Mumia Abu-Jamal

Von: "MUMIA ABU-JAMAL" < >

Betreff: !*Part 2 - Boots Interviews Mumia/

Block Report Radio!

Datum: Mittwoch, 23. Juli 2008 17:08

 

 

The Minister of Information JR

POCC Block Report Radio

www.blockreportradio.com <

 

Another World is Possible:

Boots of the Coup Interviews

Mumia Abu-Jamal

 

PART 2

 

The POCC: Block Report Radio show recently recorded a conversation where

internationally known musician Boots Riley of the Coup interviewed

political prisoner Mumia Abu Jamal. Although people can hear Mumia on

prisonradio.org < http://prisonradio.org/ > with his weekly commentaries,

the Block Report believes that it is important to hear from Mumia in a

looser setting where he can talk casually and interact, rather than just

try to make a few concise points with credible evidence. The interview

that we produced before this was with M1 and Mumia; it can be found at

www.blockreportradio.com , along with

the audio from this interview in its entirety.

 

by The Minister of Information JR

 

This is the final segment of the interview that legendary political

rapper Boots from the Coup did with political prisoner Mumia Abu Jamal,

via telephone. This is one of the many interviews that Block Report

Radio has done in its project, to expose political prisoners to cultural

and political forces on the streets. There are more to come.

 

In the 2^nd segment of this interview, Boots and Mumia talk about

unions, Mumia's favorite writers, as well as Mumia's comments on a

recent Supreme Court decision giving Guantanamo Bay prisoners the right

to see a judge. Check it out.

 

Boots: And I think that that was kind of the thought that I was having,

is that the union movements that we see now, they are definitely not

revolutionary or radical. There is some really good people trying to do

things, do you think that people who do consider themselves

revolutionary or radicals or progressives, more of them need to get

involved with some issues that have to do with labor or economics on the

grassroots level?

 

 

Mumia: I do. That might mean joining a trade union. That might mean just

organizing among trade unionist and union members. You know in order to

make this thing happen, in order to change society , all the factors of

society have to be organized, and touched, and moved, and motivated. You

see, if it doesn't happen that way, then there'll be increasingly

smaller groups of people involved in organizations. And there'll be less

and less influential. When people organized those union things that I've

talked about, they did it because their lives were hell, and they also

did it, if you think back and check back, the Supreme Court said

"criminal syndicalism or syndicalization".The Supreme Court criminalized

unionization, saying it was a burden on production, and a burden on

business, and the private property of corporations. It took millions and

millions of people organizing all around the country, to change that

into the kind of normalization that...We now think of unions as a

background noise. It's a normal thing. It's not extraordinary. Instead

of what they could be, they're much better than they were. They can be

much much better, but its going to take a change in consciousness among

union people, and among organizers to work together, and work outside of

the realm of work, and in the area of culture for example. I mean, we

can not under-estimate the power of culture in a society where

entertainment is one of the biggest industries in this country, in the

world really, because that's where people hear things, that's where

their minds are changed. Think of the impact of a Bob Marley for example.

 

 

THIS CALL IS FROM THE STATE CORRECTIONAL INSTITUTION SC GREENE, AND IS

SUBJECT TO MONITORING AND RECORDING.

 

 

Boots: You and Commandante Marcos are two of the most beautiful right-on

writers that I have read, to break down how society works.

 

 

Mumia: Thank you, brotha.

 

 

Boots: And who are some of your favorite writers?

 

 

Mumia: I have a lot, given the situation, I read a lot, but I've found

that some of Huey's early stuff is, and it hasn't really been read even

by former members of the Party. He was brilliant. He truly was

brilliant. There is an old-head, a West Indian, who's no longer among

us, he wrote some really deep stuff. His name was C.L.R. James. He was

from Trinidad. This brotha was brilliant, because you know, he was a

scholar, a thinker, and all of that, and he was also an organizer, a

revolutionary, a political figure, a thinker, a writer, and one of his

greatest collections of interviews and speeches was something called,

"Every Cook Could Govern", where he analyses the world. He was just a

brilliant cat. So I read a great deal, and a lot of people have

influenced me in different ways; Eldridge. I was a teenager when I first

got turned on to Eldridge. Eldridge was a very very powerful and

brilliant writer, who influenced me deeply when I was a kid, and I still

have that influence with me today.

 

 

Boots: What do you think about the Supreme Court decision letting people

in Guantanamo get to see a judge?

 

 

Mumia: You know what is most amazing about that Boots, that 4 members of

the Court said "no they don't". (Sarcastically Laughing) You know, I am

surprised pleasantly that 5 members of the Court said that the

Constitution covers them because they are under the jurisdiction of the

United States of Amerikkka, okay. So there has to be some kind of

hearing, or the availability of habeus corpus in federal court. But 4

justices, including the chief justice said "no they don't", and when you

think about that, that should astound people. You know in the space of 7

or 8 years, in addition to Guantanamo, you have so-called "black sites",

secret prisons, you have legalized for all intents and purposes torture,

and there are other prisons that we don't even talk about, called Diego

Garcia, and others around the world, where people are tortured in the

name of Amerikkka. And the fact that more people aren't crazy about it,

or making noise about it, or demonstrating in the streets about it, is

stunning, and it shows you how repression really does close down the

minds of people. Because people must be paralyzed by fear, instead of

energized by indignation to say "this is not my country", "this is not

the country I want", "this is not the world that I want to live in". Now

we know, as African-Americans, that Amerikkka has rarely if ever

followed its own Constitution. I mean, it would be a good idea if they

did that. They certainly violated it for centuries when it comes to

African-Americans. It doesn't even matter what the Constitution say,

they passed the 13^th , 14^th , and 15^th Amendment and then said in so

many words, this applies to everybody and corporations, but not niggers,

you see? And denied Black people for a hundred years, the rights

enshrined in the Constitution.

 

 

YOU HAVE 60 SECONDS REMAINING.

 

 

Mumia: It took people organizing in the streets, all across the South

and the North to change those words into reality. Ona Move. Good to hear

you Boots.

 

 

Boots: Thank you very much, and its an honor to speak to you.

 

 

Mumia: The honor is mine brotha. Keep doing what you're doing, because

you're doing some real beautiful stuff.

 

 

Boots: Oh wow, I'm glad that you even know who I am. Thank you very much.

 

 

Mumia: I've read about you in the Bay View. I saw your interview, and it

was all of that (laughing). Thank you brotha.

 

 

You could hear the entire audio version of this interview at

www.blocktreportradio.com

 

 

 

--

The Minister of Information JR

POCC Block Report Radio

www.blockreportradio.com

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