How Fares Teh Hero Cult?

More than a year after Bradley Manning was rounded up in Iraq and held under some truly disgusting conditions at Quantico -- inspiring accusations from the "Progressive" Civil Liberties community that he was being tortured in order to extract information from him about WikiLeaks that could be used against Julian Assange -- I'm seeing somewhat more notice in the "progressive" blogosphere of the fact that prisoners by the tens of thousands are being held under appalling conditions in this country as a matter of course. This notice is particularly evident over at FDL where both Jeff Kaye and Kevin Gozstola have recently highlighted the hunger strike by prisoners at Pelican Bay and other facilities in California over their continuing mistreatment -- which some would call torture -- by their captors.

This notice that "it's more than just Manning" in the "progressive" blogosphere is welcome and long overdue. I've written about the gross mistreatment of prisoners in the United States -- whether or not they have been tried and convicted -- before, and I've pointed out, many times, here and in other fora, that Manning's case is emblematic of widespread mistreatment of captives within the prison/industrial complex that keeps growing in this country, and that people need to recognize that how he was being mistreated was not unusual at all.

It was closer to "typical."

In some of the comments I made on the topic, I mentioned a close relative who as a Marine was held for four years at Miramar in California, under conditions startlingly similar to those of Bradley Manning at Quantico, except that my relative had the shit beat out of him a couple of times by guards, which got him out of isolation for a time while his injuries healed. Other than that, there wasn't much difference in treatment. It was brutal, it was cruel, it involved intense isolation and constant indignity. And it went on for four long years, including the time prior to my relative's court martial and conviction on trumped up drug charges. If the stories I've been told about what "really" happened are true (and I have no way of knowing whether they are or not) then the whole thing was a purely political move by commanding officers to protect themselves from... exposure.

Anybody who has had a close brush with the relatively common practice in American brigs (Naval prisons) knows that what happened to Bradley Manning at Quantico followed a long history of abuse of brig prisoners that is in many ways part and parcel of the Traditions of the Navy and the Marine Corps.

In fact, this abuse has been written about for a long time, and it was dramatized by Kenneth H. Brown and staged by The Living Theatre in 1963 (revived off Broadway in 2007) and widely performed -- in full and in excerpt -- throughout the country during the Sixties and later.



My general point about the Manning Thing was that his treatment was not atypical, it was widely practiced in and out of the military system, and that what was being done to him specifically at Quantico was being done because it could be done. Not, as was being claimed, to "torture information" out of him. No, he was being abused because such abuse was part of the system holding him in custody. And if you read the investigative report (pdf) triggered by Manning's own complaints about his treatment and by the many protests over it, you'll see that for the most part, he was being treated "lawfully" and "according to protocol". There are brig manuals online (additionally) which detail pretty much exactly what was done to Manning at Quantico, and while it is indefensible, it is more or less routine. It isn't right, it isn't justice, but it is... procedure.

The Cult of the Hero requires that Bradley Manning -- or Julian Assange or whomever -- be considered apart from the common lot of accused or prisoners, and that's the primary reason why Manning's treatment was singled out for interest and protest -- and the relatively common similar treatment of other prisoners (even children and those who have not been charged or convicted) was typically either ignored or in some cases ("these are the worst of the worst, you know") justified.

The Hero is Special by definition.

Consequently, when profiles of Manning started appearing -- as on Frontline, and in New York Magazine (which I would remind readers is not the same as the New York Times with which it was widely confused in the many online denunciations of it over NYMag's "hit piece" on Manning) -- that detailed some of the "complicated" emotional and sexual identity issues Manning shared with Adrian Lamo (who eventually turned him in to authorities for unauthorized leakage of classified information and documents) and delved into his private as well as his more public life, his defenders and his cult went into turbo-drive denouncing those who would probe where they ought not to go.

(Did I mention that the relative who was held in brig confinement under conditions arguably worse than those of Manning, certainly physically and mentally worse, ultimately decided to change his gender? Well, who'dathunk? Right? He is now a she. And the Government paid for it. :-P)

Supposedly, none of a Hero's backstory matters in the least. The only thing that matters is that the Hero exposed the obscenities of the Government -- and in Manning's case, the military in which he served. How he got to that point is none of your business!!!!® SHUT UP!!!!™ Hit piece!!! SMEAR!!!!!!

Yes. Well.

Of course all of this presumes that Manning did this or that "exposure" he is accused of. Maybe he did; I don't know. But none of the Heroics he's accused of and worshiped as a Hero for has been adjudicated (fairly or not). Given the appalling lack of security on the classified information he is accused of leaking, it wouldn't be at all surprising if he either didn't do it, or if he did, if he wasn't the only one.

Time will tell. In the meantime, his Heroism depends on hearsay. And a rather touching faith and belief.

When Manning was transferred to Ft. Leavenworth some of the hysterics surrounding his incarceration abated. If now some of the attention that was focused on him and his situation alone has been broadened to include at least some of the tens of thousands of other prisoners held under equally horrific conditions, hurrah.

But I'm not going to hold my breath as long as attention can only be paid to Heroes.

What to do about Bradley Manning....

As has been clear from what I've written about it in the past, I'm not much of a Bradley Manning devotee.

As abusive as his situation is, I don't find it to be particularly unique. I have a close relative who spent four years in solitary confinement in Marine Corps brigs (including his pre-court-martial confinement), and the only times he was out of solitary were when he was hospitalized recovering from the injuries he sustained when the guards beat the living shit out of him. Many other military detainees, at home and abroad, can easily verify the commonality of gross human rights violations in military custody up to and including severe torture. At least from reports, Manning is not being subjected to the worst he could be under the military detention scheme now and for many years in place.

Meanwhile, there are tens of thousands of domestic prisoners, by far the majority of them in civilian custody, who are subjected to far worse treatment on an ongoing basis than anything that has been reportedly done to Bradley Manning in Marine Corps custody. And many of them -- hundreds at least, and perhaps thousands -- are in pre-trial custody and have been convicted of nothing on any given day. Many of those are children.

Therefore I am not about to single out Bradley Manning for special attention. His situation is deplorable. Yet so is the detention situation for tens of thousands, perhaps over a hundred thousand Americans in custody among the millions of incarcerated Americans.

Solitary Watch has established itself as the go-to resource for information and heartbreaking stories of what goes on in the dark recesses of our prison-industrial complex -- and what is being done about it.

The other day, Solitary Watch linked to a guest column in the New Jersey Star Ledger by George Hunsinger, a founder of the National Religious Campaign Against Torture. In it, he recognizes the plight of Bradley Manning as emblematic of the plight of so many Americans, many of them awaiting trial just as Manning is but none of them "deserving" the treatment they are experiencing. For there is no justification for tolerating torture.

I will excerpt the excerpt that appears in Solitary Watch:

The conditions under which Manning is being held are deplorable. No individual, whatever crime he may have committed, should be held in prolonged isolation or be routinely shamed through the use of unnecessary forced nakedness. And that’s the key point — no prisoners should suffer cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment — no matter who they are or what crime they may have committed.

I’m not qualified to speak for Bradley Manning. What I do know, however, is that there are thousands of prisoners throughout the country who face conditions that are similar to, or worse than, those Manning may be enduring. Unfortunately, however, those poor souls are almost completely ignored.

Many prisons contain units in which prisoners are held in isolation for prolonged periods of time (months or even years). The lack of human interaction is profoundly damaging to many of these prisoners — some suffer sufficiently to cause actual physical changes in the makeup of their brains.

Long-term solitary confinement is torture. It has been known to cause prisoners to go insane. And it is unnecessary. In many cases, prisoners are held in solitary confinement to punish them for minor infractions, because of the severe overcrowding of our prisons or other administrative reasons, or because they are mentally ill.

We need to think about what sort of people we want to be. Do we want to be a people who ignore torture that occurs here? Do we want to sit comfortably at home, knowing that somewhere not far away someone is being broken, his mind shattered, by a severe loneliness that has lasted for years?

It is one thing to punish a criminal. It is another to abuse him or her — to strip away his very humanity by denying him contact with all other humans. Solitary confinement can cause permanent damage. And let us remember that under the law, Manning, an American citizen, is still innocent until proved guilty.

It is our urgent responsibility to create a prison system where there is no place for such enforced suffering and where the rights of all citizens are upheld.

And that really is the point. It needs to be made over and over and over again. I'm glad to see that some of those who have been keening and rending their garments over the treatment of Bradley Manning have begun to recognize that what has been happening to him is symptomatic of widespread abuses of authority endemic to our prison system, and that the military is by no means an exception.

When the advocates for Bradley Manning educate themselves to the real horrors that are so deeply ingrained in our civilian and military prison system and clearly understand that as bad as things are for Bradley Manning, they are not unique but are pervasive, endemic, and brightline violations of human rights and dignity, affecting at a minimum tens of thousands and quite likely hundreds of thousands of people including children held in our extraordinarily bloated prison system, then maybe they'll be able to actively participate in changing this disgusting and inhumane system instead of just fretting themselves into paralysis over Bradley Manning.

“Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of my brothers and sisters, you did it to me.” -- Matthew 25:40

Here's a column by James Ridgeway and Jean Casella of Solitary Watch that appeared on Al Jazeera's website. It explains most of what Americans need to know about the topic.

Cruel and usual: US solitary confinement

As incarceration rates explode in the US, thousands are placed in solitary confinement, often without cause.

Give it a read. Then go forth armed and educated.

A Bradley Manning Action I Can Support

While I tend to share Solitary Watch's ambivalence toward the "left" blogosphere's sudden devotion to Human Rights -- when it comes to Bradley Manning and his conditions of custody at Quantico -- while essentially ignoring the plight of the tens of thousands of prisoners held in similar or worse conditions, even children held awaiting trial, some for more than a year, there was an action at Quantico the other day, a demonstration initially focused on Freedom for Bradley Manning, but one that eventually took up the cause of all the unjustly held and those held under the same sort of conditions (or worse conditions) Manning is being held under, and I can really get behind that.

It brings the spotlight to America's punishment obsessed "rule of law," that is for many, many of those it holds nothing but a human rights crime. Bradley Manning hasn't yet become a symbol of the many thousands who are held under similar conditions domestically and in our gulags overseas, but he could become that. And as the demonstration at Quantico showed, more and more people -- but not yet the "left" blogosphere -- are recognizing that.

It's a good thing.

Over at dKos, there is an eyewitness report of some of that was going on, and the lesson here is that -- sometimes -- Authority will back down.

It's a lesson that Americans have to learn again, though. They have forgotten so much.