1000th day of Manning imprisonment

I almost forgot to blog today! Which would have been bad, because there is something specific I had been planning to talk about, and it can only really be effective today, so... it's only going to be a short one, but still an important one.

Today is 23 February, which marks the 1000th day of the imprisonment of Bradley Manning. Now, I'm not going to bother typing up exactly who Bradley Manning is - if you follow this blog you should know because I've mentioned him quite a few times, but for anyone who doesn't, here is a video that I made with a co-worker:

It is interesting how much debate this issue has caused as a matter of fact... below is a transcript of a Facebook conversation I had with a friend about this, who I often tend to agree with on political debates but on this occasion I was actually quite shocked by their viewpoint. (I won't name the friend, but they did agree to me making our conversation public. In fact, they said I could name them if I wanted to - which I sometimes do, as we all know - but on this occasion I'd prefer not to.)

The conversation went like this:

Me: Hey, did I ever show you my Bradley Manning video?

My friend: I saw it. Someone you know posted it, and you commented. It came up on my feed.

Me: Did you like it?

My friend: I'm not sure I agree.

Me: Go on?

My friend: I think he had it coming.

Me: Do you honestly think that the way he is treated is fair?

My friend: Yes. I don't condone what the government did, don't get me wrong, but I don't agree with him either.

Me: If it's fair, why has every single psychologist who has assessed his case strongly advised the powers that be not to treat him in the way that he is being treated at the moment? His trial been kept so private, postponed as much as it can be, and whenever anything does happen, the information released is so complex it is hard to understand. Why would that be? If it was fair, it wouldn't matter the world knowing. Tomorrow marks the thousandth day of his imprisonment, when his trial is not even concluded yet. Surely if there was enough evidence to convict him of something properly, he would have been treated fairly. My belief is that the information that he released should have been public knowledge in the first place, and if the authorities are too corrupt to release it, it falls to an ordinary person to do so. The ins and outs of his crime essentially were embarrassing his superiors, and sometimes that needs to happen, otherwise it just results in more innocent deaths.

My friend: But George, life isn't fair. He did something wrong, and he has to have a punishment. I *do* believe though that the US Government should be tried before the International Courts of Justice breaching the Geneva convention.

Me: Just because something is illegal, doesn't necessarily make it wrong.

My friend: I know. I did a presentation on it. It's like the Euthyphro dilemma. Is it illegal because it is wrong or is it wrong because it is illegal?

Me: And which is it in this case?

My friend: Here, we disagree.

Me: We're going to disagree whichever option you pick, because I don't think what he did was wrong in either way. I'm just curious, with regards to the case of Bradley Manning, you think what he did was illegal because it was wrong, or wrong because it was illegal.

My friend:It's definitely malum prohibitum. The latter. The former is malum in se.

Me: Well, I think if something is not wrong in any way apart from being illegal, then it isn't wrong and does not deserve a punishment. And for the record, what Bradley Manning did would not have been illegal if the people he reported for doing wrong had not been the people who made the laws in the first place.

My friend: I know. It's a double standard, and as I said, the US Government should be tried as war criminals. Without them commanding so, this would never have happened. If he gets punished, they deserve to be. If he wasn't, I would see it as fair that nothing would happen to them. Karmic justice.

Me: I don't think that in this case, that makes any sense. They have been directly responsible for the creation of war, death and suffering for no reason at all, apart from reasons that they have erroneously created themselves. Bradley drew attention to their treachery, and made the world see how unfair they are. They deserved to be punished for war crimes even before he got involved, how they are treating him as a result is something else entirely.

My friend: I'm thinking of how the USA has an undue influence on the world. If they let him go, then they would have been seen as good guys and would thus be likely to get off scot free, and then money would be wasted. If they are being like they are, there is a countermovement which is quite strong and there is a greater chance that they will be found guilty.

Me: No, because letting him go now, while it would be fantastic for him, would still not undo a) the way that he has been treated so far and b) what they did that prompted Bradley to blow the whistle in the first place. Your comment about the fact that they are more likely to be found guilty if they treat him like they are makes sense, but the end does not justify the means, and it is totally unfair for Bradley to be used as a pawn in a political game.

At this point, our debate rather drew to a close as we weren't going to agree, and we had each said pretty much everything that we could for our respective sides. I find it odd how with a debate like this, someone can have such a different point of view to mine. I can see how in some debates, it might not be so clear-cut and someone's viewpoint may be fundamentally different to mine, but to me, in this case it is a no-brainer. He should be released; that is the only just thing to do. He saw someone doing something wrong to people, and he thought, no, that's not right - and so he did something about it, in much the same way that many of the people that we hail as heroes did. My friend clearly sees things from a more political stance, and I admit that that might be the more realistic attitude - but when I have opinions about how the world should be run and how certain people should be treated, I refuse to be swayed by politics. I am a passionate idealist, and I view the world from a point of view that says, actually let's try to do something about this and make a positive difference. If as a political activist, I had only ever worked on things that I thought had a realistic chance of success, I'd have done precious little - but making an effort, even erroneously, makes me feel better about things, because we never know what we can make a difference to if we try.

So in summary, please join the Save Bradley Manning campaign. Like the Save Bradley Manning Facebook page:

http://www.facebook.com/savebradley?fref=ts

Log onto the website, upload your 'I Am Bradley Manning' photo and read about what else you can do to help:

http://www.bradleymanning.org/

Remember, while we are talking, a young brave man stands in a high-security prison, not knowing if he will ever experience freedom again. Please help him. I do what I can, I hope you will do the same. I apologise that the majority of this blog post has consisted of a video I made and a transcript of a conversation I had - I wasn't in a very good frame of mind to write this, but sometimes duty calls.

Take care, readers, and check back soon for another update!

Communication between political activists and police

Hello!

Okay, it's been an appallingly long time since the last time I blogged. This is my first blog of 2013, and even at New Year I hadn't put anything on here for nearly a month. I've thought of lots of things I've wanted to blog about, I just haven't got around to it. I think it's a self-fulfilling prophecy in a sense - the less frequently I've been blogging, the less likely it is that I'm going to write about something that jumps out at me, because I'm not really sure how to get started talking about it. I am ashamed that I've been letting my blog fall by the wayside so much, hopefully I'll be picking it up again over the next few weeks.

Today I wanted to talk about something that has been occurring more and more to me recently that I feel really strongly about, and that is the relationship between the police and activists/demonstrators such as myself. I'll be honest about the fact that since I started becoming involved in political demonstrations, my respect for them has declined a lot. However, recently I have found that people I have talked to at political demonstrations have a personal vendetta against all police officers. I can understand why they might have this attitude - after all, many of these people have been involved in this side of life for longer than I have - but I have to say, it does annoy me. There are some demonstrators who will see a person in uniform and instantly and instinctively class them as the enemy. I was at a very small demo quite recently, and a few police officers were alerted to it and arrived to make sure that everything was all right. One of the people on the protest - who I won't name to protect the innocent, but they know who they are if they're reading this - spoke to the officers in an extremely rude and unpleasant manner, and I did actually speak to him afterwards to tell him that I thought that he was being quite unfair. I don't actually see all the police as being enemies. Some are, absolutely, and if on this occasion the officers had been trying to move us or cause trouble to our cause, I would have completely stood by my colleague's actions. However, I think that one's manner should always start off polite, and after that it depends on what you get from the other party. Being unpleasant to someone because of what they represent is very judgemental, and actually sounds to me like the very attitude that we campaign against in the first place. I don't appreciate the police and other authority figures such as politicians writing activists and anarchists off as troublemakers; therefore I don't do the same thing myself. Plus, you never know in advance what the police at a demonstration will be like; sometimes they are aggressive and intimidating, while at other times they just try to keep the peace. Occasionally they are openly supportive of the cause - it doesn't happen as often as I'd like it to, but you come across it from time to time.

This weekend I took part in a workshop about direct action, and this debate came up in the discussion. I said that while I appreciate that it is sometimes not feasible - and in fact, it probably isn't feasible the majority of the time - I think that it is good to be completely open with the police at demonstrations. Someone else - who is considerably more experienced than I am - said that they completely disagreed with me, and thought that it is best to keep one's plans for a demonstration as private from the police as possible. From a realistic perspective, I suppose I agree with that; the way it works at the moment is that a group of people form a demo, an inordinately large number of officers arrive and then either attempt to disperse the group or let them carry on with it - but the majority of the time, it is difficult to actually make any kind of difference without behaving in a way that is likely to get someone arrested. Because of this, a lot of the time a successful protest or demonstration relies on having the element of surprise against the police, and therefore, it is not a good idea to be open with them about your plans. You might ask then, why I think protestors should be open with the police at demos. Well, people who know me know that I am an idealist, and as an idealist I think that there are better ways for demos and protests to be run, on the side of both the demonstrators and the police. I would in no way condone demonstrators to be 100% open with the police the way that things stand at the moment; that is not what I was saying at all. What I think is that there should be a system whereby the police and demonstrators can be open with one another.

For this to happen, there are really two things that need to be worked out. Firstly, powers of arrest need to be limited to a much lesser extent than they are now. At the moment, people can be arrested at protests for things that just do not add up - if the police wish to arrest someone, whatever that person is doing. they will be able to find a clause in an Act somewhere which allows them to arrest that person for something. As a political activist and also a former law student, I have been amazed over the past few years by how many powers of arrest there are, particularly in situations high in emotion such as political demonstrations. These powers need to be limited if the protest movement has any chance of succeeding in its vocations. The second thing is an increase in knowledge of everything on both sides. Both demonstrators and the police need to be fully aware of EXACTLY what is legal and what is not, so that no one will be wrongly arrested and no one will do anything that they do not know to be illegal (although I think that the powers of arrest ought to be basic enough for it to be obvious to everyone what they can be arrested for, but still it's a safeguard.) Also, the police should be aware of what has been arranged in advance, and stick to that. You can't always trust the police to be fair - if, for example, you have planned for a certain number of people to join the demonstration at a particular time, and the officers on duty claim to have not been made aware of this, then that arrangement is not honoured, and I think that is not on. I think that there should be a system where the police and protesters can work together, fairly and honestly. If that were the case, there would be fewer arrests at demonstrations, the police would not be victimised by demonstrators and anarchists in the way that they are, and the world of political activism would not be so dark. Because it is dark, it pains me to say. I am aware that there are certain things that I am involved with that it is dangerous to talk about in certain places and with certain people. I find this rather frustrating, because I am a passionate supporter of freedom of information, and if I could, I'd tell everyone what was going on. The only reason I can't do that is because I'm worried about what some people might do with that information.

Well, that's it then! Apologies once again for the really long gap between blogs. I hope to get back into blogging regularly. I do enjoy it immensely once I get down to it.

Take care, guys!