b. traven
With the surprise move of commuting Chelsea Manning’s sentence, Obama takes a small step to saving his progressive legacy…
And Manning is not the only surprise…
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The Contrary Perspective 
I would have preferred that Manning was issued immediate release, and hope there is no tragic update to her time in confinement in the next four months. I think solitary confinement is cruel and unusual unless it is necessary to prevent the murder of the confined. As a trans person (especially one accused if not convicted of treason), her life is always at risk in a prison population — perhaps increasingly so betwen now and her actual release. So perhaps, in this instance, solitary for a change is a less awful thing.
Mr. Rivera is someone whose story I am only fleetingly familiar with. From the account at the link it is certain to me that he took a principled stand, did not waver under the near-maximum pressure a “justice” system is able to bring to bear, and did not succumb to an offer to shorten his term if he would only compromise his stand & thus his integrity. He is now something of a Puerto Rican Ghandi and N Mandela, as courageous against unjust authority as the two of them and America’s Martin Luther King.
Frankly, I was amazed at the Manning decision, precisely because the Obama administration has been so harsh in its pursuit and punishment of whistleblowers. To be clear, I am pleasantly amazed, and thanked Obama publicly (via Facebook) for this action. A Presidential Commutation cannot be reversed by a subsequent POTUS, thank goodness. I guess Obama couldn’t find it in himself to take on the FBI/DOJ monolith by pardoning Native American rights activist Leonard Peltier. “Lotta continua!” (“The struggle continues!”)
Good news for former Army Private Bradley/Chelsea Manning. Better late than never.
Not that Army General and CIA Director David Petraeus would ever have to suffer such unwarranted abuse for sharing classified documents with his mistress/biographer, when Private Manning simply informed the American people of crimes committed by their government in a criminal “war” against a country that had never attacked or threatened the United States in any way.
Anyway, something I wrote about this five years ago:
“The Ship of State leaks from the top” — U.S. President John F. Kennedy
“Kill the chicken, scare the monkey” — Ancient Chinese proverb
Free Bradley Manning (in forty-four syllables)
Petulant President
Barack Obama who
Hates him some leakers (just
Not from the top),
Makes an example of
Low-level privates so
Cabinet ministers
Don’t have to stop.
Michael Murry, “The Misfortune Teller,” Copyright © 2012
Too bad for all the other patriotic whistle-blowers whom President Obama has viciously persecuted for the entirety of his Presidency. But good news for Bradley/Chelsea Manning, none the less.
I use the term to describe Obama’s commutation of Manning’s sentence as “small step” and I wish to take back the term “progressive” in describing Obama’s legacy. He never was “progressive’ just a capable rhetorical speaker. He definitely lacks the chutzpah to be a real leader and do the right thing no matter what what “slings and arrows” come his way.
Why did he not commute the sentence of Don Siegelman, the former Democratic governor of Alabama who was sent to prison by the Karl Rove-Bush group on very questionable charges of ‘bribery’? The same Rove-Bush group commuted the sentence of Libby Lewis the neo con Cheney ‘go to ” guy who “outed” Valerie Plame as a CIA agent ,a really criminal act, that endangered bot her life and the lives of the people around the world that she had contacts with. While Seigelman is still rotting in jail Lewis has found a home in the neo con Hudson Institute as Senior VP along with another Bushie Douglas Feith who was deeply involved in much of the bad decisions like deBathification and Abu Ghrabe, etc.
No. We appreciate Chelsea Manning’s release but contiue to look at Obama’s presidency as the opening door to the disaster we have now.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/I._Lewis_Scooter_Libby
I think we may accurately say Obama was a Neo-LibCon (a term I coined because, frankly, I can’t distinguish between a “Neo-Con” and a “Neo-Liberal”!!) Wolf who cloaked himself in Sheep’s clothing. I have to believe his political career was sponsored primarily by the health insurance industry. How else to explain his Big, Legacy Achievement, the “(un)Affordable Care Act,” designed to force people into signing up for coverage with profit-seeking entities? Now due for dismantling by the new administration. To be replaced by??? The new gang of cutthroats hasn’t quite figured that part out yet!!