In one of the more puzzling developments for the mid-terms, Red Maryland reports that Chelsea Manning, who as Bradley Manning leaked national defense secrets via Wikileaks, has taken a legal step in the process of entering the Democratic primary for the Maryland Senate seat currently held by Ben Cardin. There are more to complete. Red Maryland just shrugged her off as a convicted traitor, which I suppose is accurate enough for some folks. It’s worth noting, however, that he was found not guilty of the charge of “Aiding the enemy,” and I suppose an argument could be made that she leaked these documents as evidence of bad behavior by the US Army.
Greg Fallis is disturbed, but not at her history, but …:
… I have to say, Manning’s campaign announcement video makes me wonder what the hell her ideas are. Here, watch:
It’s not just that the video is awkward (though it is), or that her voice-over is wooden (and lawdy, it is). The thing about the video is that with a different candidate and a different voice-over, this could easily be a right-wing nutcase propaganda piece. This is what she actually says:
We live in trying times. Time of fear, of suppression, hate. We don’t need more…or better…leaders; we need someone willing to fight. We need to stop asking them to give us our rights. They won’t support, they won’t compromise. We need to stop expecting that our systems will somehow fix themselves. We need to actually take the reins of power from them. We need to challenge them at every level. We need to fix this. We don’t need them anymore. We can do better. You’re damned right we got this.
Substitute a short-haired Aryan face for the image of a trans woman, exchange the footage of the Nazi rally with a BLM rally, and replace the voice-over with a deeper, more menacing voice and that video would be appropriate a pro-Trump candidate. …
But that video? It’s grounded in fear, not in change. It’s not about politics, even; it’s about Chelsea Manning. It suggests that the world is in turmoil and in order to fix it we need a trans woman. And hey, that may be true. But being a trans woman isn’t, in itself, enough. Be a trans woman with ideas and tell us what those ideas are.
If you want to take the reins of power, first tell me what you want to do with them.
I’ve watched it, too, and it’s a puzzling video, evidently motivated by frustration and even fear of the right wing extremists. Without much in the way of specifics, at least that which I can recognize as democratic specifics, it’s hard to really evaluate a potential candidacy.
But if she were to claim that what she said constitutes specifics, then I’d reject her. Those were words, I think, of power, and while she may think that’s what necessary, to my mind we need to use the traditional weapons of a democracy – reason and truth. Those who mislead will simply lead the nation down paths to dry rivers and disaster, and that message must be conveyed to the citizenry – persuasion, not force unless force is deployed against those who speak the truth. Coercion is a tool without moral force, which means it can used for evil and well as good, and by the same person at different times.
