Did you learn something new about Bradley Manning today? I did.

Commentary by Michelle Tackabery, Bradley Manning Support Network

Bradley Manning is different. In stature he is small, so much smaller than others of his age, making his features delicate. I had a dear friend about Bradley’s size once, who is gone now; he, too, was in the US Army. He, too, was different. He, too, was sometimes sad, and could seem…desperate. He was also one of the strongest, smartest, most moral people I have ever been privileged to know. I don’t know Bradley Manning, but I’ve been fighting for him for a while now. Today’s news doesn’t change that.

The chat logs released by Wired magazine today feel familiar to me. Familiar, not because I am small. Not, indeed, because I have spent my life struggling with something as basic and inherent as my sexuality. I’ve never looked in the mirror and wished that I had different body parts. I cannot begin to understand what that understanding feels like.

I have, however, known I was different. I have stood in crowds of children, people, companies, knowing it. I, too, showed early and frightening signs of a fast-growing intelligence beyond the understanding of family, neighbors and teachers. I know how it feels to have people look me in the eye and fear me for a reason they cannot quite explain. I have been sad, and desperate. So, so very desperate and afraid. Yet at those times, I still managed to make quite serious decisions and take action under some frightening circumstances. We all have.

Fear and Anger

Fear is a powerful force because it’s autonomic; something our body does before we realize quite what’s taking place. Fear overtakes us. Our body reacts without our conscious thought, and that itself adds to the fear we experience. In the rush to gain control over fear, we grab hold, hard, to the strongest emotion that arises. So fear can easily become anger or hatred, because those emotions are powerful too. They push adrenaline to the bodily systems that need it, and for the few moments we are in danger and truly afraid, we might see the advantage of that power.

Henry Rollins has spoken of the energizing power of anger. Getting mad gets you moving. It’s literally an energizing force. Because fear paralyzes and increases inertia, getting angry can quickly break you from paralysis. If we are exposed to fear too often, getting angry can become a habitual escape. Violent behavior can feed on itself, causing cyclic violent behavior. Rollins was featured in a National Geographic piece on violence that explored this phenomenon on a genetic level, which destroys people in the prime of their lives by hooking them on the cheap drug of anger in the face of fear. Learning other ways to react can be like rehab.

Because anger comes quickly and easily, an angry reaction is the impulse buy in rhetoric’s shopping cart. Rhetoric, a word bandied about like so much confetti, is the art of persuasion, and rhetors are its practitioners. Rhetoric has a bad reputation with which you may be familiar, and so rhetors tend to disguise themselves with different titles.  Marketers. Public relations people. Journalists. Politicians. Lawyers. Some of these titles might even inspire your hatred. I can understand that.

But we are all rhetors. We become practitioners from the moment we first use speech to get what we want.  The day you grunted and pointed at a cookie, and your mother or other caregiver handed one to you, you were a rhetorical success. Rhetors make arguments, and you do it every day of your life.  I need the car today, dear.  Don’t you think we should go to the pub for lunch instead?

Rhetoric and the US Government case against Bradley Manning

One argument being made by the US military in the case of Bradley Manning (and perpetrated by various corporate media) is that Bradley Manning allegedly blew the whistle on military crimes because he was mentally ill. Another:  Bradley Manning became an alleged whistleblower because he suffered a romantic breakup. Yet another:  Bradley Manning allegedly leaked military documents because he was a wannabe “hacker” trying to impress a man who may one day be known as the world’s most notorious “cyber criminal.”

The newly released chat logs might tempt you to buy into another argument:  Bradley Manning was an alleged whistleblower because he was gay. Or transgendered. Or didn’t want to be a boy anymore. He was mad at his father. He hated the military. Or he hated Oklahoma. Hated the United States of America and everything it stands for, etc., etc.  Cue the band and unfurl the flag.

From one rhetor to another?  Don’t believe it.  All those arguments are just variations of the cheapest rhetorical trick in the toolbox — agree because you’re mad. Agree because you hate. Because deep down you’re afraid.

These arguments treat you, frankly, as if you’re stupid. Too stupid to know that anger is an autonomic response like any other, not a tool that can replace your brain or your heart. We all know that to think well the brain needs information from multiple sources, just like the body needs a variable diet.  Too much of anything, frankly, is bad for you. Ask a former practitioner of violent behavior about that.

Don’t give in to cheap arguments

America is full of anger right now — full of hate based on fear. But the Bradley Manning Support Network is not afraid of Bradley Manning, and neither am I.  Not because I know what it’s like to be different, even though I do.  Not because I know what it’s like to be in my early 20s, when everything in the world seemed up for grabs and every thing designed to test what I thought I knew. Not because I know what it’s like to consider becoming a different sex or changing my body to resemble the way I feel inside.

I am not afraid because I know that sometimes at the moment when we are most afraid, most vulnerable, and most human, we are most capable of finding other ways to overcome the paralyzing inertia of fear. Bradley Manning made a choice. I believe his choice was not just good for each US citizen but good for the US and good for the world.  And I believe, like Bradley Manning does, that we are better than our fear and know not to believe arguments that want us to jump to the easy conclusions made in anger.

Today I learned that even in the depths of pain that would have killed some people, Bradley Manning chose to act for the greater good of the citizens of the planet,  knowing that others might not understand, and with the full knowledge that no one might support him. In his fear, he reached out for support. I am sorry he did not find it online in the days he communicated with Adrian Lamo. But I assure you, he is no longer alone.

Support the fight to free Bradley Manning, and do not be afraid. Join us today.

Donate anything you can to the Bradley Manning Support Network and help us fight for him.