Saturday, December 05, 2015

President Obama Pardon Chelsea Manning Now!-The Struggle Continues ….We Will Not Leave Our Sister Behind


****President Obama Pardon Chelsea Manning Now!-The Struggle Continues ….We Will Not Leave Our Sister Behind












 



From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

Updated-September 2015  


A while back, maybe a year or so ago, I was asked by a fellow member of Veterans For Peace at a monthly meeting in Cambridge about the status of the case of Chelsea Manning since he knew that I had been seriously involved with publicizing her case and he had not heard much about the case since she had been convicted in August 2013 (on some twenty counts including several Espionage Act counts, the Act itself, as it relates to Chelsea and its constitutionality will be the basis for one of her issues on appeal) and sentenced by Judge Lind to thirty-five years imprisonment to be served at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas. (She had already been held for three years before trial, the subject of another appeals issue and as of May 2015 had served five years altogether thus far and will be formally eligible for parole in the not too distant future although usually the first parole decision is negative).
That had also been the time immediately after the sentencing when Private Manning announced to the world her sexual identity and turned from Bradley to Chelsea. The question of her sexual identity was a situation than some of us already had known about while respecting Private Manning’s, Chelsea’s, and those of her ardent supporters at Courage to Resist and elsewhere the subject of her sexual identity was kept in the background so the reasons she was being tried would not be muddled and for which she was savagely fighting in her defense would not be warped by the mainstream media into some kind of identity politics circus.

I had responded to my fellow member that, as usual in such super-charged cases involving political prisoners, and there is no question that Private Manning is one despite the fact that every United States Attorney-General including the one in charge during her trial claims that there are no such prisoners in American jails only law-breakers, once the media glare of the trial and sentencing is over the case usually falls by the wayside into the media vacuum while the appellate process proceed on over the next several years.

At that point I informed him of the details that I did know. Chelsea immediately after sentencing had been put in the normal isolation before being put in with the general population at Fort Leavenworth. She seemed to be adjusting according to her trial defense lawyer to the pall of prison life as best she could. Later she had gone to a Kansas civil court to have her name changed from Bradley to Chelsea Elizabeth which the judge granted although the Army for a period insisted that mail be sent to her under her former male Bradley name. Her request for hormone therapies to help reflect her sexual identity had either been denied or the process stonewalled despite the Army’s own medical and psychiatric personnel stating in court that she was entitled to such measures.

At the beginning of 2014 the Commanding General of the Military District of Washington, General Buchanan, who had the authority to grant clemency on the sentence part of the case, despite the unusual severity of the sentence, had denied Chelsea any relief from the onerous sentence imposed by Judge Lind.

Locally on Veterans Day 2013, the first such event after her sentencing we had honored Chelsea at the annual VFP Armistice Day program and in December 2013 held a stand-out celebrating Chelsea’s birthday (as we did in December 2014 and will do again this December of 2015).  Most important of the information I gave my fellow VFPer was that Chelsea’s case going forward to the Army appellate process was being handled by nationally renowned lawyer Nancy Hollander and her associate Vincent Ward. Thus the case was in the long drawn out legal phase that does not generally get much coverage except by those interested in the case like well-known Vietnam era Pentagon Papers whistle-blower Daniel Ellsberg, various progressive groups which either nominated or rewarded her with their prizes, and the organization that has steadfastly continued to handle her case’s publicity and raising financial aid for her appeal, Courage to Resist (an organization dedicated to publicizing the cases of other military resisters as well).   


At our February 2015 monthly meeting that same VFPer asked me if it was true that as he had heard the Army, or the Department of Defense, had ordered Chelsea’s hormone therapy treatments to begin. I informed him after a long battle, including an ACLU suit ordering such relief, that information was true and she had started her treatments a month previously. I also informed him that the Army had thus far refused her request to have an appropriate length woman’s hair-do. On the legal front the case was still being reviewed for issues to be presented which could overturn the lower court decision in the Army Court Of Criminal Appeals by the lawyers and the actual writing of the appeal was upcoming (expected in the Winter, 2016) . A seemingly small but very important victory on that front was that after the seemingly inevitable stonewalling on every issue the Army had agreed to use feminine or neutral pronoun in any documentation concerning Private Manning’s case. The lawyers had in June 2014 also been successful in avoiding the attempt by the Department of Defense to place Chelsea in a civil facility as they tried to foist their “problem” elsewhere.

 
On the political front Chelsea continued to receive awards, and after a fierce battle in 2013 was finally in 2014 made an honorary grand marshal of the very important GLBTQ Pride Parade in San Francisco (and had a contingent supporting her freedom again in the 2015 parade). Recently she has been given status as a contributor to the Guardian newspaper, a newspaper that was central to the fight by fellow whistle-blower Edward Snowden, where her first contribution was a very appropriate piece on what the fate of the notorious CIA torturers should be, having herself faced such torture down in Quantico adding to the poignancy of that suggestion. More recently she has written articles about the dire situation in the Middle East and the American government’s inability to learn any lessons from history and a call on the military to stop the practice of denying transgender people the right to serve. (Not everybody agrees with her positon in the transgender community or the VFP but she is out there in front with it.) 

[Maybe most important of all in this social networking, social media, texting world of the young (mostly) Chelsea has a twitter account- @xychelsea

Locally over the past two year we have marched for Chelsea in the Boston Pride Parade, commemorated her fourth year in prison last May [2014] and the fifth this year with a vigil, honored her again on Armistice Day 2014, celebrated her 27th birthday in December with a rally (as we did this past December for her 28th birthday).

More recently big campaigns by Courage To Resist and the Press Freedom Foundation have almost raised the $200, 000 needed (maybe more by now) to give her legal team adequate resources during her appeals process (first step, after looking over the one hundred plus volumes of her pre-trial and trial hearings, the Army Court Of Criminal Appeal)

Recently although in this case more ominously and more threateningly Chelsea has been charged and convicted of several prison infractions (among them having a copy of the now famous Vanity Fair with Caitlyn, formerly Bruce, Jenner’s photograph on the cover) which could affect her parole status and other considerations going forward.     

We have continued to urge one and all to sign the on-line Amnesty International petition asking President Obama to grant an immediate pardon as well as asking that those with the means sent financial contributions to Courage To Resist to help with her legal expenses.

After I got home that night of the meeting I began thinking that a lot has happened over the past couple of years in the Chelsea Manning case and that I should made what I know more generally available to more than my local VFPers. I do so here, and gladly. Just one more example of our fervent belief that as we have said all along in Veterans for Peace and elsewhere- we will not leave our sister behind… More later.              

 

 
 

The Latest From The Justice For Lynne Stewart Website

The Latest From The Justice For Lynne Stewart Website

 

 

 Click below to link to the Justice For Lynne Stewart website

http://lynnestewart.org/

Although Lynne Stewart has been released by “Uncle” on medical grounds since the winter of 2014  after an international campaign to get her adequate medical attention her case should still be looked at as an especially vindictive ploy on the part of the American government in post-9/11 America to tamp down on attorneys (and others concerned about the fate of "los olvidados," the forgotten ones, the forgotten political prisoners)  who  have been zealously defending their unpopular clients (and political prisoners). A very chilling effect on the legal profession and elsewhere as I have witnessed on too many occasions when legal assistance is desperately needed. As a person who is committed to doing political prisoner defense work I have noted how few such “people’s lawyers” there around to defend the voiceless, the framed and “the forgotten ones.” There are not enough, there are never enough such lawyers around and her disbarment by the New York bar is an added travesty of justice surrounding the case. 

Back in the 1960s and early 1970s there were, relatively speaking, many Lynne Stewarts. Some of this reflecting the radicalization of some old-time lawyers who hated what was going in America with its prison camp mentality and it’s seeking out of every radical, black or white but as usual especially black revolutionaries, it could get its hands on.  Hell, old time lawyers who hated that in many cases their sons and daughters were being sent to the bastinado. But mostly it was younger lawyers, lawyers like Lynne Stewart, who took on the Panther cases, the Chicago Democratic Convention cases, the Washington May Day 1971 cases, the military resister cases (which is where I came to respect such “people’s lawyers” as I was working with anti-war GIs at the time and we needed, desperately needed, legal help to work our way in the arcane military “justice” system then, and now witness the Chelsea Manning travesty of justice case) who learned about the class-based nature of the justice system.

Then like a puff those hearty lawyers headed for careers and such and it was left for the few Lynne Stewarts to shoulder on. Probably the clearest case of that shift was with the Ohio Seven (two, Jann Laamann and Tom Manning, who are still imprisoned) in the 1980s, working-class radicals who would have been left out to dry without Lynne Stewart. Guys and gals who a few years before would have been heralded as front-line anti-imperialist fighters like thousands of others were then left out to dry. Damn.      

******

The following paragraph is a short description of the Lynne Stewart case from the Partisan Defense Committee 2013 Holiday Appeal  when she was a recipient of a stipend by the class-war prisoners’ defense organization, the Partisan Defense Committee, as part of their solicitation for funds to continue their work of seeing those of our people behind bars are not forgotten.

“Lynne Stewart is a lawyer imprisoned in 2009 for defending her client, a blind Egyptian cleric convicted for an alleged plot to blow up New York City landmarks in the early 1990s. Stewart is a well-known advocate who defended Black Panthers, radical leftists and others reviled by the capitalist state. She was originally sentenced to 28 months; a resentencing pursued by the Obama administration more than quadrupled her prison time to ten years. As she is 74 years old and suffers from Stage IV breast cancer that has spread to her lungs and back, this may well be a death sentence. Stewart qualifies for immediate compassionate release, but Obama’s Justice Department refuses to make such a motion before the resentencing judge, who has all but stated that he would grant her release!”

*********

Update 2015: Lynne Stewart still fighting the good fight since her release still has pressing continuing medical needs and the need for funds to get that attention is also of continuing concern so click on to the link on the site where you can help defray her medical expenses.

Friday, December 04, 2015

Support Chelsea Manning's Birthday In London December 17

To : alfredjohnson34@comcast.net
Fri, Dec 04, 2015 05:52 AM
Happy Birthday
CHELSEA MANNING!
Free her now!
Support all whistleblowers!
http://www.refusingtokill.net/images/C_Manning_Finish-1-245x300.jpg
Thursday, 17 December 2015, 12.30-2pm
 
Trafalgar Square, (north side) London WC2N 4JJ
Charing Cross Tube 
Actions planned so far in Bucharest, London, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, San Francisco . . . (watch this space for more countries and more events).  If you organise an event, let us know and we’ll publicise it.  Please circulate this mailing to your contacts.
Chelsea Manning will be 28 years old on this day.  She is the whistleblower, US soldier, Grand Marshal at San Francisco Pride 2014, who leaked hundreds of thousands of documents to Wikileaks exposing the truth about US, UK and other governments’ war crimes and corruption in Afghanistan, Haiti, Iraq, Israel & the Palestinian Authority, Peru, Venezuela . . .  In doing so, she helped save many lives.  Chelsea was Imprisoned in 2010 and held for months under torturous conditions; in August 2013 she was sentenced to 35 years.
From prison Chelsea has written against the police killings of young people of colour in the US, and in support of immigrants and refugees – including queer and transgender people.
An appeal to quash Chelsea Manning’s conviction is being put forward by her legal team and will be announced in late 2015 or early 2016.  We must get her out!
Sign the petition for Obama to pardon Chelsea.
Donations to her legal fund are needed also.For more info: Chelsea Manning Support Network
Despite mass protest, the UK Parliament has just voted to bomb Syria (see Payday’s letter here).  Whistleblowers like Chelsea and now former US drone operators have blown the whistle on the killing of civilians during bombing.
We have a responsibility to defend all whistleblowers who are persecuted for telling the truth about murder and war crimes, rape, torture, neglect, underfunding, starvation wages, corruption . . .  in the military, prison, detention centres, police, hospitals, care homes, and every institution.
Assange
Eileen%20Chubb
Snowden
Dallas 6 part 1
Dallas 6 part 2
drone whistleblowers portrait 1
drone whistleblowers portrait 2
Queer Strike londonstrike_image004_192
UK: +44 (0) 20 7482 2496
 US: 001 415-626 4114
UK: +44 (0)20 7267 8698
US: 001 215 848 1120

In Boston-December10th-Candlelight Vigil: War is Not the Answer

Candlelight Vigil: War is Not the Answer


Thursday, Dec. 10, 5:30 pm
Boston Common - Human Rights Day

War is not the answer. We should:
  • Welcome and fund refugees forced to flee their countries to avoid war and death inflicted by others.
  • Isolate ISIS by beginning to demilitarize the region. Immediately end all arms shipments to the Middle East. Weapons shipped to U.S. allies and “opposition forces” have fueled the Syrian War and often fall into ISIS’ hands. Suspend US bombing and military actions and withdraw US/NATO troops now.
  • End material and financial support to ISIS and Al Qaeda and their clones. End the U.S. -Saudi Alliance, that has been so critical to the emergence and funding of these forces.
  • Support self-determination for Syria. Only Syrians can decide the fate of their country. 
  • Negotiate an agreement in which Russia, the U.S., Iran and European countries stop fighting to achieve their own strategic goals under the guise of “fighting ISIS” and instead together put their full weight behind diplomatic efforts to end the bloodshed in Syria and Iraq.   
Download a Printable Flyer
United for Justice with Peace • justicewithpeace.org • 617-383-4857
The massive attacks in Paris on November 13 and the campaign to prevent desperate refugees from seeking sanctuary on our shores have shocked people around the world.
So have the ISIS bombing in Beirut two days before; the bombing of a Russian jetliner killing hundreds; the Saudi bombing of a wedding party in Yemen killing over 150 people; the recent U.S. bombing of a Doctors without Borders hospital in Afghanistan killing scores of patients and doctors; the drumbeat for us expanding our present war in Syria and Iraq, and the calls to close our borders to the desperate refugees fleeing the Middle East cauldron,
With echoes of sending Jews back to their deaths in the Holocaust and the internment of Japanese-American citizens, in a gift to ISIS, Congress is raising still higher barriers against Syrian refugees.
We are forced not just to mourn those murdered and unable to reach sanctuary, but to reflect on the root causes of all this bloodshed. Before our government escalates yet another futile war and sacrifices the innocent we should consider the bigger the causes of this expanding crisis.
  • The most immediate cause of the rise of ISIS was the 2003 – 2011 war against Iraq. Not only were over 4,500 U.S. soldiers killed and many thousands more physically or psychologically incapacitated for life; not only were hundreds of thousands of Iraqis killed and Iraq destroyed as a country. But that war destroyed Iraq, opening the gates of hell. ISIS emerged through those open gates.
  • The Soviet war in Afghanistan and the U.S. and Saudi creation of the Mujahedeen  in the 1980’s opened the door to extremist forces.
  • Jihadist extremism has been nourished for decades by Washington’s assaults on secular Arab nationalism and by our close ally Saudi Arabia, often with the full support of the United States.  It is no accident that most of those who attacked the U.S. on 9/11/01 were Saudis, or that Saudis are the lead funders of Jihadist extremists.
  • France, England, other European countries, Iran and especially the brutal Assad regime in Syria have all played roles in promoting war, instability, sectarian violence and death across the Middle East.
 

Upcoming Events: 

In Boston-December 5th- WHY REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM? -- A Reportback on the 2015 Workers World National Converence

WHY REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM? -- A Reportback on the 2015 Workers World National Converence


Dec 5 4pm at Action Center, 284 Amory St in Jamaica Plain, Boston


Facebook Event Page: https://www.facebook.com/events/908414662547482/

Why Revolutionary Socialism? This was the question asked and answered at the Workers World National Conference held at the historic Malcolm X and Dr. Betty Shabazz Memorial and Educational Center in Harlem on the weekend of Nov. 6-7, 2015.

Come join the discussion, watch video clips and hear from members and friends of Workers World Party, the Boston School Bus Drivers Union, Women's Fightback Network and FIST (Fight Imperialism Stand Together) among others who attended the conference from Boston.

Now more than ever, capitalism at a Dead-End has produced historic crises that only revolutionary socialism can put to an end. Developments such as the Black Lives Matter movement, the low wage workers uprising and Fight for $15, the migrant workers struggle, the global climate justice movement and the Bernie Sanders campaign have laid the basis for a potential resurgance of revolutionary and radical political alternatives to the repression and exploitation of global capitalism. But the resurgance of revolutionary possibilities in the US will be restrained if left in the grips of the Democratic Party.

Founded in 1959, Workers World Party is a multinational, socialist organization of working class leaders, including people of color, immigrants, women, LGBTQ people, elders and youth, prison abolitionists, trade unionists and disability rights activiists, all dedicated to bringing about socialist revolution in the US.

Join us to learn more about how to get involved in the struggle for a world free of exploitation, poverty, war, racist police brutality and state-sponsored violence and oppression. We have nothing to lose but our chains!



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