Elaine's article falls apart here: "A former Marine took off his taxi job to attend, in his first political action, saying that Manning has captured his support just for 'telling the truth'."
What truth did he tell, Elaine?
We're getting damn sick of this s**t.
It's not helping anyone and damn well needs to stop.
Has Bradley Manning entered a guilty plea?
No, he has not. He's accused by the government of leaking 'secrets.'
Are you defending Bradley?
We'd hope everyone would be. We hope everyone would agree that you do not hold someone -- accused of a non-violent crime -- for over a year behind bars. We hope everyone would agree that he has been mistreated. Most of all, we hope all Americans would agree "INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY." That is, after all, the supposed bedrock of the US legal system.
Innocent until proven guilty.
The US government did what they always do in legal cases, they started leaking claims to the media. They tried to make Bradley look unstable and, yes, guilty. Why did they do that? To contaminate public opinion and to contaminate any jury.
So it's really offensive when we hear people who identify themselves as Bradley supporters making statements that indicate Bradley did what he's accused of doing.
Try to step off the soapbox for just one damn minute and think about what your actions say to people not following the case. Here's Samantha Andersen. She gets home, she turns on the news, "Hmm. Who is this Bradley Manning? Those people supporting him seem really energized. Maybe he's innocent -- Oops, no. They're saying he did a great thing by leaking. They're saying he did it!"
If Bradley enters a guilty plea, we'll be happy to argue that the actions aren't criminal.
But unless and until he does such a thing, it's not our place to convict him. It's not our place to do the prosecution job for it.
There are many ways we can defend Bradley Manning without convicting him. Our collective refusal to abide by that goes to our own wants and desires. Guess what? We're not the ones accused, we're not the ones going on trial. We're not risking a damn thing for ourselves if we call Bradley guilty.
But we are risking his chance at a fair trial if he is going to enter a plea of not guilty. We're doing that by being his public supporters . . . who repeatedly insist he did what the government's charged him with despite the fact that he has entered no plea and made no statement to that effect.