Ever since she was first arrested there seems to have been a rolling punishment regime meted out to Chelsea Manning, which borders on torture. The latest ruse by her military jailers is truly Orwellian - with particularly nasty consequences.
She is accused of being in possession of ‘unapproved’ reading material. Ironically, she’s been refused access to the library to prepare her defence.
For this trivia (possessing an ‘expired’ tube of toothpaste has been added to the charge sheet, presumably to make it look proportionate), she faces a sentence of ‘indefinite’ solitary confinement - that is, for the duration of her 35-year (with parole) sentence.
Fuck knows what is going on there, Furbs. He’s being treated as an enemy of the state, even though he’s probably being truer to the founding principles of that country than any President since Kennedy was taken out.
The Assange thing has been fishy since day one. I understand that he can no longer be charged for two of the offences due to time limits, but the third stays out there forever, I reckon.
The US is doing very poorly on the four freedoms test, as are we.
Speech? Yeah, say what you want, but get prepared to be fucking destroyed if you say the wrong thing.
Worship. Ostensibly practicising free religion. Effectively demonising one over all others.
Want. Food banks. Payday lenders preying on the poor.
Fear. Now makes the world go around. How many whistleblowers have the Manning and Assange cases strangled at birth?
Indeed, Lou. Snowden has been able to control the agenda somewhat; Manning has been smashed into oblivion with a vengance that is truly frightening.
I think Greenwald is being either a touch too PC or kind about American perceptions. Manning’s transgender status is more than a mere detail. I doubt it garners her much sympathy, even though it has nothing to do with the justice, or lack of it, of her case.
pretty gross to have toothpaste past expiration date! seems to me that this bro can’t have been brushing her teeth v.regularly. Hope she learns lesson from this!
Brush, brush, brush your teeth
Brush them everyday.
We put toothpaste on our brush
To help stop tooth decay, Chelsea.
That was my first thought, but then the way Snowden’s story was staged, was pretty powerful and reeled in (and I don’t say that cynically) even the most lightweight observer. I think the power of that went over and above Manning’s more unusual background. If the two stories were swapped, Manning probably wouldn’t have had the same quick appeal, but they could have built on it. That’s hard to do for her now.
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