Mumia Abu-jamal's Radio Essays

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Planning to Fail col. writ. 10/18/07 It's hard to look at American society today, and not see how everything seems to be a plan for failure. One would be hard-pressed to find a society which seems to see education as little more than a business, which only the well-to-do can begin to afford. There are a plethora of loans, even some provided by the feds, but fewer and fewer grants. When students are lucky enough to find loans, they are saddled with red oceans of debt, some to the tune of over $100,000; the costs, not just of admissions, tuition, books and fees; but of housing, clothing, transport, food, and entertainment for 4 years --more, if one seeks a professional, or graduate degree! How is it that education is fast becoming a pipe dream for millions of young people in the U.S., and is free just 90 miles away from American soil? In Cuba, education is free from kindergarten to college. Indeed, just recently a score of Americans (and hundreds of other nationalities) graduated from Medica

!Wars Without End -- Again! {speech writ. 10/14/07} (c) '07 Mumia Abu-Jamal Ona Move! LLJA! Thanx for your invitation for me to speak to you today! For millions of people (I among them) the Nov. 2006 elections marked a major turning point in U.S. politics -- or so we thought. The elections had one, single motivation: to end the Iraq war. Well, the elections changed majorities in Congress. But did it change U.S. policy? Nope. Before the numbers of votes could all be counted, you heard the backtracking: "we must be cautious"; "if we leave now, there'd be chaos", etc., etc. Now, Democrats say openly that no significant troop withdrawal can come before 2012- 5 more years! And then, don't you think you'll hear an additional 5 or 10 years? War isn't a Democratic or Republican project - it is a corporate one, where both corporate parties play the game laid down by their sponsors and contributors. Here we see the convergence between neo liberals and neo conservatives, who join in t

The Law That Promotes Punishment (Instead of Education) [col. writ. 10/21/07] (c) '07 Mumia Abu-Jamal It's been 5 years since the No Child Left Behind law was put into place, and around the nation, it has left wreckage in its wake. That's because, like many such laws pushed by the paranoid right wind, what a law is called has little (or nothing) to do with what a law does. Calling it No Child Left Behind gave it the benign imagery of caring for children and their futures. It's like the so-called Patriot Act -- an act, to be sure, but one so patently unconstitutional in its evisceration of the 4th Amendment (and other constitutional provisions) that no true patriot could ever support it. While the imagery of a catchy title might've helped in it's selling, the lesser known side of the law is now about to kick in -- and it threatens to transform public schools into private businesses, transfer them into charter schools, allow state takeovers -- or close them. This law is of a piece from the rig

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{col. writ. 10/7/07} (c) '07 Mumia Abu-Jamal There are forces in this country and in this world that are expending energy to ensure war with Iran. That's right -- Iran. Many of those forces were the same ones that suckered the nation into Iraq, with media - megaphoned fear- mongering. Iran has become the feared bogeyman of the hour; the latest in the simplistic media projection of 'bad guy.' And, just as in Iraq, the media's demonization of the leader becomes reason to destroy, attack, bomb, and occupy a nation. "He's a bad guy!" "He's a ruthless dictator!" Doesn't this sound familiar? Famed scholar and linguist, Noam Chomsky, interviewed recently by radio host David Barsamian, gives a powerful example of the impact of media upon us. Chomps explained: Take a classic example, Germany. Under the Weimar Republic, Germany was the most civilized country in the world, the leader in the sciences and the arts. Within two or three years it had been turned into a country of raving maniacs

{col. writ. 10/3/07} (c) '07 Mumia Abu-Jamal The recent contract approval by the executive committee of the United Auto Workers (UAW) and General Motors (GM) marks a turning point in relations between labor and management. It may also mark the transition between unions as a representative of workers, and management as a representative for the owners. That's because, if the UAW members agree, the union will (at least partially ) administer almost $30 billion bucks in pension funds. If the general membership signs on, it lifts a $50 billion burden from the backs of GM managers, and places the lion's share of it on the back of the union. In one fell swoop, the union performs the function of GM management! For GM, this is a masterstroke; for the UAW, it may prove a trap, or the first step of the end of unions, or at least pensions as we know it. The trade union movement came of age by becoming the laborer's institution, and the de facto representative of its workers. In the earlier half of t

[col. writ. 9/29/07] (c) '07 Mumia Abu-Jamal Until several weeks ago, the name 'Jena' was doubtless unfamiliar to millions of people in the U.S., until the demonstrations around the case of the Jena 6 brought attention to the small Louisiana town. But, before the case occurred, the name became known to hundreds (if not thousands) of young Blacks, who came to know, quite intimately, that Jena was just another word for racism, rape, violence, and humiliation. After the ravages of Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans and its surrounding areas, hundreds of imprisoned people were transported to the Jena Juvenile Justice Center, in Jena, Louisiana, a place that became their nightmare. The place was so medieval and tortuous in its treatment of young people, that it was severely criticized by a federal judge as a place where people were "treated as if they walked on all fours," before it was closed. According to published reports put out by the groups Human Rights Watch and the NAACP-Legal Defense Fund,

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