Volunteers needed to help Bradley Manning
2010-06-13
21 comments
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Unless Bradley Manning is not prosecuted — which I think is highly unlikely — he’s going to need a lot of support and help.
So, here’s a general call for volunteers, immediately, in the following areas:
- Campaign coordinator(s): I’m an IT guy by trade and a translator by profession, and not much of an organizer of people. I’d like to eventually hand off the coordination role to someone passionate about the cause, preferably experienced in organizing, and who has the time to do it.
- Writers: One aspect of this campaign is to influence public opinion. To that end, we need people writing on-topic, current material on an ongoing basis. Articles could be published here either under your name or pseudonymously, and material already published elsewhere is welcome.
- Wiki writers: This site is already trying to automatically compile an archive of links to news stories mentioning Bradley Manning. Over at bradleymanning.org/wiki there is a “Press coverage” page attempting to build a more coherent view of developments in the press. Head over, create an account and see where you can contribute in collecting and collating information.
- Promoters and fans: Spread knowledge of this site any way you can: email articles to your friends, share on social media sites, post to Facebook and Twitter, etc. Join the forum, introduce yourself and start some conversation. Encourage interested others to do the same.
- WikiLeaks liaison(s): WikiLeaks has stated in the press that they are in the process of arranging legal counsel for Bradley. Therefore, I think all fundraising for his legal defense should flow through WikiLeaks and we should not create a parallel channel.(superseded by Courage to Resist-sponsored defense fund) In this and other matters, the grassroots needs someone to interface with WikiLeaks and ensure that what we’re doing is coordinated.
- Media coordinator(s): Leveraging the traditional media is an important part of any successful activist campaign. People with experience in maintaining media databases, placing op-eds, representing the campaign as press spokespeople, etc., are needed.
If you’d like to contribute in any of these areas, or you have a suggestion for something missing, please either leave it in the comments or send it to me by email. My address is mike at gogulski dot com.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Mike Gogulski, d'enny. d'enny said: RT @mikegogulski: Volunteers needed to help Bradley Manning: http://bit.ly/biBOby #bradleymanning #antiwar #p2 #topprogs #tlot #activism [...]
You need to create a petition on behalf of Bradley Manning, which people could sign and which would automatically go to their respective Congressional Representative and Senators.
I bet you most people will sign it.
It works, and so do phone calls.
I’ve been linking this where I can. I was shocked, even though I shouldn’t be. I mean, look who we are dealing with here.
My heart bleeds for those killed in cold-blood. The men who stopped their van to help. Everybody slaughtered that day.
It is a crime and should be punished. Along with the US president who ordered the initial invasion of a sovereign nation.
The perpetrators should go to prison for a long, long time. How could they laugh? How could they be so flippant whilst mowing down innocents in a hail of bullets and missiles. I have never watched anything so disgusting in my life.
@Maria: Thank you for commenting here, and for spreading the word.
I am not certain what value putting the perpetrators in prison would have in terms of relieving the pain of the families of the people who died that day, nor of the two injured children who are now living with enormous physical, emotional and psychological trauma.
But I share your outrage, without limit. The sad fact is that there will never be any justice for those injured and killed, or for their survivors. I hope that we can prevent massive injustice, though, befalling Bradley Manning.
@Gerry: You’re absolutely right. Would you like to coordinate that effort, or lend me some support in gathering the resources to do it effectively?
Is the main news media totally ignoring this story?
@Maria: I don’t think so.
If you go to google news (http://news.google.com/) and search for bradley-manning you’re going to find going on 1,000 articles as of right now. We might wish for more coverage, but this does not amount to the story being ignored.
The software here is trying to capture excerpts of and links to those. See the right sidebar or the “syndicated news” category link at the top.
That said, the amount of original and useful journalism is being drowned out in the noise, not to mention that the first-source “journalist” for this circumstance is Kevin Poulsen, a friend of Lamo and someone who *ALSO* should have known better than to reveal a source.
What we -can- and -ought- to do is write letters to the editor on this topic. If you want to do that, any time you see a news article from any publication, go to http://www.mapinc.org and look at their media database. You will find letters-to-the-editor contact information for a huge number of publications.
I’ve actually blogged about this controversy on my Suicide Girls account, I could probably do something more positive in getting the word out there to more people on the various social forums I regularly visit.
I can’t believe he is looking at up to 52 years in prison. Those apache pilots killed those people in cold blood, and aparently its just the tip of the proverbal iceberg. Does anybody know WHY WERE FIGHTING, AND FOR WHAT, AND FOR WHOM? HOW WILL AMERICA EVER FEEL SAFE WHEN IT HAS TO DROP DEPLETED URANIUM WEAPONS ON PEOPLE WHO LIVE ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE PLANET, AND LIVE AS IF IN THE 7th CENTURY WITH AK 47′S. THIS SHIT HAS GOT TO STOP.
@Crystal: Please do!
Hi,
is there a possibility to donate for the support of bradley manning? I would also like to participate as a volunteer. I already tried to spread knowledge about this site via E-Mail and facebook.
Please contact me if there is anything else that can be done.
I may be able to draw up a nice foldable pamphlet for easy printing and distribution. I will gladly take any (actual) advice on how to proceed, including content and theoretical layout.
Hi Neil and all. Katharine Dawn here.
I shared this article I wrote for our local ‘Conscious Times’ paper with the ‘Bradley Support Group’ email list… If you can use any of it in your pamphlet, Neil, feel free.
*^*
World History Before Our Eyes
Two men of very divergent walks of life have been irrevocably connected on the stage of world history.
One is 22-year-old US Army intelligence analyst, Pfc. (formerly SPC) Bradley Manning who allegedly leaked a secret video and classified military information to the whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks; was arrested by the United States Army Criminal Investigation Command in May 2010; and is currently held in US military detention in Kuwait, facing numerous charges and possibly court martial.
The other is Julian Assange, the daring co-founder and prominent spokesperson for WikiLeaks. Dubbed by some as “the most dangerous man in the world” and by others as a super-hero of the truth movement, Julian Assange remains highly active despite having to step up his personal security measures since the Manning arrest so as to elude “prosecution or worse”.
The leaked video, published by WikiLeaks in April 2010 under the title “Collateral Murder”, shows an American attack helicopter gunning down Iraqi civilians and a Reuters camera crew in Baghdad in 2007.
Like a large stone thrown into a great pool, this significant leak is creating numerous and wide-ranging ripples.
Ripple One. It has caused a wave of public outrage, internationally but particularly within the United States, over US militarism, demonstrating the power of leaked classified material to fuel civil activism for a more just and peaceful world.
Ripple Two. A “Supporters of Bradley Manning” group has been started, bringing together a high power international team with skills and networks from independent media, law, IT and peace activism, furthering what were reportedly Manning’s hopes that the release of the videos and documents would lead to “worldwide discussion, debates, and reforms”.
Ripple Three. Significant mainstream media attention on the combat video leak brought its publisher, WikiLeaks, into the limelight. As a result, the Word is out. That there exists an international public service called WikiLeaks, run by a collective of journalists and activists, that web-publishes leaked secret documents and media. That Wikileaks protects its sources (using the most sophisticated encryption technology and basing their operations in countries such as Sweden and Belgium which have strong source protection laws ). That WikiLeaks’ invites anyone with access to classified or confidential material that rightfully belongs in the public domain to contact them.
The Bradley Manning Support Group can be joined at http://bradleymanning.org
Will we be seeing many, many more coming forward in the manner of Attorney at Law James Ceverney who wrote in the open email communications of the Support Group: “For a long time I have felt sickened about what is happening in this country, and I have felt guilty that my activism has been minimal. This case, however, touched a nerve in me. For me, this was the last straw. I’m ready to get off my butt and do something, anything I can, to stop this monstrous compounding of injustice upon injustice” ?
References for this article include
http://bradleymanning.org
http://indymedia.org.au/keywords/bradley-manning
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrest_of_Bradley_Manning
http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2010/s2920598.htm
http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/wanted-by-the-us-wikileaks-founder-keeps-his-head-down-20100613-y652.html
Hello everyone – I’m in Maine but have connections in our local news (no coverage whatsoever on this), and a new blog that I’ve been writing for about a month. I talk about this to whoever I can, and have continuously tweeted on it as developments happen. I have design and volunteer coordination experience. Let me know what I can do.
I’m going off the net sometime in September (and likely will return in the spring, when my heat bills go down again). However, if there’s a way I can help that doesn’t require the internet, I would like to help. Like all of us, I’m literate and have written articles, etc. If you contact groups like the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), I think you’d find them a very helpful and sympathetic resource…and they, in turn, could provide real-world ways for us to help. Just a suggestion.
Hi Mike and everyone ! I am a english to french and spanish translator so I can help translating documents and publishing them on french or spanish web sites. I am also an activist for net neutrality and freedom of expression with a french organisation, and we are obviously shocked by all the ongoing propaganda against Wikileaks and Manning. I am already on the mailing list, so don’t hesitate…
We must help Bradley Manning and also to start an international
drive to create a Nuremberg Tribunal for all the politicians responsible for the Iraq genocide: the drunk driver George W. Bush, Rice, Powell the liar, Rumsfeld the terrorist, the zionist jewish maffia that control the foreign policy of the US and the international pupets Blair, Aznar, the corrupt Berlusconi, Miller the polish pupet and the group of generals responsible for the XX Century Genocide. We must star a worldwide campaing to force this criminals to leave Iraq anf Afganistan. Enough is enough.
Mike,
I’ve already written a few articles on one of my own blogs that can be related to the subject and have added links to a Brad petition, his defense fund, and the prison facility mailing address at the bottom of those articles. Since I’ve only just now run across bradleymanning.org, I will be updating those articles.
I have called my Senators and Reps directly, telling them I expect them to pressure on the military NOT to make this kid a scapegoat. I’ve twittered and am also running an ad campaign on facebook out of my on pocket, paying for up to 250,000 appearances of the ad per day, for as long as I can afford it (“Free PFC Bradley Manning”).
You are welcome to C&P or link to my articles, if they can do you any good.
http://tinyurl.com/freepfcmanning
http://tinyurl.com/pfcmanning
http://tinyurl.com/pfcmanning1
I have many websites and will be installing a banner for Brad on all of them.
Should anyone be curious, I happen to be a vet myself, though far too old for this new Vietnam.
Mike Gogulski said: “@Maria: Thank you for commenting here, and for spreading the word. I am not certain what value putting the perpetrators in prison would have in terms of relieving the pain of the families of the people who died that day, nor of the two injured children who are now living with enormous physical, emotional and psychological trauma.”
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I don’t understand why you said this, Mike. Why are there prisons, then, if hauling perpetrators before a court is not considered justice?
Isn’t one objective of sending people to prison, the creation of a deterrent? Isn’t another, a way for the victims to know that the people who harmed them will not be harming anyone else for a very long while?
Or you do you want more such atrocities, more victims, and more Bradley Mannings?
Do you think if we are nice to the U.S. military, they will be nice to Manning? Do you think the U.S. military has learned its lesson?
Manning harmed no one, yet he may go to jail. The military kills innocent civilians, and everyone involved is guaranteed to walk away a free person.
No wonder the military gets away with so much – so few people actually give a damn!
Dear Mike
I belong to Stop the Wara Coalition in sydney Australia. We would
like to write to Bradley but could do with some help in doing so.
It would be short, just a long paragraph. Any ideas out there?
@Christine: Say whatever you like. Two things, though: be sure that the letter comes addressed from an individual, not an organization, and don’t mention anything which would presume guilt. Also, be aware that from the information we have on hand right now, it’s quite likely that the letter will be returned to you as undeliverable, since the brig procedure requires senders’ names to be on a pre-approved list Bradley maintains.
@James: See, for example, https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Restorative_justice