Remember when you were a child, when you did something wrong, you might have had this feeling that if you told the truth about what you had done, you would get into trouble? Perhaps you chose to take the route of not talking, and hoping your wrongdoing would remain undiscovered. Perhaps you even had a devilish sense of accomplishment if you had gotten away with it.
This happened to me a few times, but it ultimately turned out – despite any consequences – that when I told the truth, I felt better. I also realized that the cost for not telling the truth was twofold: Those I lied to, for instance, lost trust in me, which stung like bees in my belly, and even worse, when alone with my thoughts, lying in the face of my own conscience felt like I was choosing to assassinate my own character; that to not face the truth – simply because of my fear of it – was like choosing a long, slow death, not just of my own character and integrity, but of truth itself.
I learned at a young age that what is right is right, and if wrong is done, in order to be truly absolved at the individual level, the wrongdoer must hold her or himself accountable. A lofty somewhat libertarian goal, for certain, but truth, justice and integrity commands with a quiet, dignified elegance and simplicity that lying never offers.
In the case of Bradley Manning, a young whistle blower against the unethical behaviour of the US military, a Fort Meade Judge found him guilty of telling the truth and for doing so, he might be sentenced to up to 136 years in prison.
This is not a reasonable sentence – no one lives for that long, first of all. It’s overkill, meaning ‘exceeding what is necessary.’ Not coincidentally, this word emulates precisely the type of mentality that is being endorsed by the powers that be. The concept of over killing (I refer my readers to the recent case of Sammy Yatim – my deepest condolences go out to his family) has as its core one element: Fear.
We need to come up for air from the asphyxiating mire of lies. We need to wake up from the nightmare of fear which seeks to engulf us.
In the case of Manning, this young man is no more guilty of espionage or treason than is Edward Snowden, and punishing truth tellers for being so is not only contrary to justice itself, but demonstrative of the underlying problem: We are being ruled by liars who by their very nature, define truth telling as an act of treason.
The fact that Manning leaked these documents on a public forum points to a belief and faith in JUSTICE…not some human made construct or blurry, subjective definition of the word, but to the idea itself. And although he paid an unreasonable price for his honesty and integrity, for what it’s worth, I commend him for doing so.
It bares mentioning that the word ‘government’, broken down into its etymological components, essentially means ‘mind control’. The first part, ‘govern’, derived from Greek means to steer, drive, or act as a pilot, and the second part, from the Latin ‘mente’ means mind.
In order to maintain business as usual – to maintain the comfort of those in power who would never live in poverty, never go to war, always have access to the best health care and living conditions, never have to worry about their children having to attend sub-standard schools, and never have to eat artificially modified or toxic food – we the people are flipping the bill. We are all being used.
I don’t wish to convey the impression that I’m anti-American or anti-Canadian – quite the opposite. In whatever way I can, I stand for the people, for human and animal rights, for proper police training, for healthy living, for community, for equality of all people, for environmental protection and for truth and justice. So by definition, I cannot stand for anyone or anything that does not.
When a regime has only itself to answer to, corruption follows. End of story. Manning, like David, chose to stand up against the Goliath monster of corruption, without hesitation, and I would wager he did so because it was the right thing to do. Manning’s face and body language indicate that he is not a threatening, calculating anti-American spy, rather, a naïve idealist who, despite his youth, manned up and chose to take his orders from a source higher. His actions demonstrate the kind of selflessness and integrity that expose evil for what it is.
It stands to reason that human beings who seek positions of authority are interested in power. The mentality in Washington – outlined beautifully in Mark Leibovich’s Book, “This Town” – discusses how Washington, in particular, has slippery sloped its way in to some kind of ugly, seemingly untouchable Hollywood scenario, where the holly bears no berry and the wood is being clear cut. In this microcosm, those who comprise it have devised a system in which they have conveniently relieved themselves of all accountability. With no moral or ethical compass, they are lost and blind to the reality outside their white walls. For them, by them, and of them, there is no world outside their myopic impunity.
‘Leadership’ has taken on a new meaning in politics: These guys and dolls are like old school gangsters except they have no moral code, no sense of loyalty, and no will to protect the people they are paid to protect. There are very few real politicians anymore. Instead, as Leibovich pointed out, there are only millionaires in power, and those who are paid to keep it that way.
No, Manning’s sentence was not reasonable. Nor, in my opinion, was it a wise move considering the collective movement of a global populous whose fear is quickly turning to disbelief and justified anger over the politically imposed sickness that is infecting us all.
“Bradley was acquitted of the most serious charge: aiding the enemy”, more than likely because if convicted of the latter, the outrage would be far greater, and those condemning Manning know that pushing people at this tipping point in history must be done (at least for the time being) with a certain finesse – in a manner we can cope with – gradually and with smoothly spun, seemingly ‘reasonable’ language, peppered with wolf in sheep’s clothing rhetoric.
Larry Korb, the former U.S. assistant secretary of defense said, “Before (Manning was) deployed to Iraq, his commanding officer said, ‘I don’t know if we should deploy this guy. He’s got all kinds of mental problems, but we’re desperate,’ so they put him over there. So basically, what happens if you take someone who doesn’t belong there, you put them into a situation, you’re asking for trouble,” he said. http://www.voanews.com/content/manning-convicted-of-5-espionage-charges-in-wikileaks-case/1713101.html
Why did they send him? Was it because they feel people are expendable? Do they have no interest in protecting those on the front lines of their war, about the soldiers they condemn to exist in their nightmare, or for the millions of foreign civilians who have been murdered, whose countries have been invaded and torn apart in order so that the ruling parties can carry on their self-interested metaphorical golf game? What about public safety, human rights, and higher moral rule?
I would wager that any instability Bradley might have been feeling more than likely stemmed from a justified personal ethical crisis about what he was being asked to fight for. When faced with a real life, higher level philosophical, moral or ethical question, in the face of the ubiquitous hypocrisy of oppressive man made ‘orders’, it is inconceivable that an individual with a conscience would not feel psychologically and spiritually torn.
It is indeed a critical situation when you are faced with this simple truth: If you do what’s wrong, you’ll be paid for it. If you do what’s right, you’ll be punished.
I am appalled by this entire situation. Whether we care to admit it or not, we are paying to live in a Military state, even if it looks like Pleasantville to some. Manning is young. He saw things no one should see. We are all witness to things that simply should not be. On the one video he leaked, innocent people – unarmed civilians and journalists – were gunned down. Here’s a link to the video for which, having ‘leaked it’, Manning was convicted of being a spy.
The shallow and deep truth is that the current stranglehold of those in power will tighten unless we interrupt their shameless tournament. Right now, the people factor in only so far as we are needed to pay for the charade to continue, unbeknownst to most of us. We are unwittingly being sucked dry of our ability to think for ourselves, and fear is the weapon used to control any thinking than remains. It is in the best interests of those in power to make sure that we, the people, are kept in fear, and distracted from the truth, so that we remain unable to decipher between normal and completely fucking insane, between right and wrong. In the end, if we are unable to choose – if either because we are paralyzed by fear, or because we have lost our conviction to decide – our choices will be made for us.
We are indeed at war, and if boiled down to brass tacks, again, there are only two sides to choose from: Good and evil. Right and wrong. It’s that simple. Snowden, Manning, Dr. Meb Rashid, medical director of the Crossroads Clinic for refugees at Women’s College Hospital, Joanna Gualtieri, Edgar Schmidt, Sean Bruyea, The ‘RCMP Five’, Allan Cutler, Daniel Land, Ian Bron, Bob Gale, The ‘Health Canada Three’, Dr. Nancy Olivieri, Richard Colvin, Perry Dunlop, Dr. John O’Connor, and many, many others chose the good side. What side will you choose?
Photo Credits
Bradley Manning @ indybay.org
Edward Snowden @ Businessinsider.com
Thank you Janice 🙂
yes. Bring it! this was a really good read.