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Massachusetts Senior Senator, John Forbes Kerry (from Wikimedia Commons)
Senator John Kerry hosted a packed and vigorous town hall Saturday February 19, 2011 in Northampton, Massachusetts, home to Smith College. It’s about 20 miles up the Connecticut River from Springfield. The area is so reliably Democratic that national and even statewide candidates frequently give it a miss.
Yet here, on short notice and on Presidents’ Day weekend, was Kerry. He said that he’d come for a dialogue.
Kerry was on fire: clear, cogent, and compelling about how scary the Congressional Republicans are. The science of global warming, and facts in general, seem not to exist for them. It was time, declared Kerry, for Americans to decide what kind of country we want to be.
Could there be a sweeter setup for this question: Do Americans want a country that tortures those innocent until proven guilty? I got to ask it.
Kerry seemed unaware of pretrial torture happening right now in the Marine brig at Quantico, Virginia. I mentioned the investigation of the U.N. Rapporteur on Torture into the pretrial solitary confinement there of PFC Bradley Manning. He’s accused of wikileaking the chilling “Collateral Murder” war crime video and some 250,000 internal State Department cables. “Senator McCain says that solitary confinement is torture,” I added. “He should know.”
Kerry responded that he and Senator McCain would get on the matter. ”Is Monday soon enough for you?” he asked.
Afterwards, I handed a note with blog posts about Manning to a staffer. He turned out to be Andrew O’Brien, Kerry’s State Director. O’Brien emailed this morning — yes, Monday, though it’s a federal holiday — that he’d got on this with Kerry’s folks in Massachusetts and D.C.
If you’d like to weigh in on this:
Senator Kerry – Boston office: 617.565.8519; D.C. office: 202.224.2742.
Senator McCain – Phoenix office: 602.952.2410; D.C. office: 202.224.2236.
Reinforcement is good!
50 Comments
Recommended! Interesting… Thank you for this report! :-)
Thanks, mzchief!
Kerry’s volunteering that John McCain, as well, would get on the Bradley Manning matter was a real surprise, and welcome.
Oh – To email Senator Kerry: http://kerry.senate.gov/contact/
And Senator McCain: http://mccain.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Contact.ContactForm
Both appear to accept emails from non-constituents.
Thanks for the extra information.
Spectacular work!
I was skeptical seeing the title and although it’s shocking and telling that Kerry is so unaware, you seem to have their attention. The reference to McCain is excellent. Again, spectacular work!
*standing on chair and clapping*
Since they accept emails from non-constituents I will email them myself! Thanks for the info!
Oh, thanks a lot! This is my first blog post. I even had to learn half an hour ago that that was two words, not ‘blogpost.’
Please thank Jane and mzchief, too. And the FDL Alpha tech guru. This was definitely a team effort!
And it’s a very good blog post, too! Congratulations. You write very well!
OT– I went over the linked video of the town hall. It’s good to see it was so well attended. I thought it was interesting the new reader started to say “affordable health” then changed to “affordable housing.” In addition to the issue of ending war and creating jobs, isn’t affordable heath care still a pretty big issue in Massachusetts?
Great work, greenharper!
Like others I’m surprised Kerry didn’t know. Is he really that out of touch, or just covering his behind. Coin toss, anyone?
Maybe, McCain won’t weasel out on his prior statements and maybe Kerry won’t try to spin this away. I was going to use the phrase “I hope” instead of the word maybe in the prior sentence, but I’m pretty much out of hope these days.
Thanks for this effort! Bradley Manning is a real hero in all this, bravely enduring the tortures of a nation that he once (and may yet still) believe in. Whatever “crime” he committed, it was that of holding it to a higher moral standard. Keep up the great work! (/
Thanks, Alt ID!
A woman in the back of the audience gave a deftly-timed assist. During a pause in Kerry’s and my interchange, she yelled, “Free Bradley Manning!”
It can’t have hurt for Kerry to hear that yet another constituent supports Manning.
On January 14th of last month, a group of 6 MA residents, participating in the Witness Against Torture two week vigil, visited Kerry’s office in Washington, D.C. Failing to speak with any aide, we left information on the torture at Guantanamo as well as concerning Bradley Manning, and were assured it would get to the right staff member. It seems that if it was passed up the chain, it didn’t go far enough.
Nice work.
Thanks and good for you. It’s about time someone like Kerry got involved.
How discouraging! Thanks for this background, maresident, and for all that you’re doing to end torture.
Sometimes I think that advocating for such causes is a matter of drip, drip, drip, drip until the dam breaks. Or metaphor of your choice.
Good work and important. I recently spoke with Robert Meeropol, son of the Rosenbergs. He forcefully Condemned the torture of Bradley Manning. I’ll try to post on it by morning. I hope this story gets some traction.
I was in Northampton at the same time as Kerry’s appearance, with a prior obligation a block away.
I’ll be very surprised if a Kerry-McCain team looking into this comes to any conclusions that are meaningful. Nothing from Rep. Kucinich since February 4th.
I think it is very important and useful for as many people as possible to share notes on this. I do recall your post, “Rep. Kucinich to Def Sec. Gates: “It Is My Duty to Conduct Effective Oversight” – Wants to See PFC Manning” (Feb. 4, 2011). Hmmm … can’t be an equipment failure.
“Why Haven’t I Heard From You” – Kelly Clarkson
I too consider it very unlikely that my Senator, John Kerry, will investigate Bradley Manning’s Torture, or anyone else’s:
He was involved on the wrong side in a very heinous Torture case:
Here’s what happened:
John Kerry went to speak at the University of Florida in Gainesville. During his question & answer period, a student asked Kerry an embarrassing question about his membership in Skull & Bones with his lodge brother George Bush. Kerry has always avoided answering questions about that Yale secret society.
To force the student to stop embarrassing the Senator and stop annoying the audience, a university policeman Tortured the student with an electronic prod, commonly called a “Taser Torture Device,” issued to millions of US police (who are now empowered to sentence mere suspects to Torture, and to carry out that sentence).
The poor Torture victim begged the uniformed criminal assailant not to proceed with the Torture: “Don’t Taze me, bro!” he pleaded. If he had a shred of human decency, Senator Kerry would have stepped in to stop the Torture immediately. Instead, he let the Crime Against Humanity proceed, while trying to look away. He then went on as if the entire room hadn’t just witnessed Torture.
It was one of the most disgusting things I’ve ever heard of an American University doing: Under threat of imprisonment & permanent expulsion, the University of Florida forced the assaulted student to apologize to both his Torturer and to his Torturer’s co-conspirator, Senator Kerry, literally adding insult to injury.
And to show how sick our society is: The victims pleas in misery are constantly used as a joke.
I am highly ashamed of Senator Kerry. Through his cooperation with that student’s Torture and with the University’s criminal conduct toward the student, he has disgraced our state.
Very interesting. Hope you get follow-up information. Like ET says, there has been no word from Kucinich and his request for a visit for over 2 weeks.
Is this the incident of which you are speaking (includes a link to video evidence of the incident in the References section)?
That’s it. Torture is very common in Florida.
Thank you, greenharper. I think every jolt of real life into a politician’s day helps. Maybe. I’ve come to the conclusion that just qualifying for the high level jobs requires a lying, twisted-childhood, self-absorbed, gated- community fuckwad.
But, I loved your post!
This story is reported at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Florida_Taser_incident
There appears to be more to the story. Meyers was agitated and acting inappropriately – Kerry was actually trying to calm things down and wanted to answer his questions – at least according to this article – before the police took Meyers away. The story doesn’t make it sound like Kerry saw the taser incident or was aware of it at the time.
Kerry’s testimony to Congress when Kerry was a young 21 years old was a very moving speech considering Kerry’s young age. How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?
You can hear a recording here:
http://www.democracynow.org/2004/2/20/john_kerry_then_hear_kerrys_historic
That answers my question about Kerry’s purported ignorance of Manning’s plight.
I figured Kerry had to know, what with all the attention Jane and others have raised, but felt compelled to give him the benefit of the doubt. Don’t know why, since long ago he proved he could lie with the best of ‘em.
marcypress, I went through all the material linked in your post including the 59:13 minutes of the Democracy Now presentation. I did not know that today marks another year since the assassination of Malcolm X. As I was not of political age during the Vietnam War era, that was an amazing testimony John Kerry gave in 1969 before Congress. But I am deeply horrified to see the detailed parallels between then and now. None of our war activities have any justification. What insanity are we living that these patterns are still going on?
Correction: Kerry’s testimony was given in 1971, not 1969.
At the time I watched a couple of videos of the tasering torture, taken from different angles, studying one of them two or three times. They are horrific.
The young man was asking an extra question or two that Kerry obviously didn’t want to answer. That can’t be probable cause for an arrest anywhere in the free world, let alone justification for running some 50,000 volts of electricity through the person’s body.
I am glad to say that Kerry did much better last Saturday in handling an out-of-order questioner. That ‘out of order’ is literal.
Anyone wanting to ask a question last Saturday at the Kerry town hall took a number upon entering. A duplicate of the number went in a basket. Kerry took the mike from the lectern on the stage and brought it as far as the cord would stretch so that he could stand close to the audience.
I think that it was Northampton mayor Clare Higgins who publicly drew the numbers from the basket to announce who next got to ask a question. She and it were behind Kerry. There seemed no way that either the person drawing the numbers or Kerry could know whose turn it was next.
On arriving, signing in, & taking a number, it crossed my mind to ask a hovering apparent staffer, only half in jest, whether asking Kerry a question was taking the chance of getting tazed. But I didn’t, and later was glad.
The supposed staffer turned out to be Kerry’s State Director, who emailed me yesterday that he’s working on the Manning matter with Kerry people in D.C. & Boston.
Seems to me that, whatever Kerry has done up to now, last Saturday he was on the right side about Manning’s torture.
I can be as cynical as the next person. But I recall watching TV at the end of 1989. Be-jeaned East Germans were swarming at last in joy over the Berlin Wall.
In all the years that that baneful wall stood, who ever thought that we’d see the day?
We must just keep up the pressure for Manning.
Sorry, this got too long!
Thanks, openhope! And – marcypress – could someone please post contact info for Sec’y Gates? Might as well pressure him, too, & I must be off.
Thank you very much for this excellent diary, and for your activism last weekend. Please followup and let us all know what you hear from Senator Kerry’s office about Bradley Manning.
Way to go greenharper. Thanks for being a sorely needed voice of conscience to another flighty promise breaker. I’m going to limit myself from any further comments because there’s no way I can continue to hold at bay the torrent of cynicism making my fingers tremble at this very second. Kudos.
recommended!
Nice diary.
But lets remember folks this is John Kerry OK….just sayin.
Yes, the parallels, not just with war, but with McCarthyism and the cultural wars coming from the right are astounding and SO disappointing. Naive me thought we worked through the sick side of this is the 60′s and never dreamed it could come back to this degree. I was in high school and college in the 60′s – a very impressionable time. The advantage of looking back is that it is so obvious it was wrong. Even people who are currently on the fence and confused about the rhetoric would be amazed at the similarity and darkness of it.
Kerry generally handles himself very well in challenging situations – he has a lot of practice. The Florida situation is the last thing he would want to happen. If you listen to his 1971 speech and then listen to some of the swiftboating ads that were used against him – it was a disgrace. I’m sure he has his anger and bitter moments also. He too started out in the 60′s trying to address the injustices and it feels like we are back to square one.
Just called Kerry, McCain and Kucinich offices.
All their help seem totally ignorant and unconcerned.
I filled their ear about how unAmerican it is to treat this young man- as yet
not tried- WORSE than the Gardner guy in California that raped and murdered
2 teenagers. That rapist murderer gets to see his family often. and no doubt
is not kept from sleeping every night.
I asked that these representatives go see Bradley.
Thanks – unless the wikipedia article is misleading, it sounded like Kerry was trying to answer Meyer’s questions and was trying to calm things down. Meyers was jumping around different subjects and when he mentioned Clinton and “blowjob”, the organizers of the event turned off his microphone – not Kerry. Even after that, Kerry asked the police to let him ask his question.
It appeared it was the police who decided to intervene and ask Meyers to leave. At some point after that it got ugly, but wherever it was, Kerry says he didn’t know about the taser part until after the event. Don’t know, but not something Kerry would want to have happen.
Rock on!
Getting Kerry and McCain on this issue cannot hurt. They both know what’s at stake.
John Kerry launching an investigation into the torture of a political prisoner? If it’s anything like his shameful standing by as a student was mercilessly tortured in front of him for the “crime” of cutting in line to ask a few questions, this “investigation” will be nothing more than an exercise in weak-willed droning on even as Manning continues to be subjected to torture.
Call the White House! Give it to Obama and Biden. They need to know how we all feel about this. I doubt they even know what is going on.
Well, he moved heaven and earth to try and get a Xe-fascist freed in Pakistan, so he is just BOUND to do the same for Manning, no?
Oh, hang on….!
Michael,I don’t think most “realize” what Kerry is all about.Look,If Kerry stood by as they tased(“Don’t Tase me bro”,remember that)a young man.Don’t forget folks this is the same John Kerry who was going to fight for every vote in the Presidential election 2004,anyone remember how quick he folded in Ohio.
Fact of the matter,Kerry is a wimp just as Obama is folks.He is all talk & no bark but we will see.
I went hunting the ‘Net …
I went to the White House’s website then to the page, “The White House: The Cabinent” at
http://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/cabinet
The page gives the web site for each agency run by a Cabinent member.
This was provided for the Secretary of Defense:
Department of Defense
Secretary Robert M. Gates
http://www.defenselink.mil
That web site ( http://www.defenselink.mil provides ) the following:
A telephone number to Arlington, Virginia (I am assuming this is for Pentagon City which is in Arlington): 703-571-3343
The following physical address: 1400 Defense Pentagon, Washington, DC 20301-1400
I cross-checked one of Human Rights Watch’s prior open letters to the Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld ( http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2004/12/12/open-letter-us-secretary-defense-donald-rumsfeld ) and the same physical address was used. Otherwise, the more immediate contact information at http://www.defenselink.mil is for press only.
By the way, I was impressed that CCRJustice.Org ( http://ccrjustice.org ) apparently knew the FAX number to the White House (see http://ccrjustice.org/learn-more/reports/open-letter-president-obama-regarding-cuba-travel ).
:-)
I applaud your activism, but I hold no hope in pursuing Kerry. Lest we forget, Kerry had this to say recently on the Wikileaks release of State Dept cables (CBS News):
It does not seem credible that Kerry never heard of the controversy over the treatment of Brian Manning. If not, perhaps it’s because he was too interested in whisking CIA agents out of Pakistan that were involved in murder.
Kerry went over to the dark side some time back. I can’t say when, but certainly before he ran for president. He represents the bankruptcy of liberalism, left to genuflect before the power of the MIC.
As for the tasering in Florida, I can’t blame him at the time; perhaps he was startled, frozen with psychological shock or denial. But nothing was subsequently done or said on this man’s behalf. I’ve watched the video, and there’s no way this man deserved either arrest or electric shock. To imply otherwise is disturbing.
Yep! Jeff the more I think of it from what you mentioned of John Kerry’s response to Julian Assange I come to this conclusion,John
Kerry is a f***king liar & not a very good one.
cuz really how can he know about Julian Assange & not know about Bradley Manning & his circumstance ?
Sad thing is the Democratic party is full of creeps like John Kerry.
Yeah, I’m sure he’ll Get Right On It. Real Soon Now.
Good on you, greenharper, for asking the impertinent question. And I’ll call, for all the good it’ll do. But as maresident and others have elucidated in the threads, I’m not exactly holding my breath.
Thanks for your thoughtfulness, Jeff, and I apologize for being so long in responding that you and the rest of the world may well have abandoned this thread.
What to say to those who doubt, among other things, that Kerry will actually investigate what the Marine Corps is doing to Pfc. Bradley Manning?
I’ve been at a loss.
Yes, I’ve been deeply disappointed in Kerry more than once. That’s being tactful.
What is hard to convey is that Kerry’s and my interchange last Saturday was personal. Kerry had already mentioned having served as a prosecutor. It was decades ago. Clearly, he still is proud of having done so.
I am a former federal prosecutor and told Kerry so. When he said that he’d investigate what the military is doing to Manning, I took it as a promise, prosecutor to prosecutor.
That may sound corny. Perhaps it is. Perhaps I’m deluded. Obviously, Kerry will deliver, or he won’t, or he’ll fudge.
I am counting on John Kerry to keep his word.
So far, it looks as though he’s doing so.
An activist friend emailed that she’d called Kerry’s D.C. office yesterday about Manning, and “talked to a woman who knew all about our concerns … said the Senator is aware of it and is looking into it and that they have been getting calls. Sounded like sincere concern.”
We will all undoubtedly know how this comes out.
OT– Are you familiar with the principles of Restorative Justice? Do you think the US should regard itself no differently than, say an Africa wishing to end apartheid, and start to apply those principles to itself? I’m interested in your thoughts on this. Here’s my reference point: “Archbishop Desmond Tutu on Restorative Justice (2007).