Larry Flynt's Blog, page 13

Outsourcing Torture

If you are the least bit squeamish, don’t read “Globalizing Torture: CIA Secret Detention and Extraordinary Rendition,” an Open Society Justice Initiative report published by the Open Society Foundations. The OSF was established by philanthropist George Soros, one of the handful of the super rich still guided by a moral compass. Soros was a Hungarian Jewish teenager when Nazi Germany occupied his homeland and is therefore aware of the depravity which can emanate from a society that lays claim to being a high point of human civilization.

After all, the Germans who voted Hitler into power in 1933 were among the world’s most well-educated people, as well as largely being followers of Christian scripture. That so many of them came to equate barbarism with patriotism is a warning sign to those Americans who find assurance in our “values” cloaking our nation’s collective descent into the darker realms. It is an arrogance starkly challenged by the systematic savagery practiced by a widespread network of agents of our government, ostensibly in response to the attacks of 9/11.

But the purpose of the OSF report is not to shock with examples of the most extreme cases from the sinister world of torture into which America sank. It methodically defines the norm in a vast terror operation that the United States has sponsored around the globe.

In this detailed report documenting the U.S. policy of outsourcing interrogation to 54 nations, chosen for their unfettered embrace of torture techniques, you will discover the depths of evil to which the most extreme totalitarian societies might aspire. Indeed, that was the point of the CIA’s “extraordinary-rendition” program initiated after 9/11, capturing suspected terrorists and turning them over to the world’s most brutal torturers without any presumption of innocence and regard for due process.

The techniques go far beyond the beatings and waterboarding celebrated in Kathryn Bigelow’s Zero Dark Thirty. Apparently, America’s homegrown torturers didn’t have the proper skill-set to slit penises and dismember body parts. Or perhaps the CIA agents whom Bigelow honors did engage in such sadistic practices, and her script advisers at CIA headquarters objected to revealing the grisly details. In any case, as the Open Society Foundations report proves, CIA officials were often present and certainly had ultimate supervisory power over the torture chambers financed by the world’s most overly hyped democracy.

For our government, condoning barbarism is easily rationalized: We were attacked and have the right to utilize the most heinous of means to attain the end of ensuring our safety. Of course, we know from the testimony of key members of the Senate Intelligence Committee that Bigelow’s film mistakenly implies that torture was pivotal in hunting down Osama bin Laden.

As the OSF report makes clear, information obtained by torture is most often unreliable. Words are spewed in a desperate effort to stop the infliction of pain. One glaring example cited is the tortured detainee who indicated that al-Qaeda operatives had been trained in biological and chemical weapons by the government of Saddam Hussein. The George W. Bush regime used that fabrication to justify the invasion of Iraq even though it was well known that Hussein was a sworn enemy of Bin Laden’s organization.

But what if barbaric techniques occasionally provide accurate information, as torturers have claimed in their defense down through history? It was routine for Europe’s royal despots to justify employing brutal methods at the time our great experiment in republican governance was taking shape. Unlike King George III and other unscrupulous monarchs, our Founding Fathers held basic human rights to be inalienable and accordingly enshrined the right of due process into our Constitution.

Moreover, it is a right that must also be extended to our presumed adversaries. Yet— and this high crime is even more vicious than the assault on the bodies and minds of so many prisoners—the right of the accused to the presumption of innocence until proven guilty in a fair court of law has been obliterated by the leaders of our nation on an unprecedented international scale. Check the OSF report for the details of our depravity and then demand of our leaders that such horrid acts never again be conducted in our name.

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Before serving almost 30 years as a Los Angeles Times columnist and editor, Robert Scheer spent the late 1960s as Vietnam correspondent, managing editor and editor in chief of Ramparts magazine. He is now editor of TruthDig.com. His latest book is The Great American Stick-Up: Greedy Bankers and the Politicians Who Love Them.

Carmen Ortiz

Will dragging the name of U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts Carmen Ortiz through the shit bring back Internet martyr Aaron Swartz? No, but it’ll serve more justice than the poor guy ever got at the hands of this sadistic inquisitor. Ortiz is a bitter reminder that sometimes the good guys lose and the war must go on.

Carmen “Killer” Ortiz hit the national radar early this year when Swartz—an Internet activist and technological whiz kid who, at the age of 26, had already pioneered cutting-edge social-networking systems—hanged himself after landing in Ortiz’s clutches.

What did he do that merited a soul-crushing federal indictment? Expose national security secrets? Hack into the nuclear codes? No, he downloaded content from JSTOR, a database of scholarly articles openly accessible to universities all over the country. And what did he plan to do with it? Plagiarize it? Sell it for illegal profit? No, he was going to distribute it free of charge, believing that everyone should have free access to educational content.

JSTOR must have pressed for Swartz to be sent up the river, right? Wrong. JSTOR got all its content back and refused to press charges! If anything called for the proverbial slap on the wrist, this was it.

But Ortiz, always on the lookout to score cheap political brownie points, knew low-hanging fruit when she saw it. She sent her ass-sucking henchman, Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Heymann—a G-man with a notorious hard-on for hackers—after Swartz. Heymann’s prosecution had already driven another young hacker, Jonathan James, to suicide after naming him in an identity theft and hacking case.

Ortiz’s office slapped Swartz with four felony counts that could have put him behind bars for 35 years and financially crippled him with $1 million in fines. But she was just getting warmed up. Even though Ortiz knew that Swartz suffered from severe depression, her office upped the felony count to 13. That meant a possible 50 years. Basically, a life sentence for the victimless, nonviolent crime of downloading some fucking college papers!

That’s what’s called prosecutorial abuse. Read that carefully, Ortiz. Our lawyers already have. So if you want to come after us, fuck you!

Now let’s consider this carefully for a moment. A brilliant, ambitious young mind with all the potential of a fledgling Bill Gates, working at the forefront of a field in which our country desperately needs to excel to remain a world leader in innovation, is snuffed out by an aging, dogmatic and vindictive dinosaur who has never so much as innovated a new way to wipe her ass.

“Objection!” Ortiz would no doubt screech at this point. Like most overzealous benchwarmers, she drapes her absolutist, all-or-nothing interpretation of the law in bloated sanctimony. When justified objections started flying as she carefully wove Swartz’s judicial noose, she bellowed, “Stealing is stealing whether you use a computer command or a crowbar.” That’s the same kind of shit medieval magistrates spewed before torturing people to death for stealing a loaf of bread. These days we have something called judicial discretion that is supposed to keep the legal process from turning into an inhuman nightmare.

Flaunting the basic precept that a defendant is innocent until proven guilty, Ortiz’s office has a history of shifting the burden of proof onto its targets. Under Ortiz’s watch, DEA agents allegedly combed through crime reports to find juicy real estate that could be seized under a statute that allows for forced forfeiture of assets with suspected links to crime. In one case, the Feds grabbed a shabby little Massachusetts motel because of some minor drug offenses even though the owners were never accused of wrongdoing. Here too, Ortiz’s goons went after easy pickins: small fries that couldn’t mount a costly defense. The magistrate judge reviewing the case ended up laughing it out of court. As Swartz’s loved ones can attest, most of Ortiz’s victims haven’t been that lucky.

Eager to add an anti-terrorist stripe to her robes, Ortiz once hunted down a pharmacist who posted stupid pro-al-Qaeda YouTube videos for “conspiring to kill Americans overseas.” No actual link to any planned attack was ever proven, and the defendant claimed he was being persecuted for not being an FBI informant. But Ortiz knew that few people would give a shit if the guy rotted in jail, so that’s where he landed. Meanwhile, she got to strut around like the baddest bitch in Boston.

If there’s one good thing to come out of the Aaron Swartz tragedy, it’s that Carmen Ortiz’s path to a coveted seat on the U.S. Supreme Court is now so strewn with bodies, it’s a longshot she’ll ever get there. No President is going to relish the crapfest of an Ortiz confirmation that would be sure to get shitcanned anyway.

As it is, Ortiz will be lucky if she keeps her current gig. Aaron Swartz was a hero to many fighting for Internet freedom. Even in death, he has some high-powered allies who are now turning their sights on Ortiz. As for the Obama Administration that originally applauded her as Massachusetts’s first Latina U.S. Attorney, she’ll be lucky if anyone takes her calls.

Here’s a nasty footnote to the Swartz chapter: Ortiz’s husband, Tom Dolan, saw fit to lash out at the grieving parents by tweeting that they purposefully ignored his wife’s rejected plea offer. What’s wrong, Tom? Home life a little tense these days married to America’s hated Lady Injustice?

The best way to remember Aaron Swartz is, of course, to go online and read all about him. Once you do, you’ll understand why his death is such a big loss. Check out his story at his own activist site DemandProgress.org. It’s free for all to read.

An Open Letter From Larry Flynt to Mark Sanford

 

 

For Immediate Release

AN OPEN LETTER FROM LARRY FLYNT TO MARK SANFORD: “I WILL NEVER DIVORCE YOU.”

(May 2, 2013 – Beverly Hills, CA)

Dear Governor Sanford,

In a vain gesture to achieve respectability, your refusal to accept my endorsement and financial contribution of $2,600 for being America’s great sex pioneer has hurt my tender feelings.

First, you threw your wife overboard. Now you have tossed me aside. I will support you in spite of your hopeless posturing. Nothing can deter me. I came in to save you, like a member of SEAL Team 6, after the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) left you as road kill.

I would remind you Governor, that beggars cannot be choosers. While you have treated me like you have your former wife, you embrace Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) and proudly brandish his endorsement. But now the intelligent voters of South Carolina’s 1st District are asking whether or not you support Sen. Paul’s positions in favor of legalizing marijuana and deploying drones within the United States. Is there anyone you wish to target on Hilton Head?

Regardless of your answers to these and other questions, however reckless, dangerous or euphoric, I will always remain your staunchest supporter for the blow you have struck against traditional values.

I will never divorce you.

Sincerely,

Larry Flynt

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For press inquiries, email Media@LFP.com or call (323) 651-5400.

SANFORD OPEN LETTER 05-02-13

LARRY FLYNT ENDORSES MARK SANFORD FOR CONGRESS

(May 1, 2013 – Beverly Hills, CA) HUSTLER Founder and Publisher Larry Flynt has announced his endorsement of Republican candidate Mark Sanford for U.S. Congress. He has also sent a maximum contribution of $2,600 to the Sanford for Congress campaign and extended a personal invitation to Sanford to meet with him and shake his hand.

Sanford, who gained national prominence in 2009 as governor of South Carolina when he abruptly abandoned his duties for a secret rendezvous with his mistress, is currently running against Democrat Elizabeth Colbert Busch for South Carolina’s 1st Congressional District seat. The election will take place on May 7.

In a statement released today, Flynt calls Sanford “the sex pioneer of our time.” In Flynt’s eyes “no one has done more to expose the sexual hypocrisy of traditional values in America today. Sanford’s open embrace of his mistress in the name of love, breaking his sacred marriage vows, was an act of bravery that has drawn my support.” Chastising the Republican Party for not backing Sanford following his run-off victory, Flynt declared: “I am willing to step in and stand erect for Mark Sanford.”

Flynt further elaborated: “My endorsement has not been an easy decision for me. Even though Mark Sanford has emerged as the leader against sexual hypocrisy in American politics, he is a liar. He lied to his gubernatorial staff. He lied to his wife. He lied to his children. He lied to the people of South Carolina and to the press. Despite his journey down this Appalachian Trail of deceit, I support him not for his character, but for exposing the hypocrisy of traditional values. The liar has exposed the greater lie.” Flynt also commended Sanford’s supporters for “tossing aside lifelong convictions” and “teaching their children the invaluable lesson that traditional values are nothing more than a scam.”

Watch Larry’s Video on YouTube

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For press inquiries, email Media@LFP.com or call (323) 651-5400.

Why Start Trouble?

Some people think I stir up trouble just for the hell of it. But the truth is, I never looked for controversy for controversy’s sake. There’s always been a principle at stake.

Twenty-five years ago I was in major-league trouble. I had picked a fight with preacher Jerry Falwell by making fun of him in a 1983 parody ad in this magazine. He claimed libel, and the case went all the way to the Supreme Court. Did anybody think I could win it? Hell no. But in 1988 I did—and by unanimous decision.

I learned a few things back then. One: Free speech is not something you can take for granted. Two: Starting trouble is worth it if your cause is just. And three: The bigger the enemy, the messier the fight.

I’m proud of what I did, but I know you don’t always win. Will Wall Street stop being driven by greed because thousands of troublemakers occupied it? No, but they showed that even in our cynical time, people still give a damn. Are you more likely to win your case if you flip off the judge? No, but it shows that the independent human spirit is alive and kicking. That, ultimately, is what justice in our country is measured against: the independent human spirit striving for freedom.

Keep in mind that starting trouble can be a lonely business. When I took my free-speech case to the Supreme Court, I was on my own. Now everyone’s reaping the benefits of my victory. Sometimes it may seem like you don’t have a chance of winning, but you sure as hell won’t if you don’t try.

Not a lot of people have gone looking for trouble as much as I have, and I have the scars to prove it. Everything I know I learned the hard way. Why didn’t I ever learn my lesson and shut the hell up? Because life may be a bitch when you’re fighting for freedom, but the other option is worse.

My greatest hope is that the next generation will look at what I’ve done and realize that sometimes there’s no greater honor than being a righteous pain in the ass.

Raping the Bill of Rights

Much to my dismay, I saw little notice, let alone celebrations, around the country on the recent 221st anniversary of the Bill of Rights. Those initial ten amendments to the Constitution guarantee our most essential individual liberties.

But on the occasion the Wall Street Journal ran “U.S. Terrorism Agency to Tap a Vast Database of Citizens,” a front-page story by Julia Angwin. She reported that Attorney General Eric Holder—without a peep of protest from President Obama—signed rules that “now allow the little-known National Counterterrorism Center to examine the government files of U.S. citizens for possible criminal behavior, even if there is no reason to suspect them. That is a departure from past practice.”

So much for due process and the Fourth Amendment’s guarantee of privacy. Moreover, Angwin noted, “The agency has new authority to keep data about innocent U.S. citizens for up to five years and to analyze it for suspicious patterns of behavior. Previously, both were prohibited.” And if that wasn’t enough to shock Thomas Jefferson and James Madison in their graves, “The changes also allow databases of U.S. civilian information to be given to foreign governments for analysis of their own.” For future crimes by us.

But why now snatch the very heart of the Bill of Rights and throw it into the incinerator? You must have guessed why, and the Wall Street Journal was on it: “Under the new rules issued in March [2012],” Angwin reported, “the National Counterterrorism Center, known as NCTC, can obtain almost any database the government collects that it says is ‘reasonably believed’ to contain ‘terrorism information.’ The list could potentially include almost any government database, from financial forms submitted by people seeking federally backed mortgages to the health records of people who sought treatment at Veterans Administration hospitals.”

“Reasonably believed”? By what criteria? And will those “suspicious” people even know they’re in one of these databases, which could conceivably stigmatize them for the rest of their lives? And since all of this is done secretly, these citizens will have no chance to defend themselves.

Did you know about this “forced retirement” of our Constitution? One former senior administration official told Angwin that it’s “breathtaking” in its scope. Of course, he didn’t reveal his name. And where was the rest of the media? I saw little about this elsewhere.

I have more questions on this sudden flashing red light vis-à-vis what has been eroding this self-governing republic’s very reason for being since 9/11: In how many of our classrooms have future voters been told about how Obama and Holder—along with Bush and Cheney before them—have wholly betrayed their oath of office to protect the Constitution? And if there have been any discussions, how many students or teachers are concerned about or even sensitive to what this country is turning into?

In one of the few other coverages of this rape of the Bill of Rights, Wired magazine posted on its website an article titled “Attorney General Secretly Granted Gov. Ability to Develop and Store Dossiers on Innocent Americans.” Author Kim Zetter pointed out that “the request to expand the [National Counterterrorism] center’s powers led to a heated debate at the White House and the Department of Homeland Security, with Mary Ellen Callahan—then-chief privacy officer for the Department of Homeland Security—leading the charge to defend civil liberties. Callahan argued that the new rules represented a ‘sea change’ and that every interaction a citizen would have with the government in the future would be ruled by the underlying question, is that person a terrorist?

“Callahan lost her battle, however, and subsequently left her job, though it’s not known if her struggle over the NCTC debate played a role in her decision to leave.”

Have there been any related resignations from the Obama Administration, whose blatant disregard for privacy is making America more like China and Iran than what used to be an admired land of liberty?

I’m intensely interested in whether there have been any classroom or workplace debates on this throttling of who we are. Then again, how many Americans even remember who we’re supposed to be?

If Eric Holder hasn’t already added me to one of his lists of “suspicious” citizens, I expect he already knows my address.

 

Greedonomics

Let me tell you how screwed we are. Better yet, let me once again quote my favorite economist, the late Beatle John Lennon. I’ve frequently cited the words he sang in “Working Class Hero” because they make the most salient point concerning our devastated economy: “A working class hero is something to be/Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV/And you think you’re so clever and classless and free/But you’re still fucking peasants as far as I can see.”

He’s singing about you white guys, the peasants who voted for the Republicans in such sufficient numbers that they kept control of the House of Representatives, preventing the Democrats from legislating any but the slight- est increase in a taxation system designed to make the rich richer. The most that President Obama could get passed, even after winning a second term, was an insignificant tax increase on the superrich families earning more than $450,000 a year. That and a lousy 5% increase on the capital-gains profits from gambits that allowed GOP candidate Mitt Romney to pay 14% on his many millions in income while lesser souls were paying upwards of 35% on their hard-earned labor in the real world.

The richest of the rich, like the Koch brothers, bought your vote with hysterical appeals to your most primitive and therefore distorted instinct of self-preservation based on a false notion of one’s own class position. Most white guys who vote Republican are big losers in today’s economy, but they still think of themselves as middle-class winners. They make up a majority of those with underwater mortgages and foreclosed homes, and they are denied once widely available decent-paying jobs with medical coverage. But they still believe that when Uncle Sam invades some country with oil, they will benefit. They won’t.

Want proof? Just Google the “Equity Strategy” reports that Citigroup sent to its richest clients before the great recession hit. Dated October 16, 2005, the first report heralded the new day of the “Plutonomy” that in the United States has replaced the traditional capitalist-based democracy. The USA, the United Kingdom and Canada are now clearly defined as a new form of capitalist political rule—by the rich and for the rich. As the Citigroup report proudly claimed, “the world is dividing into two blocs—the plutonomies, where economic growth is powered by and largely consumed by the wealthy few, and the rest.”

The report went on to state: “What are the common drivers of Plutonomy? Disruptive technology-driven productivity gains, creative financial innovation, capitalist-friendly cooperative governments….”

That was written two years before the crash of 2007 ushered in the great recession that wiped out much of the wealth of the middle class. Citigroup was a big player in the financial scams that led to the housing bubble triggering the economic crisis that still haunts us. The Citigroup reports predicted for their most privileged clients exactly what was in store: “We project that the plutonomies…will likely see even more income inequality, disproportionately feeding off a further rise in the profit share in their economies….”

They nailed it. In a March 5, 2006, report titled “Revisiting Plutonomy: The Rich Getting Richer,” Citigroup pronounced: “We think the rich are likely to get even wealthier in the coming years. … Asset booms, a rising profit share and favorable treatment by market-friendly governments have allowed the rich to prosper and become a greater share of the economy in the plutonomy countries.”

Then the crash hit, enabled by the radical deregulation of Wall Street by the market-friendly U.S. government. While the average homeowner was smashed, that same U.S. government bailed out Citigroup, which packaged its toxic mortgage-based securities. The result has been an increase in the wealth of the superrich at the expense of just about everyone else.

In 2011 the net worth of the Forbes 400 increased by $200 billion and now totals over $1.5 trillion. The wealth of the richest 1% of Americans is now equal to the total wealth accumulated over a lifetime by the bottom 90%. It is time to deep-six the word democracy and acknowledge that a plutonomy is what we have become.

Mark R. Levin

This month’s addition to the asinine shitpile has such a twisted idea of patriotism, he’d sue the government if it tried to regulate fireworks that backfired on kids. As president of the notorious Landmark Legal Foundation, Mark R. Levin has positioned himself as the new ideologue behind the conservative push for a new hard-right, antiliberal, antiunion, antiregulation America that rimjobs the rich and fucks over the rest of us.

Levin is the quintessential scumbag lawyer. His foundation has tried to use the courts to shut off funding for vital agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Education Association, claiming they’re political organs in disguise. In 2007 Landmark nominated an actual corrupt organ, Rush Limbaugh, for a Nobel Peace Prize. No shit.

As a talk-radio pit bull and phony political theorist himself, Levin has carefully cultivated the fine art of name-calling like a connoisseur of fertilizer, mixing shitheel meanness and academic euphemism to make his turd blossoms bloom. His rantings range from lazy sub-Rickles insult humor like calling Hillary Clinton “her thighness” and redubbing NOW the “National Organization of Ugly Women” to beard-stroking characterizations of “the Modern Liberal” as a “statist.”

What the fuck is a statist? Well, reading Levin, it would seem to be anyone who doesn’t hate the federal government as much as he does. Levin’s into the all-or-nothing mindset, so thinking the federal state might be good for something—like helping those who need it or stopping corporations from wrecking the planet we live on—is the same as worshiping it like a drooling, dead-eyed cult member. That’s why he picked a word that sounds like Satanist. Ain’t he clever?

It’s about as surprising as crap in a toilet that Levin gets his sphincter sucked by Fox News whenever he farts. Need someone to peddle the myth that Obama’s tax proposals will hurt everybody and that people earning over $250,000 a year aren’t rich? Call Levin. Need a nonscientist science-hater to talk about how global warming is good because it will stop a new Ice Age? Call Levin.

He once infamously spun a report in Nature magazine to claim it said “greenhouse gases (like carbon dioxide) could actually be the key to averting the chill,” so we should “just leave it alone.” Levin left out a key piece of info: The report’s authors warned explicitly against warping their words. The “findings do not mean we should stop fighting warming,” they emphasized.

The episode was a stark illustration of Levin’s favored method: Start with a rickety agenda, then cherry-pick things out of context from people smarter than you to shore it up, leaving out anything that doesn’t fit. It’s lazy and dishonest, but perfectly in character for this particular donkey’s ass.

Levin pulls the same shit in his books, honing it in Liberty & Tyranny and bloating it to farcical extremes in his follow-up, Ameritopia. Why do we care? Because these books are instant bestsellers and treated like Bibles by the hard right. The Levin gospel is worming its way into our nation’s spongiest brains like some sort of mad cow disease.

Behind all of his regurgitations of great thinkers like Plato and Locke, Levin’s just another antigovernment stooge crapping out the fantasy that the federal government is a big oppressor. Idiots who live on blind anger eat this shit up because it gives them a big target to be mad at. Life sucks because of the government. My wife won’t blow me because of the government. But you don’t hear a lot of people bitching about the government when their Social Security check arrives or when Medicare keeps them from croaking. In Levin’s view, those programs are stages in the “unmaking of America” drafted by evil “masterminds” like Presidents Roosevelt and Johnson.

Levin counters the need for government by claiming that Americans are noble people who angelically blend self-serving individualism with compassion. Leave them alone and they’ll do the right thing. Who’s being utopian now? How many of Levin’s ideal Americans sit in Wall Street’s greed-driven boardrooms or in the offices of health insurers deciding on who should get care and who should be left twisting in the dirt? Levin’s true assholery lies in making valid points about the dangers of utopian thinking that would apply to any political party or system, then gluing them ineptly to his own antiliberal platitudes. We all want our government to act like the perfect neighbor: Leave us the fuck alone until we need its help. That’s true no matter who the President is. But Levin knows that nonpartisan analysis is headed for the pulp bin the day after it comes out. Spewing angry, lopsided dogma devoid of all nuance? That shit pays all day long.

There are, of course, people who pray for utopia every day. They just have another name for it: heaven. So why isn’t Ameritopia about the Religious Right’s dream of turning this country into an antifreedom theocracy? Because that isn’t Levin’s agenda. He writes sentences like “only an army of drones is capable of building a rainbow to paradise.” No, he’s not talking about Billy Graham’s mindless hordes or even crazed Justin Bieber fans. He’s talking about people who fight for social causes!

According to Levin, “the Modern Liberal believes in the supremacy of the state, thereby rejecting the principles of the Declaration [of Independence] and the order of the civil society.” We’ve met plenty of liberals, including ourselves. Not one of them would salute “the supremacy of the state.”

That is, unless it decides to defund Mark R. Levin by suing his lying balls off. Then we’re statists for life!

It’s Not Just Guns

As traumatic as they are, rampage shootings are now a regular occurrence in our country. Many factors have led to that reality: availability of guns, lack of mental-health treatment, abusive environments, violence in popular culture, the list goes on. There’s no specific reason and no specific solution. As President Obama eloquently stated, “No single law, no set of laws can eliminate evil from the world or prevent every senseless act of violence in our society, but that can’t be an excuse for inaction.”

I realize that gun ownership and hunting are a way of life for many Americans. I’m not trying to interfere with that. But let’s be realistic: Too many of the guns on the market are designed for war, not hunting or self-defense. And if you think you need military-grade weapons to oppose the government, you’re sorely underestimating your enemy’s firepower. You may also want to go back and reread the Second Amendment, especially the part that says gun ownership is for the purposes of a “a well-regulated militia.” But even without assault weapons, America will still be saturated with guns, and anyone who wants them will get them.

Other than the fact that rampage shooters use guns to kill, the only thing everyone agrees on is that they have mental issues that weren’t taken seriously enough. This is the key issue that we need to focus on.

When Ronald Reagan entered office in 1981, one of the first things he did was defund the Mental Health Systems Act and dismantle the National Institute of Mental Health, virtually pouring scores of mentally ill citizens onto our streets. Our society has never recovered from that huge backward step.

It is time for comprehensive mental-healthcare reform. We need to revitalize our mental-health systems and fund progressive research toward diagnosing and helping those who need it before it’s too late. It’s a huge challenge, and only the federal government has the fiscal and legislative power to meet it. If we’re serious about protecting our children and society from the deadly combination of loaded guns and mental illness, we have no other option.

Who’s the Criminal?

What is the crime for which Bradley Manning faces life in prison after being tortured by his own government for two years? The Army private first class is charged with having “aided the enemy” in violation of the Espionage Act. But who is the “enemy” he aided, other than his fellow Americans, who were alerted to the lies of their government thanks to his heroic actions?

Manning’s attorney, David E. Coombs, called the charge “a scary proposition.” He warned that it could be leveled against any whistleblower exposing government wrongdoing. “Right there, you will silence a lot of critics of our government, and that’s what makes our government great—that we foster criticism and through it make changes. This is a very serious charge, not just for my client, but for all of us in America.”

In a rare public statement, Coombs condemned how Manning was treated during his nine months in solitary confinement at the Marine Corps Brig in Quantico, Virginia. “Brad’s treatment at Quantico will forever be etched into our nation’s history as a disgraceful moment in time,” Coombs declared, noting that Manning had been “shackled during limited exercise periods and was at times not allowed his clothing and glasses.” He emphasized, “Not only was it stupid and counterproductive; it was criminal.”

It is the U.S. government that acted criminally in punishing someone who sought to do his duty by exposing government wrongdoing. The charges against Manning stem from his allegedly passing a video and a trove of classified documents to the website WikiLeaks, which not only posted the material but also shared it with the New York Times and two of Europe’s most prestigious newspapers. All of the published reports—the so-called Afghan War Diary and Iraq War logs—contained information that the editors correctly thought the public had a need and right to know.

In performing this public service, the New York Times was protected by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Part of the Bill of Rights, it stipulates that Congress shall pass no law abridging freedom of the press or free speech, both of which were almost indistinguishable when the Constitution was adopted in 1787.

The “press” that the Founding Fathers referred to was not the huge corporate conglomerates of today but rather anyone who had the paper, ink and glue to post a leaflet on a wall. The Declaration of Independence was just such a broadsheet. It would seem a website like WikiLeaks would be covered by the same safeguards as those pre-Internet leaflets under both free-press and free-speech grounds.

So how can it be that for exercising his fundamental rights, Manning has been imprisoned under harsh conditions designed to psychologically break him? The quick-and-dirty answer is that he is an active-duty soldier and that the military’s rigorous rules trump all others. Nonsense.

Following World War II, the U.S. government definitively demolished that argument when it conducted the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal. It held individual Germans responsible for their atrocious deeds irrespective of the defendants’ claims that they were merely “following orders.”

During his deployment to Iraq, Manning—an Army intelligence analyst—came across evidence of a major U.S. war crime: a video showing his fellow soldiers firing cannons from an attack helicopter, killing a group of Iraqi civilians along with two Iraqi journalists working for Reuters. That was a blatant act of terrorism that our government claims to oppose.

Manning should have been honored for exposing criminal behavior that violated international laws originally promulgated by the United States. The real “crime” that has roused the ire of his superiors—straight up the chain of command to President Barack Obama—has been that Manning revealed the truth to WikiLeaks and the New York Times, as well as Britain’s The Guardian and Germany’s Der Spiegel.

The soldier should have been lauded for leaking State Department and military secrets, not stripped of his right to due process. Accused by his own government of aiding the enemy, he now faces life in prison. The reasoning must be that the free press and the democracy dependent upon it have become the “enemy” that Bradley Manning aided.