Free Mumia / Drop the Charges Against Assata / Avenge Fred Hampton

Your host is not just a blog editor, but also an avid blog consumer as well. One of my regular stops is Altercation although to be fair, for a blog that claims to uphold the liberal point of view, it is remarkably free of content that is directed toward the most reliable liberal block of voters in the country: African Americans.

Since last week, however, a side comment by a respondent to Altercation (a post that reviewed the latest Bruce Springsteen appearance in NJ) that almost offhandedly tossed a comment in support of freeing one of the most well-known political prisoners in the US - has generated a firestorm of liberal cop lovers; yet another sign of the wide gulf between those wary partners: Black liberals and white liberals. I eventually tired of their inane comments in support of the dead pig (that is just my homage to Assata Shakur - you should know her too) and so I posted a reply. In case it does not make the editorial bent of Altercation, here is the post in full:

Wow, your readers are as full of vitriol for Mumia as the proprietors of Geno's. So let me see if I have this right: we all agree that Geno's has it wrong when it comes to "freedom fries", but for some reason, we (the readers of Altercation) are mostly convinced that a former member of the Black Panthers received a fair and honest jury trial by his all-white peers of Philly and that he really deserves to be on death row - did I get that right?

What exactly do we base this certitude upon? The surety of the Hoover FBI when it came to identifying those dangerous threats to the US like MLK and Malcolm X? (Oh, wait. King was not a communist and Malcolm was attacked by terrorists while he was still in the womb - surely we all agree that white supremacy is every bit a terrorist threat to this nation as National Socialism was to Europe). "But Derrick!” you proclaim, "You are conflating so many different issues in that one sentence, you are not being fair! The issue is Mumia!"

Okay, fine. I will pretend that the fact that the Black Panthers were murdered - citizens of our nation were murdered - by the authorities for having the nerve to defend themselves from the same brutality that killed Emmett Till is not connected, as long as you pretend that the fact that a Federal District Court Judge overturned the death penalty actually means something. While I might wonder if a sitting federal judge made some Solomonic decision to split the baby in half and remove the death penalty but still keep a "cop killer" behind bars, I can see how those who still believe all of that "serve and protect" propaganda might take more convincing.

Anyone who is interested in justice should find the confession linkedd to above) to the murder of Daniel Faulkner by another individual at least of interest. The evidence against Mumia is sketchy at best (shouted confessions to nurses at hospitals?) and if someone else says they were at the scene and they shot the cop - should not the courts at least look at that?

Of course, I know, that would be outside of the procedure. And hey, he has already spent years in prison and would probably have trouble readjusting to life on the outside, why not just continue to waste his life in prison even though someone else says they did the shooting of the cop?

Still, we do have those d*^% words from the declaration of independence that say that all life is created equal and is endowed by its Creator to life, LIBERTY and the pursuit of happiness. I think the slave owner who wrote those words without a trace of irony was in Philadelphia at the time, but still - that is not a legal document with respect this nation, more of a visionary statement that we sometimes attempt to achieve. Sort of like a goal that we would like to reach, but if a few Negroes need rot in prison along the path - or get gunned down in their beds - well, that is just the price we must pay.

God bless the USA.

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Homecoming

How is it that we have reached this point in our history? Is it possible to trace back to decisions made in the past - the road not taken - and determine how it is that we have come to be where we are at this point today? And once armed with that knowledge, is it possible to plot a path forward - to alter the course and lead us on that path toward life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?

The title for this entry posits a theory, one which surely needs little supporting statements to prove, but I will offer them nonetheless. And I will do so not with tragic examples of other nation states from Congo to Haiti, but instead with the USA. So often here people say foolish things like, "You should be glad your ancestors were sold into slavery, as that act brought you here, today to this, the greatest nation on Earth". Sadly, the truth of the matter is - when looked at from the perspective of the Afrikan slave and her descendents in this land for 400 years - this nation matches nothing more or nothing less than the definition of a failed state.

This has been a failed state for years, for the high and mighty principles laid out for this nation in our Declaration of Independence were abdicated from the beginning; first in the implementation of the Articles of Confederation - which failed for everybody, and then in the flawed US Constitution - which failed miserably for those "nonpersons", from whom I am proud to proclaim my heritage. So, for over 200 years - at a minimum - we can state for certainty that this nation has failed to live up to the simple, moral calling against which every nation must be measured: justice for all. Throughout those 200 years - and 200 years before that as a British colony - we nonpersons have fought to be included as equal members in this nation we have helped to forge. It is unarguable from almost any philosophical, economical or historical standpoint to state that we have not been a central force in turning this nation from a humble player on the world stage to where we now reside at the pinnacle of world acclaim. Others may argue about what we are due for our efforts, but our works are laid out for all to see; why should we make it our calling to remove the scales from the eyes of those too blinded by greed to see the truth?

So this has been a failed state from our perspective (that of the nonpersons and their descendents) and now hubris is rapidly accelerating that day upon which this will be a failed nation for us all - persons and nonpersons alike. Why should we await this day? Is there any element within the record of this nation, any lever that we can articulate that will cause the path of this nation to turn away from the fate that is before us? Do we have more learned scholars today than Dubois, more accomplished orators today than Douglass, more strident fighters today than Tubman? If so, I have not heard their words or seen their efforts. Is the larger audience of persons more open to reason or shame in our day than in years past? If so, they remained on the sidelines in astounding numbers in a political sense over the last half decade. Can we not help to conclude that the path this nation is on is irreversible? Is there any longer a reason for us to cling to the scraps end entrails that have been allotted to us, in hope that tomorrow will be brighter for us and our progeny?

WE stand - in the early days of this new millennium - as the strongest generations of "nonpersons" to have ever walked the earth, with greater education and wealth than all those that have come before us. We have more skilled tradesmen - and tradeswomen - at this point than we have had in centuries past. We have more professional soldiers - warriors - instructed in the most technological forms of warfare the world has ever known.

In short, we are a force.

At the same time, there has never been a greater need for our services in the land of our ancestors. We stand here - in a nation that does not now nor will it ever respect our services and our contributions - separated by the ocean that marked the Middle Passage from our homeland (which is still experiencing the effects of having her children kidnapped and sold to other lands). Is there a better time for a great reunion - a homecoming - of mother and child? Were we to take upon our shoulders the task placed before us, in less than two generations our strengths added to the might of the existing nations of Africa could turn that continent from a troubled oasis into one with a United Afrikan Empire that would rival those of yore.

This state is failed. We built this nation once, it is not our calling to build it again. The nations of our blood need us once again; there is where we should make our stand. Let us return to the homes of our mothers and our fathers and repair the wounds of time.

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Is Retrocession The Answer?

Then what is the question, might be the most appropriate response. When your author was a wee young lad, a great hue and cry went across the land sounding off on "statehood for DC!" The proponents were very passionate, but perhaps you can tell by my use of the past tense that their efforts were to no avail. I have recently been apprised of another solution to the whole "taxation without representation dilemma in which the current residents of the District find themselves: retrocession back to Maryland. Behold, with but a single Act of Congress and the flourish of a mighty presidential pen, the residents of DC will gain a representative in the house and two of their very own senators.

Perhaps anyone who is against "taxation without representation" should be for retrocession, but I find myself hesitating somewhat: what is wrong with actually going back to the original intent for DC? Instead of returning to Maryland that which she gave to create our nations capital, why not have the residents of Arlington County, VA restore the perfect square of our capital and the wound that slavery has cast upon our capitol city? Surely, those residents can no longer be so deeply bound to the blood lust for African slaves, as they were when they cried out for freedom from the capitol city in the mid 1800s. Here are the facts of the situation:

1. DC was created and placed in Southern state territory by the our nations founders.
2. The site was chosen by our nation's first president - George Washington and the city was named in his honor.
3. That honor was diminished by the shade of slavery and the greed of Alexandria businessmen, who wanted to maintain their brisk business in trading Africans as chattel.
4. Their greed was matched by the avarice of other Virginians, who did not wish to see VA become a free state - which they were in peril of becoming without the additional representatives from the returning county of Arlington (this battle for the soul of VA resulted in the establishment of West Virginia, as those counties left at the start of the Civil War).

Is it not clear that the "broken square" that is our nations capitol today is directly related to the gravest injustice this nation has ever committed against her own people? Does it not follow that all Americans of good conscience should want to see this scar at long last healed?

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Katrina Unmasks Republicans For Who They Are

Welcome to Disaster #2 of the Age of George the Second. As a resident of Jersey City back in September 2001 and someone who worked in NYC and was proud to tell friends and family that I lived "right across the river from the World Trade Center", I was dismayed to hear people bestow upon George Bush the mantle of genuine leadership after the attacks of 11 September 2001. I was appalled that someone who showed up days later and several dollars short could actually be credited with being a leader. In talking with people from around the country, I came to understand that our natural inclination to rally around the President in a time of crisis was what I was actually seeing and though people who were actually here could see what a hollow shell George Bush really was up close, those removed from the danger were too distant to see the chalk outlines.

Bush rose up in the polls and started the war he planned from Day One in his administration, a war that has turned into the morass that this site predicted it would from the planning stages - if what the SecDef did back then in firing anyone who disagreed with his "lean-and mean" approach could be called planning (to this day, the man goes on to do interviews and says incredibly stupid things like, "the commanders have been given all the troops they have requested" and no one ever tallies up the list of former soldiers who called for more troops and were then suddenly eased into retirement days later). Still, a nation traumatized by an attack on our shores and a nation at war decided to stay the course and continue to dance with the horse's ass who brought us to this party.

But now, after the man who ran for re-election by promising the full-faith and credit of his leadership on keeping us safe, has yet again failed to respond to warning received during his month-long vacation and did not act to stave off impending disaster. In August 2001, Bush and his staff ignored a report that said Bin Laden was preparing to attack us. "Who could have known", cried the then National Security Director - apparently oblivious to the fact that it was her job to know. In 2005, Bush played the guitar while New Orleans re-enacted the Great Flood. And here once again is where the failures of the modern Republican Party are laid bare.

For years the Republicans have derided affirmative action, stating that problems would arise were an unqualified Black American placed in a position he or she did not deserve, through an AA program. To-date, no examples of such a situation ever occuring have been brought to light. Still, Republicans have pounded the drums of their phony concerns so loudly, that even popular Democratic politicians like Bill Clinton have talked of mending the programs as though the threat was real. All the while Republicans and Democrats parried back and forth over this non-issue, an ever larger percentage of Blacks remain mired in poverty and unable to even avail themselves of the meager benefits offered by AA programs.

Concurrant with their assault on AA programs, Republicans continued their decades-long war against government provided services, preferring instead to leave people to the whims of "the market" and the kindness of strangers. Decades of slashing government programs, double-speak legislation like No Child Left Behind and funding bridges to nowhere instead of preparing for easily forseen challenges like a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico.

And so today we stand unable or unwilling to tally the dead, unable or unwilling to clearly define who was responsible once again and upon whose shoulders the blame must lie. Even more, today we stand in wonder of what other easily imaginable disasters are outside the ken of this faithless-based administration.

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And this is how we get tough on terrorists?

In yet another victory for the Klan, Edgar Ray Killen has been let out on bond, while he is appealing his conviction. The judge says that he was convinced that Killen was not a "danger to the community". That statement flies in the face of the conviction, when members of that very same community decided that he was a danger, that he was a criminal and that he should be locked up for his crimes.

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