Mumia Abu-Jamal's Radio Essays

Several months ago, a commentary was written on the children of Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, where judges sold their very freedom for private profit.

Two prominent county judges (Messrs. Mark A. Ciavarella and Michael T. Conahan) allegedly made millions of dollars by sending kids to a private facility (Pa Child Care) in which they had a financial interest, as opposed to state institutions from which they would've received nothing.

How could such a thing happen? How could it have happened for years?

It happened because, in part, people both allowed it to happen, and they wanted it to happen.

Children were sent to juvenile joints -- for months! -- for playing hooky, for being late, for breaking curfew, and the like.

And most people said nothing, did nothing and some even praised this judicial example of "zero tolerance."

One woman, Sandra Brulo, the former chief of the county's juvenile probation department, asked about the increasing detentions, told a county commission looking into the scandal, "The judge is the final say", adding that most folks simply didn't want "to question the judge." And so they didn't, while dozens, then hundreds and then thousands of kids were sent to detention.

Nobody wanted to rock the boat.

It's enough to say it was illegal for judges to privately profit from the juvie prison system, but the PA Juvenile Act (the statute  governing this area) made what these judges did illegal as well.

That's because most of these transfers to detention took place without legal representation, and the code [§6337] states lawyers "must" be provided for kids, unless a parent or guardian affirmatively waives such counsel -- in court.  According to Brulo, in many cases, orders for detention were signed by the judges before the hearings even began!

Moreover, in 1966, in Kent v. U.S., the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the right of juveniles to have counsel, just like adults.

For years, in Pennsylvania, this meant nothing.

What use is the constitution when there's money to be made?

col. writ. 11/18/09] (c) '09 Mumia Abu-Jamal

[Sources: Strupczewski, Leo, "I Had 'Nowhere Else to Go', Official Tells Luzerne Pane," Legal Intelligencer, 11/11/09, pp.1 10.; Tit. 42 Pa. Consolidated Statutes § 6301 et seq., § 6325: Detention of Child; § 6337: Right to Counsel; § 6311: Guardian Ad Litem for child in court proceedings; Kent v. U.S., 541 (D.C.) 1996.]

The next time I hear a politician promise to do something 'for the children', I may heave.

If one thing is clear in this nation, it is that children are hated.  Oh -- we don't use that word to describe our relationships with them, but if we honestly examine those interactions we find that it would be difficult to describe in ways other than 'hate.'

For the last several months, I've been reading, studying and thinking about the nation's public school system.  I've read classics in the field, like Jonathan Kozol's 1967 work, Death At An Early Age, a stunning account on his years as a permanent sub [!] in Boston's Black populated schools in Roxbury, where kids were taken down into dark, dank cellars and beaten with rattan sticks.

But what happened in the dark basements of the buildings, while certainly dramatic and deplorable, could hardly be worse than the systematic slaughter of the minds of tens of thousands of children, who were, in Kozol's words, "intellectually decapitated" daily by a racist, segregated school system.

Truth is, any major U.S. city could've been used  with similar results - Harlem, Chicago, Philadelphia, Baltimore, for nationally, the drop-out rate is 50%.

Public schools are places where kids go to get their minds and souls killed.

And what is war but old men sacrificing young men in often meaningless battles?  What is the so-called 'War on Terror' but a mindless slogan used to sell lies like 'Weapons of Mass Destruction?'

And what are soldiers but mostly children, molded into madmen, who fight and die, so that old  rich men can get richer?

Daily, we drug millions of schoolchildren, some as young as 4 years old with Ritalin, because we describe them as hyperactive or deficient in attention --which means they don't sit still, while we bore them out of their brains, with what we laughingly call an education.

'For the children' we leave a diseased and poisoned planet, an economy on crutches, and a world boiling with hatred for their fathers.

Isn't it about time we really stopped doing more damage to the children?

9/19/09 (c) Mumia Abu-Jamal

    As democratic forces mobilize in response to the suspicions resulting from the recent Iranian presidential election, they are meeting repression from a government that is fueled by the twin forces of paranoia and theocracy.

    The Iranian government is paranoid not because they are crazy, but because many remember the U.S. and British supported coup that led to the installment of the dictatorship of the Shah in 1953, and also more recent support for the Iraqis (during the time of Saddam Hussein, btw) when both countries lost nearly a million people during what came to be called 'The War of the Cities', in the '80's.

    And although the corporate media has pronounced the notion 'loony' that the U.S. has supported the anti-government protests, in truth the U.S. has supported anti-government terrorism against Iran, chiefly via CIA funding and support for the Baluchis, an Iranian national minority group which comprises some 2% of the population, and which seeks independence.

    Those ways of thinking informs their view of the broader, democratic movement, which may reflect the sentiments, not so much of an Iranian ethnic minority, but of Iran's youth - a percentage approaching half of the country's population.

    The second force, theocracy, is the very foundation of the government, which is seen in the formal name of the country: Islamic Republic of Iran.

    That feature, the rule of the clerics, makes all internal conflicts both religious and political, and therein lies the danger.

    As Europe has shown for hundreds of years, few wars are more brutal than religious wars.  For centuries, the Catholic Church waged wars against unbelief, against innovation, against women, and through the Crusades, against Islam.  And although the church won many battles, it lost many wars, such as the war against science, where it sent the astronomer, Galileo, to prison for contending that the earth revolved around the sun -- not the reverse.

    Let us not act as if we've not seen this before, when theocracies tortured bodies, brutalized people, in the name of faith.  Have we not seen democracies do the same, in furtherance of the faith in profit -- as the U.S. in Iraq?

    Iranians must decide the form their government will take: not the U.S., nor the British.

    The Iranian people will decide whether the ungodly repression they face will stall them, or spur them on to demand more than the change of faces at the top.

(c) 8/16/09  Mumia Abu-Jamal

If the arrest, humiliation and resultant brouhaha over the case of Harvard scholar Dr. Henry Louis Gates has taught us anything, it is that we still dwell in separate worlds -- ones which rarely meet.

And while some wags have rushed to tell us that the case shows us the continuous clash of class, I beg to differ.

If anything, it shows us just the opposite. When it comes to Black people, of whatever wealth, status, class or prominence, the normal rules don't apply.

Indeed, Blacks are the ever present exceptions to the rules.

Consider this: Americans have said and believed for the better part of a century, that saying: 'A man's home is his castle.

Not Black men.

How else could 'Skip' Gates get busted on his doorstep -- for disturbing a non-existing peace?
In law, a homeowner's property rights doesn't end at his front door. It extends to the street, at the curbside. This is an appurtenance.

Imagine if a person slips and falls on the sidewalk in front of a home. What person has a claim on the homeowner, not the city.

'Skip' Gates was busted not because he violated the law, but because he violated the emotions of the cop who entered his house. He angered him when he initially refused to exit his house; and he angered him further when Prof. Gates demanded the cop's ID.

President Barack Obama was right when he called the bust 'stupid', but, as usual, politics prevailed when American rednecks responded with howls of protest. (One need look no further than the email sent by a Boston cop in response to the Gates case, where the distinguished educator was described as a 'jungle monkey' -- no, a 'banana-eating jungle monkey'..' if memory serves! Furthermore, imagine what it takes, not just to write this -- but to write this to a reporter).

They took it personally -- just as the cop in Gates' home took it personally.

Will a beer with the boys put this fire out?

I doubt it, for it ignores what happens everyday, in dozens of states, to countless men and women who don't have Harvard Ph.Ds, or friends in the White House.

The sad truth is, being Black in America is akin to being born low-caste in India, where separate and unequal rules remain, despite promises in their constitution.

Obama's election hasn't changed reality, but may mask it, by providing cover for the ugly things that Blacks endure in a nation where the elites claim a false 'post-racialism.'

A few brewskis ain't gonna change that either.

(c) '09 Mumia Abu-Jamal

As the repression of the state comes down on those protesting against the recent elections, voices -- especially from the West -- are all but predicting the imminent fall of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

They compare it to the Iranian Revolution of  1979, when forces arrayed against the dictatorial rule of the Shah, a key U.S. ally, brought down the House of Pahlavi.
    
Is this the same as that?

To answer that question requires far more than emotion.  It requires study, insight and clear vision, qualities that seem sorely lacking in too much of the corporate media these days.

Iranian scholar, Faridah Farhi, in her book, States and urban-based Revolutions: Iran and Nicaragua (Univ. of IL Press, 1990) found one factor was crucial in the success of a modern day agrarian society's revolutions: "....the incapacitation of administrative and military machineries" (.p8)

Other elements at work in revolutionary situations are the existence of "intermediate classes" in society which find economic and traditional centers of Iranian life, the bazaars, the clergy existed, amassing wealth and social power, independent of -- and opposed to __ the state.  These 90.000 clergy formed the core of Khomeini's revolt against the Shah, and therefore had the organizational and ideological wherewithal to steer the growing movement to their ends.  They also had a powerful symbol in the Ayatollah Khomeini.

There were other factors - popular mobilizations  of the poor, for example -- but without many of the other factors, the chances of a revolution are limited, at best.

The country's administrative and military machineries may be many things, but incapacitated they are not.

When the Shah fled Iran, the military and administration was both isolated and deeply loathed by the people. When popular upsurges came, many joined the people's side.

The major opposition figure of Khomeini, present in 1979, does not now exist (or isn't evident) in today's Iran.  And it is quite unlikely that Mir Hossain Mousavi, who is being urged on by Westerners, will play that role. He was one of a very few found acceptable to run by the governing council, headed by Ayatollah A. Khamenei.  This suggest he was, like Ahmadinejad, a veteran of the 1979 Revolution, and thus trusted by the clergy.

If he learned anything from the Revolution, it was that there's little profit in betraying the revolution.

So, unless things change drastically (and that is possible), this is not a revolutionary moment.

Demonstrations, standing alone, do not a revolution make.

They may be a harbinger of things to come, but as Dr. Huey P. Newton once said, they take "sterner stuff."

--(c) 6/24/09  (c) '09 Mumia Abu-Jamal

The presidential election of Barack Obama has so electrified the world, that expectations have swept past reality into the realm of the silly.

Some of this is surely driven by the corporate media, which no longer covers the news, but engages in what might be called  'pre-news', as it tends to predict what will (or may) happen, the better to not be scooped by competitors.  And as news makes its hard turn to opinion, it sometimes builds up Obama as a world leader, in ways that are simply unreasonable.

This was seen in the run-up to the Iranian presidential elections, where news coverage all but predicted the election of opposition candidate, Mir Hossein Moussavi, and the fall of the irascible Mahoud Ahmadinejad.  The result predicted, talking heads opined about the global influence of Obama over the elections. (As for stolen elections, did millions of Americans take to the streets to protest the stolen elections here -- in 2000?

Similarly, much news coverage centered on Obama's hard-line on the Israelis, as in his Cairo address when he called for a freeze in settlements.

So slanted is U.S. policy towards Israel that a halt in construction in illegal settlements is seen as somehow 'hard-line.'

For their part, Israeli right-wingers, many supporters of newly-elected president Binyamin Netanyahu, has postered Tel Aviv with images of Obama wearing an Arab headdress (known as a kaffiyeh),
emblazoned with the words "Jew Hater", and "Anti-Semite" in English and Hebrew (an allusion to his Muslim name and family background)

To "freeze" a situation that is fundamentally unjust, is to preserve the status quo--a state of affairs that leaves the Palestinian people in an unjust and untenable situation.

On top of that, Netanyahu recently announced an essential rejection of Obama's 'freeze', and an alleged support of the establishment of a Palestinian state -albeit a demilitarized one, with foreign affairs to be overseen by Israel.

This is a state only in the sense that the old South African Bantustans were independent territories (that is to say, not at all).

The Palestinians have had their best lands seized and Swiss-cheesed by settlements, their parliament has been cast into prison, their water is rationed, and their homes have been bulldozed, all while western leaders crow about a 'peace process' that is, ultimately, a freeze in oppression.
Meanwhile, Israel, not only the most powerful military in the region, but an undeclared nuclear-armed state, accepts the idea of a Palestinian state, but only if demilitarized -- and this is seen as progress!

--(c) 6/15/09 Mumia Abu-Jamal

For the Black community of Pittsburgh in western Pennsylvania, this is a time of quiet mourning.

For it marks the unexpected passing of Dawud Akbar, a man who made his home there.

Since leaving school in the early 1970's, Akbar built a life of service and caring in Pittsburgh, not just as a psychologist, but as a community organizer, teacher and mentor for many.

Born January 6, 1949 in Harlem, New York, he witnessed the murder of his mother at the tender age of 8 years.  When he went to college at Morehouse, in Atlanta, GA, he met and was deeply inspired by the renowned Black psychologist, Dr. Na'im Akbar, who so inspired him that he took the name Akbar, and converted to Islam.

He earned a Masters degree at the University of Pittsburgh in 1973, and with his wife, Sama'iyah, built a life and family in his adopted city.  He founded the Nzingha Institute, and helped to bring the Maafa ritual to hundreds of Pittsburgers annually.  The local practice was a ceremony where the history of African captivity, transport and freedom struggles in the Americas was remembered and ritualized.

Given the trauma of his childhood, he worked with young people to try to give them a sense of their place in the larger community.
    
He wrote several books on social and familial health and harmony.

He worked long and hard to serve the many needs of his community, and even three heart attacks didn't stop him.

Recently, he suffered a debilitating cerebral hematoma.

Dawud Albar was 60 years old.

(c) '09 maj

It would be easy to describe the present faux controversy over the nomination of  2nd Circuit of Appeals Court judge, Sonia Sotomayor, to the U.S. Supreme Court as media-generated, and thus, unreal.
 
But that would be too easy.
 
As forces on the political right decry the jurist as "racist", "reverse racist", or "biased", such terms do far more than spur flagging newspaper sales, it amps up the summer hearings for her nomination.
 
And while it may not reach the temperature of the Clarence Thomas - Anita Hill senate hearings, it will get plenty of attention, if only for the wrong reasons.
 
It is almost laughable to seriously consider the 'racist' claims launched by the Limbaugh, Gingrich and Tancredo axis of the Republican Party, given their manic xenophobia when it comes to Mexican immigrants, an issue that has driven millions of Latinos away from the GOP.
 
But, for argument's sake, let's examine the question, from a central core issue.  Are Latinos a race?
 
The short answer is no.
 
Latinos, or Hispanics, are a linguistic and cultural community, but one of stunning diversity.  In fact, Hispanics are a conglomeration of many races -- and indeed, many cultures, formed over centuries.
 
There are millions of people who are as dark-skinned (or darker) than African Americas, but are classified as Latinos, who are of Puerto Rican, Dominican or Mexican heritage.
 
The lesson in this is that race is often a national construct, which may be transformed by crossing a border.
 
Decades ago, one would think, there were no Hispanics (or at least the term wasn't used).  People were classified according to their national heritage, or they were called "Spanish -surnamed."
 
But the lives, experiences, and dreams of people can be profoundly different, depending on where one's family hails: Mexico, Puerto Rico, Panama, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Argentina or Cuba.
 
All of these people may be called Latinos, but they are white, red, brown and black. Their familial and genetic histories draw Spain, Italy, the Americas and Africa.
 
In sum, Latinos are not a race, as race is understood in this country, but a linguistic and multi-cultural community of breathtaking diversity.
 
The irony is that Judge Sotomayor, if she were born in many Latin American countries (instead of the Bronx), would have "blanca", or "claro" on her birth certificate (meaning white). Only in the US does she become a 'person of color', simply because whiteness in the American sense, is a narrow, exclusive domain.
 
Many millions who now consider themselves white had grandparents who weren't considered white, especially given their southern European places of origin.

But, things change; even our definitions of race.
 
(c) '09 maj

It has been over 1/2 a century (55 years) since the U.S. Supreme Court decided the Brown vs. Board of Education case, desegregating American public education.

The decision came to be regarded as a landmark ruling, one which transformed the very nature of U.S. public schools.

Or did it?

There is no question but that Brown dealt a severe blow to the common American practice of educational apartheid, by finding the nation's public school systems, which were unevenly divided between Black and white institutions, were separate and unequal, and thus violative of the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. As such, Brown became the precedent by which all racial segregation came to be declared unconstitutional.

But back to the public schools.

Who can doubt that millions of public school students now attend inner-city schools that are just as segregated as they were 50 years ago?

How can this be, we wonder?

Well, there are differences.  Funding for schools is based on property taxes, and as inner cities are sited in poor urban cores, where taxes are lessened, there are fewer resources for such schools.

And while racial segregation is unconstitutional, class segregation is not.  This, coupled with the segregated housing customs which still determines where people live, also determines where young people go to school.

Just because a law changes, doesn't mean life does.

There are other reasons, as well.

Millions of whites fled to the suburbs, and many built private schools that could legally segregate.  Much of this energy went into the voucher school movement, so that parents could siphon off public monies to pay for private, and even religious schools.

With some major American cities facing drop-out rates of 50%, public schools are failing in their mission of teaching and training children to handle the glaring needs of tomorrow.

And what of No Child Left Behind?  It was by any honest measure, a disaster.

The less said about it, the better.

--(c) '09 maj

As the prospect of GM (General Motors) being forced into bankruptcy looms closer, the company (as well as the government) enters yet the next phase in a long, bitter and seemingly intractable war against workers -- and not just members of the UAW (United Auto Workers).

For the courtroom represents a battleground more vicious than any negotiating table, for there, the rules are (to borrow a phrase from segregation days) 'separate and unequal.'

That's because civil laws favor corporations.  How could it be otherwise when lawyers are trained in corporate and contract law -- and rarely, if ever -- labor law? Under bankruptcy law, prior contracts can be broken, and new arrangements made, as long as creditors  and investors get paid.

What of a man or woman who has spent decades at work for the company? Isn't that an investment?

To the investors and bondholders that is irrelevant.

They, and the White House, will have driven GM into bankruptcy court, not UAW, which has bent over so far backwards they're in knots.

In Sept. 2007, UAW signed a "landmark" pact with GM, in which the union assumed massive health care costs under what's called VEBA (volunteer employee benefit association).  According to the terms, GM donates cash or stock to the UAW to administer VEBA, and GM agrees to the present work force of 73,000 workers.  The VEBA contract was for 4 years, expiring in 2011.

Two years later, and tens of thousands have been laid off.  Even before bankruptcy proceedings began, UAW heads were being pushed to accept GM stock (now around $1.40 a share) and corporate debt, instead of cash to run VEBA, and urged to accept "immediate cuts" to retiree benefits at the insistence of Timothy Geithner's Treasury Department, citing GM's "financial difficulties."

GM, we tend to forget, is a multinational, which builds and sells cars in Mexico, Canada and Asia.  And while sales have indeed slumped in the Americas, sales are hot in Asia.

In China, the world's  most populous market, an American car is still a status symbol, and China's economy is still the healthiest on earth, growing at an annual rate of 6%.

Moreover, while jobs are being lost in the U.S., and retirees' benefits are slashed, the bailout billions will fuel GM's efforts overseas, where, for example, a Chinese auto worker earns $3 an hour, versus $54 an hour for an American.

Does that make economic sense?  Only when the bottom line is the be-all and end-all of existence (as in capitalism).

Meanwhile, six top GM execs recently sold all of their GM stock, sending a signal of imminent bankruptcy.

Having eaten the goose of GM profit, they leave the bones.

(c) '09 maj

Message to May Day

The City From Below conference opened with this powerful opening statement pre-recorded by Mumia Abu-Jamal. The conference took place 3/27/09 thru 3/29/09 in Baltimore, MD.
 
Their website has updates from the conference.
http://cityfrombelow.org/main

Black Women of the Pen: A Profile in Excellence

What we are seeing in the economy is something not seen in this country since the 1930's -- the time of the Great Depression.

If we think of the companies shedding jobs like trees shedding leaves, they are so numerous that it may prove easier to name companies that haven't -- (if we could find any!)

In January alone, some 1/2 million workers got pink slips.

And this economic crisis is global. Europe is locked in a financial vise, and big countries, like England and France, have announced ambitious stimulus packages. England has openly nationalized prominent banks facing default. Iceland has, for all intents and purposes, declared bankruptcy -- with not just banks, but government itself is failing.

And while China, the site of the world's most robust economy is still growing, its rate of growth has fallen so fast that some 20 million people -- 20 million! -- have lost their jobs, a direct result of the U.S. economic recession.

Over a year ago, American economist Nouriel Roubini, speaking at a meeting in Davos, Switzerland, said the U.S. economy looked "like an emerging market."

Roubini predicted that the U.S. would enter a recession which would last at least a year. he added, "The debate is not whether we're going to have a soft or hard landing. The question is only how hard the hard landing will be." *

A Chinese economist echoed that sentiment. Yu Yongding, of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences described the Chinese economy as at "quite a delicate stage." The problem, he concluded, was the "very bad situation" in the U.S.

Globalization was sold as the next best thing to the industrial age, when Americans would live in the warm glow of the information age, lit by computer screens, and the rest of the world would do scut work.

How's that working out, as the economy crumbles?

[*Source: Landler, Mark, "U.S. Policies Evoke Scorn at Davos: Fed Caved In to the Markets (or Maybe It Dawdled), Critics Say, New York Times, Thurs., Jan. 24, 2008, p. C9.]

--(c) 2/4/09 Mumia Abu-Jamal

Music Over the Mall

Several days ago I read an interesting article in the paper on the tiny Black community in Basra, Iraq.  The piece was basically a foreign take on the impacts of the Obama election, for Black Iraqis hoped this would signal better conditions for them in the land of their ancestors.
 
Black people are hardly new to Iraq.
 
Their present population stems from slave importations from over a thousand years ago, when the city of Basra, in Iraq's southern sliver, was the seat of Mesopotamia.  Africans were kidnapped into bondage, and forced to work (I kid you not) in the region's salt mines.
 
In the early third of the seventh century (ca. 820 C. E.), Blacks staged a powerful rebellion, which forced the government to flee.  This revolution, called  "The Revolt of the Zenj" by Arab historians, lasted for over 20 years.  This revolution was betrayed, and the rebels were slain and some put back into bondage.
 
The name "Revolt of the Zenj" is so named  because Blacks from the southeast coast of Africa, called "Zenjabar" by the Arabs (later Zanzibar, and today a part of Tanzania) were captured by the millions and sold into slavery throughout the Arab world.
 
The hundreds of thousands of Black  Iraqis today are among their descendants.  As such, they live lives of discrimination, poor education, under-and-unemployment and poverty.
 
One Basra father explained his decision to remove his daughter from school because she was teased with the term  abd (Arabic for slave) by her classmates.
 
The father said, "it is my wish that she will read and write, but I cannot let her have these...problems."
 
The Black Iraqi population numbers in the thousands, not the millions.  But even after a millennia and a half in Iraq, they still sing ancient songs of a distant African memory.
 
1/25/09] (c) '09 Mumia Abu-Jamal
 
[Source: Madhani, AAmer, "Obama's Rise Inspires Arab Iraqis in Politics", USA Today, Jan. 19, 2009, 9A.; Albert Hourani, A History of the Arab Peoples (N.Y. ; Faber and Faber, 1991) ]

Like you, I've seen the searing phone-camera tape of the killing of 22-year-old Oscar Grant, of Oakland, California.
 
And although it's truly a terrible thing to see, it's almost exceeded by something just as shocking.  That's been how the media has responded to this police killing, by creating a defense of error.
 
This defense, that the killer cop who murdered Grant somehow mistook his pistol for his Taser, has been offered by both local and national news reporters -- even though they haven't heard word one from Johannes Mehserle, the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) cop who wasn't even interviewed for weeks after shooting an unarmed man!

If you've ever wondered about the role of the media, let this be a lesson to you. You can see here that the claim that the corporate media is objective is but a cruel illusion.
 
Imagine this:  if the roles were reversed, that is, if bystanders had footage of Grant shooting Mehserle, would the media be suggesting a defense for him?

Would Grant have been free to roam, to leave the state a week later?
 
Would he have made bail?
    
The shooting of Oscar Grant III is but the latest, West Coast version of Amadou Diallo, of Sean Bell, and of hundreds of other Black men -- and like them, don't be surprised if there is an acquittal -- again.
 
    Oscar Grant is you -- and you are him, because you know in the pit of your stomach that it could've been you, and the same thing could've happened.
 
You know this.
 
And what's worse is this: you pay for this every time you pay taxes, and you endorse this every time you vote for politicians who sell out in a heartbeat.
 
You pay for your killers to kill you, in the name of a bogus, twisted law, and then pay for the State that defends him.
 
Something is terribly wrong here--and it's the system itself.

Until that is changed, nothing is changed, for we'll be out here again (in the streets) -- chanting a different name.
 
-- 1/17/09  (c) '09 Mumia Abu-Jamal

Address to the Rosa Luxemburg Conference, Berlin Germany 1/10/09

'Imperial Power & Counter-Power':
(M.A. Jamal's Remarks to the Rosa Luxemburg Conference in Germany / Jan. 10th, 2009

[SP. WRIT. 12/30/08] (C) '08 MUMIA ABU-JAMAL

If one is to address the reactions to the recent election of Illinois Senator Barack Obama to the U.S. Presidency, this can perhaps be best encapsulated by the term, exultation.

For if ever a political figure rode the currents of a stellar alignment, Barack Obama did so.

The exultation was both national and global.

In my 1/2 century of life, I can recall no presidential election that elicited so profound a political -- indeed visceral! -- response.

When one considers what role the left had in such a spectacular political event, again we must look to alignments; not of stars, but of constituencies, which converged to not only elect Obama, but to also close the door to the ruinous politics of the U.S. right wing, represented by the incumbent President, George W. Bush, and his presumed political heirs, Arizona Sen. John McCain, and Alaska's Gov. Sarah Palin of the Republican Party.

While the U.S. left was a constituent part of the larger constituency, it neither drove nor directed the forces that elected Obama. In many ways it was hostage to those forces.

Those forces were youth -- those between 18-28, who mobilized in ways never seen before; it was also African Americans who voted in unprecedented numbers for one they perceived as one of their own; add to this millions of women, some of whom felt, frankly, disrespected by the choice of Palin, who, though a woman, betrayed an astonishing lack of knowledge and expertise on issues, especially given the very real possibility that her running mate, sen. McCain, might not survive the rigors of office.

But one cannot ignore the significant segment of those who felt betrayed or disaffected by the hard-right tilt of the Republican Party -- which ran almost exclusively on the notion that Obama was a "socialist", who in Palin's oft-repeated quote, "pals around with terrorists."

For those beyond our shores, it may be necessary to briefly decode this language. The "socialist" tag was a kind of cleaned - up, classy version of 'communist', the ultimate slur in U.S. capitalist politics, only exceeded by the post 9/11 term "terrorist" (and by calling Obama a "pal" of terrorists, it was tantamount to calling him one).

The last reference was to the alleged friendship between Obama and William Ayers, a Hyde Park educator who, in the 1960's, was a leading member of the Weather Underground, student anti-war and anti imperialist activists, who engaged in acts against property, and who supported the Black liberation movements of the era.

In point of fact, Obama was, by no measure, a leftist.

In the Spring of 2008 issue of The Black Scholar, African-American studies professor, Charles P. Henry makes the point explicitly, citing both Obama's own words, as well as a political biography of him in the New York Times Magazine. (1)

Obama's quoted remarks are instructive:

The Democrats have been stuck in the arguments of Vietnam,
which means that either you're a 'Scoop' Jackson Democrat or you're suspicious of any military action. And that's just not my framework .(2)

Obama's choices were illustrative of two poles of the Democratic Party: Sen. Henry 'Scoop' Jackson was so pro-war that he was called the "Senator from Boeing". (3) ; Hayden by contrast, was a student anti-war activist, and member of S.D.S. (Students for a Democratic Society). (Interestingly, Obama never referred to himself as a Jesse Jackson Democrat either).

This leads us to the next query on the role of the U.S. anti-war movement; in a word, it is moribund.

This, paradoxically, can be traced to the massive demonstrations of Spring 2003 in protest of the imminent Iraq War. For millions of people, this was their first, and last experience of mass action. Sadly, the lesson they learned was of their impotence, not their power, for Bush promptly ignored the protests, rattled the sabers of war, and launched Operation Shock and Awe.

For many people, unused to popular protests, this short-term failure to stop the war blinded them to the rarity that such mass protests represented: never had the nation seen such mass protests before the war was begun. At this stage, the people were a Counter-Power, but they stopped far too soon.

To further analyze the question of whether the election of Obama represents a leftist surge, or if the anti-war movement is in its ascendancy we need only recall that Obama is neither a leftist nor is he anti-war. The early stages of his electoral campaign were explicitly against the Iraq War. As he ran in the later stages, his sound bites announced a troop withdrawal in Iraq was necessary to buttress U.S. forces in Afghanistan. Indeed, given the events occurring as these words are written, there will probably be more U.S. anti-war protests against the Israeli blitzkrieg on Gaza in the next 2 weeks, than there was against the U.S. occupation in Afghanistan in the last two years.

That, I think, succinctly states the case of where we are.

But where we are need not determine where we can go. For people move by inches and by leaps. This was, undoubtedly, a giant step in U.S. history. This was not a day ever envisioned by George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln or even John F. Kennedy.

Yet, one of Black America's most revered historians, Vincent Harding, (author of the classic, There is a River), spoke for far more than himself when he said, "So my hopes are very much focused on him, but not on him alone. I see the energy that's been built up over these two years of campaigns, and I see the possibility that we could gather ourselves together and begin to ask, in a very powerful way, not what should Barack Obama be doing next, but where do we go from here? What is our role as committed, progressive citizens to move to the next stages?"

Harding, a close confidante of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., ended his comments on the Obama election with this fitting suggestion: "Maybe a democracy needs community organizers more than it needs commanders."(4)

Maybe so.

It appears Dr. Harding is suggesting that instead of empire, we need a republic, for if history teaches us anything, it is that the two realities are un- reconcilable. In the days of ancient Rome, the advent of empire spelled the end of the republic.

In 193 C. E., an African seized the throne of Rome. Emperor Septimius Severus extended Rome's power, and strengthened its empire. His sons succeeded him, and exceeded him in cruelty and brutality.

They didn't bring change -- they brought continuity.

Will this empire be any different?

Danke! Aus die Todeszelle,
Hier Sprecht Mumia Abu-Jamal.

Endnotes

1. Traub, James, "Is His Biography Our Destiny?", New York Times Magazine, November 4, 2007, pp.50-55.

2. Hayden, Tom, "An Appeal to Barack Obama", post to ariannahuff@aol.com, November 8, 2007; cited in Henry, Charles P., O"Obama '08 -- Articulate and Clean,"The Black Scholar, (Spr. '08) [vol. 38:no.1}, p.6, fn.17.

3. Johnson, Chalmers, Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2006), p.211. Boeing received some $20 billion in defense contracts in 2006.

4. Wane, Aly (compiled by), "Historical Moment: Black Thinkers Reflect on the Election of Barack Obama", Syracuse Peace Council's Peace newsletter (Jan. '09: #780), p.7.

written 4 POCC 1/15/09
 
Huey P. Newton's name, and more importantly, his history of resistance and struggle, is little more than a mystery for many younger people in their 20's.
 
The name and works of a third rate rapper is more familiar to the average Black youth, and that's hardly surprising given the failure of the public school system.
 
For the public school system is invested in ignorance, and Huey P. Newton was a rebel -- and more, a Black Revolutionary.
 
Inspired by the civil rights movement and the violent attacks on Blacks trying to vote, Huey felt a bolder, more radical stance was needed.
 
At the age of 24, he co-founded the Black Panther Party, and the group expanded by leaps and bounds.  Begun in Oct. 1966, in 3 years it had grown to over 40 chapters and branches across the country, with an international section in Algiers, North Africa.
 
Dedicated to the principles of Black self-defense and Black freedom, the Party became the foremost radical group of the era, with a wealth of supporters and enemies.
 
Chief among enemies was the US government, which, in the words of the FBI's head, J. Edgar Hoover, considered it "the greatest threat to national security."
 
For many thousands of Black youth, the rebelliousness of the Party spoke to their spirits more truly than did the peaceful resistance represented by Dr. Martin Luther King.
 
Huey was not a pacifist, and neither were millions of Black people.
 
But Huey, for all his brilliance, flair and resolve, was only human, and as the saying goes, 'to err is human.'  Under attack from without and within, the party made missteps that contributed to it demise by the early 1980's.
 
But it is the best of Huey P. Newton that survives -- the bold soldier, the Minister of Defense, the thinker and writer -- who gave his best to the Black Freedom movement; who inspired millions of others to stand.
 
--(c) 1/15/09 maj

36 HOURS: Death in a Cell

1/12/09 Mumia Abu-Jamal
 
The strangulation death of 19 year old Ronnie L. White in a jail cell in Upper Marlboro, Prince George's County, Maryland, after 36 hours confinement has confronted Ron Harris, the teenager's father.

A month ago Harris told reporters, "it's been six months, and still nobody can tell me who killed my son or what happened leading up to his death." Harris added, "I want to know why there is still so much secrecy in this case and why, after all this time, I still don't have answers."

And despite the empanelment of a county  grand jury looking into the case, Harris still has no answers, for the grand jury disbanded without bringing any indictments.

Community groups, from the People's Coalition for Police Accountability, Cas de Maryland, and the Princes George's County of the NAACP have protested the death of Ronnie l. White, and braved the bitter December winds to gather together to demand a true, fair and impartial investigation into his death, and the prosecutions of all involved.

That's because  White  died 36 hours after his arrest in connection with the death of a Prince George's county cop, who was hit by a car allegedly driven by White.

White's father is left with little more than questions after the events of June 2008. Ron Harris says, "My son  died in solidarity confinement in a jail. They knew who was working in the unit and where he was that day. The doors were locked, and only a few people had keys. Yet, after all this time, they say they don't have enough evidence to know who did it? Why not?"

Community groups smell a cover up.

For more info: call 301-779-7432 or email : fightpolicebrutalityinpg@gmail.com
 
   maj
--@'09   
 
{Source:  Thomas-Lester, Avis, "Father Seeks Resolution months After Son Dies", washingtonpost.com, Tues., Dec. 23, 2008, B02}.

For generations, the name, Eartha Kitt, was synonymous with sexy, sultry, and outspoken.

In an industry where careers can sometimes be measured in minutes, Eartha Kitt was the real thing, for quite a while; dancer, singer, actress, and on occasion, a comedian.

Since the tender age of 14, she worked the stage, and for nearly 7 decades, she left her indelible imprint by her work on the big screen, TV, and on recordings.

On Jan. 26, 1928 she was born in South Carolina as Eartha Mae Kitt.

She danced, sang, and acted her way into the hearts of millions.

In 1968, she dared speak out against the Vietnam War, when the war was raging at it's hottest, and was both blacklisted and hounded for doing so. That's because she spoke at a photo op at the White House in the face of First Lady, Lady Bird Johnson (wife of Pres. Lyndon B. Johnson). For daring to speak her mind at the heart of the empire, and for denouncing an Imperial war, the media and the state tried to 'disappear' her. She had to go abroad to find her freedom of speech, where she remained for nearly a decade.

For those who want to see her as a seductive chanteuse, the 1958 film, St. Louis Blues, starring Nat King Cole, Ruby Dee, Pearl Bailey and the gospel great, Mahalia Jackson, is a great source. For a slightly comic turn, see her as an amorous entrepreneurial cougar on the hunt for a young Eddie Murphy in the 1992 film Boomerang starring Halle Berry as the principal love interest.

Although she was known as the quintessential sex kitten for her acting, her public outspokenness came at quite a cost. Her comings, goings, doings and sayings were tracked by both the FBI and the CIA.

She moved through life with an intelligence, wit and nerve that made her distinctive and unforgettable.

Eartha Mae Kitt was 80.

--(c) '08 maj

[Source:African Arts and Letters, eds, Appiah, Kwame Anthony and Henry Louis Gates, Jr., (Phila., PA: Running Press, 2004.