? Compare his engraving of the Boston Massacre with the image from the Collateral Murder video that Bradley Manning made available:
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Paul Revere was a patriot because he stood up to war criminals. Is Bradley Manning any less so?
(Paul Revere spread the word on a horse. Bradley Manning used the Internet. Times change.)
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| "Free Manning!" protest in Chicago's Millennium Park ("the Bean") |
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| German people: WAKE UP! |
Otto and Elise Hampel's were heroes who paid with their lives for their simple act of resistance. You can read about them in Hans Fallada's retelling of their story, Every Man Dies Alone.
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| Celebrate our right to know Thanks to whistleblowers Edward Snowden . . . Bradley Manning |
Or Ai Weiwei. He drove the Chinese government by disseminating information about children who lost their lives in earthquakes as a result of shoddy school construction.
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| Ai WeiWei on Twitter |
The tweets kept coming. Day ... after day ... after day .... When the police came after him about his tweets, he tweeted about that!
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| End the War on Truth |
A person may not feel that s/he is another Daniel Ellsberg ... or Paul Revere ... or Otto and Elise Hampel ... or Ai Weiwei ... or Bradley Manning. But these are heroes we can aspire to emulate.
I am not Bradley Manning (yet).
I will become Bradley Manning!
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| I AM Bradley Manning |
Listen to Bradley Manning's court statement
Watch Kyle Broom's excellent short film about the U.S. government persecution of Bradley Manning: Prevention of Injury (POI)
Contribute to the Bradley Manning Support Network
Related posts
What would it mean for each of us to commit, say, to a year in which we
would consistently place the truth in front of ordinary people, day
after day, and patiently engage with them as they worked through the
implications? What would it mean if we all believed in people as much as
Bradley Manning?(See Are YOU Ready to Swallow a Daily Dose of "the Manning Principle"?)
"In
whom and in what should we be putting our faith?" If not in Manning --
and the Manning Principle -- then in whom, and in what?(See The Path to Peace: Why Not the Manning Way?)
Bradley Manning is an American hero. As one of the speakers said at the International Human Rights Day protest in Chicago, "Would there have been an Arab Spring
without Bradley? Would there have been an Occupy movement? We should be
giving him the Congressional Medal of Honor! We should give HIM the
Nobel Peace Prize!" (See Chicago Says "Free Bradley!" )
Thank you for sharing this, Joe -- I love the historical sweep, putting Manning and Snowden in context. During all those previous heroes' times they, like Manning today, were called "traitors," etc., when it was their accusers who were cowards, and traitors to humanity and to constitutional values that protect human rights.
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