Wednesday, January 11, 2017

Army Leaker Chelsea Manning on Obama's 'Short List' for Commutation-Free Chelsea Call The President

Army Leaker Chelsea Manning on Obama's 'Short List' for Commutation

by CYNTHIA MCFADDEN, KEVIN MONAHAN, WILLIAM M. ARKIN and TRACY CONNOR
 Chelsea Manning on Obama's short list for possible commutation of sentence 4:44
President Obama has put Chelsea Manning, the former Army intelligence analyst serving a 35-year sentence for leaking classified material, on his short list for a possible commutation, a Justice Department source told NBC News.
A decision could come as soon as Wednesday for Manning, who has tried to commit suicide twice this year and went on a hunger strike in a bid for gender reassignment surgery.
"I have more hope right now than I have the entire time since she was sentenced," Manning's aunt, Deborah Manning, told NBC News.
"I do think it's the last hope for a while."
Manning — then known as Bradley — was locked up in 2010 after swiping 700,000 military files and diplomatic cables and giving them to Wikileaks.
 Army approves hormone therapy for Chelsea Manning 2:18
Prosecutors branded Manning a "traitor" seeking notoriety in the world of hackers and anarchists. Manning's lawyers painted their client as a naive whistle-blower who caused little more than mortification.
Manning pleaded guilty and before the sentencing delivered an apology to the court — and the nation. A recording of that statement is being broadcast for the first time by NBC News.
"I'm sorry," Manning said. "I'm sorry that my actions hurt people. I'm sorry that they hurt the United States."
"I understand that I must pay the price for my decisions and actions," Manning added.
Those words of contrition did not sway the military judge, who gave Manning a sentence about 10 times longer than those of recent whistle-blowers.
"After this case, I had to tell Chelsea — 'I've represented murderers. I've represented rapists. I've represented child molesters. And none of them received 35 years,'" defense lawyer David Coombs told NBC News.
Image: US-COURT-WIKILEAKS-MANNING
Chelsea Manning, then known as Bradley Manning, leaves a military court facility in 2013. SAUL LOEB / AFP - Getty Images
Manning — who announced she was a transgender woman named Chelsea the day after the verdict — didn't seem to process what the sentence meant for her, her aunt said.
"I don't think it really sunk in," Deborah Manning said. "Thirty-five years is just a long thing to try to imagine, especially when you're just in your early 20s."
Manning's supporters believe the harshness of the sentence can be traced to another leaker; the scandal around former NSA contractor Edward Snowden was erupting around the same time.
"I really believe the judge felt she needed to send some sort of message," the aunt said. "I think in a way she was a scapegoat for Edward Snowden."
Snowden, who has asked Obama for clemency, tweeted his support of Manning shortly after NBC News' report about the commutation decision aired on TODAY on Wednesday morning.
Four former and current Army intelligence officers told NBC News the documents leaked by Manning pale in significance to highly classified top secret material released by Snowden. The officers, who would not allow their names to be used, said the Manning sentence seems excessive.
The Manning leak included video of a deadly 2007 air strike in Baghdad in which the U.S. helicopter crew could be heard laughing about the casualties and State Department cables with blunt comments from American diplomats.
"I don't think any harm was done," Coombs said of the disclosures. "A lot of embarrassment, certainly."
Alexa O'Brien, a freelance journalist, covered the trial and sat in the courtroom every day. She said she believes Manning did not mean to harm the U.S. and that the pre-sentence apology was genuine.
"Everything she said in that statement is completely morally and ethically consistent with what she said when she pled to 10 lesser or included offenses," O'Brien said.
Image: People hold signs calling for the release of imprisoned wikileaks whistleblower Chelsea Manning while marching in a gay pride parade in San Francisco, California
People hold signs calling for the release of imprisoned wikileaks whistleblower Chelsea Manning while marching in a gay pride parade in San Francisco, California June 28, 2015. Elijah Nouvelage / Reuters
Last month, more than 100,000 people signed an online petition seeking commutation of Manning's sentence, meeting the threshold for a White House response within 60 days. The American Civil Liberties Union and gay-rights groups have also been lobbying for a reprieve.
In their petition to President Obama, Manning's legal team cited the need for better medical care for gender dysphoria, a condition that includes severe distress or anxiety by some transgender people.
Manning has been receiving hormone therapy at the Leavenworth military prison and is allowed to wear women's undergarments, but a military doctor recently refused to change her gender on her Army records.
Manning's aunt said she hoped Obama would consider the former soldier's troubled upbringing, struggles with gender identity and remorse.
"I would say this is someone who's never had a chance in life, who is extremely bright, who became extremely emotionally distressed as some point, who made a bad decision, who paid for that bad decision," Deborah Manning said.
"And it's time to let her go out and try to make a positive contribution in the world." 
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Army Leaker Chelsea Manning on Obama's 'Short List' for Commutation-Free Chelsea Now

Army Leaker Chelsea Manning on Obama's 'Short List' for Commutation

by CYNTHIA MCFADDEN, KEVIN MONAHAN, WILLIAM M. ARKIN and TRACY CONNOR
 Chelsea Manning on Obama's short list for possible commutation of sentence 4:44
President Obama has put Chelsea Manning, the former Army intelligence analyst serving a 35-year sentence for leaking classified material, on his short list for a possible commutation, a Justice Department source told NBC News.
A decision could come as soon as Wednesday for Manning, who has tried to commit suicide twice this year and went on a hunger strike in a bid for gender reassignment surgery.
"I have more hope right now than I have the entire time since she was sentenced," Manning's aunt, Deborah Manning, told NBC News.
"I do think it's the last hope for a while."
Manning — then known as Bradley — was locked up in 2010 after swiping 700,000 military files and diplomatic cables and giving them to Wikileaks.
 Army approves hormone therapy for Chelsea Manning 2:18
Prosecutors branded Manning a "traitor" seeking notoriety in the world of hackers and anarchists. Manning's lawyers painted their client as a naive whistle-blower who caused little more than mortification.
Manning pleaded guilty and before the sentencing delivered an apology to the court — and the nation. A recording of that statement is being broadcast for the first time by NBC News.
"I'm sorry," Manning said. "I'm sorry that my actions hurt people. I'm sorry that they hurt the United States."
"I understand that I must pay the price for my decisions and actions," Manning added.
Those words of contrition did not sway the military judge, who gave Manning a sentence about 10 times longer than those of recent whistle-blowers.
"After this case, I had to tell Chelsea — 'I've represented murderers. I've represented rapists. I've represented child molesters. And none of them received 35 years,'" defense lawyer David Coombs told NBC News.
Image: US-COURT-WIKILEAKS-MANNING
Chelsea Manning, then known as Bradley Manning, leaves a military court facility in 2013. SAUL LOEB / AFP - Getty Images
Manning — who announced she was a transgender woman named Chelsea the day after the verdict — didn't seem to process what the sentence meant for her, her aunt said.
"I don't think it really sunk in," Deborah Manning said. "Thirty-five years is just a long thing to try to imagine, especially when you're just in your early 20s."
Manning's supporters believe the harshness of the sentence can be traced to another leaker; the scandal around former NSA contractor Edward Snowden was erupting around the same time.
"I really believe the judge felt she needed to send some sort of message," the aunt said. "I think in a way she was a scapegoat for Edward Snowden."
Snowden, who has asked Obama for clemency, tweeted his support of Manning shortly after NBC News' report about the commutation decision aired on TODAY on Wednesday morning.
Four former and current Army intelligence officers told NBC News the documents leaked by Manning pale in significance to highly classified top secret material released by Snowden. The officers, who would not allow their names to be used, said the Manning sentence seems excessive.
The Manning leak included video of a deadly 2007 air strike in Baghdad in which the U.S. helicopter crew could be heard laughing about the casualties and State Department cables with blunt comments from American diplomats.
"I don't think any harm was done," Coombs said of the disclosures. "A lot of embarrassment, certainly."
Alexa O'Brien, a freelance journalist, covered the trial and sat in the courtroom every day. She said she believes Manning did not mean to harm the U.S. and that the pre-sentence apology was genuine.
"Everything she said in that statement is completely morally and ethically consistent with what she said when she pled to 10 lesser or included offenses," O'Brien said.
Image: People hold signs calling for the release of imprisoned wikileaks whistleblower Chelsea Manning while marching in a gay pride parade in San Francisco, California
People hold signs calling for the release of imprisoned wikileaks whistleblower Chelsea Manning while marching in a gay pride parade in San Francisco, California June 28, 2015. Elijah Nouvelage / Reuters
Last month, more than 100,000 people signed an online petition seeking commutation of Manning's sentence, meeting the threshold for a White House response within 60 days. The American Civil Liberties Union and gay-rights groups have also been lobbying for a reprieve.
In their petition to President Obama, Manning's legal team cited the need for better medical care for gender dysphoria, a condition that includes severe distress or anxiety by some transgender people.
Manning has been receiving hormone therapy at the Leavenworth military prison and is allowed to wear women's undergarments, but a military doctor recently refused to change her gender on her Army records.
Manning's aunt said she hoped Obama would consider the former soldier's troubled upbringing, struggles with gender identity and remorse.
"I would say this is someone who's never had a chance in life, who is extremely bright, who became extremely emotionally distressed as some point, who made a bad decision, who paid for that bad decision," Deborah Manning said.
"And it's time to let her go out and try to make a positive contribution in the world." 
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Race, Gender And Space-The Black Women’s Place-“Hidden Figures” (2016)-A Film Review

Race, Gender  And Space-The Black Women’s Place-“Hidden Figures” (2016)-A Film Review     







DVD Review

By Sam Lowell

Hidden Figures, starring Taraji Henson, Octavia Spencer, Janelle Monae, 2016  

Come on now when you are thinking  about the super-duper advanced mathematicians, computer whizzes or aerospace engineers who put men and women into space and to the moon  you are thinking about short-haired crew-cut  white guys in white shirts with those plastic sleeves in their shirt pockets filled with off-hand pens sitting in mission control at Houston calling the shots as part of a vanilla team of anonymous figures (except the head guy whose head was always being fitted for the platter with each early rocket failure back in the late 1950s and early 1960s after the red scare Cold War Russians put an object and then a man in space leaving the United States of America flat-footed and looking kind of foolish what with all the expertise and dough around).

Yeah, you are thinking in those days, somewhat still true now as well of guys who went to big time science schools like Cal Tech and MIT maybe an oddball from Stanford (although now you will see at least at MIT which I am most familiar many Asian guys and gals filling the classrooms with their computers at the ready but also with those plastic sleeves still holding their pens-the gals too.) What you would not be thinking about is three black women (complete with kids at home something you don’t associate with those white-shirted guys too busy figuring out the latest orbital trajectory) who did not go to Cal Tech, MIT or even an oddball at Stanford but in the case of one Podunk West Virginia and another having to attend night school at some previously all white high school to get up to speed in order to become an aerospace engineer. But that hard if long delayed acknowledgement is what drives the film under review Hidden Figures about those three black women who were pioneers in a man’s world (along with help from other black women from the “colored” pool of human computers from which they were selected). Hell there weren’t even that many white women come to think of it but this film is a black-etched story not a generic women’s story.          

Here’s the way the plot-line played out and why we should admire the tenacity and their sense of patriotism of those women. As mentioned above the U.S. was caught flat-footed by the Russians in the late 1950s with Sputnik first of all and so NASA down in Virginia was pushed hard, pushed hard politically to show some results-to catch up and surpass the Ruskkies (with the object of winning the big prize-landing on the moon not in the distance future but as per Jack Kennedy by the end of the 1960s). So everybody needed to pull some weight-all those highly prized Cal Tech and MIT guys had to push the envelope. Aided of course by those human computers who if you can believe this in the age of the personal computer and an average eight year old’s ability to handle the damn thing with ease used adding machines and pocket calculators-maybe slide rulers too. They appear to have been mainly women-“colored” (hey that is the term of the time so let’s let that stand here as well) and white women working in separate areas of the complex at Langley.           

That seemingly ancient situation which may seem weird in our so-called “post racial” society was however the social reality in early 1960s Virginia due to the Mister James Crow laws and their strict enforcement  in that state despite whatever the courts had proclaimed in the 1950s (or for that matter the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution from the 1860s). This is the “race” part of the “race and space” title of this review. Those laws and “customs” extended right up to those highly educated white- shirted guys who in a very  telling scene put a separate “colored” coffee pot in their break area (and in another scene it took almost a second civil war to get convenient restroom facilities against the previous distant “colored” women’s restroom- Jesus)               


Why was all this breaking down of the social norms of post-bellum Virginia necessary beyond the national goals and pacing set in far-off Washington? Well one Katherine Johnson, played here by Taraji Henson, a natural and brilliant mathematician, was put on the team on her merits which would be fully tested as the white guys were behind the curve most of the time on the critical trajectory tight numbers needed to insure a safe reentry from orbit to “splash down.” One Dorothy Vaughn, played by Olivia Spencer, who was in charge of the “colored” human computers and for a long while not given her due with the actual rank of supervisor who brought her “girls” over after learning the Fortram computer language which was the wave of the future in the computation world. And one Mary Jackson, played by Janelle Monae, who at great effort would become the first African-American (not “colored”) aerospace engineer at NASA. Their neglected contributions to the space program and their having to facing with dignity the skewed racial ethos of the time made this an enjoyable and thoughtful two hours. Yeah, move over Cal Tech and MIT the sisters are in town.         
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From The "HistoMat" Blog- Tony Cliff And the Russian Revolution

Click on the headline to link to a HistoMat blog entry reviewing a book about Tony Cliff and the Russian Revolution.

Markin comment:

I am preparing under my series headlined  From The Archives Of The Spartacist League (U.S.) a group of entries on the pamphlet Lenin and the Vanguard Party, which is a 1970s response to Cliff's work on Lenin and Bolshevik party-building. I will thus save my comments for that series.
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The Cold Civil War Has Started- Resist Trump: Jan. 20 Inauguration Day Protests

Kshama Sawant
To   
SIsters and Brothers,

Donald Trump and the Republican Party are preparing to unleash a storm of attacks on ordinary people. 

Trump’s plans to deport three million immigrants, establish a “registry” for Muslims, criminalize protest, and nominate a Supreme Court justice who would vote to overturn Roe v Wade and shred public-sector union rights are not just idle threats.  His appointments of racists like Stephen Bannon and Michael Flynn, alongside a gang of conservative multi-millionaire and billionaire business people, point in the direction of one of the most right wing administrations in modern U.S. history.

While many are waiting to see how events unfold or hoping against hope that Trump will moderate his positions, hundreds of thousands have already taken to the streets and the mood to resist is growing.

Within hours of Trump's victory, Movement for the 99% and Socialist Alternative were the first to call mass protests in cities across the country. Within 24 hours, over 50,000 people took to the streets, helping to spark a nationwide wave of protest in the days and weeks following.
Now preparations are underway for what could be truly massive protests around Trump’s inauguration, particularly the Women’s March on Washington DC on January 21.  Movement for the 99% and Socialist Students are focusing on building student walkouts across the country on inauguration day, January 20, which could become the biggest nationally coordinated student actions since the Vietnam War.

Please donate $25, $50, $100 or what you can to help build the largest protests and national student walkouts on inauguration day, January 20.
From Occupy Wall Street to Black Lives Matter to Standing Rock, young people and women have bravely been at the forefront of recent movements.  We also saw this clearly in the response to Bernie Sanders’ call for a political revolution against the billionaire class. Voters aged 18-29 supported Sanders over Clinton by a margin of 3-to-1 during the primary. The frustration of young people and search for an alternative has manifested itself through a myriad of polls. A recent nationwide study found that a majority of incoming freshman, for the first time, said they would join a protest or engage in campus activism. Recent polls also show young people have a more positive view of socialism than capitalism.

Movement for the 99% and Socialist Students have come together in an ongoing partnership to help organize a powerful youth and student-led movement.  We can challenge and defeat the corporate and right-wing forces intent on rolling back the hard-won rights of women, labor unions, immigrants, and people of color by building powerful mass movements.
We cannot rely on the Democratic Party leadership to defeat Trump, anymore now than during the elections. The Democrats played a very dangerous game in backing a candidate widely seen as the epitome of the establishment in the midst of enormous anger at corporate politics.  Both the corporate-controlled media and the DNC did everything in their power to ensure that Bernie Sanders’ campaign was stopped, and took their chances with Trump rather than allowing their corporate party to be further challenged by a “political revolution.” In the end, Clinton and the Democratic establishment failed to defeat the most unpopular candidate in modern American history.

History has shown time and again it’s only through mass social movements that we are able to decisively defeat the right.  In 2005, during George W. Bush’s administration, “The Border Protection, Anti-Terrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act” (H.R. 4437) was passed by the Republican-dominated House of Representatives. This infamous legislation contained a host of vicious, reactionary measures aimed at immigrants, including militarizing the border, criminalizing undocumented immigrants, and building a border wall. A true mass movement arose in opposition and succeeded in making it politically impossible for H.R. 4437 to become law.

United together, we can build a wall of mass resistance to Trump's vile agenda.We can shut down right-wing attacks on working people and attempts to scapegoat the most vulnerable among us. But we need your help.  We aim to raise $25,000 by the end of December to organize mass student walkouts at universities and schools across the country. Already we have walkouts being organized in 13 major cities.
There is potential for a historic, massive mobilization to send a powerful message to the incoming administration on Inauguration Day. But we need your help to get there.Please donate $25, $50, $100 or more today. Your contribution will determine whether we can send students to Washington DC to participate in the historic demonstrations on January 20 and 21. Your contribution will determine whether we can print more fliers, posters, and picket signs.
Your contribution will determine whether we can hire student organizers to help organize citywide, statewide, and nationally.

The youth are our future, let’s support them in fighting for it. 

In solidarity,

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