Day One of Bradley Manning trial wraps up has been added as a related post - related requested by dystopianfuturetoday on that post.

this is important.
*promote

Promoting this video and sending it back into the queue for one more try; last queued Tuesday, June 4th, 2013 5:21pm PDT - promote requested by enoch.

why is this important? This is dumb....not important.

are you teasing me?

not at all...I am serious. It's sad and dumb.

Lock the door and throw away the key.

@Confucius
maybe i am reading your comment wrong.
i feel this is important because manning had the courage to expose the hypocrisy and malfeasance of the state department.

i feel this is important because it brings to light how the obama administration has used the espionage act 6 times.which is more than any other administration combined in the 100 yrs of precedent.

my hope is that this trial will illuminate the absolute hypocrisy being practiced by an administration that speaks of liberties and constitutional rights but in actuality does everything within its power to squash those very rights it pretends to champion.

so..yeah.while it may be sad it is very important.

@lantern53 i dont understand you man.
you profess to be all about smaller government and more liberty but are absolutely fine with an authoritarian governmental style.
government social programs are bad but fascism is ok?

you are a walking contradiction my friend.

I'll try a point by point and then I'll probably lose track.

-I wouldn't say courage. I would say naivety (the two are confused alot....maybe you need one for the other...idk). He was used by wiki-leaks and the gang as a suicide bomber and now he will be raped in jail for the rest of his life...and nothing will change except that wiki-leaks gained notoriety. I bet he would take it back if he could.

-He was and is a traitor to his country (it's sad because I get the feeling he didn't fully understand what he was doing...prob. blinded by wiki leaks and gang). You don't release gobs of state secrets like that. Why couldn't he just release the helicopter video or other choice things? (still bad even then).

-He was a soldier. He swore an oath. Anyone even remotely connected to the military understands what I'm getting at. If he wanted to be a champion of truth he shouldn't have gone into the military. Become a reporter, a politician. There are plenty of more legitimate (effectiveness aside) ways to do what he did.

-The concept of total transparency as applied to states is stupid. Every state since the beginning of time has functioned because of its ability to have secrets. Try it on an individual level....go around 1 day and tell everyone everything.

-You talk about the absolute hypocrisy of this administration? Every administration in the history of mankind (excluding Camelot, the Magic Kingdom, and/or Castle Greyskull) to a greater or lesser has done the same thing. To think otherwise is naive. Thats how States function....by not telling, lets say, North Korea that we dropped off patriot missiles in Japan or that we have a secret agreement to to attack them with China should anything happen.

-Am I saying that we should be able to hush up the deaths of innocent civilians and etc......no. I'm just saying that there are more responsible ways to ensure that stuff like that doesn't happen.

@Confucius

thank you so very much for taking the time to clarify your position.
but i think we are in a fundamental disagreement.
and here is why:

1.manning approached wikileaks.not the other way around.
2.is manning a traitor or patriot? i guess it depends on the perspective.
but manning was quite clear his reasons behind revealing those documents and none of those reasons were of being naive' or subverted by a third party.

when you consider the oath of military responsibility,an i oath i took over 25 years ago,the line that stands out is "to protect from enemies both foreign and domestic".
could those documents be seen as subverting the american people?
and if so,would that not make revealing those documents a patriotic act?

again,perspective and i guess we disagree.

conversely, if we use your premise then we would have to view this man:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Ellsberg
as a traitor.
now the 70,000 plus documents HE revealed exposed the gulf of tonkin AND extremely sensitive data concerning the vietnam war.i would go as far to say that without this mans courage (yes..courage) to expose the lies of our government,vietnam may have lasted for a much longer time.ellisberg fascillitated the beginning of the end of the vietnam war

the documents manning revealed just left the american government red faced and embarrassed but nothing of strategic value.ellisberg on the other hand revealed much MUCH more.

traitor or patriot? by your definition:traitor and a far worse one than manning.

and on that we disagree.

what we agree on is that governments lie.
we are in unison on this point but we diverge on how to deal with the situation.

you suggest to work within the bounds of journalism or becoming a politician.
now who is being the naive one?
this implies that the 4th estate is in perfect functioning order and that politicians are informed on all matters.

i submit that neither is the case.
a corporate run new media which engages mainly in sensationalism and hyperbolic opinion rhetoric and a legislature that is mostly subserviant to their financial backers( basically wall street) are not the institutions to tackle and uncover government malfeasance and outright lies.

they have been corrupted.see:iraq war

so i find it disturbing when the government hi-jacks 200 ap reporters emails and phone records.

or when a low level private reveals low level ambassador documents.

or my government's justice department prosecutes SIX people under the espionage act but not ONE indictment concerning wall street.

the message is clear:we are the US government.fuck with us and we will fuck you up.citizen or non-citizen.
there will be no journalism.
there will be no leaking of anything.
sit down and shut up.

or we will ruin you.

government by the people for the people right?

I'm conflicted. I see both sides to this.

I want to see corruption exposed, but I don't think leaking classified information that does not expose wrongdoing is necessarily a good thing.

He definitely violated his contract, but he is clearly no traitor. His defense is claiming he was naive, but well intentioned. He even made a guilty plea for a lesser charge. I wish they'd just taken that charge and given him a greatly reduced sentence.

I think just about everyone can agree that certain things should be kept secret, such as private information about citizens, names of undercover agents, information about witness relocation, sensitive international negotiations, nuclear codes, strategic military information, etc. so the question is:; where do you draw the line?

I served in the Army. I had a top secret clearance. Anyone with half an ounce of brain matter knows you do not release classified information. And especially not to some foreign muckraker. If you have a story, you give it to Woodward and Bernstein, maybe. But unless you want to reap the whirlwind, you don't sow the wind. Manning is reaping what he sowed.

Also, I have nothing against social programs as long as it is a small percentage of what is being spent by the gov't. You can't have unlimited spending with limited income. It's irresponsible and detrimental to the economy on the whole.

@lantern53
navy here.

and i agree.actions have consequences.
manning knew that as did daniel ellisberg and a litany of other people who revealed classified information but they did it anyways because they felt the truth should be known.
that the truth was more important than their own safety and security.

this is why i use the term "courage".
to act on ones own sense of morality and conscience KNOWING the full weight of an entire government will be pressing down on you when it all comes out.

the days of woodward and bernstein are gone i think.i could be wrong but i read the governments reaction as a strong signal to those who would seek to undermine its absolute authority.
see:the godfather principle

reporters being wiretapped and emails and phone records confiscated.
whistleblower status has been denied more than any other time in americas history.
its an old tactic.
create a climate of fear to intimidate anyone who challenges the narrative.

we shall see where this goes because i feel it will be a strong indicator of things to come.
interesting times my friend.

as for social programs.
i guess i would rather see my taxes go to infrastructure and the old lady down the street rather than bail out corrupt bankers and bomb brown people in a distant country.

but empire is expensive and we need those bombs.
or so they say.
i tend to disagree.

anyways.thanks for replying my friend.

Ten Revelations From Bradley Manning's WikiLeaks Documents
http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/06/04/bradley_manning_trial_10_revelations_from_wikileaks_documents_on_iraq_afghanistan.html

Bradley Manning Trial: WikiLeaks Lawyer Sees Spurious "Enemy" Claims & Bid to Scare Whistleblowers
http://www.democracynow.org/2013/6/4/bradley_manning_trial_wikileaks_lawyer_sees