At 14:31 09/11/09 -0430, Paul Lefrak wrote: >I submit this mostly for comrades on the east coast of the U.S. who can >possibly make it to D.C. on Nov. 12 for a protest at the U.S. Department of >Justice demanding a civil rights investigation for Mumia Abu-Jamal. I would strongly endorse that suggestion, given the symbolic importance of Mumia's frame-up. I'd urge you to demonstrate for that reason alone, for there is essentially zero likelihood of the US government actually initiating a civil rights investigation on Mumia's behalf, which (if done fairly) would call for a reversal of his murder conviction (the federal government already acted to reverse his death sentence 8 years ago in order to insure that he remains and dies in prison without protests igniting around an actual execution. For accuracy I should note that an execution is still not ruled out in the case of a winning supreme court appeal by the prosecution or if so ordered by a new jury, though these are quite unlikely).
The article by Linn Washington included in this post is also very good and worth reading, but I must take issue with one paragraph: > >For weeks, Foxs popular Glenn Beck bashed Jones for supporting efforts to >free a communist cop killer irrespective of the fact that Abu-Jamal is >not a communist and card carrying communists never reference Abu-Jamal as a >member of their movement. Ahem. Of course I don't want to get into questions of semantics and above all I realize that the list archives are indexed by Google and read by the right wing. Labels aren't very important in themselves, but suffice it to say that Mumia has written hundreds of editorial pieces which decry not only racism and police brutality (of which he was a victim), but he writes eloquently against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, imperialism (in its economic, political, as well as military aspects), and of suffering caused by the capitalist economic system. He supports labor, women's rights and gay rights. He speaks highly of the revolutions in Cuba, Vietnam, Algeria etc. I could go on. Linn Washington's quip may have played well to the intended audience of his publication, but you can well delete it from the article and read it again. (I'll also forgive his ignorant reference to "card carrying communists"). Mumia was framed because of his political clarity and ability to communicate such views to a mass audience as a journalist. That's why his frame-up is of such importance, and the importance of publicizing his plight hardly needs further explanation. - Jeff ________________________________________________ YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. Send list submissions to: [email protected] Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
