Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2016/12/16/anohni-urges-obama-to-free-man.html
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ANOHNI is one of the most consistently mesmerizing and talented artists I have ever heard. The work they have been doing the past few years is by far the most prescient and topical folk music in recent memory. I just don’t know anyone else who is approaching our current struggles with the same open-eyed bravery as Pete Seeger once did. Just talking about subjects isn’t enough. This kind of music must have an opinion and make it clear what that opinion is. There’s simply been too much fence-sitting in this decade and I absolutely adore what ANOHNI has been doing.
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I hadn’t thought of Anhoni as the kindred spirit of Pete Seeger but now I can’t stop seeing her that way. So true! I haven’t heard music with its heart so proudly on its sleeve and with so much outward meaning and intent in years. I envy those who’ve yet to hear her work, because that first listen of The Crying Light is an incredible experience.
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I can see Trump re-arresting Manning, just to send a message, like how Reagan tore down the solar panels Carter had installed on the White House roof.
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I was going to say maybe she could hang out in Russia like Snowden, but then it occurred to me to wonder if Russia wouldn’t send Snowden to Trump, gift-wrapped for the inauguration
Surely there are some places in the world Manning could find relative long term safety though?
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I feel like the threat posed by Manning’s release isn’t one of violence or further security breaches (obviously), but one of establishing a cultural and legal precedent. Manning isn’t realistically pardonable because of the high profile of the data theft; it’s far too serious an offense to handwave away.
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Righteous!
Yeah, good luck with that. They’re never letting Manning go.
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I hadn’t thought of this possibility. That is a frightening prospect.
But, anohni. holy shit. Hopelessness is my definite album of the year. Perfect.
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Iceland comes to mind.
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Also not the friendliest place in the world for LGBT people right now.
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Why would Obama do that? Has he done one single solitary thing to indicate he doesn’t act like all the bastards in power towards whistle-blowers? The fact of the matter is that America is waving goodbye to a moderate republican president and in this election picked between a somewhat less moderate neocon and whatever the hell Trump is. No one in power is going to do the right thing.
Oh, people keep putting their serious faces on and talking about laws and precedents but I don’t hear them calling for people who authorized torture or invaded countries on false pretenses or spied on everyone to be put into a small room and never, ever let out. If George W. Bush gets to be a free man, then Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning should get congressional medals.
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Isn’t Chelsea Manning entitled to a British passport? Her mother is Welsh and she lived in Wales during her teens
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Unfortunately, that’s just not happening.
If the US government started releasing people who were posing no threat, how would they keep up their position as the world’s most carceral state?
Also, Manning has threatened the US government much more than other prisoners. She embarrassed them, which is second only to laughter and ridicule in the list of what power finds threatening.
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Exactly. Manning committed a crime, end of story. “Poses no threat” is entirely aside from that point.
At some point, Snowden wont be useful to Putin any more.
Maintaining a disconnect between the people and the realities of an endless war is of utmost importance to the military industrial complex, and Manning’s actions threatened that disconnect, and her release would send a message that leaking documents that threaten the disconnect is OK, and that is not okay if your business model is endless conflict, somewhere, over some thing.
Morality is counterproductive in the short term, and the short term is what shows up on the balance sheets.
I’m sorry to be so cynical, I really am, but I just don’t see it happening. That said, I was wrong about them working with her to complete her hormonal therapy, and it stands to chance, that I’m wrong again. Here’s hoping
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