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posted by n1 on Wednesday May 17 2017, @10:31PM   Printer-friendly
from the home-sweet-home dept.

Chelsea Manning has been freed from the Fort Leavenworth military prison, according to a US Army spokesperson:

In January she tweeted that she wanted to move to Maryland after being released, a state where she previously lived. On Monday she tweeted: "Two more days until the freedom of civilian life ^_^ Now hunting for private #healthcare like millions of Americans =P".

Manning will remain on active army duty while her military court conviction remains under appeal. She will have healthcare benefits but will be unpaid, the army says. An online campaign set up by her attorney has raised $150,000 (£115,725) to pay for her living expenses for the first year after her release. If the appeal is denied, she could be dishonourably discharged from the army, US media say.

The mentioned Chelsea Manning Welcome Home Fund. Also at NPR, NYT, and CNN.


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  • (Score: 2) by linkdude64 on Thursday May 18 2017, @03:12PM (6 children)

    by linkdude64 (5482) on Thursday May 18 2017, @03:12PM (#511701)

    "His leaks sparked the Arab Spring, which is a long overdue liberation from dictators"

    And replaced them with ISIS? Please tell me you don't actually believe the "Arab Spring" was anything other than a failed coup attempt orchestrated by the United States and Saudi Arabia, thanks to Hillary Clinton. It was a total disaster, much worse than Afghanistan, which did not only deeply impact the US economy, but the fallout of which has almost destroyed the European Union project - the premerie experiment in sustained peace among advanced civilizations. Has Wikileaks taught you nothing? The "Arab Spring" was savages overcoming their lesser-savage masters, just as with Saddam - were it smiles and rainbows you would not have the millions upon millions of "refugees" completely abandoning their native women and children in the noble pursuit of free shit and defenseless white women. I am surprised to see you write something so utterly off the mark. Is Black Lives Matter also a "Spring" of advanced socio-political philosophy in your eyes?

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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Thursday May 18 2017, @03:59PM (5 children)

    by Phoenix666 (552) on Thursday May 18 2017, @03:59PM (#511719) Journal

    It liberated Algeria and Tunisia. Egypt is mostly there. It did depose Qaddafi, who had been there longer than anyone could remember, though the aftermath hasn't been what it has in the other three. Can you agree on that much?

    In the Middle East proper it has not worked so well. But, then, things were already a different kettle of fish thanks to the US invasion of Iraq and staunch support of the Saudi royal family at the highest levels of American government. That, in turn, gave the Saudis cover to intervene directly against the populist uprising in Bahrain.

    I did say the results as yet were uneven.

    Is it all to blame for Europe's troubles? I don't think so. Europe already had a problem with assimilating immigrants. Germany had real challenges with its Turkish gastarbeiter when I lived there 30 years ago, and France immigrants from its former colonies. The Syrian refugees, which I surmise you're really thinking about, are a more complicated matter. The EU had already made a mistake when it jerked Turkey around on its bid for membership, because they were muslims and just too culturally different; it weakened moderates in Turkey, who had staked a lot on successful admission. Erdogan took over. And as soon as the Syrian refugees showed up they sent them along to Greece, which the Turks hate anyway, and the Balkans. Is it hard to imagine they're doing it intentionally to mess with Europe?

    But let's set aside the Turkish dimension and look at the numbers we're talking about. According to the Wikipedia page on it [wikipedia.org], all the refugees taken in by all the European countries on the list sum to 1,077,768. Google reports the population of the European Union is 508,000,000. So, all the Syrian refugees taken together, do not constitute your "millions upon millions," but rather 1 million and change, and against the native population of Europeans amount to about a 0.2% change in population. That's a rounding error. If the EU was so weak that a rounding error in population change would cause it to crumble, then it was not very strong to begin with and a butterfly flapping its wings in a gale in Gibraltar might also have brought everything crashing down.

    You characterized the Arabs as "savages overcoming their lesser-savage masters." Your words. It seems there's no way they could win with you anyway. They could have come in and cured cancer in Italy or made the nanotech field take a quantum leap forward in Switzerland or some other amazing feat and probably still not won a kind word from you. The material contributions Arabs have already made to your quality of life, such as algebra and other advances in math and science, do not seem to count for much, after all. Their beautiful art, music, poetry, and literature have likewise made no impression.

    I'm no apologist and no booster of Arabs or Muslims per se, but give credit where credit is due. And since Arabs and muslims have done great things in the past, Manning's leaks may have given them a fresh chance to do great things again, and that's laudable.

    Bravo, Manning. May we all be so brave as you.

    --
    Washington DC delenda est.
    • (Score: 2) by linkdude64 on Thursday May 18 2017, @06:15PM (4 children)

      by linkdude64 (5482) on Thursday May 18 2017, @06:15PM (#511771)

      "Can you agree on that much?" Absolutely not.

      Algeria's Presidential "Election" following the spring was rife with fraud, as was the election in Libya, again, Wikileaks. Shit, even MSM.

      http://www.aljazeera.com/news/africa/2014/04/algeria-ailing-president-wins-fourth-term-2014418154859606338.html [aljazeera.com]
      https://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/30/opinion/the-algerian-exception.html?_r=0 [nytimes.com]

      Tunisia:
      "After winning 41% of the seats in the Constituent Assembly, representatives of al-Nahda proposed a constitutional provision declaring Islam to be “the main source of legislation”[8] with the goal of unifying all Tunisian legislation under the rule of Islamic law."
      "and abolish Law 27 of 1958, which allows for the adoption of a child,[12] since al-Nahda leaders consider adoption of a child to be forbidden under Islamic law."
      "Religion is also mentioned in article 136, which provides that no constitutional amendment shall harm Islam as the religion of the State.[17]"
      https://www.loc.gov/law/help/tunisia.php [loc.gov]

      Europe had problems before, but nothing like it has now. According to Wikipedia, "As of 2010, 1.33 million people or 14.3% of the inhabitants in Sweden were foreign-born." That is from 2010, before the Somalians and Libyans showed up and the crime rate "coincidentally" spiked to make Sweden the rape capital of Europe, with violent crimes being committed that had literally never been seen in the country before: dozen+ size gang rapes, etc. All of your statistics cite "registered" refugees, but the real number is likely higher, and again, includes mostly fighting-age men. Not "Philosophers, poets, mathematicians, and musicians." A large amount are considered illiterate even in their native languages - this source says roughly 20%, which I would consider fair, however it should also emphasize the point that these refugees were the most wealthy and mobile in their countries (they could afford to leave, after all). So you tell me what the definition of savage is, if not uneducated, violent, and supporting oppressively religious forms of governance?

      http://theconversation.com/election-factcheck-are-many-refugees-illiterate-and-innumerate-59584 [theconversation.com]

      "then it was not very strong to begin with"

      Neither is a precious work of art, and that does not excuse its destruction or the people responsible for its destruction. If you hadn't noticed Hungary, Austria, and Poland are all in deep with Brussels and giving no fucks about it, as they rightly shouldn't. Britain is out, and France is more right wing and anti-EU than it has been in decades.

      https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/3584665/austria-bans-the-burka-and-demands-all-refugees-take-intensive-language-lessons-in-new-migrant-clampdown/ [thesun.co.uk]
      http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/poland-no-refugees-eu-legal-action-infringement-quotas-resettlement-beata-szydlo-commission-a7741236.html [independent.co.uk]
      www.express.co.uk/news/world/806186/hungary-viktor-orban-european-union-nuclear-vote

      Whether or not you think immigration and the rape and death those immigrants bring with them is responsible for refusal of them by those countries is a matter of some conjecture, though the countries and people opposed to EU policies would tell you as much themselves, that they do not want crime and rape in their previously relatively peaceful countries.

      Islamic art, science, etc. would have all maintained its previously grandiose level were it not for the tragically objective fact that the Islamic culture is designed to keep itself in power. This is not just true in the middle east, but in Southeast Asia as well, where Muslims are killing Buddhists at such a rate that even they are against Islam in all of its forms. Christianity was able to reform itself several hundred years ago and co-exist with societal progress. Quite apparently, that is not also the case with Islam. If history is to be the judge of all things, what is history saying to us about how long Islam has had, how many chances it has been given, and what it has done time and time again?

      • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday May 19 2017, @01:07PM (3 children)

        by Phoenix666 (552) on Friday May 19 2017, @01:07PM (#512148) Journal

        Syria only had 20 million people. Even if all of them were refugees in Europe, that's still only 3.9% of the native population of Europe. That's enough to put an end to the EU? It would be all their fault?

        The Wikipedia article says 5 million registered, with an estimate million more unregistered. About 3.5 million of the registered ones are in Turkey, Lebanon, and Jordan, countries whose combined population is much smaller than Europe's. Why aren't you pointing out how those refugees are the end of the world for Turkey, Lebanon, and Jordan? Because it hasn't been.

        But, OK, let's play your game and say that 100% of the estimate unregistered Syrian refugees wound up in Europe. That's 2 million Syrian refugees scattered across the EU, 1 million registered, 1 million registered. It comes to a whopping 0.39% of the native European population. In other words, it's still rounding error.

        A rounding error does not bring down a civilization. Blaming that handful of people for the EU's problems is absurd. It's as absurd as saying, "Oh, well, everything was great in Europe before the Gypsies showed up. Then everything went to hell. It's all their fault."

        And your whole thing about Islam vs. Christianity. That's a long conversation, but it's kind of futile to have with you anyway because you are prejudiced. You hate muslims, period, and nothing they have ever done or could ever do will ever pass muster with you.

        --
        Washington DC delenda est.
        • (Score: 2) by linkdude64 on Saturday May 20 2017, @05:14AM

          by linkdude64 (5482) on Saturday May 20 2017, @05:14AM (#512528)

          "You hate muslims, period, and nothing they have ever done or could ever do will ever pass muster with you."

          I don't really care about the rest of the conversation - fine, immigration is having no impact on the stability of the European block.

          But this statement is just fucking childish. I do not hate Muslims because they are Muslims. I hate Muslims because they worship a violent ideologue, and so, inevitably, create societies which promote violent ideologues. Is it a reasonable statement to say that you can get a feel of someone's content of character based upon whom they idolize and attempt to emulate? Is it also a reasonable statement to say that actions speak louder than words? If we can move forward in agreeance, as a militant agnostic, I will take a very no-bullshit look at the lore of the figureheads of Christianity and Islam.

          Christ's words: Go in Peace. Do unto others. Let he who is without sin throw the first stone. Generally things of that nature.
          Christ's actions: Sacrificed himself to save his people from hell. Never married or had intercourse, apparently. Never attacked anyone but Jews who were being greedy, even then, did not harm them.

          Muhammed's words: Peace, faith, take the infidel's children for your own. Tax them for believing other things, or just kill them outright.
          Muhammed's actions: Personally led a crusade to slay thousands of pagans. Took a child bride who was 6 when he was 53, knocked her up at 9. She also turned out to be a violent ideological warlord who led a crusade of her own (look it up.) Did not sacrifice himself in any way - he was injured in war, and as a result of his violent crusades, he was eventually poisoned by an enemy. Lived by the sword, died by the sword.

          I don't even care about the words really: Christianity worships someone who didn't fuck kids and didn't kill anyone. You can mince words all fucking day, but who would you rather your daughter, or sister, or niece, or whoever marry? A guy who never killed or harmed anybody, or a pedophile who killed hundreds of people? Regardless of how "Nice" or "pretty" their paintings were or how smart they were at math.

        • (Score: 2) by linkdude64 on Saturday May 20 2017, @05:32AM

          by linkdude64 (5482) on Saturday May 20 2017, @05:32AM (#512532)

          To be clear, I am absolutely prejudiced against Muslims of any race, region, or level of involvement in the culture. I have the same prejudice against Christians, the difference is that I do not hold their culture in contempt. Religion is belief, culture is societal.

          However, what I actually hate is not them per se, what I hate is that they are going to other already developed peaceable cultures and not assimilating. The ideologies that created the respective societies in which they thrived belong there, and only there. If a Mexican, a Syrian, and a German told me that they hated with a fucking passion the cultural influence that the US has on their countries and proceeded to insult it in detail I would say, "Right the fuck on. We do not belong in your country, and you do not belong in ours." I should hope they are as proud of their cultures and countries as I am of mine, for better or worse.

        • (Score: 2) by linkdude64 on Saturday May 20 2017, @10:28AM

          by linkdude64 (5482) on Saturday May 20 2017, @10:28AM (#512573)

          Took another look at my comment and realized a couple things:

          That the difference between a "Christian" MS-13 member and a Muslim charity worker must be due to something other than religion, and that no person who pledges to a specific religion is a total embodiment of what that religion professes.

          Were that the case, it would be the world which I previously assumed to exist. I am not sure why, but I think typing that comment out made me realize that.