>From: Mark Clement <MClement@bruderhof.com
>Date: Wed, 15 Dec 1999 08:59:02 -0500
>
>FROM MUMIA ABU-JAMAL
>JUST ANOTHER FORM OF IMPERIALISM
>Column Written 12/3/99
>Mumia Abu-Jamal
>All Rights Reserved
>
>If they [NGOs-Non-Governmental Organizations] are allowed to
>hijack the World Trade Organization talks, it will be a dangerous precedent
>that every government and every global company will regret long after the
>protests in Seattle." Business Week magazine
>
> The spectre of tens of thousands of workers, environmentalists,
>human rights activists and anarchists, seizing the streets of Seattle, was a
>stirring sight indeed. Their opposition to the antidemocratic,
>corporation-heavy World Trade Organization earned them the enmity of the
>corporate media, and the vocal condemnation of corporate politicians.
> The WTO, the successor organization to the GATT-General Agreement on
>Tariffs and Trade, functions as a virtual shadow government, in fact a
>Super-government, that rides roughshod over the national and state concerns
>seeking to protect the wages of workers, insure environmental standards, and
>protect collective bargaining gains. To the extent that the WTO consists of
>a collection of governments, it in fact protects corporate interests: the
>primary interest of capital, over and above all other interests. In this
>context, the demonstrations were a welcome and powerful corrective,
>expressing the views of the many, not protecting the interests of the few.
> Much can be said about the much-maligned anarchists that rocked the
>mid-city, by attacking the shimmering edifices of capital. The press leaped
>at the opportunity to call them "thugs," or "hooligans," who were involved
>in "violence." What is missing from the reportage, of course, is that those
>young folks attacked property, not other beings. Meanwhile, the state,
>through its police, attacked persons, kicking them, gassing them, beating
>them, and jailing them. What, one wonders, is the greatest form of
>"violence?" But, in the world projected by the corporationist media, state
>violence isn't real violence. Only individuals who are unaffiliated with
>the state can therefore be truly violent.
> What madness!
> John Cavanaugh, from the Institute for Public Studies, speaking at a
>public meeting in Seattle around the time of the demonstrations, likened the
>powerful anti-capitalist, anti-WTO demonstrations to another well-known act
>of violent civil disobedience that marked the beginning of the American
>Revolution. That act of Civil Disobedience is now known as the Boston Tea
>Party, where Americans demonstrated against the trade domination of the
>British, by blackening their faces (to hide their identity), dressing like
>Indians (to hide their ethnicity), and by destroying over 30,000 pounds of
>British Tea, by throwing boxes, bundles, and bales into the Boston Harbor.
>Their lament? Taxation Without Representation.
> To the Brits and their Tory sympathizers, this was the action of
>"thugs," "hooligans" and "ruffians," no doubt. But what did they contribute
>to the public spirit of resistance to the British Empire?
> The length and breadth of capitalist corporation's control over the
>lands, resources, and labor of millions of people in the US and abroad
>(especially in the so-called Third World) makes the grievance of American
>colonists against the British look remarkably petty. The WTO is the
>unelected, privately-dominated body that undermines democracy by its very
>existence. They make the rules under which the world's vast economy is
>organized. And all must submit to this economic power, despite local,
>national and/or regional laws to the contrary. For the only "law" that they
>respect is the primacy of profit. Capital makes the rules; labor dances to
>their tune.
> Consider, how very quickly (overnight in fact!) Seattle cops created
>what was termed a so-called "Protest Free Zone" in the very heart of a major
>American city, to "protect" the interests of foreigners, diplomats and
>businessmen, of some 50 square blocks! A "protest free zone," is by
>necessity, a "First Amendment-Free Zone," with the word "free" meaning as
>little as the term used in discussing "free trade." In what part of the
>United States does the U.S. Constitution not apply? In whose interest was
>this cordon sanitaire established? The citizens of Seattle, or the monied
>gentry of global capital?
> Seattle revealed the faultline underlying the lie of the great
>economic "miracle" of the 1990s. It revealed the justifiable fears and
>anxieties at the heart of millions of American workers. It revealed who
>politicians work for. It revealed the nature of the police. It can, it
>should be, a beginning.
===============================================>
FROM MUMIA ABU-JAMAL
A MATTER OF LAW
Column Written 12/7/99
Mumia Abu-Jamal
All Rights Reserved
Law is simply politics by other means... -- David Kairys,
Legal Reasoning (1982)
When one looks at public projections of police in the corporate and
entertainment media, one thinks of someone who is sworn to follow (as
opposed to breaking) the "law." Similarly, when one examines the public
projections of criminals in the corporate and entertainment media, the
reverse image is received: to be one who breaks the law, is to be seen as a
base, low individual.
But, as many of us have learned over the years, images are not
reality; and public media projections often bear little resemblance to the
truth.
Consider the case of two Pennsylvania State Troopers (Rodney Smith
and Robert Johnson) both of whom were charged with committing crimes, and
were subsequently dismissed from the force. Once they were formally
dismissed, they promptly filed grievances to an arbitrator, had their
dismissals reversed, and were reinstated. Now understand: One of these
cops took his state-issued pistol, and stuck it in the mouth of Tammy
Mathis, an ex-girlfriend, and threatened to kill her. Continuing to drink,
he drove away, was soon arrested, and was charged with driving under the
influence, simple assault and making terroristic threats. Johnson was
caught stealing $27.58 worth of merchandise from the Clover department
store.
Citing a state statute called Act 111, the Pennsylvania Supreme
Court accepted an allocatur appeal from the state, to determine whether the
arbitrator's award would stand.
In a set of divided opinions known as Penna. State Police v. Penna.
State Troopers Association (smith), the Court determined that their
authority was limited on review. Under what they termed "narrow scope," a
majority of the justices decided that "the legislature dictated a restraint
on judicial activity" in the area of grievances and arbitrations from police
appeals, and that Act 111 "[forbade] appeals from an arbitration award." In
the name of avoiding prolonged periods of litigation, and supporting
equality between labor and management, the Court upheld the arbitrator's
awards, and ruled that the two state troopers charged in criminal conduct
were entitled to their jobs, although, in accordance to the arbitrator's
terms, they wouldn't get back pay. Cases such as this reveal not just the
limits of judicial power, but how powerful police really are. Men who have
committed felonies are stopping, citing, and arresting people for traffic
violations and other offenses. How can this be justified? The "law"
justifies it. Or, as the saying goes, "the law is what judges say the law
is."
When a so-called citizen crosses the barriers imposed by the law,
that person loses his job and his freedom. When a cop violates that
self-same law, he keeps his job and his freedom! When cases such as this
arise, how can the incarceration of countless youth, men and women in
American jails and prisons be justified?
It can't be.
Prison is the prerogative of the powerless and the poor.
For those who serve the system, crimes are just minor
inconveniences. For those who don't, crimes are invitations to hell.
Thus we learn the true nature of American "justice."
İMAJ 1999