Make June Class-War Prisoners
Freedom Month
Markin comment (reposted from 2010)
In “surfing” the National Jericho
Movement website recently in order to find out more, if possible, about
class- war prisoner and 1960s radical, Marilyn Buck [now deceased], whom I had
read about in a The Rag Blog post I linked to the Jericho list of class
war prisoners. I found Marilyn Buck listed there but also others, some of whose
cases, like that of the “voice of the voiceless” Pennsylvania [former] death
row prisoner, Mumia Abu-Jamal, are well-known and others who seemingly have
languished in obscurity. All of the cases, at least from the information that I
could glean from the site, seemed compelling. And all seemed worthy of far more
publicity and of a more public fight for their freedom.
That last notion set me to the task
at hand. Readers of this space know that I am a long -time supporter of the
Partisan Defense Committee, a class struggle, non-sectarian legal and social
defense organization which supports class- war prisoners as part of the process
of advancing the international working class’ struggle for socialism. In that
spirit I am honoring the class war prisoners on the National Jericho Movement
list this June as the start of what I hope will be an on-going attempt by all
serious leftist militants to do their duty- fighting for freedom for these
brothers and sisters. We will fight out our political differences and
disagreements as a separate matter. What matters here and now is the old
Wobblie (IWW) slogan - An injury to one is an injury to all.
Note: This list, right now, is composed of class-war
prisoners held in American detention. If others are likewise incarcerated that
are not listed here feel free to leave information on their cases here.
Likewise any cases, internationally that may come to your attention. I am sure
there are many, many such cases out there. Make this June, and every June, a
Class-War Prisoners Freedom Month- Free All Class-War Prisoners Now!
*******
Workers Vanguard No. 1025 |
|
Remember the MOVE Massacre-May 1985 Bombing: Racist State Terror
On 13 May 1985, the Philadelphia police, with the cooperation of
Pennsylvania State Police and the FBI, consciously carried out racist state
murder. Acting on the orders of black Democratic mayor Wilson Goode and the
Reagan White House, the cops dropped a satchel with C-4 explosives onto the MOVE
organization’s Osage Avenue home. The explosion and ensuing firestorm killed
eleven black people, including five children, and destroyed an entire city
block, leaving hundreds homeless. The bombing capped a 12-hour cop siege during
which over 10,000 rounds of ammunition were fired into the house. Firefighters
were prevented by police from tackling the blaze for more than an hour, and the
cops shot at anyone trying to escape the inferno. There were only two survivors:
13-year-old Birdie Africa and Ramona Africa, who was sent to prison for seven
years for the “crime” of still being alive.
This massacre was the culmination of years of police harassment,
beatings and hundreds of arrests of members of this mostly black back-to-nature
commune known for denouncing “the system” and defending its right to armed
self-defense. In August 1978, 600 Philly cops had surrounded and attacked MOVE’s
Powelton Village compound, unleashing a barrage of gunfire. Nine MOVE members
were framed up and sentenced to between 30 and 100 years in prison after a cop
was killed in the ferocious police crossfire. Merle Africa died in prison in
1998; the others are still locked away in Pennsylvania’s prison hellholes.
While covering the trial of the MOVE 9, Mumia Abu-Jamal became a
MOVE supporter. A former Black Panther and Philadelphia journalist known as the
“Voice of the Voiceless,” Mumia was framed for the December 1981 killing of
police officer Daniel Faulkner and sentenced to death for his political views.
Mumia was confined to death row for 30 years before his sentence was overturned
two years ago, but his conviction still stands. For him it is now the “slow
death row” of life in prison. Free all the MOVE prisoners! Free Mumia
Abu-Jamal! Abolish the racist death penalty!
A new documentary about the MOVE bombing, Let the Fire Burn,
premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York in April, winning a Special
Jury mention for a first documentary. The filmmaker, Jason Osder, watched the
bombing live on television as a child and was spurred to make the documentary
because he was horrified that people of his generation didn’t remember the
events of 13 May 1985. Although Osder’s film is a welcome exposé, it makes an
unwelcome attempt at being evenhanded. There are no two sides to an atrocity. In
a Q&A with the filmmaker at the screening, a supporter of the Partisan
Defense Committee stressed that the bombing was “not a
confrontation between extremists and authority but between the oppressed and the
oppressors.”
The MOVE bombing belongs to the long history of murderous
capitalist state repression against workers, the oppressed and groups deemed
“deviant.” We will not forget the 1921 aerial bombing of the black neighborhood
in Tulsa, Oklahoma, or the 1993 massacre of the integrated Branch Davidian
movement in Waco, Texas. These and other atrocities evoke the terror meted out
by U.S. imperialism in its wars far from home.
The state branded MOVE “terrorist” to justify its mass murder, the
signature of the Reagan years. With the “war on terror,” this pretext has become
a fixture in the arsenal targeting those who stand up against the depredations
of the capitalist rulers, not least black people. In this society, the entire
state apparatus is racist to the core, as witnessed by “stop and frisk” and the
massive numbers of black men in prison. Anti-black oppression has been the very
bedrock of American capitalism since its foundation on the backs of chattel
slaves seized from Africa.
On the 28th anniversary of the MOVE bombing, we again seek to etch
this atrocity into the collective memory of the working class and oppressed.
Workers revolution will avenge the MOVE martyrs. For black liberation
through socialist revolution!
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