Update 10/3/12: New songs and a play for Bradley Manning, a CCR lawyer speaks about Manning
New songs released dedicated to Bradley Manning. Ever since Bradley Manning’s name emerged as the alleged source of WikiLeaks’ releases, he’s been the subject of scores of songs, murals, drawings, and other art projects.
Last month, Desaparecidos (featuring Conor Oberst of Bright Eyes fame), debuted their song called “Anonymous,” dedicated to Bradley Manning. Oberst prefaces the song calling Manning “an American hero” for whom we should not only free from prison, but also celebrate as a patriot:
Just yesterday, Nicholson Baker released “Whistleblower Song,” dedicated to Bradley Manning as well.
Baker captions the YouTube video with an explanation of the song and how the lyrics were chosen:
This is a song I wrote about Bradley Manning, who changed the world when he allegedly released to Wikileaks a massive number of items–including the “collateral murder” videos–none of which should have been kept secret. Manning has been held as a political prisoner, initially in barbarous conditions, without trial, for more than two years. He is due to be tried next year for “aiding the enemy.” He is a hero and deserves our thanks and respect.
There aren’t many words in this song. The first line is a quote from one of the cockpit videos that Manning allegedly gave to Wikileaks: “When you get on them, just open them up.” The second line, “horrible things that belong in the public domain,” is adapted from a text message that Manning wrote to Brian Lamo, who turned him in. Later I use a phrase from Julian Assange’s speech outside the Ecuadorian embassy–he says that Bradley Manning is an inspiration and that he is a “servant of the public record.”
Radio drama based on Bradley Manning’s time in Quantico to air on the BBC. On October 6, BBC Radio 4 will air Steve Water’s radio drama “Air Gap,” which focuses on the accused WikiLeaks whistle-blower:
This powerful drama takes place in Quantico, and at forward operating base Hammer, near Baghdad, where Manning was stationed in the period leading up to his arrest. It’s here that he sees the ‘war on terror’ documented in action reports and in video material, including the now infamous ‘collateral murder’ video.
Read more about the production here.
The CCR’s Shayana Kadidal discusses Manning and WikiLeaks at Ithaca College. Last week, a lawyer for the CCR, who’s suing the military to bring transparency to Bradley Manning’s case, spoke about the First Amendment issues raised by the prosecution of Bradley Manning and the persecution of WikiLeaks:
Within the Assange case is Bradley Manning, the U.S. soldier who has been held in military custody for more than two years after his arrest in 2010 on suspicion of supplying classified material to WikiLeaks. But this would qualify as a journalist’s day-to-day job, Kadidal said.
“If the government can prosecute Julian Assange for conspiring with Manning to turn over some of these documents, then pretty much all investigative journalists who work on national security cases are going to be viewed as conspirators,” Kadidal said.
Sophomore Zach Briggs said he was shocked to hear of some of the actions the U.S. government could get away with. One example of this was Manning’s extraordinarily harsh pre-trial conditions in an attempt to break him and validate the government-pursued conspiracy charge with Assange, as Kadidal said.
“Being told about these weird, terrible things that can occur in your government, you just think on a moral level — on a basic human-being level — how could you let that pass?”
Kadidal will argue the CCR’s case for transparency on October 10, at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces, at 450 E. Street N.W., Washington, DC 20442. Read more about his Ithaca talk here.
It is gradually becoming clearer that we are each being called upon to start blowing the whistle on our own
ignorance, our own cruelty, our own acceptance of social, political and ethical outrages that we have been accepting too long as “matter of course.”