MUMIA for PRESIDENT!

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MUMIA in 2008!

Mumia, MOVE, and Michael Vick

Two noteworthy radio pieces overlap in interesting ways:

In Mumia's latest Prison Radio broadcast, he addresses the fanatic outcry over Uncle Sam's conspiracy charges against Michael Vick. He notes the the striking contrast between the Vanilla Sam's venom towards Vick and the apathy over the brutal bombing of the MOVE headquarters on 13 May 1985, when Philadelphia's Pigs used C4, tear gas, explosives, and more than 10,000 rounds of ammunition to murder 11 men, women, and babies - along with several dogs.

The second interview features Ramona Africa, the only surviving adult member of the MOVE bombing. She gives an historical background to the attacks on her family beginning with the capture and frame-up of 9 MOVE members in 1978, when the Philadelphia Pigs assaulted the MOVE headquarters for the first time.

In different ways, both of these interviews illuminate the ongoing struggle for freedom on Uncle Sam's Plantation. They are both worth your time.

RELEASE the MOVE 9!
OnaMOVE!!

A Belated Congratulations to Barry Bonds

Despite being huge sports fans, we at Savage Justice recognize their chief value lies for the ruling order in their ability to distract and propagandize the masses, thereby making them easier to manipulate and control.

Lacking the patience of Dave Zirin (author of What's My Name, Fool? and Welcome to the Terrordome), who has entered full-boar into the lion's den and taken on the most reactionary elements of the Athletic Supporting Industry, we ordinarily opt for other issues and causes. But here, we make an exception.

Zirin's work has shown that just as sports can serve as a safe-haven for nationalistic barbarism, it can also act as a catalyst for revolutionary growth and education.

Which brings us to the instructive case of Mr. Bonds.

Bonds is unquestionably the best baseball player - and perhaps the best athlete - of the modern age. No player has parlayed his skill-set into results with Bonds's devastating success. His combination of power and speed, his selective eye, his defense, and his competitive fire - evidenced by both his longevity and his consistency - make him, without question, the best player anyone under 33 years old has ever witnessed.

So why, rather than lauding his accomplishments, has the Athletic Supporting Industry attacked Bonds with such vitriol?

The claim, of course, is that Bonds cheated... that he used steroids.

This is simply smoke & mirrors. The assertions of Bonds's guilt have no foundation in either fact or law. Rather they are based on grand jury testimony illegally leaked to reporters from the San Francisco Chronicle by attorneys for the steroid-maker BALCO.

The leaks, in other words, were a criminal conspiracy by Uncle Sam and steroid-makers primarily to indict Bonds, preventing him from breaking the record. Secondarily, they used the unsubstantiated accusations, treated as fact, to attack him in the media.

On the first count, they failed miserably. But their success in using steroid-lobby propaganda to taint Bonds's achievement is unquestionable. The failed conspiracy to prevent Bonds's run only heightened the rhetoric and exacerbated the degree to which the Athletic Supporting Industry disregards even the pretense of due process.

Vanilla Justice strikes again!

Ignoring facts, Vanilla Sam has opted to use the self-interested and self-righteous accusations of steroid-makers to justify their on-air lynching of Bonds. So much for the anti-steroid crusade!

But of course their assault on Bonds has nothing to do with racism

Of course!

I mean, some of Bud Selig & BALCO's best friends are Black!

Right?

Just as Uncle Sam's system of Vanilla Justice uses trumped-up chargers and baseless accusations to frame and lock-up the innocent every day, the Athletic Supporting Industry has use the fabricated steroid accusations against Bonds to delegitimize his historic accomplishment.

In other words, the 'steroids' canard provides cover for White Supremacy.

In a piece entitled "Home Runs, Heroes and Hypocrisy: Performance Enhancement in Black and White," well-known activist Tim Wise cuts to pieces the hypocrisy of an Athletic Supporting Industry that deifies the "Good Old Days" of Jim Crow Baseball, contrasting it with their sanctimonious crusade against Bonds.

Fundamentally, Wise asks, "how can white Americans call for Bonds to have his records marred by an asterisk, while continuing to revere the records and performances of their white baseball heroes of eras past - folks with names like DiMaggio, Williams, Ruth and Cobb - who benefited from a much greater 'performance enhancement' than that which steroids can provide: namely, the racist exclusion of black athletes from the major leagues?"

It's the perfect question. Wise continues:

From 1887, when blacks were run out of white-dominated professional baseball leagues, until 1947, when Jackie Robinson first stepped onto a field for the Brooklyn Dodgers, every white baseball player for six decades had been protected from black competition. And protection from competition is the most profound form of artificial performance enhancement imaginable...

All of the records set by white players prior to 1947 are tainted. Any time that someone is protected from competition (be that someone an athlete or a corporation), the one who is protected gets to shine, without having to prove themselves against the full range of possible talent. Barry Bonds, on the other hand, even if juiced by steroids, had to compete against the best (many of whom were no doubt also using such medicinal enhancements), and as such, enjoyed far less of a relative boost in his career than white players did for nearly half of the twentieth century.

After making this point with compelling clarity, Wise wisely anticipates the Vanilla Sam's time-tested caveat:

Confronted with the argument that maybe Williams, DiMaggio, and especially Babe Ruth wouldn't have been as good, had they been required to play against black players, most white folks fall back on what they consider their trump card, which, to them seems to differentiate the performance enhancement of steroids from the performance enhancement of white privilege and institutionalized favoritism. Namely, they suggest, Barry Bonds broke the rules, while Ruth and company merely played within the boundaries of the rules, as they existed at the time...

But there are several things about this argument that are wrong, illogical, or ethically indefensible. To begin with, during the period of Bonds' steroid use, there was actually no rule against steroids in major league baseball. So, in point of fact, Bonds - assuming he used steroids - did not break the rules of the game. Yes, using the substances without a prescription is illegal, but we don't take records away from players for breaking the law. If we did... what of Ruth, who once tried injecting himself with sheep hormones to get an edge on the competition, and who kept right on drinking, even in the age of prohibition when booze were outlawed?

Even worse, the argument that segregation was "just the way it was," implies that we are not under any obligation to challenge injustice, unless we ourselves created it, and that if we collaborate with it, we bear no moral responsibility for its perpetuation...

Had Gehrig ended his long-standing record of consecutive games played because of opposition to racism, it would have been one of the most important sports stories of all time....

In other words, whites, by knowingly protecting themselves from some of the game's greatest players, "cheated" every bit as much as Bonds may have, via the use of anabolics. That the method for cheating was institutionalized, so that the rules themselves amounted to fraud, and that racial cheating was given the imprimatur of law hardly provides moral cover for the practice's ethical failings, and the failings of those who took advantage.

Oh, and not to put too fine a point on it, but in parts of the country (including most of the Northeast) the laws of the local communities actually prohibited segregation by race... So perhaps we should erase the records of the Yankees, erase the Babe, erase Ted Williams' 1941 season in which he hit .406 for the Red Sox: another team in a Northern city, with laws against segregation, but which remained segregated anyway (and in Boston's case, they were the longest holdout against black players due to the legendary racism of their owner).

Wises's piece continues, relentlessly demolishing Vanilla Sam's sports mythology in systematic fashion.

I would strongly encourage reading the entire piece.

But the point is made. The Bonds case exposes the cowardice, hypocrisy, and ignorance of the Athletic Supporting Industry - their Whitewashing of history and their use of steroids as a convenient pretext for more Vanilla Justice.

Uprising Radio Interviews Mumia

Uprising Radio - a new addition to the 'Radio' section of our blogroll - featured an 'interview' of Mumia Abu Jamal on their 1 August broadcast. Questions on the death penalty, sports, the state of journalism, and the capitalist press were recorded and presented to Mumia, which he answered and returned. Listen by clicking here or on the post title:

In a follow-up to our story in May about the case of Mumia Abu Jamal being heard by the 3rd Circuit US Court of Appeals, we present an interview with the man himself. Abu Jamal has been in prison for over two decades for the murder of Daniel Faulkner, a white police officer in Philadelphia. He enjoys widespread support among grassroots groups in the US and internationally. He has written several books, including Live From Death Row, Death Blossoms, and We Want Freedom. Abu Jamal also regularly records radio commentaries through Prison Radio which you hear often on Uprising and other Pacifica programs. I recently had the opportunity to present him with a series of questions through radio producer Noelle Hanrahan who runs Prison Radio.org. Mumia recorded his answers to my questions via telephone from prison. Here is a edited version of our “conversation.”

Special thanks to Noelle Hanrahan for coordinating and recording this interview.

GUESTS: Ward Churchill, Ramona Africa, Volker Ratzmann, interviewed by Hans Bennett

Hans Bennett is a journalist based in Philadelphia and co-founder of Journalists for Mumia. He attended the May 18th 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals Hearing of Mumia’s case. The hearing was attended by many high-profile supporters of Mumia Abu Jamal. In the moments after the hearing ended Hans Bennett interviewed Ward Churchill, Ramona Africa, and German Parliamentarian, Volker Ratzmann.

For more information about the movement to support Mumia Abu Jamal, visit the Mumia homepage.

To listen to Mumia’s Prison Radio Commentaries, visit Prison Radio.

Slave Revolt RadioReconstructions End, The Terrorists GainsPart II

Slave Revolt Radio
Reconstructions End, The Terrorists Gains: Colored Ballots, White Bullets
Part II
by Tracey James

In the second part of his two-part program on White Terrorism during the Reconstruction period, James goes into the dynamics of how the White Line and other groups systematically used terrorism and violence as a means to regain control of the South in the decade following the Uncle Sam's Second Revolution.

James explains that "while the Civil War was essentially about Slavery it was not about true Black human emancipation or liberation." In fact, Uncle Sam did nothing to punish this terrorism. Instead, he cut a deal during the 1876 election that ended Reconstruction and gave Vanilla Terrorists their day in the sun.

James links the similarities between the treatment of Black people found themselves in during the economic crisis of the 1870s with the Native Aboriginals of the time. He shows how the North's 'victory' in the civil war and the Republican 'victory' during the election of 1876 really marked a 'victory' for industrial capitalism and the centrality of a new type of slavery - Wage Slavery - on Uncle Sam's plantation. It was for the Capitalist Class of the Northern Industrialist's benefit.

James concludes the show with a commentary - 'Happy 4th of Jul-lie, it ain't our independence day' - that helps highlight the abomination that is the "American Experiment."

Release Kenneth Foster NOW!DOWN with Uncle Sam's Police State!

On 30 August, Uncle Sam and the state of Texas plan to use an arbitrary legal technicality called the "law of parties" to murder author and poet Kenneth Foster for the crime of driving a car near the scene of a murder.

Predictably, Foster's court-appointed lawyer did little to defend him, paying lip-service to both his categorical innocence and the extenuating circumstances of Foster's case. For this he no-doubt earned an assist from Uncle Sam and furthered his career.

Like most death-penalty cases, Foster's case has nothing at all to do with the crime itself and everything to do with Uncle Sam's system of Vanilla Justice. He uses this form of legalized murder today just as he used lynching during Jim Crow - to send a message and intimidate the oppressed, often through its arbitrariness, about who has power.

In that respect, Uncle Sam's murders here on the Plantation serve the same function as his concentration camps abroad. These modes of coercion embody the perverted use of justice in a Police State.

To add your name to the growing chorus of people who want to see Foster released, visit the Save Kenneth blog or click on the title above for more information.

"Police State" by dead prez
from their debut album let's get free

Slave Revolt RadioReconstructions End, The Terrorists Gains

Slave Revolt Radio
Reconstructions End, The Terrorists Gains: Colored Ballots, White Bullets (Part 1)
by Tracey James

During the Reconstruction period, armed White supremacist terrorist groupings like the White League (The armed branch of the Democratic party) aimed to destroy human beings and eviscerate their basic human rights. As the legislative branch of White supremacy during the period, the actions of the Democratic party shed a bright light on the real America. The quagmire Black people found themselves in and the horror we faced can only be compared to the Native Aboriginals populations of this land. For while the Civil War was essentially about Slavery it was not about true Black human emancipation and or liberation - there is a difference.

In this (Beyond The Shadows) two part program called 'Reconstructions End, The Terrorists Gains: Colored Ballots, White Bullets,' Slave Revolt shoots straight into this topic. We examine how the Elite White Planter Class of the South (raw material producers that exploited Slave labor) and the Elite White Industrial class (Railroad, Steel, Bankers, etc)of the North (the raw material manufactures that exploited Wage laborers) had two different visions of domination and expansion for America. This Political, Economic, World view was settled by the Northern Industrialist Capitalist Class destroying the Southern Elites labor base - Slave labor - during the Civil War. Yet this was not for Black peoples benefit. It was for the Capitalist Class of the Northern Industrialist benefit, which becomes clear as Black people try to Reconstruct their lives in the Reconstruction period in the south.

Clip from Eric Foner (Author of the epic Reconstuction as well as many other books, including Forever Free), Nicholas Lemann (Author of the book Redemption, the last battle of the Civil War) and others along with a Tracey James Commentary 'Happy 4th of Jul-lie, it ain't our independence day' help highlight the abomination that is the "American Experiment" - an Experiment that needs to Experience another Civil War For the Slaves By the Slaves so that the Slaves can truly benefit.

For Stephon Marbury: A Revolutionary Salute

Flashpoints Exposes Uncle Sam's Treachery

Monday's edition of Flashpoints is a must-listen:

The Knight Report opens the show. Robert Knight reported on Uncle Sam's Genocide in Iraq and the latest statement from the Iraqi National Resistance in which its leader, Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, pledged "jihad and escalating jihad, until the last soldier of the enemy flees the land of Iraq." Al-Douri went on to announce that, "your enemy is collapsing and is being defeated, so are its followers, agents and spies as a result of your giant jihadi march."

Knight's report details Uncle Sam's failed military campaign, his attempted oil seizure, his quisling government, and a possible Turkish invasion of Northern Iraq.

While we see a high body count among Iraqi civilians - one of Uncle Sam's objectives - we see little in terms of military progress or military success. In the face of this news, Uncle Sam had a Wet Dream in which Iraq became like Apartheid Israel:

In places like Israel, terrorists have taken innocent human life for years in suicide attacks.

The difference is that Israel is a functioning democracy and it's not prevented from carrying out its responsibilities. And that's a good indicator of success that we're looking for in Iraq.

Nora Barrows-Friedman knows all about Zionist "responsibilities" to Uncle Sam. She spoke with Unembedded Journalist Dahr Jamail.

While Apartheid Israel has been Uncle Sam's chief WarOn Terrorist in his Holy Crusade for Petroleum, Europe has served as Apartheid Israel's midwife and Nanny so that Vanilla Zionists can Genocide Palestine.

Uncle Sam, Apartheid Israel, and Europe: the Vanilla Entente!

Sam wants Genocide in Iraq, and the testimony Jamail has gathered from Iraq demonstrates just how similar Sam's Genocide and the Genocide in Palestine really are.

After Jamail's interview, Dennis Bernstein reports on another kind of Ethnic Cleansing taking place in San Francisco's Historic Mission District, where Vanilla Snitches serve as the shock-troops for Uncle Sam's WarOn Immigrants.

Bernstein also interviews John Ross concerning the ongoing battle taking place in Mexico over WarOn Commie Felipe Calderon's 2006 coup.

Finally, JR of the The Block Report interviews the parents of an unarmed 15-year-old shot through the face from behind on 3 July by the Oakland Pigs.

Of course this has nothing to do the the youngster's relation to Richard O'Neal of the San Francisco Eight, a group of Black Panthers framed up on Torture-Induced confessions.

Predictably, Oakland's Pigs assert without evidence that the boy was armed with multiple guns and using drugs.

Vanilla Justice!

"What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?"

What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?
by Frederick Douglass
July 5, 1852

"What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence?"

Fellow-citizens, pardon me, allow me to ask, why am I called upon to speak here to-day? What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence? Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us? and am I, therefore, called upon to bring our humble offering to the national altar, and to confess the benefits and express devout gratitude for the blessings resulting from your independence to us?

Would to God, both for your sakes and ours, that an affirmative answer could be truthfully returned to these questions! Then would my task be light, and my burden easy and delightful. For who is there so cold, that a nation’s sympathy could not warm him? Who so obdurate and dead to the claims of gratitude, that would not thankfully acknowledge such priceless benefits? Who so stolid and selfish, that would not give his voice to swell the hallelujahs of a nation’s jubilee, when the chains of servitude had been tom from his limbs? I am not that man. In a case like that, the dumb might eloquently speak, and the "lame man leap as an hart."

But, such is not the state of the case. I say it with a sad sense of the disparity between us. I am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary! Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought life and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth [of] July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn. To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony. Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak to-day? If so, there is a parallel to your conduct. And let me warn you that it is dangerous to copy the example of a nation whose crimes, lowering up to heaven, were thrown down by the breath of the Almighty, burying that nation in irrecoverable ruin! I can to-day take up the plaintive lament of a peeled and woe-smitten people!

READ THE WHOLE SPEECH

Slave Revolt Radio:Blood Money and the 4th of Ju-Lie

Slave Revolt Radio
'Beyond the Shadows': Blood Money of the American Empire at War;
Commentary: 'Happy 4th of Jul-lie: it ain't our independence day'
by Tracey James

After a few weeks without, it was a treat to listen to the latest from Tracey James. From Smedley Butler to the Fourth of Ju-Lie... what a great show!

Slave Revolt kicks back into gear with a episode dealing with the global imperial impact of the war capitalist institutions.

In this (Beyond The Shadow) segment called Blood Money: The corporate structuring of world societies for permanent imperial wars and conquest'. The privatized corporate system is taken to task. Relationships between war and 'cost plus' contracts to disaster capitalists like Halliburton, arms capitalists like Lockheed Martian, and private resource capitalist like big oil are brought into focus. Antonia Juhasz Author of the book 'The Bush Agenda' and Brigadier General Smedley Butler's 1930's classic 'War is a racket' help expose this past and present global corporate game of death for the many, riches for the few.

Slave Revolt then brings it home with a 4th of July nightmare for the slaves with a Tracey James commentary called 'Happy 4th of Jul-lie: it ain't our independence day'. Cause for the slaves independence will only come when the flesh-peddlers the world over exist no more.