Mumia Abu-Jamal's Radio Essays

Planning to Fail
col. writ. 10/18/07

It's hard to look at American society today, and not see how everything seems to be a plan for failure.

One would be hard-pressed to find a society which seems to see education as little more than a business, which only the well-to-do can begin to afford.

There are a plethora of loans, even some provided by the feds, but fewer and fewer grants.

When students are lucky enough to find loans, they are saddled with red oceans of debt, some to the tune of over $100,000; the costs, not just of admissions, tuition, books and fees; but of housing, clothing, transport, food, and entertainment for 4 years --more, if one seeks a professional, or graduate degree!

How is it that education is fast becoming a pipe dream for millions of young people in the U.S., and is free just 90 miles away from American soil?

In Cuba, education is free from kindergarten to college. Indeed, just recently a score of Americans (and hundreds of other nationalities) graduated from Medical School there, with full doctoral degrees.

Unlike their fellow students to the North, these men and women earned their degrees with no crippling debts!

Their whole education -- 6 years of med school -- was free, courtesy of Cuban generosity.

How can a tiny, relatively poor island nation do so well, with such meager resources, and the richest nation on Earth -- the wealthiest empire since Rome -- can't manage to do as well?

It isn't that the U.S. can't do so; it's that it doesn't want to -- or feel the need to.

If there's a shortage of doctors (or any other professionals here), they'll just outsource the gigs to another country, or revise immigration rules to import talent.

That Cuba does this, in the face of its own dire economic straits, imposed by the U.S. through the Embargo, for generations -- borders on the miraculous.

And that's the kicker; one sees students as a cash cow to fuel the banking and education industries; the other sees human knowledge as the property of all humanity, and not a gain to the storehouse of human resources.

When students emerged from Cuba's med schools, their medical degrees in hand, they were only given one small kind of debt -- to use their skills to help the poor amongst us.

Boy -- what an idea!

(c) '07 maj

!Wars Without End -- Again!
{speech writ. 10/14/07} (c) '07 Mumia Abu-Jamal


Ona Move! LLJA!

Thanx for your invitation for me to speak to you today!

For millions of people (I among them) the Nov. 2006 elections marked a major turning point in U.S. politics -- or so we thought.

The elections had one, single motivation: to end the Iraq war.

Well, the elections changed majorities in Congress. But did it change U.S. policy?

Nope.

Before the numbers of votes could all be counted, you heard the backtracking: "we must be cautious"; "if we leave now, there'd be chaos", etc., etc.

Now, Democrats say openly that no significant troop withdrawal can come before 2012- 5 more years!

And then, don't you think you'll hear an additional 5 or 10 years?

War isn't a Democratic or Republican project - it is a corporate one, where both corporate parties play the game laid down by their sponsors and contributors.

Here we see the convergence between neo liberals and neo conservatives, who join in their service to corporate power. Their 'fight' (if it can be called that) is over who can represent their bosses best (and, by this, I don't mean voters!)

But, people, working through popular movements, can change how politicians think, speak, and even act.

If you put your trust in the same politicians, you'll achieve the same result - disappointment, frustration and yes -- betrayal.

What kind of democracy is it if you vote for peace, only to get more war?

But the answer isn't less protests -- it's more protests!

To finally bring peace, the People must bring it!

Thank you!
Ona Move!

The Law That Promotes Punishment (Instead of Education)
[col. writ. 10/21/07] (c) '07 Mumia Abu-Jamal

It's been 5 years since the No Child Left Behind law was put into place, and around the nation, it has left wreckage in its wake.

That's because, like many such laws pushed by the paranoid right wind, what a law is called has little (or nothing) to do with what a law does.

Calling it No Child Left Behind gave it the benign imagery of caring for children and their futures. It's like the so-called Patriot Act -- an act, to be sure, but one so patently unconstitutional in its evisceration of the 4th Amendment (and other constitutional provisions) that no true patriot could ever support it.

While the imagery of a catchy title might've helped in it's selling, the lesser known side of the law is now about to kick in -- and it threatens to transform public schools into private businesses, transfer them into charter schools, allow state takeovers -- or close them.

This law is of a piece from the right's central array of evils -- an attack on the very idea of public education, and a fixation with privatizing everything.

Who will suffer more from these transformations? School staffs, or children?

For No Child Left Behind was but another example of business uber alles, and the poor be damned.

Can the same states that made boot camps into squalid hellholes of torture for children, somehow make schools pristine halls of learning? Indeed, in many states, the 'business' of boot camping children has been tried, and while it has made money, it has been the epicenter of abuse, mistreatment, and actually, state-subsidized child abuse.

So much for the business model.

The law was both a punishment for the poor, and a cold, calculating recognition that some children have no real place in the post-industrial society being built, and thus, were to be left behind.

Uneducated, left to the tender mercies of the streets, to stew in a hopeless funk, or to feed the cavernous maw of prison...how left behind can you get?

According to a recent report in the New York Times, Florida faces the closing of 441 schools; Baltimore has 9 schools on the failure list; in New York State, 77 schools face so-called restructuring; and in California, over 1,000 schools have been designated chronic failures.*

By the year 2014, all of the schools located in California's poorest districts, some 6,063 schools, are expected to be on that list!

No Child Left Behind was designed to fail, to deliver the coup de-grace to public education, and also to disable or destroy the hated teacher's unions.

It was a law designed to fail, not to solve a pressing social problem.

The question shouldn't be whether this new (and supposedly 'improved') Congress should tinker with the law.

Congress should repeal it.

(c) '07 maj
{*Source: Schemo, Diana Jean, "Failing Schools Strain to Meet U.S. Standard," New York Times, Tues., Oct. 16, 2007, pp A1, A21.}

{col. writ. 10/7/07} (c) '07 Mumia Abu-Jamal

There are forces in this country and in this world that are expending energy to ensure war with Iran.

That's right -- Iran.

Many of those forces were the same ones that suckered the nation into Iraq, with media - megaphoned fear- mongering.

Iran has become the feared bogeyman of the hour; the latest in the simplistic media projection of 'bad guy.'

And, just as in Iraq, the media's demonization of the leader becomes reason to destroy, attack, bomb, and occupy a nation.

"He's a bad guy!" "He's a ruthless dictator!"

Doesn't this sound familiar?

Famed scholar and linguist, Noam Chomsky, interviewed recently by radio host David Barsamian, gives a powerful example of the impact of media upon us. Chomps explained:

Take a classic example, Germany. Under the Weimar Republic, Germany was the most civilized country in the world, the leader in the sciences and the arts. Within two or three years it had been turned into a country of raving maniacs by extensive propaganda--which, incidentally, was explicitly borrowed from Anglo-American commercial propaganda. And it worked. It frightened Germans. They thought they were defending themselves against the Jews, against the Bolsheviks. And you know what happened next. {Fr.: Barsamian, David, Targeting Iran (San Francisco, Ca.: Open Media/City Lights, 2007),p.47}

And speaking of brutal, ruthless dictators, the U.S. backed Shah of Iran used his secret police, Savak, to drench the earth with blood and terror. But, to the U.S., he was cool.

Has the nation learned nothing from the Iraq debacle?

The U.S. Senate recently passed a non-binding resolution supporting the partition of Iraq.

It makes a certain diabolical sense; the U.S. bombed it, invaded it, overthrew its government, and replaced it with puppets of their liking -- all this, not now being successful, why not shatter it into threes?

This argument is now being made, not by rabid neo cons, but by so-called 'liberal' Democrats.

Why? Because imperialism is a truly bipartisan American project.

The newest target may well be Iran, despite the fact that if Iran is indeed more influential today, it's because of the U.S. invasion, occupation, and near destruction of Iraq.

In sum, Iran was strengthened by Iraq's fall.

The U.S. has a Middle East policy driven by fear and ignorance.

It is reactive, emotional, and driven by faith --not reason.

Those are dangerous forces to justify war, and unworthy of a nation that considers itself a superpower.

Super in power, but petty in reasoning.

--(c) '07 maj

{col. writ. 10/3/07} (c) '07 Mumia Abu-Jamal

The recent contract approval by the executive committee of the United Auto Workers (UAW) and General Motors (GM) marks a turning point in relations between labor and management.

It may also mark the transition between unions as a representative of workers, and management as a representative for the owners.

That's because, if the UAW members agree, the union will (at least partially ) administer almost $30 billion bucks in pension funds.

If the general membership signs on, it lifts a $50 billion burden from the backs of GM managers, and places the lion's share of it on the back of the union.

In one fell swoop, the union performs the function of GM management!

For GM, this is a masterstroke; for the UAW, it may prove a trap, or the first step of the end of unions, or at least pensions as we know it.

The trade union movement came of age by becoming the laborer's institution, and the de facto representative of its workers. In the earlier half of the 20th century, it was clear that labor and capital were antagonists, not allies, for each represented differing and conflicting interests.

In other words, the union didn't do managements job, nor did the business manage the union.

In his masterwork, Capital, Marx noted how workers are divided into functions and hierarchies that serve capitals interests.

Marx wrote:
Manufacture...develops a hierarchy of labour powers, to which there corresponds a scale of wages. If, on the one hand, the individual labourers are appropriated and annexed for life by a limited function; on the other hand, the various operations of the hierarchy are parceled out among the labourers according to both their natural and their acquired capabilities. (Moscow, 1958, p.349)

Now, labor performs a manufacturing function -- the partial administration of pension funds.

What happens when too many hands dip into the till?

What happens when GM models don't sell as expected?

What happens when the union becomes just another institution of management?

--(c) '07 maj

[col. writ. 9/29/07] (c) '07 Mumia Abu-Jamal

Until several weeks ago, the name 'Jena' was doubtless unfamiliar to millions of people in the U.S., until the demonstrations around the case of the Jena 6 brought attention to the small Louisiana town.

But, before the case occurred, the name became known to hundreds (if not thousands) of young Blacks, who came to know, quite intimately, that Jena was just another word for racism, rape, violence, and humiliation.

After the ravages of Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans and its surrounding areas, hundreds of imprisoned people were transported to the Jena Juvenile Justice Center, in Jena, Louisiana, a place that became their nightmare. The place was so medieval and tortuous in its treatment of young people, that it was severely criticized by a federal judge as a place where people were "treated as if they walked on all fours," before it was closed.

According to published reports put out by the groups Human Rights Watch and the NAACP-Legal Defense Fund, people arriving at JJJC were beaten, brutalized, harassed, and subjected to racist taunts by staff members there. This was after it was reopened in the wake of the Hurricane Katrina disaster.

They were denied things allegedly required by the Constitution, like grievance forms, calls to family, or pen and paper.

They were treated like they were al-Qaeda, and this was Guantanamo -- this, in the country, and in many cases, the state of their births.

The Human Rights Watch and NAACP-LDF have tried to interest state officials in a meaningful investigation, but this has led to little more than lip service.

Although federal officials have reportedly announced their intention to investigate, it is equally doubtful that any real, serious investigation will emerge.

As for the media (except for some segments of the Black press), Jena was little more than a 1 day, or at best, a 3-day story.

Their coverage, such as it was, was little more than a platform to allow local Jenites to exclaim how they weren't racists, and that nooses are just 'pranks' used by youngins' to have a little fun.

As ever, there has been little attempt to look backwards into recent history, and now that the last Jena 6 accused is out on bail, little looking to the future as well.

How is it possible in the U.S. today, for people wearing KKK robes to always intone, "I'm not a racist?"

When viewing or listening to locals there, it was almost impossible to not hear the echoes of 50 years ago, when civil rights actions began to stir the South, that 'the problem' was, once again, "outside agitators", like the Revs. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. They were the problem, not 'our darkeys.'

Only with the not-too-subtle death threats from Klan-related groups have we seen that the nooses from the so-called 'white tree', which sparked much of the Jena phenomenon, was far more than boys being boys.

The Jena case didn't start with 6 young schoolboys.

It won't end with them.

The case stems from something deep and abiding in the American heart and soul.

And it lives in every state of the union -not just in Louisiana.

This shouldn't be the end of the movement; but the spark for more.

--(c) '07 maj

{Source: "First youth, then hurricane evacuees were tortured by Jena prison guards," San Francisco Bay View, Sept. 19, 2007, pp. 1,5,7,9. For more info: naacpldf.org or hrw.org

The 9-11 Moment
[col. writ. 9/9/07] (c) '07 Mumia Abu-Jamal

It is true that 9-11 changed everything, but not quite the way that the Bush Regime intended.

It changed how many in the world perceived the U.S., for sure, but the U.S. response to 9-11 has done more to change such perceptions.

As the ashes began to cool from the embers of what was once the World Trade Center, allies and enemies alike expressed solidarity with the U.S., and shed tears of sympathy.

What a difference six years makes.

What was once solidarity has cooled to bitter toleration, and barely disguised anger.

Remember the so-called "Coalition of the Willing?"

It has dwindled in number and fervor.

Politicians know enough to talk the talk, but precious few are willing to walk that walk.

Even America's staunchest ally - England - has marched its troops out of the southern Iraqi city of Basra, under cover of darkness.

In many of the countries where leaders signed up to join the U.S. crusade, their people have voted them out of office, and sent some leaders into political retirement.

Such are the wages of democracy.
At home, the war has deepened divisions not seen since the ravages of the Vietnam War.

And the President? Not only are his numbers in the basement, but he's pulling his party into the cellar with him.

His latest ploy, to buy time by pointing to the Gen. (David) Petraeus report, neatly juxtaposes the power relations between civilians and military. Civilian leaders, in a democracy, aren't supposed to do what military leaders says; the military is supposed to obey their civilian political leaders.

But, since 9-11, the nation has fled so far, so fast, from any real semblance of democracy, that listening to the most profoundly undemocratic institution in the American republic seems almost normal.

If the Bush regime has changed anything, it has changed this.

A war begun in bad faith, cannot end well.

From the day George W. Bush announced his "shock and awe" bombing runs over Baghdad, we have seen nothing but a long train of disasters.

The Gen. Petraeus report may do quite a few things, but it won't change that.

--(c) '07 maj

The Best? Federer
[col. writ. 9/9/07] (c) '07 Mumia Abu-Jamal

Folks know that I'm a tennis fan, as evinced by my pieces on the magnificent Williams sisters, who have singularly transformed the game.

But, in men's tennis, there's one name that equates to the best in the game: Swiss player Roger Federer.

He played an outstanding game against 20-year old Serbian phenom, Novak Djokovic.

Djokovic stunned the tennis world recently when he beat three of the top players of the game; Andy Roddick, Rafael Nadal, and Roger Federer, just weeks before the U.S. Open.

Federer would best the young Serb in straight sets, and by so doing, set a standard not seen since Big Bill Tilden won consecutive titles in the U.S. championships, back in the 1920's.

In the first 2 sets, Federer actually came from behind to win. In the second set, Djokovic led him by 4 games to 1; only to see Federer utilize his serve to inch his way back by tying him and then dominating in the second tie break.

Truly, Roger Federer is a Master of this game.

With moves described as ballet-like, 11 aces, and a brutal return game, Federer outclassed a game young opponent by scores of 7-8, 7-6, and 6-4.

In the world of sport, this 12-time grand slam champion is in a class of one.

--(c) '07 maj

Massacre?' -- 'What Massacre?' -- Haditha
[col. writ. 9/6/07] (c) '07 Mumia Abu-Jamal

The calendar has shed weeks and many months since the name, Haditha, stirred so many people in Iraq, the US, and around the world.

Within days of its announcement came the horror of recognition; it reminded us all of the carnage of Vietnam's My Lai massacre, where women, babies, dogs and chickens shared the sleep of death in a tropical ditch.

It differed from Vietnam only in its scope, and number, but, in every sense of which the word 'massacre' may be used, this was it.

For here, in the Iraqi city of Haditha, women, children, old men and young, were swept away from life, by the automatic weapons fire of American guns, held in American hands; an apparent retaliation for an IED blast which killed an American soldier several hours earlier.

Here, US soldiers entered Iraqi homes on free fire, unloading on anything moving, or not moving quickly enough.

Well, the US military justice system has finished its work, and -- voila! -- except for a few letters of censure (the military form of reprimand) no one has been punished for the Haditha Massacre.

Indeed, one might ask, albeit facetiously, 'What massacre?' For it seems that no US military rules of engagement were violated, and if US military judges are to be believed, no war crimes occurred.

Of the dead Iraqi women and children? They were not victims of American killers in uniform; they were victims of the nebulous 'fog of war.'

In war, stuff happens.

Let's move on.

One military prosecutor said he declined to punish the soldiers further because to do so would "harm unit morale."

That's US justice, for all the world to see - the 'law' of the Occupier.

If ever we engaged in the illusion that the puppets in government in Iraq were little more than U.S. stringed mannequins, their silence on Haditha is evidence enough.

Dozens of Iraqi civilians were slain in their homes, under their beds, while holding their babies, unarmed, and the US Imperial Government issues its final ruling.

'No harm, no foul.'

We are looking at something that will mark the world for a generation; it is the poisoning of Imperialism, which warps the mind and stains the soul with the semblance of superiority.

'Massacre?' 'What massacre?'

Only some Arabs were killed.

To the Empire, they don't count.

(c) '07 maj

Massacre?' -- 'What Massacre?' -- Haditha
[col. writ. 9/6/07] (c) '07 Mumia Abu-Jamal

The calendar has shed weeks and many months since the name, Haditha, stirred so many people in Iraq, the US, and around the world.

Within days of its announcement came the horror of recognition; it reminded us all of the carnage of Vietnam's My Lai massacre, where women, babies, dogs and chickens shared the sleep of death in a tropical ditch.

It differed from Vietnam only in its scope, and number, but, in every sense of which the word 'massacre' may be used, this was it.

For here, in the Iraqi city of Haditha, women, children, old men and young, were swept away from life, by the automatic weapons fire of American guns, held in American hands; an apparent retaliation for an IED blast which killed an American soldier several hours earlier.

Here, US soldiers entered Iraqi homes on free fire, unloading on anything moving, or not moving quickly enough.

Well, the US military justice system has finished its work, and -- voila! -- except for a few letters of censure (the military form of reprimand) no one has been punished for the Haditha Massacre.

Indeed, one might ask, albeit facetiously, 'What massacre?' For it seems that no US military rules of engagement were violated, and if US military judges are to be believed, no war crimes occurred.

Of the dead Iraqi women and children? They were not victims of American killers in uniform; they were victims of the nebulous 'fog of war.'

In war, stuff happens.

Let's move on.

One military prosecutor said he declined to punish the soldiers further because to do so would "harm unit morale."

That's US justice, for all the world to see - the 'law' of the Occupier.

If ever we engaged in the illusion that the puppets in government in Iraq were little more than U.S. stringed mannequins, their silence on Haditha is evidence enough.

Dozens of Iraqi civilians were slain in their homes, under their beds, while holding their babies, unarmed, and the US Imperial Government issues its final ruling.

'No harm, no foul.'

We are looking at something that will mark the world for a generation; it is the poisoning of Imperialism, which warps the mind and stains the soul with the semblance of superiority.

'Massacre?' 'What massacre?'

Only some Arabs were killed.

To the Empire, they don't count.

(c) '07 maj

For Kenneth Foster: No More Death Row
[col. writ. 9/1/07] (c) '07 Mumia Abu-Jamal

To the state of Texas that sought to extinguish his life, his name is Kenneth Foster; to many of his friends and supporters, his name is Haramia KiNasser, an eloquent and outspoken activist.

By whatever name that he may be known, he is now a past denizen of Texas Death Row, for, by a governor's order of commutation, he is on Death Row no more.

That he was ever on Death Row at all is due more to a quirk of Texas law, than anything else.

For the judge, the defense and the DA agree that Foster hurt no one; he shot no one; he killed no one; nor did he rob anyone.

He was a driver in a car full of guys, just rolling around one night, when, all of a sudden, one of them (unbeknownst to Kenneth) steps out, robs a guy, shoots him and kills him.

In Texas, under what's called the Law of Parties, Foster's presence near a crime was enough; even though he didn't commit a crime, didn't participate in it, nor profited from it, he was convicted, and sent to Death Row.

If that were not enough, when he still had less than a month to live the Texas Department of Corrections (TDC) banned the man from receiving or reading a book on sports!

The book, titled What's My Name Fool?: Sports and Resistance in the U.S., penned by sportswriter, Dave Zirin (pronounced like 'siren'), was banned from Texas Death Row because, in the words of the Aug. 9th, 2007 memo from the TDC publication review committee, "It contains material that a reasonable person would construe as written solely for the purpose of communicating information designed to achieve the breakdown of prisons through offender disruption such as strikes or riots."'

Wow.

I never thought sports was so powerful.

The author, sent the notice by Foster, was, understandably quite shocked.

He checked out the objectionable pages, and was even more amazed. The pages cited by the TDC dealt with baseball icon, Jackie Robinson, and heavyweight boxing champ, Jack Johnson.

Both dealt with their resistance to white repression; one, about 1/2 a century ago; the other, perhaps 80 years ago.

Yeah. That'll start riots in prisons all over the country!

For Kenneth Foster, at least, his Death Row days are behind him. Unfortunately, he's now doing a life bit in Texas gulags.

His dozen years on Death Row politicized him, and gave him an historical perspective that he did not possess when he first arrived there.

Thanks to supporters across the country, his last day of life wasn't August 30th, as the warrant decreed.

Now, the struggle for his freedom begins.

(c) '07 maj

*Source: Zirin, Dave, "In Texas, books are a danger to death row", Houston Chronicle, Sun., Aug. 28, 2007, p. E5.

A 'Lesson' From Vietnam
col. writ. 8/23/07 (c) '07 Mumia Abu-Jamal

Speaking before a Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) group recently, US President George W. Bush evoked the slaughter, concentration camps, and devastation following the US pullout from Vietnam, to warn against the costs of precipitous withdrawal from the Iraq debacle.

The argument boiled down to the recent conservative claim that if the US leaves Iraq now, it'll result in a societal bloodbath.

There is something quite unseemly about a man who, when he was of age, declined to go to Vietnam, now arguing for its lessons before men who did go, some of whom have lost limbs.

There is another odd, almost surreal quality to hearing the president who went to war on the most naked of lies, who authorized a bombing campaign called "shock and awe", who sent the entire region into a tizzy of maddening discontent, which led to the deaths of an estimated 500,000 Iraqis, argue about the costs of withdrawal. His "stay the course" is as empty an echo as was that of one of his presidential predecessors, Lyndon B. Johnson when he called for troop increases in Vietnam.

What is missing from his convenient 'lesson' from Vietnam, is the reckoning of just how such pain, suffering and death was visited upon the Vietnamese by the American war. According to many sources, some 3 million Vietnamese were killed by US military forces (the number isn't clearer, simply because, as they were Asians, it wasn't deemed necessary for an accurate count).

What Bush conveniently forgot to mention was the continuing costs of war facing Vietnam, because of the US use of toxic chemicals, such as the defoliant, Agent Orange. The US dropped over 10 million gallons of that poison on Vietnam, and the country still suffers from this aerial assault.

According to Anthony Arnova's The Logic of Withdrawal (N. Y.: The New Press, 2006), some four million people suffered from this barrage, which has left an untold number with serious birth defects, and has caused an unprecedented environmental and ecological damage to the rural regions.

A recent civil lawsuit against Dow Chemical (which created the weapon) was dismissed by US courts.

Perhaps there are lessons to be learned from Vietnam after all, but not ones the Bush Regime may wish to address.

Recent Bush Administration criticisms of Iraqi President Nouri al-Maliki, that his government is 'ineffective', and doesn't listen enough to his American paymasters, sounds eerily similar to mumbled musings against South Vietnam's President Ngo Dinh Diem. The CIA 1st key military leaders know that the US was losing faith in their chosen puppet, and thus laid the groundwork for a military coup that not only toppled Diem's government, but led to his brutal assassination.

Are we witnessing the opening stages of this 'lesson', being replayed in Iraq?

Let us not think for a moment that the US doesn't prefer generals to presidents; or, as in Pakistan's Musharraf, both for the price of one. The history of 20th century Latin America has been one of an American love affair with generals, and -- yes, with death squads (many trained in the infamous School of the Americas --since renamed --at Fort Benning, Georgia).
"Dubya", who was apparently a poor student of history, is not much better as a teacher, for if this is the only lesson learned from Vietnam, then he needs to go back to summer school.

One lesson is that lies and scare tactics may lead people to war, but it won't keep them there once they learn the truth.

(c) '07 maj

The Power of History: (Haiti)
[col. writ. 8/19/07] (c) '07 Mumia Abu-Jamal

Recently, while speaking with a younger journalist, I made mention of several points of Haitian history, and the writer looked at me blankly.

Although he was well-read, and had even traveled to Haiti, he hadn't the faintest idea of many of the historical facts to which I made reference.

He simply had never read nor heard of them.

As a student of history, I recommended he read the work of the late radical scholar-activist, C.L.R. James on Haiti: The Black Jacobins: Toussaint Louverture and the San Domingo Revolution, originally published in 1938. He knew of the book, but he never read it.

C.L.R. James was a man of remarkable brilliance, and a man who wore many hats and mastered many skills. His book, The Black Jacobins, is regarded as a masterwork of history, with perhaps the best telling of the story of the Haitian Revolution (at least in English).

James, a revolutionary organizer as well as an accomplished scholar, probed deeply into the forces that led to revolution, both in Haiti and in France.

One such factor was the relentless brutality of French slavery in Haiti, where sugar factories exploited black labor so totally that the life span of a captive worker there was 7 years. 7 years. To replenish this slave labor force, more and more Africans were captured from West Africa's coast, to work the sugar factories of Haiti.

Black suffering and death meant white profits and sweets.

James cites an axiom commonly used in France at the time of the French Revolution: "The Ivory Coast is a good mother."

What that meant was slavery and brutality was good for business!
Were it not for the immense wealth extracted from African slavery in Haiti, James explains, the French Revolution would never have happened. Quoting the French historian Jaures, James teaches us that "The slave-trade and slavery were the economic basis of the French Revolution."

"Sad irony of history," comments Jaures. "The fortunes created at Bordeaux, at Nantes, by the slave-trade, gave to this bourgeoisie that pride which needed liberty and contributed to human emancipation." Nantes was the centre of the slave-trade. As early as 1666, 108 ships went to the coast of Guinea and took on board 37,430 slaves, to a total value of more than 37 million, giving the Nantes bourgeoisie 15 to 20 per cent of their money. [p.35]

Haiti also had other impacts on the world.

Its Revolution spelled the end for Napoleon's dream of a Franco-American empire. Shortly after the Revolution cut off profits to France, Napoleon communicated to Thomas Jefferson his willingness to sell Louisiana to the US for several million bucks,

Jefferson leaped at the offer, and by the alleged sale (so-called because Napoleon sold land that belonged to Indians, not France), the United States doubled its size overnight.

History is important; it teaches us why things are the way they are.

It teaches not only about yesterday, but about today.

--(c) '07maj

written 5/31/07 Mumia Abu-Jamal

For a decade Kenneth Foster, Jr. has languished on one of the worst Death Rows in the U.S. - Texas. He now faces an execution date (of August 30, 2007) despite the fact that even the trial judge, the DA, and the jury that sentenced him to die admit he never killed anyone.

Whoa!

I know that it sound funny (or fishy), but it's not. It's just a fluke of Texas law.

In Texas, that fluke is called the Law of Parties - a variant on conspiracy law, but like most things Texas - this law takes a bigger chunk out of the accused.

In essence, the Law of Parties criminalizes presence, not actions.

Under U.S. Law, as announced by the Supreme Court in its 1982 Edmunds v Florida decision, a death sentence for one who killed no one, nor intended to, nor assisted in such a killing was a violation of the 8th and 14th Amendments to the Constitution.

But again - this is Texas.

This is the same state that ruled in the Herrera case that innocence is irrelevant; that poisoned the Black activist Shaka Sankofa (born Gary Graham); that twice violated court orders from the US Supreme Court in the Miller-El cases; and that sent George W. (as in Warmonger) Bush to the White House.

These items are noted, of course, to make clear the very real danger that Kenneth Foster, Jr. faces. A young Black man - an innocent man - on Death Row - in Texas!

If you wish to read more about his amazing case on the web, go to: www.freekenneth.com or write:

Kenneth Foster Support Group
P.O. Box 14268
San Antonio, TX 78214

Kenneth (also known by his adopted name, Haramia KiNasser) is a talented writer, poet, and father of an adorable 10 year old girl named Nytesha.

Help free her dad.

With congressional passage of the administration's supplemental money bill, the president threatens a veto because of his aversion to timetables. But whether he vetoes it or not, the die is cast. More money for war, a war that never should have been waged in the first place. When news broke of the congressional passage, I thought not of Congress but of a robber, like the ones of old time movies who snarled your money or your life. Congress goes one better, for it's your money and your life. For while bowing to the false political imagery of supporting the troops, congress has socked more US billions into a losing proposition to prop up a doddering regime in Baghdad. The troops trope is a political maneuver meant to evade the charge that the democratically controlled Congress is soft on defense and betrayed the military in the midst of war. Instead of recognizing the handwriting on the wall, imperial huberis of left and right feeds the illusion that more money can save Iraq. Only Iraqis can save Iraq. What we are witnessing are simply the limits of US imperial power. When Rome reached the limits of its stretch, Emperor Hadrian ordered the building of a wall across Britain's colonial areas. The US has ordered the building of walls throughout Baghdad, to further divide an already divided city. Echoes of empire, echoes of history.

Vietnam was waged years after it was abundantly clear that peace was inevitable. In that interim, tens of thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese, perished in a maelstrom of madness to save the faces of presidents. A generation later, although the scope is different, the dismal reality is the same. More war, more needless death.

From Death Row,
this is Mumia Abu-Jamal

With wars waged abroad purportedly for "spreading democracy", it's time to face some uncomfortable truths.

People are awake and aware that the U.S. and the West doesn't give a fig about democracy.

They care about puppets -- people in state power who are answerable to them -- and fear democracy more than terrorism.

From Karzai in Afghanistan, Siniora in Lebanon, al Maliki in Iraq, and beyond, people are rising up against these shills for Western, corporate interests.

Protests from Kabul to Pakistan are raging against America's alleged allies, who rule by brutality, barbarity and torture.

There are several reasons for this state of affairs, but perhaps it all bubbles down to two: Abu Ghraib, and the Iraq invasion/occupation.

American performance on the ground, their treatment of Iraqis, the chaos that has seized the country like a fever, had fueled protests far beyond the borders of Iraq, blowing around the world like the borderless wind.

The war in Iraq, and all of its consequences, has caused the U.S. to be one of the most-feared and most-hated nations on earth.

Beyond the rhetoric of democracy lies the gloved hand of international business; or, in a more commonly-used term -- globalization.

Globalization is far more than the newest expression of an old economic theory (capitalism); it is the force that requires the installation of puppets throughout the Middle East.

One of the many, many protesters against the Siniora regime in Lebanon, in explaining her opposition to the government, voiced a concern not usually translated for American audiences:

We are peacefully contesting the government to show that people without a voice are actually the majority...

It is only the rich people who have a voice in this current government, while the middle and lower classes are not listened to. There is a class mentality in this government. [Fr.: Jamail, Dahr, "Lebanon: this protest won't go away," Asheville Global Report (May 3 - May 9, 2007), p.12].

The reason for this infiltration? Oil

Do you really think that Americans suddenly care about Arab suffering? One glance at the pain of Palestinians will answer that question. Indeed, life under any of America's allies in the region ain't no cup of tea; in Eygpt, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, or in Iraq, democratic activists have faced the brutality of their regime's police in the streets, and the sneer of their torturers in the dungeons beneath the streets.

America's response is little more than stony silence, broken intermittently by the cold academic listing in the State Dept. report.

The message couldn't be clearer: "We'll talk about democracy, but that's it!"

The U.S. didn't march to Iraq to bring democracy, to spread freedom, or anything even remotely like it.

It didn't go there to stop the oppression of Iraqis.

It didn't go there because Saddam Hussein was a "bad guy."

It went there to make that access to the most precious commodity left on earth, oil, was there. And, it figured, as a Superpower, it was its imperial due.

Every nation in the world knows this. Billions of people around the globe know this. The tragedy is that there are still a few Americans who claim to believe in this madness.

If there really waas democracy, America's closest allies would be out of a job (at the very least, or hanging from the spires of their professional palace.

If there really was democracy either in the U.S. (or Britain), the most unpopular governments in generations wouldn't still be in power.

From Death Row,
this is Mumia Abu–Jamal

It was a bright spring day, May 14th, 1607, when one hundred and eight men and boys from England went ashore in an area that we now call Virginia. Before a generation could pass, the indigenous people would be all but destroyed. They would become the sad reflection of the English missions of civilization and Christianizing. Having failed in this dubious experiment, the so–called Indians would be reduced to beggars in the land of their fathers.

Jamestown. During this month, and throughout the year, we may be hearing of memorials or even celebrations of the English settlement. We’re taught about the great English leader, Captain John Smith, and the struggle on an Indian’s chief’s daughter, Pocahontas, to save his life. Her plea to for the man’s life is as central to America’s founding mythology as the fantastic wolf–fed children of Romulus and Remus was to Rome. When most Americans think of America’s founding families, they think more often of Plymouth, Massachusetts, than of Virginia. England’s settlers landed in Virginia thirteen years before settlers arrived in New England. When local Indians resolved to let the English starve rather than endure their harsh treatments, Smith chose to attack and take what he wanted from his neighbors. As one recorder noted, “seeing by trade and courtesy there was nothing to be had, he, Smith, made bold to try such conclusions as necessity enforced, though contrary to his commission, let fly his musket, ran his boat on shore, whereat they all fled into the woods.� Englishmen were poor farmers, and further, many felt such work beneath them, so they either bartered foodstuffs from the Indians, stole it, or forced them to work for them. How many of us know that the first cross–cultural slavery in the Americas was of Indians, not Africans. The Dominican friar Bartolomé de las Casas, who accompanied Columbus on the voyage from Spain, wrote home to request permission to exploit Africans as slaves because the Indians were dying too quickly.

Jamestown was four hundred years ago, yet it set a pattern of conquest, destruction, and self–deception that continues down to this very day. The history that began with Indians did not end with them. The successful conquest of Indians led inexorably to the conquest of a third of Mexico, and seizure of their lands. It led to the Monroe Doctrine, looking at the nearest continent as this nation’s ‘backyard’. Jamestown. Four hundred years. Yes, let us celebrate and commemorate conquest, death and genocide. There’s something to be learned in this. But I doubt it’s the lesson we think it is.

From Death Row, this is Mumia Abu–Jamal.

She has been gone for almost a century, and still her name is on millions of lips; her memory sacred among those who love freedom.

Her parents named her Araminta, the daughter of Black slaves in the Tidewater area of Maryland, perhaps in 1820 (or 1821 -- no one is sure).

As a baby, the slaves shortened her fancy name into the nickname, "Minty."

History remembers her by her married name: Harriet Tubman, freedom fighter.

She began on the road to freedom as a child, for she wasn't even 10 years old when she ran away from cruel slaveowners, people who used naked violence against babies and children to force them to do their will.

Harriet was a tender 5 years old, when she was forced to take care of a white baby, to keep house, to work day and night for others. She was all of 7 years old when she got caught eating some sugar, food that only white people were allowed to eat. Threatened with a beating, the girl fled, and running so fast that her little legs gave out, she fell into a hog slopping sow. Hunger forced her to return to the house of her 'mistress', where she was promptly and viciously flogged by the 'master.' This child no doubt learned an important lesson by the violence, but doubtless it wasn't what the slaveowning class wanted her to learn. They wanted to instill the seed of terror into the child, so that she never thought of running away again. Instead, it appears she learned that if she ran, there would be no return.

She married a 'free' man, John Tubman, who was free in name, and in law, but hardly in mind. When she talked about freedom, he shouted at her to stop it. "You take off and I'll tell the Master. I'll tell the Master right quick," he threatened.

As she looked at her husband, a feeling of disbelief washed over her, "You don't mean that."

But, in her guts, she knew. He did mean it.

Yet, she meant to be free. No doubt she learned another important lesson. Everybody can't be trusted. She must be watchful, attentive, and observant.

When the time came, she left, walking through thick forests, over rivers, and over hills. She avoided open roads. She followed the North Star, and when she got to Pennsylvania (a so-called 'free' state), she noted:

"I had crossed the line. I was 'free': but there was no one to welcome me to the land of freedom. I was a stranger in a strange land; and my home, after all, was down in Maryland; because my father, my mother, my brothers, my sisters, and friends were there. But I was free and they should be free! I would make a home in the North and bring them there!"

She said it. She meant it. She did it.

She returned repeatedly to the Tidewater, and carried folks off, with cleverness, courage, and determination.
She returned to the plantation 2 years after her escape for John Tubman, but the 'free Negro' had remarried, and thinking himself free, didn't want to leave Maryland! Still, this wouldn't deter her from her sacred mission: freedom.

She carried a pistol, and once, while leading some 25 captives North, came within a hair's breadth of using it. One of the men, bone-tired, hungry, and scared, decided that nothing was worth this scampering through the swamps. He refused to be persuaded to move on, until she moved close to him, and aiming the weapon at his head, said, "Move or die." He moved.

In several days they were in Canada.

Harriet knew that a returned slave would be tortured until he told all he knew, thus endangering all who wanted to be free. To her, it was freedom or death. That simple.

She would later say, of her upbringing, and of slavery itself:

"I grew up like a neglected weed -- ignorant of liberty, having no experience of it. I was not happy or contented: every time i saw a white man I was afraid of being carried away. I had two sisters carried away in a chain gang -- one of them left two children. We were always uneasy .... I think slavery is the next thing to hell."

Her raids into the prison-states of the South led to the freedom of literally hundreds of Black people -- including her own aged parents, Harriet and Benjamin Ross.

It is thought her family originally came from the Ashanti people, a tribe which hails mostly from the West African coast. (The central region of Ashanti life would be modern-day Ghana.)

Her life, from beginning to end, was one of resistance and struggle in freedom's cause.

There may have been 15 to 19 raids led by her into the South to free Black captives. In these raids, she liberated between 300 to 500 people.

Recruited to aid the Northern forces during the U.S. Civil War, Tubman organized and led the Combahee River raid in South Carolina, which netted some 800 slaves, and caused thousands of dollars damage to Southern installations. She reported with glee the sight of so many people escaping bondage. Tubman would later recall the scene:

"I never saw such a scene. We laughed and laughed and laughed. Here you'd see a woman with a pail on her head, rice-a-smoking in it just as she'd taken it from the fire, young one hanging on behind ... One woman brought two pigs, a white one and a black one; we took them all on board; named the white pig Beauregard (a Southern general), and the black one Jeff Davis (president of the Confederacy). Sometimes the women would come with twins hanging around their necks. It appears I never saw so many twins in my life; bags on their shoulders, baskets on their heads, and young ones lagging behind, all loaded .... [Fr. Butch Lee, Jailbreak Out of History: The Re-Biography of Harriet Tubman] (Brooklyn, NY: Stoopsale Bks., 2000), p. 78]

Harriet Tubman left this life in 1913, living into her nineties.

Her name has come to mean freedom fighter. It is a holy name, high on the altar of freedom.

Copyright 2007 Mumia Abu-Jamal

[Sources: Lee, Butch. Jailbreak Out of History: The Re-Biography of Harriet Tubman] (Brooklyn, NY: Stoopsale Bks., 2000). Petry, Ann, Harriet Tubman, Conductor on the Underground Railroad. (NY: Harper Collins, 1955 [1983]; unpubl. sources].

Have you ever thought (but were afraid to admit) that there really wasn't such a thing as a 'war on terror?'

Well, worry no more.

England's top prosecutor has set the record straight.

Britain's director of public prosecutions, Ken McDonald, gave a speech in late January to the nation's Criminal Bar Association. In words that few U.S. figures of such stature could ever muster, McDonald told the assembly:

"On the streets of London, there is no such thing as a 'war on terror', just as there can be no such thing as a 'war on drugs'."

McDonald, who heads the Crown Prosecution Service, warned of the "fear-driven and inappropriate response" of the nation's political and legal community, which could threaten the fairness of trials and due process of law.

McDonald added:

"The fight against terrorism on the streets of Britain is not a war. It is the prevention of crime, the enforcement of our laws and the winning of justice for those damaged by the infringement."*

How utterly refreshing! Leave it to the Brits to stick a pin into the U.S. balloon of the 'war on terror.'

Presidents love to sell the war metaphor to support their prerogatives to accrue more power than their predecessors. Every war sets the stage for the strengthening of the nation's executive power.

That's what McDonald meant when he referred to 'fear-driven responses.'

It may begin in Britain, but it won't end there.

That's because neither wisdom nor common sense can be segregated behind borders.

That's because fear doesn't last forever.

Generations ago, during World War II, thousands of Japanese-Americans, men, women, and babies, were placed in concentration camps all across the country -- based purely on fear and racist projections.
Today, people look back at that era with embarrassment and deep misgivings. There was no real, honest basis for this kind of treatment of such citizens.

It took decades, but presidents have condemned such treatment, and reparations (albeit quite modest) were made to survivors of that social tragedy.

Today, a host of errors and evils accompany the so-called 'war on terror.' The president has tried to sell the Iraq debacle as 'the central front' of this war, but fewer and fewer Americans are buying it.

And while politicians insist on swearing their false fealty to it (even though they don't believe in it, but are afraid to do so, lest they be marked as 'soft'), public opinion polls show most folks are echoing the views of a British prosecutor.

False pretexts -- false wars. With millions of people refugees, hundreds of thousands dead, land and lives ravaged by American maniacs, and their imperial subjects.

Americans hear 'war and on terror' today, and turn to American Idol.

That's because they know -- in their innards -- that it's a crock.

The time will come when we look back, and may dare to smile.

Copyright 2007 Mumia Abu-Jamal

[Source: Asheville Global Report, No. 420, Feb. 1-7, 2007, p. 15.]

A woman is stopped for a traffic violation.

She tearfully explains that she is pregnant, she is bleeding, and she begs -- at least a dozen times -- to be taken to the hospital.

She might as well have been talking to the wall.

The cops either ignore her, or make light of her plight. They respond, when they bother to do so, with replies like, "What do you want us to do about it?"

She was jailed -- and not taken to a hospital despite her pleas.

Several days later, upon her release, she gives birth to a premature baby, who breathes precisely for one minute -- and dies.

When I heard this story, I thought of the motto, 'protect and serve' -- and wondered, 'protect who?' -- 'serve who?'

A young pregnant woman, bleeding -- begging -- and it means nothing. Less than nothing. One of the cops, a female, replied, "How is that my problem?"

Will these cops, who saw a pregnant woman suffering -- bleeding! -- ever face reckless endangerment charges? Nope. Were they fired? Nope. Will they be? I doubt it.

The most that may happen -- I say may -- is the woman may file a civil suit -- and some years later, she may even win (unless a judge decides the cops are immune from suit, as is often the case).

But it will mean nothing -- for a baby is dead, forever.

No judge on earth can restore that infant's spark of life.

That all of this was caught on video, and was hot news (until the tornadoes ripped through Florida), tells us that the cops weren't terribly concerned about it.

It was just the job -- hospitals might've involved too much paperwork -- or perhaps overtime.

I've named no city: nor the woman. I haven't had to.

For it could've been anywhere -- and almost anyone.

It's not like these were mutually exclusive choices -- take her to the hospital, or take her to jail. Observers know that when folks are injured, they are often carted to the hospital, where facilities exist to insure security.

That didn't happen -- because those two people holding her hostage didn't want to.

It's really that simple.

It happened in early 21st Century America, and shows us vividly what's going on these days.

'Protect and serve?' Protect who? Serve who?

Not her. Not that baby.

Copyright 2007 Mumia Abu-Jamal

A lifetime ago, when the British rock band, the Beatles were at the top of the charts, and before cable TV and the reign of computers, anti-war activists sang a haunting chorus as they demonstrated by the tens of thousands at the Pentagon: "All we are saying, is give peace a chance."

Decades later, and there is still war (albeit in another place, and for another 'cause'), and demonstrations seem far less potent than times past.

American imperialism, unshackled by the prospect of a true global rival, now fairly bellows in the face of its own unpopularity (in the voice of its acolytes, like George W. Bush): "Give war a chance."
The Iraq invasion and occupation has been an admitted disaster, and those who called for it the loudest are deserting that sinking ship like rats on a wharf.

The US imperial president, flirting with disapproval numbers that rivals Nixon's at the height of the Watergate scandal, is overwhelming only in his irrelevance, and perhaps his inability to convince anybody to believe his blather about the so-called 'war on terror.'

So, in light of the administration's latest maneuver to support the flagging war with 'new ideas' about a "surge", the White House and its minions on the Hill are asking Americans to 'give the president's plan a chance.'

In the face of this catastrophe, what is the role of Congress?

It proposes to debate, and then, after debating, to issue a nonbinding resolution, which condemns the current troop build-up, and also critiques the president's present handling of the war.

In essence, Congress agrees to say, 'We don't like what you're doing, but we won't stop it.'

This, in a time of war, a war launched on lies and subterfuge.

Apparently, over 600,000 dead Iraqis, over 3,000 dead Americans, and over 400 billion dollars lost in this failing effort, isn't quite enough.

In fact, the Congress could stop the war today, by cutting the war budget. But it won't do this, for it might endanger a congressman's future political prospects.

Most of the millions of people who voted in the mid-term elections did so to send a strong anti-war message.

The majority party heading both houses of Congress has indeed changed, but little else has. It has resolved to issue words, while the president launches bombs.

And given his profoundly neoconservative bent, it is entirely possible that, before the remaining two years have passed through time's hourglass, the US may've launched a strike against Iran.

Even now we hear the media stirrings, provocations meant to soften up the American populace for a new 'preemptive war.'

What did your votes really mean?

Do you really still believe that you live in a democracy?

What you voted for, and what you believe, is ultimately irrelevant.

The words of the legendary Black freedom fighter, Frederick Douglass echo through the annals of time: "Power concedes nothing without demand. It never has, and never will."

Voting is never enough.

These ruinous wars didn't begin in a voting booth; nor will voting, standing alone, end them.

It will take much stronger stuff.


Copyright 2007 Mumia Abu-Jamal

This message was delivered at the Opening Session of the 3rd World Congress against the Death Penalty on February 1st. The Congress, held this year in Paris from February 1-3, 2007, gathers hundreds of abolitionists from all over the world: activists, elected officials, legal specialists and others.

The Opening Session, an "Overview of the situation of the death penalty worldwide and its abolition," featured Mumia's message and presentations from Sidiki KAaba, President of the International Federation for Human Rights, Piers Bannister, death penalty team coordinator at Amnesty International, Danielle Mitterand, President of France Libertés, Peter Rothen, office of the presidency of the European Union and Emmanuel Maistre, Director of Ensemble Contre la Peine de Mort (Together Against the Death Penalty).

For more information, go to the website of Ensemble Contre la Peine de Mort (Together Against the Death Penalty), hosts of this year's World Congress.

For years, decades now, folks have celebrated Black History Month, with a plethora of events.

There will be movies, book readings, poetry events, concerts and the like.

Coming, as it does, on the heels of the nation's celebration of the life of Martin Luther King, Jr., much of what will be heard will no doubt echo that event.

But Black History is far richer, and far deeper than King.

Rev. Dr. King, who has been edited into a safe, sweet, nonviolent modern-day Christ-like figure and icon of peace, forgiveness and forbearance, has himself been transformed into a one-dimensional figure which ignores his fullness as a growing, thinking, developing man. He was far more radical than many of those who now call his name are ready to admit.

There will be little, if any, remembrance of the men and women who fought for freedom in far more aggressive, and militant ways. While some may hear the occasional names, usually they too are softened and sweetened with time, to make them safe historical morsels for white, and corporate consumption.

It's doubtful that the name William Parker will be shouted out, even though, over a century and a 1/2 ago, he led the Christiana Revolt in Pennsylvania, which, because of its nature, sent shock waves across the country, so much so that historians of that era, like James McPherson and Phillip Foner considered Christiana to be harbingers of the Civil War to come. Parker, his wife, Eliza, and other members of "The Special Secret Committee" (a black self-defense group) fought against slaveowners and U.S. marshals who wanted to send people back into slavery. The Parkers and their neighbors fought with guns, machetes, and sticks. Parker and his clan of freedom fighters had to flee the US to find freedom.

The Christiana Revolt of 1851 should be on millions of lips during Black History month. But there will be no movies, no special notices in the corporate press, and few scattered references to this signal event in the history of the struggle for freedom.

The great Frederick Douglass later wrote of Christiana, that it "more than all else" destroyed the fugitive slave law. Douglass wrote:

"It became almost a dead letter, for slaveholders found that not only did it fail to put them in possession of their slaves, but that the attempt to enforce it brought odium upon themselves and weakened the slave system." [Cited in: Forbes, Ella. But We Have No Country: The 1851 Christiana Pennsylvania Resistance. (Cherry Hill, NJ: Africana Homestead Legacy, 1998), p. 114.]

And while we may know the name of the famous rebel, Nat Turner, how many of us actually celebrate his memory? His fight for freedom echoed around the world, for it showed that the violence of slavery would be answered by the violence of the oppressed. For what was slavery but violence, and resistance against that violence but self-defense?

I doubt that the name Charles Deslondes will elicit the least flicker of recognition, but he was the leader of a slave revolt that rocked New Orleans in 1811.

The revolt aboard the Amistad is known to many (due in part to movies). But the Amistad wasn't the only one. Ships like the Little George were seized over a century before the Amistad, but, today, who knows its name? Here in 1730, some 96 captives seized the craft, and in 9 days, successfully sailed back to Africa. Two years thereafter, Africans aboard the William did the same thing, set the crew adrift, and sailed back home.

The late, great Herbert Aptheker, in his classic American Negro Slave Revolts, recounted over 250 such rebellions against the vile slave system.

Coming closer to our time, how many of us will look back, not centuries, but mere months, to the horrors and hypocrisies of Hurricane Katrina?

For Black History didn't end centuries ago; and didn't begin with the Civil Rights Act.

It's an ancient history, and also as present as yesterday.

Katrina -- the ravages, not of weather, but of government, as Black Arts Movement poet, playwright, and essayist Marvin X put it so eloquently in his recent *Beyond Religion -- Toward Spirituality: Essays on Consciousness* (Cherokee, CA: Black Bird Press, 2006):

"We have tried their sham democratic elections to no avail, as we saw in the 2000 general election when our votes were discounted. Between our treatment in the 2000 election and Katrina, what else do we need to know about American democracy? What part of no don't you understand? Both events revealed America to be nothing more than a banana republic with respect to us: we were treated worse than dogs in both respects." [p. 192]

Another poet, Palestinian-American Suheir Hammad, used her art to pose a potent question raised by Katrina:

"Who do we pledge our allegiance to?
A government that leaves its old
To die of thirst surrounded by water
Is a foreign government."

[Fr.: What Lies Beneath: Katrina, Race and the State of the Nation, ed. South End Press Collective (Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 2007), p. 187]

Black History Month -- a time to remember that which the corporate culture wishes is forgotten. A time to remember rebellion, resistance, and what it means to be Black in the White Nation -- today.


Copyright 2007 Mumia Abu-Jamal

While media pundits and politicians bum rush the mike about President George W. Bush's plans to "surge" U.S. troop forces in Iraq, little is being said about another army there.

By this I refer not to the British, who, as the junior partners in this nefarious occupation, have contributed a significant number of troops to this operation, nor to the other so-called 'coalition of the willing', most of whom have only sent token numbers.

I mean the private armies, known best by the term "contractors" -- men (mostly) who work for private corporations, who are often heavily armed, and who number some 100,000.

They often wear camouflage fatigues -- and many are paid six-figure salaries!

Remember the notorious scandal of Abu Ghraib prison? While the fate of 7 low-level soldiers (and one female general) is generally well-known, there is rarely discussion (and rare still, legal action) on the actions of contractors. Such people played a key role in Abu Ghraib -- and play vital roles everyday in Iraq, separate and apart from the U.S. military, or any governmental structure.

In Abu Ghraib, around the exact time of the events that are now infamous and historic, all of the interpreters at the prison worked for one U.S. company -- Titan Corp.

At the same time (as of Jan. '04), over 1/2 of all interrogators and analysts worked for a Virginia-based company -- CAGI International.

As novelist-essayist Joan Didion noted in a recent edition of The New York Review of Books:

"There are now, split among more than 150 private firms, thousands of such contracts outstanding. Halliburton alone had by July 2004 contracts worth $11,431,000,000.

"Private firms in Iraq has done more than build bases and bridges and prisons. They have done more than handle meals and laundry and transportation. They train Iraqi forces. They manage security. Contract interrogators from two firms, CAGI International (according to its web site 'a world leader in providing timely solutions to the intelligence community') and Titan ('a leading provider of comprehensive information and communications products, solutions, and services for National Security'), were accused of abuses at Abu Ghraib, where almost half of all interrogators and analysts were CAGI employees. They operate free of oversight. They distance the process of interrogation from the citizens in whose name, or in whose "defense," or to ensure whose "security," the interrogation is being conducted. They offer 'timely solutions.'" [Fr.: Didion, Joan, "Cheney: The Fatal Touch," The New York Review of Books, October 5, 2006, p. 56.]

More than any other war in U.S. history, big companies are making big bucks by privatization of almost everything. Indeed, in a very real sense, it can be said that even torture was privatized -- as shown by the allegation that Abu Hamid, a Titan employee, hired to do interpreting at Abu Ghraib, reportedly raped a 15-year old boy there.
Titan held contracts worth an estimated $657 million.
CAGI had contracts in the tens of millions, at least.
Speaking of Halliburton (where Vice President Dick Cheney was CEO), it proceeded to run up so many bills that it overcharged the U.S. government by more than $1 billion! One Billion!

Halliburton, by the way, provided U.S. service members with contaminated drinking water -- and charged Army folks $99 to wash their laundry -- and didn't get it clean!

No matter what Bush ultimately decides, a private army continues to roam Iraq, answerable only to their bosses. Armed to the teeth, they are a private army for business.

Who says war is bad for business?

Copyright 2007 Mumia Abu-Jamal

Harold C. Wilson is still fighting -- even though he's been 'free' since November 2005. He's been off Death Row since his acquittal on *three* counts of murder by a Philadelphia jury on retrial.

DNA evidence proved his innocence of the crimes, after 17 years on Death Row -- years that have left him almost broken in health, but not in mind.

He's fighting these days to teach people what the death penalty really means -- not in theory, but in fact.

He's been forced to work to build the Harold C. Wilson Foundation, to create awareness about what it means for people to live on Death Row, how easily prosecutors and judges can railroad people there, and also to impact public policy about how those who are exonerated should be meaningfully remunerated upon their release.

Speaking recently at a panel discussion on the death penalty at Philadelphia's Drexel University, Wilson explained:

"My life was gone, and no one in the system cared about my innocence. Even when one tries to fight for the rights one is granted by the Constitution, you are immediately beaten down mentally ...." [Qari, Ali, "Death penalty 'is not a simple question'," The Triangle (Nov. 10, 2006).]

In describing his experiences Wilson told those assembled:

"Imagine your hands and your feet chained whenever you left your room. Imagine living in a room the size of your standard bathroom. Imagine being told you could only shower twice a week. Imagine seeing bodies bloodied and beaten before you. I do not have to imagine. I lived it for 17 years." [Ibid.]

Harold C. Wilson is working to build his foundation, not just to teach folks about the horrors of Death Row, but because he hasn't been able to get a real job since his release. In part, that's because of his health problems spawned by living so many years in cold cells on bare concrete. It's also because potential employers can't get past his three murder convictions -- as if the acquittals don't really matter!

He therefore has had to grab the bull by the horns, and engage in public speaking about the worst years in his life, instead of private employment, where he could try to rebuild what's left of his life and family.

Wilson returned to a world with an elderly mother, a son in Iraq (who has since re-enlisted!), and a daughter who works -- in of all places -- as a *prison guard* -- in another state.

If you want to know about life on America's Death Row, Harold Wilson is quite able to tell you, or your group.

Contact the Harold C. Wilson Foundation, at:

Ph.#: (215) 834-4676
Mail: P.O. Box 32084, Phila., PA 19146
email: haroldcwilson@gmail.com

Copyright 2007 Mumia Abu-Jamal

Quite recently, I offered some thoughts on the startling warm winter weather we're having.

While I talked about the probable impact of global warming (greenhouse gases), I didn't directly address the sources of much of it.

Let's be clear. Much of it, perhaps most, is cars. Some folks may be thinking -- 'uh oh -- here he goes again with that back-to-nature, John Africa talk again. He actually wants us to give up our cars!'

But how many of us know that in the good old days -- say, in the 19-teens, and the '20s, cars were electric cars -- run on batteries?

In the early third of the 20th century, most American mass transit was an electrical affair -- relatively quiet, with far fewer pollutants being belched into the air.

What happened? Greed happened. Corporate crime happened. Then mass pollution happened.

Writer and researcher Mark Zepezauer, in his brilliant 2004 book, Take the Rich Off Welfare (Cambridge, Ma.: South End Press) tells the story with brevity and clarity, as he writes: "The extent to which automobiles dominate our lives didn't just happen by accident -- at least part of it was the result of a criminal conspiracy. Back in the early 1930s, most people living in cities got around on electric streetcars. Concerned that this wasn't the kind of environment in which they could sell a lot of buses, General Motors (GM), using a series of front companies, began buying up streetcar systems, tearing out the tracks, buying buses from itself, and then selling the new, polluting bus systems back to the cities -- usually with contracts that prohibited the purchase of 'any equipment using fuel or means of propulsion other than gas.' Sometimes the contracts required that the new owners buy all their replacement buses from GM.

"GM was soon joined by Greyhound, Firestone Tire and Rubber, Standard Oil of California (also called Chevron), and Mack Trucks. In 1949 -- after these companies had destroyed more than 100 streetcar systems in over 40 cities, including New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Oakland, Baltimore, St. Louis, and Salt Lake City -- GM, Chevron, and Firestone were convicted of a criminal conspiracy to restrain trade. They were fined $5,000 each, and the executives who organized the scheme were fined $1.00 each." [p. 139]

Boy -- what does that tell you about 'equal justice under law?'

(Speaking of John Africa, I'm reminded of the opening words of his The Judges Letter, which reads, "The courts are the tools of industrial plague, granting big business privilege to poison our earth.")

There are some 520 million cars in the world today; 200 million (38.5%!) are driven in the U.S. The U.S. has only 5% of the world's population, and drives nearly 40% of the cars.

When we are faced with the chilling spectacle of global warming, with the rising of the oceans along with temperatures, and with the very real threat to coastal cities and populations all around the world, there's a reason for it.

And some big U.S. businesses made plenty of money off it. The pollution in our lungs, the warming air currents melting the arctic snow and creating rising sea levels, the very same man-made temperature changes that have spawned stronger, more destructive hurricanes was translated into billions of dollars in U.S. corporate coffers, amassed over decades. It is the very essence of capitalism.

It didn't have to be this way. It could've been very different.

Only people, awake and aware -- and determined to build a new world, can begin to change it.

Time is running out for over 1/2 a billion people, whose living space is seriously threatened with flooding.

It's not too late to reverse this monstrous trend. But, it can't be kept for later.

When I went into the yard several days ago, (OK--cage) I couldn't help but be shocked.

It was still dark, as the sun hadn't yet risen, not quite 7 a.m. It was nearly 60 degrees.

When I felt how warm it was, I was absolutely stunned.

The grass was still green, and it felt like a moist, spring morning.

I couldn't help but think of global warming -- the dumping of tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, which traps heat near the earth's surface, like a blanket on a bed.

It has been clearer than I've ever seen it in over 50 years of life.

I then thought that it was a mixed blessing that Al Gore wasn't elected in 2000, for if he had been it's doubtful that he would've been so outspoken about the causes of global warming, and the consequences for the powerful oil companies.

The theft of the election freed him to spend his time and attention on a matter close to his heart, and his resultant filmed lecture (and book), An Inconvenient Truth: The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What We Can Do About It (Melcher Media/Rodale) has reached more people, at a deeper level, than any presidential press conference could've.

Although long derided by corporate-paid pundits and conservatives (why are people called 'conservatives' who don't care about conservation of the planet?) as tree-huggers and many environmentalists who want to destroy U.S. business, there are few thinking people who dare to challenge the obvious signs of global warming. In December and January, cherry blossoms bloom in Washington, D.C. Flowers and bugs react to the warmth like it's an early spring.

In the frigid polar region, polar bears are drowning -- drowning! -- because of the growing distance between ice floes.

Human habitation (at least in cities) is endangered in this new world formed by human hands.

How serious is global warming? Jim Hanson, Director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, wrote recently in The New York Review of Books (7/13/06) in the article, "The Threat to the Planet", what the difference of 5 degrees warmth means to global sea levels:

"Here too, our best information comes from the Earth's history. The last time that the Earth was five degrees warmer was three million years ago, when sea level was about eighty feet higher.

"Eighty feet! In that case, the United States would lose most East Coast cities: Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Washington, and Miami; indeed, practically the entire state of Florida would be under water. Fifty million people in the US live below that sea level. Other places would fare worse. China would have 250 million displaced persons. Bangladesh would produce 120 million refugees, practically the entire nation. India would lose the land of 150 million people." [p. 13]

That means the land and living areas for over 570 million people, all around the world would go underwater: 5 degrees!

Never in human history have people caused so much vast devastation on such a scale.

This is civilization?

This is one of the costs of 'the American way of life.'

The catastrophe threatened by such an ecological crisis kinda puts terrorism on another plane of worry, doesn't it?

There have been wars and rumors of wars for fuels that are contributing to the destruction of the earth, and the flooding of its cities.

Politicians haven't moved a muscle to solve this very real crisis. That's because they are, by their very nature, but henchmen for corporations, which are concerned only about profit.

This system ain't the solution. Indeed, it is the problem.

Only the people, repudiating the system, can begin to change this emergent tragedy, by working together to build a new world.

Waterfront union workers will mark Martin Luther King's birthday Sunday, January 14th, with a special demonstration starting at Hornblower headquarters, Pier 3, at 11am and marching to the Alcatraz ferry at Pier 33.

The ten year "exclusive and lucrative Alcatraz ferry contract" was awarded Hornblower Cruises by the Bush Administration last fall and workers have been protesting ever since as Terry MacRae, Hornblower boss, "refuses to hire qualified, trained, professional Inland Boatmen's Union (IBU) and Masters, Mates, and Pilots association (MM&P) workers who have performed this work safely since 1973."

For the VERY latest visit: www.alcatrazunion.com.

Soon, every TV station and network, and many of the nation's radio stations, will air stock film footage (or tape) of Martin Luther King, Jr., his handsome dark face shining in a sea of dark faces, captured in his moment of triumph: the "I Have a Dream" speech in Washington.

They will gladly air this 'safe' Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who spoke loftily and eloquently of dreams.

Few will dare air his remarks made at Riverside Church in New York City, where an older, wiser Martin spoke, not of dreams but of realities -- of social, and especially economic injustice -- of rampant American militarism, and yes -- the nightmare of white racism.

One of those with him, who, too, would become a Rev. Dr., was Vincent Harding, a man who loved Martin, and who knew him as a brother, rather than an icon.

Rev. Dr. Harding, a leading theologian and historian, wanted others to know the Martin he'd known; so he wrote a book: Martin Luther King: The Inconvenient Hero (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1996 [8th printing]). As Harding teaches us, King fell into the pit of betrayal, when he took on the war in Vietnam:

".... King was bitterly rebuked for taking on the issue of the war. Some called it a diversion from the issue of black rights. Others feared the terrible rage of [President] Lyndon Johnson who brooked no opposition (certainly not from black Martin Luther King!) to his destructive policies.

"Some members of King's own Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) board of directors opposed his role in the antiwar movement, partly because they had seen the way in which the liberal white allies of the movement had withdrawn financial support from the radicalized young people of SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee), who dared stand in solidarity with the Vietnamese opponents of America's intervention ...

"In the face of all this, partly because of all this, King persisted, and the Riverside speech - delivered exactly one year before his assassination, was the most notable result of his decision. Immediately the drumbeat of harsh criticism was heightened. It came from many ... including such black stalwarts as Jackie Robinson, Roy Wilkins, Whitney Young, and Carl Rowan." [pp. 70-71]

Rev. Dr. Harding also recounts how the allegedly 'liberal' Washington Post assailed Rev. Dr. King for daring to oppose the war. The newspaper editorial called his words "Bitter and damaging allegations and inferences that he did not and could not document." In the view of the Post's editors, "many who have listened to him with respect will never again accord him the same confidence. He has diminished his usefulness to his cause, to his country, and to his people." [Harding, p. 71]

To his credit, Harding explains, King did not heed such criticisms, for he knew that they were on the side of war and death.

Harding writes that King became increasingly radicalized, and emboldened to speak out against injustice; Riverside was a turning point:

"(Who knew that night, April 4, that he had precisely one more year to live, that the bullet was closing in?) For King saw the larger context. He had already declared in other places that his "beloved country" was "engaged in a war that seeks to turn the clock of history back and perpetuate white colonialism." Underlying this backwardness, he said, was America's refusal to recognize that "the evils of capitalism are as real as the evils of militarism and evils of racism." [p. 101]

This ain't the Martin Luther King we see on commercials, nor the ones we see in newspaper ads around the days of his birth or death.

That Martin Luther King, anti-war critic, economic justice activist, advocate for the poor, fellow sufferer of the bombed and oppressed in Vietnam, a budding socialist (or at least anti-capitalist), had become, in Harding's words, 'the inconvenient hero.'

May we remember who he really was.

That King has almost vanished from our popular media, white-washed culture and history.

Were it not for folks like Vincent Harding, he might have.

Copyright 2007 Mumia Abu-Jamal

I did not wait with baited breath for the President's long-anticipated speech on a "new strategy" for Iraq.

For I knew, with chilling certainty, that no matter the 'strategy', it would hardly be 'new.' I knew that more didn't mean new -- just more. And I knew that this president was incapable of little more, than more of the same.

More troops -- more war -- more death -- more disaster.

There may be a new phrase -- but after "Bring 'em on!", "We're winnin'!", or "War Against Terror", what can a new phrase mean, but more b.s.?

Wars aren't fought with phrases; they're used to sell wars; to stir the blood; to quicken the pulse; and to enliven the bloodlust in men.

This is no different.

I fought my journalistic urge to watch the President's press conference. It's a lot like watching Elmer Fudd stuttering something about catching that 'wascally wabbit' (Bugs Bunny). I can actually hear Bugs laughing at Elmer's latest antic, saying, between guffaws, "What a maroon!"

Madness!

And yet, as is often the case, the journalistic urge wins out, so as a compromise, I turned on the local NPR affiliate, and listened to the speech. And despite advance billing by party and PR flacks about the contents, Bush managed to do it again.

Within moments of his latest offering came appeals to the events of Sept. 11th, which he blamed on "extremists." Like Iraq had a damned thing to do with 9/11! Once again, he sprinkled his speech with calls to supporting 'liberty', and essentially said the problem was 'too few U.S. and Iraqi troops, and too many restrictions.'

And the solution? 21,000 more troops.

With each twist and turn of administration policy, I've scoffed. This 'new strategy' evoked the same old emotion.

This too is destined for failure. Why?

Because the U.S. Army hasn't an ounce worth of trust in the Iraqi forces. Because Iraqi insurgents" (or dead-enders" -- or "extremists", or whatever we're calling them now) have seeded themselves within the Ministry of the Interior -- the Army, the police -- you name it. If the U.S. delivers new arms to the Army, it will be in the hands of the so-called 'insurgents' by dawn.

And what is this American antipathy against 'extremists' or 'insurgents', anyhow? The U.S. was formed by armed groups of insurgents -- and yes, 'extremists.' Those who stood against the British King in 1776 were opposing the biggest, baddest superpower of the era. The Crown was the seat of legality, order, and power. To dare to challenge them -- to fight the mighty British Empire, was -- well, extreme.

The U.S. did it, and at least one 'founding father' -- Thomas Paine, had to flee Britain, or face time in the Tower awaiting the national noose. (It was just his bad luck that he fled to France, where the Robespierre-led National Assembly tried to feed his head to the guillotine -- but that's another story.)

The point? A war against extremities, or terrorism, is misleading and stupid. It's a war against an idea.

It's now approaching 4 years of this madcap and illegal war -- now is hardly time for a 'new strategy.' Failure leads to failure. Disaster leads to disaster. This 'new strategy' is kinda like putting lipstick on a pig.

Its other flaw is its obvious tilt towards the Shia, with Sunnis targeted by the U.S.-Iraqi forces for a kind of 'super-occupation.' What will this lead to?

Everything that the administration has done -- from Day One -- has made more enemies, not less. It has made the threats facing the U.S. more dangerous -- not less.

Good work, Elmer ( or should I say, Daffy -- as in 'Lame' -- Duck?).

I have struggled to not write about the passing of U.S. President Gerald Ford. I sought to not do so for days.

Yet, the imperial fashion adopted by most of the American press, which praised his administration almost unanimously as "his salvation of the republic," forced me to put pen to paper.

Much of the reporting that we have seen has simply been dishonest, historically inaccurate, and a national amnesiac.

What I found particularly perturbing was the virtually unanimous official opinion that former President Ford's pardon of Richard M. Nixon was an act of "courage."

Why?

Because he opposed the will of the majority of the American people?

There is something unseemly about issuing a pardon to a man before he was criminally charged with anything, and further, one who built much of his political career on law and order.

Ford, to hear the corporate press tell it, simply made a deep, inner decision to save the nation the trauma of a trial against Nixon, by issuing a preemptive pardon.

The problem with this official reading is that there's plenty of evidence that it just ain't true.

Acclaimed historian, Howard Zinn, in his phenomenal A People's History of the United States - 1492-Present (New York: Harper Collins Perennial, 2003) tells us that months before the Nixon resignation, ".... top Democratic and Republican leaders in the House of Representatives had given secret assurance to Nixon that if he resigned they would not support criminal proceedings against him." (p. 546]

The New York Times reported that what Wall Street wanted in case Nixon resigned was, "the same play with different players."

It took a French journalist to voice what no mainstream American paper would -- that U.S. political leaders wanted a change of face, but not a change of politics. Zinn writes:

"No respectable American newspaper said what was said by Claude Julien, editor of Le Monde Diplomatique in September 1974. 'The elimination of Mr. Richard Nixon leaves intact all the mechanisms and all the false values which permitted the Watergate scandal.' Julien noted that Nixon's Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, would remain at his post -- in other words, that Nixon's foreign policy would continue. 'That is to say,' Julien wrote, 'that Washington will continue to support General Pinochet in Chile, General Geisel in Brazil, General Stroessner in Paraguay, etc....'" [p. 545]

Clearly, for millions of people in the U.S., and in Latin America, 'the long national nightmare' was far from over.

Nixon's regime was criminal to the core, despite his rhetoric about 'law and order.' It was a government that broke laws frequently and flagrantly, and got away with it. Slush funds, burglaries, illegal corporate campaign contributions, illegal wiretaps, corruption -- you name it.

A deal. A pardon. A swift goodbye, and the imperial press applauds.

'Law and order' was a program for Blacks, Hispanics, poor people, political opponents, and radicals. For the wealthy and well-to-do, it was business as usual.

Ford was part of that program.

And because he played his part, the media played their part: 'the king is dead, long live the king.'

From Shakespeare's "Richard II," the immortal lines are writ:
"For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground
And tell sad stories of the death of kings:...."

The stories, we see, are still being told.

Copyright 2007 Mumia Abu-Jamal

Saddam Hussein is gone.

The President of Iraq, who fell out with his imperial paymasters in Washington, was hanged for his hubris, amidst taunts by hooded supporters of Muqtada Al-Sadr, head of the Shi'a Mahdi Army.

His crime? Surely not the killing of his Shi'a opponents, nor his torture of Iraqis; for in the grim aftermath of these events, US envoys continued to skin and grin with him, shaking his hand (as did the then-Reagan Administration's Donald Rumsfeld), and sending him more tools of war and weapons of mass destruction.

If he was guilty of crimes against humanity, what of those many Americans who aided and abetted him? What of those many Western businesses which armed him (and greatly profited from such arms deals)?

It is a sign of our cynical times that the nation that egged on and armed Saddam during his long and brutal war with Iran, that looked the other way when he waged his reign of repression against the Shi'a majority, now deigns to punish him for doing their bidding.

Saddam was sentenced to death for human rights violations that happened in 1982, right? Well, why did the US sign diplomatic treaties with Iraq in 1984? In the remarkable book, "Behind the Iraq War", written by the Indian activist group, Research Unit for Political Economy (New York: Monthly Review, 2003) we learn that diplomatic relations between Iraq and the US were formally restored "well after the United States knew, and a U.N. team confirmed, that Iraq was using chemical weapons against the Iranian troops" [p. 31]. In fact, in 1986, when the U.N. Security Council tried to condemn Iraq for using mustard gas against Iran's troops, the US blocked the resolution!

As RUPE writes, arming Iraq against Iran was good business:

"Brisk trade was done in supplying Iraq. Britain joined France as a major source of weapons for it. Iraq imported uranium from Portugal, France, and Italy, and began constructing centrifuge enrichment with German assistance. The United States arranged massive loans for Iraq's burgeoning war expenditure from American client states such as Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. The U.S. administration provided "crop-spraying" helicopters (to be used in chemical attacks in 1988), let Dow Chemicals ship its chemicals for use on humans, seconded its air force officers to work with their Iraqi counterparts (from 1986), approved technological exports to Iraq's missile procurement agency to extend the missiles' range (1988). In October 1987 and April 1988 U.S. forces themselves attacked Iranian ships and oil platforms." [p. 31]

If that ain't aiding and abetting, what is?

But those who aided Iraq have since joined hands to condemn him, and to rip the nation into strips (a Shi'a strip, a Kurd strip, and a Sunni strip). They could care less about the Iraqi people, or even such canards as 'democracy'. For the farthest thing from American and Western concerns is the will of the Iraqi people. According to every reputable poll, Iraqis are sick and tired of their occupiers, the Americans.

The U.S. loved Iraq during 'The War of the Cities' when almost a million people on both sides were slaughtered. But Saddam got too big for his britches. He thought he could act with impunity in his region of the Middle East.

Saddam didn't know that this was a pleasure reserved to the US Empire. For only the US could start a war on this scale, cause the death of over a 1/2-million people, use false pretexts to invade a sovereign state, torture its people, ravage cities like Fallujah, almost shatter the nation into threes, wreak untold national and regional havoc -- and call it liberation.

The execution of Saddam Hussein was purely an exercise of raw American power.

History will prove this is but a minor blip on the road to oblivion.

Copyright 2006 Mumia Abu-Jamal

Within days the Bush regime is expected to announce its so-called "new strategy" in Iraq -- the most talked-about plan being a surge in U.S. forces in Iraq.

By 'surge' is meant the significant increase in troop size in that beleaguered country, a plan meant to address the obvious failures in Iraq.

In light of the rumored 'surge', one wonders, what does it take for the administration to listen to the voices of the People?

In February and March, 2003, the U.S. and much of the world spoke, with millions marching in the streets of cities the globe over, against the scourge of war.

The Bush regime ignored them. No -- "ignored" isn't right. President Bush belittled the protests as 'a focus group.' As journalism professor Robert Jensen notes in his book, The Citizens of the Empire: The Struggle to Claim Our Humanity (San Francisco: City Lights Publ., 2004) Bush's response to the "single largest public political demonstration in history", was unbelievable:

"When asked a few days later about the size of the protest, he said: 'First of all, you know, size of protest, it's like deciding, well, I'm going to decide policy based on a focus group. The role of a leader is to decide policy based upon the security -- in this case, the security of the people.'

"A focus group? Perhaps the leader of the free world was not aware that a focus group is a small number of people who are brought together (and typically paid) to evaluate a concept or product. Focus groups are primarily a tool of businesses, which use them to figure out how to sell things more effectively. Politicians also occasionally use them, for the same purpose. That's a bit different from a coordinated gathering of millions of people who took to the streets because they felt passionately about an issue of life and death. As is so often the case, Bush's comment demonstrated his ignorance and condescension, the narrowness of his intellect and his lack of respect for the people he allegedly serves." [pp. xi-xii]

Decades ago, during the height of the Vietnam War, presidents and their military advisors extended the hostilities long after it was abundantly clear that the conflict could not be won.

President Lyndon B. Johnson escalated it, but could not bring himself to rein it in, for fear that history would judge him one who 'lost' Vietnam.

His successor, Richard M. Nixon further escalated the conflict, by ordering bombing of neighboring countries. Some historians now say that the escalation and continuation of the Vietnam war cost some 20,000 Americans lives; the numbers of Vietnamese, and other southeast Asians are unknown to us.

The point is, the war and its needless carnage was extended for years, at a horrific cost: to save U.S. face.

It seems that this not-so-distant history is repeating itself.

In a few weeks, we shall hear what "the Decider" has decided. You can bet that it will conflict with the will of most Americans. What kind of democracy is this?

Demonstrations don't matter. Elections don't matter. Study groups don't matter.

No matter what most Americans think -- it doesn't matter.

Nothing matters -- but what the decider decides.

There's a word for that -- and it sure ain't democracy!

Americans have seemingly settled for a dictatorship of one -- in fact, a dictatorship of disaster.

Like good little sheep, they plan to silently acquiesce as more of their young people are slain on an altar slick with oil.

This isn't patriotism. It's the very essence of subservience.

There's another word for it.

Madness.

Copyright 2006 Mumia Abu-Jamal

In the last few years, we've all seen nothing but mass violations of virtually every international human rights treaty.

Torture, secret prisons, extraordinary rendition, violence against civilians, orders to ignore the Geneva Conventions .... The list goes on and on.

How has the American government dealt with this state of affairs?

It has virtually ignored it.

There have been a handful of military prosecutions against relatively low level people, but there is a steel ceiling, above which the prosecutors dare not go.

That's because the violations of international law go to the highest levels of the U.S. government.

Writer Lila Rajiva argues, in her remarkable The Language of Empire: Abu Ghraib and the American Media (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2005), that the tortures at Abu Ghraib prison on the outskirts of Baghdad shows something deep and ugly in the American state:

"The Prometheans of today acknowledge no limits except of their own imagining, and at least for now the world that they find themselves in allows them the self-indulgence of that imagining. With such absolute power comes absolute corruption, only not the corruption that the law easily unmasks, the simple corruption of bribery and chicanery. The occupation of Iraq displays ample evidence of that as well, but the deeper corruption that rote the institutions of America today is one legitimated by law, whose presence is revealed not in the courthouse but in the solitary recesses of prison cells hidden from the light. Torture is the insignia of this corrupt power. Torture is the deadly proof of the metastasizing cancer of American empire." [p. 186]

Rajiva tells us many of the stories from Iraq that have been largely whitewashed from the safe coverage that the corporate media airs. She tells us the many cases where Iraqi women were raped by Americans, and subjected to public humiliations.

Perhaps if more Americans read, saw or heard such accounts, they would not be mystified by the steady growing of the insurgency in Iraq, which is surely fueled, in part, by how Americans treated Iraqi men and women in prisons there.

The corporate US media has done more to misinform its public than to inform them. They keep Americans in the dark, while people all around the world know more about America than Americans.

In this context, we can continue the illusion that the US is 'doing good' in this new kind of colonialism of Arab lands. It is this mass disinformation campaign that allows political figures to float the mad idea of more troops in Iraq.

The somewhat tame Iraq Study Group report has come and gone, with supporters of the military-industrial-complex working their media assets to insure that their defense contractors keep getting paid.

Discussions over Geneva Conventions might as well be about treaties with space aliens, as arcane as they are to most of us. But the Geneva Conventions aren't rocket science. There are 4 of them. The first governs wounded and sick soldiers; the second relates to the treatment of war prisoners captured at sea; the third deals with treatment of prisoners of war; and the fourth governs how citizens should be treated in times of war. Under the articles of these conventions, people had express rights to fair, humane treatment, family visitation, and the right to be processed by "competent tribunal"[s]. As the flicks from Abu Ghraib showed, in living color, folks were treated like dogs. Geneva, though, to be 'quaint', didn't apply.

When it comes to the Empire, there is no higher law.

The Emperor has spoken: that is all that is needed to launch wars, torture, terrorize, bomb, imprison, kill, obliterate.

That kind of logic can only lead to more disaster.

Copyright 2006 Mumia Abu-Jamal

[Source: Rajiva, L., *The Language of Empire: Abu Ghraib and the American Media* (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2005).]

It actually may be too early to tell, but are you getting the vibe that Congress is going to betray you -- again?

The Congress -- both the House and the Senate -- are seen as honest and trustworthy by an astonishingly low 14-and-16%, respectively, by most Americans according to a recent poll. The converse of this, of course, is that 84-86% of most Americans don't trust their Congress.

A term like that just ended at least partially explains that gap; for Congress routinely sells its collective soul to the lobbyists and corporate powers-that-be.

Only these wealthy forces could explain the actions and inactions of Congress in its most recent term; complete servility to the military-industrial-complex; the bankruptcy bill; their unbridled hostility to a minimum wage -- you name it.

If you could afford their services -- cool; if you were a regular Joe (or Joanna), working-class, or -- heavens forfend! -- poor -- forget it.

The Congress, in violation of the Constitution, ceded its power to the President, and the executive has made a complete mess of every power it was granted.

The mid-term elections, thought by many to have been a partial remedy of this disaster, was predicated upon the wide public will to get out of Iraq.

The new congress was not yet in their seats, and already there are whispers in the air of sending more troops to Iraq!

The march towards betrayal of the public will may have already begun.

As journalist Richard Swift explained in his book, The No-Nonsense Guide to Democracy (Toronto, Ontario: New Internationalist Publ, Ltd./Between the Lines, 2002), today's political parties strive to actually be less and less representative:

"Such parties run the ideological spectrum from Right to Left (although here differences between them are certainly narrowing). ... Such parties have loose ideological commitments and use a vaguely populist rhetoric (often of the Left) while campaigning. They typically contain a number of powerful factions and interest groups each of which stakes a claim on policy and economic awards once the party is in power ...

"Under most present circumstances these 'representatives' are only answerable to us in a very general sense. Once they have been elected any number of factors may weigh more heavily for them than the wishes of their constituents; their own views, Party discipline, personal ambition or the influence of powerful lobbies. Voters by-and-large do not get to hold them accountable until the next general election. In the meantime they form a virtual dictatorship -- particularly if they are part of a majority government." [pp. 102-3]

For millions of people, especially those who voted for Democrats, there is the expectation that this new class (or new majority) would headline an Iraq withdrawal.

Now, it looks less so.

As the new congressional majority forms, lobbyists are bellying up to the bar to make new and lucrative deals -- and with money comes influence.

Americans may learn that, in politics, faces may change, and parties may swap -- but the same game goes on.

Copyright 2006 Mumia Abu-Jamal

(Mumia interviewed by Fred Hampton Jr and Jr Valrey)

December 9th marked the anniversary of Black Panther revolutionary journalist and death-row political prisoner Mumia Abu Jamal's abduction from the community and his family for political reasons. He is one of thousands if not millions of Black people who are in this situation, either as a political prisoner or as a political victim of Amerikkka's war crimes on the Black community. Mumia sits on death-row for killing a police officer, although evidence shows that the caliber of the bullet that killed the police officer didn't fit Mumia's gun, another man confessed to committing the murder, the presiding judge Sabo said that he was going to "help fry the nigger", as well as police coercion, and some more. Chairman Fred Hampton Jr and myself, Minister of Information JR talked to Mumia about the 25 years that the government took from his life. Check it...

Ch. Fred: As we speak we are on the heels of honoring the anniversary of the Black Panther Party, we're also embarking on dates that I wish that I didn't have to talk about or have to deal wit'; one date December 13th will mark one year since the state of California executed brotha Stanley Tookie Williams, December 4th will mark the 37th year after the assassination of deputy Chairman Fred Hampton and Defense Captain Mark Clark, and December 9th marks 25 years after you yourself was literally kidnapped by the state of Philadelphia. If you can, touch on each one of those dates, the significance of those dates, what message the state is sending us with those dates, and the message that we got to send as the people.

Mumia: You know when you were mentioning those dates, what came to mind for me was how for every year for at least the last decade, people all across the country and in other parts of the world have celebrated Black August...

Concentration Camp: This call is from a "correctional" institution and is subject to monitoring and recording.

Mumia: And even I have participated and written about it, and talked about it, but I've always been, I guess, impressed by the simple truth that no one month can encapsulate our people's struggle. No one month, even though in August a number of great things happened and significant things happened in our people's history, our people's long history, every month in the year is a month to be remembered for many of the reasons that you discussed right there. Every month in the year, every day in the year, has significance because after 500 years, here, in the wilderness of North Amerikkka, how could it not be significant? Many of those events evoke memories of resistance, some of them are heart rending, and some of them are inspiring, but every one of them are about our people's continuous struggle for freedom against tremendous odds.

Ch. Fred: As in any battle, we will experience ups and downs, morale highs as well as battle fatigue, is there any advice or moves that we should be making, in reference to the campaign, to get you back out here on the street?

Mumia: Well I would just urge people to continue to struggle because it is bad, for people that are not active in it, they may see an article in the paper or hear something on the radio, and it will come back to mind, but believe me it is not just a struggle for me, but for many people; people whose names you know, and some people's names that you don't know, people struggling in little ways that they can. They might be putting out leaflets or speaking to friends or teachers talking to students. What is missed is the campaign of repression that goes against those people for daring to speak out, for daring to wear a t-shirt, for daring to read a book. Freedom ain't free, And freedom has to be excercised. It has to become an activity or else it's just a word. And as we speak, we're literally living in a time where the state is using fascist powers, and passing fascist laws, very similar to what Nazi Germany did. I'm talking about the so-called Patriot Act, I'm talking about the recently passed M.C.A., the Military Commission Act. All of these things are profoundly repressive, and the least that can be said about it, is that it violates the Constitution, but when have they not violated the Constitution. In the past, they violated it under Cointelpro. Well they simply rewrote the laws. 9-11 gave them a perfect opportunity so what used to be illegal when Fred Hampton Sr. was active in Chicago, and the Black Panther Party was active in over 40 states, cities, and branches has been made legal in the last 5 or 6 years or so. What does that tell you?

Ch. Fred: On your comments, I was just thinking about this statement that Minister Huey P. Newton said in reference to the Constitution, he referred to it as pagan poetry.

Mumia: It sounds good, don't it?

Ch. Fred (laughing) It sounds real good. Other than battling in the courts, what other apparatuses has the government been using to impede the process to get you out here in the community, whether it be the media or what have you? Can you comment on that?

Mumia: Well its a war on all fronts. I mean, if I spoke of 5 fronts, then I would be ignoring 15 others. You know the state uses what it has, which is the power of the purse on one hand, the power of repression on the other, the power of wealth and money. The state uses all of its resources, you see, so that's why I always invite people to do what they feel they can do. You know it really is more of us than it is of them but people, especially now feel like they can't make a difference or what they do doesn't count. Well believe me, it does count. What every person does is important so they have to in a sense follow their heart.

Ch. Fred: In the electoral political arena, there has been this news of the democratic majority in the House of Representatives, crazy as it sounds this day and age, I encounter some people who are breathing some sigh of relief that the democrats are in the majority, so on and so forth. Can you commit on the contradictions in that?

Mumia: Well, there are always contradictions in the ruling class in every state, the problem is that many of the people who either consider themselves or are considered progressives are what I call "left-wing imperialists". We remember back in the year 2004, during the last presidential election, I keep repeating this to people because it shocks me, I remember John Kerry, the so-called democratic quasi-progressive candidate saying during a debate that the U.S. needs to send over 40,000 more troops to Iraq. What that did of course, was that it decimated the anti-war movement, and even though many millions of people who got out and voted, voted against the war, that doesn't mean that the people that they voted for would actually do anything about that, you see? So you know, we shall see. What will happen is what will happen, but already there are forces in the democratic party that are trying to quiet down those anti-war voices. They're talking about withdrawal to bases or re-positioning, or some other, really, pro-war strategy, because there are no good options, you dig, because both parties are corporate parties. Both parties are running on sheer imperialism so what can they do, you see?

Ch. Fred: I'm going to tag-team wit' my comrade Minister of Information. Comrade, revolutionary love and respect. We love you, respect you, and appreciate you. Free Mumia Abu Jamal! Free'em All! Dare to struggle, dare to win!

Mumia: Thank you brother.

Ch. Fred Thank you.

MOI JR: With all the evidence that points to your innocense, including Arnold Beverly's televised confession, the police coercion of witnesses before the "trial", and Judge Sabo saying that he was going to help the government by way of the prosecutor "fry the nigger" in reference to you, what do you have to say about this death-row case, as we fight for your life?

Mumia: People who believe purely in the law are sometimes met with unbelief. They can't believe that the law hasn't done the right thing, and that's because they have a misunderstanding of the law. What has happened in my case has happened in other people's cases, the question is not the law, but the people. If people organized and people understand that it will take the power of the people to change this thing, then they'll understand what they need to do, if they feel compelled, if they feel pushed, if they feel that this is the right thing to do. If we know anything from history, we know that the law has been the force for the outlaw for hundreds of years for our people. I mean, right after the Civil War, the so-called reconstruction amendments were put in the Constitution, but for millions of our people, all across the country, it was if no such amendments were written, because our people still couldn't vote, we were not free, we couldn't make contracts or have jobs or go to descent schools. Look at our condition today. So the law is one thing, the people are another. I rely on the people.

MOI JR: Black Panther political prisoner Herman Wallace of the Angola 3 recently had his conviction overturned after being held in solitary confinement for over 3 decades, what do victories like these mean to the Black Liberation Movement?

Mumia: Well it means dare to struggle, dare to win. You know, it didn't just happen, that brotha and his many supporters fought for many years, I mean there was a film made, people all across the country continued to work on his behalf, and many ex-Panthers came out to support that struggle so you know, it took struggle. It didn't just happened. You know...

Concentration Camp: This call is from a "correctional" institution and is subject to monitoring and recording.

Mumia: Everything that led to his release could've been determined 15 years ago, 20 years ago, 30 years ago, you know? It wasn't like there was any new information, it was just one court saying "oh, ok", so dare to struggle, dare to win. People really have to understand that they do have power. There not as powerless as the media or the politicians project them to be. People really have the power, but they have to believe that they have the power then they have to act like they have the power.

It's boy's night out, and a group of brothers are having a bachelor's party at a neighborhood club. One of them is particularly thrilled, because his marriage to the woman he loves is just hours away.

But he will never marry, because a pack of wild, undercover cops will execute him, and unleash a deadly rain of 50 bullets on he and his friends.

The crime? Cruising While Black ... Sean Bell, unarmed, was 23.

And the corporate media merely explains it may've been a case of "contagious" shooting -- one cop fires, two cops fire, three cops ... get the picture?

It's a kind of social illness, like alcoholism.

But neither Sean Bell, Trent Benefield, nor Joseph Guzman were armed. According to some reports, one of them *said* he was armed.

Like the madmen who launched a preemptive war on the unsubstantiated suspicion of weapons of mass destruction, undercover cops launched an urban preemptive war on unarmed young Black men, reportedly based on unsubstantiated suspicions. *50 shots*. Death, and serious injury.

No cellphones; no wallets; no threatening candy bars -- for such trifles are no longer deemed necessary.

In America, blackness is sufficient.

Even maleness isn't required, as shown by the recent shooting of an elderly woman who allegedly allowed a drug dealer to use her home. Katherine Johnston, having lived almost 9 decades, was shot to death while trying to defend her Atlanta home after it was attacked by undercover cops.

According to a neighborhood snitch, he never claimed her house was a drug site, despite police pressure to do so.

No significant quantities of drugs were found at the home.

What was her crime? Trying-to-survive-to-90-while-Black?

What's more dangerous -- drugs, or armed undercover cops kicking in doors allegedly on drug raids?

Police suspicion, it seems, is a weapon of urban war. Several years ago, writer Kristian Williams noted a case where a whole community was held under siege, because of police suspicion. In his remarkable 2003 book, Enemies in Blue: Police and Power in America (Brooklyn, NY: Soft Skull Press), Williams recounted an amazing story:

"The racial politics of police suspicion are well illustrated by the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation's 'Operation Ready-Rock.' In November 1990, forty-five state cops, including canine units and the paramilitary Special Response Team, lay siege to the 100 block of Graham Street, in a black neighborhood of Chapel Hill. Searching for crack cocaine, the cops sealed off the streets, patrolled with dogs, and ransacked a neighborhood pool hall. In terms of crime control, the mission was a flop. Although nearly 100 people were detained and searched, only 13 were arrested, and one of them convicted. Nevertheless, and despite a successful class action lawsuit, the cops defended their performance and no officers were disciplined.

"When applying for a warrant to search every person and vehicle on the block, the police had assured the judge, 'there are no 'innocent' people at this place ... Only drug sellers and drug buyers are on the described premises.' But once the clamp-down was underway, they became more discriminating: Blacks were detained and searched, sometimes at gunpoint, while whites were permitted to leave the cordoned area." [p. 121]

How many of the armed maniacs who shot Johnston, Bell, Guzman or Benefield will ever see the inside of a cell? How many will reach the confines of Death Row?

We know the answer -- because we've seen this movie before ... Paid leave (which amounts to paid vacations), a whitewash of an investigation, and a 'they-were-doing-their-jobs' is all that ever happens.

It's a damned shame.

Copyright 2006 Mumia Abu-Jamal

November 30, 2006

Sisters and Brothers,

The right wing forces of Philadelphia and wherever else were not able to pull off their attempt to intimidate the French with threats of a legal suit, with offers of life in prison without parole (which they had no power to enforce), and after being prepared for in France, both in Saint-Denis and in Paris, with Pam Africa and Ramona Africa right there, with a series of meetings with the mayors, with demonstrations, and a press conference -- backed off completely and never even showed up!

All Power to the People! The international solidarity movement for Mumia just won a great victory in forcing the enemy to back down.

See the message below from Saint-Denis. Also, check out Mumia's perfectly pronounced French message to the press conference tomorrow in Paris on www.prisonradio.org, under messages.

[Or here it, and all of Mumia's commentaries, on his podcast. Go to http://mumiapodcast.libsyn.com/ for more info]

-Suzanne Ross, Co-Chair of the Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition, NYC


Here's the latest letter from Saint Denis city hall in response to the "non-existant delegation" and their demands... We just got it today:

Press release

The city hall of Saint Denis denounces the manipulations of certain ultra-conservative pressure groups, and reasserts its commitment in favor of Mumia Abu-Jamal.

The city hall of Saint Denis re-affirms yet again its support to the women and men who are demanding Mumia Abu-Jamal be treated with fairness and justice. The picket this 30th day of November 2006 has been organized to protest against the pressure brought to bear on the city of Saint Denis by members of the american extreme right in order to bring about the cancellation of our decision to name one of our streets after an African American militant who has been unfairly incarcerated and sentenced to the death penalty.

This ultra conservative pressure group, based in Philadelphia, has not hesitated to make use of the grossest manipulations. Thus, the widely disseminated information according to which the city of Philadelphia is suing the cities of Saint Denis and Paris, because of their commitment in favor of Mumia Abu-Jamal - is nothing but a lie. The Mayor of Philadelphia, as well as the president of its city council, informed the city of Saint Denis that they never intended to file any kind of suit, and have absolutely nothing to do with this campaign.

This manipulation was unmasked, and it should be know that the Philadelphia politician who initiated it, though a member of George Bush's party, was defeated during the recent american elections.

Whatever the case may be, the city hall of Saint Denis is proud to have named a street of this city in honor of Mumia Abu-Jamal, who has become one of the symbols, of the struggle for justice and the abolition of the death penalty in the US and throughout the world.

It is not the first time that an international mobilization has taken place in favor of American citizens who are unfairly sentenced in their own country. Such was the case for Nicola Sacco, and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, between 1920 and 1927, for Julius and Ethel Rosenberg who died on the electric chair in 1953, and subsequently in 1972 for Angela Davis initially sentenced for murder, before being acquitted of all charges.

The city hall of Saint Denis will steadfastly pursue the struggle to save Mumia Abu-Jamal, so that this man incarcerated for a quarter of a century for a crime he has always claimed he did not commit - be reinstated in his human rights.

Saint Denis 30th of November 2006