Sunday, June 5, 2011

Thank you Wikileaks and Bradley Manning

I was just sitting here glancing through that book, Cocaine Politics. Those of us that are politically active in some way or another know that the people elected in to office aren't the people who actually determine how government functions or how it uses the resources of society.  Those that make the decisions that affect our daily lives---- and in the case of the US, the lives of  everyone on the planet given its global military and economic power.----aren't elected.  Not only are they not elected but in the main we don't know who they are.  They are on the boards of major corporations and financial institutions and decisions they make can have catastrophic results.  We know the ones and two's like Bill Gates and Warren Buffet. These people made the decision to invade Iraq for example and then through their control of information in society convinced millions of people it was necessary. Sure, they have disagreements, but not on the fundamentals, not when it comes to defending capitalism and their class interests against ours.

All the governments are like this of course but when the US decides to invade its rivals and Botswana does, the consequences are a bit different.  We all know that the rulers of the world and their governments are rotten. 

But when our feelings are validated, when what we think becomes as one friend put it, a social fact, its very uplifting. It makes us feel good and them feel vulnerable.  The more widespread the truth, especially a truth that validates what we know in our gut is reality, the more it can empower people to act.  That's why we should thank profoundly, Wikileaks, Julian Assange and Bradley Manning.  Wikileaks reveals what they say in private and won't say in public although it is always our business. In a genuine democracy of all the people, which for me could only be a workers' democracy, why would those who supposedly represent "all" the people lie to all the people, or 99% of them? They wouldn't.

Cables released by Wikileaks and published in The Scotsman reveal the facts behind Gaddafi's "handling of the homecoming"  of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber. US senator John McCain met with Gaddafi shortly before Megrahi's release.  McCain warned Gaddafi that his new found friendship with the US might be severely damaged if Megrahi received a joyous welcome.  Gaddafi refused to give McCain any guarantees.

The Cables reveal that Gaddafi had a deal with EU negotiators that would free those six Bulgarian nurses (remember them) that were given life sentences in Libya for allegedly infecting Libyan children with the HIV virus back in 2007.  The deal was that they would serve out their sentences in Bulgaria.  I have no idea if these nurses were guilty or nor guilty but the EU reneged on the deal and the nurses were given a huge reception back home.  In Gaddafi's mind, the release of Megrahi and the nurses was linked and I'm sure that this was all part of the deal.

The point is that information like this is priceless.  It lays bare what we know is the unspoken truth so to speak. This example of their decisions and how undemocratic they are is the just the tip of the iceberg.  How can you live in a democracy when you have no say in the running of society?

This is why we owe Wikileaks and Bradley Manning a debt of gratitude.  Wikileaks is lifting the veil off their operations and bringing us the truth.  If Bradley Manning is the person who made these cables available he is a hero and both he and Assange should be defended by the rest of us.

The media talks about the hostility to Manning in the military.  Is there?  I don't know. I know there surely would be among the ranks of the officers who rarely come from the working class because they don't trust us.  Manning and Assange will be dragged through the dirt.  All sorts of filth will be spread about them by the media that our enemies own; they have to be discredited.  But we know that's what they do to those who stand up to them and we should just brush it aside.

Thanks to Wikieleaks, Julius Assange and especially the young Bradley Manning who has been brutaly treated by the US military industrial machine. It's shameful that there is not a massive public response to the imprisonment and torture of Bradley Manning---but its never too late.

Defend Wikileaks Free Bradley Manning

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