Thanks Alan.
Chilling memories. For three years, 1983-86, I lived in West Philly - at
one point a few blocks from the MOVE house. The woman I rented a room
from there, the extraordinary community, education and anti-apartheid
organizer Catherine Blunt, knew the activists in MOVE and was
sympathetic to their cause even though their political agenda was fuzzy
and their lifestyle bordered on hermit-style myth-making that repeatedly
raised the neighbors' ire. (Three years later, I moved to Zimbabwe and
then South Africa.)
The role of Wilson "No Good" Goode in all this was so revealing, as a
corporate neoliberal who let both financial-property capital and the
authoritarian Philly cops (recently led by Frank Rizzo) direct him away
from his roots. It certainly prepared me well for understanding the
foibles of ZANU(PF) and the ANC; e.g. respectively, Operation
Murambatsvina which - in Harare and other cities in 2005 - entailed cops
tearing down informal or somewhat illegal housing structures, leaving
700,000 people displaced; and the Marikana Massacre of 2012 in which
SA's current president wrote an email to the police minister insisting
that his company - Lonmin - was besieged by 'dastardly criminals' (i.e.,
platinum miners engaged in a wildcat strike, seeking $1000/month pay for
arduous, dangerous rock-drill operators), a central factor in the cops'
decision to break up the strike 24 hours later, leaving 34 mineworker
corpses.
Good to see that BLM activists aren't letting up on Goode's legacy
<https://whyy.org/articles/protesters-press-city-to-remove-street-sign-for-former-philly-mayor-goode-citing-move-bombing/>
notwithstanding his apology.
On 11/14/2020 5:24 AM, Alan Ginsberg wrote:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/13/us/philadelphia-bombing-apology-move.html
<https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/13/us/philadelphia-bombing-apology-move.html>
35 Years After MOVE Bombing That Killed 11, Philadelphia Apologizes
...
“The plan to bomb the MOVE house was reckless, ill-conceived and
hastily approved,” the commission’s report said in 1986. “Dropping a
bomb on an occupied rowhouse was unconscionable and should have been
rejected out-of-hand.”
“The hasty, reckless and irresponsible decision by the police
commissioner and the fire commissioner to use the fire as a tactical
weapon was unconscionable,” the report added.
The deaths of 11 people, six adults and five children, in the police
action were classified as “unjustified homicides.”
Police Commissioner Gregore J. Sambor, who directed the aerial
bombing, resigned
<https://www.nytimes.com/1985/11/14/us/head-of-philadelphia-police-quits-in-wake-of-furor-over-bombing.html>
in November 1985. A grand jury in 1988 cleared
<https://www.nytimes.com/1988/05/04/us/grand-jury-clears-everyone-in-fatal-philadelphia-siege.html>
Mayor W. Wilson Goode and other top city officials of criminal
liability for death and destruction resulting from the operation.
In an op-ed published
<https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/may/10/when-i-was-mayor-philadelphia-bombed-civilians-its-time-for-the-city-to-apologise>
by The Guardian on May 10, Mr. Goode, the former mayor, called on the
city to issue a formal apology for the attack. “I apologize and
encourage others do the same,” Mr. Goode wrote. “We will be a better
city for it.”
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