It saddened to today to hear that our government has now filed 22 additional charges against alleged WikiLeaks source Bradley Manning. Manning is facing a charge of "aiding the enemy," which can carry the death sentence.
THE DEATH SENTENCE.
I grew up during the Vietnam war and clearly remember the repercussion of what was know then as the The My Lai Massacre. I clearly remember when the Watergate was a 'really big fucking deal,' but compared to just how much Wall St./the Banks have gotten away with, as we watch the world being thrown into World Wide Revolution directly as a result of the economic terrorism inflicted by these crooks, it makes Watergate (which brought a President to resignation) seem like an event that happened millions of years ago.
I remember when Daniel Ellsberg released the Pentagon Papers, and I'm stunned, to see how much has changed in our government in forty something years.
Now that the case against Julian Assange is falling apart, it would appear the our government is doubling down on yet another whistle blower. Oh, what a surprise.
Mr. Ellsberg had this to say about Bradley Manning:
Ellsberg said he frequently hears people praise his 1971 leak of the Pentagon’s secret history of the Vietnam War while condemning the WikiLeaks disclosures. The 79-year-old former military analyst rejected that argument, calling Manning a “brother” who, if he indeed provided the documents to WikiLeaks, committed “a very admirable act. Ellsberg was sharply critical of President Obama, who he said “has a very personal reason to be concerned” about the exposed information. Ellsberg contended that the documents reveal torture and unnecessary fatalities at the hands of American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan — alleged atrocities that Ellsberg says Obama should be investigating.
The Espionage Act may allow some legal room to prosecute Assange, Ellsberg said, but he added that it would be impossible to mount a case without also targeting the New York Times, one of several media outlets around the world that published the leaked documents. The administration, “for political reasons, does not want to take on” one of the nation’s leading newspapers, Ellsberg contended. “Our Justice Department is searching hard for a law that these acts can be said to have violated,” said Ellsberg, who asserted that Obama has already prosecuted four leakers, more than all other presidents in history combined, which he called an “ominous trend.”
[Ellsberg] and Russo faced charges under the Espionage Act of 1917 and other charges including theft and conspiracy, carrying a total maximum sentence of 115 years. Their trial commenced in Los Angeles on January 3, 1973, presided over by U.S. District Judge William Matthew Byrne, Jr….Judge Byrne dismissed all charges against Ellsberg and Russo on May 11, 1973 after the government claimed it had “lost” records of wiretapping against Ellsberg. Byrne ruled: “The totality of the circumstances of this case which I have only briefly sketched offend a sense of justice.”
http://firedoglake.com/...
The military has continued to lie or misconstrue the facts about Manning’s mental health status, against the advice of three Quantico brig psychiatrists, in order to subject him to solitary confinement-like conditions and still deny they are torturing him. It has now been over 10 months since Manning has been in solitary confinement, as as Glenn Greenwald points out, this is in fact torture:
In sum, Manning has been subjected for many months without pause to inhumane, personality-erasing, soul-destroying, insanity-inducing conditions of isolation similar to those perfected at America's Supermax prison in Florence, Colorado: all without so much as having been convicted of anything. And as is true of many prisoners subjected to warped treatment of this sort, the brig's medical personnel now administer regular doses of anti-depressants to Manning to prevent his brain from snapping from the effects of this isolation.
Just by itself, the type of prolonged solitary confinement to which Manning has been subjected for many months is widely viewed around the world as highly injurious, inhumane, punitive, and arguably even a form of torture. In his widely praised March, 2009 New Yorker article -- entitled "Is Long-Term Solitary Confinement Torture?" -- the surgeon and journalist Atul Gawande assembled expert opinion and personal anecdotes to demonstrate that, as he put it, "all human beings experience isolation as torture." By itself, prolonged solitary confinement routinely destroys a person’s mind and drives them into insanity. A March, 2010 article in The Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law explains that "solitary confinement is recognized as difficult to withstand; indeed, psychological stressors such as isolation can be as clinically distressing as physical torture."
For that reason, many Western nations -- and even some non-Western nations notorious for human rights abuses -- refuse to employ prolonged solitary confinement except in the most extreme cases of prisoner violence. "It’s an awful thing, solitary," John McCain wrote of his experience in isolated confinement in Vietnam. “It crushes your spirit." As Gawande documented: "A U.S. military study of almost a hundred and fifty naval aviators returned from imprisonment in Vietnam . . . reported that they found social isolation to be as torturous and agonizing as any physical abuse they suffered." Gawande explained that America’s application of this form of torture to its own citizens is what spawned the torture regime which President Obama vowed to end:
http://www.salon.com/...
No, there will be no justice for Bradley Manning, because someone has to pay for the mistakes that have killed hundreds of thousands of Iraq and Afganistan people including the 9 boys who were recently killed by Nato while they were gathering firewood.
At least 919,967 people have
been killed in Afghanistan and Iraq
since the U.S. and coalition attacks, based on lowest credible estimates.
Sources and methodology are explained in the sidebar. Some questions about lower or higher casualty counts cited elsewhere are addressed in these footnotes. This page is updated about once monthly. Most recent update: Aug. 10, 2010.
Total injured in Afghanistan 48,644
Total injured in Iraq 1,690,903
http://www.unknownnews.org/...
There will be no justice for Bradley Manning, and there will be no justice or fair play for the Middle Class and poor of this nation, who are in fact being forced into poverty to pay off the toxic debts that were created by Wall St./the Banks during the great heist of 2008, as social services are being stripped to the bone throughout our country.
There is no plan in place or 'audacity of hope,' to stop the continual crash of the housing market in this nation. The plan is to 'let it crash and burn.' That is the plan people. The bedrock of our economy is turning to quicksand as we watch our jobs disappearing overseas day in and day out. There is no plan in place to rebuild America's manufacturing base. The plan is to continue business as usual. That's the plan.
The middle class in America is being ripped to shreds right in front of our eyes and very little is being done to stop it. Desperation is rising across the nation. More Americans slip into poverty every single day. It is almost as if a cloud of gloom and despair has descended upon the U.S. economy and every single month the situation only seems to get darker.
#1 According to Gallup, the U.S. unemployment rate is currently 10.3 percent. When you add in part-time American workers that want full-time employment, that number rises to 20.2 percent.
#2 According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of job openings in the United States declined for a second straight month during December.
#3 There are currently more than 4 million Americans that have been unemployed for more than a year.
#4 The number of Americans that have become so discouraged that they have given up searching for work completely now stands at an all-time high.
#5 Gasoline prices in the United States recently hit a 28-month high.
#6 During the 4th quarter of 2010, 4.63 percent of all U.S. home loans were in foreclosure. That matched the all-time high, and it was up significantly from 4.39 percent in the 3rd quarter.
#7 It is estimated that there are about 5 million homeowners in the United States that are at least two months behind on their mortgages, and it is being projected that over a million American families will be booted out of their homes this year alone.
#8 Almost 14 percent of all credit card accounts in the United States are currently 90 days or more delinquent.
#9 The average credit card rate in the United States had increased to a whopping 13.44 percent at the end of 2010.
#10 Americans now owe more than $890 billion on student loans, which is even more than they owe on credit cards.
#11 Average household debt in the United States has now reached a level of 136% of average household income. In China, average household debt is only 17% of average household income.
#12 U.S. life expectancy at birth is now three years less than Canada and four years less than Japan.
#13 New home sales in the state of California were at the lowest level ever recorded in the month of January.
#14 43 percent of all mortgages in south Florida are currently underwater.
#15 Prior to the most recent economic downturn, there were usually somewhere around four to five million job openings in America. Today there are about 3 million.
#16 When you adjust wages for inflation, middle class workers in the United States make less money today than they did back in 1971.
#17 One out of every seven Americans is now on food stamps.
#18 One out of every six elderly Americans now lives below the federal poverty line.
http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/...
Right now, this minute, you have more money in your wallet than Bank of America paid taxes on last year. That is a horrifying fact of life people.
I heard a recent talk by Richard Wolff - Professor of Economics Emeritus at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst (PhD in Economics from Yale), where Wolff said that 97% of all U.S. mortgages are either written or guaranteed by the government. As Bloomberg explained last August: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-controlled companies that issued and guaranteed more than 71 percent of mortgage-backed bonds last year. Between those companies and Ginnie Mae, which guarantees loans insured by the Federal Housing Administration, the government backed nearly 97 percent of U.S. mortgages in 2009.
There are supposedly plans in Washington to wind down Fannie and Freddie. Critics say that would destroy the "recovery" in housing. If continuing to throw money at Fannie and Freddie would stabilize the economy, I might be for it - even though it is not free market capitalism. I am not wed to either liberal or conservative ideologies, and am instead simply motivated to do whatever will work to stabilize the economy and help the most people.
So you see, 'that the plan,' people. To let it all 'crash and burn,' just like the rest our nation is cashing and burning, while the Oligarchy scrapes the carcass clean and manages to blame people like Bradley Manning the Middle Class and poor, for their own insidious reasons.
As Chris Whalen says:
The invidious cowards who inhabit Washington are unwilling to restructure the largest banks and GSEs. The reluctance comes partly from what truths restructuring will reveal. As a result, these same large zombie banks and the U.S. economy will continue to shrink under the weight of bad debt, public and private. Remember that the Dodd-Frank legislation was not so much about financial reform as protecting the housing GSEs. Because President Barack Obama and the leaders of both political parties are unwilling to address the housing crisis and the wasting effects on the largest banks, there will be no growth and no net job creation in the U.S. for the next several years. And because the Obama White House is content to ignore the crisis facing millions of American homeowners, who are deep underwater and will eventually default on their loans, the efforts by the Fed to reflate the U.S. economy and particularly consumer spending will be futile. As Alan Meltzer noted to Tom Keene on Bloomberg Radio earlier this year: "This is not a monetary problem."
http://www.zerohedge.com/...
Today in Ohio, the first vote was taken to strip down the rights of Unions in that state:
COLUMBUS, Ohio — The bargaining rights of public workers in Ohio would be dramatically reduced and strikes would be banned under a bill narrowly passed by the state Senate on Wednesday.
The GOP-backed measure that would restrict the collective bargaining rights of roughly 350,000 teachers, firefighters, police officers and other public employees squeaked through the state Senate on a 17-16 vote. Six Republicans sided with Democrats against the measure.
Firefighters and teachers shouted "Shame!" in the chamber as the legislation was approved and moved on to the GOP-controlled House, where it is likely to receive strong support.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
You'll have to pardon me, if I say that I will not be holding my breath to believe in the audacity of hope, that President Obama will finally find that pair of comfortable shoes that he seems to have lost, to stand up for the Unions in both Wisconsin and Ohio.
No, I think I pretty much have the message down as to which side of the fence President Obama is standing on and as our nation continues to fall into a black whole of chaos, and the Budget Showdown (via Alan Simpson's "I can't wait for the blood bath in April," statement). What we are going to see in the next several months is the slash and burn at full tilt boogie. It will of course be called 'necessary compromise and partisanship at it's best,' but the only people that will be paying the greatest price for what is to come, are in fact the same exact people that were in no way responsible for where our nation has found itself today.
There will be no justice for Bradley Manning, and there will be no justice for the American people because 'someone' has to take the blame, and it sure as hell will not be our government regardless of the consequences.
OBAMA: And we know, by the way, what those policies are: Cut taxes mainly for millionaires and billionaires. Cut regulations that curb special interests. And then cut middle-class families loose to fend for themselves. So if you're out of a job, tough luck, you're on your own, according to this philosophy. If you don't have health care, too bad, you're on your own. If you're a young person who can't afford college, pull yourself up by your own bootstraps, you're on your own.
We know how that philosophy worked. It did not work. We have tried what they are selling right now. We tried it for eight years. It did not work. We are not going back to that. That is the choice in this election. October 30, 2010 (Applause.)
http://projects.washingtonpost.com/....
Got it, President Obama: We're on our own.
Thanks as always,
Ms. B.