We did it! DC Metro ads for Bradley going up now
April 20, 2012 update: We did it! With the help of about 400 donors, we raised the need $14,800 to make this happen. The ads are going up throughout the Washington DC Metro immediately!
We have until April 21st , 4pm Pacific / 7pm Eastern, to raise funds to put up 21 “Bradley Manning: Whistle-blower” ads in the Washington DC Metro subway system. If we are successful, these ads will coincide with Bradley’s next hearing at Fort Meade, Maryland, which begins April 24. Each ad is 46″H x 60″W.
Bradley Manning needs your help. His next court appearance will be on April 24th and the Bradley Manning Support Network is calling on supporters to stand up and show the government that war crimes must be exposed and that whistle-blowers must be set free. The military has done its best to limit public exposure to Bradley Manning’s case by holding the trial at Ft. Meade, a relatively difficult location for the public to attend, and they have not released transcripts of the pretrial hearing, thereby limiting media exposure and making it difficult for laymen to follow the proceedings. Let’s bring the case back to Washington!
Our proposed Washington DC metro ad.
Furthermore, the government has gone out of its way to purge WikiLeaks from its employees’ memories. State Department officials are categorically banned from visiting WikiLeaks.org or even linking to it personally. The word “WikiLeaks” in any government email gets that whole message blocked, or sent to a spam filter. These ads will force government workers to remember WikiLeaks and Bradley Manning, remind them that the public is behind Bradley, and explain that what Bradley is accused of doing is a public good. Exposing wrongdoing is to the benefit of transparency, justice, and democracy. Help us bring Bradley’s case into the public eye.
There are two ways to support the campaign, either by making a donation on the EpicStep Ad Campaign website, or by donating directly to the Bradley Manning Defense Fund. In addition to the $14,800 cost of the ads, we’ll also have to pay $600 for the use of the photo of Bradley.
Previous campaigns have included billboards in Kansas City near Fort Leavenworth were Bradley is often held, and on Highway 50 leading into downtown Washington DC from Fort Meade, the site of Bradley’s court hearings. Of course our grassroots campaign is fueled primarily by supporters’ handmade banners and picket signs, but these selective billboards are an important aspect of building public awareness and support for Bradley.
Past billboard campaigns
With your help Bradley Manning’s case will be known by every metro rider in DC – particularly the thousands of government and military persons on their way to work, who due to the government’s censorship of employee access to WikiLeaks, may have no idea what kind of war crimes Bradley Manning exposed.
Let the truth shine.
I am calling the President out for his prejudicial statement before Bradley Manning was tried in a court of law. He should have known better.
GREAT!!! We ALL should!!
Keep up the hard work everyone! WE THE PEOPLE, will get Bradley released!
We did it! A big thank you to the 400 donors who made this happen!
THANK YOU! I’m donating. I want to see those great posters up. The pic of Brad is one of my favorites. He looks grim but also look as if he’s trying not to laugh at the insanity of this theater production. What a hero. He puts his commander-in-chief to shame. If he gets the Nobel Prize he’ll restore its tarnished reputation.
I look forward to seeing friends from Occupy and meeting new ones at Fort Meade and the Dept of Justice next week. My brother works at the DoJ. My sister and I make sure he hears the latest news about Brad and real criminals.
So glad
Hope this Exposure helps!!! Thanks to all who donated any amount!!!!
Excellent work !!!!!
Where and when we can found some pictures of the Washigton DC metro with our posters ????
Hope soon on flickr…
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Bradley Manning is a great American patriot who should be freed from prison immediately, awarded the Presidentisl Medal of Honor and the Nobel Peace Prize. Seriously. It’s an absolute disgrace that this whistleblower is languishing in prison for the “crime” of publicizing war crimes and crimes against humanity. For as long as this guy languishes in prison, I will continue to rail against the injustice of his imprisonment. Shame on the United States Government, shame on everyone who looks the other way. Release this man immediately.
Ugh…these ads are a blight to our metro system. I look forward to them going away very soon.
This isn’t about the war. The war sucks. This is about the thousands of individuals around the world who had their reputations and careers ended (and in some cases faced physical danger) because Manning decided life would be better if everyone knew who was sharing information with US embassy officials. This is about policymakers no longer being able to get unvarnished opinions from the people on ground in embassies thousands of miles from the warzone. Look beyond Iraq and you’ll see Charles Taylor standing in The Hague using Wikileaks cables to argue his defense. You’ll see human rights activists in China cutting of contact with U.S. officials who depend on them for information.
We’ll never know the real human cost of what he did, but there are so many ways in which his reckless actions damaged foreign policy objectives that I think we’d all agree on, like supporting human rights political freedom globally. Regardless of its effect on the war (which appears to be nonexistent), damage was done from Buenos Aires to Seoul, from Pretoria to Jakarta. I would challenge you to show how he saved a single American, Afghan, or Iraqi life by his “heroic” actions. The war goes on…the only difference is everything ELSE is harder now.
Steve, your thoughtful, critical contribution to the discussion is just the sort of comment that Comments Sections should be all about–thanks for writing. I will say, while I can appreciate your point of view, I can’t agree with your assessment at large, not when I look at the breadth of revelations the leaks provided, and the patterns within U.S. foreign policy that it highlights.