Mumia Abu-Jamals Fourth of July
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/mumia_abu-jamals_fourth_of_july_20160703
/
Posted on Jul 3, 2016
By Chris Hedges
An undated photo of Mumia Abu-Jamal, who is serving a life sentence.
Jennifer E. Beach / AP
FRACKVILLE, Pa.Tens or even hundreds of thousands of Americans, like those
in the visiting room of the State Correctional Institution at Mahanoy, drove
often for hours on the Fourth of July weekend to visit relatives or friends
who are locked in cages. Millions suffered the painful absence this weekend
of a father, a mother, a brother, a sister, a son, a daughter or a friend.
These people, mostly poor people of color, understand a dark truth about the
cruelty and ultimate intentions of the corporate state. They know that
freedom, justice and liberty, especially if you are poor, are empty
slogans.
We live in one of the most un-free systems on earth, said the black
revolutionary and author Mumia Abu-Jamal, whom I visited Saturday. Mass
incarceration is a reality endured by millions of people in prison and in
the systems of repression that exist outside of prison. What does freedom
mean to poor people who cannot walk freely down a street? What does freedom
mean when they cannot find work? What does freedom mean when there is no
justice in the courts? What does freedom mean when black people cannot
attend a Bible study in a church without the fear of being murdered? Where
is this American freedom they keep telling us about? I dont see it. Black
folks are more in danger, and being killed in even greater numbers, than
during the reign of terror that was lynching and Jim Crow.
Abu-Jamal, who is fighting off hepatitis C that the Pennsylvania Department
of Corrections and the privatized prison medical service refuse to treat,
scoffed when I asked him about the differences between Hillary Clinton and
Donald Trump.
Donald Trump is the real face of the ugly American empire, he said. Yes,
he aint pretty. He aint black. He aint a woman. He has a fake tan and
orange hair. His rhetoric is cruder. But his ideas are the same. The two
major political parties are the abject servants of Wall Street and American
empire über alles. They each support militarism, at home and abroad. They
each support the indiscriminant murder of civilians from drones. They each
support the worldwide archipelago of secret prisons. They each support mass
incarceration of poor people, the suspension of habeas corpus and torture.
It is only their talk that is different. What is the difference between
being beaten up by a black cop or a white cop? The only solution is to rise
up to stop the cops from beatin our asses and shootin us in the streets,
our homes and our cars. I can assure you voting for Hillary Clinton wont
make a damn bit of difference. The Ku Klux Klan, after all, once served as
the unofficial armed wing of the Democratic Party. You cant invest hope in
an organization with a history like that.
The black political elites, including Barack Obama, are powerless, he went
on. They are emblems. They are not the voice of black America. They are
like a ventriloquists dummy. They mouth the same words the white corporate
masters mouth. They do not make white America uncomfortable. They do not
name unpleasant truths. They never lifted their voices to denounce Bill
Clintons decision to massively expand our system of mass incarceration. And
they do not lift their voices now. They go right along with the repression.
And they are well paid for it.
Abu-Jamal, a journalist and author of books such as Live From Death Row
and a former member of the Black Panther Party, is serving a life sentence
in the killing of a Philadelphia police officer. Despite flagrant
irregularities in his trial and evidence tampering, he was sentenced to
death in 1982. His sentence was later commuted to life without parole. He
spent 30 years on death row.
The prisons visiting room, with a wall lined by vending machines that only
the visitors were allowed to use, was crowded with families. Children played
in groups or ran across the floor, darting in and out of rows of chairs.
A guard, seated on a raised platform, periodically bellowed through a
loudspeaker. He recited every admonishment twice. Children must be
supervised by an adult. Children must be supervised by an adult.
Like every prisoner must be supervised by a prison guard who is a racist
and an idiot, Abu-Jamal muttered when one announcement ended.
Abu-Jamal understands that radical change exacts a high price. It takes
years, sometimes decades, to achieve. It requires dedication,
self-sacrifice, unwavering belief in a new vision of society, a trenchant
understanding of the mechanisms of power, a willingness to suffer
persecution, go to jail and even, when the elites truly feel threatened,
face the daily possibility of being murdered. No political revolution was
ever achieved without these qualities and this acceptance of risks and
steadfastness.
Black people will probably vote for Clinton, he said with resignation,
but this symbolizes the emptiness of hope. They fear Trump. They should
look closely at the pictures from Trumps third wedding. Hillary Clinton is
in the front pew of the church. Hillary, Bill, Trump and Melania are shown
embracing at Trumps estate afterwards during the reception. These people
are part of the same elite circle. They represent the same financial
interests. They work for the same empire. They have grown rich from the
system. The words they shout back and forth during political campaigns are
meaningless. Trump or Clinton will deliver the same political result. They
will serve, like Obama, corporate and military power. And if they were not
willing to serve these centers of power they would not be allowed to run.
Their job is to manufacture hope during election campaigns that ultimately
end in betrayal. This is why they spend billions on elections. They need to
feed the illusion that our voices matter, that we are participants in their
closed systems of power.
The liberals and the Democrats are in many ways more dangerous than the
right wing, he said. Repression and neoliberalism are more effectively
instituted by Democrats such as Bill and Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama.
They sound reasonable. But because what they do is hidden it is more
insidious and often more deadly.
Do not leave your trash in the cup holders. Do not leave your trash in the
cup holders, the loudspeaker blared.
Abu-Jamal looked toward the guards, all of whom were white.
Bill Clinton developed a rural employment program called prisons, he said.
Prisons are the economic lifeblood of these poor white communities. The
only time these people have any contact with black people is when they put
them in cells or escort them in shackles. Prisons are the gift William
Jefferson Clinton gave to poor, rural whites that keeps on giving.
The system is broken, Abu-Jamal said. It has to be torn up, root and
branch. And this has to be done from the bottom up. If we keep electing and
re-electing these puppets we will keep getting played. We have to form
political parties that reflect our political ideas. We have to stop
surrendering to false parties and politicians that do not represent us.
He said he places his hopes in groups such as Black Lives Matter that have
taken to the streets. He said that if he could he would be in the streets of
Philadelphia, where he was raised, during the Democratic convention.
This is our hour of protest, he said. We have to physically resist. We
will reclaim our power when we say no, when we refuse to cooperate. We must,
in everything we do, defy the architects of imperialism, neoliberalism and
mass incarceration. We cannot enable, in any way, this system to perpetuate
itself.
It is time to raise holy hell, he went on. We need to demonstrate in the
streets. We need to use megaphones. We need to hold teach-ins. We need to
sell radical books. We need to make the streets our commons.
Again the loudspeaker boomed: Children must put away the toys they took out
of the childrens room. Children must put away the toys they took out of the
childrens room.
Prisons, like the rest of the society, have been privatized. Prisoners are
billed for an array of services and items that once were the responsibility
of the state. Corporations, which make billions off the prison system, run
phone services, food services, medical services and commissaries. They have
established for-profit prisons and detention centers. Prices for basic
services and necessities such as shoes have soared.
Services that were once the responsibility of the state have been
outsourced to corporations, as in the rest of society, said Abu-Jamal, who
works as a trash collector. We are worth what we are able to pay. If we pay
nothing, in their eyes, we are worth nothing.
When [prisoners] fill out a sick call slip, a request for medical
attention, we have to also sign a cash slip, he said. The medical visit
costs five or 10 dollars. This may not sound like a lot. But a prison job
only pays $30 a month. Prices are constantly going up. Wages in prisons have
remained the same since the 1980s. Most prisoners can only go to buy items
from the commissary after begging their mothers, grandmothers or girlfriends
for money.
In February, Global Tel Link began selling electronic tablets in the prison
for $150, he said. They charge 25 cents for an email and $1.80 to download
a song. And you have to pay them in advance. The state pays Wexford Health
Services $298 million a year to run the medical services. The more medical
services are cut, the greater the profit. You go to medical and most of the
time they tell you to go to the commissary to buy Tylenol or throat
lozenges. If you fall in the yard and need a wheelchair they charge you $25.
If you cant sit up they charge you $75 for a motorized cart. They will not
treat my hepatitis C, saying it is not advanced enough, but of course it is
because the medicine is expensive. It costs between $87,000 and $95,000. A
price like this exists solely to enrich pharmaceutical companies. I could
get the same drug from India for a few thousand dollars. There is a guy in
my block, Joseph Kish Sr., with stage four hepatitis C and cirrhosis. They
have denied him treatment because, they said, he will get out soon. There is
always a reason not to treat us. Prisons have replaced state psychiatric
hospitals. MHM Correctional Services is paid $89 million a year to handle
the mentally ill. It does little more than medicate them. And remember most
guards, especially with overtime, make more money, about $100,00 a year,
than a full professor at a university.
They are doing to us on the inside what they are doing to us on the
outside, he said. They are letting poor people die or killing them for
profit. Things will get worse and worse until people cant take it anymore.
These corporations wont stop. No one in the political class will make them
stop. It is up to us.
http://www.truthdig.com/ http://www.truthdig.com/
Mumia Abu-Jamals Fourth of July
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/mumia_abu-jamals_fourth_of_july_20160703
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Posted on Jul 3, 2016
By Chris Hedges
An undated photo of Mumia Abu-Jamal, who is serving a life sentence.
Jennifer E. Beach / AP
FRACKVILLE, Pa.Tens or even hundreds of thousands of Americans, like those
in the visiting room of the State Correctional Institution at Mahanoy, drove
often for hours on the Fourth of July weekend to visit relatives or friends
who are locked in cages. Millions suffered the painful absence this weekend
of a father, a mother, a brother, a sister, a son, a daughter or a friend.
These people, mostly poor people of color, understand a dark truth about the
cruelty and ultimate intentions of the corporate state. They know that
freedom, justice and liberty, especially if you are poor, are empty
slogans.
We live in one of the most un-free systems on earth, said the black
revolutionary and author Mumia Abu-Jamal, whom I visited Saturday. Mass
incarceration is a reality endured by millions of people in prison and in
the systems of repression that exist outside of prison. What does freedom
mean to poor people who cannot walk freely down a street? What does freedom
mean when they cannot find work? What does freedom mean when there is no
justice in the courts? What does freedom mean when black people cannot
attend a Bible study in a church without the fear of being murdered? Where
is this American freedom they keep telling us about? I dont see it. Black
folks are more in danger, and being killed in even greater numbers, than
during the reign of terror that was lynching and Jim Crow.
Abu-Jamal, who is fighting off hepatitis C that the Pennsylvania Department
of Corrections and the privatized prison medical service refuse to treat,
scoffed when I asked him about the differences between Hillary Clinton and
Donald Trump.
Donald Trump is the real face of the ugly American empire, he said. Yes,
he aint pretty. He aint black. He aint a woman. He has a fake tan and
orange hair. His rhetoric is cruder. But his ideas are the same. The two
major political parties are the abject servants of Wall Street and American
empire über alles. They each support militarism, at home and abroad. They
each support the indiscriminant murder of civilians from drones. They each
support the worldwide archipelago of secret prisons. They each support mass
incarceration of poor people, the suspension of habeas corpus and torture.
It is only their talk that is different. What is the difference between
being beaten up by a black cop or a white cop? The only solution is to rise
up to stop the cops from beatin our asses and shootin us in the streets,
our homes and our cars. I can assure you voting for Hillary Clinton wont
make a damn bit of difference. The Ku Klux Klan, after all, once served as
the unofficial armed wing of the Democratic Party. You cant invest hope in
an organization with a history like that.
The black political elites, including Barack Obama, are powerless, he went
on. They are emblems. They are not the voice of black America. They are
like a ventriloquists dummy. They mouth the same words the white corporate
masters mouth. They do not make white America uncomfortable. They do not
name unpleasant truths. They never lifted their voices to denounce Bill
Clintons decision to massively expand our system of mass incarceration. And
they do not lift their voices now. They go right along with the repression.
And they are well paid for it.
Abu-Jamal, a journalist and author of books such as Live From Death Row
and a former member of the Black Panther Party, is serving a life sentence
in the killing of a Philadelphia police officer. Despite flagrant
irregularities in his trial and evidence tampering, he was sentenced to
death in 1982. His sentence was later commuted to life without parole. He
spent 30 years on death row.
The prisons visiting room, with a wall lined by vending machines that only
the visitors were allowed to use, was crowded with families. Children played
in groups or ran across the floor, darting in and out of rows of chairs.
A guard, seated on a raised platform, periodically bellowed through a
loudspeaker. He recited every admonishment twice. Children must be
supervised by an adult. Children must be supervised by an adult.
Like every prisoner must be supervised by a prison guard who is a racist
and an idiot, Abu-Jamal muttered when one announcement ended.
Abu-Jamal understands that radical change exacts a high price. It takes
years, sometimes decades, to achieve. It requires dedication,
self-sacrifice, unwavering belief in a new vision of society, a trenchant
understanding of the mechanisms of power, a willingness to suffer
persecution, go to jail and even, when the elites truly feel threatened,
face the daily possibility of being murdered. No political revolution was
ever achieved without these qualities and this acceptance of risks and
steadfastness.
Black people will probably vote for Clinton, he said with resignation,
but this symbolizes the emptiness of hope. They fear Trump. They should
look closely at the pictures from Trumps third wedding. Hillary Clinton is
in the front pew of the church. Hillary, Bill, Trump and Melania are shown
embracing at Trumps estate afterwards during the reception. These people
are part of the same elite circle. They represent the same financial
interests. They work for the same empire. They have grown rich from the
system. The words they shout back and forth during political campaigns are
meaningless. Trump or Clinton will deliver the same political result. They
will serve, like Obama, corporate and military power. And if they were not
willing to serve these centers of power they would not be allowed to run.
Their job is to manufacture hope during election campaigns that ultimately
end in betrayal. This is why they spend billions on elections. They need to
feed the illusion that our voices matter, that we are participants in their
closed systems of power.
The liberals and the Democrats are in many ways more dangerous than the
right wing, he said. Repression and neoliberalism are more effectively
instituted by Democrats such as Bill and Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama.
They sound reasonable. But because what they do is hidden it is more
insidious and often more deadly.
Do not leave your trash in the cup holders. Do not leave your trash in the
cup holders, the loudspeaker blared.
Abu-Jamal looked toward the guards, all of whom were white.
Bill Clinton developed a rural employment program called prisons, he said.
Prisons are the economic lifeblood of these poor white communities. The
only time these people have any contact with black people is when they put
them in cells or escort them in shackles. Prisons are the gift William
Jefferson Clinton gave to poor, rural whites that keeps on giving.
The system is broken, Abu-Jamal said. It has to be torn up, root and
branch. And this has to be done from the bottom up. If we keep electing and
re-electing these puppets we will keep getting played. We have to form
political parties that reflect our political ideas. We have to stop
surrendering to false parties and politicians that do not represent us.
He said he places his hopes in groups such as Black Lives Matter that have
taken to the streets. He said that if he could he would be in the streets of
Philadelphia, where he was raised, during the Democratic convention.
This is our hour of protest, he said. We have to physically resist. We
will reclaim our power when we say no, when we refuse to cooperate. We must,
in everything we do, defy the architects of imperialism, neoliberalism and
mass incarceration. We cannot enable, in any way, this system to perpetuate
itself.
It is time to raise holy hell, he went on. We need to demonstrate in the
streets. We need to use megaphones. We need to hold teach-ins. We need to
sell radical books. We need to make the streets our commons.
Again the loudspeaker boomed: Children must put away the toys they took out
of the childrens room. Children must put away the toys they took out of the
childrens room.
Prisons, like the rest of the society, have been privatized. Prisoners are
billed for an array of services and items that once were the responsibility
of the state. Corporations, which make billions off the prison system, run
phone services, food services, medical services and commissaries. They have
established for-profit prisons and detention centers. Prices for basic
services and necessities such as shoes have soared.
Services that were once the responsibility of the state have been
outsourced to corporations, as in the rest of society, said Abu-Jamal, who
works as a trash collector. We are worth what we are able to pay. If we pay
nothing, in their eyes, we are worth nothing.
When [prisoners] fill out a sick call slip, a request for medical
attention, we have to also sign a cash slip, he said. The medical visit
costs five or 10 dollars. This may not sound like a lot. But a prison job
only pays $30 a month. Prices are constantly going up. Wages in prisons have
remained the same since the 1980s. Most prisoners can only go to buy items
from the commissary after begging their mothers, grandmothers or girlfriends
for money.
In February, Global Tel Link began selling electronic tablets in the prison
for $150, he said. They charge 25 cents for an email and $1.80 to download
a song. And you have to pay them in advance. The state pays Wexford Health
Services $298 million a year to run the medical services. The more medical
services are cut, the greater the profit. You go to medical and most of the
time they tell you to go to the commissary to buy Tylenol or throat
lozenges. If you fall in the yard and need a wheelchair they charge you $25.
If you cant sit up they charge you $75 for a motorized cart. They will not
treat my hepatitis C, saying it is not advanced enough, but of course it is
because the medicine is expensive. It costs between $87,000 and $95,000. A
price like this exists solely to enrich pharmaceutical companies. I could
get the same drug from India for a few thousand dollars. There is a guy in
my block, Joseph Kish Sr., with stage four hepatitis C and cirrhosis. They
have denied him treatment because, they said, he will get out soon. There is
always a reason not to treat us. Prisons have replaced state psychiatric
hospitals. MHM Correctional Services is paid $89 million a year to handle
the mentally ill. It does little more than medicate them. And remember most
guards, especially with overtime, make more money, about $100,00 a year,
than a full professor at a university.
They are doing to us on the inside what they are doing to us on the
outside, he said. They are letting poor people die or killing them for
profit. Things will get worse and worse until people cant take it anymore.
These corporations wont stop. No one in the political class will make them
stop. It is up to us.
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