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Post by Vince524 on Jan 18, 2017 20:42:46 GMT -5
I'll be blunt and say I doubt Manning would have gotten nearly as much support, sympathy, and probably not a commuted sentence, if she'd stayed a he. If she'd stayed a he? This seems very unsympathetic to transgender people, I am compelled to say. :/ I'm assuming he meant if she had not been a transgendered person and therefore the transition and subsequent being housed with other male inmates was not an issue. Of course I could be wrong.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 18, 2017 20:44:47 GMT -5
You can't possibly be wrong; I said the same thing.
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Post by Vince524 on Jan 18, 2017 20:46:02 GMT -5
If I'm understanding Amadan correctly, what he meant was that if Manning were not transgender, people would likely not have given her so much sympathy and support. In other words, if she'd been cisgendered, not nearly as many people would have been clamoring for her release. I tend to agree with that. While I think her sentence was too heavy (35 years?! lots of violent criminals get off with far less!), my own sympathy with her has much more to do with her being a trans woman in a male prison, which has led her to attempt suicide twice. I've no doubt prison sucks much more for her than for your typical inmate. She's served seven years, she's clearly suffered, I doubt she'll offend again -- I am glad to see her sentence commuted. But certainly you can count me as one whose sympathy is affected by her being transgender. I agree with Rob that this is a shrewd move on Obama's part. Woops, I have to learn to read more before I respond, as you said what I said, only more properly. And while I do feel for her plight, I don't know if I want to make suicide attempts something that gets people's sentences commuted. Anyone might suffer depression for being locked up, or other reasons that are sympathetic.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 18, 2017 20:56:11 GMT -5
true, plenty of people might get depressed in prison, or have something sad happen to them. But they won't all get sympathy or a commmuted sentence.
I for one wouldn't give a rat's ass if Charles Manson got depressed or attempted suicide. His follower, Susan Atkins, became a born again Christian and had terminal cancer; neither got her sentence commuted. She got sympathy from some, but certainly not from me. Her crime was too damn brutal.
I doubt it will encourage serious suicide attempts, either. suicide is forever -- you don't try it unless you want to die.
With Manning, it's not just that she was depressed. It's why she was depressed, combined with the fact that her sentence was extraordinarily severe (not to mention many were sympathetic with her crime, to boot).
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Commuted!
Jan 18, 2017 21:17:29 GMT -5
via mobile
Post by Christine on Jan 18, 2017 21:17:29 GMT -5
I'm assuming he meant if she had not been a transgendered person and therefore the transition and subsequent being housed with other male inmates was not an issue. Of course I could be wrong. What part of the disparagement of suggesting a transgender woman might have "stayed a man" is unclear? Seriously, it was badly said. This is a no-brainer.
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Post by Vince524 on Jan 18, 2017 21:49:38 GMT -5
I'm assuming he meant if she had not been a transgendered person and therefore the transition and subsequent being housed with other male inmates was not an issue. Of course I could be wrong. What part of the disparagement of suggesting a transgender woman might have "stayed a man" is unclear? Seriously, it was badly said. This is a no-brainer. I understand how you read it that way, if as a transgenered person had not transitioned. But I didn't read it that way, and I think Cassandra read it the same way I did. If read your way, which is a fair reading, you're correct. If read my way, it's not. We'll have to let Amadan tell us which he meant. Or if he meant something completely different. Perhaps Amadan meant that in a past life, Manning was in fact a tank of helium, for which the symbol is He. That's also a fair interpretation, but probably less likely. After all, if anyone in the headlines is going to be compared to a lot of gas, it'd be Trump.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 18, 2017 22:06:36 GMT -5
FWIW, I read it the same way Vince did.
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Commuted!
Jan 18, 2017 22:14:45 GMT -5
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Post by Christine on Jan 18, 2017 22:14:45 GMT -5
This is stupid.
Chelsea Manning is a transgender woman.
To say "if she had stayed a man" is the wrong fucking way to say "if she weren't a transgender woman."
Period, end of.
If something this simple isn't clear, no wonder the world is going to hell.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 18, 2017 22:55:06 GMT -5
And I'll be equally blunt.
Damn straight the sympathy towards Manning is influenced by her being transgender. Certainly mine is, and from what I've read and heard, it's true for most of her sympathizers. Is she not more sympathetic to you than Snowden?
ETA:
As far as it influencing the commutation decision -- if she had not made two suicide attempts because she was transgender, would she have been high on Obama's list? I doubt it.
And I don't have a problem with that, really. As I noted above, I think her imprisonment was uniquely dreadful for her, and seven years seems like plenty to me.
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Post by Rolling Thunder on Jan 19, 2017 7:17:32 GMT -5
Ya'll need to eat a snickers bar. Seriously.
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Post by robeiae on Jan 19, 2017 7:42:51 GMT -5
And I'll be equally blunt. Damn straight the sympathy towards Manning is influenced by her being transgender. Certainly mine is, and from what I've read and heard, it's true for most of her sympathizers. Is she not more sympathetic to you than Snowden? Perhaps she is to you, but not for me. I've been unwavering in my disdain for Manning. The fact she isn't Fast Eddie Snowden does not make her an object of sympathy to me. She is where she put herself. Until the President commuted what he considered an overly harsh sentence and that was his call to make. That said, I would like to see something a little more substantive to support the unsupported Manning's support is largely based upon her gender change and thus far in this thread I've seen plenty of speculation and personal opinion. While that fuel for an interesting argument, it's certainly no substitute for actual facts Obama's commutation was swayed for any reasons than the ones he and the White House have already explained. I think there were plenty of pieces over the past years arguing for clemency for Manning partly because of her personal issues re gender change, like this one at Human Rights Watch: www.hrw.org/news/2017/01/13/letter-president-obama-support-commutation-chelsea-mannings-sentenceHere's a recent piece at New Republic setting up that case because of what Trump might do: newrepublic.com/article/139058/will-happen-chelsea-manning-president-trump
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Post by Vince524 on Jan 19, 2017 8:33:26 GMT -5
This is stupid. Chelsea Manning is a transgender woman. To say "if she had stayed a man" is the wrong fucking way to say "if she weren't a transgender woman." Period, end of. If something this simple isn't clear, no wonder the world is going to hell. You do understand I'm not saying you're wrong that it was written in a way that could be misconstrued, but clearly 2 of us read the 'intent' of the post differently. Again, Amadan can come in and tell us we were wrong in our reading. I'm not saying you're being unreasonable in how you read it, but I just don't think that's what Amadan meant. We've all said things that were badly worded, even though we're writers. (Mostly on this site at least)
So until Robo springs for that line and content editor for all of us, we just have to do the best we can. I'm hoping he gets on that as I'm a horrible speller.
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Post by Amadan on Jan 19, 2017 8:47:30 GMT -5
For the record, I'm no fan of Chelsea Manning. Not now or when she was Bradley Manning, but I'll be equally blunt. If you had said, "I doubt Manning would have gotten nearly as much support, sympathy, and probably not a commuted sentence, if she were Black," there would be no question of the bias behind such a remark. Why does it get a pass because Manning is transgendered? If I thought someone got a commuted sentence (or the Internet was rallying behind that person) because they were black, I would say so. I think Manning is a sympathetic figure to a lot of people who really don't give a shit about national security or have any understanding of Manning's crimes, but see only "FREEDOM OF INFORMATION!!!" and a poor depressed transgendered person in prison and think it's mean and unfair.
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Post by Amadan on Jan 19, 2017 13:12:04 GMT -5
There are people on the Internet rallying behind both convicted cop-killers Mumia Abu-Jamal and Assata Shakur imploring Obama to commute or pardon their sentences since he did it for Manning. Abu-Jamal is in prison and Shakur is a fugitive living in Cuba. If Obama were to even think of doing for those two what he did for Manning, the Republicans would amend the Constitution so Obama could serve a third term just so they could impeach him. Well, I have no more sympathy for Abu-Jamal or Shakur than I do for Manning, so yeah, I would criticize Obama for commuting or pardoning their sentences as well. I think you can be concerned and sympathetic for Manning's health situation without believing a commutation is warranted. I am very comfortable criticizing mercy being granted to Manning on the basis of being transgendered. I do not believe it is warranted, and I do not believe being transgendered and unhappy is a good reason to commute a sentence if they would not have earned that commutation otherwise. There are lots of people in prison who are miserable, suicidal, and probably more deserving of Presidential mercy than one high-profile cause celebre.
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Post by Amadan on Jan 19, 2017 13:35:44 GMT -5
Your comfort is irrelevant. Your criticism is irrelevant. What you believe is warranted or a good reason is irrelevant. Who might be more deserving of Presidential mercy than Chelsea Manning is also irrelevant. Okay. We are all just strangers on a message board. All of our opinions are irrelevant. Repeatedly stating "What you think is irrelevant" may be true in the sense that, yes, what you or I think has no impact on what the President does or what happens to Manning, but it's not a discussion. We might as well just shoot "What you think about Putin is irrelevant. What you think about microaggressions is irrelevant. What you think about Trump is irrelevant. What you think about taxes is irrelevant back." back and forth at each other.
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