Can you really watch this video and say that you don't think those sponsoring these bullets deserve access to this information?
If you don't think Americans should know how tax money is being spent, don't you think that the families of those killed would like to know what happened to their loved ones?
We've been sold on the idea that we must be enemy to something and that not assuming enemies equals to not recognizing any evil in the world or wanting for things to get better.
When I first heard about Manning I thought to myself that it was unfortunate that of all people, a trans person like myself, would get into the controversy that is transparency for governments.
But then something unexpected happened, I remember a time where the biggest issue online for trans people were fetishists, they were the great annoyance so I thought it was a good thing for moderation to be introduced to control that. Boy was I wrong!
Somehow pretty much all moderators ended up being feminists (or identifying as such), this happened rather quickly too. Everything was good so long as you were polite and didn't object to people talking about certain masculine attributed behaviors as something toxic, but before I knew it people were being banned because they honestly couldn't understand that a person may prefer some pronouns over others.
I tried to justify it as best as I could, telling myself that we needed at least one place where we'd be addressed by our names. I'd tell myself we had been mistreated for too long, that it could be therapeutic to have the safe space mods kept talking about for once in our lives.
Soon I discovered that the spaces that were supposed to be welcoming to people were only welcoming to certain ideas, the Manning leaks helped me realize something very weird was happening.
Pretty much all transgender groups on Facebook censored us from speaking about the case, if they didn't say the subject was going to be censored then they just did the censoring in silence. We were told that we were not allowed to talk about these leaks because people were too passionate about the subject, so basically to avoid confrontation the name Chelsea Manning, Bradley Manning or just plain Manning was forbidden.
I hanged around the few groups I wasn't blocked from for protesting this measure, hoping maybe one day the subject would be discussed. But despite the chronic media attention the trans subject gets today and has been getting for a little while, most trans people wouldn't know about this whistleblower.
When I saw her saying thanks to Obama for releasing her from prison I couldn't help but think what was going through her mind knowing this was the same person who imprisoned her to begin with.
I can only imagine that she was grateful for not being tortured with isolation and not really thankful to a president that had her released after the elections, on his way out.
Why wouldn't they?
This is the answer that we get from these supposed elected representatives when asked for proof, evidence of how the leaks have affected national security. Where are the reports? This is exactly why transparency is so important, we are letting a small group of people with very personal interests decide how accountability is handled.
If I should give any advice to Chelsea, given that she's been inside a hole for 7 years, is to disappear. Go live your life away from anyone who can recognize what you did, stay away from the transgender subject which has been used for a couple of years as a distraction, and keep a considerable distance from anyone calling themselves a feminist.
Go, live your life without regrets because despite what many people may think, that these abuses could have been handled differently and you didn't have to snitch, I've known whistleblowers who have spent decades in prison for a fabricated crime in an attempt from government to take any credibility that they could ever have. I know someone doing time right now, having several medals to recognize his service, who is living in a box because he did what you were supposed to do and reported to his superiors concerns about a domestic threat.
You were lucky, believe it or not, most snitches end up in ditches.
Get into cryptocurrencies if you haven't so your money is not frozen and just disappear.