Fascists Defeated
Left overtakes the fascists and their fronts in San Francisco and Berkeley
August 27, 2017—Anti-fascist demonstrators in huge numbers overwhelmed the conservative, Christian-prayer and pro-Trump cover operations for the alt-right/white-supremacist/fascist mobilizations scheduled for the San Francisco Bay Area yesterday and today. Media outlets tilted their coverage of these events against the left, blaming black bloc and others for what little violence there was. But the huge numbers of counter-demonstrators sent the needed message: fascism must be crushed and not allowed to grow into a new level of threat against immigrants, Black and Brown people, other minorities and the working class generally.
In San Francisco on Saturday the 26th, the reactionaries' cover group—"Patriotic Prayer"—chickened out at the last minute from their plan to assemble at Crissy Field, and planned instead to have a "press conference" (with the same speakers!) in a smaller park nearby. But that plan was swamped by thousands of counter protesters, while the fenced-off park was left empty. A tiny handful of these rightist creeps were left to wander around town, and out of town, to no avail.
Mass mobilization is what dissuaded these fascist enablers from going forward, and that included a resolution by the ILWU longshore workers Local 10 to shut down the port that day and march to Crissy Field to show the resolve of the anti-racist working class to oppose fascism. This resolution to shut down the port in protest of a racist event, on the part of a union, which has opposed apartheid in South Africa, the police murder of Oscar Grant, and the imprisonment of innocent former Black Panther Mumia Abu-Jamal with similar actions, gave a big boost to the anti-fascist mobilization. The fact that this workers' action turned out not to be necessary—due to the event's cancellation—is a credit to all those who came out. The message received from the ILWU was "we're there when you need us."
In Berkeley, where we were today, the "hundreds" or "thousands" of counter-demonstrators to the "No Marxism In America" rightist rally—as it was reported in the media—could easily have been 10,000 or more. They filled the streets for many blocks around the downtown area, and soon took over MLK Jr. Park, where the rightists' rally was to have been held. Their numbers included many individuals and organizations, perhaps as many as 100 organizations. Some arguments and fights occurred between anti-fascist demonstrators and the handful of rightists who showed up, allegedly to defend their "free speech." And herein lies a problem to be addressed.
Rightists were shown the door
The rightists who showed up and who were shown the door—chased out of the park and in one case beaten to the ground—mostly portrayed themselves as "Trump supporters." And the media—as in NBC Local Bay Area (www.nbcbayarea.com), and SFGate (www.sfgate.com)—both underestimated the size of the protestors' demonstration in my opinion; and also blamed the leftists for restricting the "free speech" of these rightists, and for causing the violence. NBC blamed the leftists—black bloc included—for "assaulting" "at least three people." KPFA News, however, reported that at least one of these so-called Trump supporters had on an Islamophobic T-shirt. This "Trump supporter" reportedly said to his leftist opponent in argument, "When is the last time you saw a lynching?" And his opponent said, "What about Charlottesville?" (KPFA.org)
In Charlottesville, a "Unite the Right" rally claimed free speech rights as well. They did this as a Black man was beaten nearly to death by a pack of Nazis in a local garage near the rally; and a protestor, Heather Heyer, was killed by a Hitler-lover participant of the rally who drove his car into a crowd of protestors, also wounding many others!
We won't forget Babi Yar!
One sign seen among the marchers in Berkeley today, hand written and barely legible from a distance, referred to some deep background about Nazis that must never be forgotten. It spoke of a person's grandparent who had been killed by German Nazis at Babi Yar in Ukraine when they invaded that country (then part of the USSR) in 1941. Their plan was to kill all the Jews, along with others, and enslave the rest of the population. Nearly 34,000 Jews were shot down and dumped into the ravine at Babi Yar on that day, September 19, 1941.
And this is not some irrelevant story that you can dismiss as ancient history! The local Ukrainian Nazi organizations that aided the Germans that day still exist; and they were key players in the U.S.-orchestrated coup in Ukraine in 2014, which was a major anti-Russian aggressive move. (Ukraine has never conducted any war crimes investigations against its Nazi sympathizers!) And now Trump, the idiot-in-chief of American imperialism, has (whether intentionally or not) unleashed the rotting corpses of Nazism and KKK in the U.S., like so many living dead. Their threat against minorities and all working people digs up the pogroms, Babi Yar, the Holocaust, and the brutal lynchings over many decades in the U.S., the nooses of which still swing sometimes today (including in the port of Oakland!) Their threat to humanity remains alive.
Support free speech, but not for fascists
Free speech is important, and the left must oppose all official state legal controls on speech, whether of the left or right. And while free speech should be extended to non-fascist speakers that some of us on the left may disagree with (such as Richard Dawkins, for instance), the left should not extend this to actual fascists, or to groups which cover for them, like the Alt-Right, or these "Christians" or "Anti-Marxists" in San Francisco and Berkeley this weekend. For these people, "free speech" means let us continue the KKK-enforced racism of the South after Reconstruction, the murderous thuggery of the Greensboro Massacre of 1979, and Charlottesville today.
So what about it? "Free speech" for these groups and their alleged "Trump supporters" who, in the wake of Charlottesville, wanted to repeat the same thing in the Bay Area? I don't think so. Today, the left did its job pretty well.
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Have Black Lives Ever Mattered?
Have Black Lives Ever Mattered? (City Lights Open Media)
By Mumia Abu-Jamal
With the recent acquittal of two more police officers in the deaths of unarmed Black men, the question posed by the title of this book is as relevant as it ever was. Through a series of concise, clear essays, Mumia Abu-Jamal details the racism against Blacks, comparing today's behaviors with the lynchings that were common in the south prior to the decade of the sixties. He points out the obvious: The passage of Civil Rights legislation hasn't changed much; it simply changed the way racism operates.
The ways in which the white establishment has worked to oppress Blacks is astounding. After the Civil War, when slavery was no longer legal, "whites realized that the combination of trumped-up legal charges and forced labor as punishment created both a desirable business proposition and an incredibly effective tool for intimidating rank-and-file emancipated African Americans and doing away with their most effective leaders."
Abu-Jamal states that, today, "where once whites killed and terrorized from beneath a KKK hood, now they now did so openly from behind a little badge." He details the killing of Black men and women in the U.S. with almost complete impunity.
There are two related issues Abu-Jamal discusses. The first is the rampant racism that enables the police to kill unarmed Blacks, as young as 12 years old, for no reason, and the second is the "justice" system that allows them to get away with it.
One shocking crime, amid countless others, occurred in Cleveland, Ohio. In 2012; a police officer was acquitted in the deaths of two, unarmed Blacks, after leaping onto the hood of their car and firing 15 rounds from his semi-automatic rifle into the car's occupants. That is 137 shots, at point blank range, into the bodies of two unarmed people.
If this were an anomaly, it would be barbaric, but it is not: it is common practice for the police to kill unarmed Blacks, and, on the rare occasions that they are charged with a crime, for the judges and juries to acquit them.
In the U.S., Black citizens are disproportionally imprisoned. With for-profit prisons on the rise, this injustice will only increase.
Abu-Jamal relates story after story with the same plot, and only the names are different. An unarmed Black man is stopped by the police for any of a variety of reasons ranging from trivial (broken tail light), to more significant (suspect in a robbery). But too often, the outcome is the same: the Black man is dead and the police officer who killed him, more often than not white, is either not charged, or acquitted after being charged.
The Black Lives Matter movement formed to combat this blatant injustice, but it will be an uphill battle. As Abu-Jamal says, "Police serve the ownership and wealth classes of their societies, not the middling or impoverished people. For the latter, it is quite the reverse." As a result, people of color suffer disproportionately, too often winding up on the wrong side of a gun.
What is to be done? Abu-Jamal refers to the writings of Dr. Huey P. Newton, who calls not for community policing, but for community control of the police. Abu-Jamal argues forcefully for a new movement, "driven by commitment, ethics, intelligence, solidarity, and passions; for without passion, the embers may dim and die."
Have Black Lives Ever Mattered? is powerful, disturbing, well-written, and an important book for our day.
Robert Fantina is the author of Empire, Racism and Genocide: A History of U.S. Foreign Policy. His articles on foreign policy, most frequently concerning Israel and Palestine, have appeared in such venues as Counterpunch and WarIsaCrime.org.
—New York Journal of Books, July 2017
http://www.nyjournalofbooks.com/book-review/Black-lives
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Thursday July 14, 2017, in Petionville, Haiti, near Port-au-Prince, a young book vendor was shot to death by a police officer in front of horrified witnesses. The police used tear gas and batons against a crowd outraged by the murder and the quick, forcible removal of the body in a perceived attempt at a cover up. This is the latest of recent extra-judicial killings by the Haitian police and paramilitary forces.
The brutal killing occurred as the occupation government of Jovenel Moise, installed in the fraudulent elections of November 2016, is pushing to restore the brutal and corrupt Haitian military, which was disbanded by then-President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 1995. Moise has stated that he wants the Army back within two years. Haitians remember the US-supported bloody rampage by former members of this army that claimed thousands of lives during the period of the 2004 coup d'etat against the elected government. The US/UN forces and occupation governments subsequently integrated many of these killers into the Haitian police and government paramilitary units.
This announcement takes place at a volatile moment in Haitian society. The Haitian police and other government paramilitary forces, accompanied by UN occupation forces, have carried out criminal attacks against protesting teachers, students, factory workers, market women, street vendors and others who are victims of government extortion, theft of land, money and merchandise.
On July 10 - 12, 2017, during three days of peaceful protest for an increase in the minimum wage, Haitian police attacked the workers from the industrial park in Port-au-Prince with tear gas, batons and cannons shooting a liquid skin irritant. One of the beaten workers is a woman who had recently returned to work from giving birth.
· On June 12, the government-appointed rector of the Haitian State University used his car to hit and run over a protesting university student. The government prosecutor has ignored the complaint filed by the students against the rector and is instead pursuing the victim's colleagues in a blatant attempt to harass and intimidate them.
· In May 2017, units of the Haitian police and paramilitary forces again attacked the people of Arcahaie protesting the government's plan to remove the main revenue-generating district from the community, located about 30 miles northwest of Port-au-Prince.
· In May 2017, a food vendor in Petionville was killed after he was deliberately hit and run over by a car of the municipal paramilitary forces according to outraged witnesses.
· On March 20th, 2017, police officers were videotaped shooting at the car carrying President Aristide and Fanmi Lavalas presidential candidate Dr. Maryse Narcisse as they returned from court. The police officers were reportedly observed returning to the national palace; there was no condemnation of this blatant assassination attempt by the government.
Adding a newly organized Haitian Army to this mix is a sign that the Haitian government is planning on more repression. The Haitian military's purpose was to protect Haitian dictatorships and to attack any challenges by the Haitian people. Whether under the Duvalier dictatorships from 1957-1986 or when the military overthrew the democratically elected Aristide government in 1991, leading to the killing of over 5000 people, the military has been a central anti-democratic institution in Haitian society. When then-President Aristide disbanded the narco-trafficking Haitian military in 1995, the Army was eating up 40% of the national budget in a country with fewer than two doctors per 10,000 people.
Now this infamous military is being restored just as the United Nations is said to begin a staged withdrawal of its troops. This is similar to what happened following the U.S. occupation of Haiti from 1915-1934, a period in which 20,000 Haitians were killed. As the U.S. forces withdrew, they left in place a neo-colonial army with Haitian faces to do their bidding and continue the repression of popular discontent.
Haitians are saying NO to the restoration of an additional repressive military force. They are demanding an end to police terror and an end to impunity. We join their call.
E-mail and phone-in campaign to:
· Say No to the Restoration of the brutal Haitian military
· Hold the US and UN occupation accountable for the terror campaign by the Haitian police and security forces they train and supervise.
· Say No to impunity for police terror in Haiti
Contact:
- US State Department: HaitiSpecialCoordinator@state.gov
- Your Member of Congress: 202-224 3121
- UN Mission in Haiti: minustah-info@un.org
Sent by Haiti Action Committee
@HaitiAction1 and on FACEBOOK
Thursday July 14, 2017, in Petionville, Haiti, near Port-au-Prince, a young book vendor was shot to death by a police officer in front of horrified witnesses. The police used tear gas and batons against a crowd outraged by the murder and the quick, forcible removal of the body in a perceived attempt at a cover up. This is the latest of recent extra-judicial killings by the Haitian police and paramilitary forces.
The brutal killing occurred as the occupation government of Jovenel Moise, installed in the fraudulent elections of November 2016, is pushing to restore the brutal and corrupt Haitian military, which was disbanded by then-President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 1995. Moise has stated that he wants the Army back within two years. Haitians remember the US-supported bloody rampage by former members of this army that claimed thousands of lives during the period of the 2004 coup d'etat against the elected government. The US/UN forces and occupation governments subsequently integrated many of these killers into the Haitian police and government paramilitary units.
This announcement takes place at a volatile moment in Haitian society. The Haitian police and other government paramilitary forces, accompanied by UN occupation forces, have carried out criminal attacks against protesting teachers, students, factory workers, market women, street vendors and others who are victims of government extortion, theft of land, money and merchandise.
On July 10 - 12, 2017, during three days of peaceful protest for an increase in the minimum wage, Haitian police attacked the workers from the industrial park in Port-au-Prince with tear gas, batons and cannons shooting a liquid skin irritant. One of the beaten workers is a woman who had recently returned to work from giving birth.
· On June 12, the government-appointed rector of the Haitian State University used his car to hit and run over a protesting university student. The government prosecutor has ignored the complaint filed by the students against the rector and is instead pursuing the victim's colleagues in a blatant attempt to harass and intimidate them.
· In May 2017, units of the Haitian police and paramilitary forces again attacked the people of Arcahaie protesting the government's plan to remove the main revenue-generating district from the community, located about 30 miles northwest of Port-au-Prince.
· In May 2017, a food vendor in Petionville was killed after he was deliberately hit and run over by a car of the municipal paramilitary forces according to outraged witnesses.
· On March 20th, 2017, police officers were videotaped shooting at the car carrying President Aristide and Fanmi Lavalas presidential candidate Dr. Maryse Narcisse as they returned from court. The police officers were reportedly observed returning to the national palace; there was no condemnation of this blatant assassination attempt by the government.
Adding a newly organized Haitian Army to this mix is a sign that the Haitian government is planning on more repression. The Haitian military's purpose was to protect Haitian dictatorships and to attack any challenges by the Haitian people. Whether under the Duvalier dictatorships from 1957-1986 or when the military overthrew the democratically elected Aristide government in 1991, leading to the killing of over 5000 people, the military has been a central anti-democratic institution in Haitian society. When then-President Aristide disbanded the narco-trafficking Haitian military in 1995, the Army was eating up 40% of the national budget in a country with fewer than two doctors per 10,000 people.
Now this infamous military is being restored just as the United Nations is said to begin a staged withdrawal of its troops. This is similar to what happened following the U.S. occupation of Haiti from 1915-1934, a period in which 20,000 Haitians were killed. As the U.S. forces withdrew, they left in place a neo-colonial army with Haitian faces to do their bidding and continue the repression of popular discontent.
Haitians are saying NO to the restoration of an additional repressive military force. They are demanding an end to police terror and an end to impunity. We join their call.
E-mail and phone-in campaign to:
· Say No to the Restoration of the brutal Haitian military
· Hold the US and UN occupation accountable for the terror campaign by the Haitian police and security forces they train and supervise.
· Say No to impunity for police terror in Haiti
Contact:
- US State Department: HaitiSpecialCoordinator@state.gov
- Your Member of Congress: 202-224 3121
- UN Mission in Haiti: minustah-info@un.org
Sent by Haiti Action Committee
@HaitiAction1 and on FACEBOOK
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Bay Area United Against War Newsletter
Table of Contents:
A) EVENTS, ACTIONS AND ONGOING STRUGGLES
B) ARTICLES IN FULL
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Table of Contents:
A) EVENTS, ACTIONS AND ONGOING STRUGGLES
B) ARTICLES IN FULL
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A) EVENTS, ACTIONS AND ONGOING STRUGGLES
A) EVENTS, ACTIONS AND ONGOING STRUGGLES
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CODEPINK Fall Action at Creech:
Oct. 5 to Oct. 12 (All welcome!)
(Oct. 7 is the 16th Anniversary of the invasion of Afghanistan)
SHUT DOWN CREECH: Spring 2018: Apr. 8-14. (National Mass Mobilization to Resist Killer Drones)
(Thanks to Sandy Turner, from Ukiah, CA, for sharing this link!)
CODEPINK Fall Action at Creech:
Oct. 5 to Oct. 12 (All welcome!)
(Oct. 7 is the 16th Anniversary of the invasion of Afghanistan)
SHUT DOWN CREECH: Spring 2018: Apr. 8-14. (National Mass Mobilization to Resist Killer Drones)
(Thanks to Sandy Turner, from Ukiah, CA, for sharing this link!)
The Pentagon and CIA now have Brett Velicovich, their own drone veteran and CEO of an "online drone retail store" (Dronepire, Inc. and Expert Drones) , to glorify drone killing. Shameful that NPR couldn't ask the very difficult and important questions. Lots of public education is needed to help people separate fact from fiction!
Would love for someone to do research on this guy!
Please listen to this interview (filled with misinformation), and consider joining us at Creech in the fall and/or spring to be a voice against the slaughter.
(Dates below).
Would love for someone to do research on this guy!
Please listen to this interview (filled with misinformation), and consider joining us at Creech in the fall and/or spring to be a voice against the slaughter.
(Dates below).
Life As A 'Drone Warrior'
NPR interview "with Brett Velicovich about his memoir, Drone Warrior, which details his time hunting and killing alleged terrorists using drones in Iraq, Afghanistan and other places."
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/drone-warrior-author-brett-velicovich-hunting-terrorists/
PS: We should have a massive letter writing and phone calling to NPR for this totally biased and dangerous misrepresentation!
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NPR interview "with Brett Velicovich about his memoir, Drone Warrior, which details his time hunting and killing alleged terrorists using drones in Iraq, Afghanistan and other places."
PS: We should have a massive letter writing and phone calling to NPR for this totally biased and dangerous misrepresentation!
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SIGN THE PETITION: DROP THE CHARGES AGAINST REALITY WINNER
https://couragetoresist.org/drop-charges-reality-winner/
Department of Justice:
Drop the changes against Ms. Reality L. Winner, the defense contractor who allegedly shared with the media evidence of attacks against US election systems by foreign agents. This information should not have been classified. Ms. Winner's prosecution appears politically motivated.
Courage to Resist will attempt to keep signers of the Reality Winners petition up-to-date with periodic news and alerts from her family and attorney. You will be able to opt out at any time.
Department of Justice:
Drop the changes against Ms. Reality L. Winner, the defense contractor who allegedly shared with the media evidence of attacks against US election systems by foreign agents. This information should not have been classified. Ms. Winner's prosecution appears politically motivated.
Courage to Resist will attempt to keep signers of the Reality Winners petition up-to-date with periodic news and alerts from her family and attorney. You will be able to opt out at any time.
WHY ALLEGED WHISTLE-BLOWER REALITY WINNER DESERVES SUPPORT
BY JEFF PATERSON, COURAGE TO RESIST. JUNE 8, 2017
Reality Winner is a 25-year-old Air Force veteran who was arrested in Augusta, Georgia on June 3rd. She allegedly released classified NSA documents to The Intercept, which were the basis for a story about Russian hacking efforts against US election systems leading up to last year's presidential election. Reality is currently in the Lincoln County Jail in Georgia, and faces up to ten years in prison.
Reality Winner—yes, that is her given legal name—did the right thing, and she should be defended.
Reality allegedly leaked information regarding attempted interference in an election, tampering that many believe assisted in Donald Trump's presidential win—despite earning nearly four million fewer votes than Hillary Clinton. The documents published by The Interceptonly confirm earlier accounts of US election hacking attempts and, given the current administration's extreme antagonisms against facts, the release of these documents was clearly in the public interest. Like the vast majority of government documents that are hidden from public view, these reports should have been declassified by now anyway.
Now Trump's own Department of Justice has targeted Reality. It's a sinister move, but on the other hand, simply a continuation Obama's unprecedented zeal in prosecuting whistle-blowers. Trump inherited an atrocious War on Leaks, and Reality is the latest victim of that war. Her arrest is a signal to the world, and the four million other Americans with access to classified information: Only sanctioned leaks benefiting the government will be tolerated.
There's a striking hypocrisy to Trump's crackdown. Less than a month ago the President was criticized for carelessly leaking classified information to Russian officials during a White House meeting. We now know this information concerned a bomb that is being developed by ISIS. This is standard operating procedure: lawmakers have no issue leaking classified information if it somehow furthers their interest, but they aggressively prosecute citizens who expose actual wrongdoing.
I believe that Reality Winner's possible actions should be understood within the context of recent heroic whistleblowing. Shortly before leaving office, Barack Obama commuted the remaining sentence of US Army soldier Chelsea Manning, who was facing 27 more years in prison for exposing war crimes and corruption. Edward Snowden, who leaked information about our government's massive spying program, was granted asylum in Russia but faces espionage charges back home. Just like Manning, it seems that Reality was able to see the inner workings of the United States' war machine.
She served in the Air Force from 2013 until early this year, working as a linguist. Like Snowden, she would have had a better view than most as to how our security state works. Up until last week, she was a military defense contractor with the Pluribus International Corporation in the suburbs outside of Augusta, Georgia, and had Top Secret security clearance.
The US government has spent tens of millions of dollars in better auditing capabilities since the disclosures by Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden. Those that would rather keep the public in the dark as to what their government is doing with their tax dollars and in their name, have redoubled their efforts to identify whistle-blowers much more quickly. Winner's arrest was facilitated by the government's increased ability to more easily identify the relatively small number of people that recently accessed documents in question as well as the yellow-colored, nearly-invisible micro dots that most color printers today use to include a printer's serial number and time stamp on each printed page. This appears to have contributed to the focus on Reality Winner.
Reality is expected to plead not guilty to charges against her today. We don't know exactly why she allegedly released the NSA documents to the press, but we do have some insight into her views about the world. Her social media accounts show a woman who, like a clear majority of Americans, is critical of Donald Trump. She has also voiced support for Edward Snowden, and opposition to the US fabricating a reason to attack Iran.
According to The Intercept, [Winner's leak] "ratchets up the stakes of the ongoing investigations into collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian operatives . . . If collusion can ultimately be demonstrated – a big if at this point – then the assistance on Russia's part went beyond allegedly hacking email to serve a propaganda campaign, and bled into an attack on U.S. election infrastructure itself."
We are talking about a potentially monumental story that might require prosecutions, but Reality Winner shouldn't be the one who ends up in jail. While the details of the story continue to unfold, by all indications she deserves our support, and the release of these documents should be celebrated.
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Reality Winner is a 25-year-old Air Force veteran who was arrested in Augusta, Georgia on June 3rd. She allegedly released classified NSA documents to The Intercept, which were the basis for a story about Russian hacking efforts against US election systems leading up to last year's presidential election. Reality is currently in the Lincoln County Jail in Georgia, and faces up to ten years in prison.
Reality Winner—yes, that is her given legal name—did the right thing, and she should be defended.
Reality allegedly leaked information regarding attempted interference in an election, tampering that many believe assisted in Donald Trump's presidential win—despite earning nearly four million fewer votes than Hillary Clinton. The documents published by The Interceptonly confirm earlier accounts of US election hacking attempts and, given the current administration's extreme antagonisms against facts, the release of these documents was clearly in the public interest. Like the vast majority of government documents that are hidden from public view, these reports should have been declassified by now anyway.
Now Trump's own Department of Justice has targeted Reality. It's a sinister move, but on the other hand, simply a continuation Obama's unprecedented zeal in prosecuting whistle-blowers. Trump inherited an atrocious War on Leaks, and Reality is the latest victim of that war. Her arrest is a signal to the world, and the four million other Americans with access to classified information: Only sanctioned leaks benefiting the government will be tolerated.
There's a striking hypocrisy to Trump's crackdown. Less than a month ago the President was criticized for carelessly leaking classified information to Russian officials during a White House meeting. We now know this information concerned a bomb that is being developed by ISIS. This is standard operating procedure: lawmakers have no issue leaking classified information if it somehow furthers their interest, but they aggressively prosecute citizens who expose actual wrongdoing.
I believe that Reality Winner's possible actions should be understood within the context of recent heroic whistleblowing. Shortly before leaving office, Barack Obama commuted the remaining sentence of US Army soldier Chelsea Manning, who was facing 27 more years in prison for exposing war crimes and corruption. Edward Snowden, who leaked information about our government's massive spying program, was granted asylum in Russia but faces espionage charges back home. Just like Manning, it seems that Reality was able to see the inner workings of the United States' war machine.
She served in the Air Force from 2013 until early this year, working as a linguist. Like Snowden, she would have had a better view than most as to how our security state works. Up until last week, she was a military defense contractor with the Pluribus International Corporation in the suburbs outside of Augusta, Georgia, and had Top Secret security clearance.
The US government has spent tens of millions of dollars in better auditing capabilities since the disclosures by Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden. Those that would rather keep the public in the dark as to what their government is doing with their tax dollars and in their name, have redoubled their efforts to identify whistle-blowers much more quickly. Winner's arrest was facilitated by the government's increased ability to more easily identify the relatively small number of people that recently accessed documents in question as well as the yellow-colored, nearly-invisible micro dots that most color printers today use to include a printer's serial number and time stamp on each printed page. This appears to have contributed to the focus on Reality Winner.
Reality is expected to plead not guilty to charges against her today. We don't know exactly why she allegedly released the NSA documents to the press, but we do have some insight into her views about the world. Her social media accounts show a woman who, like a clear majority of Americans, is critical of Donald Trump. She has also voiced support for Edward Snowden, and opposition to the US fabricating a reason to attack Iran.
According to The Intercept, [Winner's leak] "ratchets up the stakes of the ongoing investigations into collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian operatives . . . If collusion can ultimately be demonstrated – a big if at this point – then the assistance on Russia's part went beyond allegedly hacking email to serve a propaganda campaign, and bled into an attack on U.S. election infrastructure itself."
We are talking about a potentially monumental story that might require prosecutions, but Reality Winner shouldn't be the one who ends up in jail. While the details of the story continue to unfold, by all indications she deserves our support, and the release of these documents should be celebrated.
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