Bradley Manning expected to speak at trial today

I’m curious what you’re trying to imply.

I didn’t comment initially because I didn’t have anything insightful to add. It’s disgusting that our armed forces are homophobic and transphobic, it’s disgusting that the poor kid was abused in prison for being trans, it’s appalling that this fucking shill of a psychiatrist David Moulton wants us to believe that idealism is a mental disorder. All of this ought to be obvious. There’s nothing to be gained by pointing out that the sky is blue.

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Cool. I thought it was not out yet. People will still think “crazy”, though.

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It will serve two purposes. On the one hand, those of us who just want people to be themselves and happy with it will see him in a very human light - a lost kid struggling with very big personal issues in the context of a very big and monstrous war.

On the other hand it makes it very easy for those who see him as traitor or monstrous to dismiss him as crazy or a weirdo and deserving of everything that happens to him because he is ‘different’.

His release of the cables and videos was a good thing, done for complicated personal and social reasons. Not all heroes look and act like Tom Cruise or Steve McQueen, and very few of them are acting out of pure altruism (though Manning isn’t far off and Snowden looks pretty good right now, self sacrifice wise).

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Well Snowden has his own issues since he did not finish high school. But people said “Oh Snowden must be brilliant because Einstein didn’t finish high school either.” Of course, Einstein did graduate high school, attend university, and got his teaching certificate.

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Not finishing high school is not enough to define someone as ‘having
issues’, especially when they have had what appears to be a reasonably
successful career afterwards. Our education system is not designed to work
well for people more than one SD away from the top of the curve. Kids with
challenges fall behind and get labelled, kids with an excess of brains or
talent get bored or excluded. No idea if Snowden is either of those, but
given his apparent facility with technology I doubt he fell behind the
curve.

All of which is irrelevant beside the reality of what these people have
done. Both of them, at great personal cost, have brought information to
light that should be in daylight. I’m sure they both had a complex mix of
personal challenges and pressures - I certainly do. All I can say is that
I’m glad they did what they did, and I hope it leads to change and that
punishment will not be (more) excessive.

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What you’re saying probably applies to 1 out of a thousand people that don’t finish. The real magic is that the other 999 are totally convinced you mean them.

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An awful lot of people will think “pervert,” which equals “immoral,” which equals “guilty.” Most people don’t really do ethical reasoning.

I moved 9 posts to a new topic: How to refer to Bradley Manning

There are more and more kids who are leaving high school, getting out, not finishing, for very good reasons, the first of which is that, for millions of kids, it’s an almost complete waste of time. Fortunately, more colleges are opening up to people without HS diplomas.

Hopefully, this trend will continue to increase, and high schools will have to dramatically change what they offer and require in order to keep students from leaving before society thinks they ought to.

EDIT: Sorry, just realized this is off topic!

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I saw a quote from Manning that said something along the lines of “I don’t know why I thought that I could make a difference in the world.” It was in a Tweet without enough context, and I’m probably getting it significantly wrong, but it broke my heart. The leaks HAVE changed the world already. No, the wars haven’t stopped, but a conversation is happening that would not have happened before. The acts of Manning have given greater importance to WikiLeaks than they ever had before, and created an environment in which the world was ready to see and hear what Snowden leaked. Manning’s leaks may not have single-handedly stopped the wars, but in some future high school history book those leaks will be seen as a catalyst of an era. The fact that Manning was a young person struggling with their identity, with issues around personal secrecy, and the justice of the situation they found themselves in will not be seen as proof of treason but as the perfect setting for an act so brave and so insane as to leak those documents.

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Well heaven forbid we try to be more accurate here, and distinguish between the two.

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That kind of dismissive normative bullshit is a large contributor to kids doing poorly in school, yes.

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Because he didn’t age at all for a few decades and then suddenly aged all at once?

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Am I the only one who is surprised this is not THE story of the trial in the mainstream press?

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In hindsight, joining the army might not have been a good idea.

Dunno what to tell you, man. If you think that modern education is so perfect that only a tenth of a percent of dropouts were failed by the system and 99.9% of dropouts are just so…what? willfully ignorant? naturally lazy? got the Devil in 'em?..that no human could’ve possibly educated them and they were doomed from birth to a life of self-pitying brute stupidity…well.

No snark intended; this question is for me to better understand and abide by the rules: is Manning’s gender identity (and, consequently, the language surrounding it) not part of the topic?

Arguing on pronoun use for Manning isn’t on topic.

EDIT: Moved all discussion on How to refer to Bradley Manning here: How to refer to Chelsea Manning

But thank God he did.

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