The “Boy” Who Is Now From Brazil & Other Stories of Gimp on Gimp Violence
English: The logo used by Wikileaks (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
One of the interesting aspects of Aspergers, given the current noise of the din of the mostly vastly misinformed debate after last week’s tragic events in Connecticut, is that it is handled in a very different way than the last two high profile cases involving individuals with Autism and Aspergers. Oh, and a couple of guys, now one who has immigrated to Brazil, because his sexual orientation if not the right to marry is still up in the air in this country. Even though the state in which he lived until recently (New York) JUST legalized the right of gay people to marry (being gay or lesbian was also considered a “mental illness” in the DSM (the diagnostic bible for head shrinkers) until the 1970′s. What New York did not do, however, along with any other state who has legalized LGBT marriage, is that the same immigrant rights and citizenship be bestowed on the other partner as they would with straight people.
For those of you who don’t have any idea what I am talking about, let me elucidate and then compare to the latest events.
For those who do not follow national security affairs, if not Constitutional Rights issues, a guy named Glenn Greenwald (a former Constitutional Lawyer turned blogger for Salon.com, and recently moved over to the British Guardian, rose to fame as a blogger rather than a lawyer in the middle of the last decade by blasting the appalling abuses of the Bush Administration (and then the Obama continuation of them), is part of this story.
So is a guy named Bradley Manning. You might have heard of him. He’s being court martialed right now for supposedly sending classified information documenting war crimes and other HIGHLY SECRET ILLEGAL STUFF (also called war crimes) committed by our own intelligence state to a guy named Julian Assange in England. You know, the “wierd” and sometimes described as “almost autistic” Julian Assange of Wikileaks fame. Or infamy, depending on your point of view. And one more character to introduce here before we continue, a guy named Adrian Llamo, who did alot of security work for DoD, and also was the guy described by Glenn Greenwald and Julian Assange as a “rogue” journalist who ultimately turned Manning in.
Here are the missing, not widely known parts of the story you most probably don’t know if you haven’t been following the drama. This one at least.
The first issue is that the Wikileaks case, despite very rare mentions of it, usually to explain why Llamo (who has Aspergers) to viewers on mainstream media to give him cred rather than associate him with mass murder and “personality disorders” sounded a bit strange on TV.
What you probably didn’t also know, is that Glenn Greenwald (now shacked up in Brazil, a country hardly known for its civil rights and in fact still appalling violence, if not the refuge of Nazi War Criminals who fled there after WWII), Llamo, and Manning are ALL GAY. And many have wondered if not characterized in print and aloud, whether Assange is also autistic.
I don’t know about the latter and I’m not going to bother to speculate. Not my concern.
What is is another point.
Llamo was described by Greenwald and Assange as being a “rogue” journalist when he “outed” Bradley Manning to the Feds. It has been described as a betrayal on many fronts, including the fact that Greenwald in particular, if not Assange, have been particularly vicious in perpetuating that image of Llamo. Despite both critiquers having some interesting private lives (Greenwald’s new partner is about half his age and well, Assange’s social skills or lack thereof with women, particularly in Sweden, leave some untasty backwash in my mouth, both Greenwald whose sexual orientation USED to be considered a “mental illness” AND Assange (also described sometimes as being more than slightly autistic), never hesitated for one second to consider if Llamo’s own self described Asperger’s diagnosis might have led him to introduce Manning’s communication with him to the folks in the five sided building on the other side of the Potomac from Washington DC (the Pentagon).
Instead they described him as a criminal. If not a kind of Benedict Arnold for betraying Manning, implicitly and directly describing the “betrayal” as one of one gay guy seeking trust from another (Llamo is also gay).
There is no doubt in my mind that Llamo was used by DoD.
There is no surprise, by the way, that the hard driver of the shooter in Connecticut was the first thing the cops went looking for (they found it smashed) once they found out he had Asperger’s.
But really burns my butt is that at least two people who should know better for criticizing a person who not only, like Greenwald, had a sexual orientation that was considered a “mental illness,” and was also known to suffer from the same “mental illness” as still described today as Asperger’s by a guy who was often described the same way (Assange).
Instead of focusing on the fact that Llamo was probably set up by crocodiles in our own national security apparatus who are well aware of the prevalence of autism and aspergers in the Geek IT set, both Greenwald and Assange (self described critiquers if not White Knights of Liberty) repeatedly beat up on Llamo as a criminal rather than questioning whether his own disability if not sexual orientation was abused by the Spanish Inquisition (I mean DoD) over Wikileaks.
And that is criminal.
First, they all know better. Second, frankly, Greenwald can be an arrogant twit. I’ve never exchanged even emails with Assange, but well, his conduct in Sweden was questionable (at minimum), and both seem rather sexist in their treatment of women. If not preference for younger sexual partners much younger than themselves.
The point is that “disability” however it is currently described, is usually misconstrued by everyone. Even the “good guys” (whoever they are) because in this aspect of the Wikileaks case, EVERYONE abused the outsiders.
Even the outsiders themselves.
How does this relate to last week’s tragedy?
Disability is a construct, created by societies that usually haven’t found a way to deal with the issue.
The idea that someone might have a disability rather than be “disabled” is just one of those streams of debate (there is a medical and legal difference). The idea of what constitutes “mental illness” in particular, is also one of those slippery slopes that those of the Xer generation at minimum, have seen change in their own lifetimes.
The fact is that last week’s incident was just as much a threat to national security as the release of video and other evidence of US Troops if not the State Department committing war crimes if not questionable behavior. At home and abroad.
And until we deal with that fact, and why (like not blaming the shooter, but the societal conditions that created this possibility), we will still as a society face the tragic and destructive fallout of discrimination based on characteristics that are innate.
And so long as they make such individuals who are “different” in any way, ostracized if not treated as criminals (sodomy is still a crime between consenting adults of both same and opposite genders in many US States), we will continue not only to be an unsustainable and violent society.
But one that undermines its own national security by discriminating against those it should be protecting.
And if you don’t agree with the assessment above, let me end one just one more very similar problem.
One of the reasons US intelligence in the Arab speaking regions of the world sucks so badly is that the military until recently, had little tolerance for those who served this country but were L or G.
So they fired all the Arabic translators who worked for the US security state who were gay.
Thus leaving massive gaps in our national security, if not intelligence about a culture not only on the other side of the planet, but one that literally reads right to left.
Good idea, right?
But again demonstrates in spades that our continued discriminatory policies if not stupid public policies, lead directly not only tragedies last week, the continued treatment of legitimate whistleblowers like Manning (which in Greenwalds’ defense ALONE pointed out was doubly disgusting and humiliating because he was gay) directly not only undermine the social fabric of this country. But in fact, our national security, as holistically defined itself.
Time to move on, don’t you think?
The Brits actually seem to think so. And have actually set an important precident recently on another national security case. If you haven’t heard about the British guy with Aspergers who the State Department wanted to extradite from Britain and jail for hacking into NASA, stay tuned.
Coming to a blog near you soon. And his name, by the way, is Gary McKinnon.
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