On Chelsea Manning (and B. F. Skinner)
Philip Roddis
Skinner and Manning
Do I say hero or heroine? Pass. I’ve a head full of thoughts on that subject but it’s not where I want to go here. Chelsea Manning is back behind bars. Not as punishment but as coercion. A grand jury held in secrecy wants him/her to testify against Julian Assange and s/he won’t.[1]
A judge has held Chelsea Manning in contempt and she is being detained after refusing to testify about her disclosure of military and diplomatic secrets to WikiLeaks in 2010 … The former Army intelligence analyst, who served about seven years in prison for the massive leak, objected to the questioning in a grand jury appearance … [in] a continued effort by federal prosecutors investigating the founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange.
CNN today
In solidarity with many activists facing the odds, I will stand by my principles. I will exhaust every legal remedy available,” [Manning] said. “My legal team continues to challenge the secrecy of these proceedings, and I am prepared to face the consequences of my refusal.”…Prosecutor Tracy McCormick said Manning could easily end her incarceration by simply following the law and testifying.
The Guardian yesterday
B. F. Skinner, godfather of operant conditioning, distinguished punishment from what he called negative reinforcement. With punishment, an undesirable past deed – undesirable to whom is a separate issue – elicits unpleasant outcomes for the doer. Negative reinforcement by contrast is a response to ongoing undesirable behaviour.
That behaviour may be a firm’s refusal to treat its employees better, a rich man’s to pay a ransom – or Chelsea Manning’s to testify against a man already paying a bitter price for telling you and me the truth about our criminal ruling classes.
The unpleasant situation – created in response, in tandem or even in advance – may be a strike, a child kidnapped or an unusual use of judicial incarceration. Punishment aims to convey the message, you Did The Wrong Thing so we will make you suffer. Negative reinforcement aims to convey the message, your suffering will cease when you Do The Right Thing.
Skinnerites, aka Behaviourists, aka Learning Theorists, say negative reinforcement affords finer calibration than punishment in shaping behaviour. Nevertheless, our prisons are premised on a punishment model, albeit with a negative reinforcement component in the form of the parole system.[2] Chelsea’s incarceration, however, is pure negative reinforcement. The moment s/he agrees to help the United States – on any number of metrics the world’s most lawless nation; its most ruthlessly warmongering too – to lock up Julian Assange and throw away the key is the moment she walks out a free woman.
Or man. Like I could give a flying fuck about identity politics at times like this. Or the niceties of operant conditioning. What I care about is yet another person of courage and principle paying top dollar for those virtues in a world of morality and sanity stood on their heads.
NOTES:-
- [1] While I’m more Marxist than Political Realist, the latter school offers astute insights. One being that rulers seldom lie to each other but frequently lie to their subjects. Do bear this in mind if you’re inclined to give the authorities benefit of doubt re a grand jury conducting its proceedings in secret.
- [2] Since parole boards look unfavourably on prisoners maintaining they were wrongfully convicted, the likelihood of false confessions to gain early release is high.
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Very interesting. So this is an interview with Chelsea in 2017.
She says: “Counter-insurgency is not good guys and bad guys, it’s a mess.” This is a nothing statement.
We’re told that some of the low-level documents were found in Osama Bin Laden’s compound after his death. Yeah, right.
Nothing statement again. “It’s not black and white. It’s complicated.”
Interviewer: “So your despair was not with the 35 year prison sentence. It was …”
Chelsea: “… much more immediate.”
Interviewer: “It had more to do with your need to be Chelsea.”
Chelsea: “Yeah, I’d never done that. I’d never been able to be who I was.”
Pull the other one. I completely accept that people born the gender they don’t identify with have an incredibly strong desire to change to the one they identify with and will experience untold amounts of despair if they can’t but to say she had little concern about the 35 year sentence is simply not credible.
The rest of the interview where she talks about the pain of being of not being able to be who she was does not strike me as very convincing.
If anyone has anything she says that sounds as if it doesn’t fit “agent making neutral statements” please post.
Just to add – doesn’t she almost seem feted by the mainstream media which seems very odd considering? Perhaps feted is too strong a word but doesn’t it just seem like the usual wheeling out the cliche “support responses” and “oppose responses” – the usual polarising nonsense, designed to foment disharmony in order for greater control.
Here’s a thought. I think it’s pretty clear that Chelsea is an agent. Her whole story is simply not credible including downloading 400,000 documents in one day and 91,000 on another. We are told she saved the material on CD-RW and smuggled it through security by labeling the CD-RW media “Lady Gaga”. Surely, an impossible number of CDs would have been involved and it would seem very strange to label them all “Lady Gaga” as is implied.
That would mean she wasn’t in prison or only for special appearances so perhaps at the time she transed she was only trans for the media and slipped back into Bradley when out and about to keep cover. Since leaving jail she can be fully trans the whole time (assuming she really is trans and the whole thing isn’t an act) but during her alleged jail time she probably switched. Love it.
Wow – the plotte thiquens….or verds to that effet!
That seems pretty unlikely to me. You have to be on your guard of course, and there is a lot of history to support this. There were a lot of very high level communist spies in the wartime and immediate post war governments of the UK and US. Hiss, White, the Cambridge apostles, Fuchs, the Rosenbergs, and a host of others. And the Nazi leadership was riddled with traitors and Allied spies, Bormann being the most notorious example. In post war Germany the aide and right hand man of Chancellor Brandt was a Soviet agent for decades. This sort of thing is commonplace. In a few years time it will probably be revealed that Blair and Clinton were Kremlin agents for all their lives. But I think there has to be something a bit more concrete before you can dismiss Manning and Assange as fakes.
I didn’t dismiss Assange as a fake but I think the evidence that Manning is an agent is beyond contradiction. Her Wikipedia entry is full of inexplicable anomalies and the explanation given for how she leaked hundreds of thousands of files has no credibility. What evidence do you think supports her being a genuine analyst and leaker?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chelsea_Manning
As I were say’n…der plotte thiquens……..where lies the “fount”? Is there a common thread to be found amongst alla der developments? And what part – if any – can be ascribed to Dave Rocketfella and pals?
Flaxgirl: respectfully but strongly disagree. Evidence for this theory? Also, one only has to look at how incredibly vindictive the Neocons are plus look at the rampaging round the World of the Empire. Chelsea Manning strikes me as a real and authentic victim of these bastards.
I’m not sure what other evidence you require, Gezzah. I thought I’d provided more than enough in my comment below or did you miss it?
https://off-guardian.org/2019/03/09/on-chelsea-manning-and-b-f-skinner/#comment-149635
But even the brief post above supplies more than enough I’d say. I’d say it is an impossibility in a highly-secure environment to download 400,000 files in one day and put them onto CDs and then, supposedly, by labelling them ALL “Lady Gaga” (there is nothing to suggest that they weren’t all labelled Lady Gaga), be able to smuggle them through security. And then do the same for 90,000 files a few days later with the same label. If there is a more credible explanation for how the information was leaked why has someone not corrected the Wikipedia entry? Do you have evidence that the information was leaked another way and, if so, what was it … or do you see this method this as credible?
What really helps in analysing these things is to take onboard what Ole Dammegard says an insider told him: that the perps actually TELL us what they’re up to. They do this through showing us stuff that is really not believable at all and sheer sloppiness and they reason that if we don’t figure it out and call them out for it, the fault lies with us, not them, thus sparing them from karmic repercussions. The insider emphasised to Ole that the power elite takes this signalling very seriously. Examples include: discrepancy between what is told and what is shown, different spellings of names, things that don’t add up, contradictions, strange changes in and different versions of the story, ridiculousness, sheer impossibility, inappropriate display of emotion or lack of emotion, etc.
While I find great resistance to the idea of this phenomenon, I have to say that in my own case I didn’t have a second’s doubt about the claim despite its seeming counterintuitiveness. Rather, it came as a welcome relief to find an explanation for a number of things that had very much puzzled me including: Robbie Parker’s infamous broad grin as he walks to the microphone to talk about his six year-old-daughter murdered the day before; the chipper and excited mood of Mark Walsh interviewed only a couple of hours after the tower collapses on 9/11 where he describes witnessing the impossible act of the second plane “ream[ing] right through the other side”; Larry Silverstein’s infamous “pull it”; the terrorists popping up alive; Hani Hanjour’s flight instructor describing little Hani, the alleged executor of the masterful 330 degree swoop into the Pentagon, as a crybaby and a number of other inexplicable anomalies.
Ever since I woke up to the fact that death and injury were staged on 9/11 and since I’ve started promulgating that the perps TELL us I’ve noticed hostility towards me in the comments section and my comments are very often downvoted which didn’t happen before. This saddens me as I’m only saying what is testified to very strongly by the evidence. There is no way in the whole wide world that Chelsea Manning’s entry in Wikipedia is not full of DELIBERATE anomalies. They couldn’t possibly be accidental or simply genuine sloppiness.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chelsea_Manning
Blimey what a storm of comment! For me it is a reminder that concerns on a macro level that identity politics have moved into the centre of the current Ovington window at the expense of the politics of economic class must continue to be mindful of individual lived experience and oppression.
“… identity politics have moved into the centre of the current Ovington window at the expense of the politics of economic class …”
I think you’ll find it’s Ovaltine Window, Bryan. That apart, I completely agree.
I do not believe it. Innocently, I start to read an article on Off-G, having no suspicion that fakery will be involved, and then wham! my suspicions suddenly arise. Of course, there’s loads of things I do think are fake but the furthest thing from my mind was that Chelsea Manning would be some kind of fake. However, I think she may well be an agent rather than a genuine leaker. My suspicion was raised from the photo – she just struck me as looking like a very upmarket transwoman whose look has been achieved by a reasonably large sum of money. And then when I started to look – what was the first thing I saw – that the person who reported her, Adrian Lamo, was 22 at the time he reported her. No! – and then guess what – she was charged with 22 offences. The good old 22 – JFK 22/11, Westminster 22/3, Brussels 22/3, Manchester 22/5, perp 22yo, 22 dead and time 22:33. (Funnily enough today someone asked me if I thought the Kurdish freedom fighter, Asia Ramazan Antar, is fake (I do) and she died at 22.)
Chelsea’s Wikipedia entry yields a number of things which struck me as anomalous.
— The description of her mother as a shocking alcoholic somehow doesn’t seem credible. It’s not as if this sort of thing does not happen – and worse – but somehow it all seems a little over-egged and stilted.
“Susan’s instability continued, and in 1998 she attempted suicide; Manning’s sister drove their mother to the hospital, with the 11-year-old Manning sitting in the back of the car trying to make sure their mother was still breathing.”
— Usually, camping trips involve teachers and it’s hard to believe teachers would have allowed this situation.
“The students would imitate her accent,[53] and apparently abandoned her once during a camping trip; her aunt told The Washington Post that Manning awoke to an empty campsite one morning, after everyone else had packed up their tents and left without her.”
— It makes you wonder how someone with obvious mental health issues was employed as an intelligence analyst.
“[She] gained employment as a developer with a software company … was let go after four months. Her boss told The Washington Post that on a few occasions Manning had “just locked up” and would simply sit and stare, and in the end, communication became too difficult. The boss told the newspaper that “nobody’s been taking care of this kid for a really long time”.”
“In March 2006, Manning reportedly threatened her stepmother with a knife during an argument about Manning’s failure to get another job; the stepmother called the police, and Manning was asked to leave the house.”
— Hello? GI Bill is extremely obsolete and where is the background relevant to considering a PhD in phsyics?
“Manning’s father spent weeks in late 2007 asking her to consider joining the Army. Hoping to gain a college education through the G.I. Bill, and perhaps to study for a PhD in physics, she enlisted in September that year.”
— The “Lady Gaga” reference made me laugh. When something makes me laugh I take that as a sign. “Smuggled it through security” has an unconvincing ring to it.
“On January 5, 2010, Manning downloaded the 400,000 documents that became known as the Iraq War logs.[103] On January 8, she downloaded 91,000 documents from the Afghanistan database, known later as part of the Afghan War logs. She saved the material on CD-RW and smuggled it through security by labeling the CD-RW media “Lady Gaga”.[104] She then copied it onto her personal computer.[105] The next day, she wrote a message in a readme.txt file (see right), which she told the court was initially intended for The Washington Post.[106]”
More research is required obviously but suddenly the whole thing really lacks plausibility to me. It reminds of the ludicrousness of the massive air defense failure on 9/11. How was this analyst able to do what she did? What was the failure in security that allowed such a massive leaking to occur?
Well fuque my boots is all I can say to this “revelation”!
B.F. Skinner?! Oh. My. Gosh!!!
This is a site where everyone is free to come or go.
Perhaps the ones who can’t focus on the content of a paragraph when they notice one illegible word, should go and seek perfection somewhere else and good luck with that. They push the whole conversation of the track.
Surely, isn’t this reason the he/she dichotomy existed in the first place?
One suspects that the originally observed dichotomy was between those persons who might reasonably be expected to produce babies, at some point, and those who might not.
Unfortunately, not only is reality anti-semitic, it’s also anti-transgender. Bad, bad reality. You are hereby sentenced to undergo sensitivity training, until all discrimination ceases in the matter of who may produce babies, and who may not.
Next step: Off OffGuardian.
Here is an article about Chelsea Manning that readers of the one above should read instead. It is on the World Socialist Web Site and makes clear what kind of agenda was followed by publishing the above opinion piece.
No wonder the word ‘Socialism’ creates convulsions in the brains of the haters. Socialism does not need to be told how to treat a Human Being that adjusts its gender as it aligns best with its identity. It does not need to be told that women are not a sub species to man – because it is called ‘mankind’. Socialism – and in no way the corrupted by the Human Condition Socialism, is indeed a wise old Shepherd. It will not tolerate this ‘divide & conquer’ game to allow the status quo to be continued indefinitely.
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/03/09/mann-m09.html
Shame on You. It is so easy not to hurt ‘other’ people if you don’t want to hurt them in the first place. The respect is in the writing.
Good bye. Whatever I need to know, I will get from the WSWS.
I concur! No need for gender identity to ‘clarify’ things (as if it does) in the WSWS piece. As I said in the first reply to this piece, it’s an irrelevancy, which is why I objected to it in the first place. It sets Manning apart from the rest of us. It conditions who she is as our responses to issues of gender/sexuality are deeply ingrained in our patriarchal culture. Surely, isn’t this reason the he/she dichotomy existed in the first place?
Critics of the critics talk about our objections as if they have nothing to do with the objective, which was I assume to highlight Manning’s plight, but if so, why bring her gender into it, not just once, but several times? What is the author trying to tell us?
And then there’s the slurs, equating those who objected to the language as being ‘cultural Marxists’, ‘identity politics’ driven et al, as if these are the reasons for the objections.
“Why bring her gender into it, not just once, but several times? What is the author trying to tell us?”
Well, perhaps it’s to avoid confusion. Chelsea, after all, was Bradley when the information was released. It was Bradley who stood trial, was convicted and jailed. Chelsea arrived later. It’s kind of irritating when some pretend Bradley never existed.
Who would have guessed that the him/her construct, a seventies artifice to avoid sexism in language, would have provoked such ire!
So the torturers have not broken her spirit. Unlike the fictional Winston of 1984. There is hope for humanity yet. (There always was; that boot has been “stamping on the human face” a long long time, and not erased it yet).
Fair Dinkum: really sorry to hear that FD, I hope your home is safe, and you and your family are safe. Lots of homes already lost out Gembrook – Bunyip areas. In New Zealand we get earthquakes, here in Australia, its bushfires.
Senior academics for 40 y , much at an ancient Uni near you, tend to sound patronizing. Sorry about that. But you should realize that people who have been serially crapped on, build up anger and resentment, often wholly justified. it is unwise to be an outlet for this and wiser to understand and empathize, in my opinion.
This reply to Phillip belongs far below. Not sure why it popped up here.
“The moment s/he agrees to help the United States – the world’s most lawless nation – to lock up Julian Assange is the moment she walks out a free woman.”
Put plainly like that, Negative Reinforcement in this case includes blackmail with criminal coercion by Legal Authorities of the U$A.
Sorry about the name; I put Chelsey rather than Chelsea. Of course Chelsea is an upmarket district in London and I believe in New York also. Chelsea is also the name of a London football (soccer) team owned by a Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich and which I personally despise, but that is apropos of nothing in particular.
It’s a shame Manning is hamstrung with a US lawyer because in a case like this, with arbitrary acts by hack judges who wouldn’t know a right from a bar of soap, Manning is just playing into their hands by invoking her constitutional rights. The constitution’s gone. The only real protection she has is the ICCPR:
https://www.ohchr.org/EN/ProfessionalInterest/Pages/CCPR.aspx
That’s the supreme law of the land, like the Bill of Rights, but unlike the toothless toilet-paper Bill of Rights, crooked courts can’t just blow it off. There are well-developed institutional safeguards at the international level that exert mounting pressure to which the US government is exquisitely sensitive. Look into it and you’ll see that most recent significant penal and judicial reforms were impelled not by our crap internal politics, but by international pressure of treaty bodies.
No US-trained lawyer would give Manning this advice, because they’re brainwashed, but here’s what she should do. Invoke ICCPR rights chapter and verse as a human rights defender as defined under customary international law and federal common law. To decline to answer questions about you: Invoke ICCPR Article 14g or Article 17. To decline to answer questions about somebody else: Invoke Article 22.
What this does is drag human rights into US courts, which must come into compliance with the ICCPR. It opens lots of cans of worms regarding feigned US compliance with binding human rights commitments. It gives you access to UN special procedures, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, NGO participation in the Human Rights Committee, and Human Rights Council complaint procedures. Don’t waste your time arguing in horseshit US courts with third-rate shit-for-brains mediocrities like Claude Hilton, go over their head to the world. Stop pretending you live in a legitimate state. This is a human-rights pismire, a pariah state that’s deep in the forcible-overthrow zone. Hey, if you’re going to jail for six months anyway, you might as well make the biggest stink you can.
Sounds very sound advice, Cock! Good onya.
It’s a shame Manning is hamstrung with a US lawyer because in a case like this, with arbitrary acts by hack judges who wouldn’t know a right from a bar of soap, Manning is just playing into their hands by invoking her constitutional rights. The constitution’s gone. The only real protection she has is the ICCPR:
https://www.ohchr.org/EN/ProfessionalInterest/Pages/CCPR.aspx
That’s the supreme law of the land, like the Bill of Rights, but unlike the toothless toilet-paper Bill of Rights, crooked courts can’t just blow it off. There are well-developed institutional safeguards at the international level that exert mounting pressure to which the US government is exquisitely sensitive. Look into it and you’ll see that most recent penal and judicial reforms were impelled not by our crap internal politics, but by international pressure of treaty bodies.
No US-trained lawyer would give Manning this advice, because they’re brainwashed, but here’s what she should do. Invoke ICCPR rights chapter and verse as a human rights defender as defined under customary international law and federal common law. To decline to answer questions about you: Invoke ICCPR Article 14g or Article 17. To decline to answer questions about somebody else: Invoke Article 22.
What this does is drag human rights into US courts, which must come into compliance with the ICCPR. It opens lots of cans of worms regarding feigned US compliance with binding human rights commitments. It gives you access to UN special procedures, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, NGO participation in the Human Rights Committee, and Human Rights Council complaint procedures. Don’t waste your time arguing in horseshit US courts with third-rate shit-for-brains mediocrities like Claude Hilton, go over their head to the world. Stop pretending you live in a legitimate state. This is a human-rights pismire, a pariah state that’s deep in the forcible-overthrow zone. Hey, if you’re going to jail for six months anyway, you might as well make the biggest stink you can.
I have been wondering now for years how it is that a great mass of ordinary people, angry at the treatment that Assange has been getting, simply because he had the gall to insist that governments and their agents should be made responsible for their crimes. and their lies and their concealing of information that ought to be public…how it is that the people had not marched up to London and past the Embassy in such numbers that one day he would be able to slip out into the crowd and, protected by the sheer number and determination of the many take his place within a great movement for justice, peace and honesty.
I wondered this when I had read Philip’s thoughtful, honest and indignant piece, which left me all the more puzzled. and then I read the commentary and realised that, to our shame and emblematic of our failure, not just to liberate Julian but to impose any discipline on our appalling governments, Julian’s solitary confinement is not the fault of the state-US British, Swedish or Australian- but of our obsession with the minutia and rigmaroles of ID politics.
What keeps him imprisoned, what divides the people can all be traced back to the Secret Police inspired charges and false accusations made against him. It was then that people of good will divided into the various camps with theories about rape, condoms, the reliability of CIA assets when they are female and, in places like the Guardian and the LRB, (which ought to know better), stories of his personality quirks, vanity, or personal traits started being published and our shining hero-whose deeds are undeniable and whose martyrdom is evident and authentic- is left, abandoned to the mercies of the cruel and callous Establishment (itself the very personification of every hideous moral abnormality and deviation imaginable, starting with the murder of Iraqi children by helicopter pilots) because he might not be quite pure enough to warrant any sacrifice on our part.
It is that same moral narcissitic indulgence that is evidenced in the comments, not on Assange or Wikileaks but on the wholly private and sad matter of Chelsea’s gender adjusting decision after years of strain, persecution, battlefield trauma and abuse in one of the ,most notorious corners of the most notorious prison system in the world.
I am sure that, if asked, the former Private Manning would tell us that what is at issue here is not pronoun usage or even private, personal sexual choices but the abuse of a human being not in Leavenworth perhaps but in plain view of us all.
What is most galling is how the US Regime uses its “judicial” system, secret laws, secret charges, secret courts, for political persecution, stripping people like Manning naked and throwing them into their dungeons to be tortured for years, forcing them to plead guilty to trumped up charges or remain incarcerated on remand for ever, sentences them to 500 years in prison, and then goes off to climb on its high horse and give lofty sermons and pious lectures to the rest of humanity about their human rights failings, all the while running the largest prison gulag in history. The hypocrisy and arrogance are off the scale.
Bevin: Boom. You nail it. Can I just add to your comment…. Screw fucken identity politics to hell. I sincerely hope I didn’t offend any middle class brat playing at being a ‘socialist’ just then. Bevin – you see it, I see it, many others see it. Just got back home from attending a Free Assange rally in Melbourne organised by the Socialist Equality Party; the only socialist group in Australia (to my knowledge) who have constantly and continuously spoken out in defence of Assange and Wikileaks. Most of the others have been completely silent for years. Shameful. These same mute groups have also drowned themselves in the dogma of identity politics, which you allude to in your comment. And you’re so correct on this. Im not good at judging crowd numbers, but maybe 300 at the rally today in a city of 4.9 million. Given there was a full media blackout on the event, and certain groups boycotted it (mainly due to their adherence to I.P) and most in Australia are completely brainwashed and many believe Assange is a rapist or traitor or both. Events like this are also a way to connect with like-minded people.
Sorry I missed that Geezah.
Dealing with yet another bushfire threatening our home.
You in turn nail it on Assange, Gezzah. The obsessive distortions of identity politics within the liberal intelligentsia were skilfully played in industrial scale smears of sexual misconduct. Without that factor, it’s safe to assume that many, many more of the (not so) independent minded petit bourgeois would have been at that Melbourne rally.
‘The obsessive distortions of identity politics within the liberal intelligentsia were skilfully played in industrial scale smears of sexual misconduct.’ – exactly, ideology allowed the media in general and the Guardian in particular to portray Assange not as an individual but as a symbol of the patriarchy, or as a cipher for other men who have commited sex crimes and not been punished.
Under such a rubric it becomes possible to overlook principles like presumption of innocence (unless proven guilty), or accusations taken on a case by case basis rather than applying generic assumptions about male sexuality or patriarchy in favour of the actual strength of evidence.
The treatmentt of Assange is particularly troubling because it illustrates the Guardians lurch toward neoconservatism as well as the all too evident departure from basic journalistic standards.
Of course the recent Assange / Manafort debacle is an exemplar of how low they have sunk – yet despite being caught red-handed the Guardian still censor anybody who suggests they might have an ulterior motive for the anti-Assange stance they have adopted.
As an aside the world is protesting about the treatment of Julian Assange not that the Guardian has been willing to explore the reasons for either this or his nomination for a nobel peace prize.
Writerroddis: Exactly Philip. I find it shameful and disgusting that certain groups containing the word ‘socialist’ in their name deliberately boycotted this rally (and others). Deliberately. This is hearsay, but was told by a lady that two members of one of these ‘socialist’ groups told her they had been instructed Not to discuss Assange in any way. This same lady told me she had a Free Assange poster and pro Wikileaks items at a stall outside an Anarchist book fair. She was verbally abused, called a ‘rape apologist’ and told to f**k off. I believe her. Some of these same Socialist groups also perpetuated the fantasy a ‘revolution was happening’ in Syria, and they virtually regurgitated the Establishment narrative on Syria. Off course, they never mentioned the ‘revolution’ consisted of ISIS, Al Nusra, and the other headchoppers. And of course, well intentioned people join these groups, and are led down a complete dead end. You really have to wonder, don’t you? Fakes, frauds and gatekeepers everywhere.
Dismaying. In particular, as hary stotle – and if memory serves, an OffG piece a few months ago – point out – the moment ‘sexual misconduct’ is shouted, presumption of innocence goes out the window.
Why, what’s the goal; where issit heading us……(a shakespeare quote?).
Very well put Bevin. Divide and conquer is a key chapter of the Imperialist and Totalitatian playbooks.
Also galling is the reliance of European progressives on US Democrats. As late as 1956 these “Democrats” came with their “Southern Manifesto” to oppose racial integration of public places https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Manifesto
These chameleons know promote illegal immigration from Mexico to keep up their stream of cheap labor plus of course cheap votes.
This would be the Skinner who experimented on his daughter? Stuck her in a box for a while to see how she responded? Nice choice.
Agreed. Not a nice fellow. Your point?
1) Skinner’s theory, upon which you base your premise, was developed through abusing children. If we take the x factor as “abused children” and replace it with “healthy adults”, the theory, as a reflection of society in general, is invalidated.
2) The use of pronouns is a matter of language: Thouless, in his “Straight and Crooked Thinking” says:
“There is a very common confusion between the first and third ways of using language; between statements of fact and indications of emotional attitude.
3) Where Manning and Assange are concerned, sadly, the ‘button’ has been pushed so many times, we are lying on the electrified floor totally exhausted and unable to respond – a deliberate formula used throughout time as it always works.
OR, I might have read the name Skinner and reacted with disgust and loathing (for obvious reasons) – then posted a gut reaction reply…….
1) Interesting to find I have a push button;
2) Above post still stands…….
3) Sorry
I was shocked to read the first paragraph. It is not what I expect from O-G and unworthy of O-G. Plus it is entirely ridiculous to contaminate logical argument with unrelated trivia.
Chelsea Manning is a hero, her courage is inspirational.
Gotta wonder.
Was Chelsea pardoned so she could be used as a public pawn in the psychopathic games of the One Per Cent?
I would think so. It is good to instill fear into people:See, what happens to people who disobey.
It is Stalinesque of the countries involved to suppress the truth. If truth no longer matters, and the messenger (Assange) is shot, there is not a lot to defend here in the Western countries.
I remember the day when Assange was ‘caught’. Here in Australia, the then PM Julia Gillard was asked to comment, live on air. ‘It’s the wrong thing to do’, she said quite hastily and the tone of voice revealed she said what was expected of her. She probably had had some prior briefings on the case.
But had Julia Gillard had an honest bone in her body she could have said ‘I have to familiarize myself with that topic’ and then it would have gone away, for her. Assange was an Australian citizen.
She chose to tow the line, so we are glad she had to go.
Bravo Chelsey, you put your accusers to shame. What a brilliant light in the darkness, a darkness populated by trogdolyte little courtesan non-entities on the make. Like Orwell’s hero in 1984, Winston Smith, said, ‘Sanity is not statistical.’
It’s simple: Say “she” unless you want to be an asshole. Your protestations that this has to do with bathrooms and sports is weak and patently irrelevant to the subject of the article. You’re uncomfortable. Fine. You need to get over it or a lot of your readers will get over you real quick.
It seems like it should be possible to treat people with basic respect, by using whatever names or pronouns (within reason) they choose for themselves, without pretending to agree with their essentially supernatural theory of “gender identity”.
Johnny Nineball has just scored a full strike here – he is absolutely spot on when saying that gender issues are totally irrelevant to this matter, which is one of honesty and transparency on the part of Chelsea, and of dishonesty and opaqueness on the part of her accusers, who are nothing other than apologists for the coalition of the guilty. Philip Roddis claims that he writes “to help me think”. Well, his assumptions about Chelsea Manning are mindless – and coloured by his prejudice against accepting her as a woman. He does Chelsea no favours whatsoever by writing such trash.
‘Johnny Nineball has just scored a full strike here – he is absolutely spot on when saying that gender issues are totally irrelevant to this matter ‘ – its not irrelevant.
Chelsea Manning’s lawyers argued that confining her to house arrest would better serve complex medical needs (arising from gender reassignment surgery).
The judge ultimately ruled the US Marshals Service would provide ‘adequate care’, and that imprisonment in a federal facility would continue indefinitely “either until you purge yourself [agree to testify] or the end of the life of the grand jury.”
You are entering the realm of psychosis once you equate Off-G contributors with the ‘coalition of the guilty’ as you put it, although this sort of hyperbole is bubbling under the surface should anyone deviate too far from certain ideological assumptions.
The idea that the totality of a persons world-view can be encapulated by a single utterance should be kicked into touch once and for all in my opinion but it seems to be standard operating procedure when it comes to the way some IP zealots think.
What a sad attempt here to have a balance comment, on the neo-criminal practise of the USA legal system and its process, totally negated by a juvenal debate about the open wordplay, which is totally destroys the aims and repute of this pioneering website,
In more than just dissapointment which, is such a negative response to this website by myself.
We have to live with that, it is on all sites. There is one site where they hate Obama, and of course there are plenty of reasons to do so.
As soon as that name appears they are on about ‘bathhouse Barry’. That does not matter; the destruction of other countries and lives matter, Syria, Libya, failed coup in Ukraine, failed coup in Turkey, reinstalling a nasty dictator in Egypt. Obama was a nasty piece of work and bathhouse Barry is just a braindead distraction. We have to live with that, regrettably.
I salute Chelsea Manning for her principled refusal to testify, her immense bravery, and for her speaking out on the crimes of the Empire. The deafening silence from certain ‘socialist groups’ and certain ‘progressives’ is really telling. Why such stony silence? The only words I can think of are Fakes and Gatekeepers. The hypocrisy and double standards and silence among the West’s alleged ‘journalists’ is also very telling. But then again, we know what they represent and who they bow to. Oh yeah, Fuck identity politics as well.
How about: she is a hero, Mr. Roddis. Maybe now would be a good time to open yourself up to gathering information about why people who share a social disenfranchisement (to put it politely) would band together politically to defend themselves from the perpetrators and enforcers (and the indifferent) of that disenfranchisement. More information might help you to sort out your head full of thoughts on the matter. You might start by affording Chelsea Manning the simple courtesy of referring to her as she sees herself. I think she deserves that at a minimum
I admire Chelsea’s bravery regardless of whatever label people give him, it’s irrelevant.
“Prosecutor Tracy McCormick said Manning could easily end her incarceration by simply following the law and testifying”
The emphasis on “easily”. Maybe easy for the prosecutor who obviously would have no reservations about betraying confidence, reversing her deeply held belief that what the government was and is doing was/is wrong and illegal, and contributing to the malevolent harassment of a presumed friend (Assange) who has already spent much more time incarcerated than the average convicted murderer in the US. Life is easy for those lacking a conscience and incapable of loyalty.
Not so easy for the brave Chelsea. I salute her. And btw, isn’t it time to stop the tiresome sniggering about what Roddis seems to find amusing in a juvenile retro way about gender ambiguity. It is a harsh sentence even in today’s society and people like Chelsea for whom ambiguity was not wished for, deserve our support.
Re your final point, ‘sniggering’ is well wide of the mark. It’s likely I have invited this, but see my response to Antipropo..
No, what you’ve done is commit a sleight of hand and effectively derailed the actual topic of your piece by introducing a complete irrelevancy. Now why you chose to do that I have no idea, perhaps embarrassment? A typical male response when it comes to issues of gender, unfortunately, but as I said, you completely fucked up your article on Ms. Manning!
Sleight of hand implies dishonesty. My defence of Chelsea Manning is full on. The subject of gender identity is complex, and causes me no embarrassment whatsoever. Glad to have this opportunity of making that clear. Thanks, over and out.
“A typical male response”? I demand you apologise for such an egregious unsubstantiated slur against my gender. What your comment represents is nothing more than typical gender studies bigotry.
I’m not sure if you’re being sarcastic
There’s no biological basis for Cultural Marxist gender bending, it’s all in the head.
‘Cultural Marxist gender bending’? What on earth are you talking about?
I’d like to co-sign the complaint of “typical gender studies bigotry”, which I don’t think was intended to be sarcastic.
It’s strange how gross generalizations (“typical male response”) of this sort are offensive and sexist when made against women, but principled radical analysis when made against men.
It’s almost like identity politics is a load of hypocritical reactionary bullshit. Or even that there might be hidden agendas being served, and generously funded.
Well identity politics is not politics at all! It’s a way of avoiding the fundamental issues, a sidetrack, like the writer of this essay, instead of sticking to the point, introduces irrelevancies that strangled the debate. The alternative of course, is to say nothing, pretend the words weren’t uttered. It would have been better if the words hadn’t been used, at least in this context, but they were. Manning can’t be both a he and a she so why say it?
@barovsky. Brandon, Breanna, Chelsea is until he/she is transgendered, still a man, regardless of whether he/she has self proclaimed to be a woman. In defferance only, I refer to Manning as he has shown a preferance. Therefore, he is she. That “she” is a hero, is not under debate, that “she” is a prisoner yet again, to most sane people is the real issue and not to be bogged down in semantics. That you give more importance to identity politics over her immediate predicament is your betrayal of her when your denouncement should be against those who incarcerated her so egregiously. Fat lot of good we are doing for her if we cannot agree that simple inescapable fact, but instead misdirect the issue, rather than condemning it.Skinner and his operant conditioning is the stick with which the US has used to beat Manning with, which is far more insidious as a tactic by which to continue Mannings illegal detention. Manning is the hero of the piece, Skinner and the US trampling of constitutional rights the monster that must not be allowed to win. Get past your self indulgent and indignant outrage and put your anger where it will at least serve some useful purpose. You have managed to steer the course of the issue at hand very successfully and I wonder if it was deliberately done as one who protesteth too much whilst leading the condemnation from where it belongs to an entirely different issue.As a hetero female I have considerations that should be heard but which you seem perfectly happy to dismiss out of hand which leaves the matter of IP the sole consideration of your condemnation. Funny how that worked out and exactly what Roddis was warning against, apparently with good reason as you have proven.
Thanks mohandeer. In the forty or so hours since my post appeared, I’ve reflected on the unwarrentedly shrill tone, and unnecessarily vituperative language – ‘trash’, ‘bigoted’, ‘sniggering’, ‘fucked up’ and other choice epithets – of those enraged by my using ‘him/her’ rather than ‘her’. Besides the central point you make, such language, when disproportionate to the offence (actual or deemed) often betrays insecurity in one’s own position. Indeed, it often betrays an accuser possessing the very traits s/he (!) charges others with. As the saying goes, when one finger points at The Other, three fingers are pointing back at the accuser.
insecurity in one’s own position
Perhaps the phrase you were looking for is, “methinks the lady doth protest too much.”
Now you know that the only reason for furthering the various “correctness” topics, is to create a mechanism which provides “the system/the swamp” with a lien on you if you “default”….being an unavoidable consequence of “top down” control/management. Refer to Tony Benn MP’s statements.
Susan, Phillip
Phillip: you’re article was spot on. Support for Chelsea and Julian should be, and was (for the most part), unequivocal and unanimous. Bevin nailed it: gender specific pronouns are not the issue. But they became the issue, for some.
I wonder, had you gone ultraPC and used gender neutral pronouns: what would have been the result? What if Chelsea herself had self-identified as ‘ze’, ‘zim’, ‘eirself’, ‘hirself’ – would there be the PC rush to defend Chelsea’s choice?
Leaving the specifics aside, the deflection into a grown up debate about identity is welcome. There are plenty of women, not least RadFems, who find it cheapens sexualised oppression for men to self-identify as women. Are they wrong? Can I – a white hetero male – self-identify as a black lesbian …or does that make a mockery of my subjectivity?
And facticity: choices that were made for me/us/zie/zim , and stereotypical roles assigned, that were foisted on us/verself/emself in the cradle. Identity, is substantially pre-made. Freedom is something we symbolically experience in accepting culturally assigned conceptual definitions. Oppression is the resistance and rejection of coercive and controlling conceptual stereotypes (Lord knows, Chelsea has earned the right to liberation from oppressive male domination. Which it was made clear that the correct appellation was a separate issue).
Male/female is a root oppression: a psycho-sexualised subjugation for both men and women. We cannot isolate one set of binary definitions: we either accept or reject them all. To challenge individual binaries – or coercively impose pre-defined defintions – will keep us arguing among ourselves forever. We have to go for the root of the root of binary conceptual definitions: and reject or redefine them all. We need to address the identity that unites; and cannot be altered by gender pronouns, race, religion …or even be imposed by name, age (DOB), or even height. These are all conventions that are useful so long as they don’t become the means of coercive control. Then they are root fascisms.
What BS! Why not call her what she is: a female, never mind what you think she is, it’s what she regards herself as that’s important. The author achieved what he obviously set out to do, divide, by using totally irrelevant designations that completely undermined his alleged objective. And defending the author because he also defends Manning is neither here nor there. It’s NOT splitting hairs. What’s even more depressing is all the amateur psychologists pontificating about being in denial and so on. So we’re not allowed to contradict the author without being accused of this and that? I despair.
IS ALL THIS PRATTLE ABOUT THE CORRECTNESS OR NOT OF TITLES AND GENDER BLAH BLAH BLAH some kind of diversion tactics, from I don’t know what? Germans insist on using gender-specific nouns Arbeiter/Arbeiterin; suffix “in” is gender-specific and denotes the female. The Austrians followed suit with this “gender correctnes” for a few years – but have reverted to the “primitive”, non-gender-specific form!
And? Last time I looked, the article was in English
Barovsky
You even put in blockquote where I clearly said “What if Chelsea herself had self-identified…”
So you kind of proved my point, really. There is a broad discussion about identity to be had – – without prejudice. The article should have garnered nothing but unilateral support for Chelsea. It was the ultraPC police that derailed that unison, not Phillip.
Those are NOT my words you quoted in your response.
Milosevic: identity politics IS a load of hypocritical reactionary bullshit. And as you yourself have pointed out numerous times…. Who Benefits? It has caused such disunity and fragmentation. Again, who benefits? I fecken loathe what it has done, I despise the whole triviliased crap about pronouns and cisgender blah blah blah, Anything but challenge the status quo. Oh, and I say this as a gay person.
yah, the phrase “it’s almost like …” was intended as sarcasm.
I’m surprised that nobody has yet been inspired to invent gay-specific pronouns. It seems like the logic of identity politics almost demands it.
I’m looking forward to when somebody asks me what my gender identity is, so that I can tell them that I’ve never felt the need to have one. Of course, I know what’s in my pants, but as far as I understand the theory, that’s supposed to be an irrelevant detail. Unless you decide to have yourself altered, at which point it suddenly becomes highly relevant, for reasons which remain unclear. It’s almost like somebody might be making some money off it, somehow.
Good onya Pottsy:
s’ferzackerly wha’ar meant wiv me comment:-
IS ALL THIS PRATTLE ABOUT THE CORRECTNESS OR NOT OF TITLES AND GENDER BLAH BLAH BLAH some kind of diversion tactics, from I don’t know what? Germans insist on using gender-specific nouns Arbeiter/Arbeiterin; suffix “in” is gender-specific and denotes the female. The Austrians followed suit with this “gender correctnes” for a few years – but have reverted to the “primitive”, non-gender-specific form!
‘what you’ve done is commit a sleight of hand and effectively derailed the actual topic of your piece by introducing a complete irrelevancy.’ – oh, the irony, but I am not in the least surprised given how perceived transgression often results in virtue signalling and personalised attack once IP shibolleths are threatened.
Anger can be useful, but in this case it is aimed at the wrong target.
I can’t believe I am actually saying this but Philip Roddis is one of the good guys, concerned about injustice, and concerned about the intimidation of Chelsea Manning, yet here he is under the microscope, having to defend himself rather than the corrupt system that makes it so easy to terrify whistleblowers like Manning or Assange.
As far as I know, and unlike ‘respected’ figures in the establishment Phil’ is not responsible for rendition, torture, mass murder, abuse of the legal system, or a long running media campaign driven by duplicity, dissembling and hypocrisy.
So lets save our anger for the right targets, eh – that way there might be a slither of a chance that solidarity amongst protesters might have a positive bearing on Mannings fate because as sure as eggs are eggs the only people who benefit from supporters squabbling amongst themself (about gender identity) are those who stand to gain the most from the prospect of Chelsea facing another bout of legally sanctioned human rights abuses.
@Harrystotle. Just when I was beginning to think the comments section on OffG had gone completely barking mad, you deliver on the side of the obvious.
IP is a construct being used by, as an example, the faux socialists trying not to tell us where they stand rather than where they stand(not against the US pursuit of Assad and Maduro, but most assuredly standing for gender id, bigotry relative to Jews etc. etc.)
Identity politics is a construct to redirect necessary debate on core issues, a fundamental truth or a concerted assault on the main issue. It doesn’t matter what the sideshow is if the actual target of debate is the condemnation of the real politics involved. It’ precisely because we are being deliberately sidetracked by IP that the real issue is being obscured, time and again.
Julian Assange is a victim of the US might is right and fuck the law attitude, Chelsea Manning is a victim of that same disgusting ideology and it’s identity is the overreaching power of the capitalist, globalist and imperialist assault on all our liberty which is slowly being eroded by various tactics designed to lead us in circles. The rest, as they say, is just pure theatre.
This Identity Politics is doing all that detracts from the real issue very nicely, I must say. A Doctor isn’t a Doctoress, A PM isn’t a Prime Ministeress and Chelsea was a soldier, not a soldieress. When irrelevancies win, the REAL argument is lost in the mire which is precisely where the bad guys want it.
Get it together people. Julian Assange may or may not have been guilty of rape and horrific as it may sound, it’s irrelevant because that is not the reason TPTB want his head. Chelsea may or may not be a woman and cruel as it may sound, it is also not relevant because that is not why she/he is in jail again. What is relevant is the fact that Chelsea is the victim yet again and it has nothing to do with whether or not she is respected as a hero or a heroine. We go after the bastards that have done it to her!
I have to admit, that I too, fell into the trap that Phil’ was trying to negate – stupid me, but I’m better now hopefully. Now go back and read his article again and acknowledge the REAL issue he was trying to address.
Rant over.
Shibboleths…..luvvleare verd; haven’t heard that used since 6th form!
Yes, it doesn’t cost anything to show Chelsea a modicum of courtesy.
“”Justice” operating in secret, is no justice at all!
Just not going to read your article even if it amounts to a defence of Chelsea Manning. This “him/her he/she rubbish marks you as either a bigot or an immature child.
I’m neither. I’ve not the slightest problem with Chelsea’s self identification as a woman. Problems only arise – hence my flagging this as a separate matter – when some self identified women claim right of access to places where women undress, or to compete in women’s sporting events.
What does this have to do with Manning’s predicament? Toilets, athletes? Mehinks the lady doth protest too much.
You lost me barovsky. What, precisely, do you accuse me of? I deem Chelsea a highly courageous individual and that, surely, is the point.
George, I’m no geneticist. Am I wrong in thinking everyone, without exception, is either XX or (as in exclusive or) XY – with the rare occurrence of an “XX male syndrome” which has no bearing on self gender identification? That assumption informs half of my him/her phrasing. And the other half? My unconditional acceptance of a biological male identifying as female. (As for assuming prurience as regards access to women only spaces, I don’t. It’s a matter of public record that many women fear this.)
My regret is that my trying to have my cake and eat it – implying complexity but in shorthand via awkward pronoun constructs, to avoid diverting from the simple truth of Chelsea’s heroism – hasn’t worked. I take responsibility for that, and even concede a modicum of truth in barovsky’s hyperbolic and harsh verdict that I “completely fucked up [my] article. Sorry about that.
Is anyone else in doubt abour my immense respect for Chelsea Manning?
Damn. Wrong positioning. This is a response to George’s “Now Philip …”
You’ve clarified it to my satisfaction at least. She has been dealt a very bad hand and risen above it.The sensitivity you have blundered into is less gender politics and dismissing it as such, is a narrow and blinkered interpretation. From my perspective it has more to do with the protective impulses a vulnerable, bullied, and much abused heroine has elicited, and the disgusting way the US government has reneged on her pardon.
As for the genetics it is way more complicated than X and Y. There are several levels at which complexity is added and and at each, occult variation is possible. So gay males have an orthodox XY complement and gay females XX, but it is believed that differences are present in tissue-specific gene expression in gay males and probably in gender ambiguity. Such variation could even be precisely time-sensitive in development and near impossible to detect in the adult, yet have led to critical micro anatomical differences. The twin studies in gay females do not suggest much in the way of genetics, most being discordant, whereas about half of males are concordant.
It remains poorly understood, but many developmental processes follow a paradigm where there is a default program which can be actively altered in the usual case, but inactive if there is failure in execution of that program. I could make this less speculative if there were more facts. But as a neuroscientist with my main focus being genetics I am confident that gender orientation is for the most part involuntary. When I was young and more foolish, I asked a gay male what made him decide to be gay. He simply replied what made you decide to be straight. The penny dropped as I hope it does for you. The wild rumpus usually begins shortly after such commentary is posted.
Thanks again George. I’ll take onboard – and when I get the chance look into – your helpful steer on the genetics front.
As for the condescending tone of your comments, I’ll do as you did with me – and assume you didn’t mean any affront. You simply “blundered into” that patronising tone.
Now Phillip, I accept your appropriate regret for the way in which you phrased things. But this whole issue of claiming right of access may be a red herring. You may be projecting, as are those for whom this is a concern, because many straight males dream of such access, and recognise it for what it is – in them. But for someone whose brain is female ( a convenient if absurd oversimplification), it is surely much more complex, and you should not assume the kind of prurience you imagine, actually applies. It is awkward, to be sure, all around. I say this, having contributed to the field of gender identification.
“For someone whose brain is female….” was simpletonian speculation about Chelsea, not about women in general.
Dear George, many females (with female brains) worry more about being in an open changing room with other females(with or without female brains) who are Lesbian. I assume that was noted in your contribution to female gendering. Whilst I couldn’t give a rat’s cock if someone wants to ogle me in a dressing room, it would seem that many other females(with female brains)would require all females wear a label identifying their gender id. Do you want to go down thaat roadd and open that can of worms? I would have thought females (with female brains) would be entitled to their say. Another perfect example of PC gone completely to extremes which is where gender politics takes us, along with all the other IP. Talk about scoring an own goal!
I’m sorry to see that you’ve come under attack by our resident IdPol Trans PC brigade, Philip.
Thanks Vaska. I say it’s character forming for a writer to get sanctimonious vitriol from time to time!
Chelsea wasn’t stripped naked and thrown into a cell with a 35 year sentence for trans issues. She suffered this fate for revealing the truth about US atrocities and war crimes on its imperialist rampage of slaughter and destruction across the planet. That’s all that matters. There’s no need to plunge down any irrelevant rabbit holes.
Why the continued he/she dilemma? Chelsea has chosen to be identified as female. Get used to it. Moreover, it gets in the way of the story.
See my response to antipropi.