Mumia ' s Kolumnen home
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Of Idiots ~ and Sages
[col. Writ 1/11/12] © ’12 m.a.jamal
How much is your child worth?
How much is your grandchild worth?
These are not trick questions. They arise from the news that North
Carolina recently announced cash compensation to thousands of survivors of their
State sterilization program that ran from 1929 to 1974 ~ an astonishing 45
years!
North Carolina was but one of many mostly Southern
states that sterilized people whom it considered as ‘defective’. In this, they were supported by
authorities as august as the U.S. Supreme Court, which, in its now-infamous Buck
vs. Bell (1927) decision, found that a state could properly sterilize its
citizens, and citizens had no constitutional right to oppose it, for, in the
words of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes: “Three generations of imbeciles are
enough!”
A North Carolina task force recommended payment of
$50,000 for each survivor.
North Carolina shouldn’t be the whipping boy here, for
such practices took place nationally with Federal government support. Historians
and scholars Mary Frances Berry and
John Blassingame, in their 1982 work,
‘Long Memory’” The Black
Experience in America” (NY Oxford University Press) tell us that as late as the
1970’s, the U.S. Dept. of Health, Education and Welfare were “forcing 100,000to
150,000 people to be sterilized annually”! {p.353} Over 90% of these people were
Black.
This horrific state practice and the U.S. Supreme
Court’s chilling reasoning in support thereof, gives us some insight into how
social prejudices and attitudes percolate into all sections of society – and
despite their self-evident madness are seen by seemingly enlightened sectors as
perfectly reasonable –only to be later tarnished as repellent with the passage
of time.
If a state, or nation, could sterilize its own so
called ‘citizens’, deny people the right and ability to have children, what is
such a state (or nation) but a dictatorship of arrogance and power?
One day, perhaps sooner than we suppose, we shall look
back at the phenomenon of mass incarceration and the prison industrial complex
as proof of a mad society.
Perhaps such a future state will pay reparations
---(oops) …er, I mean compensation to their survivors in 75 or 80 years.
If any survive.
--© 12 maj
(Mumia Abu-Jamal)
_________________________________________________________________________
Toy Soldiers
[col. writ. 12/17/11] (c) '11 Mumia
Abu-Jamal
According to recent news accounts, shattered and
shredded body parts and remains of U.S. servicemen were found in a landfill.
Despite political spins, this sobering image is a
telling, true-life metaphor for what those in power really think of soldiers,
many of whom are but boys and girls freshly loosed from High School.
In recent years, politicians, especially when on TV or
radio talk shows, are apt to say, when addressing a vet, "I thank you for your
service." In truth, this is robot-talk,
kind of like when a parrot is trained to say, "Hello!", and about as meaningful.
The American poet, e.e. cummings once said, " A
politician is an arse upon which everyone has sat, except a man."
John Africa said, "A politician will tell you he wasn't
born of a woman, if it'll get you to vote for him."
In these passing years, since 9/11, wars have been
fought that have devastated countries,
economies, and world peace. Untold thousands have died, many for nothing more,
nor less, than American paranoia. Thousands of U.S. soldiers have died defending
American lies.
And tens of thousands have returned, bodies, minds,
souls shattered by political calculations driven by arrogance, greed and sheer
stupidity. Thousands of marriages have ended in divorce because of forced years
apart, and families have been broken asunder because some greasy politician
wanted to play 'War-President' (or Senator, or Representative.)
In a real sense, military body parts tossed into
landfills as trash, is more than metaphor.
It is truth.
(c) '11 maj
___________________________________________________________________________
The Prison
[col. writ. 12/17/11]
(c) '11 Mumia Abu-Jamal
Every prison is
the same; and every prison is different.
Every prison has its own mythos, (think Alcatraz, Sing
Sing, Attica), its own rhythm. hard, cool, tight, relaxed, severe or super max.
And every prison is run by class -as in how courts or administrators have
classified a crime according to whose interests are threatened.
For example, in every 'hole" in the State, where all
Death Rows are sited, men and women with the worst sentences live the least
contentious lives. If they can
afford it, (really if their family can), they TV, radio and other amenities -if
they can afford it. Some work prison
jobs for the glorious wage of around $35 to $50 a month (yes, a month) There,
every mind is attuned to the ultimate sentence -death - and against such an
immensity, amenities seem trivial.
Yet Death Row is a class (as in classification) and
beyond it lies a chasm of classifications that are as maddening as they are
mundane - AC (Administrative Custody), DC (Disciplinary Custody), PC (Protective
Custody), and beyond.
All are lock-up
statuses, all have their distinct rules of what is or isn't allowed, and all
have degrees of repression.
Every major U.S. history book has described America as
virtually classless, with rigid class distinctions more a British or European
thing. How then can a Nation that claimed classlessness give birth to such
institutions that are so riddled with class differentiations?
Because America was never classless, and not only did it
have rigid classes, it had (and
has), caste, more rigid than stone.
Millions of Blacks live in such a caste, as noted recently in Michelle
Alexander's excellent work, The New Jim Crow.
The ruling, wealthy class built prisons and courts to
protect them and their wealth from the masses.
They also built the ideological illusion of classlessness, which is
maintained through their media. They
brayed about freedom, while erecting the most massive prison complex (the
prison-industrial-complex) this earth has ever seen.
The built Prison Nation.
(c) '11 maj
------------
Betreff: !*
Mumia Abu-Jamal, Kim Il
Sung & The NOI
Datum: Dienstag, 20. Dezember 2011 14:48
Thanks to Sukant Chandan for this posting at
http://sonsofmalcolm.blogspot.com/2011/12/mumia-bu-jamal-kim-il-sung-nation-of.html
[extract from Mumia's book We Want Freedom]
COMPETITION ON THE CORNER
By Mumia Abu-Jamal
The 3rd Avenue El in the Bronx was a major thoroughfare
in the borough, and as such was a prime site for one trying to sell The Black
Panther.
I had recently been assigned to the Bronx office and in
an attempt to sell my 50 copies, I chose a stop on the line where the foot
traffic would be quite heavy, as people descended from the elevated train ride.
At roughly the same time, another young Black man elected to stop at the busy
corner with the intention of selling his wares.
His wares were essentially the same as mine—newspapers.
There, however, the similarity ended, for it was clear from his product that
competition was inevitable.
The young man wore a dark-green iridescent suit and a
brightly colored bow tie. His hair was cut close to his scalp in the "hustler"
style, with a thin part cut in, his face shaved hairless. He carried with him a
multi-colored plastic shopping bag that appeared to be filled with copies of
Muhammad Speaks.
As I surveyed his wares, he was surveying mine. We
looked at each other and understood that neither would relinquish the corner to
the other.
And so, we began selling in earnest.
Shouts of "Help Us Free Huey!" mingled with "Salaam
Aliekum, brother!" as we struggled to sell our product.
"Yo, brother! Find out what’s happenin’ that the white
power structure ain’t gonna tell ya! Check out The Black Panther—only a
quarter!"
"Salaam Aliekum, Sister! Come on back to your own! Read
Muhammad Speaks! Twenty-five cents!"
For nearly an hour the sales continued, fed and famished
by the flow of passerby debarking from the trains hissing to a stop overhead.
After a while, we got into a conversation:
"Brother, you got to get with the Honorable Elijah
Muhammad, and stop following those devils like Marx and Lenin and ’em."
"Well, bro’—you should get with the Minister of Defense,
Huey P. Newton, and the Black Panther Party."
"You should follow a Black man, brother, not some Jews
like Marx and Lenin!"
"We revolutionaries, brother, and we study about
revolutionaries from around the world. We don’t care what race they is."
"I can see that, brother," glancing at a copy of The
Black Panther, pointing to a cover picture of an Asian, full-haired man. "Who is
that, brother?"
"That’s Kim Il-Sung, the leader of North Korea, and a
revolutionary."
"You see what I’m saying, brother? Here you go talking
‘bout another guy! He ain’t got nothin’ to say to Black people, brother!"
"Well, if that’s so, brother, why he in yo paper
Muhammad Speaks?"
"What you talkin’ bout, brother?" he asked, seemingly
stunned by the question.
I read and studied his paper quite regularly, for its
layout, news, and commentary, but I doubted if he ever read any of ours. This
seemed only logical for someone assigned to the East Coast Ministry of
Information office, and I remembered reading this week’s issue of Muhammad
Speaks.
"Check it out, brother, in yo international news
section."
In disbelief, he turned the pages until, sure enough, an
article appeared bearing a photo of Kim Il-Sung. He looked at it, and then
turned to me, smiling.
"Yes sir, brother. Yessir. Um-humm."
"And what we learned from him was the idea of Juche, a
Korean word that means self-reliance!"
Tahrir Muraba'. Juz' Ithnain
(Tahrir Square. Part Two)
[col. writ. 11/22/11
©'11 Mumla Abu-Jamal
In February of this year, I cautioned that the Egyptian
Rebellion at Tahrir Square in central Cairo, and the removal of former
President, Hosni Mubarak from power, was but a beginning, not an end, for
democracies cannot exist amidst military rule
(See: "Egypt: A Good Beginning ••• ".(2/12/11).
There can be one, or the other; but not both.
That lesson is being learned today as soldiers smash
Into protestors with blackjacks, kicks, punches--and open fire. Several dozen
Tahrir demonstrators have died in the past week.
So much for democracy.
From Mubarak's fall the military assumed the reins of
power; and power can be an addictive delicacy.
Once tasted, they don't want to give It up.
They now are unleashing violence against the people they
claim to represent. Violence, the State's attempt to cow the People back Into
submission.
What Is remarkable is the silence emanating from the
West; y'know, the same folks who rained fire on Libya because the late Col.
Muammar el-Kaddafy threatened to kill his people. Could it be because the U.S.
funds the Egyptian military. and is as content in using it against Egyptians as
it was when the Saudi military put the beat-down on the protestors in Bahrain?
Egyptian blood again flows onto Tahrir Square--this
time, only the leaders are different.
And a military dictatorship Is trying to consolidate
power right before our eyes--using the blood of its people as mortar.
(c) '11 maj
Whom Do They Represent?
[col. writ. 11/18/11 ©'11 Mumia Abu-Jamal
While the Occupy Movement has certainly drawn attention
to the discontent
roiling in the
depths of the American heart, they are a small percentage of those who have
chosen to hit the streets just as cold weather begins to grip many parts of the
nation.
And while it may be that their numbers and breadth (over
100--some say 1000 cities!) have been impressive, most people, even if they
agree wholeheartedly with many of their aims, have yet to take it to the
street--at least, not yet.
But who can deny that discontent with the economic
elites, and their political servants, is
According to recent polls, Congress garners the grudging
support of a mere 10% of Americans.
In a parliamentary system, used in most of Europe, such
abysmal levels of public support would have necessitated a no-confidence vote.
But here in the states, a rigid, sclerotic political system has become a prison,
and an obstruction to most of the people, and politicians openly, and proudly,
look to the nar
Think about that the next time you hear some neocon or
Tea Partier talk about the occupiers as "un-American."
The people are rightly pissed at politicians who are but
the paid puppets of the plutocracy.
While neo-Rome burns, they light up their imported
cigars with $100 bills.
The Managers of Money
Across the globe, financial fires are raging, burning
through national economies like the plague, turning everything it touches into
smoldering ashes.
This fire rose, perhaps most perilously, in the fall of
2008, as the U.S. economy took a precipitous tumble in the explosion of junk
mortgages which blew the bottom out of the housing markets.
Shortly thereafter, foreclosures (often filed and
processed in violation of law) closed millions of homes, sent people into
shelters or the streets to fend for themselves.
Those economic eruptions have rippled around the world,
causing havoc in a slew of nations, bringing their economies to the brink of
disaster. The political leaders, of whatever party, took energetic measures to
protect and defend the coffers of the wealthy, and granted them bundles of
bailout money.
They turned their attention to social programs, workers'
rights, and inflicted so-called austerity measures on the people, to extract
more from the poor, and working-class.
When the Greek politician, prime Minister George
Papandreou decided to hold a referendum on these measures, the rich countries
waged an all-out media war against him, driving him to resignation. And Greece,
the nation, we are told, where democracy was first practiced, is denied the
right to vote on its wages, its benefits, its hours worked, and its very future.
For 'the market' will decide. For, 'the market' has no time for democracy.
What Greece, and soon, Italy, demonstrates, is that
politicians kneel at the high altar of finance--and investors hold more power
than presidents and prime ministers.
Indeed, Europe distinguished itself in 1999, when it
launched the Euro--a single currency in Europe (with the exception of Britain).
However, when nations have no say in its currency, whether it rises, falls,
floats or stagnates, others will have say; say, investors.
Before such an international economic onslaught, which
squeezes a nation's economic aorta to bring it to heel, prime ministers are not
so primary.
Papandreou has bowed out, and Italy's rightwing rascal,
Silvio Berlusconi is on the ropes.
Historians Will and Ariel Durant in their 1968 work, The
Lessons of History, noted: " ••• the men who can manage men manage the men who
can manage only things, and the men who can manage money manage all" [p.54].
The descendants of Achilles and Odysseus; and of Caesar,
and Hadrian, bow to bankers.
© ’11 maj
Joe Frazier (1944-2011)
[col. writ. 11/11/11 ©'11 Mumia Abu-Jamal
His name was Joe Frazier, but to boxing fans, he was
known as 'Smokin' Joe', a fighter who was relentless in the ring, pressing his
opponent, bobbing and weaving, and lashing out with a wicked left-hook that
usually left his opponents dazed, if not unconscious.
The times and the fates conspired to place him in the
opposite corner against Muhammad Ali, one of the most dazzling fighters of his
generation, almost at the peak of his game.
When they fought in New York's Madison Square Garden in
1971, the whole nation took notice.
For one thing, the two fighters were to become the
best-paid prize fighters in boxing history. For another, Ali, having been
stripped of his boxing license for 3 years after refusing to join the Army and
fight in Vietnam, was perhaps the most famous boxer since Jack Johnson. Ali's
membership in the Nation of Islam (known as Black Muslims) also added to his
notoriety.
The AIi-Frazler battle was epic. Afterwards, Ali would
say the bout was the 'closest he ever came to death'.
But the fight took on a symbolic significance that far
outweighed the sport itself. Ali, as a Black Muslim, and outspokenly anti-war,
was an icon of the Left. The boxing establishment, the press, the system hated
him.
Frazier, ridiculed by Ali as an 'Uncle Tom', was the
darling of the pro-war Right. He was lionized by the media, and the white
majority.
And when he beat Ali, when he dazed him with that left
hook, the Right howled with glee, and the Left was crestfallen.
But his win never earned him the unofficial title of
'People's Champ'. While famous and well regarded in Philadelphia, Ali was loved
and adored, for his battles out of the ring.
The 2 men, even decades later, never truly reconciled,
and Ali's admiration, especially among Blacks, left a bitter taste in Frazier's
mouth.
In truth, both elevated the game to heights rarely seen
before, and seldom seen since.
And their fight was the closest to battle--without
firearms.
-© ’11maj
From State Pens to Penn state
[col. writ. 11/13/11] ©'11 Mumia Abu-Jamal
The shocking child sex scandal rocking Penn state
University in State College, Pa. is an explosion of almost nuclear proportions.
It has all the elements designed to produce a media
firestorm: fame, money, Illicit sex,deception--and yes, betrayal.
But the core of it is betrayal: of the country's deepest
religion--sports; and of those whom we claim to adore and revere the
most--children.
The scandal has shown how great wealth, fame and the
business of college sports corrupted everything and everyone, to keep the gravy
train rolling; and the Penn statefootball program was (and is) an extremely
lucrative gravy train, bringing in tens of millions of dollars in fees from TV,
advertising and sports paraphernalia sales.
Penn State University itself
is the biggest employer in State College, and is one of the biggest 10 colleges
in the U.S., with over 45,000 students.
The gravy here flowed thick and heavy.
And like other great, wealth-making and powerful
institutions, its sins were covered, so as not to rock the money-making boat.
It reminds us of the great scandals that shook the
foundations of the Catholic Church in the '90s, the ripples of which are still
with us.
They remind us that rape is about power--and sex is but
a tool of domination of the weak by the powerful.
That same dynamic is at work whether it's a man and a
woman; a priest and a child; or a coach and a boy.
But is it the same when it's two men? How about when one
man is a prison guard, and another is a prisoner?
When news leaked out several months ago that rapes were
widespread in the blocks of the state prison in Pittsburgh, Pa., the reaction
was largely local, mostly concentrated in Western Pennsylvania.
Here it has all the dynamics of the rape culture we've
discussed; powerful against powerless.
Indeed, in some respects it's more pronounced, for
systems are in place to protect women and children (whether they're followed or
not is another question), which necessitates hiding these things.
But in
prison, the indicted guard. Harry Nicoletti, allegedly used his power as
a state prison official to threaten men he raped
and abused with being sent to the ‘hole’ – and death if they told.
He reportedly ordered prisoners to contaminate food with
spit, urine and feces. He punched, slapped and spat on prisoners. He used racist
language with abandon.
And these things happened for years.
Schools, churches and prisons--institutions of immense
social power, exploiting, abusing and hurting the powerless--in the places which
seemingly attracts rapeholics.
[Source: The Pittsburgh-based Human Rights Coalition has been working this story, and related ones for the last several years. Their website: http://www.hrcoalltlon.org . /
What Do They Want?'
col. writ. 11/2/11 (c) '11 Mumla Abu-Jamal
With few exceptions, major
corporate outlets, networks, national newspapers and the like, have treated the
monthlong protests such as Occupy Wall Street as something akin to a UFO: odd,
allen and inscrutable.
From microphones nationwide come questions: "What
do they want?"; "What are their demands?";or, "Why are they doing this?"
By
so doing, they have spread more confusion than information, and performed a
serious disservice to their listeners, viewers and readers.
They have become
purveyors of misinformation, and are, at the very least, disingenuous.
For, the Occupation movement could not be more clear about their goals and
objectives. Indeed, within days of the demonstration's debut, they published a
4-page, full-color newspaper, called The Occupied Wall Street Journal, with a
statement on page 3 announcing exactly what brought them together, and why.
It's titled: "Declaration of the Occupation", which in language and tone rings
with similarities to the Declaration of Independence. It speaks of "solidarity"
with others, and seeks an end to the "mass injustice" being faced by millions of
Americans (and others) who "feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world."
In a nutshell, they speak out against corporate greed, Illegal foreclosures,
bailouts for Wall St., discrimination, exorbitant student loans, political
corruption, environmental degradation, the wars abroad--and the corporate
control of the media which "keeps people misinformed and fearful.
Huh.
There it is.
It ain't rocket science. It couldn't be clearer.
It's given away freely.
If media couldn't take the time to travel to
downtown Manhattan (or their own down towns in over a thousand cities!) to pick
up a copy, they could see it on their computer, at: occupywa!!st.org. __
Seriously.
Now, I don't have computer access. It's not only disallowed on
Death Row--It ain't In Pennsylvania prisons period.
Yet, a fellow mailed me a
copy of The Occupied Wall Street Journal. And I read It.
Why couldn't
reporters for major media outlets have done so?
Unless they wanted to "keep
people misinformed?"
The Power of Truth is Final -- Free
Mumia!
Audio of most of Mumia's essays are
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http://mumiapodcast.libsyn.com/
Get your copy of the new book by
Mumia and Marc Lamont Hill “The Classroom and The Cell:
Conversations on Black Life in America" at
http://twpbooks.com/catalog/theclassroomandthecell-p-208.html
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MUMIA ist nach SCI MAHANOY verlegt worden!
Datum: Donnerstag, 15. Dezember 2011 11:58
Hallo an alle,
Mumia ist nach SCI Mahanoy verlegt worden (siehe untere Nachricht
des
New Yorker Free Mumia Bündnisses). Er wird dort vermutlich auch in
den
"Normalvollzug" verlegt.
SCI Mahonoy ist in Pennsylvania.
Es wird gebeten, dort anzurufen, um den Behörden deutlich zu machen,
dass eine Weltöffentlichkeit auf Mumia achtet. Fragt bitte
allgemeine
Fragen, damit ihnen klar ist, dass sie nichts mit Mumia im
Verborgenen
machen können.
Tel: 001 -
570-773-2158
Mumias neue Adresse ist jetzt:
Mumia Abu-Jamal, #AM8335
SCI Mahanoy
301 Morea Road
Frackville, PA 17932
Viel Post an diese neue Adresse wird den Behörden ebenfalls
auffallen
sowie Mumia selbst natürlich freuen.
Auch für geplante Besuche ändern sich die Anträge. Weiteres in der
unteren Meldung.
Mit solidarischen Grüßen,
Berliner Free Mumia Bündnis
WE WHO
BELIEVE IN FREEDOM CAN *NOT* REST!!
Kontakt- & Diskussionsmöglichkeit