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Visiting Chelsea Manning in prison

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Re: Visiting Chelsea Manning in prison

#61

Post by igravious »

xenophonf wrote: post #33
igravious wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CHELSEA E. MANNING 89289 1300 NORTH WAREHOUSE ROAD FORT LEAVENWORTH, KANSAS 66027-2304 --- Found that by following a link. https://www.chelseamanning.org/learn-more/write-to-chelsea-m... Make sure to follow the on-page instructions or your correspondence will be rejected/returned. The conditions are quite strict. They check for obscenities which is hilarious -- assuming movies like Full Metal Jacket are an accurate d…

I know "Thank you for your service" is gauche, but she's probably someone who needs to hear that---along with a heartfelt apology from the citizenry who failed her.

I have never written such a letter before. I have never written a letter that I knew would be opened en route by someone other than the recipient. Though I am not a fellow citizen, and as schmaltzy as it sounds, I think I should thank her as a citizen of the world.

Re: Visiting Chelsea Manning in prison

#62

Post by pdabbadabba »

thr32989 wrote: post #2

> I will be Chelsea’s first visitor since her sister in November. > I bring up her recent appeal to reduce her sentence from 35 years to 10 years, and she seems worried that it didn’t receive enough coverage in the press. She hopes that the world hasn’t forgotten about her. I am afraid world has already forgotten. Google search for "site:news.ycombinator.com Chelsea Manning" for past month gives three results includi…

> I am afraid world has already forgotten.

Forgotten what?

I think I'd like Chelsea personally, and I'm sorry for all that she has had to go through. But what is it, exactly, that we are supposed to be remembering and talking about here?

Re: Visiting Chelsea Manning in prison

#63

Post by [deleted] »

thr32989 wrote: post #2

> I will be Chelsea’s first visitor since her sister in November. > I bring up her recent appeal to reduce her sentence from 35 years to 10 years, and she seems worried that it didn’t receive enough coverage in the press. She hopes that the world hasn’t forgotten about her. I am afraid world has already forgotten. Google search for "site:news.ycombinator.com Chelsea Manning" for past month gives three results includi…

[deleted]

Re: Visiting Chelsea Manning in prison

#64

Post by joesmo »

arca_vorago wrote: post #56

For those people who are curious about the act of disseminating information like Manning did, allow me to summarize. When you get a clearance, and often even when just working with confidential documents, the DoD has you sign an SF312, which is a classified information non-disclosure. When you join the military, one of your first acts is to be sworn in, and you swear an oath, "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I w…

"if I could prove someone broke their oath with knowledge, what is the legal punishment offered?"

I think you answered your own question. It depends on who that person is and whether the people in charge like what he or she does. Manning gets 35 years while Cheney goes free. The answer, to be clear, is impossible to know. When charges and trials are dished out arbitrarily like this, the idea of the rule of law becomes completely laughable. It simply boils down to arbitrary persecution of people for arbitrary reasons, no different than a king or other authoritarian tyrant's rule.

Re: Visiting Chelsea Manning in prison

#65

Post by vertex-four »

Idontagree wrote: post #51
vertex-four wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gender's not quite irrelevant - I'm reasonably certain Chelsea is happy that she gets the medication she needs (as she has written), and that in general, people accept her transition at this point. Humane treatment is a thing that's important, and for trans people, humane treatment partially involves treating them as the gender they are. Personally, I have no skin in this game, but I have a suspicion that the people…

Her medication doesn't change her biological makeup, science isn't that good yet. I'm happy to call anyone what they want, but surgery and drugs do not recreate your sex.

There's plenty of evidence over the past couple of decades that trans people are, in a specific way, intersex - specifically that trans people's brains often have characteristics closer to those of their identified gender than what they were assigned at birth.

There's certainly lots of anecdotal evidence that many people's brains just seem to "work better" once on the correct hormones, and generally speaking transition has very good outcomes - people who have transitioned are generally doing better on key indicators, though still not as well as cis people. The people behind the studies believe that this might be down to how prejudice and discrimination affects trans people even after transition, though there's no further studies in that direction yet. (For a comparison, I believe gay people were doing worse than the general population on the same key indicators before general acceptance, and it's been gradually getting better.)

Here's a question, though: if we're not who we are in our own minds, who are we? Are you and I really only what others can see?

Re: Visiting Chelsea Manning in prison

#66

Post by henrikschroder »

frogpelt wrote: post #53
rebeccaskinner wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The correct pronoun is 'her', not 'him/her', and a lot of trans activists and allies do spend an inordinate amount (which wouldn't be so necessary if people made even a small effort to get them correct) of time correcting people on pronouns, but there is a lot of work that transgender rights activists are doing for people in prison in general, and I do know that they've been involved with some of the work to help ens…

"Correct" is silly to even discuss relative to this topic. What you're saying is people's genders are now up for debate but the pronouns are not? Completely illogical. And somehow people still believe the "slippery slope" is a fallacy.

> "Correct" is silly to even discuss relative to this topic.

How about "polite"?

It's exactly as rude to use the wrong pronoun about a person, as it is to use the wrong name. It's common decency to call people what they want to be called, and it's not exactly hard to do either.

Re: Visiting Chelsea Manning in prison

#67

Post by angelbob »

pdabbadabba wrote: post #62
thr32989 wrote: post #2

> I will be Chelsea’s first visitor since her sister in November. > I bring up her recent appeal to reduce her sentence from 35 years to 10 years, and she seems worried that it didn’t receive enough coverage in the press. She hopes that the world hasn’t forgotten about her. I am afraid world has already forgotten. Google search for "site:news.ycombinator.com Chelsea Manning" for past month gives three results includi…

> I am afraid world has already forgotten. Forgotten what? I think I'd like Chelsea personally, and I'm sorry for all that she has had to go through. But what is it, exactly, that we are supposed to be remembering and talking about here?

Presumably the highly unfair treatment of a whistleblower. Snowden gets a lot more publicity, but Manning's case wasn't well handled either.

Re: Visiting Chelsea Manning in prison

#68

Post by Manishearth »

thr32989 wrote: post #2

> I will be Chelsea’s first visitor since her sister in November. > I bring up her recent appeal to reduce her sentence from 35 years to 10 years, and she seems worried that it didn’t receive enough coverage in the press. She hopes that the world hasn’t forgotten about her. I am afraid world has already forgotten. Google search for "site:news.ycombinator.com Chelsea Manning" for past month gives three results includi…

HN is not representative of the world.

Re: Visiting Chelsea Manning in prison

#69

Post by jessaustin »

JonFish85 wrote: post #55
themartorana wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I take issue with this, but I don't have a better solution. Being at risk of attack from other inmates is better/worse than the terrifying reality of years of solitary confinement? Solitary confinement is probably up there among my worst nightmares. Evolutionarily, people are simply not meant to be alone with their thoughts for years - especially while simultaneously being kept in a confined space. I have no doubt I…

Regarding the last point, it's important to remember that this is a person who has struggled with mental health issues for a very long time, so it's not just solitary confinement that caused suicidal tendencies, although it probably contributed to that.

We don't actually know everything that's been done to Manning. The same people who decided how suspected terrorists were to be interrogated, decided how she would be interrogated. So, various mental conditions might be results of more than just solitary confinement, even if they weren't in any sense preexisting.

Re: Visiting Chelsea Manning in prison

#70

Post by cmdrfred »

vertex-four wrote: post #65
Idontagree wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Her medication doesn't change her biological makeup, science isn't that good yet. I'm happy to call anyone what they want, but surgery and drugs do not recreate your sex.

There's plenty of evidence over the past couple of decades that trans people are, in a specific way, intersex - specifically that trans people's brains often have characteristics closer to those of their identified gender than what they were assigned at birth. There's certainly lots of anecdotal evidence that many people's brains just seem to "work better" once on the correct hormones, and generally speaking transiti…

I'd like to see a source for this evidence please.
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