Schools which teach children how to gather evidence and think.
Election reform so that the rich cannot buy the outcomes.
Education of voters.
Better control of lobbyists.
Spreading real news and alternate perspectives on the Internet.
Keeping the Internet free.
Educating young people who are thinking about enlisting, about what their decision might actually mean.
That kind of thing.
Much of it boils down the the simple fact that if the American people are to gain a clear understanding of the world in which they live, they must have accurate information. Without this information it is not possible to be responsible citizens. Unfortunately real information is often not available to the mainstream press and when it is, it is often ignored. The secrecy that hides the reality of US foreign policy is not mainly for the sake of national security. It is about hiding information that would expose the United States for what it is: a nation that has embarked on an illegal, unconstitutional, and ill-advised project to enslave and micromanage the rest of the world for the benefit of large multi-national corporations. It is a policy that undermines democracy at home and abroad, and that is pursued by means of lying, assassinations, state terrorism, endless war, and the crushing of the hopes of the non-wealthy throughout the world.
Bradley Manning is not un-American. He believed in the American ideals that he was undoubtedly taught in school, and he has acted in the worthy tradition of Top Paine, Thomas Jefferson, Henry David Thoreau, Dorothy Day and Martin Luther King Jr. In various ways all of these people articulated a simple and valid principle: when those in power violate the basic principles of the constitution, and when they act in opposition to the basic principles upon which this nation was founded, then it is the responsibility of the people to resist them, with civil disobedience if need be.
We are in danger of creating a life that is not worth living, except perhaps for those 400 or so billionaires who run the show. But in this process they too, even if they have not noticed it, are losing their souls their capacity for love, for identification with the rest of life, for affirming a meaning larger than their own appetites, and for relationships based on reciprocity rather than domination. And it is, after all, this loss of our individual and collective souls that is the greatest threat of all to a meaningful and worthwhile life. And to life itself.
I believe Bradley Manning has earned a place of honor in American history for his courageous act in exposing the un-American activities of the American government.
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