Mumia Abu-jamal's Radio Essays

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written 5/31/07 Mumia Abu-Jamal For a decade Kenneth Foster, Jr. has languished on one of the worst Death Rows in the U.S. - Texas. He now faces an execution date (of August 30, 2007) despite the fact that even the trial judge, the DA, and the jury that sentenced him to die admit he never killed anyone. Whoa! I know that it sound funny (or fishy), but it's not. It's just a fluke of Texas law. In Texas, that fluke is called the Law of Parties - a variant on conspiracy law, but like most things Texas - this law takes a bigger chunk out of the accused. In essence, the Law of Parties criminalizes presence, not actions. Under U.S. Law, as announced by the Supreme Court in its 1982 Edmunds v Florida decision, a death sentence for one who killed no one, nor intended to, nor assisted in such a killing was a violation of the 8th and 14th Amendments to the Constitution. But again - this is Texas. This is the same state that ruled in the Herrera case that innocence is irrelevant; that poi

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With congressional passage of the administration's supplemental money bill, the president threatens a veto because of his aversion to timetables. But whether he vetoes it or not, the die is cast. More money for war, a war that never should have been waged in the first place. When news broke of the congressional passage, I thought not of Congress but of a robber, like the ones of old time movies who snarled your money or your life. Congress goes one better, for it's your money and your life. For while bowing to the false political imagery of supporting the troops, congress has socked more US billions into a losing proposition to prop up a doddering regime in Baghdad. The troops trope is a political maneuver meant to evade the charge that the democratically controlled Congress is soft on defense and betrayed the military in the midst of war. Instead of recognizing the handwriting on the wall, imperial huberis of left and right feeds the illusion that more money can save Iraq. Only Iraqis can save Iraq. What we

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With wars waged abroad purportedly for "spreading democracy", it's time to face some uncomfortable truths. People are awake and aware that the U.S. and the West doesn't give a fig about democracy. They care about puppets -- people in state power who are answerable to them -- and fear democracy more than terrorism. From Karzai in Afghanistan, Siniora in Lebanon, al Maliki in Iraq, and beyond, people are rising up against these shills for Western, corporate interests. Protests from Kabul to Pakistan are raging against America's alleged allies, who rule by brutality, barbarity and torture. There are several reasons for this state of affairs, but perhaps it all bubbles down to two: Abu Ghraib, and the Iraq invasion/occupation. American performance on the ground, their treatment of Iraqis, the chaos that has seized the country like a fever, had fueled protests far beyond the borders of Iraq, blowing around the world like the borderless wind. The war in Iraq, and all of its consequences, has ca

It was a bright spring day, May 14th, 1607, when one hundred and eight men and boys from England went ashore in an area that we now call Virginia. Before a generation could pass, the indigenous people would be all but destroyed. They would become the sad reflection of the English missions of civilization and Christianizing. Having failed in this dubious experiment, the so–called Indians would be reduced to beggars in the land of their fathers. Jamestown. During this month, and throughout the year, we may be hearing of memorials or even celebrations of the English settlement. We’re taught about the great English leader, Captain John Smith, and the struggle on an Indian’s chief’s daughter, Pocahontas, to save his life. Her plea to for the man’s life is as central to America’s founding mythology as the fantastic wolf–fed children of Romulus and Remus was to Rome. When most Americans think of America’s founding families, they think more often of Plymouth, Massachusetts, than of Virginia. England’s settlers l

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