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[Loud Whispers]

P.S. Fuck everybody suggesting this was some kind of conspiracy on the media's part.

It's not a conspiracy when it's well known how owned American media is and how united it is in its goal of perpetuating destructive identity politics over ethical concern. Sort of like how the entire American media machine started saturating its headlines with Russia gayness, or lack thereof, whilst similarly ignoring PRISM.
And yeah as you said, the American media also hates Bradley, or I guess Chelsea if this is true.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The decisions that I made in 2010 were made out of the concern for my country and the world that we live in. Since the tragic events of 9/11, our country has been at war. We have been at war with an enemy that chooses not to meet us on a traditional battlefield. Due to this fact, we’ve had to alter our methods of combatting the risk posed to us and our way of life.

I initially agreed with these methods and chose to volunteer to help defend our country. It was not until I was in Iraq and reading secret military reports on a daily basis that I started to question the morality of what we were doing. It was at this time that I realized that our efforts to meet the risk posed to us by the enemy, we had forgotten our humanity. We consciously elected to devalue life both in Iraq and Afghanistan. When we engaged those that we perceived were the enemy, we sometimes killed innocent civilians. Whenever we killed innocent civilians, instead of accepting responsibility for our conduct, we elected to hide behind the veil of national security and classified information in order to avoid any public accountability.

In our zeal to kill the enemy, we internally debated the definition of torture. We held individuals at Guantanamo for years without due process. We inexplicably turned a blind eye to torture and executions by the Iraqi government. And we stomached countless other acts in the name of our war on terror.

Patriotism is often the cry extolled when morally questionable acts are advocated by those in power. When these cries of patriotism drown out any logically-based dissension, it is usually an American soldier that is given the order to carry out some ill-conceived mission.

Our nation has had similar dark moments for the virtues of democracy—the Trail of Tears, the Dred Scott decision, McCarthyism and the Japanese-American internment camps—to mention a few. I am confident that many of the actions since 9/11 will one day be viewed in a similar light.

As the late Howard Zinn once said, there is not a flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people.

I understand that my actions violated the law. I regret that my actions hurt anyone or harmed the United States. It was never my intent to hurt anyone. I only wanted to help people. When I chose to disclose classified information, I did so out of a love for my country and my sense of duty to others.

If you deny my request for a pardon, I will serve my time knowing that sometimes you have to pay a heavy price to live in a free society. I will gladly pay that price if it means we could have a country that is truly conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all women and men are created equal.

They got him to apologize for everything in court despite having nothing more to lose, and 'admit' he was wrong and that he hurt lots of people. It's saddening to say the least, can we please not forget what he has done, why he did it even in lieu of this coming? Man or woman, this should be of no concern.

[Scoops Novel]

So long as we think critically about all involved. However, yes, i expect his sentence wont hold up.

[Owlbread]

Loud Whispers, I agree with you completely but this is the one occasion in which most of this stuff has actually come from the defence of Manning and is genuine, not from the prosecution or the media. The whole "Chelsea Manning" thing is true.

[misko27]

P.S. Fuck everybody suggesting this was some kind of conspiracy on the media's part.

It's not a conspiracy when it's well known how owned American media is and how united it is in its goal of perpetuating destructive identity politics over ethical concern. Sort of like how the entire American media machine started saturating its headlines with Russia gayness, or lack thereof, whilst similarly ignoring PRISM.
And yeah as you said, the American media also hates Bradley, or I guess Chelsea if this is true.

Meanwhile, I have barely been able to find anything on Russia and the anti-gay laws, while I have been positively flooded with stuff on everything ever on the NSA. Maybe your American Media is different then mine... I blame Google. Not being sarcastic, it probably is the way they filter results by location.


Putting it here because why not: One of my friends is a relatively famous Forensic Psychologist, and a Canadian TV show was interviewing him on ex-Pfc. Manning, and he hadn't heard about the recent news. So they start off with asking him "What impact will Manning coming out as a Women, here's her picture here, on the possibility of a Pardon, and how might it affect parole?" and he had literally seconds to answer. He covered pretty well, but it was damned funny seeing him attempting to get off to a coherent start going "Well, uh, I don't believe it will have any impact, in relation to Obama, that is to say, on a Pardon, but, I definitely see her as having a chance for Parole, etc."

[Mrhappyface]

Whether it's true or not  doesn't really make the situation better or worse, just weirder and something more gossipy. It just seems like a desperate grasp for straws from whoever released the info.

[Sheb]

Or just the media knowing they'd get rating because people like gossips more than analysis.

[Owlbread]

In international news, Chinese political rising star and known Maoist traditionalist Bo "She-Lie" Xilai has called his wife mad and a liar during his trial for corruption in which she testified against him. His wife poisoned a British businessman that was close to the family over a money dispute, and is now attempting to bring down her husband after he tried to cover it up.

Bo Xilai is quite an interesting man. He's known for encouraging people to join him in singing old revolutionary songs and the like.

[Sheb]

Yeah, the Economist has been covering this a lot. It mostly seems like a power struggle at the top between "princelings", sons of Mao's comrades-in-arms. Bo still got a lot of support around the party, so he'll probably avoid the death penalty, but be lacked for at least the 10 years Xi Yinping is supposed to serve.

On another note, in case anyone had any doubt about Israel apartheid tendencies, they've now started segregated kindergarten for
 non-Jews black children in southern Tel Aviv.

[Scoops Novel]

Bo Xilai is quite an interesting man. He's known for encouraging people to join him in singing old revolutionary songs and the like.

Come on. Guess.

[Sheb]

What do you mean?

[Scoops Novel]

Name one board where that statement wouldn't prompt further comment.

[10ebbor10]

This one?

[Scoops Novel]

This one?

That was a bad joke, man.

[Dutchling]

I don't get it either. What is he supposed to guess? There was no question in what you quoted.

[Scoops Novel]

The guess being that making that statement is going to lead to questioning. What other purpose will i quote him on that for?