Monday, June 17, 2013

See Something, Say Something.

I've not been the most current-events oriented person for around a year or so.  I wish I was, but Law school is the eternal excuse, for whatever I want it to be.

But it's also a very current-events driven field, so I've had to do some catching up this summer.

As you likely know, we're at the beginning of the 3rd week of the Bradley Manning trial: the guy who gave the stuff to the Wikileaks controversy.

There are hundreds or thousands of things you can read about it, all over the internet, so I won't do any rehashing.

But I will do what I believe is my duty and identify it for what it is: the most gross injustice of our lifetime.

That's a monstrous charge, but it's a monstrous act.  That we even allow our military to continue existing, as citizens of a democracy, after the leaks, is ludicrous enough.

Then we court martial and likely jail, for life, the only person with the guts to make it public?

Much of what you read about it, with a quick google-job, is going to ask if he's a hero or a sick-man, who shouldn't have been in the military in the first place.  Right.  Because then we'd never know.  That's what the majority of the articles are asking: is this man a hero, or would we be better off not knowing?  How is that a question?

It is valid to inquire as to his mental health, certainly.  Though I'll never agree with you, it's even kind of okay to say he's a traitor who broke the law and the rules of the military.

But it's not okay to accept ignorance as preferable and it's certainly not okay to think that what he revealed is at all okay for Americans to tolerate from their "military."  We can ask about the rule of law all day, but that doesn't change the reprehensible acts done in the name of freedom that Bradley Manning brought to light.

We need to stand up, and perhaps wake up.  I get e-mails from causes every single day, asking for my signature on some petition, but somehow, little to nothing on this.

Are we all that heartless, that gutless, that castrated, as a nation?

I understand that the government is doing it's "job" in prosecuting the person who released their classified information.

But we aren't doing ours as a democracy in demanding answers for what was actually in the leaked video and documents.

I do believe Manning should be free and protected because he shined a light on injustice and brutality- but I know our legal system doesn't always work in favor of morality and the downtrodden.

But we can.

I want true justice for Bradley Manning, I want him to be absolved of his "crimes."

And I want the soldiers in the helicopter who gunned down innocent civilians and reporters, then laughed about it to face justice for their war crimes.  I want the highest members of the military who have been a part of these egregious crimes against humanity and their cover-ups since the wars started, held accountable.

The United States has largely become the country of "too-big-to-fail."  Banks. Lobbies. the Military and its control of information.

But we can be too big to fail too.  If enough of us would actually rise and give voice against the injustice in our society, on behalf of the downtrodden, the impoverished, the falsely accused, the Bradley Manning's of the world- if we could rise together, our voice could be too big to fail too.

Like Bradley Manning, who risked everything to reveal the gross injustices he encountered in our illegitimate and illicit military, we too have to stand up and shine a light on the injustices around us- in our everyday lives, and larger- everywhere there is injustice, even if we don't have the physical ability to help, we have a voice we must employ.

The American Evangelical hegemony likes to tell us it was idol worship that led to Israel's captivity.  It's certainly not that it wasn't.  But if you peel back the pages from Isaiah through Malachi, it's obvious that God's harshest fury is reserved for those who perpetuate injustice or do nothing to stop it.  That same evangelical hegemony now aligns and perpetuates its agenda with the political party organized around "capitalism, the free market, and family values,": all bywords of the false prophets known as injustice and oppression.

We need to turn this world inside out and upside down.  Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.  Amos 5:24.

-Zack
"Stand up, we shall not be moved, except by a child with no socks and shoes"
-Flobots