Mumia: Is Obama's Victory Ours?

[col. writ. 6/5/08] (c)'08 Mumia Abu-Jamal

With the attainment of the required delegates to claim the Democratic Party's nomination for U.S. president, Sen. Barack H. Obama (D. ILL.) has written a new page in American history.

For by so doing he succeeds where Channing Phillips, Shirley Chisholm, Jesse Jackson, Sr., and Al Sharpton could not - by gaining the necessary delegates to demand nomination.

Of course, there have been numerous Black candidates for president, but these have been third party efforts designed more to raise issues, to organize or protest than to actually win elections. Some of the best known have been Eldridge Cleaver (former Black Panther Minister of Information), Dick Gregory, Dr. Lenora Fulani, and the former congresswoman, Cynthia McKinney.

But this is a different kettle of fish, for Obama's candidacy is the closest to make it to the winner's circle.

What also distinguishes Obama from his predecessors is he doesn't come from civil rights, Black liberation, socialist or anti war movements. (He often remarks at speeches, "I'm not against all wars, I'm just against dumb wars")

Indeed, although his detractors may try to paint him as a leftist liberal this is hardly true. On issues both foreign and domestic he would've been more at home in the Republican Party of his senatorial forebear, Edward Brooke of Massachusetts. For though he is Black by dint of his African father, he has studiously avoided Black political groups in his long, harrowing climb to the rim of the White House.

He has studiously avoided the very real and long standing grievances of Black America. In fact, he tried to run a 'post-racial' campaign until Sen. Hillary R. Clinton (D.N.Y.) (and her rambunctious husband, former Pres. Bill), brought race front and center during the Super Tuesday February primaries, by trying to pigeonhole him as 'the Black candidate'.

This primary wounded Obama, and as he won in the delegate count, he also lost a number of primary states, such as Ohio and Pennsylvania, which are necessary for a win in November.

Politics is the art of making people believe that they are in power when in fact, they have none.

It is a measure of how dire is the hour that they've passed the keys to the kingdom to a Black man.

As in many American cities, Black Mayors were let in when the treasuries were almost barren, and tax bases were almost at rock-bottom.

With the nation's manufacturing base also a thing of history, amidst the socioeconomic wreckage of globalization, with foreign affairs in shambles, the rulers reach for a pretty, brown face to front for the Empire.

'Real change that you could believe in' would be an end to Empire, and an end to wars for corporate greed, not just a change of the shade of the political managers.

That change, I'm afraid, is still to come.

--(c) '08 maj

Source.

The Politician and the Preacher

Great article by Mumia. I plan to post a couple blogs on race relations in America so keep a lookout for them...in the meantime read this:

[col. writ. 3/15/08] (c) '08 Mumia Abu-Jamal

The recent quasi-controversy over the comments made by the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright, retired pastor of the United Church of Christ, to which Sen. Barack Obama (D.IL), both belongs and attends, has shown us how limited, and how narrow, is this new politics peddled by the freshman Senator from Chicago.

Although first popularized via the web, the Reverend's comments caused Sen. Obama to say he was "appalled" by them, and he has repudiated such remarks as "offensive."

Just what were these comments? As far as I've heard, they were that Sen. Hilary Clinton (D.NY) has had a political advantage because she's white; that she was raised in a family of means (especially when contrasted with Obama's upbringing); and she was never called a nigger.

Sounds objectively true to me.

Rev. Wright's other remarks were that the country was built on racism, is run by rich white people, and that the events of 9/11 was a direct reaction to US foreign policy.

Again -- true enough.

And while we can see how such truths might cause discomfort to American nationalists, can we not also agree that they are truths? Consider, would Sen. Clinton be where she is if she were born in a Black female body? Or if she were born to a single mother in the projects? As for the nation, it may be too simplistic to say it was built on racism, but was surely built on racial slavery, from which its wealth was built. And who runs America, if not the super rich white elites? Who doesn't know that politicians are puppets of corporate and inherited wealth?

And while Blacks of wealth and means certainly are able to exercise unprecedented influence, we would be insane to believe that they 'run' this country. Oprah, Bob Johnson and Bill Cosby are indeed wealthy; but they have influence, not power. The limits of Cosby's power was shown when he tried to purchase the TV network, NBC, years ago. His offer received a corporate smirk. And Oprah's wealth, while remarkable, pales in comparison to the holdings of men like Bill Gates, or Warren Buffet.

Would George W. Bush be president today if he were named Jorje Guillermo Arbusto, and Mexican-American? (Not unless Jorje, Sr. was a multimillionaire!)

In his ambition to become America's first Black president, Obama is in a race to prove how Black he isn't; even to denouncing a man he has considered his mentor.

As one who has experienced the Black church from the inside, politics and social commentary are rarely far from the pulpit. The Rev. Dr. Martin L. King spoke of politics, war, racism, economics, and social justice all across America. His fair-weather friends betrayed him, and the press condemned his remarks as "inappropriate", "unpatriotic", and "controversial."

Rev. Dr. King said the US was "the greatest purveyor of violence" on earth, and that the Vietnam War was illegitimate and unjust. Would Sen. Obama be denouncing these words, as the white press, and many civil rights figures did, in 1967? Are they "inflammatory?"

Only to politics based on white, corporate comfort uber alles (above all)" only to a politics that ignores Black pain, and distorts Black history; only to a politics pitched more to the status quo, than to real change.

Politics is ultimately about more than winning elections; it's about principles; it's about being true to one's self, and honoring one's ancestors; it's about speaking truth to power.

It can't just be about change, because every change ain't for the better!

--(c) -08 maj

Original article here.

Mumia Abu-Jamal: Gathering of the Tribe

[col. writ. 6/19/07] (c) '07 Mumia Abu-Jamal

Ona Move! LLJA!

For what do we gather -- we youths and elders -- if not to try to find some clue to how to remake this world that is obviously going wrong?

Why gather, unless there is at least some hope that some words, some key, some insight may be gained that will glow like the proverbial light bulb over the head of the guy in the comics? But -- as an elder who was a revolutionary before he was 15, please lend your ear to my thoughts. I wish to share with you some ideas that I've always shared with young folks. I try to remind them that Huey P. Newton, who founded the Black Panther Party, did so at the tender age of 24. Twenty-four years old!His friend and co-founder, Bobby Seale, was only a few years older.

I say this to remind you, especially young people, of what young folks are capable of, when they put their minds and hearts to it. Huey didn't ask Martin Luther King, Jr. for permission. He didn't ask Malcolm X for his OK.Like most young people of his time, he talked to other young folks, and before you know it, a dozen young brothas and sistas were with him, trying to build the Party from scratch.

What's my point?Am I suggesting that this was/is easy? Or that, if Huey could do it, you could too?No. It would be dishonest of me, and dangerous for you, to do that.It's important to remember that old adage by Santayana: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."It's important for you to learn mistakes of the past, so that you can side-step them in the future.

Among the Ashanti people in West Africa, the following proverb is used: " A wise man who ceases to learn ceases to be wise."Study. Study. Seriously study our people's history of resistance, so that you can remake this world {that is} on the brink of chaos.Huey P. Newton studied the works of Malcolm X; he studied anti-Imperialist movements in Cuba, Latin America, Africa, and Asia. He studied the writings of Mao, of Che, of Kwame Nkrumah and beyond.Then he put his studies into practice.

The great Frantz Fanon, a revolutionary psychiatrist who helped {in} the Algerian Revolution said, "Every generation must, out of relative obscurity, discover its mission, and fulfill it or betray it."That is your task. It can't be handed to you like a ticket.It must emerge from the inner recesses of the soul, from the red embers of collective and personal history.You must own it, and make it yours, by seizing the stage of history - by taking it.For, as elders return to their ancestors, the earth becomes the inheritance of the living.The challenge is great; the threats are daunting; but the promise of freedom, of true liberation couldn't be sweeter.

Thank you! Ona Move!From Life's Row, this Mumia Abu-Jamal

*******

Mumia Abu-Jamal is a political prisoner in the United States, with what could be the final decision on his legal appeals possibly coming down this summer. That decision could give Mumia his freedom, a new trial, life in prison, or execution. It is time to turn up the heat against this injustice.

Free Mumia!