Bradley Manning Tragedy Captured in One Quote

Tom Blanton’s photowork and caption captures the sad finale of Bradley Manning. “Those with proper authority” …. I liked that phrase better when Stephen Colbert uses it.

Blanton Bradley Manning photo 9536129404_36c508e730_b

See more of Blanton’s artwork & zippety headlines at http://www.pnar.org.

61 thoughts on “Bradley Manning Tragedy Captured in One Quote”

  1. The person closest to Bradley Manning for the past three years, his civilian lead defense counsel David Coombs, is scheduled to hold a press conference later this week after sentence is pronounced. It will be interesting to learn whether or not he considers his client a "broken man." Everything Coombs has said to date suggests that he believes just the opposite.

    1. Apparently Coombs considered his client to be a "broken man" before Manning even considered blowing the whistle, as this was the thrust of his defense. Now, Coombs argues Manning should receive "only" 25 years. What kind of lawyer is this?

      Setting the emotional arguments aside as to whether Manning is a hero or a martyr, the fact is that he embarrassed the ruling elite, they subjected him to 3 years of psychological torture and now propose sending him to prison for the rest of his life. Manning has emerged much more damaged than he was before his ordeal, as would anyone going through what he has been put through. He is not a super-hero action figure, he is a human being. Whether the ruling elite are human beings is another question.

      The shame rests not with Bradley Manning, but with the state. Those who disagree with that should put down their "I am Bradley Manning" sign and replace it with a sign saying "I am Winston Smith" for you are also broken, not by psychological torture but by a complete disregard of reality.

  2. May God go with you Mr. Manning. Time will shine down on your actions like the sun does to a rose. You will one day walk out of prison with your head high and your character intact. You stood for the innocent children that were shot, you stood for the mothers who were killed needlessly, you stood like a rock for freedom. When they measure your worth against those murderers who took us to war, it will be you who stand head and shoulders above all of them. You helped change the course of history sir, you made a difference.

  3. I don't find that sad. I find that @#$ed up – just reverse Nuremberg is all – nothing to see here. That that's the system we live under (yea it's worse in the military system and long has been, but it's obviously metastasizing like crazy).

    What I find sad and tragic: 90 years, a potential 90 year sentence. I find it sad to look at pictures of Manning (always so tragically young looking – it shouldn't matter, but it's really not helping any!), think about the decisions that went on his mind and why and that he carried them out, and then think they want to take him away and lock him away for decades and decades. That I find incredibly sad, and there's nothing I can do. That's tragic, even archtypically so, but hey dumb American goons that run this place ….

  4. I wonder if we could protest the Bradley Manning sentence. No probably can't start a protest here myself but … can keep preaching (non-violent) revolution. :)

    But seriously, we have seen protests of trials recently, and I don't want to get on a tangent discussing those trials at all. But the point is even if protesting a trial changes nothing in the actual sentence he receives, the Manning trial was definitely a rigged trial, and the sentence likely to be severe and for whistleblowing – obviously it should be protested.

    1. It turns out there is some attempt at nationwide protests. Look for them on the Twit thing "manning protest" or maybe duckduckgo. That the protests of that other trail lasted well into the night on a weekend and protests for Manning are early in the day on a workday when everyone who still has a job is working ugh I can't help that (though I wonder if they perfectly planned the day they would sentence). Protest organizers are idiots and we're left to wonder how morally flawed we are for not being in the streets. Oh well over and out.

  5. Home of the single brave–Manning. If I was him, I'd stand on my ground and tell the military court–If my releasing of the information of the Iraq slaughtering was not made public–USA military would be still in larger numbers Iraq and thousand more Americans would have dead. I did my service to save many fellow American lifes. End!
    Notice no military troops convicted of mass murder are free today.

  6. And, through all this attention on Manning, what is to be the fate of the crew of the Army gunship and their support who MURDERED 12 civilians – including 2 Reuters employees – and the near MURDER of two children!? What is the punishment to be handed down to HILLARY CLINTON through these leaks for illegally ordering surveillance on ambassadors of other nations!!? What is to be done about the hundreds – if not thousands – of cases of government perfidy and criminality exposed by the information Manning, Assange, and Wikileaks exposed!!!?

    1. "What is the punishment to be handed down to HILLARY CLINTON "? The same as punishment applied to Cheney and Bush – zero. All are fronts for the corporatocracy (MIC) that seeks to finish the destruction of the Constitution ("Just a piece of paper" – Cheney).

  7. The American people need to decide what they want for their children's future, either total subjugation by their government, the preferred option by the people in power, or to have a revolution, remove all the elites from power and install a new system of government. This is what the elites are deathly afraid of an are doing everything to have complete control of the people.

    You decide.

    1. That may be. If we're arguing violent revolution, many social change movements had had some violence in the shadows that perhaps helped them. But violence unleashed on the world is what it is (kinda like the dogs of war unleashed on the world).

      A more interesting question than revolution *if it comes to it*, is what one is willing to do today. Vote 3rd party, boycott (although you can mostly only boycotting collaborators – short of tax revolt), protest? The answer may or may not be flattering, and no answer is required, one is free to opt out of politics *until* they aren't. But if you find you can't opt out mentally, like the traffic accident you can't stop staring at … keep asking.

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  9. The person closest to Bradley Manning for the past three years, his civilian lead defense counsel David Coombs, is scheduled to hold a press conference later this week after sentence is pronounced. It will be interesting to learn whether or not he considers his client a "broken man." Everything Coombs has said to date suggests that he believes just the opposite.

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