Show your support for Bradley Manning at SF Pride

Dear Don,

Do you think honoring Pfc. Bradley Manning would be an "insult to every one [sic], gay and straight, who has ever served in the military of this country?"

San Francisco Pride board president Lisa Williams thinks so, and wrote that they were rescinding Manning's nomination as a Grand Marshal at this year's parade because his actions "placed in harms [sic] way the lives of our men and women in uniform — and countless others, military and civilian alike..."¹

SF Pride may honor whomever they wish, but to denigrate Bradley and extinguish the voices of anti-war members of the LGBT community at the event is despicable. If you're going to be at the SF Pride parade on June 30th, can you please consider wearing a Bradley t-shirt or carrying a sign to support him?

Click here to let us know you're attending the SF Pride parade on June 30th and plan to show your support for Pfc. Bradley Manning.

The mere possibility that they would appear to oppose the Pentagon motivated SF Pride's leadership to override the normal voting process just to exclude Bradley Manning.² Once an homage to impiety, counterculture and dissent, SF Pride appears to have morphed into a place for Democratic Party loyalists and other Very Serious People to safely celebrate while taking great pains not to offend the masters of war.

What Ms. Williams fails to mention is that SF Pride's major sponsors are exempt from these same standards.³ Take sponsors Bank of America and Wells Fargo for example, whose orgy of illegal foreclosures kicked thousands of innocent veterans (and countless other Americans) out of their homes, inflicting far more harm than Bradley's truth-telling.

Sponsors also include Clear Channel, home to virulent anti-gay voices like Rush Limbaugh, and AT&T, which assisted government agencies in illegally wiretapping Americans for years. Somehow, Bradley Manning's good faith disclosures exposing the ugly machinations of US war policy make him an un-American traitor — not the global theft and fraud scheme perpetrated by money hungry corporations that have actually destroyed innocent American lives.

The hypocrisy and complete disregard for facts on display should not go unchallenged. Ms. Williams writes that Manning supporters have the "first amendment right to show up, participate and voice their opinions at Pride." Let's show her we're not afraid to and mobilize as many Bay Area Bradley Manning supporters to show solidarity with the whistleblower at this year's SF Pride Parade.

Click here to let us know you're attending the SF Pride parade on June 30th in solidarity with Bradley Manning.

In solidarity,

Brian Sonenstein
Campaign Director,
Firedoglake.com

Sources:
1. SF Pride President Capitulates to Military Groups, Announces Bradley Manning Won’t Be Honored, Kevin Gosztola, The Dissenter, 4/27/2013.
2. Former San Francisco Pride Grand Marshal Who Nominated Bradley Manning Details Board’s Capitulation, Kevin Gosztola, The Dissenter, 4/29/2013.
3. Bradley Manning is off limits at SF Gay Pride parade, but corporate sleaze is embraced, Glenn Greenwald, The Guardian, 4/27/2013.

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