SECTION FOURTEEN
sm
COLUMN
FIFTY-FOUR, DECEMBER 1, 2000
(Copyright © 2000 Al Aronowitz)
AM I STILL HERE?
Subject:
just checking...
Date: Wed, 16 Aug 2000 18:07:10 -0400
From: Denise Locke <dlocke@bestweb.net>
To: info@blacklistedjournalist.com
Hello
Mr. A.,
I
would like to send you a long letter regarding the fact that your columns on the
Woodstock Festival and the Isle of Wight are the most fascinating, entertaining,
and enjoyable writings I have ever read on the subject of Bob Dylan (and I've
read a lot about Dylan). I am hesitating only because I've just read your
'request for manuscripts' in which you say you will post another column every
month, and I see that the last one was posted in October of '99, so I'm
wondering if you're still there and reading emails before I go off on a tangent
of praise and encouragement and begging for more. I've read a few of the other
columns also, and intend to read them all as soon as time permits. So if you
could just assure me that you are there, I could get started, if you don't mind.
Having read your 'Heart Attack High', I hope you have fully recovered from both
the cookie and the attack. Kudos on your contribution to the A&E biography
on Dylan.
Best
wishes,
Dee Locke
P.S.
* * *
MORE G.O.P. BULLSHIT
Subject:
[BLACKJ] Al Gore and the Internet: Not Just Another Urban Legend
Date: Mon, 04 Sep 2000 03:17:15 -0500
From: Jules Siegel <siegel@cafecancun.com>
Reply-To: BLACKJ@egroups.com
To: BLACKJ@egroups.com
That
Al Gore, he's quite a character, claiming that he invented the Internet, isn't
he? It's an urban legend, but not the way you might guess. He never said it. Not
only that, but he has every right to brag about his role in legislating the
development of the Internet.
According
to the Republican National Committee attack ad, Gore's claim is yet another
deplorable example of his shifty character. To the pundits, the TV spot means
George Bush Jr. can't run a clean campaign.
When
it comes to Al Gore and the Internet, however, the GOP commercial is 100% horse
puckey. He's the guy who did the most to put the Web on your kitchen table.
Gore
never claimed that he invented the Internet. He said, "During my service in
the U.S. Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet." This
just happens to be absolutely true. When most politicians still thought a byte
was an example of how Johnny couldn't spell, Al Gore already had a complete
vision of computers connecting to computers for the benefit of mankind.
In
March, 1986, he sponsored the Supercomputer Network Study Act, a plan to
"Libraries,
rural schools, minority institutions and vocational education
At
the time, what is now the Internet had only just begun to evolve from a Defense
Department project called Arpanet, started in 1969 to try to make sure key
computer installations would function even after a nuclear attack. By 1986,
access to the network was mostly limited to government facilities and academic
institutions -- some 5,000 computer hosts in all.
"Back
in the '80s, Mr. Gore was the only national political figure who understood what
the Internet could mean to America's future...when Apple still didn't even have
e-mail," wrote Internet pioneer Jaron Lanier (who invented the term
"virtual reality") in a letter published in the Washington Post April
21, 1999.
In
1991, then-Senator Gore introduced the High Performance Computing Act.
Reluctantly signed into law by President Bush, who favored a more gradual
The
very term "information superhighway" first came to public notice in
the
Despite
this very well-documented history, news reports fail to mention that the Bush
commercial is a fake, just like so many other stories that portray the Vice
President as self-invented.
Gore
never said that he and Tipper were models for the main characters in Eric
Segal's novel Love Story. He referred to an article in The Tennessean
attributing the statement to Segal -- erroneously, as it turned out. Then Segal
confirmed that he did draw on Gore for a principal character. Still the story
refuses to die.
Gore
never claimed that he discovered the Love Island disaster. The story was faked
in a press release widely distributed by the Republican National Committee.
Robert
Parry explained in Washington Monthly that Gore told a group of Concord, N.H.,
high school students that a girl from Toone, Tenn., had complained to him about
toxic waste pollution. He investigated, held Congressional hearings, looked for
other examples and came up with Love Canal.
Toone
"was the one that started it all," Gore said. The GOP changed this to
"I started it all." Unscrupulous right wing publications such as the
Washington Times and the New York Post picked this up, and national media called
Gore "delusional" "a liar," "Pinocchio,"
Parry says.
David
Letterman jumped in with "Top 10 Achievements Claimed by Al Gore." The
Concord kids, outraged by the way Gore's remarks were twisted, issued their own
press release: "Top 10 Reasons Why Many Concord High Students Feel Betrayed
by Some of the Media Coverage of Al Gore's Visit to Their School."
Oh,
sure, those naughty Republicans are playing dirty by making personal attacks.
That's a story. But it's a fact that Gore didn't lie at all, and that the
ridicule is based on false reports spread by the Republican National Committee
and its gullible media allies.
--
JULES
SIEGEL Apdo 1764 Cancun Q. Roo 77501
http://www.cafecancun.com Fax1.530.706.8739 Tel 1-52-98 83-36-29
*
* *
JOURNALIST MURDERED IN MOSCOW
Subject:
[Fwd: Fw: [creative-radio] Radio Liberty Reporter murdered in Moscow]
Date: Thu, 28 Sep 2000 12:10:40 -0600
From: Cordley Coit <l.corazon@prodigy.net>
Organization: Rocky Mountain Media Collective
To: John QUinn <hawk_news@yahoo.com>
So
it looks like Putin is working out fine for our masters. Sounds like he met a
FOB. We need something on the tech warriors, those high tech security firms that
handle everything from writers to rival .coms
to small republics. Cordley
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject:
Fw: [creative-radio] Radio Liberty Reporter murdered in Moscow
Date: Thu, 28 Sep 2000 08:57:24 -0600
From: Cordley G Coit <cordleycoit@juno.com>
To: L.corazon@prodigy.net
---------
Forwarded message ----------
From:
"George(s) Lessard" <media@web.net>
To: creative-radio@egroups.com
Date: Wed, 27 Sep 2000 21:26:24 -0500
Subject: [creative-radio] Radio Liberty Reporter murdered in Mosco
--------------------------------------
Radio
Liberty Reporter murdered in Moscow
-----------------------------------------
On
Friday Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) reporter Iskandr Khatloni was
attacked in his Moscow apartment by an unknown, axe-wielding assailant.
Mr
Khatloni was struck twice in the head, according to the Moscow bureau of RFE/RL.
He then stumbled onto the street and collapsed, to be found later by a passerby.
Mr Khatloni died later that night in Moscow's Botkin Hospital. Local police have
opened a murder investigation.
Mr
Khatloni had worked since 1996 as a Moscow-based journalist for the Tajik
service of the US-funded RFE/RL, which beams daily news programming to
Tajikistan.
A
RFE/RL spokeswoman said Friday that at the time of his death, Mr. Khatloni was
known to be working on stories about the Russian military's human-rights abuses
in Chechnya. The topic is controversial in Russia; earlier this year a senior
official in Russia's Media Ministry announced that RFE/RL was “hostile to our
state”.
Source:
http://www.cpj.org/news/2000/Russia22sept00na.html - Committee to
-----------------------------
Media
News is archived at <http://www.ejc.nl/mn/searchnews.asp>
Visit
the European Journalism Centre website at <http://www.ejc.nl> for
*
* *
QUESTION
Subject:
Allen Ginsberg and the beatniks
Date: Wed, 13 Sep 2000 10:20:40 -0200
From: danielle_sales.consultant@peoplesoft.com
To: blackj@bigmagic.co
Dear
Al Aronowitz,
My
name is Danielle, I'm a student of Translation/Interpretation – English
language - here in Brazil.
Nowadays,
I am doing my conclusion work at college and it is about Ginsberg and his poem
'Howl'. I will try to tell the beat's history through this poem.
As
I have seen your pages on the Internet, I would like to ask you some help. Do
you know any book or Internet page that contains analysis of 'Howl'?
Thanks
in advance,
Danielle
Sales ##
ANSWER
Subject:
Re: Allen Ginsberg and the beatniks
Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2000 07:00:24 -0400
From: al aronowitz <info@blacklistedjournalist.com>
Organization: THE BLACKLISTED JOURNALIST
To: danielle_sales.consultant@peoplesoft.com
CC: "Rosevalley@aol.com" <Rosevalley@aol.com>
DANIELLE:
I suggest you contact Bob Rosenthal, Allen's long-time secretary
--
Al
Aronowitz
THE BLACKLISTED JOURNALIST
http://www.bigmagic.com/pages/blackj
##
* * *
FROM THE (SOA) SONS OF AFRIKA LIST
1. G.O.P. WARS ON NATIVE AMERICANS
Subject:
[soa] [ndn-aim] Democrats, Indians denounce GOP plan seeking to ban Tribal
Governments
Date: Sun, 09 Jul 2000 05:57:01 -0700
From: "Claudia K White" <msdarkstar@mailcity.com>
Organization: MailCity (http://www.mailcity.lycos.com:80)
To: MainLineNews@egroups.com, Bay_Area_Activist@egroups.com, soa@egroups.com
Date:
Sat, 8 Jul 2000 20:06:24 -0700
From: "Lona" <kikipuppy@mindspring.com>
Subject: Democrats, Indians denounce GOP plan seeking to ban tribal
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2000/07/08/sta
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Democrats, Indians denounce GOP plan seeking to ban tribal
MICHELLE DeARMOND, Associated Press Writer
Saturday, July 8,
Breaking News Sections
--------------------------------------------------------------------
(07-08) 17:25 PDT LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Outraged by a GOP effort in
Washington state to abolish tribal governments and a threat by one party
The move to abolish tribal governments passed quietly last month
The resolution calls on the federal government to terminate tribal
governments as unconstitutional because reservation residents who are non-Indian
can't vote in tribal elections.
Tribal governments are self-governing sovereign entities with a
goverment-to-goverment relationship with the U.S. government.
The California Democratic Party Native American Caucus passed its own
resolution Friday denouncing the Washington state GOP's resolution, and the
general assembly meeting Saturday in Los Angeles approved it. It was co-authored
by Chairman Art Torres and Frank LaMere, a vice chair of the Nebraska Democratic
Party and member of the Winnebago tribe there.
``It is an outrage. I call upon the Republican National Committee to
publicly repudiate the wayward and blatantly racist actions of the Washington
Republican party,'' LaMere said.
``It is divisive to even speak of turning our military against our own.
That's what they have done in Washington and they need to be ashamed,'' said
LaMere, who lost a brother in the Vietnam War.
LaMere and California tribal leaders are trying to generate support from
other politicians across the country in denouncing the Washington state GOP
resolution. A Republican National Committee spokesperson did not immediately
have a reaction Saturday, but Democrats and Republicans alike have said they
doubt the Washington resolution would make it into the national GOP platform.
The resolution's main author has said he wants party delegates to try to
insert a similar measure into the national GOP platform and threatened to use
the U.S. military to battle any tribes who would fight an abolition of their
governments.
Washington GOP officials have been unable to explain how they
intended to carry out the resolution, and calls left for officials
Saturday were not immediately returned. The main author of the resolution, John
Fleming, has been unavailable for further comment. He did not immediately return
a phone call Saturday.
Fleming lives within the Swinomish Reservation in Washington, but is a
non-Indian, and is active in organizations opposing treaty rights. The
resolution comes amid growing controversy there over reservation rules affecting
non-Indians, ranging from hunting privileges to liquor sales.
Despite skepticism that Fleming's resolution has much likelihood of
getting national support, California Indians don't want to leave anything to
chance. They already are calling on politicians and writing letters about the
resolution.
``I couldn't believe it that in the year 2000 that this type of racist
attitude was able to get the support,'' said Mary Ann Andreas, Morongo tribal
chairwoman. ``I would be horrified to find out that these people knew'' what
they were doing.
Beth Jensen, chairwoman of the Washington state GOP platform committee,
has said the Fleming resolution was barely discussed and admitted
LaMere scoffed at suggestions ignorance might explain the party's
actions.
``Involvement in the political process and in all those processes that
govern our lives requires commitment and total attention. If they can't do the
job right, they should not embark upon the endeavor at all,'' he said. ``There
was reckless disregard. They can't hide from that fact.''
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxox
Web
Read Main Line News:
http://www.egroups.com/messages/MainLineNews
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox
Claudia
White~Main Line News~Human & Civil Rights Campaign Internationale'
Free Mumia Abu
Jamal~Free All Political Prisoners~End the Drug War!
Stop the US Bombing of Vieques & use of depleted uranium!
http://www.angelfire.com/ut/Angel1
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo
Pray
for the Dine'h and traditional Hopi at Big Mountain, AZ, USA.
http://members.xoom.com/senaa/HomePage.html
UN draft declaration on the rights of Indigenous Peoples, Article 10:
"Indigenous Peoples shall not be forcibly removed from their lands or
territories. No relocations shall take place without the free and in-
formed consent of the Indigenous Peoples concerned ....(...)........."
>See
the video "Vanishing Prayers" at: http://www.freespeech.org/senaa<
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo
Send
FREE Greetings for Father's Day--or any day!
Click here: http://www.whowhere.lycos.com/redirects/fathers_day.rdct
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Best
friends, most artistic, class clown Find 'em here:
http://click.egroups.com/1/5533/0/_/30504/_/963173056/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
FEAR
OF A BLACK PLANET IS REAL....... ##
* * *
2. A VISIT WITH MUMIA
Subject:
[soa] [MainLineNews] A death row visit with Mumia Abu-Jamal - by Jeff Mackler
Date: Wed, 12 Jul 2000 20:30:03 -0700
From: "Claudia K White" <msdarkstar@mailcity.com>
Organization: MailCity (http://www.mailcity.lycos.com:80)
To: soa@egroups.com, rites@listbot.com, sonsofafrika@listbot.com
---------
Forwarded Message ---------
DATE:
Wed, 12 Jul 2000 17:34:07
From: "Claudia K. White" <msdarkstar1@angelfire.com>
To: <snip>
---------
Forwarded Message --------
DATE:
Wed, 12 Jul 2000 20:15:56
From: Mark Clement <MClement@bruderhof.com>
To:
Greetings
Mumia Supporters!
The
following is an article recently written by one of the Mobe's co-coordinators,
Jeff Mackler.
_________________________________________________
A
death row visit with Mumia Abu-Jamal
By
Jeff Mackler
The
misnamed Progress Drive, a quarter mile long road an hour's drive east from
Pittsburgh, PA. dead ends at State Correctional Institute (SCI) Greene, the
super-modern prison where innocent death row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal resides.
Caged 23 hours daily in a tiny cell for the past 19 years at Greene and
elsewhere, Mumia appeared to me in the best of humor. A unique and shining
example of an individual whose gentle revolutionary spirit has enabled him to
face down two execution orders and pursue an inspiring uphill battle for his
life and the lives of all the oppressed and exploited, Mumia greeted my upraised
hands on the impenetrable Plexiglas barrier between us, by placing, "high
five" style his handcuffed palms on mine with a smile as broad and warm as
one could imagine.
"Mumia,
you look fantastic," I said in earnest as his eyes greeted mine with
enthusiasm and instant friendship. "You need to lose some weight
Jeff," he answered with a hearty laugh in response to my unflattering
paunch, an all too obvious component of my persona.
I
was the guest of the Bruderhof Community the day before my June 12 two hour and
ten minute visit with Mumia in Waynesburg, Pennsylvania. The Bruderhofs,
associated with the Hutterite faith until some five years ago, live in a gentle,
loving, and highly political religious-based utopian village of 400 members at
New Meadow Run in Farmington, PA. The faith of this 4,000 person religious and
cooperative endeavor (with associated villages nearby as well as in New York
state and other nations) stems from a vision of the meaning of Jesus Christ that
some would compare to the early utopian socialist experiments in Europe and the
U.S.
Bruderhof's
respected minister, Steve Wiser, like me, serves as one of the
Nestled
in Western Pennsylvania's lush mountainous pine forests, deep in the state's
former coal country, many of Bruderhof's social activists are active opponents
of the death penalty, racial and social injustice, U.S. intervention, and the
murderous sanctions imposed on Iraq. Far from a reclusive sect, they send
delegations to learn about politics in nations from Cuba to Nigeria. When Mumia
was transferred to SCI Greene some five years ago, Wiser and the Bruderhofs made
his freedom a focal point of their work.
SCI
Greene, midway between the rural Bruderhof community and urban Pittsburgh,
strikes one immediately as a bizarre place. Surrounded by high chain link fences
topped with rows of fearsome razor wire, it is from a visitor's vantagepoint, an
immaculate institution whose every inch is planned for maximum security, human
repression, and in many instances, death.
Before
entering the visitor waiting area, I was given precise instructions as to my
conduct, including prohibited possessions, (pen, pencil, paper, camera, video
and taping material, etc.) and then subjected to a guard monitoring an
unfamiliar machine that detects minute amounts of illegal drugs. Failure to pass
this test results in exclusion from the prison I was informed. While a written
flyer explains that Greene's policy is aimed at a "drug free" prison,
the obvious impossibility of any visitor passing a package of illegal material
through the massive sheet of plexiglas that separated my visitor's cubicle from
Mumia's was striking.
Waiting
room visitors were treated to a display case featuring trophies won by SCI
Greene guards in inter-prison guard baseball, bowling, golf and other sports
competition. The guards, however, entered and left the waiting room's
multi-locked steel doors unimpeded, including drug tests.
In
short order, I was called to begin a near quarter-mile sojourn through what
seemed an endless series of massive sliding doors that opened as I approached
only to clang shut and lock behind me whereupon I had to await the opening of
the next door some ten feet farther. This echoing steel and plexiglas tunnel
finally opened into yet another visitor holding room where I was scrutinized by
yet another security guard who, a the third time, checked my papers and directed
me to a numbered cubicle where I awaited Mumia's entry.
With
access to CNN cable television, Mumia was intensely aware of the current raging
controversy over the death penalty brought to national attention in June by the
1973-95 Columbia University Liebman study that demonstrated that some 68 percent
of appealed death row sentences were reversed based on police wrongdoing,
"prosecutorial suppression of evidence that the defendant was
innocent," and "egregiously incompetent counsel." While Liebman's
work, unintentionally, of course, served to highlight key elements of Mumia's
trial, the national headlines it provoked became inseparable from the fight for
Shaka Sankofa's life.
Mumia
expressed his deep appreciation of the fact that the case of Sankofa had been
given the full attention of his supporters. Indeed, in the month before Texas
Governor George Bush Jr. murdered the innocent Sankofa on June 22, Mumia
solidarity groups across the nation took this lesser known case to the attention
of millions, thereby extracting a political price from the state power that
stole Sankofa's life. Shaka died with dignity, purpose, and pride knowing that a
renewed movement against the racist and classist death penalty was on the rise.
The
broad support Mumia had won for his own case was readily transferred to the
effort to save Sankofa's life as organizations ranging from the European
Parliament and the Japanese Diet demanded that Sankofa's execution be stopped.
Mumia, whose tribute to Sankofa had been widely disseminated, was delighted that
the compelling evidence of Sankofa's innocence, banned from jury and court
examination by technical time limits approved by the Supreme Court, had
compelled The New York Times and other major media to take up the case and
question the legitimacy of the impending execution.
I
learned that Mumia had recently earned a Masters degree and that his thesis
dissertation was on the Black Panther Party. Mumia, a former Panther himself,
was acutely aware of the intense and illegal government pressures on the
Panthers as well as the critical internal disputes and disagreements over
political orientation that contributed to its eventual decline and demise.
Similarly, he expressed a passionate concern in regard to the current state of
the movement for Black liberation today. We spent considerable time exchanging
ideas and information about this subject.
Books
on history, Mumia noted, constituted the core of his reading list. No
doubt, Mumia was widely read and saw the lessons of history as an
indispensable guide to today's social struggles.
He
was inspired by works such as C.L.R. James' "Black Jacobins," the
account of the successful Haitian slave revolt in the mid-1790s against the
French government of Napoleon Bonaparte. Led by the fifty year old slave,
Touisaint L'Overture, the liberation army of Haiti's oppressed defeated
successive attempts by the world's most powerful military force to suppress the
Haitian rebellion.
Mumia
expressed a particular interest in the political background of C.L.R. James, the
American revolutionary socialist and brilliant orator who, unknown to Mumia,
spent many years as a leader of the Socialist Workers Party.
The
works on Malcolm X by another former SWP leader, George Breitman, had also found
their way onto Mumia's reading list. He was particularly impressed with
Breitman's work, "The Last Year of Malcolm X: The Evolution of a
Revolutionary," an important work that traced Malcolm's views on the key
issues facing the Black liberation movement of the 1960s.
We
spent time exchanging ideas about the political orientation, affiliation and
evolution of a number of today's historians and political writers, including
those above. Mumia's essential modesty was ever present. When he was unfamiliar
with any aspect of a subject I inquired about, he immediately asked for
additional information.
I
should not have been surprised to learn that Mumia was unfamiliar with many of
the accomplishments of the broad solidarity movement that had arisen in his
defense. While often aware of the general outlines of this work, he delighted in
the details, as with the recent successful student efforts at Antioch College
and the University of California at Santa Cruz to mobilize campus support to
include Mumia as a graduation speaker. In these instances, as with others of a
similar nature, Mumia's role was to graciously accept the invitation to prepare
an audio tape to the graduating class, labor conference, or other event where
his voice was requested. But he was largely unaware of the magnificent efforts
of so many people to bring these events to fruition. "Jeff," he said,
perhaps to emphasize his desire to hear more from his supporters, "I
probably know some ten percent of what's happening out there."
Mumia
often focused on the central importance of today's youth in the coming struggles
that he saw developing in the U.S., from the new battles for civil and
democratic rights to the inevitable struggles of working people to reinvigorate
the labor movement. He marveled at the role of youth in the WTO and IMF protests
in Seattle and Washington, D.C. and was especially impressed with the prospect
of labor's rank and file taking action in their own interests. He made a special
point to emphasize his interest in and delight at learning from many sources
about the emergence of high school age youth in many of today's developing
social struggles.
I
asked Mumia for his impressions of the many prominent people who had visited him
in prison to express their solidarity. He was especially impressed with the
visits of Alice Walker and Ossie Davis, two individuals who have made great
efforts to bring Mumia's case to the attention of the broader audiences they
influence.
In
both instances, however, Mumia was more interested in the character of these
individuals, in their political insights and lifelong commitment to social
justice, and in their work as artists and writers, than he was with their
advocacy of his personal struggle. He judged them as equals, as real human
beings who were part of the same struggle he was. In this regard, Mumia appeared
to me more as an unusually modest and dedicated participant in the struggle for
human liberation as opposed to a man preoccupied with his own grave situation.
And
like the best of the activists I have known, he had the capacity to see humor in
the darkest situation. As we meandered through one subject after another Mumia
periodically burst into an infectious laughter that lit up his entire face and
animated his body. He was able to step out of the daily misery state power had
subjected him to and appreciate and marvel at the beauty of those special
moments when the ruling rich exposed their baseness in all its crudity,
shallowness, and hypocrisy.
Mumia
was pleased to learn that the Cuban government had decided to devote a special
television presentation to his case and to the related issues of police
brutality and the prison industrial complex in the U.S. His chief legal counsel
Leonard Weinglass, and the central organizer of his national defense, and
closest associate, Pam Africa, had been invited to Havana for a June 18
broadcast on the popular Cuban television program, "Roundtable." Also
joining the show were other national coordinators of Mumia's defense including
Monica Moorehead of the International Action Center.
I
explained to Mumia that I was also invited to participate in the program but was
unable to attend for personal reasons. The Cubans insisted, however, that I
participate via a phone hook-up. I accepted their invitation.
When
I explained that I felt compelled to turn down the Cuban invitation to travel to
Cuba to speak on Mumia's case because I had promised to attend my son's
university graduation, Mumia immediately signaled his understanding. He is a
parent himself who understood all too well the pressures on political people to
too often subordinate personal and family considerations for urgent political
purposes. As most proud parents do, we exchanged stories about our kids and
shared the joys of seeing them grow up with loving hearts and a dedication to
social justice.
Mumia
was a partisan of the struggle of the Cuban people for the return of Elian
Gonzales. Cuba was a special place for Mumia, not just because it was the only
nation whose government was actively concerned with his fate, but because of
Cuba's unique position in the world revolutionary movement as a nation that had
not abandoned its revolutionary optimism and commitment to its original
principles.
When
I told Mumia about the success of the April 29 Berkeley (California)
Mumia
was pleased to learn of the details of the massive nationally coordinated
marches and rallies of last April and May including of the 6,000 people who
mobilized in New York City's Madison Square Garden Theater, the 6,000 who
marched in San Francisco a week or so later on May 13 and the myriad of protests
that took place in some 70 countries on the same day on his behalf. Again,
however, he was pleased to be sure, but more so as a participant in the success
of a growing social movement that is capable of challenging injustice on all
fronts than as an individual recipient of respect across the globe.
Mumia
is a man with an incredible warmth and modesty. He has a laughter that touched
me deeply, an intense interest in ideas, old and new, and an unflagging
revolutionary confidence in today's fighters to win his freedom and to change
the world for the benefit of all.
As
our two hour visit drew to a close when a loudspeaker signaled the end of my
visit, we joked about and planned what we would do upon his release. We agreed
on the long walks in freedom we would take, the special dinners we would share
with friends old and new and the far away places Mumia would like to visit.
It
was a visit with a stranger that was like having a best friend in one's home.
Mumia Abu-Jamal is the stuff that revolutionary fighters are made of. When we
win his freedom, we will have liberated a precious addition to our struggle and
we will have recaptured our own freedom as well.
[Jeff
Mackler is a National Coordinator of Mumia's defense and the Co-Coordinator of
the Northern California-based Mobilization to Free Mumia
Abu-Jamal.]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox
Claudia
White~Main Line News~Human & Civil Rights Campaign Internationale'
Free Mumia Abu Jamal~Free All Political Prisoners~End the Drug War!
Stop the US Bombing of Vieques & Global Genocide of Indigenous Peoples. Web
Read complete archives@
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo
Pray
for the Dine'h and traditional Hopi at Big Mountain, AZ, USA.
http://members.xoom.com/senaa/HomePage.html
UN draft declaration on the rights of Indigenous Peoples, Article 10:
"Indigenous Peoples shall not be forcibly removed from their lands or
territories. No relocations shall take place without the free and in-
formed consent of the Indigenous Peoples concerned ....(...)........."
>See the video "Vanishing Prayers" at: http://www.freespeech.org/senaa<
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