Philosopher views
Download 5.81 Mb.
|
- Navigate this page:
- ON POLITICAL CHANGE
- BIBLIOGRAPHY
ON TERRORISMMumia also believes that the definition of terrorism should be expanded to include a wide range of activities that one might not think of when considering the subject. He argues that many individuals in the United States who think of terrorism, think not of efforts by people attempting to attack the United States, but instead of the constant fear they live in of police who brutalize, pummel, or suppress dissent against the political situation that faces “black...brown...and working-class white America.” Mumia believes that these practices ostensibly carried out in the name of “justice,” are in reality acts of police terrorism enacted on American citizens. Likewise he believes that the history of US foreign policy should be examined as a series of terrorist acts. To support this argument, he examines a litany of Latin American dictators supported by US funds and hosted on state visits to the United States. At the same time, these dictators systematically curtailed labor and rights movements. He notes, “For millions of people who live in the countries south of the Rio Grande, US claims to wage a 'war against terrorism', are dismissed with deep cynicism, if not ill humor. For they know that the US has always been the motivating force behind the sheer terror that has ravaged their societies since the 1800s.” Similarly, he cites President Lyndon Johnson’s admission that operations by the US in Cuba were merely an outpost of Murder Inc. Likewise, Mumia argues that the US supported “pirate planes” that left Florida to drop napalm on Cuban sugar factories and other covert military actions. All these incidents Mumia suggest expands our notion of what terrorism is and also sheds light on the current war on terror. His hope is to remind readers that, “Terrorism isn't grown merely in foreign deserts: it's as present as our own back yards.” ON POLITICAL CHANGEMumia adopts a theory of political change similar to others cited in the volume. He encourages listeners who wish to resist the institutional racism, constructions of terrorists threat, and corrupt justice system to “organize, organize, organize, and, then, organize.” Like Esteva, Mumia subscribes to an ethic that believes solutions must come from the organized efforts by local communities to refuse to give power to the state. For Mumia, this includes resisting the effort by the media to do the work of the government by presenting images of terrorists, crime, and other problems that later justify polices that fix them at the expense of minorities, the poor or other marginalized groups. Like Esteva, Mumia also agrees that individuals should refuse to use the same tactics used by those who seek to oppress them. For example, Mumia argues that “violence violates the self” and that as a tactic it should be avoided when possible. Instead of attempting to break the old system, Mumia suggests political change must emerge from a new system. In other words, Mumia supports revolutionary action, not merely a reform of current state polices. APPLICATION TO LINCOLN DOUGLAS The ideas that Mumia discusses are wide ranging enough to provide topical discussion of nearly any issue. From Hurricane Katrina, to the UN, to Iraq/Abu Gharib, to the immigration debate, Mumia offers insightful commentary that focuses on the implications of an contemporary events for issues of race, class, equality and social justice. More obviously, for topics that examine issues of criminal justice Mumia offers extensive application. You can also use Mumia to construct arguments that indict state and international actors. For example, many of the topics that you may encounter will likely question under what circumstances the US or UN should act in a given situation. Mumia suggests that their action will likely be problematic whatever the circumstances. Additionally, Mumia offers alternative approaches that avoid the problems of focusing the debate only the actors prescribed by the debate. BIBLIOGRAPHYAbu-Jamal, Mumia. Live From Death Row. New York: Addison-Wesley, 1995. ---. Death Blossoms: Reflections from a Prisoner of Conscience. New York: Plough, 1997. ---. All Things Censored. New York: Seven Stories, 2000. ---. We Want Freedom. Cambridge: South End, 2004. ---. Prison Radio Essay Audio Transcripts. PrisonRadio.Org. Last accessed 6/30/2006. http://www.prisonradio.org/mumia.htm. Updated Regularly. ---. Section in Still Black, Still Strong. New York: Semiotext(e), 1993. Boyd, Herb. Autobiography of a People. New York: Doubleday, 200. Weinglass, Leonard. Race for Justice. Maine: Common Courage, 1995. THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM IS INHERENTLY OPPRESSIVE 1. CAPITAL PUNISHMENT HAS BECOME A “BLACK MARCH TO DEATH’ MUMIA ABU-JAMAL, JOURNALIST/ACTIVIST/POLITCAL PRISONER, 1995 LIVE FROM DEATH ROW, 92 Everyday in America the trek continues, a black march to death row. In Pennsylvania, where African-Americans constitute 9 percent of the population, over 60 percent of its death row inhabitants are black. Across the nation, although the numbers are less stark, the trend is unmistakable. In October 1991, the Bureau of Justice Statistics released its national update, which revealed that 40 percent of America’s death row population is balck. This, out of a population that is a mere 11 percent of the national populace. The five states with the largest death rows have larger percentages on death row than in their statewide black populations. 2. ALL STAGES OF LAW ENFORCEMENT SUBJECTS AFRICAN-AMERICANS AND OTHER MIONRITIES TO “SPECIAL VENGEANCE” MUMIA ABU-JAMAL, JOURNALIST/ACTIVIST/POLITCAL PRISONER, 1995 LIVE FROM DEATH ROW, 92-3 Statistics are often flexible in interpretation and, like scripture, can be cited for any purpose. Does this mean that African-Americans are somehow innocents, subjected to a setup by state officials? Not especially. What it does suggest is that state actors, at all stages of the criminal justice system, including slating at the police station, arraignment at the judicial office, pretrial, trial, and sentencing state before court, treat African-American defendants with a special vengeance not experienced by white defendants. This is the dictionary definition of “discrimination.” 3. EMPIRICALLY, THE SEVEREST PUNISHMENTS ARE DEALT OUT ALONG CLASS LINES MUMIA ABU-JAMAL, JOURNALIST/ACTIVIST/POLITCAL PRISONER, 2000 ALL THINGS CENSORED, 235 That’s what capital punishment really means. Those that ain’t got the capital gets the punishment, the old saying. Once again we see the inherent truths that lie in the proverbs of the poor. That old saying echoed when it was announced that district attorney of Delaware County, Patrick Meehan, would not seek the death penalty in the case of John E. Dupont, the wealthy corporate heir charged with the shooting death of Olympic champion David Schultz. The Delaware County DA’s office said, “No aggravated circumstances justifying the death penalty existed.” Could it be that DuPont’s personal wealth, estimated at over $400 million, was a factor? In one fell swoop, the state ensured that wile millionaires may be murders, they are not eligible for the preserve of the poor, America’s death row. 4. PRISONS DEHUMANIZE THEIR INMATES MUMIA ABU-JAMAL, JOURNALIST/ACTIVIST/POLITCAL PRISONER, 1995 LIVE FROM DEATH ROW, 89 A dark repressive trend in the business field known as “corrections” is sweeping the United States, and it bodes ill both for the captives and for the communities from which they were captured. America is revealing a visage stark with harshness. Nowhere is that face more contorted that in the dark netherworld of prison, where humans are transformed into nonpersons, number beings cribbed into boxes of unlife, where the very soul is under destructive onslaught. We are in the midst of the Marionization of US prisons, where the barest illusion of human rehabilitation is stripped from the mission, to be replace by dehumanization by design. 5. DECISIONS MADE BY THE JUSTICE SYSTEM MEASURE STATUS NOT FACTS MUMIA ABU-JAMAL, JOURNALIST/ACTIVIST/POLITCAL PRISONER, 1997 DEATH BLOSSOMS, 6 The Death Penalty is a creation of the State, and politicians justify it by using it as a stepping stone to higher political office. It’s very popular to sue isolated cases – always the most gruesome ones – to make generalizations about inmates on death row and justify their sentences. Yet it is deceitful; it is untrue, unreal. Politicians talk about people on death row as if they are the worst of the worst, monsters and so forth. But they will not talk about the thousands of men and women in our country serving lesser sentences for similar and even identical crimes. Directory: uploads uploads -> 587 Return function, r i(X) r i(0) r i(1) r i(2) r i(3) 1 0 2 4 6 Thermal Station, I 2 0 1 5 6 3 0 3 5 6 10 uploads -> Department of science and humanities department of mathematics part-a questions and answers uploads -> The Case Against the nypd’s Quota-Driven ‘Broken Windows’ Policing What Is It? uploads -> For want of a nail uploads -> Ownership Models There are two different types of ownership models uploads -> Police Militarization uploads -> City of rising star regular meting thursday, july 14, 2016 uploads -> Township of winfield uploads -> Stop Militarizing Law Enforcement Act of 2014 uploads -> The Black Panther Party’s Ten-Point Program What We Want Now! Download 5.81 Mb. Share with your friends:
|