T’was two days ago when the Merry Men, which at the time consisted of myself and Keene native Graham, were approached by a mysterious individual wielding a phone as a videocamera. Though he declines to introduce himself, he was prompt in uploading his video to his youtube channel, Dr David Berman/MusicProDave.
Discussion of the cell phone video occupied a good portion of last evening’s episode of Free Talk Live. For a confrontational encounter, I feel surprisingly relieved of responsibility to add much commentary to accompany what was digitally captured. Mr. Berman’s video, my own raw video, and the raw footage from Graham’s flipcam speak for themselves. The best illustration I have found thus far of the experience was uploaded by the Aqua Keene Parking Force, using all three angles and adding some additional videography skills into the mix.
An article about David’s video was published yesterday to Free Keene.
Dave Ridley gives some critical analysis to recent comment controversies. Mark Warden, a state representative from Manchester, found himself under criticism after remarks made during a hearing were reported on by the Granite State Progress blog and reposted further. Part I, The Hunt for Controversial Comments is On:
This comes in the wake of the controversy stirred by Keene representative Cynthia Chase’s comments regarding actively immigrating porcupines. Ridley ambush interviewed Chase in Concord and published the video last week, which is fairly uneventful as she declines comment and moves on. In a sense, the videographer was throwing a softball by asking, ‘Do people get too focused on controversial comments and not enough on people’s actions?’
Yesterday Truthdig and today Dandelion Salad published an article by Christopher Hedges, who was present at Ft Meade during the hearing in which Bradley Manning delivered his first public statement. Journalist Alexa O’Brien has transcribed Manning’s statement which is also published at Dandelion Salad. Below is Hedges’ entry We Are Bradley Manning:
I was in a military courtroom at Fort Meade in Maryland on Thursday as Pfc. Bradley Manning admitted giving classified government documents to WikiLeaks. The hundreds of thousands of leaked documents exposed U.S. war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as government misconduct. A statement that Manning made to the court was a powerful and moving treatise on the importance of placing conscience above personal safety, the necessity of sacrificing careers and liberty for the public good, and the moral imperative of carrying out acts of defiance. Manning will surely pay with many years—perhaps his entire life—in prison. But we too will pay. The war against Bradley Manning is a war against us all.
This trial is not simply the prosecution of a 25-year-old soldier who had the temerity to report to the outside world the indiscriminate slaughter, war crimes, torture and abuse that are carried out by our government and our occupation forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is a concerted effort by the security and surveillance state to extinguish what is left of a free press, one that has the constitutional right to expose crimes by those in power. The lonely individuals who take personal risks so that the public can know the truth—the Daniel Ellsbergs, the Ron Ridenhours, the Deep Throats and the Bradley Mannings—are from now on to be charged with “aiding the enemy.” All those within the system who publicly reveal facts that challenge the official narrative will be imprisoned, as was John Kiriakou, the former CIA analyst who for exposing the U.S. government’s use of torture began serving a 30-month prison term the day Manning read his statement. There is a word for states that create these kinds of information vacuums: totalitarian. (more…)
The Fr33manTVraw channel recently received one of its largest uploads to date. The 82 minute video is the first third of a compilation of raw footage from our group’s first day on the ground for the NATO summit protests. The videos have been released first to the raw channel, and then to Free Concord’s youtube channel as they are edited and narrated to give the footage context. For those looking for the entire journey of the camera, the raw footage includes practically everything filmed. The previous day’s release, Day Zero, is just over nine minutes edited and just under ten raw. Within the coming weeks, a shortened, finished product will publish from the following day. In the meantime, the raw first segment of Day One: Boots on the Ground is live:
Yesterday truth-out.com posted an update on the NATO 3 case in Illinois, where three travelling protesters still remain caged on state-level charges of domestic terrorism after their apartment was raided by police days before the historic protest weekend.
A handful of panels featured at the 2013 New Hampshire Liberty Forum were recorded for Free Concord, and raw footage continues to appear on Fr33manTVraw. Embedded below is Pete Eyre presenting on the project of CopBlock.org that he co-founded in 2010. He offers solid advice from an experienced activator. Check out the playlist set for links to other videos from the weekend in Nashua as they publish.
