Surviving Capitalism (Not) : UN torture official denounces US treatment of Bradley Manning

We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Friday, March 9, 2012

UN torture official denounces US treatment of Bradley Manning

Click here to access article by Kate Randall from World Socialist Web Site.

The UN torture investigator’s denunciation of Manning’s treatment concerns the eight months he was held in Quantico....

During this period, Manning was held in maximum custody and virtual isolation, locked in his cell 23 hours a day and kept under 24-hour surveillance. He was stripped of his clothing at night, and permitted extremely limited access to reading material. For more than a week in early March 2011 he was forced to stand totally naked for morning inspection in front of his cell.