Reminder: We MUST Resist the “F%&* the Police” Attitude & Actions

So I am a little incredulous I have to write a post like this, but it’s been a couple of days now at the Anti-NATO demos, and it really needs to be said. People who should know better are starting to get a little complacent regarding this. For once, this post will be truly short.

Flatly: The “F^&* the Police” attitude – whether expressed in slogans, (even among other slogans) signs, or actions that specifically aim to antagonize police on the scene of a demo (throwing bottles, rushing press, taunts or provocations in front of riot lines) is unacceptable – not only morally wrong, but TACTICALLY irresponsible.

****If you agree with this statement, or at least respect my right to make it, skip to the postscript. If the above sentence really pissed you off, and you have now formed all sorts of opinions about how I should not be trying to deprive the Occupy movement of that asinine euphemism called “diversity of tactics” – then I have a message for you:

You are putting your colleagues, your fellow occupiers, the people who have sacrificed so much for this movement, in serious danger that they do not need to be in. I don’t really care what your political views are – because if you really felt that strongly about aggression being a viable tactic for political change, you would go form a street guerrilla group of some sort where only the completely informed would be participating in an action. You would NOT be dragging 1000s of other innocent bystanders – again, people WORKING HARD and PEACEFULLY at great risk to themselves already – into a situation where they stand to get hurt for actions they do not condone.

“Diversity of tactics” is fringe. Face it. Most people would not participate in a march they knew would turn violent – most people do not go out on the street to be arrested. Even most true anarchists that I have met do not espouse aggression for spreading their message. “Black bloc” is – the MSM would have us forget this – NOT an inherently a violent/aggressive protest tactic – it can and is increasingly being used that way, but just as often as not the majority of black bloc protestors refrain from violence or aggression.

Why? Because aggressors become responsible for those around them injured or harassed or inconvenienced. Am I saying that police do not do those things unless provoked? No, no and NO. But as activists we are not out there playing a game.

We are not out there to vent our anger. Or to get lots of attention from our friends. Or just because we are pissed off. We are out there to communicate a political message with like-minded individuals – and anyone who CANNOT take that task as seriously as it needs to be taken should stay home. Especially - especially when they are protesting for the sake of their own ego. 

  You are doing this for others. For the 99%, for the oppressed – call them whoever you want. You have to represent yourself in a way that will help others, not harm them.

Otherwise you make all of this quite useless. If you truly think starting some sort of a violent revolution in this country is going to solve ANY of the problems we face, then you are, forgive me, delusional. You would not have the 1000s of people that have stood with Occupy standing behind you for that task – nor me. Find your own movement – STOP benefiting from the work of people who know better.

………/end rant. >_<

Postscript: There is a tiny non-rant-y note I would like to add: I’ll level with you, dear readers – I hate being assertive in posts like this – it scares me, to be frank – but sometimes stuff needs to be said. I always worry that people are going to misunderstand messages like these as me condoning what the police are doing to Occupy – if you read ANYTHING ELSE from my blog you know this could not be further from the truth.

However, I have also repeatedly emphasized that we need to remember that police are the 99% too – and many are VERY conflicted about the actions their leadership forces them to do in situations like these. They are in a really difficult situation, and it is WRONG when they behave unethically or violently even given that difficulty – but it is JUST AS WRONG to deliberately provoke/antagonize/disrespect those that are doing their jobs perfectly in the streets during these demos, which are extremely taxing on law enforcement. Remember that the police you meet in the street are 9 times out of 10 following someone’s order – which they HAVE to do or they’ll be fired. They have families to feed and people to provide for. None of these men and women are rich, or powerful, or connected. Many of them do not follow politics at all, and do not know what Occupy is or stands for.

Some of them screw up. It is our duty to forgive them and realize that it is not the people behind the masks making the decisions that result in us being hurt. The true 1% are pulling ALL our strings, pitting one incarnation of the oppressed against another. They are making us fight each other to take the public eye away from THEIR crimes, the true crimes. If average, uninformed citizens are too scared of the protestors, they will completely miss the point of the protest, and be completely blind to the true enemies we all face.

I realize this is all easy to say and EXTREMELY hard to do. Nonetheless, it is perhaps the most important task/assignment that we must undertake in the streets. There is no choice if we are going to have a remote chance at sustaining Occupy or any other large-scale, social justice oriented political movement.

 

with much love,

slightly grouchy Keia

Trust and the Police: An Analysis of the #NATO3 for Your Worried Aunt that Read the Chicago Tribune

Salut, amis. So who are the NATO3? They are three Occupy Chicago activists that have been charged with intention to commit terrorism. That’s right - that type of crime, the capital T “TERRORISM” offense that makes all of America’s anxiety levels rise through the roof and that everyone usually likes to associate (stereotypically) with foreign extremists. These activists were arrested in the middle of the night, at the apartment they were staying at in Chicago. Said apartment was searched without a warrant and saw many other occupants arrested and held without charges, like these 3 were, right up until the legal limit for bringing charges against them. They are all associated with the anti-NATO protests being staged in Chicago through the weekend.

According to several sources on the ground in Chicago, Illinois state prosecutors have never leveled terrorism charges on an American citizen before – ever. The Chicago Tribune reports that the CPD (Chicago Police Department) is working in conjunction with the FBI and everyone’s favorite big brother, The Dept. of Homeland Security, on this case.

I do not know who these men are, but I have a deep, deep suspicion that they are not who the MSM (mainstream media) want you think they are. The MSM framing of this case – especially in comparison to alternative portrayals of these men that are just starting to surface from other sources (coming below, don’t worry) – is exceedingly dangerous. It is, as I aim to demonstrate, verbatim what the police framing of the case is. Never a good sign to start off, but especially not where the Occupy movement is concerned.

Why this dangerous frame is important, and how it fits into the larger politics of the Occupy movement will be explained below. As will the title of this post – for now, suffice to say that I find it VITAL to provide alternative framing of news stories concerning Occupy than what the media offers.

But first, let us dive into some context:

If you happened upon many mainstream news reports today, you might’ve seen headlines like the following:

The Chicago Tribune:

CNN:

The New York Times:

And with perhaps the most unflattering photos of these guys imaginable, ABC News:

Pretty scary, right? Wide-eyed mug shots like they’re already hardened prison residents, ominous allegations, all the buzzwords normally associated with terrorists like “plots” “hits” “threats” and etc – if an uninformed bystander were to happen across these headlines without knowing the story, their impressions of these three men would be poor, to say the least.

The tiny detail an average observer would probably miss is the indication in two of these 4 examples that all of these allegations are thus far absent of any concrete evidence and instead coming straight from – and only from -the mouths of the CPD. The articles attached to these screenshots pretty much parrot more or less biased versions of what the police state these three men intended to do during their stay in Chicago.

If you trust a police department to report your news for you, read no further. I did a fairly authoritative survey of the MSM news round-up before I started writing this, and according to them as of the evening of May 19th, there is not much else to see for this story. Move along, citizens.

But for those of us who prefer to get our news from people besides policemen, there are some key, key details to this story that render the allegations at best extremely problematic, and at worst downright false.

Since this story is only about 24 hours old, there are thus far two sources reporting on it that I trust: Kevin Gosztola, ever-present and ever-excellent reporter of civil-liberties and OWS stories, and the National Lawyers Guild (Chicago Chapter) – the people who help the law work for the rest of us, not just the police or the elite. The NLG is an activist’s godsend, and are also personal heroes of mine – sending sooo many people to do teach-ins, to follow demos on the ground, and to generally inform activists as to their rights when they demonstrate. So many people go to large events with enthusiasm but not awareness of the legal ramifications of being out in the street – the NLG helps them tirelessly. Their lime-green hats are cooler than superhero capes, in my book.

So when the NLG’s Chicago chapter steps up immediately to represent and defend these three activists accused of terrorism, within mere hours (minutes?) of their charges becoming clear, it should stop to give all of us pause. They posted a press release today flatly condemning the charges. Further, Kevin managed to produce an astutely detailed article that provides a video of the three men’s NLG attorney speaking to the press (top that, CNN! Oh wait, you don’t want to. Riiiiight.) In his article, Kevin details that the NLG believes that police informants infiltrated the group of protestors that the 3 men were involved in, planted evidence and sought to incite violence. The video linked above shows the group’s attorney confirming that accusation.

This tactic, which has been labeled entrapment by numerous other victims of it who fight it in court, is a well-known favorite of the FBI and Dept. of Homeland Security in their Quixotic quest to round up terrorist “suspects.” There have been many cases of it in recent years that I will simply invite you to research for yourself, instead of distracting us from the analysis of this particular case.

Further, Kevin’s article also details how this group of activists has been followed and harassed by the CDP since the Chicago MayDay demos, and that they even posted a Youtube video of said harassment online.

So the two sides of our story here are each depicting realities so diametrically opposed to each other, that discerning the truth comes down to one question: who do you trust?

Absent a true legal analysis of the evidence the CPD claims they have to prove that these three men were plotting to blow up police stations and President Obama’s HQ in Chicago, there is literally no way to make sense of this story besides to pick a side and trust them.

I will be quite frank: I cannot make a judgement call on this one and therefore will not despite my stated suspicions. In fact, I do not think anyone should be jumping to conclusions at this point as to whether these men are criminals or victims, because that would make me or anyone else just as bad as the MSM, and by implication the people who are manipulating the MSM and the police for their own purposes.

But I cannot overstate the importance of the idea of trust – not only in this case, but trust as it applies to the very core identity of the Occupy movement – and in particular, the lack of trust that law enforcement authorities ranging from local police departments all the way to the highest echelons of our National Security State have inspired in ordinary citizens as a result of Occupy.

6000+ people arrested and counting. Pepper spray, kettling, tear gas, mass arrests, midnight raids, being held without charges, being beaten, intimidated, humiliated, CONSTANTLY watched, and just plain good-old-fashioned dehumanized – these are all things that non-violent, law-abiding citizens have had to deal with if they want to participate in these protests. All of these actions degrade trust. They “disappear” it, if you will. They make it so that you have to look at law enforcement with suspicion and fear first, and as a source of protection second.

And so you have to explain to your worried Aunt or grandparent that the profound level of distrust the police/feds have garnered throughout their interactions with the Occupy movement makes it very difficult to just take at face value the MSM/CPD’s word when seeing articles that connect a charge as infamous and defamatory as terrorism to Occupy activists. There is a LOT of incentive to make Occupy look bad, especially in the eyes of the public.

Explain to her or him that the movement is peaceful, and that anyone who truly means otherwise is not a part of the movement.

I am going to write at least one post script to this case when more is known about it. Until then, I highly encourage all of my friends, activist and non-activist, Occupy and non-occupy, to withhold judgement and let the actual facts of this case – not allegations, speak for themselves.

ok more soon,

Much love,

and if you’ll be in Chicago tomorrow, BE SAFE. <3

Keia

On OWS and Anarchism: A Pragmatic Approach

[Some photos of MayDay, early in the afternoon. I have more to post if requested. ]

Bonjour mes amis! Well now its been a REALLY long time since I have posted. I will attach a little PS to this entry if you’re curious as to why that is. As for today, I want to have a pragmatic, frank discussion over one of the most important takeaways from yesterday’s fantastic MAYDAY protests. Hopefully you all had a chance to participate, or at the very least see some vids or pictures. If I have time I can do a little survey of the footage I’ve found floating around the interwebs.

But today’s topic is anarchism! One of the most surprising things about the protests, especially early on when I arrived, was how many anarchists were present. Anarchism has always been a political philosophy well represented at OWS, but especially on MayDay, it made its presence felt very strongly – more so than non-anarchists were aware of before, in my opinion. I think I am correct in asserting that NYC was witness to its first real, powerfully articulated black bloc march in a long time yesterday.

Full disclosure: MayDay was the first time I have attended at length an NYC Occupy protest. So all of the opinions and analysis presented below are based on only the examples I saw yesterday; perhaps anarchists have been as vocal in the movement for its entire lifespan so far.

(Important sidenote: One occupier also described to me the conflict that OWS anarchist and non-anarchist members found themselves in as a result of Chris Hedges’s recent rejection of “diversity of tactics” type direct action – i.e. vandalism, paintballs being thrown at police, confrontational language (f** the police) on signage, etc). When Hedges, a philosophical stalwart of the left, threw his opinion into what was already a tense discussion/debate among certain core activists of this movement, a lot of OWS related soul-searching ensued, apparently. Some anarchists broke off from the Occupy movement entirely, forming a group called “Strike Everywhere” that organized the black bloc for yesterday.)

If you met up with me before I decided to settle into helping Guitarmy as my activist contribution for the day, you might’ve heard me gripe about how, “jeeeez, there are too many anarchists here.” Upon a lot of reflection, and also after reading this fantastic (mostly) post about the anarchist roots of Occupy by a British academic, I have decided that writing a whiny “I disagree with this!” post is a disservice to people that have worked very hard to contribute to a political movement that has accomplished boatloads.

And further, I don’t even disagree 100%. I just feel that its important to evaluate ideas that we represent to the general public as rigorously as possible. I might get a bit annoyed at some of the anarchist folks who, in my opinion, fail to do this – but it is far more useful to have a pragmatic discussion of why than to just shut their activist energy down. And so the goal here is not just to say “nope”, but to discuss and say “well could you explain to me the solution for x,y,z, etc.” The intent is *NOT* to come off as overly critical – and believe me, my opinion on anarchism is open to be changed!

So I do hope people will be aware of the respectful tone I am going for here. (I also hope we could all be respectful in kind, yes? )

As always, all views represented here are mine and mine alone. I am hardly a core activist of OWS – in fact I have purposely kept myself at the movement’s margins for a number of reasons, but mostly because it has not matured into its true identity as a movement yet, and I am still intensely curious as to the direction it’s going in. There remains a giant question mark regarding OWS – and again, just to be perfectly clear: I think the most important thing we can do as activists is to evaluate the movement with a rigor appropriate to its power, which is great. More evaluation, more discussion, more communication – these all lead to more articulate, clear political messages – and a better movement as a result.

And we all want the best movement possible.

~*~

So here we go. Anarchism. A topic which, by the way, I am hardly well versed in. But I do know enough to point out some salient issues, which are in bold according to topic below:

The American Public is Politically Illiterate

- This might sound like a harsh statement, but it is an essential truth for the activist community to be aware of, whether non-activists are offended or not. No, I am not calling the American public stupid, actually. This statement has nothing to do with general education levels. Further, it is relative to several other countries who’s political IQs I am reasonably well-versed in – i.e., I can be sure that this is an American problem in particular because I have been to/interacted with many other nations where it is not such an issue.

In short, the average American does not really understand power structures, and how their own participation in a power structure is automatic consent to that structure, until they exert some manner of political will to change that structure. Stated less abstractly, Americans do not realize how much they participate in politics every single day by doing seemingly non-political things like paying taxes, buying food at a grocery store, driving their car to work, watching the news, etc. Many claim outright to not even care. But their apathy and indifference evaporates very quickly when the gas they need costs a fortune, or the bread, or etc. The leap that most of the public is unable to make is how systemic problems in the way we do government in this country exacerbates this. I.e. – it’s not just that nasty politician that makes gas prices go up, or even the oil companies – it is the oil companies’ strangle-hold on the government bodies that control gas prices, and the greed of both those in private corporations and in government – greed that the system encourages – that causes the problem.

People do not realize that we’re not doing it this way because it’s the only way, we’re doing it this way because that’s the way the people in charge at the present moment have decided to do it. If you take too much of the systemic machinations of our government for granted, you’re not going to be able to get behind a political movement that aims to change them.

But what does this fact have to do with anarchy? Well, OWS is at its core a movement seeking exactly the type of political change I just described: systemic alterations in the way America does government, especially in its relation to corporate power. The anarchists that participate in OWS see this goal as well aligned with many of their political principles, especially as related to the dissolution of dominant/submissive power structures in political human relations. But if the majority of the populous, the real 99%, is not even aware of how these powers effect their lives, how are they going to work with each other to dissolve them?

Concepts like anarchism are, flatly, going to have a hard time catching on in these conditions. It is not enough to try to convince someone they are powerless within a political system. That will always appeal to a certain portion of the population, but remember that social movements succeed the most when there are huge numbers of diverse people involved. And so the in-the-streets, militant (figuratively, not just literally) appeal that anarchism holds is only going to attract those that are prepared or willing to cast off many long held assumptions. Many people self internalize the idea of free-will within these systems so much that you cannot convince them to question it – nor should an activist waste their time [this from so much TIRED experience on my part.] The bar of entry to a truly change-making social movement has to be low, so that a huge variety of people can contribute their incremental pieces. With each person carrying the movement the distance they can, it advances in a truly horizontal way, and grows far faster.

Anarchism in its true articulation is a very high bar to entry for the average American. It assumes the best of everyone involved [more on this below.] I just don’t see it having the power that a more inclusive political ideology will have to draw people in, especially one that does not demand such radical thinking of the average American, particularly radical economic thinking.

The Jared Diamond Issue – “All Societies Tend Towards Bureaucratic Structures”

- You might have heard of the fantastic book Guns, Germs, and Steel by anthropologist Dr. Jared Diamond – if not, go poke around for a copy sometime. Among the many interesting assertions Dr. Diamond makes in this book is the idea that human societies have always evolved over the centuries to increase bureaucratic structures, not decrease them. Anarchism is the absence of bureaucratic structures as a means of force – in other words, it seeks a society where there is no state, or especially state police or military or bureaucratic government body to enforce compliance with laws, ethical or social mores.

Dr. Diamond demonstrates with astute anthropological detail how all across the globe, societies had to become more complex in the way they did government as a result of burgeoning populations. It’s safe to say that the immediate future, the future with 200+ nation-states trying to assert sovereignty towards each other, and the future with 7 billion+ people to feed, will definitely be faced with the issue of how to distribute goods for survival among so many people.

Anarchist economics postulate that each person producing something should have free and complete control to get the maximum benefits of its distribution – and also that that person will distribute it to the others that need it, and that through this series of price-free exchanges, all the needs of the populous will be satisfied.

On a small scale, in a small society, sure. But 7 billion people? Different climates, different languages, different needs, different cultures, different social values? Structures are going to form to provide goods and services to all these people, and there’s nothing you can do to stop that. Inevitably, once the structural seeds are sown, certain people will start to have power over others – and it is futile to assume that in some way people will not abuse these positions of superiority. Which brings us to our next bullet, and to be honest, the issue which I find the anarchists that I meet addressing the least:

Anarchy Assumes the Best of Everyone, All the Time (The “Perfect World” Issue)

- As much of a pain in the arse as the following is, here is an unfortunate truth of humanity: biology creates power structures. It is no small coincidence that anarchism and radical feminism share so much common ground: the power structure that women have had to deal with for pretty much all of time is the patriarchy, which I would say is rooted in the biological strength of the male gender. There is no way around it now anymore than there was 100,000 years ago – men can lift, carry, and haul around a lot more than women.

Does the patriarchy of the modern day derive its power from this specific principle? Of course not, but I am using the example because it’s a biological phenomenon that we’re never going to be able to get around. Back when it mattered, this phenomenon created the roots of what is still a problem today, that men have more power in all facets of society than women do.

And trust me, as a woman here: the patriarchy, in both its ancient and modern forms, really. effin. sucks. I want to smash it as much as the next lady, because I can see and feel everyday how it affects my life. However – the progress that allows me to even be articulating such thoughts in the first place has been made painstakingly over 1000s of years to arrive at 2012.

Let’s apply this last idea to anarchism, which also has to compete with an unfortunate biological trait of humanity: the tendency for humans to exert power over each other, consciously and unconsciously. A system completely free of power structures is asking for a helluva lot of perfect behavior of the humans participating in it – they’ll be free to make the right decisions, but what happens when they do not? Can anarchy survive as a system of human relations if some of the participants decide to buck the principles? What safeguards does the system have in place to sustain itself?

These are questions that might have thought provoking, enlightening answers. I just don’t see them – anyone who is more familiar on this topic is more than welcome to chime in, by the way.

Political Reform in America *HAS* to be Gradual, so that the General Public (the 99%) Can Keep Up

- This issue relates to the first mentioned: because the public isn’t exactly breaking out their copies of political science 101 every night to study the best solutions for the country going forward, we can’t be expecting them to understand, or more importantly, to feel comfortable enough with the ideology we put in front of them in order for them to embrace it themselves. To repeat: no citizen will participate in a politics that she is not comfortable with. 

OWS needs to remain accessible to as many people as possible if it wants to be a movement that truly presents viable alternatives to the status quo. In other words, (apologizes for 5 secs of tough love), it can’t just be something that privileged, politically astute kids from Brooklyn do on the weekends. If organizers want the alternative they are presenting to truly take root and start growing horizontally among wide portions of society, it is my opinion that they’re going to have to tolerate some capitalism, some power structures, and god forbid, even some Democrats. Anarchy seems like a very all-or-nothing political principle – many natural allies of Occupy would not pass the bar to classify as viable in a purely anarchist society (unions come to mind first, actually.)

And so if Occupy wants to take that spark of conversation it has started and keep running with it, the path will have to be wide enough for us all to start running alongside.

Anarchy makes that path smaller. But it is – of course – only one facet of OWS. My hope is that it stays a facet – an important one, but not the majority of the whole picture.

Thoughts, comments, critiques, etc welcome.

much love!

Keia

PS. – I have not been online because I am drowning in work. Some of it is library work! Finally…but also, I am trying to write a little book. So my writing time has been devoted to that for the last month. More soon, if it amounts to anything

Occupy GuitARMY in PHOTOS

So I have only one thing to say about the Guitarmy and all of the beautiful people in it: we need to do this again! Soon! <3 With you and all your friends! Let’s make that happen, please?

Enjoy the pics!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Download and distribute widely, folks. I seriously want to see this happen again!

 

so much love,

Keia

The Politics of Pure & Simple Intimidation: Tim DeChristopher Moved to Solitary

Bon matin, blogosphere. Yes, it is more of an afternoon by now than morning, but we night owls take a while to orient ourselves every day.

This post calls for some reminiscing – forgive me while I take a moment to dive into our topic. Last year, I had my brief gig working for government – specifically state government, and once in a while, when work was a bit scarce, I would wander over to the ornate auditorium where the State Assembly was in session. I sat up on the second floor – the section reserved for the public – which was always sparsely populated by two kinds of people: the disinterested lobbyists, busy reading the paper or fiddling with their iphones or sleeping, and the interested ordinary citizens – craning their heads forward, leaning out of their seats and paying attention.

For there was always something to learn for newcomers to the process of politics: specifically, to watch the machinations of power and manipulation in action. If you don’t watch a session of government happening before your eyes, you miss the most blatant display of what’s not so democratic in our democratic system – the process by which people who take the authority you vest in them and run with it to do all sorts of grandstanding, intimidation, bribing and general pushing around of their political friends and enemies. Deals are made, boisterous speeches are given on the Assembly floor, people threaten to withhold their support for X if you don’t vote right now for Y, people bring in selective contingents of citizens to parade around the floor to guilt trip everyone else, outrage is voiced, nasty names are called, and the whole business can quickly descend into an extremely asinine and childish affair.

It’s not what we pay our taxes for. It’s not what we think happens when we call our representatives and ask them for advocacy on our behalf. But it is what our representatives actually spend most of their day doing, and because this part of the process is the method by which they accomplish most of the material elements of their goals – they get really used to it. It becomes very comfortable for our democratically elected representatives to behave in a distinctly undemocratic manner. They realize that these methods get the job done the quickest – therefore, too many people assume they must get the job done the best.

Enter Tim DeChristopher. Please check that link if you do not know who he is. We will fast forward on the assumption that most readers do: today it was reported by Kevin Gosztola and Tim’s environmental organization Peaceful Uprising that Tim was transferred from the ordinary wing of prison where he is serving his sentence for civil disobedience to solitary confinement. Why?

Well that is the question, isn’t it. Details of the exact reasons are not terribly clear, but according to the reports above, there was definitely Congressional influence – specifically one Congressperson who orchestrated Tim’s move.

Why are prisoners normally moved from a normal population to solitary confinement? Well, the prison feels that they’ve misbehaved in some way – they were violent towards guards, other prisoners, violated the rules of the prison too many times by having a weapon or a cell phone or an attitude. Sometimes it’s very subjective – but there is usually always a reason.

The reason given thus far for Tim? An e-mail. A personal e-mail where apparently Tim made a non-violent, non-prison related political statement that this anonymous Congressperson did not like. Contrary to what prison officials would have you believe, you do not necessarily check your constitutionally mandated free speech rights at your cell door. People might get on a prisoner’s arse if they believe she has said something violent or disturbing or criminal.

But thus far according to everything known about the situation, Tim’s apparently unacceptable statement was a routine iteration of his political views that all dedicated activists think and talk about every day – completely unspectacular in the sense that he and all of his fellow environmentalists would be saying such things without any consequence, such speech being safely enshrined in utter constitutionality outside of prison bars.

But obviously, some in Congress have a problem with Tim’s politics – and one in particular has gone far enough to take advantage of Tim’s situation as a prisoner (I would say a political prisoner – with all the implications that term carries) to punish his political speech in a way normally reserved to punish violence or serious violations of prison policy. I don’t really care if there was some technical regulation or legal-ese prison rule that Tim might have broken. This type of manipulation is directly related to the undemocratic, power infused authoritarianism that any witness to a Congressional session can see play out every single day. 

In his article, Kevin highlights briefly the idea that this sort of behavior is “what a fascist country would do to a political prisoner.” This statement is an astute one, and I would like to analyze and add to Kevin’s thought a bit. Fascism, a term that a lot of people speak of today – and with good reason – is defined by Wikipedia as a highly militarized, anti-egalitarian, uber-authoritarian political philosophy who’s proponents are obsessed with war, discipline, and punitive measures to enforce authority.  Undemocratic influence is the primary engine that drives political change and policy in a fascist society.

Are American congressional politics fascist? Is what this unidentified Congressperson did to Tim DeChristopher a fascist action? The answers in the literal sense are no, and no. However, this is not the implication that either Kevin or I want to make.

The implication is that in a literally fascist society, actions identical to the one just done to Tim DeChristopher – intimidation and punishment solely on the basis of one’s political beliefs – are normal, socially acceptable and even laudable things to do. Whether this Congressman thought his actions were socially acceptable – he certainly thought they were laudable or he would not have done them.

Being aware of fascism creeping into our political sphere should be the primary occupation of all activists these days – as there are so many instances where undemocratic actions that you’d expect non-activist type people to be outraged are accepted as laudable, even appropriate expressions of political will.

There are a lot of people who influenced this Congressperson’s actions – namely, the lobbyists and corporate actors opposed to Tim’s politics (not to mention the prison officials that carried the action out) – that found this transfer appropriate.

And that, dear blogosphere, is a disturbing thought indeed.

ok, as always, much love,

Keia

A War on Iran Does Not Mean What We Think It Means

[Mr. Inigo Montoya takes the words right out of my mouth.]

If you’ve been awake over the last couple of weeks, you’ve probably heard that a war with Iran may be imminent. The mainstream media outlets are warming up the war machine loudspeakers. They’re churning up all sorts of extremely ominous and scary news segments focusing on the dangers of a nuclear-armed Iran. While I have read a few rumors that President Obama is actively trying to discourage US ally Israel from starting some sort of bombing campaign, (and if this is true more power to him) – I think its time for policy makers and activists alike to start taking a serious look at what we’re all talking about here.

Because so far, we really, really haven’t been. Unfortunately, I must fault both the propaganda machines and more well meaning politicians and policy thinkers for this omission. I have been repeatedly smacking my head against my computer screen to the point of (metaphorical) bruises because I have been so shocked lately. It’s not even a misunderstanding of the realities of a potential war with Iran – it’s a complete non-understanding. Mind boggling to the nth degree.

Let’s examine the 95% of the picture that all the headlines and pundits and alphabet soup of “important” people are not pointing us to. This post is going to be divided into two sections. A) We’re not appreciating who Iran actually is. and B) We’re not appreciating what a war would actually be, and actually do. This post is going to be a bit long with a lot of multimedia, but please bear with me because the perspective I’d like you to leave with is very important for one reason: it’s nuanced! Which you can’t seem to find anywhere else when the word “Iran” is spoken out loud these days.

So let’s begin.

A) Who is Iran? Who are Iranians?

The way the news has been lately, you’d think the Ayatollah and Ahmadinejad were the only two people that live in a country which is, in reality, home to 78 million people. Contrary to the idea that this nation is just sitting statically out in some far corner of the world near the rest of the “axis of evil” states – Iran is actually an extremely complex, highly educated, technologically advanced nation with 5000+ years of history. I am not going to cover that history here, but recommend you check out this exhaustive Wikipedia article that is well cited by many reliable sources.

Iran is also quite diverse – different ethnicities, cultures, and yes, even religions exist there and all have varying levels of civil (and not) interaction with the Shi’ia Islamic theocracy currently in charge of the country.  How that theocracy became in charge of the country, and the US’s role in the last century of Iran’s history is also a topic far too vast to cover in this blog entry – but one that everyone rattling the war sabers (and the rest of us, for that matter) should really school ourselves on a bit. (For an excellent if very introductory look, check out the film Persepolis. This focuses on Iranian history more than the US’s role in it, and it is beautifully and very creatively presented.)

Politics in Iran are hardly uniform – in fact they are in a state of instability and flux that is quite unprecedented since the late 70s. Does anyone besides me and other activists remember the Green Revolution of 2009? Arguably the true birth of the Arab Spring, (though most Iranians are not ethnically “Arab” – rather Persian), this series of protests that began in response to the 2009 “elections” in Iran was so huge and earth shattering that there are dissidents that are still being tortured, raped, and killed as a result of being involved in it. The revolution itself has, for now anyway, moved mostly off the streets and into the internet and twitter-verse and blogosphere, but there are still thousands of Iranians sustaining it both inside the country and out. Does these look like the pictures of a politically uniform society?

[The 3rd day of initial protests, via Wikipedia. Two images below also Wikimedia.]

Flatly, I don’t need to answer the question for you. To learn more about these important events in recent Iranian history, check out yet another exhaustive Wikipedia article with excellent citations but whose neutrality is disputed. Keep in mind as you read Wikipedia that anyone can edit it and often different political factions that care about an issue do – so check citations and remember to research other sources. Even so, my judgment on that article is that the majority of the statements therein are correct, and that the amount of oppression and violence against green revolutionary activists is, of course, grossly underestimated.

Finally, there is one other huge facet of Iran that Americans under appreciate: it’s connection with our own nation through the massive exodus of Iranians out of the country since the 1979 Islamic revolution. There are anywhere from 500,000- 2 million (yes 2 million!) Iranians (many of whom prefer to be called Persians) living in the United States alone. They are the most highly educated demographic of immigrants in our fine nation. They teach at our best universities, they work in all industries and represent all economic levels of society, they are my and your neighbors whether you know it or not. Since so many of them are recent immigrants, more than half of them have immediate family in Iran. Read more about them here.

Most importantly, all million or so of them are contributing to American society every single day. One of the areas in which I am quite particularly pleased with their contribution is music! Some fantastic Persian American singers are gracing the airwaves these days:

[Niyaz - one of my fav bands EVAR. Like for real - like years before I was into politics. You have probably heard Azam Ali's voice in the movies, she has done so many soundtracks.]

[Bet you didn't know there exists Persian pretty boy pop, did you? Well, consider your arse educated, and your hair gelled to Los Angeles studio set perfection.]

Why is all of this information important? It’s simple: the people that want to bomb this country at the moment are not thinking about the million people that have one foot in each nation, or the people who fought and died in Iran for democracy, or frankly any sort of person at all. They are playing a game of geopolitical strategy – and trust me, they will try their hardest to keep your mind away from the human costs of their game as they bombard you with media meant to manufacture your consent to it.

I don’t think you should let them do that. No matter what your opinion of a potential war, you should know the face of the people who’s lives you want to put in the hands of the US military. I hope the little synopsis above provided a better picture than you’ve gotten most places.

B) We have no clue in hell what we’re talking about when we say the word “war.” Nor the ramifications.

For all the uproar regarding the potential for Iran to obtain nuclear weapons, there is a very basic question being overlooked here that reveals a pretty existential flaw in any Iran strategy I have seen presented so far. That question: why are we afraid of the nukes in the first place?

Or more specifically, why are we afraid of them getting nukes? There are a lot of nukes already existing out in the wide world, including some in the hands of seriously unstable nations *coughNorthKoreacough*. Nukes are exactly as scary as a nation’s predisposition to launching them. Which in Iran’s case reveals the real problem: the theocratic regime in charge of the country is batshit crazy, and very belligerent.

In all of my nuanced discussion here, in all of the critiques of US & Israeli policy I am about to make below, I am never making excuses for the Ayatollah’s dictatorship – and I sincerely hope no one is interpreting anything I have said or will say as such. The present Iranian government is among the most cruel and repressive governments in the world, intolerant of dissent, of deviation from a fundamentalist view of morality, and wholeheartedly embracing state sanctioned violence against women and LBGTQ people simply because of their identities, and in particular when they have committed no crime whatsoever. Its human rights record is trash. Freedom of thought, information, and speech – all non existent. They are just mightly nasty people when you get down to it.

And thus is it not the nukes, but their capacity to use them, on Israel or elsewhere, that the world is justifiably concerned about. Which begs the ESSENTIAL, thus-far completely ignored question: will this “war” actually prevent the regime from eventually obtaining nukes? Will it make them less inclined to try?

Thus far as any intelligent person seems able to discern, the answers are no, and no. Unfortunately, I do not remember where I read the following piece of information and thus cannot link you, but a recent military analyst or member and/or expert stated publicly that at most, a limited bombing campaign aimed only at potential nuclear facilities would set back the regime 5 or so years in their pursuit of weapons.That’s setting back the clock, not stopping it.

But a limited bombing campaign of nuke facilities might not be what we’re talking about when we say “war.” That’s why the word in this context is so deeply troubling – once you start advocating for it, you are advocating for pretty much any of the vast iterations of military options it might encompass. When Congresspeople and presidents craft war resolutions, they specifically keep them extremely vague because once you commit to even limited aggression against someone, the outcomes get mightly unpredictable, and you have to have leeway to escalate in order to defend yourself.

— Which is exactly the thought that should be scaring the shit out of everyone right now. Truly, I do not think most of America thinks a “war” with Iran means much more than such a bombing campaign – not unlike what NATO did in Libya last year. We’re thinking we can sit back and let a few computer jockeys in Arizona or Nevada, and maybe at most extreme a few highly trained pilots fly either machines or real planes over Iran, drop some bombs and destroy potential nukes and “yay!! war’s over!” will be the cry that ensues. Victory lap for everyone, right?

Couldn’t possibly be more wrong. Let’s go back to the part where the enemy regime is batshit crazy. It’s irresponsible for anyone considering aggression against Iran to assume they won’t fire back – and nukes or not, they do have a lot of weaponry to fire – and while that weaponry perhaps cannot reach American shores, it can reach plenty of the plethora of American bases in the Middle East, and it can reach Israel. Any attack is going to make a paranoid bunch of theocrats even more paranoid, and the incentive for them to escalate the conflict will be quite high.

And then, of course, there is no victory lap, but an unimaginably serious shitshow that we will be forced to commit ourselves to significantly.

Which brings me back to the foggy definition of this concept of “war” – since the regime is the true enemy, are Israel and the United States actually advocating for a regime change instead of just destruction of nuclear facilities?

It is the only permanent way to get the policy change the US seeks, if you think about it. A single flyby campaign simply entrenches the regime, not to mention giving it an excuse to oppress further its own citizens. A bombing campaign would severely hurt protest movements like the Green Revolution, because the regime would use societal instability as a result of foreign aggression in order to turn public opinion against such protests.

So the most limited of our “war” options buys 5 years time at the price of a really pissed off regime and a greatly lessened ability to enact internal, native reforms. We almost guarantee future conflict.

And once we start talking about a more lengthy bombing campaign, or the somewhat taboo at-the-moment ground invasion in order to oust that regime, then you mind as well declare the start of World War III…

….I am being only slightly facetious here.  The logistics of a war on Iran with the aim of regime change are astounding, even to my completely non-military mind. The loss of life would be catastrophic, especially that of innocent civilians, and the lack of an armed internal resistance (note: the only reason we were able to just fly by Libya – because there was a whole network of military people already staging an armed revolution) would mean that America, Israel, NATO or someone would have to commit a lot of blood and tears in order to realize their goal.

Then we mind as well start talking about Iraq. Then we mind as well institute the draft. Then we mind as well realize that all of the money that it will cost to wage such a war, the trillions of dollars we will have to commit to it, will be denied to our children for their education, denied to our sick to pay for their health care, denied to the hungry of America and to disaster relief around the world.

Then we mind as well declare the whole endeavor a bonafide disaster, a disaster like many of the the other recent wars of choice America has taken on over the last decade.

We are writing a pretty gargantuan check for our arses to cash here, ladies and gents. The people shouting the loudest for war now will be the ones that pay it the least – but you will, dear reader, and so will I, and so will the rest of the world.

~*~

For as long as nuclear weapons have existed on Earth, nations have been rattling them at other nations – but I think its very telling to note that history is filled with near misses – tense near misses, but misses none the less, instead actual instances of the use of a nuke. The United States is the only country to ever drop a bomb outside of a test capacity. All throughout the Cold War, both the US and Russia realized that going down the nuclear road was the epitome of untenable, hence the term M.A.D. that we all learned in high school: mutually assured destruction.

Likewise, India and Pakistan also eventually stepped back from their nuclear stand off. Both of these conflicts were among nations that considered each other mortal enemies at the time of the most intense disagreements in their relationships. There are a lot of lessons learned from these two examples of nations that prevented war with each other, rather than barreling arse-first into it.

I think we need to seriously review those lessons before anyone else says the word “Iran” on the news.

much love,

Keia

In Defense of Bradley Manning: A Primer for the Confused, Ambivalent

Hey there blogosphere.

One of the most important mentors in my life once gave me some advice that can apply to so many people. He said, “Keia – you spend too much time politely disagreeing with people, and not enough time convincing people. You underestimate your own ability to convince those that value your opinion of that opinion’s strengths. Not only do you lose out when this happens, but so do the people and causes you support!”

He’s a smart dude with 40+ years of top-notch activism experience. I have been thinking about his advice a lot lately, as Bradley Manning‘s trial ramps up and as news coverage of him increases. Some notable, important things have been happening – for example, he was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, along with 231 other people and organizations who nominators around the world perceive as essential to world peace. Important organizations are taking up activism for Bradley’s cause, including Veterans for Peace, who detail their support here and here and here , the Military Law Task Force of the National Lawyer’s Guild, who attended his recent arraignment and wrote a nice op-ed for him here, and veteran’s groups like Courage to Resist and Iraq Veterans Against the War and World Can’t Wait, and the Occupy movement at large, as I can personally attest to in multiple respects. Many folks outside the US support Bradley as well:

[Activists from South Korea, who probably endured considerable risk of arrest as they staged a recent demo in Seoul.]

In addition to all those lovely people, it makes me smile to list all of the notable individuals that have spoken out in support of Bradley. Let’s start with two rockstars, Graham Nash, who wrote a most groovy song for him, and Roger Waters of Pink Floyd fame, and then you have political activists like Michael Moore and Lt. Dan Choi and Col. Ann Wright and Medea Benjamin, and then fantastic journalists like Naomi Klein, Amy Goodman, and my erstwhile hero <3 Glenn Greenwald, not to mention Kevin Gosztola who has been diligently and superbly covering Bradley’s trial on his blog at Firedoglake.

Finally, one cannot mention Bradley without mentioning his intellectual father, the incredible indefatigable Daniel Ellsberg:

[I am reproducing this *lovely* portrait of Mr. Ellsberg with absolutely NO copyright infringement intended - please view it's origin here. It is by amazing artist (and fellow Harvard alum) Robert Shetterly, part of a series of Portraits of Americans Who Tell the Truth. You can see a number of the other folks I have listed above on his site. ]

I don’t even need to talk about how Mr. Ellsberg supports Bradley. I will let him tell you himself:

And this is only the tip of the iceberg. There are plenty of notable and wonderful folks, famous and not, that I have not mentioned here. For a list of nice YouTube videos made over the last year, please check out one of the first posts I wrote for my blog.

So why go down the list? Well, I have found that despite gaining so much support from activist circles and from those of us who pay a lot of attention, Bradley’s support among the so-called “mainstream” left is pretty paltry, at very best. In particular, a lot of the local activists I know seem quite ambivalent about Bradley, or perhaps just confused as to why his case is important.

It is with this ambivalence in mind that I want to write them a little primer. Below I am going to address some common items of misconception and misunderstanding, that have been brought to my attention from sources as diverse as veteran activists to my mom. (Yes, believe it or not, Keia’s mother sometimes calls her up and, among other things, comments that “I don’t understand why you’re supporting that young man!”)

Last note before we begin our Q & A- I am not the first person to write such a primer. The Bradley Manning Support Network has an excellent one up for all to see and hopefully link their friends to, and by writing my own I seek to supplement, not supplant their answers. In fact, their primer is a LOT more exhaustive than mine. The goal below is to succinctly address (oh boy, that’s a lofty goal for me :p) some stuff that I have been hearing from people whom I would be thrilled to see pay more attention to Bradley’s trial and what it’s outcome means for our country.

Questions, Concerns and Keia’s Answers

Concern: This guy simply did *not* know the scale of the leak he sent to Wikileaks, if he is the dude that sent it. He might have thought he was doing a good thing, but he could not have understood the scale, the effect it would have on the United States around the world, otherwise he would have used better judgment and never done it.

Keia’s answer: This one is the only concern where I will take out the game show buzzer and press it to elicit a loud, obnoxious “ENNNNNT.” Wrong. Some might think this assertion is attached to the debate game where you use it to discuss whether what Bradley allegedly did was right or wrong, but the fact of the matter is that it’s just plain incorrect. There are multiple pieces of evidence that indicate that Bradley explicitly knew what he was doing, many that come straight from him.

If you have not already, I invite you to peruse the chat logs between Manning and the dude he first confided in regarding the information he was concerned over. (This dude, Adrian Lamo, also turned him into the government, for those just getting to know the story.) In these logs Bradley makes many statements that can easily be interpreted as sober awareness of the gravity of his actions. In fact, he says a lot of things that specifically indicate how much he has thought about the information he had been working with over the previous years. No one can deny that here is the testimony of a smart young man. So there was no “better” or “worse” judgment – based on what the public has access to, anyway, it’s clear that all of the judgment he made was very purposeful.

Concern: Ok, maybe he understood the scale in terms of effect, but he did not understand it in terms of size. Who leaks 600,000+ documents and expects the American public to sort through all that shite?  Wikileaks just lists it all on their website, it’s confusing, hard to interpret, and very difficult to glean meaning from. How did he expect the public to gain from this?

Keia’s answer: Well, I grant that there is the unlikely possibility that Bradley did not consider size when leaking these documents, but in building off of the points just made above, I feel very comfortable asserting that, again, no, he probably knew exactly what he was doing.

The chat logs have outlined several reasons why Bradley wanted to leak a wide range of documents. I interpret his reasoning to be that he wanted people to get a clear picture of how America actually operates behind closed doors – not a partial picture, not a singularly damning or single headline making picture, but a picture as nuanced and complex as our country is. You can’t do that with just one cable – nor can you do that, it should be noted, with just the cables that show blatant criminal activity. He is quoted outright as saying that he wants people around the world to see the cables. Why would he want that? Well the most obvious reason: he wanted all the billions of non-Americans out there to understand how American diplomacy is affecting them. As a superpower, we really do have a disproportionally huge impact on the world, whereas the world tends to have very little impact on us.

It’s a difficult situation for a lot of Americans to fully comprehend: what we do – the decisions that our somewhat misinformed, haphazard electorate trust our elected leaders to make decide whether other world citizens live or die. There ain’t no vote going on in Africa, for example, that will affect the lives of Americans, or Asia, or arguably even most places in the Middle East or South America or Europe. Nothing any of those folks can do can hurt us, especially folks without power in these nations, whereas plenty – plenty of what we can do hurts them. And I am talking every single Joe-Smoe that works at your local grocery store. People that vote on stuff solely on the basis of issues as banal as school board taxes or “family values.”

I think its a very safe bet that as he read the cables day in and day out, Bradley was thinking about America’s place in the world and that disproportionate power we hold over other people’s lives. But again, I invite you to read the chat logs for yourself in order to draw your own conclusions.

Concern: Ok fine, but still – how the hell am I supposed to make heads or tales of this stuff? Bradley didn’t think of that! He’s just not presenting it to me in a way I can understand. I’ll be frank with you, Keia, I’m really uncomfortable with this huge pile of docs and stuff. The government is sending really strong signals that I should disregard it – it’s bad, it was supposed to be a secret, they can handle it! I’ll tell you what, it might not be right to do, but it’s hard not to transfer my discomfort to Bradley – after all, he’s the poor mofo responsible, right?

Keia’s answer: I appreciate your honesty, hypothetical questioner! *Ahem*…it’s true – I’ve never actually heard anyone iterate the above concern, but I *strongly* suspect that people are feeling it, simply because it’s the #1 message that the government and Bradley’s detractors are sending over the airwaves: all of this shit is just too big and far-reaching for a busy citizen to handle, ergo we recommend you blame the messenger. Keeps things simple, doesn’t it?

This whole Wikileaks saga has done many things, but more so than anything else it has made power f*ckin uncomfortable. (Excuse my language, kids.) Plus it has forced all of us, ordinary Americans going about our ordinary business, to strain our worldviews quite a bit as we are presented with, in huge volumes, truths about our actions in literally every corner of the planet. It’s mind-boggling, frankly, how much pure information Wikileaks has forced Americans to take in about ourselves and how we interact with others.

Bradley Manning, if guilty of what he is accused, is Wikileaks’ number 1 claim to fame. He gave them almost all of the material that has put them on the map and forced this debate into the consciousnesses of Americans. Therefore, it might seem logical to put the blame for all this shit at his feet. However!

However. It has never been, nor ever will be, the responsibility of the leaker to interpret the effects of what she leaks. Bradley might have made a judgment when he decided to send the documents in the first place, but he definitely realized that it was the responsibility of the public to discuss and debate the material – that’s why he sent it to Wikileaks in the first place.

The messenger is the entity that takes what society teaches him, the person that is the product of a set of values and worldviews, that when presented with physical documentation contradicting those worldviews, decides to release that information back out to the public that created and influenced how she thinks. Bradley probably submitted the documents to Wikileaks because he saw the potential in this organization to get the information out to a lot of people. He didn’t just publish it all on his blog, he didn’t just hand it over to the New York Times, he realized “this is bigger than me. There is more here than I am capable of explaining to anyone. Let me find some folks who can get the word out better than I.” And thus Wikileaks.

Further, that’s why Wikileaks made an explicit, conscious decision to work with big name, mainstream gatekeeping journalists in order to help interpret that information and present it to the public. And even further, that’s why the public has made an incredible effort to sort out the information presented.

I’ve found that it’s hard to make most folks aware of it, but between the journalists (some mainstream but especially citizen) doing the work to contextualize the documents, and the programmers working to present it in an easy-to-use way, there’s a LOT of people out there hauling arse really hard to help us all make the most of this information. Why? They agree with Bradley, and me, and the folks listed above, and in a weird way even the US government: this information is important enough for all of us to handle. Check out the following:

[Click on the photo for a larger version - this one loads a bit small, I know.]

So that is the Cable Researcher, the creation of computer aficionado Bailey Carlson (who tweets here). Using that efficient, simple interface and subject directory, you can search via keyword for any cable in the set. Bailey spent under 40 hours creating this incredible tool via a javascript framework called cappuccino. Why? I’ll let him explain himself:

“My motivation is partly that I am a supporter of Manning and WikiLeaks, but also because the content of these leaks are tremendously historically significant and important to people who are currently trying to understand the world. Critics often try to dismiss the leaks as containing “no smoking gun”, but this is disturbingly near-sighted as we watch international politics be quite literally transformed by these leaks. As someone who has done a lot of reading of some of these cables I know there is still a ton of details and revelations to be contextualized in them. My hope is that my app will lower the bar to reserachers who are more capable of understanding the context than I am, and who have struggled with finding relevant content in some of the less rich search apps out there.“ [emphasis Keia's]

Bailey’s effort and interpretation here is exactly what I mean when I say that there is enormous energy being devoted to this material. (Some other quick, easily browsed examples include this blog devoted to cables from Thailand and this blog which follows the reporting of a former Reuters reporter who quit his job to report on cables from one country alone (again Thailand.))

Please allow me, for a moment, to put on my librarian hat. I have recently graduated from one of the top library schools in the country, one obsessed with digitization of information and all that it encompasses, and one where I took multiple classes that dealt with government information. In these classes, lots of smart, well meaning people put their heads to together to answer the question: how can we get ordinary folks to use government information? There’s so much that the government puts out, it’s so hard to interpret, and people are (this is true) so scared to work with it!

We worked very hard – I have met many people that devote their *lives* to helping folks use, research, interpret, make policy on the basis of, and generally enrich themselves from the BOATLOADS – the fleet of cruise ships worth of information available to the public.

And so how is it – how is it – how is it, universe??? - that a devoted team of concerned citizen volunteers can make more efficient, easier to use, and yes, just plain *better*  databases than libraries around the country pay *millions* of dollars a year for, for information that the government does *NOT* want you to see, and yet as a result of those very databases, is better presented, easier to find and much easier to research and write about than reams upon gigabytes upon reams of information that sits collecting dust on shelves that no one disturbs but once a month or so?????

I just discovered the cable researcher last night, and the irony of it kind of floored me. For real, as someone who wants to devote her life to information and helping the public use it – this beautiful little tool is a smack in the face.  It kicks the ass of a very respectable, very revered institution I hope to serve faithfully for as long as I can, and it kicks that ass without being paid or prompted by anything other than pure political will.

/End rant.

To come full circle here, the moral of my rather long answer is that we should be doing the exact opposite of blaming Bradley for his role in this. We should be valuing him. The amount of attention and additional work that has been done regarding the material he leaked is enough in itself. And if even that is not sufficient for you, think about the incredible courage it must have taken him to decide to go through with it – I cannot imagine that the potential consequences to himself or his life were far from Bradley’s mind. You have to ask yourself – would you have done it?

Concern: Your argument is persuasive, Keia. But you miss one key fact: he broke the law. Applaud him all you want, but if everyone did what he did we would not have a State Dept. How come this guy is the exception to the rule? Why should he go free if he committed a crime?

Keia’s answer: This concern is by far the most common I hear. It is best to look it square in the eye: no one is denying that Bradley committed a technical crime. Not a moral crime, a technical one. All of the revered traditions of civil disobedience go hand in hand with law breaking. In fact civil disobedience is necessitated when there is some sort of fundamnetal flaw in a law that cannot be corrected by conventional means. In this sense, I truly believe that if Bradley did what he is accused of, he belongs among the pantheon of greatest users of the method of civil disobedience in our country.

For the law in this instance suffers from two serious and potentially fatal flaws: its inability to be properly enforced and its inability to address the corruption that makes it untenable. This first flaw has to do with the sad fact that millions of people had access to this secret material that the government is so worried about keeping from the average American. All over the world, low level analysts just like Bradley read the material every day, interacted with it, wrote e-mails and spoke to people about it. Think about it: 3 million people is 1% of the whole population of our country – and almost 40% of New York City. That’s as if every single person in both Manhattan and Brooklyn had access to the cables already.

The second flaw is that the fundamnetal imbalance of information power between the American government and the American people grows every single day, especially when it comes to an American’s ability to control whether our nation goes to war or not. I won’t even talk about the American government and the world. It’s enough just to try and wrap your mind around how hard it is today to vote or advocate for something besides a predetermined, bi-partisan consensus on how our nation should conduct war policy and foreign policy.

So should everyone go leaking secrets? When we’re talking about indiscriminate, random leaking of documents – well, I don’t endorse that idea, nor do I think Bradley would, nor have I met anyone so far in my adventures with this genre of activism that has. And of course that situation could not be farther from the reality we face in regards to Bradley’s leaks.

In fact, the whole debate is framed in the wrong way – the question should instead be “should all this material be secret in the first place?”

Believe it or not, you have the ability – I would say the duty – to make a choice regarding your opinion on this. If you would rather trust your government with it’s track record of the last decade and just hope that somehow, by some secret method, and without any accountability to the average citizen whatsoever, it will craft foreign policy to keep us safe and keep other world citizens out of harms way – then that is a choice and you have no reason to support Bradley.

But if you believe it is every American’s duty to evaluate and question the authority of our government, then you have a friend and ally in Bradley Manning, and then perhaps he should have a friend and ally in you.

This young man will have already spent 2 years in prison – with about half of that in completely unsubstantiated solitary confinement, under conditions the UN calls torture – by the end of his trial. The punishment for his technical crime has been served – he should go free.

And that’s all there is to that.

~*~

So I hope my little primer is helpful. Please leave any further questions, comments, concerns below and I will be happy to either give my own opinion, or point you to helpful reading when appropriate. Though I will add a rare note that hateful comments will not be tolerated. I am here to educate, not feed the trolls

much love, as always,

Keia