Celebrating Bradley Manning

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There's a gathering in L.A. this weekend to honor Brad Manning, who's been incarcerated for over a thousand days now.

The person who is holding it described it as a "celebration", which annoyed one reader:

Mike on 20 February 2013 at 10:04 am said:
LOOKS LIKE IM GOING TO GO TO LONG BEACH THEN … IT LOOKS LIKE THEN WILL GET MORE DONE… AND HAVE MORE FUN THEN A CELEBRATION … THIS IS FAR FROM A TIME TO HAVE SOME SORT OF CELEBRATION!! OH YAY BRANDY MANNING HAS BEEN IN JAIL 1000 DAYS WITH NO TRIAL … i KNOW LETS CELEBRATE LOL UR REDIUCULUS !! ANYONE LOOKING FOR A REAL PROTEST GO TO LONG BEACH THEY ARE OCCUPYING FOR THE NIGHT https://www.facebook.com/events/410919635668843/411432722284201/



Bruce Mitchell on 21 February 2013 at 2:51 pm said:
Mike,
You are foolish to criticize an event which seeks to gather together like minded people in support of Bradley Manning and promoting transparency. Activism takes many forms — mutual support is one of them and a very positive one at that. Please do not tear others down just because you favor a different way; attacking others who seek to do what they can in their own way does not serve the interests of a movement.

To the host of this gathering:
Please do not allow such a foolish comment discourage your efforts.


N Fuller on 21 February 2013 at 9:17 pm said:
Celebrate means to honor, and Bradley Manning deserves that. All good wishes for your gathering to enlighten and educate people about his kind of bravery. I cannot attend, but we will have signs at our weekly vigil on Pico and La Cienega on Friday.




I commented:

I look at it this way. Until I learned about Bradley Manning, I felt deeply depressed and disillusioned with the military and the wars they are fighting.
I have a brother in the military who will not talk to me (possibly because I support Bradley Manning) and a family who may actually believe that I am wrong to stand for peace. They apparently do not believe peace is patriotic or perhaps they believe my position demeans or disregards my brother somehow, which I do not want to do. I can do nothing, say nothing to them; I can’t find the words. In fact I can’t really even find words to write about it here. There’s nothing but heartbreak there, and if Brad Manning actually did what he’s accused of doing–leaking the Apache helicopter video–then I do regard him as a hero and any recognition of him, and of journalism as it must be practiced in extreme times, feels like a celebration.
A while back I stood on the corner in front of the British Consulate in Westwood with a bunch of young people who were holding a little rally for Brad Manning. It was nighttime and no one even noticed them. But just seeing that people cared enough to come out made a big difference for me. It gave me hope that some of the madness might somehow be mitigated. In my everyday life I see no one who cares or is even aware of Manning’s situation (despite my constant T-shirt-wearing, postcard displays, buttons and so forth) and so getting together with people who *are* aware is really great.