Ron Jacobs: Hi Marc, let me start with what seems to me to be an obvious question. Your newest book, Good Doctor Guillotin, is, among other things, a meditation on capital punishment. I’m guessing that your work opposing this form of punishment is part of what compelled you to write the novel. Yet, the story is about the invention of the guillotine. Can you talk about how these two sentiments (if that’s what they are) coincide and contradict each other?

Marc Estrin: It’s true that I think of this as “my death-penalty book”. As you know, Vermont has been under pressure from the feds to change its no-death-penalty stance to one conforming more to administration positions concerning capital punishment, and federal prosecutors continue to push for death as an option for federal capital crimes (crimes crossing state boundaries) tried in Vermont, trying to habituate Vermont juries to handing out death sentences, and the public to pressure the legislature to change Vermont statutes prohibiting them. I have written a reflection on a recent local capital trial which may be seen here.

Although the public seems to be less enthusiastic about the death penalty in the last two years, it is with us nevertheless (sometimes shockingly so as in the (upcoming) execution of the likely innocent Troy Davis), and the issue still needs work before we belatedly join the vast majority of nations in abolition.

How, then, to do that work? As with Skulk, my attempted end-run around the general censorship of 9/11 truth, The Good Doctor Guillotin is a reaching out beyond-the-choir of abolitionist regulars to a more general fiction reader who may not ever think about the issue. I had to think about the best way to involve such a person.

My hint was a strong reaction by several readers to the Sacco-Vanzetti chapter in Insect Dreams – that plus my own revulsion at a government planning and accomplishing the death of one of its citizens. It seems that detailed recounting of the prelude and countdown to an execution has strong, affective fascination, usually accompanied by a kind of identifying fear and horror often absent when we read reports of executions elsewhere. The end of A Tale of Two Cities is perhaps the supreme example.

That book certainly contributed to my choice of the French Revolution as a setting for an execution, but more than that was the stark theme of good intentions making things worse, humane science evolving into terror. Modern “improvements” in execution techniques — hanging to electric chair to gas to lethal injection – are motivated by far more technical and less revealing considerations, and so Guillotin’s situation was a very rich choice. He was in fact a good man turned into a monster by his ameliorations. So are many of us. But he knew it, too – which is what makes him so interesting a figure.

The downside of this choice is that the book may be mis-read as simply a historical novel about the French Revolution, ho-hum, that was a long time ago. I tried to block off that reception with the inclusion of contemporary essays in my own non-historical voice.

RJ: Similarly, this book also seems to be about the nature of revolution. One might frame the question this way: how do such good intentions — Liberte, equalite, fraternite — end up so horribly? Is it because the forces that are overthrown and have lost their privilege usually attack rather bloodily in an attempt to regain what they have lost or is it merely revenge on the part of the victors that were oppressed by the vanquished? Or is it something else?

ME: Having chosen the French Revolution as a setting, I spent six months reading everything I could about it, from many different authors. Because the story was to end with the first execution, and thus before the Terror, I might have limited my research to those years of preparation. But the beyond-the-novel question of how the hell the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen ended up with mass slaughter seemed so compelling, so contemporary, so relevant to our own murderous march through the world preaching “democracy”, that I spent much time trying to understand that shift.

I’m no historian or real scholar, but it did seem to me that much hinged on the moment when the Revolution went from fighting its external enemies – the royal armies of states threatened by the demise of royalty – to, having successfully defeated them, worrying about the less visible threat of internal ones – those citizens who may be secretly plotting to overthrow, or undermine, or even think about criticism of the Revolution or a return to parts of the past. Who can know what anyone is thinking? Therefore anyone may be a suspect. And any suspect will of course declare innocence. It therefore became life-preserving to speak in a certain way, to use certain words, to wear certain clothing – like wearing an American flag pin – in order to pass. Alertness for counter revolutionaries was high, and among those in power, especially Robespierre, turned into what most would agree as frank paranoia.

“The enemy within” – a most dangerous conception to be floating free in a society. We’ve seen many examples of its destructiveness. I’ve recently written a piece about two of them as a warning concerning the current mental attitude of many Israelis concerning Palestinians. You can see that here. One telltale symptom of this pathology is when a movement starts to “eat its own children.” The struggle between Robespierre and Danton was so rich in this regard, that at least two great artists have seized upon it: Büchner, in his play, Danton’s Death, and Andrej Wajda in his film, Danton. Both treatments, though poetic fiction, have enriched understanding of revolutionary struggle.

Another way good intentions go astray is via an instinct for hyper-protection when an individual, a movement, a revolution, or a nation feels itself particularly vulnerable. Though the event was created, and the fear cynically manipulated, the reaction to 9/11 is a good example. I treated that issue in my novel, Golem Song. The Golem — a central Jewish myth — was a huge clay figure built and given life by a 16th century magician/rabbi to protect the Jewish community in Prague from a likely pogrom. Unlike Frankenstein’s creature, the Golem was built not to understand better the mystery of life, but entirely for protective, potentially punitive purposes. But like the creature, the Golem got out of hand, destroying that not meant to be destroyed. “Golemism,” I call it. I see Golemism as the global marker of our times, hyperprotection leading to hyperdestruction.

RJ: My favorite character in the novel is the hapless Nicholas Pelletier — a man for whom everything he tries ends up badly. Although he is the man for whom the revolution was supposedly fought, he becomes the blade’s first victim. Is this end meant to be just a continuation of his bad luck or is there something deeper involved?

ME: Yes, he was the man for whom the revolution was supposedly fought, but 1) was he? And 2) what else was he?

Remember that except for the year of the Terror, the French Revolution was a bourgeoise one, led primarily by lawyers and rich merchants with the striking assistance of the progressive nobility. They were fighting not for Pelletier, but to wrest power away from the nobility and the clergy. In theory, the revolution declared “the rights of man”, but it was for bourgeois man those rights were proclaimed. Some idealists (Robespierre among them!) kept the Pelletiers in mind as they made their lengthy, highly educated speeches. Some, of course, like Marat, were all about the poor, but Marat and the Père Duchêne were rabble-rousers, and the philosophers of the Enlightenment were not about rousing rabble, but rousing consciousness. Liberty, as here and now, had its limits, equality was hardly reachable, except in theory, and fraternity had its mentally gated communities. The Masonic lodges came closest to a mixing of social levels, but one can scarcely imagine a Pelletier at a Masonic lodge.

No, Pelletier slipped into being a mauvais pauvre — part of pre-industrial class of society that was beneath consideration, beyond repair, and only to be controlled by an ever-expanding police apparatus. He began as a peasant, like most of his countrymen. But consecutive years of drought and freeze destroyed much of France’s agricultural economy, and there was no government help available because the national treasury had been looted to pay for foreign wars (most notably our own revolution, a proxy war against the real enemy, England.) Where have we heard this before? Just as Obama’s rescue packages robs the poor to enrich the rich, so did the realities of the Revolution leave the Pelletiers behind.

I like the little scene where an enlightened doctor offers him the opportunity to transform from a despised criminal to a hero of science by making his detached head wink on signal. I made up this incident up, but it does reflect a grand controversy about whether there was consciousness after decapitation, and whether, therefore the humane rationale for decapitation was warranted. Note the attention to this kind of detail, while the larger question (again raised by Robespierre and only a few others in the National Assembly) of capital punishment went by the boards. Like many things today, national health care, for instance, or stopping the wars, it was considered “not politically feasible.”

RJ: While reading the novel I found myself thinking about the nature of religious faith versus the nature of scientific thought–arguably one of the battles being fought at an intellectual level during the period the novel takes place. This conflict has a revived significance in today’s world what with the rise of religious fundamentalism from Afghanistan to Topeka, Kansas. Yet, underneath the apparent rationality of science there also seems to be an element of irrational belief required for one to take the next step and accept science’s logic. Your first book Insect Dreams touched on this in its portrayal of the scientists working on the Manhattan Project. Care to comment?

ME: One of the most striking things I discovered while filling in my knowledge of the French Revolution was the central role of the Civil Constitution of the Clergy in creating a counter-revolutionary backlash, especially in the western rural areas of Brittany and the Vendée. Those impassioned movements affected my choice of origin for Pelletier and his wife, and infused much of the internal conflict of the curé Pierre Grenier, the only completely invented character. His role in the novel is to illustrate precisely the anguished interactions of faith, doubt, science, revolutionary fervor, and the human heart.

Having been trained as a scientist myself, I both admire its finesse, and loathe its dismissal of the larger, if cloudier, dimensions of the lived world. The chapter, “Death by a Thousand Cuts” in Insect Dreams was my indictment of that limited world view, certainly faith-based, that science is the definitive guide to reality, and arbiter of right action. The scientists of the Manhattan Project, faced with the collapse of their raison d’être, refused to stop before testing their bomb on human beings.

This conflict, this pattern, supplies one of the continuing themes of many of my novels — the Faustian bargain: desire for knowledge and “progress” without considering the cost and consequences. Guillotin’s story is an archetype of this, our ongoing, hubristic, human tragedy.

RJ: Ah yes… the Faustian bargain. I think we’ve all made a few–at least at a personal level–to get a job or maintain a relationship. However, the ones I’m more interested in are those that we make in the political/economic realm as a people. Last November’s election appears to me as a Faustian bargain of this type. Hell, every election is a Faustian bargain of a sort. Anyhow, back to the more general one we make as residents of the United States — we know what our government, its military and the corporate/financial monoliths do to maintain our standard of living… and we support it, if only tacitly. Keeping Nicholas Pelletier in mind, one could argue that it is only the criminals and others — those that Bob Dylan called “the luckless, the abandoned an’ forsaked”–that do not make this bargain. But then, they probably make their own with Mephistopheles in another form. I guess my question is–can any human in our modern society avoid the Faustian deal?

ME: Faustian bargain:

Let’s make some distinctions because not every bargain is a Faustian bargain. The key dynamic in the Faustian bargain is a quest – for knowledge, or power, or the establishment of some ideal – with every attainment receiving some unexpected blowback, usually a just punishment.

I don’t think the US elections represent a Faustian bargain: we certainly don’t learn anything from them, nor do we get any power, nor do we further any ideal. Rather the opposite in each case. So I’m not even sure what “bargain” we, or Pelletier, or any of the forsaked have entered into, much less Faustian ones.

The dynamic there (here) seems to be pure submission to power and exploitation – which is largely the case with voters (excepting the power elite) in the US.

Given that understanding, I would put your question rather differently:

1. Can any human in our modern society get any kind of bargain at all – something symbiotically quid pro quo?

2. Can any human in our modern society find a Faustian bargain on the racks?

The first is a complex question, given the resources spent to create false consciousness. “If you protect me from terrorists, I will give up my civil liberties, and engage in torture.” I suppose that’s a bargain of sorts. Etc.

The second is also complex, though I suspect less so because the group under discussion is smaller. Who are the humans in modern society who are in a position to gain knowledge, power, or their ideals? The elite, who are usually less than knowledgeable about consequences, or worse, impervious to them. “I don’t really give a shit how many Indian farmers die, as long as my net worth goes up.” Well-funded scientists
often discover things, most often of use in keeping the power imbalance intact.

The Mephistophelian dimension to the Faustian Bargain indicates that what is at issue is supernatural power brought to bear on humans who can’t handle it. Given the secularization of modern society, I suppose we have to translate that into the dynamic between the “spiritual” innerworld, and the political/economic realm. Here, I think, bargains can be made, though given the economic/social cost of say, discovering that one should drop out of society, they may often lead to Faustian hell.

RJ: What about the bargains one makes when working for an employer like General Dynamics? Or the bargain one makes by reaping the benefits of that corporation being in the tax base? Or the bargain one makes to have a nice car and pretty skin? The quests involved may be pecuniary and venal, but they are quests.

ME: I think those are “bargains” similar to “I’ll trade my civil liberties (and morality) for your protection.” Bargains in quotes, but not Faustian ones.

RJ: Until next time. Onward.

The facts of the Abu-Jamal/Faulkner case are highly contested, but all sides agree on certain key points: Abu-Jamal was moonlighting as a taxi-driver on December 9, 1981, when, shortly before 4:00 a.m., he saw his brother, William “Billy” Cook, in an altercation with Officer Faulkner after Faulkner had pulled over Cook’s car at the corner of 13th and Locust Streets, downtown Philadelphia. Abu-Jamal approached the scene. Minutes later when police arrived, Faulkner had been shot dead, and Abu-Jamal had been shot in the chest. The bullet removed from Faulkner, reportedly a .38, was officially too damaged to match it to the legally registered .38 caliber gun that Abu-Jamal says he carried as a taxi driver, after he was robbed several times on the job. Further, Amnesty International has criticized the official “failure of the police to test Abu-Jamal’s gun, hands, and clothing” for gunshot residue, as “deeply troubling.” Abu-Jamal has always maintained his innocence, and today still fights the conviction from his death-row cell in Waynesburg, PA, where he also records weekly radio commentaries, and has now written six books.

Recently, Abu-Jamal had petitioned the US Supreme Court to review the US Third Circuit Court ruling of March, 27 2008, which rejected his bid, based on three issues, for a new guilt-phase trial. One issue was that of racially discriminatory jury selection, based on the 1986 case Batson v. Kentucky, on which the three-judge panel split 2-1, with Judge Thomas Ambro dissenting. Ambro argued that prosecutor Joseph McGill’s use of 10 out of his 15 peremptory strikes to remove otherwise acceptable African-American jurors, was itself enough evidence of racial discrimination to grant Abu-Jamal a preliminary hearing that could have led to a new trial. In denying Abu-Jamal this preliminary hearing, Ambro argued that the Court was creating new rules that were being exclusively applied to Abu-Jamal’s case. The denial “goes against the grain of our prior actions . . . I see no reason why we should not afford Abu-Jamal the courtesy of our precedents,” wrote Ambro.

In his new essay titled “The Mumia Exception,” author J. Patrick O’Connor argues that the Third Circuit Court’s rejection of the Batson claim and of the other two issues presented is only the latest example of the courts’ longstanding practice of altering existing precedent to deny Abu-Jamal legal relief. O’Connor cites many other problems, including the 2001 affidavit by a former court stenographer, who says that on the eve of Abu-Jamal’s trial, she overheard Judge Albert Sabo say to someone at the courthouse that he was going to “help” the prosecution “fry the nigger,” referring to Abu-Jamal. Common Pleas Judge Pamela Dembe rejected this affidavit on grounds that even if Sabo had made the comment, it was irrelevant as long as his “rulings were legally correct.”

The phrase “Mumia Exception” was first coined by Linn Washington, Jr., a Philadelphia Tribune columnist and professor of journalism at Temple University, who has covered this story since the day of Abu-Jamal’s 1981 arrest. Washington criticizes the Third Circuit’s ruling against Abu-Jamal’s claim that Judge Sabo had treated him unfairly at the 1995-97 Post-Conviction Relief Act (PCRA) hearings, which was another issue the Circuit Court had considered. Citing “the mound of legal violations in this case,” Washington says “the continuing refusal of U.S. courts to equally apply the law in the Abu-Jamal case constitutes a stain on America’s image internationally.”

Launched Campaign Cites Withheld Evidence

The Philadelphia Inquirer has reported that supporters of Mumia Abu-Jamal are responding to the March 2009 US Supreme Court ruling by launching a campaign calling for a federal civil rights investigation into Abu-Jamal’s case. The campaign’s supporters include the Riverside Church’s Prison Ministry, actress Ruby Dee, professor Cornel West, and US Congressman Charles Rangel, who is Chairman of the House Committee on Ways and Means. In 2004, the NAACP passed a resolution supporting a new trial for Abu-Jamal, and campaign supporters will be gathering to publicize the civil rights campaign at the upcoming NAACP National Convention in New York City, July 11-16, and to pressure the NAACP to honor their earlier resolutions by actively supporting the current campaign seeking an investigation. Supporters will then be in Washington, DC on July 22 to lobby their elected officials, and in mid-September, they’ll return to Washington, DC for a major press conference.

Thousands of signatures have been collected for a public letter to US Attorney General Eric Holder, which reads: “Inasmuch as there is no other court to which Abu-Jamal can appeal for justice, we turn to you for remedy of a 27-year history of gross violations of US constitutional law and international standards of justice.” The letter cites Holder’s recent investigation into the case of former Senator Ted Stevens, which led to all charges against him being dropped: “You were specifically outraged by the fact that the prosecution withheld information critical to the defense’s argument for acquittal, a violation clearly committed by the prosecution in Abu-Jamal’s case. Mumia Abu-Jamal, though not a US Senator of great wealth and power, is a Black man revered around the world for his courage, clarity, and commitment, and deserves no less than Senator Stevens.”

Several campaigns seeking a civil right investigation into the Abu-Jamal case have been launched since 1995, at which time the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) was one of many groups that publicly supported an investigation. In a 1995 letter written independently of the CBC, Representatives Chaka Fattah, Ron Dellums, Cynthia McKinney, Maxine Waters, and John Conyers (now Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee) stated, “There is ample evidence that Mr. Abu-Jamal’s constitutional rights were violated, that he did not receive a fair trial, and that he is, in fact, innocent.” Assistant Attorney General Andrew Fois responded to the CBC’s request, and in a September 1995 rejection letter written to Congressman Ron Dellums, Fois conceded that even though there is a five-year statute of limitations for a civil rights investigation, the statute does not apply if “there is significant evidence of an ongoing conspiracy.”

One of the 2009 campaign’s organizers is Dr. Suzanne Ross, a spokesperson for the Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition of New York City. Citing Andrew Fois’ letter, Ross argues that the “continued denial of justice to Mumia in the federal courts, as documented by dissenting Judge Thomas Ambro,” is evidence of an “ongoing conspiracy,” and thus merits an investigation. “Throughout the history of this case, we were always told ‘Wait until we get to the federal courts. They will surely overturn the racism and gross misconduct of Judge Sabo,’ but we never got even a preliminary hearing on the issue considered most winnable: racial bias in jury selection, the so called Batson issue.” Ross also criticizes the Third Circuit’s denial of Abu-Jamal’s claim that Judge Sabo was unfair at the 1995-97 PCRA hearings, and considers this denial to be further evidence of an “ongoing conspiracy.” Ross argues that the courts’ continued affirmation of Sabo’s rulings during the PCRA hearings, and Sabo’s ultimate ruling that nothing presented at the PCRA hearings was significant enough to merit a new trial, serves to legitimize numerous injustices throughout Abu-Jamal’s case.

Specifically referring to the issue of withheld evidence, that was central to the case of former Senator Ted Stevens, organizer Suzanne Ross identifies five key instances in Abu-Jamal’s case, where “evidence was withheld that could have led to Mumia’s acquittal.” The DA’s office withheld two items from Abu-Jamal’s defense: the actual location of the driver’s license application found in Officer Faulkner’s pocket; and Pedro Polakoff’s crime scene photos. Then, at the request of prosecutor McGill, Judge Sabo ruled to block three items from the jury: prosecution eyewitness Robert Chobert’s probation status and criminal history; testimony from defense eyewitness Veronica Jones about police attempts to solicit false testimony; and testimony from Police Officer Gary Waskshul.

DA Suppresses Evidence About Kenneth Freeman

In their recent books, Michael Schiffmann (Race Against Death: The Struggle for the Life and Freedom of Mumia Abu-Jamal, 2006) and J. Patrick O’Connor (The Framing of Mumia Abu-Jamal, 2008) argue that the actual shooter of Officer Faulkner was a man named Kenneth Freeman. Schiffmann and O’Connor argue that Freeman was an occupant of Billy Cook’s car, who shot Faulkner in response to Faulkner having shot Abu-Jamal first, and then fled the scene before police arrived.

Central to Schiffmann and O’Connor’s argument was the presence of a driver’s license application for one Arnold Howard, which was found in the front pocket of Officer Faulkner’s shirt. Abu-Jamal’s defense would not learn about this until 13 years later, because the Police and DA’s office had failed to notify them about the application’s crucial location. Journalist Linn Washington argues that this failure was “a critical and deliberate omission,” and “a major violation of fair trial rights and procedures. If the appeals process had any semblance of fairness, this misconduct alone should have won a new trial for Abu-Jamal.” More importantly, Washington says, “this evidence provides strong proof of a third person at the scene along with Faulkner and Billy Cook. The prosecution case against Abu-Jamal rests on the assertion that Faulkner encountered a lone Cook minutes before Abu-Jamal’s arrival on the scene, but Faulkner got that application from somebody other than Cook, who had his own license.”

At the 1995 PCRA hearing, Arnold Howard testified that he had loaned his temporary, non-photo license to Kenneth Freeman, who was Billy Cook’s business partner and close friend. Further, Howard stated that police came to his house early in the morning on Dec. 9, 1981, and brought him to the police station for questioning because he was suspected of being “the person who had run away” from the scene, but he was released after producing a 4:00 a.m. receipt from a drugstore across town (which provided an alibi) and telling them that he had loaned the application to Freeman (who Howard reports was also at the police station that morning).

Also pointing to Freeman’s presence in the car with Cook, O’Connor and Schiffmann cite prosecution witness Cynthia White’s testimony at Cook’s separate trial for charges of assaulting Faulkner, where White describes both a “driver” and a “passenger” in Cook’s VW. Also notable, investigative journalist Dave Lindorff’s book (Killing Time: An Investigation into the Death Row Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal, 2003) features an interview with Cook’s lawyer Daniel Alva, in which Alva says that Cook had confided to him within days of the shooting that Freeman had been with him that morning.

Linn Washington argues that, “this third person at the crime scene is consistent with eyewitness accounts of the shooter fleeing the scene. Remember that accounts from both prosecution and defense witnesses confirm the existence of a fleeing shooter. Abu-Jamal was arrested at the scene, critically wounded. He did not run away and return in a matter of seconds.” Eyewitnesses Robert Chobert, Dessie Hightower, Veronica Jones, Deborah Kordansky, William Singletary, and Marcus Cannon all reported, at various times, that they saw one or more men run away from the scene. O’Connor writes that, “some of the eyewitnesses said this man had an Afro and wore a green army jacket. Freeman did have an Afro and he perpetually wore a green army jacket. Freeman was tall and burly, weighing about 225 pounds at the time.” Then there’s eyewitness Robert Harkins, whom prosecutor McGill did not call as a witness. O’Connor postulates that the prosecutor’s decision was because Harkins’ account of a struggle between Faulkner and the shooter that caused Faulkner to fall on his hands and knees before Faulkner was shot “demolished the version of the shooting that the state’s other witnesses rendered at trial.” O’Connor writes further that “Harkins described the shooter as a little taller and heavier than the 6-foot, 200-pound Faulkner,” which excludes the 6’1”, 170-lb Abu-Jamal.

Linn Washington’s 2001 affidavit states that he knew Freeman to be a “close friend of Cook’s,” and that “Cook and Freeman were constantly together.” Washington first met Freeman when Freeman reported his experience of police brutality to the Philadelphia Tribune, where Washington worked. Washington says today that, “Kenny did not harbor any illusions about police being unquestioned heroes due to his experiences with being beaten a few times by police and police incessantly harassing him for his street vending.”

Regarding the police harassment and intimidation of Freeman, which continued after the arrest of Abu-Jamal, Washington adds: “It is significant to note that the night after the Faulkner shooting, the newsstand that Freeman built and operated at 16th and Chestnut Streets in Center City burned to the ground. In news media accounts of this arson, police sources openly boasted to reporters that the arsonist was probably a police officer. Witnesses claimed to see officers fleeing the scene right before the fire was noticed. Needless to say, that arson resulted in no arrests.” Dave Lindorff argues that the police clearly “had their eye on Freeman,” because “only two months after Faulkner’s shooting, Freeman was arrested in his home, where he was found hiding in his attic armed with a .22 caliber pistol, explosives and a supply of ammunition. At that time, he was not charged with anything.” O’Connor and Schiffmann argue that police intimidation ultimately escalated to the point where police themselves murdered Freeman.

The morning of May 14, 1985, Freeman’s body was found: naked, bound, and with a drug needle in his arm. His cause of death was officially declared a “heart attack.” The date of Freeman’s death is significant because the night before his body was found, the police had orchestrated a military-style siege on the MOVE organization’s West Philadelphia home. Police had fired over 10,000 rounds of ammunition in 90 minutes and used a State Police helicopter to drop a C-4 bomb (illegally supplied by the FBI) on MOVE’s roof, which started a fire that destroyed the entire city block. The MOVE Commission later documented that police had shot at MOVE family members when they tried to escape the fire: in all, six adults and five children were killed.

As a local journalist, Abu-Jamal had criticized the city government’s conflicts with MOVE, and after his 1981 arrest, MOVE began to publicly support him. Through this mutual advocacy, which continues today, Abu-Jamal and MOVE’s contentious relationship with the Philadelphia authorities have always been closely linked. Seen in this context, Schiffmann argues that “if Freeman was indeed killed by cops, the killing probably was part of a general vendetta of the Philadelphia cops against their ‘enemies’ and the cops killed him because they knew or suspected he had something to do with the killing of Faulkner.” O’Connor concurs, arguing that “the timing and modus operandi of the abduction and killing alone suggest an extreme act of police vengeance.”

DA Suppresses Pedro Polakoff’s Crime Scene Photos

On December 6, 2008, several hundred protesters gathered outside the Philadelphia District Attorney’s office, where Pam Africa, coordinator of the International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal, spoke about the newly discovered crime scene photos taken by press photographer Pedro Polakoff. Africa cited Polakoff’s statements today that he approached the DA’s office with the photos in 1981, 1982, and 1995, but that the DA had completely ignored him. Polakoff states that because he had believed Abu-Jamal was guilty, he had no interest in approaching the defense, and never did. Consequently, neither the 1982 jury nor the defense ever saw Polakoff’s photos. “The DA deliberately kept evidence out,” declared Africa: “someone should be arrested for withholding evidence in a murder trial.”

Advocacy groups called Educators for Mumia and Journalists for Mumia explain in their fact sheet, “21 FAQs,” that Polakoff’s photos were first discovered by German author Michael Schiffmann in May 2006, and published that Fall in his book, Race Against Death. One of Polakoff’s photos was first published in the US by The SF Bay View Newspaper on Oct. 24, 2007. Reuters followed with a Dec. 4, 2007 article, after which the photos made their television debut on NBC’s Dec. 6, 2007 Today Show. They have since been spotlighted by National Public Radio, Indymedia.org, CounterPunch, The Philadelphia Weekly and the new British documentary In Prison My Whole Life, which features an interview with Polakoff.

Since May, 2007, www.Abu-Jamal-News.com has displayed four of Polakoff’s photos, making the following points:

Photo 1: Mishandling the Guns — Officer James Forbes holds both Abu-Jamal’s and Faulkner’s guns in his bare hand and touches the metal parts. This contradicts his later court testimony that he had preserved the ballistics evidence by not touching the metal parts.

Photos 2 & 3: The Moving Hat — Faulkner’s hat is moved from the top of Billy Cook’s VW, and placed on the sidewalk for the official police photo.

Photo 4: The Missing Taxi — Prosecution witness Robert Chobert testified that he was parked directly behind Faulkner’s car, but the space is empty in the photo.

The Missing Divots — In all of Polakoff’s photos of the sidewalk where Faulkner was found, there are no large bullet divots, or destroyed chunks of cement, which should be visible in the pavement if the prosecution scenario was accurate, according to which Abu-Jamal shot down at Faulkner — and allegedly missed several times — while Faulkner was on his back. Also citing the official police photo, Michael Schiffmann writes: “It is thus no question any more whether the scenario presented by the prosecution at Abu-Jamal’s trial is true, because it is physically impossible.”

Pedro P. Polakoff was a Philadelphia freelance photographer who reports having arrived at the crime scene about 12 minutes after the shooting was first reported on police radio, and at least 10 minutes before the Mobile Crime Detection Unit that handles crime scene forensics and photographs. In Schiffmann’s interview with him, Polakoff recounted that “all the officers present expressed the firm conviction that Abu-Jamal had been the passenger in Billy Cook’s VW and had fired and killed Faulkner by a single shot fired from the passenger seat of the car.” Polakoff bases this on police statements made to him directly, and from his having overheard their conversations. Polakoff states that this early police opinion was apparently the result of their interviews of three other witnesses who were still present at the crime scene: a parking lot attendant, a drug-addicted woman, and another woman. None of those eyewitnesses, however, have appeared in any report presented to the courts by the police or the prosecution.

It is undisputed that Abu-Jamal approached from across the street, and was not the passenger in Billy Cook’s car. Schiffmann argues that Polakoff’s personal account strengthens the argument that the actual shooter was Billy Cook’s passenger Kenneth Freeman who, Schiffmann postulates, fled the scene before police arrived.

Robert Chobert’s Legal Status Withheld From Jury

At prosecutor Joseph McGill’s request, Judge Albert Sabo blocked Abu-Jamal’s defense from telling the 1982 jury that key prosecution eyewitness, taxi driver Robert Chobert, was on probation for throwing a molotov cocktail into a school yard, for pay. Sabo justified this by ruling that Chobert’s offense was not crimen falsi, i.e., a crime of deception. Consequently, the jury never heard about this, nor that on the night of Abu-Jamal’s arrest, Chobert had been illegally driving on a suspended license (revoked for a DWI). This probation violation could have given him up to 30 years in prison, so he was extremely vulnerable to pressure from the police. Notably, at the later 1995 PCRA hearing, Chobert testified that his probation had never been revoked, even though he continued to drive his taxi illegally through 1995.

At the 1982 trial, Chobert testified that he was in his taxi, which he had parked directly behind Faulkner’s police car, and was writing in his log book when he heard the first gunshot and looked up. Chobert alleged that while he did not see a gun in Abu-Jamal’s hand, nor a muzzle flash, he did see Abu-Jamal standing over Faulkner, saw Abu-Jamal’s hand “jerk back” several times, and heard shots after each “jerk.” After the shooting, Chobert stated that he got out and approached the scene.

Damaging Chobert’s credibility, however, is evidence suggesting that Chobert may have lied about his location at the time of Faulkner’s death. As noted earlier, the newly discovered Polakoff crime scene photos show that the space where Chobert testified to being parked directly behind Officer Faulkner’s car was actually empty. Yet, even more evidence suggests he lied about his location. While prosecution eyewitness Cynthia White is the only witness to testify seeing Chobert’s taxi parked behind Faulkner’s police car, no official eyewitness reported seeing White at the scene. Furthermore, Chobert’s taxi is missing both from White’s first sketch of the crime scene given to police (Defense Exhibit D-12), and from a later one (Prosecution Exhibit C-35). In a 2001 affidavit, private investigator George Michael Newman says that in a 1995 interview, Chobert told Newman that Chobert was actually parked around the corner, on 13th Street, north of Locust Street, and did not even see the shooting.

Amnesty International documents that both Chobert and White “altered their descriptions of what they saw, in ways that supported the prosecution’s version of events.” Chobert first told police that the shooter simply “ran away,” but after he had identified Abu-Jamal at the scene, he said the shooter had run away 30 to 35 “steps” before he was caught. At trial, Chobert changed this distance to 10 “feet,” which was closer to the official police account that Abu-Jamal was found just a few feet away from Officer Faulkner.

Nevertheless, Chobert did stick to a few statements in his trial testimony that contradicted the prosecution’s scenario. For example, Chobert declared that he did not see the apparently unrelated Ford car that, according to official reports, was parked in front of Billy Cook’s VW. Chobert also claimed that the altercation happened behind Cook’s VW (it officially happened in front of Cook’s VW), that Chobert did not see Abu-Jamal get shot or see Officer Faulkner fire his gun, and that the shooter was “heavyset” — estimating 200-225 lbs (Abu-Jamal weighed 170 lbs).

In his 2003 book Killing Time, Dave Lindorff wrote about two other problems with Chobert’s account. While being so legally vulnerable, why would Chobert have parked directly behind a police car? Why would he have left his car and approached the scene, if in fact, the shooter were still there? Lindorff suggests that “at the time of the incident, Chobert might not have thought that the man slumped on the curb was the shooter,” because “in his initial Dec. 9 statement to police investigators, Chobert had said that he saw ‘another man’ who ‘ran away’. . . He claimed in his statement that police stopped that man, but that he didn’t see him later.” Therefore, “if Chobert did think he saw the shooter run away, it might well explain why he would have felt safe walking up to the scene of the shooting as he said he did, before the arrival of police.”

The Attempts to Silence Veronica Jones

Veronica Jones was working as a prostitute at the crime scene on December 9, 1981. She first told police on December 15, 1981 that she had seen two men “jogging” away from the scene before police arrived. As a defense witness at the 1982 trial, Jones denied having made that statement; however, later in her testimony she started to describe a pre-trial visit from police, where “They were getting on me telling me I was in the area and I seen Mumia, you know, do it. They were trying to get me to say something that the other girl [Cynthia White] said. I couldn’t do that.” Jones then explicitly testified that police had offered to let her and White “work the area if we tell them” what they wanted to hear regarding Abu-Jamal’s guilt.

At this point, Prosecutor McGill interrupted Jones and moved to block her account, calling her testimony “absolutely irrelevant.” Judge Sabo agreed to block the line of questioning, strike the testimony, and then ordered the jury to disregard Jones’ statement.

The DA and Sabo’s efforts to silence Jones continued through to the later PCRA hearings that started in 1995. Having been unable to locate Jones earlier, the defense found Jones in 1996, and (over the DA’s protests) obtained permission from the State Supreme Court to extend the PCRA hearings for Jones’ testimony. Sabo vehemently resisted — arguing that there was not sufficient proof of her unavailability in 1995. However, in 1995 Sabo had refused to order disclosure of Jones’ home address to the defense team.

Over Sabo’s objections, the defense returned to the State Supreme Court, which ordered Sabo to conduct a full evidentiary hearing. Sabo’s attempts to silence Jones continued as she took the stand. He immediately threatened her with 5-10 years imprisonment if she testified to having perjured herself in 1982. In defiance, Jones persisted with her testimony that she had in fact lied in 1982, when she had denied her original account to police that she had seen two men “leave the scene.”

Jones testified that she had changed her version of events after being visited by two detectives in prison, where she was being held on charges of robbery and assault. Urging her to both finger Abu-Jamal as the shooter and to retract her statement about seeing two men “run away,” the detectives stressed that she faced up to 10 years in prison and the loss of her children if convicted. Jones testified in 1996 that in 1982, afraid of losing her children, she had decided to meet the police halfway: she did not actually finger Abu-Jamal, but she did lie about not seeing two men running from the scene. Accordingly, following the 1982 trial, Jones only received probation and was never imprisoned for the charges against her.

During the 1996 cross-examination, the DA announced that there was an outstanding arrest warrant for Jones on charges of writing a bad check, and that she would be arrested after concluding her testimony. With tears pouring down her face, Jones declared: “This is not going to change my testimony!” Despite objections from the defense, Sabo allowed New Jersey police to handcuff and arrest Jones in the courtroom. While the DA attempted to use this arrest to discredit Jones, her determination in the face of intimidation may, arguably, have made her testimony more credible. Outraged by Jones’ treatment, even the Philadelphia Daily News, certainly no fan of Abu-Jamal, reported: “Such heavy-handed tactics can only confirm suspicions that the court is incapable of giving Abu-Jamal a fair hearing. Sabo has long since abandoned any pretense of fairness.”

Jones’ account was given further credibility a year later. At the 1997 PCRA hearing, former prostitute Pamela Jenkins testified that police had tried pressuring her to falsely testify that she saw Abu-Jamal shoot Faulkner. In addition, Jenkins testified that in late 1981, Cynthia White (whom Jenkins knew as a fellow police informant) told Jenkins that she was also being pressured to testify against Abu-Jamal, and that she was afraid for her life.

As part of a 1995 federal probe of Philadelphia police corruption, Officers Thomas F. Ryan and John D. Baird were convicted of paying Jenkins to falsely testify that she had bought drugs from a Temple University student. Jenkins’ 1995 testimony in this probe, helped to convict Ryan, Baird, and other officers, and also to dismiss several dozen drug convictions. At the 1997 PCRA hearing, Jenkins testified that this same Thomas F. Ryan was one of the officers who attempted to have her lie about Abu-Jamal.

More recently, a 2002 affidavit by former prostitute Yvette Williams described police coercion of Cynthia White. The affidavit reads: “I was in jail with Cynthia White in December of 1981 after Police Officer Daniel Faulkner was shot and killed. Cynthia White told me the police were making her lie and say she saw Mr. Jamal shoot Officer Faulkner when she really did not see who did it . . .Whenever she talked about testifying against Mumia Abu-Jamal, and how the police were making her lie, she was nervous and very excited and I could tell how scared she was from the way she was talking and crying.” Explaining why she is just now coming out with her affidavit, Williams says “I feel like I’ve almost had a nervous breakdown over keeping quiet about this all these years. I didn’t say anything because I was afraid. I was afraid of the police. They’re dangerous.” Williams’ affidavit was rejected by Philadelphia Judge Pamela Dembe in 2005, the PA Supreme Court in February 2008, and in October 2008, by the US Supreme Court.

Further supporting the contention that police had made a deal with White, author J. Patrick O’Connor writes, “Prior to her becoming a prosecution witness in Abu-Jamal’s case, White had been arrested 38 times for prostitution . . . After she gave her third statement to the police, on December 17, 1981, she would not be arrested for prostitution in Philadelphia ever again even though she admitted at Billy Cook’s trial that she continued to be ‘actively working.’” Amnesty International reports that later, in 1987, White was facing charges of armed robbery, aggravated assault, and possession of illegal weapons. A judge granted White the right to sign her own bail and she was released after a special request was made by Philadelphia Police Officer Douglas Culbreth (where Culbreth cited her involvement in Abu-Jamal’s trial). After White’s release, she skipped bail and has never, officially, been seen again.

At the 1997 PCRA hearing, the DA announced that Cynthia White was dead, and presented a death certificate for a “Cynthia Williams” who died in New Jersey in 1992. However, Amnesty International reports, “an examination of the fingerprint records of White and Williams showed no match and the evidence that White is dead is far from conclusive.” Journalist C. Clark Kissinger writes, a Philadelphia police detective “testified that the FBI had ‘authenticated’ that Williams had the same fingerprints as White.” However, Kissinger continues, “the DA’s office refused to produce the actual fingerprints,” and “the body of Williams was cremated so that no one could ever check the facts! Finally, the Ruth Ray listed on the death certificate as the mother of the deceased Cynthia Williams has given a sworn statement to the defense that she is not the mother of either Cynthia White or Cynthia Williams.” Dave Lindorff reports further that the listing of deaths by social security number for 1992 and later years does not include White’s number.

Gary Wakshul’s Testimony Blocked

On the final day of testimony, Abu-Jamal’s lawyer discovered Police Officer Gary Wakshul’s official statement in the police report from the morning of Dec. 9, 1981. After riding with Abu-Jamal to the hospital and guarding him until treatment for his gunshot wound, Wakshul reported: “the negro male made no comment.” This statement contradicted the trial testimony of prosecution witnesses Gary Bell (a police officer) and Priscilla Durham (a hospital security guard), who testified that they had heard Abu-Jamal confess to the shooting, while Abu-Jamal was awaiting treatment at the hospital.

When the defense immediately sought to call Wakshul as a witness, the DA reported that he was on vacation. Judge Sabo denied the defense request to locate him for testimony, on grounds that it was too late in the trial to even take a short recess so that the defense could attempt to locate Wakshul. Consequently, the jury never heard from Wakshul, nor about his contradictory written report. When an outraged Abu-Jamal protested, Judge Sabo replied: “You and your attorney goofed.”

Wakshul’s report from December 9, 1981 is just one of the many reasons cited by Amnesty International for their conclusion that Bell’s and Durham’s trial testimonies were not credible. There are many other problems that merit a closer look if we are to determine how important Wakshul’s 1982 trial testimony could have been.

The alleged “hospital confession,” in which Abu-Jamal reportedly shouted, “I shot the motherf***er and I hope he dies,” was first officially reported to police over two months after the shooting, by hospital guards Priscilla Durham and James LeGrand (February 9, 1982), police officer Gary Wakshul (February 11), officer Gary Bell (February 25), and officer Thomas M. Bray (March1). Of these five, only Bell and Durham were called as prosecution witnesses.

When Durham testified at the trial, she added something new to her story that she had not reported to the police on February 9. She now claimed that she had reported the confession to her supervisor the next day, on December 10, making a hand-written report. Neither her supervisor, nor the alleged handwritten statement was ever presented in court. Instead, the DA sent an officer to the hospital, returning with a suspicious typed version of the alleged December 10 report. Sabo accepted the unsigned and unauthenticated paper despite both Durham’s disavowal (because it was typed and not hand-written), and the defense’s protest that its authorship and authenticity were unproven.

Gary Bell (Faulkner’s partner and self-described “best friend”) testified that his two-month memory lapse had resulted from his having been so upset over Faulkner’s death that he had forgotten to report it to police.

Later, at the 1995 PCRA hearings, Wakshul testified that both his contradictory report made on December 9, 1981 (”the negro male made no comment”) and the two-month delay were simply bad mistakes. He repeated his earlier statement given to police on February 11, 1982 that he “didn’t realize it [Abu-Jamal’s alleged confession] had any importance until that day.” Contradicting the DA’s assertion of Wakshul’s unavailability in 1982, Wakshul also testified in 1995 that he had in fact been home for his 1982 vacation, and available for trial testimony, in accordance with explicit instructions to stay in town for the trial so that he could testify if called.

Just days before his PCRA testimony, undercover police officers savagely beat Wakshul in front of a sitting Judge, in the Common Pleas Courtroom where Wakshul worked as a court crier. The two attackers, Kenneth Fleming and Jean Langen, were later suspended without pay, as punishment. With the motive still unexplained, Dave Lindorff and J. Patrick O’Connor speculate that the beating may have been used to intimidate Wakshul into maintaining his “confession” story at the PCRA hearings.

Regarding Abu-Jamal’s alleged confession, Amnesty International concluded: “The likelihood of two police officers and a security guard forgetting or neglecting to report the confession of a suspect in the killing of another police officer for more than two months strains credulity.”

Conclusion: the DA Still Wants to Execute

“The urgent need for a civil rights investigation is heightened because the DA is still trying to execute Mumia,” emphasizes Dr. Suzanne Ross, an organizer of the campaign seeking an investigation. This past March, the US Supreme Court declined to hear Abu-Jamal’s appeal for a new guilt-phase trial, but the Court has yet to rule on whether to hear the appeal made simultaneously by the Philadelphia District Attorney’s office, which seeks to execute Abu-Jamal without granting him a new penalty-phase trial.

In March, 2008, the Third Circuit Court affirmed Federal District Court Judge William Yohn’s 2001 decision “overturning” the death sentence. Citing the 1988 Mills v. Maryland precedent, Yohn had ruled that sentencing forms used by jurors and Judge Albert Sabo’s instructions to the jury were potentially confusing, and that therefore jurors could have mistakenly believed that they had to unanimously agree on any mitigating circumstances in order to consider them as weighing against a death sentence. According to the 2001 ruling, affirmed in 2008, if the DA wants to re-instate the death sentence, the DA must call for a new penalty-phase jury trial. In such a penalty hearing, new evidence of Abu-Jamal’s innocence could be presented, but the jury could only choose between execution and a life sentence without parole.

The DA is appealing to the US Supreme Court against this 2008 affirmation of Yohn’s ruling. If the court rules in the DA’s favor, Abu-Jamal can be executed without benefit of a new sentencing hearing. If the US Supreme Court rules against the DA’s appeal, the DA must either accept the life sentence for Abu-Jamal, or call for the new sentencing hearing. Meanwhile, Mumia Abu-Jamal has never left his death row cell.

How You Can Help

Actions are being organized throughout the summer to support the campaign for a federal civil rights investigation, including at the upcoming NAACP convention in New York City, July 11-16. Organizers are focusing particularly on July 13, the day that Attorney General Holder will address the convention. Supporters will then be in Washington, D.C., on July 22 to lobby their elected officials and, in mid-September, they’ll return to Washington, D.C., for a major press conference.

For more information on how you can support the campaign for a federal civil rights investigation, and to sign the online letter and petition to Attorney General Holder, please visit: http://freemumia.com/civilrights.html.

* This article was first published by the SF Bay View Newspaper on June 16, 2009.

Naturally, volumes have been written about John Brown, his life, dreams, anti-slavery escapades and the culmination of it all–the raid on Harper’s Ferry, his trial and execution for treason. From WEB DuBois’ biography to the fictionalized tome titled Cloudsplitter by US author Russel Banks, the number of words written about Brown rival those written about the man that history knighted to carry the war against slavery to its ultimate end, Abraham Lincoln. One of the best of these works is the recently republished The Old Man: John Brown at Harper’s Ferry by Truman Nelson. First published in 1973, when elements in the New Left had taken on Brown’s mantle in their attempt to end US imperialism and racism by setting off bombs in buildings and black liberation fighters were being hunted down by the federal government and its allied forces, Nelson’s work focuses solely on the raid in Harper’s Ferry and its aftermath.

It is a riveting story told in a captivating narrative that takes the reader into that small town in the West Virginia mountains. The physical details are here–the planning, recruiting, purchase and smuggling of arms, and the training. So is a discussion of the political philosophy behind Brown’s endeavor. It is a simple philosophy and one still worth striving for–a nation without slavery and with equal opportunity and choice for all. The Old Man describes a nation splitting apart. Anti-slavery legislators attacked in Congress by men whose very lives are bound to the practice of the bondage of other humans. Men who would never consider breaking a law tired of waiting for the political system to end slavery deciding to fund Brown’s insurrection. The Christian churches split between those who would use the Bible to justify slavery and those whose interpretation forces them to conclude that enslaving other humans is the work of Satan. Financial interests looking after their own interests who care little about the morals of slavery but only about the money that can be made by supporting it or ridding the nation of it.

Through it all, John Brown’s terrible swift sword remained true. He saw slavery as the abomination it was and understood the northern capitalists who did not align themselves with the abolitionists to be the opportunists they were. His vision of a post-slavery United States did not see the black man or woman as a lesser being but as a genuine equal. This was something that was even beyond the thought process of many abolitionists. Yet, it mattered not to Brown. Some called this madness, yet it was merely the single mindedness of a man with a just mission. Compromise rarely extended to Brown’s approach and never to his principles. Nelson tells us that he was not unreasonable, just certain of his reason for being on earth.

The raid on Harper’s Ferry was to be the first salvo in the fight to free the slaves. Indeed, in a harbinger of the coming War Between the States, it was future Confederate General Robert E. Lee whose unit was sent to quell the Harper’s Ferry insurrection. Despite the arrest of Brown and most of his co-conspirators and their hanging, that raid served its purpose. The foul institution of slavery was wiped from the United States. We continue to deal with its legacy. As the recent refusal by a federal appeals court in Georgia to commute Troy Davis’ death sentence and the ongoing mockery of justice known as the trial of the San Francisco 8 continues in California make clear, the bonds of slavery have been removed, but the forces that represent the slavers’ legacy have not disappeared. As for the meaning of John Brown’s armed attempt to free slaves in Harper’s Ferry, it continues to prove its meaning to the oppressed in the United States.

This is the case of Troy Davis in one paragraph. The bulk of the prosecutor’s evidence presented at Davis 1991 trial in the murder of an off-duty policeman in Georgia was based primarily on that of prosecution witnesses who later recanted their testimony. In addition, most of them have claimed repeatedly that they were pressured by police to point to Davis as the perpetrator. No murder weapon was ever found and no physical evidence linked him to the crime. One of the two main witnesses who has not recanted was the original suspect in the crime. Despite a bulk of new evidence, the state of Georgia has refused to grant a new trial. As recently as April 16th, 2009, Davis’ appeal for a new trial was rejected by a federal appeals court in a 2-1 decision. The dissenting judge was unsparing in her criticism of the Georgia’s legal case and his death sentence. She wrote: “To execute Davis, in the face of a significant amount of proffered evidence that may establish his actual innocence, is unconscionable and unconstitutional.” Yet, the execution of Troy Davis looms in the distance.

Like almost every other case of this nature, the fundamental action that has kept Davis alive is a popular movement that spans the globe. From the streets of Atlanta to the chambers of the European Parliament, thousands have called for Davis’s death sentence to be commuted, with many demanding a new trial based on the new evidence. I recently communicated with Marlene Martin, an organizer for the National Campaign to End the Death Penalty–one of the organizations spearheading the campaign around Troy. When I asked her about the Global Day of Action for Troy Davis on May 19th, she wrote me this:

The coming global day of Action for Troy Davis on May 19th–which also happens to be Malcolm X’s birthday–is really important. Troy Davis is alive today in spite of our legal system, not because of it. The fact that he hasn’t ever been allowed to present new and compelling evidence of his innocence to a jury–and could be executed without ever having the opportunity to do so–is mind-boggling.

The state of Georgia has already tried three times to kill Troy. They would rather kill him than admit wrongdoing. But they have been stopped in their tracks each and every time by the movement outside the courthouse, spearheaded by Troy’s sister Martina Correia. As a result of her efforts, and Amnesty International and many other organizations coming together to fight for Troy, people around the country and around the world know about his case. I get e-mails from all over — England, Germany, France, New Zealand Canada–all people that support Troy.

One thing that’s clear in this fight is we can’t rely on the courts. We need to build for the day of action to be as big as it can be, and to keep organizing. Troy represents many, many others who are in prison today–too poor to afford good representation at trial, and a person of color.

Also at issue in this case is the entire question of the death penalty. The United States is one of the few nations in the so-called free world that continues to practice this barbaric form of justice. In addition, it also ranks near the top among nations that do execute some of their criminals. Add to that the well-documented racial disparity in these executions, especially when looking at the numbers of whites executed for killing blacks versus the number of blacks executed for killing whites and those executions seem even more barbaric. When one considers this, it becomes essential to challenge not only the execution of Troy Davis, but the political system that supports the practice of state-sanctioned murder. This challenge becomes even more necessary when that system also tortures those it has arrested in its “war on terror” and imprisons them indefinitely without trial. A land with such a system is closer to a police state than the land of the free. Unless those who live within its borders resist these authoritarian policies, there may come a time when such resistance will find itself subject to them.

Not only is the movement to commute Troy Davis’ execution and get him a new trial an effort to save a man’s life, it is also part of an effort to prevent an increasingly authoritarian nation from becoming even more so. Please consider joining the Global Day of Action for Troy Davis on May 19, 2009.

But then a few cracks began to appear in the shiny facade. The Poles, especially, carped about just about everything — the thought of giving up their precious zloty (boy, are they sorry now), the EU farming rules, the lack of Euro-support for US wars, and the Euro-cowardice in facing down the Russian bear. They and the Czechs revealed Fortress Europe for what it was by welcoming US missile bases, provoking the Russians into threatening to make Europe once again the world’s nuclear battlefield. Kosovo managed to divide even the big boys, with Spain refusing to recognize this latest US-German plaything, and ratcheting up the tensions between Serbs, Croats — even the Slovenes. The Balkan cauldron is as hot as ever.

The world financial meltdown was the proverbial straw that has left the Euro-camel paralyzed. The collapse of the government of the Czech Prime Minister — the Euro-president himself — was a fitting symbol for the collapsing house of cards. No doubt someday there will be a musical about this Euro-Camelot, this once-and-never-land.

The comeuppance of Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek was not the result of his recent snub of US President Barack Obama (he called Obama’s stimulus spending “a way to hell” that will “undermine the stability of the global financial market”). Rather it was the modest but unflagging campaigning by the Czech Nonviolent Movement (CNM), which has been fighting the installation of the US missile base outside Prague for two years now. They mounted an ongoing series of nonviolent actions — petitions, hunger strikes, rallies, protests, electioneering — building a grassroots campaign uniting the 70 per cent of the Czech population who oppose the base, nibbling away at the right-centre majority till it finally fell.

CNM organizer Jan Tomas called for “all invading armies to withdraw from all occupied territories” (you can fill in the blanks), and for nuclear disarmament. “Now in the Czech Republic a new chapter of our struggle begins.”

Topolanek is welcoming Obama to the G20 meeting in London as the European president and hosting Obama a few days later at a US-EU summit in Prague. Obama will then go to Strasbourg for NATO celebrations. Topolanek’s undiplomatic remark actually represents the EU consensus and is surely not so far from the mark. Obama’s ad hoc measures to deal with the crisis have been praised by almost no one but the bankers, who are being treated to trillions of dollars with no assurance that this massive bill will do any good whatsoever — except of course for the bankers. One-third of his stimulus package is in the form of tax cuts and is unlikely to have any long-term effect.

Not that the Eurocrats are coming up with anything more likely to succeed. The EU is a hodge-podge of very different states with radically different governments and economies, with no parallel Europe-wide budget to allow for fast and broad stimulus measures. The US budget deficit will be 10 per cent of GDP this year and the next and the next. This is impossible for the EU, which has a 3 percent limit per country and which, unlike the US, cannot print its currency as if there was no tomorrow.

Much of the trillions that Obama is spending is in fact seeping into Europe, adding to the steady US dollar inflow over the past half century, leaving Europe awash in dollars. For Europe to notch up the euro-printing press would be foolhardy in the extreme. The EU counts on exports as a stimulus to the economy, like Asia, something the US abandoned long ago. Though the subprime craze infected Europe too, its financial woes stem primarily from the US with its unbridled consumerism and wars, and will never be solved until the US puts its own house in order, balancing its budget and its trade, something that Obama has made no hint of doing.

Adding the eastern non-economies to the EU merely compounded its problems. European institutions invested very heavily in these “emerging markets” and the financial crisis has led to a withdrawal of capital from such regions back to the center, exposing investors to large losses. It’s no coincidence that the US dollar rose over the past six months, despite the terrible shape the US economy is in, or that the European leaders are unwilling and unable to commit to major stimulus measures for the EU as a whole. What was touted even a year ago as a joyous community, a big happy family, is now a dysfunctional one, complete with sibling rivalry, spoiled brats and marital strife.

This year’s G20 inspired protests across Europe. Tens of thousands marched through Berlin, Vienna, Paris and other European cities to demand action on poverty, job losses and climate change. In London, 35,000 protesters gathered to Put People First on 28 March, bringing together more than 100 trade unions, aid agencies, religious groups and environmental organizations to call on world leaders to commit to real reforms. “Never before has such a wide coalition come together with such a clear message for world leaders,” said Brendan Barber, the general secretary of the Trade Union Congress. “The old ideas of unregulated free markets do not work and have brought the world’s economy to near-collapse, failed to fight poverty and have done far too little to move to a low-carbon economy.” The protests culminated on 1 April — Financial Fools Day — with a movement called “Storm the Banks” focusing on the Bank of England.

In Paris, demonstrators dumped a pile of sand outside the city’s stock market to mock the use of island tax havens. Whether or not the G20 leaders took note, the only real progress at the G20 was in fact a concerted attempt to address this practice, though the havens are resisting fiercely. The Swiss foreign minister called German Finance Minister Peer Steinbruck a “Nazi henchman”, and the Sunday Times revealed that Lord Myners, the minister in charge of the British government’s “assault” on tax havens, has 250,000 pound sterling in an offshore shelter in Jersey. Myners recently met Jersey officials who now say they have “nothing to fear” from any tax haven crackdown. Past attempts to take on the tax havens failed, and it is far from certain that this one will succeed.

The G20 is ignoring the urgent issue of global warming, but the demonstrators did not. Organizers of the largest group, Camp for Climate Action, compare carbon trading to the subprime boondoggle. Important decisions about climate change are being left to the market despite the fact that it is controlled by the biggest polluters teaming up with the same financiers who brought economies crashing down, argues Peter McDonell in The Ecologist.

These voices of protest are the ones showing the way out of Europe’s present chaos, not the voices mouthing the same old tired platitudes at the G20, the special US-EU Summit or the upcoming NATO celebrations. Topolanek can badmouth Obama as much as he likes. It makes no difference. He would do well to leave behind his 500 retainers and together with his Czech nemesis step outside their armed fortresses, dispense with their tear gas and tazers, and spend a night camping out with Climate Action or at least listening to the likes of Tomas and Barber.

Grant, an African American father of a 4-year-old daughter and an Oakland grocery story worker, died several hours later. The bullet entered his back, ricocheted off the concrete floor and punctured his lungs.

Police attempted to confiscate cell phone videos taken by Bay Area Rapid Transit passengers and initially claimed that security cameras didn’t record the incident. However, in the last two days, they have been forced to admit that the security cameras did capture the assault.

Additionally, one especially graphic video taken by a passenger was released by the Bay Area television station KTVU. It shows an unarmed and unresisting Grant, lying face down, shot at point-blank range by an officer as his horrified friends and onlookers watch.

Although police and BART authorities still refuse to give the name of the officer who shot and killed Grant, KTVU obtained a copy of the civil lawsuit filed by Grant’s family, which names officer Johannes Mehserle as the shooter.

Grant “was unarmed and offered no physical resistance to BART police officers,” according to the claim filed by attorney John Burris. According to KTVU’s summary of the lawsuit:

Grant fell to his knees and put his hands up “in an effort to demonstrate that he was submitting to the Latino officer’s thuggish display of authority.”

But the officer dug his knee into Grant’s back, causing Grant to “yell out in agony,” the claim states.

Grant feared for his life and “made a valiant effort to de-escalate the situation by appealing to the officer’s sense of humanity by telling the officer that he had a 4-year-old daughter” and asking the officer not to use a Taser gun on him, according to the claim.

The claim alleges that Mehserle, who was standing nearby, kneeled down and restrained Grant’s hands, then “inexplicably” stood up, drew his firearm and pointed it directly at Grant’s back.

The claim states, “Without so much as flinching, Officer Mehserle stood over Mr. Grant and mercilessly fired his weapon, mortally wounding Mr. Grant with a single gunshot wound to the back.”

* * * * *

The New Year’s killing has provoked a growing community response as the police account of the incident has fallen apart. Although Mehserle has yet to issue a statement, according to media accounts, police officials suggested to the press that he intended to use his Taser gun on Grant and claimed he might not have recognized the difference between the two weapons.

That assertion has been met with disbelief by anti-police brutality activists. Burris cast further doubt on the police account at a January 4 press conference:

It’s an outrageous set of facts. My sense is clear that this was an unjustifiable shooting. There were no movements, and he was not trying to overrun the police officer. A gun cannot discharge accidentally. You have to have your finger on the trigger.

When conduct like this occurs, there is a price to pay. Police have to be held accountable when they engage in this kind of unlawful conduct.

Following the killing, a spirited, spontaneous protest of 20 people took place outside BART Police headquarters on January 5. Grant’s family is holding a memorial for him in his hometown of Hayward, just south of Oakland, on January 7.

Activists are planning a rally to demand justice for Oscar Grant at the Fruitvale BART station in Oakland later in the day, from 3 p.m. to 8 p.m. The protest was called by concerned community members and is spreading quickly by word of mouth.

Police brutality is nothing new in Oakland. In the last few years, a string of police killings have angered residents, including last spring’s shooting death of 15-year-old José Luis Buenrostro-Gonzalez, which remains an open case, with no officers being accused of any wrongdoing.

“We have no intention of letting the cops off the hook,” said Dana Blanchard from the Campaign to End the Death Penalty. “The whole criminal injustice system is rotten, and we’re going to do everything we can to make sure Oscar Grant’s death shines a light on it.”

What You Can Do

A video of the police shooting of Grant [1], taken by a commuter, has been posted online by anti-police brutality activists.

For more information or for notices of upcoming protests and organizing meetings, see the San Francisco Bay Area Independent Media Center Web site [2].

Noting that in the length of time it had taken for Illinois to execute 12 death row prisoners, another 13 had been able to prove their innocence, the noble statesman issued these heartfelt words as duly reported in Wikipedia: “We have now freed more people than we have put to death under our system …There is a flaw in the system, without question, and it needs to be studied.”

Of course it was all BS.

Ryan’s ass was in trouble up to his earballs and the whole thing was a sham. In an earlier election, state workers at state truck inspection stations were raising money for Ryan’ campaign by strong-arming truckers for donations, instead of inspecting for competence, they just asked for bribes. They were basically selling trucking licenses for campaign cash. It all blew up in everyone’s face when a wreck killed someone.

Ryan needed to change the subject, thus the death row pardons. It was a good thing to do, a noble act in and of itself, and, famous enough to get him nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. But it didn’t get him off the hook for selling driver’s licenses. As of this writing he’s still serving time near Terra Haute, IN.

All of which, obviously brings up embattled corrupt Illinois governor du jour, Rod Blagojevich, Roland Burris, and that funny little word “taint.” In this fast paced world of today’s punditry, a phrase with all the lurid appeal of criminality, sex, open wounds and spoiled vegetables was bound to be so overused, unto death, that in a matter of days, no, hours, Stephen Colbert could make fun of said overuse with plenty of clips to spare of supposedly serious people intoning the word “taint” as if it were a physical badge, a Scarlet A soldered onto one’s chest they saw on Roland Burris and not in their own souls.

Many people are unaware that the word “taint” also has another meaning, which doesn’t appear in most dictionaries. But for folkie midwives and natural childbirth granola crunchers familiar with the hippie birthing commune known as “The Farm” or proud owners of Ina May Gaskins’ timeless tome Spiritual Midwifery, “taint” has a different meaning entirely. “Taint” is the slang term that inch or so of skin between the anus and the vagina so well known to ejecting babies, medical personnel, including midwives, and porn aficionados worldwide.

In midwife parlance, as far as I can tell, it is the direction NOT to go when considering an episiotomy; but please do not quote me. I am not a midwife, a member of the medical personnel nor could I play one on TV.

But beyond that narrow little window on the world however, “taint” used in this way refers to a “neither/nor” situation as in “’t ain’t this one nor that one.” And such is the case with Roland Burris. As Illinoisans know, having had to endure his multiple campaigns for the last dozen years or so, Roland Burris is neither so much an anus nor a vagina. At least not in any sense beyond the average asinine behavior expected from any politician.

In fact Roland Burris actually had a respectable enough reputation long before Blagojevich came along looking for a lifeline to tie his sinking ship to. Blagojevich may be being his typical venal, conniving self. It is after all, as demonstrated, an Illinois gubernatorial tradition; but that doesn’t mean that Burris was not a good choice for US senator, not that there is some secret disease infested connection between the two men.

There is however an obvious association between Blagojevich and Burris that connects them in a way that discredits both their reputations. If a person were to look for “taint” as in the way that stain of an association colors, infects, putrefies a body, anyone associated with the Democratic party’s senate contingent is indeed at risk for sharing their reputation as sullied, tarnished, “offensive or deleterious.” The shenanigans of Harry Reid and his donkeys remind the American public that no matter what kind of statesmen we work ourselves into believing we’ve elected, what we get is petty egos playing childish games.

No matter which way it turns, anus or vagina, Blagojevich or the US Senate, Burris is going to end up contaminated by some discrediting association. A man in the middle, Burris is only now realizing he’s tainted, but it’s been going on for a long time. In all truth the negative associations Burris have to deal with today began long ago, when his own low ego and large ambition set him down the path of glad-handing jackasses and kissing babies.

Troy came within hours of being executed last year before the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles granted a stay of execution so the courts could consider evidence that his supporters believe shows his innocence. But the Georgia Supreme Court rejected that appeal in a 4-3 decision, over the strong objections of several justices.

That opened the way for a new execution date, and Troy’s fate may again lie with the pardons board. His supporters were shocked by the announcement of an execution date because Troy has an appeal being considered by the U.S. Supreme Court, which isn’t scheduled to discuss the case until after he is scheduled to be killed.

Activists are bracing themselves for a new drive to save Troy. Letter, faxes, petitions, e-mails and phone calls are pouring in to the pardons board and state officials from all over the world. The ACLU has been holding weekly “Tuesday for Troy” rallies in Atlanta, and Amnesty International has rescheduled a march in support of Troy for September 11 to put further pressure on the pardons board.

“Troy’s case has garnered attention from all over the world, and people will not stand for this injustice,” said Troy’s sister and most outspoken advocate, Martina Correia. “Georgia is under a microscope, and they don’t look good. Troy Davis shouldn’t be executed nor spend the rest of his life in prison for something he did not do.”

Troy was convicted and sent to death row for the 1989 murder of a police officer in Savannah, Ga., while he was off duty and working as a security guard.

As Marlene Martin of the Campaign to End the Death Penalty pointed out in the International Socialist Review, police and prosecutors wanted to solve the case fast. “In short order [after the killing], 25 fellow officers were assigned to the case and began to scour the neighborhood for the perpetrator,” Martin wrote. “The media sensationalized the case of a 27-year-old white father of two shot in the line of duty. One officer told a reporter, ‘There is a desire among the police to have the suspect locked away before McPhail is buried.’”

A few days later, Davis was arrested. Two years later, he was convicted and sentenced to death in a trial that lasted all of 10 days.

Davis’ conviction wasn’t based on physical evidence–no murder weapon was ever recovered, and prosecutors don’t claim to have fingerprint evidence or tests showing gunpowder residue on his hands from firing a weapon.

Troy was found guilty on the basis of testimony from nine people who identified him. But of those nine, seven have recanted their testimony, with several saying in sworn affidavits that they were pressured by police to finger Troy. One, Monty Holmes, stated, “I was real young at that time, and here they were questioning me about the murder of a police officer, like I was in trouble or something. I was scared…It seemed like they wouldn’t stop questioning me until I told them what they wanted to hear. So I did.”

Of the two witnesses who haven’t changed their story, one identified the shooter as left-handed, and Troy is right-handed–and the other, Sylvester Coles, was considered by police to be the prime suspect in the case until he came forward to claim to that Troy was guilty. Three people who weren’t called to testify at Troy’s trial say they heard Coles admit he committed the killing.

No jury has ever heard any of this, however–because one court after another rejected Troy’s appeals. Earlier this year, the Georgia Supreme Court refused a motion for a new trial. Justice Harold Meltin, who wrote the opinion justifying the decision, declared, “We simply cannot disregard the jury’s verdict in this case.”

The court’s chief justice, Leah Ward Sears, pointed out the absurdity of Meltin’s argument in registering her opposition to the decision: “If recantation testimony, either alone or supported by other evidence, shows convincingly that prior trial testimony was false, it simply defies all logic and morality to hold that it must be disregarded categorically.”

One prominent factor in the courts’ obstinate refusal to hear the new evidence is the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996. Signed into law by Bill Clinton, the legislation further restricts the ability of death row prisoners to challenge their convictions on the federal level.

Now, Troy is once again facing execution for a crime he didn’t commit. But his supporters aren’t giving up. “We are a family of fighters, and this is only making us fight harder,” says Martina Correia. “We have to stand up to these people.”

Make your opposition to Troy Davis’ execution heard. Telephone Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles Chair Gale Buckner at 404-657-9350, or fax her at 404-651-6670. Call Georgia Attorney General Thurbert E. Baker at 404-656-3300, or fax him at 404-657-8733. Call Chatham County District Attorney Spencer Lawton at 912-652-7328, or fax him at 912-447-5396.

Amnesty International has called for a rally on September 11 [2] at 6 p.m. on the front steps of the Georgia State Capitol building in Atlanta. For more information, call 404-876-5661 ext. 13, or e-mail: troy@aiusa.org.

Find out more about Troy’s case and how you can get involved at the Troy Anthony Davis Web site. You can send words of encouragement to Troy by writing to: Troy A. Davis 657378, GDCP P.O. Box 3877 G-3-79, Jackson, GA 30233.

Marlene Martin’s “Anatomy of a frameup,” published in the new issue of the International Socialist Review, documents the long history of injustices in Troy’s case. Troy’s sister, Martina Correia, was interviewed in the New Abolitionist, newsletter of the Campaign to End the Death Penalty, in an article titled “The fight for my brother Troy.”

See the Campaign to End the Death Penalty Web site to learn more about the struggle against capital punishment across the country.

Recent congressional attention has again brought Angola into the media limelight. The focus this time is on the prison’s practice of keeping some inmates in solitary confinement for decades, especially two of Angola’s most well-known residents – Herman Wallace and Albert Woodfox. Woodfox and Wallace are the remaining members of the Angola Three, political activists widely seen as having been interned in solitary confinement as punishment for their political activism.

Modern Plantation

Norris Henderson, co-director of Safe Streets/Strong Communities, a grassroots criminal justice organization in New Orleans, spent twenty years at Angola — a relatively short time in a prison where 85 percent of its 5,100 prisoners are expected to die behind its walls. “Six hundred folks been there over 25 years,” he explains. “Lots of these guys been there over 35 years. Think about that: a population that’s been there since the 1970s. Once you’re in this place, it’s almost like you ain’t going nowhere, that barring some miracle, you’re going to die there.”

Prisoners at Angola still do the same work that enslaved Africans did there when it was a slave plantation. “Angola is a plantation,” Henderson explains. “Eighteen-thousand acres of choice farmland. Even to this day, you could have machinery that can do all that work, but you still have prisoners doing it instead.” Not only do prisoners at Angola toil at the same work as enslaved Africans hundreds of years ago, but many of the white guards come from families that have lived on the grounds since the plantation days.

Nathaniel Anderson, a current inmate at Angola who has served nearly thirty years of a lifetime sentence, agrees. “People on the outside should know that Angola is still a plantation with every type and kind of slave conceivable,” he says.

Prison Organizing

In 1971, the Black Panther Party was seen as a threat to this country’s power structure – not only in the inner cities, but even in the prisons. At Orleans Parish Prison, the New Orleans city jail, the entire jail population refused to cooperate for one day in solidarity with New Orleans Panthers who were on trial. “I was in the jail at the time of their trial,” Henderson tells me. “The power that came from those guys in the jail, the camaraderie…Word went out through the jail, because no one thought the Panthers were going to get a fair trial. We decided to do something. We said, ‘The least we can do is to say the day they are going to court, no one is going to court.’”

The action was successful, and inspired prisoners to do more. “People saw what happened and said, ‘We shut down the whole system that day,’” he remembers. “That taught the guys that if we stick together we can accomplish a whole lot of things.”

Herman Wallace and Albert Woodfox were inmates who had recently become members of the Black Panther Party, and as activists, they were seen as threats to the established order of the prison. They were organizing among the other prisoners, conducting political education, and mobilizing for civil disobedience to improve conditions.

Robert King Wilkerson, like many inmates, joined the Black Panther Party while already imprisoned at Orleans Parish Prison. He was transferred to Angola, and immediately placed in solitary confinement (known at Angola as Closed Cell Restriction or CCR) — confined alone in his cell with no human contact for 23 hours a day. He later found out he had been transferred to solitary because he was accused of an attack he could not have committed — it had happened at Angola before he had been moved there.

In March of 1972, not long after they began organizing for reform from within Angola, Wallace and Woodfox were accused of killing a correctional officer. They were also moved to solitary, where they remained for nearly 36 years, until March of this year, when they were moved out four days after a congressional delegation led by Congressman John Conyers arranged a visit to the prison. Legal experts have said this is the longest time anyone in the US has spent in solitary. Amnesty International recently declared, “the prisoners’ prolonged isolation breached international treaties which the US has ratified, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Convention against Torture.”

Wilkerson, Wallace, and Woodfox became known internationally as the Angola Three – Black Panthers held in solitary confinement because of their political activism. Wilkerson remained in solitary for nearly 29 years, until he was exonerated and released from prison in 2001. Since his release, Wilkerson has been a tireless advocate for his friends still incarcerated. “I’m free of Angola,” he often says, “but Angola will never be free of me.”

This history of struggle and resistance brings a special urgency to the case of the Angola Three. Kgalema Motlante, a leader of the African National Congress, said in 2003 that the case of the Angola Three “has the potential of laying bare, exposing the shortcomings, in the entire US system.”

Purchasing Testimony

Wallace and Woodfox have the facts on their side. Bloody fingerprints at the scene of the crime do not match their prints. Witnesses against them have recanted, while witnesses with nothing to gain have testified that they were nowhere near the crime. There is evidence of prosecutorial misconduct, such as purchasing inmate testimony and not disclosing it to the defense. Even the widow of the slain guard has spoken out on their behalf. Most recently, their case has received attention from Representative Conyers, head of the House Judiciary Committee, and Cedric Richmond, chair of the Louisiana House Judiciary Committee, who has scheduled hearings on the issue to begin this month.

But this is more than the story of innocent men railroaded by a system. The story of the Panthers at Angola is both inspiring and shocking. It is a struggle for justice while in the hardest of situations.

“They swam against the current in Blood Alley,” says Nathaniel Anderson, a current inmate at Angola who has been inspired by Wallace and Woodfox’s legacy. “For men to actually have the audacity to organize for the protection of young brothers who were being victimized ruthlessly was an extreme act of rebellion.”

Like many prisoners during that time, Norris Henderson was introduced to organizing by Black Panthers in prison, and later became a leader of prison activism during his time at Angola. The efforts of Wilkerson, Woodfox, Wallace, and other Panthers in prison were vital to bringing improvements in conditions, stopping sexual assault, and building alliances among different groups of prisoners. “They were part of the Panther Movement,” Henderson tells me. “This was at the height of the Black power movement, we were understanding that we all got each other. In the night-time there would be open talk, guys in the jail talking, giving history lessons, discussing why we find ourselves in the situation we find ourselves. They started educating folks around how we could treat each other. The Nation of Islam was growing in the prison at the same time. You had these different folk bringing knowledge. You had folks who were hustlers that then were listening and learning. Everybody was coming into consciousness.”

Insatiable Machine

The US has the largest incarcerated population in the world — twenty-five percent of the world’s prisoners are here. If Louisiana, which has the largest percentage imprisoned of any US state, were a country, it would have by far the world’s largest percentage of its population locked up, at one out of every 45 people. Nationwide, more than seven million people are in US jails, on probation, or on parole, and African Americans are incarcerated at nearly ten times the rate of whites. Our criminal justice system has become an insatiable machine — even when crime rates go down, the prison population keeps rising.

The efforts of the Angola Three and other politically conscious prisoners represented a fundamental challenge to this system. The organizing of Wallace, Woodfox, and Wilkerson, though cut short by their move to solitary, had an effect that continues to this day.

Prison activism, and outside support for activists behind bars, can be tremendously powerful, says Henderson. “In the early 1970s people started realizing we’re all in this situation together. First, at Angola, we pushed for a reform to get a law library. That was one of the first conditions to change. Then, we got the library; guys became aware of what their rights were. We started to push to improve the quality of food, and to get better medical care. Once they started pushing the envelope, a whole bunch of things started to change. Angola was real violent then, you had inmate violence and rape. The people running the prison system benefit from people being ignorant. But we educated ourselves. Eventually, you had guys in prison proposing legislation.”

This was a time of reforms and grassroots struggles happening in prisons across the US. Uprisings such as the Attica Rebellion were resulting in real change. Today, many of the gains from those victories have been overturned, and prisoners have even less recourse to change than ever before. “Another major difference,” Henderson explains, is that “you had federal oversight over the prisons at that time, someone you could complain to, and say my rights are being violated. Today, we’ve lost that right.”

Working for criminal justice is work that benefits us all, says Henderson. “Most folks in prison are going to come out of prison,” he states. “We should invest in the quality of that person. We should start investing in the redemption of people.”

After decades of efforts by their lawyers and by activists, Wallace and Woodfox have been released from solitary, but the struggle continues. Wallace and Woodfox remain behind bars, punished for standing up against a system that has grown even larger and more deadly. And the abuse does not end there. “There are hundreds more guys who have been in [solitary] a long time too,” Henderson adds. “This is like the first step in a thousand-mile journey.”

Russia’s imprisonment practices grew out of the Tsarist Siberian and later, Stalinist model. America’s model is directly derived from slavery – the virtual imprisonment of an entire people. From the post-Emancipation “Black Codes” through the 1960s, Blacks have always been locked up in vastly disproportionate numbers. Still, white inmates were in the majority until at least 1964. Then, beginning in the early 70s, the prison population exploded, multiplying seven times. By 1996, African Americans comprised 53 percent of all persons admitted to state and federal prisons. One out of nine Black males between the ages of 20 and 34 now resides behind bars, compared to just one of every 30 whites.

The debate over U.S. prison growth and wildly disparate Black incarceration – to the extent there is a debate – usually centers on draconian and racially-engineered drug sentences. That’s descriptive of one modality of prison growth, addressing the “how” of the problem, but doesn’t address the “why” of it, the political intentions of massive imprisonment of African Americans.

Countless studies have shown beyond statistical doubt that the U.S. “justice” system is stacked against African Americans at every stage of the process: hyper-surveillance of Black neighborhoods, leading to disproportionate arrests, a nationwide pattern of prosecutorial fervor to charge Blacks with more serious crimes than white defendants, harsher sentences once convicted, and far fewer opportunities for Blacks to avoid hard time through “diversion” programs that are skewed to allowing far more whites to escape long term stints in prison. Once again, these factors explain how Blacks have become majorities in prison, even in states and localities with relatively small Black populations, but do not address why Black mass incarceration began to accelerate at breakneck speed in the early 70s, and continues no matter whether crime is up or down.

“Mass Black incarceration,” I wrote in February, 2007,” is America’s answer to the Black Freedom Movement of the Sixties and early Seventies.” Just as the “Black Codes” were the white South’s response to Emancipation, and as massive incarceration of Black “loiterers” to prison plantations and chain gangs followed the crushing of Reconstruction, whites got revenge against the Black Freedom Movement of the Sixties by throwing as many as possible African Americans in prison. This “nigger-caging” response was near-uniform across the country – North, South, East and West. It is the Mother of All White Backlashes – no, the Grandmother, showing no signs of diminishing in racist fury after more than 30 years.

“Reform” measures are surely needed, such as elimination of mandatory sentencing, broader application of prison “diversion” programs, abolition of racist crack cocaine super-sentences, a requirement that “racial impact” studies be instituted at all prisons and jails, repeal of state laws depriving convicted felons of the right to vote, and many other proposals. However, if mass Black incarceration, the “engine” of prison growth, is not understood as an ongoing, institutionalized crime whose purpose is wholly racial, the discussion will be limited to reformers who attempt to tinker around the edges of the historical catastrophe and Black clergy who think they can preach successive Black generations out of going to prison.

It is as if Nazis could be convinced to “rehabilitate” Jews rather than kill them. The whole purpose of the death camp was to kill Jews. The purpose of U.S. prisons is to socially erase masses of Blacks, to subject them to social death. The demonic project has mutilated two generations of African American youth, and damaged Black America to its very core – just as was planned when masses of whites were traumatized in the 60s at the nightmare sight of Black men, women and youth standing tall, demanding full rights and recognition of their humanity. OK, you can be human, if you insist, the mass incarcerators conceded, but it will have to be behind bars.

To effectively battle a system, one must understand its nature. Those states that are attempting to slow or halt the growth of their prisons are doing so only because mass incarceration is becoming too expensive for public coffers to sustain, including the explosive growth of private prisons. But the nature and purpose of the beast goes largely unchallenged.

Mass Equal Opportunity Lockups

The Pew Center on the States report on prisons was released one day after an ABC News story on the FBI’s listing of nearly a million persons as “terrorist threats.” The ACLU extrapolated the figure from the Department of Justice Inspector General’s statement, last September, that FBI watch list then stood at 700,000 names, and growing at 20,000 names per month.

Again, one must understand the nature of the beast. To believe that the FBI and the National Counterterrorism Center possess a lists of 900,000 genuine “terror suspects,” by name or alias, is absurd. ABC concluded that “it appears the FBI may be adding tens of thousands of names belonging to U.S. persons it suspects of being domestic terrorists — people who have no known ties to international terrorist organizations.” No doubt the feds have many hundreds of thousands of “names,” but it is impossible to accept that the U.S. government has identified almost a million people with actual ties to real terrorism, domestically or worldwide. There aren’t that many on the planet, much less in U.S. “sleeper” cells. The domestic names are clearly a list of people to be picked up. These “action lists” are of people to be arrested when politically possible, whose politics is deemed suspect by the regime in power.

Will a Democratic administration order the lists destroyed? Not likely. Reacting to the FBI’s arrest of a group of Black Miami men for plotting to blow up the Sears Tower, in Chicago, Barack Obama said:

The men and women of the FBI have done a great job infiltrating and taking down this home-grown terrorist cell. But this is a stark reminder that landmarks in our nation’s great cities, like the Sears Tower in Chicago, remain tempting targets for terrorists and would-be terrorists.

The Liberty City Seven trial ended in a mistrial and one acquittal, broadly viewed as a farcical, Keystone FBI attempt at entrapping impoverished African American men who had no capacity to plan or carry out such an attack.

Those who ask only that the federal government shorten its purely political lists of “terror” suspects – actually, all the names of progressives they can get their hands on, for convenient mass arrest – refuse to acknowledge the nature of the beast.

The police state that has long existed in Black America may one day soon extend well beyond racial borders.

Contempt for the empirical that can’t be readily jiggered or spun isevident at the top of the executive branch in Washington. The country is mired in a discourse that echoes the Scopes trial dramatized in “Inherit the Wind.” Mere rationality would mean lining up on the side of “science”against the modern yahoos and political panderers waving the flag ofsocial conservatism. (At the same time that scientific Darwinism is under renewed assault, a de facto alliance between religious fundamentalists and profit-devout corporatists has moved the country further into social Darwinism that aims to disassemble the welfare state.) Entrenched opposition to stem-cell research is part of a grim pattern that includes complacency about severe pollution and global warming — disastrous trends already dragging one species after another to the brink of extinction and beyond.

Disdain for “science” is cause for political concern. Yet few Americans and no major political forces are “antiscience” across the board. The ongoing prerogative is to pick and choose. Those concerned about the ravages left by scientific civilization — the combustion engine, chemicals, fossil-fuel plants, and so much more — frequently look to science for evidence and solutions. Those least concerned about the Earth’s ecology are apt to be the greatest enthusiasts for science in the service of unfettered commerce or the Pentagon, which always seeks the most effectively “advanced” scientific know-how. Even the most avowedly faithful are not inclined to leave the implementation of His plan to unscientific chance.

So, depending on the circumstances, right-wing fundamentalists could support the use of the latest science for top-of-the-line surveillance, for command and control, and for overall warfare — or could dismiss unwelcome scientific evidence of environmental harm as ideologically driven conclusions that should not be allowed to interfere with divinely inspired policies. Those kinds of maneuvers, George Orwell wrote in 1984, help the believers “to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies.”

In the first years of the twenty-first century, the liberal script hailed science as an urgent antidote to Bush-like irrationality. That was logical. But it was also ironic and ultimately unpersuasive. Pure allegiance to science exists least of all in the political domain; scientific findings are usually filtered by power, self-interest, and ideology. For instance, the technical and ecological advantages of mass transit have long been clear; yet foremost engineering minds are deployed to the task of building better SUVs. And there has never been any question that nuclear weapons are bad for the Earth and the future of humanity, but no one ever condemns the continuing development of nuclear weapons as a bipartisan assault on science. On the contrary, the nonstop R & D efforts for thermonuclear weapons are all about science.

When scientists found rapid climate change to be both extremely ominous and attributable to the proliferation of certain technologies, the media and political power centers responded to the data by doing as they wished. The GOP’s assault on science was cause for huge alarm when applied to the matter of global warming, but the unchallenged across-the-aisle embrace of science in the weaponry field had never been benign. When it came to designing and manufacturing the latest doomsday devices, only the most rigorous scientists need apply. And no room would be left for “intelligent design” as per the will of God.

The neutrality of science was self-evident and illusionary. Science was impartial because its discoveries were verifiable and accurate — but science was also, through funding and government direction, largely held captive. Its massively destructive capabilities were often seen as stupendous assets. In the case of ultramodern American armaments, the worse they got the better they got. Whatever could be said about “the market,” it was skewed by the buyers; the Pentagon’s routine spending made the nation’s budget for alternative fuels or eco-friendly technologies look like a pittance.

We’re social beings, as evolution seems to substantiate. Blessings and curses revolve largely around the loving and the warlike, the nurturing and the predatory. We’re self-protective for survival, yet we also have “conscience” — what Darwin described as the characteristic that most distinguishes human beings from other animals. Given the strength of our instincts for individual and small-group survival, we seem to be stingy with more far-reaching conscience.

Our capacities to take humane action are as distinctive of our species as conscience, and no more truly reliable. As people, we are consequences and we also cause them: by what we choose to do and not do. The beneficiaries of economic and military savagery are far from the combat zones. In annual reports, the Pentagon’s prime contractors give an overview of the vast financial rewards for shrewdly making a killing. To surrender the political battlefield to such forces is to self-marginalize and leave more space for those who thrive on plunder.

The inseparable bond of life and death should be healthy antipathy.

**********

We’ve had no way of really knowing how near annihilation might be. But our lives have flashed with scarcely believable human-made lightning — the evidence of things truly obscene, of officialdom gone mad — photos and footage of mushroom clouds, and routinely set-aside descriptions starting with Hiroshima. Waiting on the nuclear thunder.

Five decades after Sputnik, such apocalyptic dangers are still present, but from Americans in my generation the most articulated fears have to do with running out of money before breath. The USA is certainly no place to be old, sick, and low on funds. Huge medical bills and hazards of second-class care loom ahead. For people whose childhoods fell between victory over Japan and evacuation from Saigon, the twenty-first century has brought the time-honored and perfectly understandable quest to avoid dying before necessary — and to avoid living final years or seeing loved ones living final years in misery. Under such circumstances, self obsession may seem unavoidable.

There must be better options. But they’re apt to be obscured, most of all, by our own over-scheduled passivity; by who we figure we are, who we’ve allowed ourselves to become. The very word “options” is likely to have a consumer ring to it (extras on a new car, clauses in a contract). We buy in and consume, mostly selecting from prefab choices — even though, looking back, the best of life’s changes have usually come from creating options instead of choosing from the ones in stock.

When, in 1969, biologist George Wald said that “we are under repeated pressure to accept things that are presented to us as settled — decisions that have been made,” the comment had everything to do with his observation that “our government has become preoccupied with death, with the business of killing and being killed.” The curtailing of our own sense of real options is a concentric process, encircling our personal lives and our sense of community, national purpose, and global possibilities; circumscribing the ways that we, and the world around us, might change. Four decades after Wald’s anguished speech “A Generation in Search of a Future,” many of the accepted “facts of life” are still “facts of death” — blotting out horizons, stunting imaginations, holding tongues, limiting capacities to nurture or defend life. We are still in search of a future.

**********

And we’re brought up short by the precious presence and unspeakable absence of love. “All of us know, whether or not we are able to admit it, that mirrors can only lie,” James Baldwin wrote, “that death by drowning is all that awaits one there. It is for this reason that love is so desperately sought and so cunningly avoided. Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within.” This love exists “not in the infantile American sense of being made happy but in the tough and universal sense of quest and daring and growth.”

The freezing of love into small spaces, part of the numbing of America, proceeds in tandem with the warfare state. It’s easier to not feel others’ pain when we can’t feel too much ourselves.

If we want a future that sustains life, we’d better create it ourselves.

For folks who haven’t heard, Kenneth Foster’s death sentence was struck down yesterday by Texas Gov. Rick Perry after a 6-1 recommendation by the Perry appointed Board of Parolees. This is just a tremendous victory for those of us around the world who fought to make sure yesterday wasn’t the day Kenneth was put to death. We must take the time to remember Michael LaHood who lost his life 10 years ago at the hands of Mauricio Brown who was driving in Kenneth’s car. But we also remember the words of Sean Paul Kelly, Michael’s closest friend who opposed Kenneth’s execution. Kelly told the press:

…the execution of a young man who didn’t even kill Mike? That’s not justice. It’s senseless vengeance, a barbarism cloaked in the black robes of justice.

When victories like this occur, every link in the chain matters. Without question, the strongest links in this chain was Kenneth and his family. Kenneth said from the outset, “It’s my belief that if this does not become a political issue then I have no chance.”

That was the plan of action laid out for the DRIVE movement on death row, the Campaign to End the Death Penalty and other organizations that worked on his case. We made it political, asking the question over and over why Kenneth should be put to death for driving a car?

It was also the inspiration for a group of athletes and even a couple of sports writers, to stand together and demand that this man not be put to death. I want to take a moment and thank Etan Thomas, Dr. John Carlos, Lee Evans, Toni Smith, Dave Meggyesy, Jeff “Snowman” Monson, Dennis Brutus, William Gerena–Rochet, Neil DeMause, Doug Harris, Lester Rodney, Rus Bradburd and the INIMITABLE Scoop Jackson.

Below is a letter I received from Kenneth a couple weeks back with some of his thoughts on sports and society. I thought when I would eventually publish it, it would be a kind of eulogy. Instead it is a celebration of the struggle so desperately needed to see any kind of progress. It’s also a testament to his spirit. So good people, meet Mr. Kenneth Foster.

In struggle and sports,
Dave Zirin

———————

Dear Dave,

Let me say that I grew up like most youths playing sports. I started off playing pee-wee football and went all the way up to high school giving it 6 years. I went to high school and hung out with guys that are now NFL football players (Priest Holmes, ND Kalu and have a cousin that was in the NFL as well- Tony Brackens). I indulged in basketball and track and field as well. But for me sports never took hold of me the way it did other youths. I had a pretty active mind, so from year to year I wanted to be/do something new. My last year in sports was my Freshman year in high school (around 1992). By then the streets encompassed my mind.

So, coming into prison I entered with a little bit of love for sports. But, I had a different personal legend to unfold, so I slowly began to drift from that interest. As I began to become politically and culturally conscious the more recidivistic aspects of prison began to heavily reflect off of me. A strong contrast comes to light when a man steps outside of the prison molds.

Facing an injustice the only thing that I began to get obsessive about was how to get heard and be free, and as the saying goes- you cant serve 2 gods. Sports, as you know, becomes a way of life. You monitor it, you almost come to breathe it. It’s not just about watching a game, but knowing the stats, knowing the colleges they came from, knowing their proneness to injuries, etc.. All of this becomes relevant due to the fact that 9 times out of 10 there’s money on these games.

Sports becomes a way of life in prison, because it becomes a way of survival. For men that don’t have family or friends to help them financially this becomes an income, and at the same time it becomes a way to occupy your time. That’s another sad story in itself, but it’s the root to many men’s obsession with sports.

I also began to observe the way sports is used as a crutch for a sense of pseudo-pride. In prison, due to being stripped of your humanity, man cling to anything they can to give them a sense of identity. The spectrum varied intensely- it could be keeping a pet snake in your cell, it could be wearing an earring you’re not supposed to, keeping your hair trimmed a certain way when you’re not supposed to, and then there’s the more intense levels of rolling with the gangs or becoming interested in religion, politics, etc.. More times than not sports becomes a crutch.

Seeing this, sports became something that I avoided. It was just another weapon in the arsenal of ignorance and mental oppression. It was another part of the term we call- penitentiary ‘poli-tricks’. These are tricky games, rules and concepts whose function only dilute and separate prisoner
power. Therefore, I began a self-induced process to undergo sports amnesia. I didn’t watch it, I didn’t even listen to it, I didn’t gamble on it and didn’t entertain conversation about it. I even extended that to the city I was from. Not wanting to be belligerent in conversation if a person asked me where I was from I would tell them. I didn’t mind the casual conversation. But, I made sure to keep the lines drawn.

There’s a comfort zone that rises and while interacting with each other and joking ones, while playing the dozens on each other, will way things like- ‘Aww, that fool must be from Dallas talking like that. You know how them fools from Dallas is’, or ‘that sounds like a Knick’s fan over there, you know them dudes is throwed off anyway’. The cities and teams become protracting devices often-times for subliminal feelings and thoughts. This really becomes so when someone has lost a gambling bet and what often comes out as- ‘Man, them damn Spurs ain’t shit. To hell with them Spurs’- usually translates to ‘Man, fuck you’. And this has been the cause of numerous
prison riots across the kountry.

This is why when I’m approached with the city pride thing I let an individual know straight from the outset- I don’t represent cities, I represent ideologies. I don’t care about any city or State in this kountry, because the only thing they’ve done is railroad me and ain’t none of these teams donating to my Defense Fund, so they don’t exist in my world- That’s a truth that cant be rebuttled. But for many, who are hopeless and still lost in their lower-selves, sports is a mighty ruler in their lives.

In 2000 Texas death row was moved to a new unit due to a death row prison escape in 1998. As a result Texas officials stripped us of everything we had- work program, group rec, arts and crafts and TVs. That has lasted up until today and those continued conditions were the spark for the creation
of DRIVE (drivemovement.org) which was a protest coalition I helped create. But, having no TVs doesn’t stop the sports lovers. They go into their radios and find ways to wire it up and catch TV stations by radio, so the love of the game continues.

For a prisoner who has become politicalized I have a very hardline mentality- so things like sports, gambling, drinking, fooling with guards (in friendly manners) don’t exist for me. Because this goes against the grain of the norm, I become a target not only for guards, but for inmates as well. From years of repression and humiliation (just like slavery) there
is an enjoyed monotony.

I wanted to say that my favorite part of the book was the interview with Mumia. Mumia just has this way of taking the most complex of issues and making it seem so simple and understandable. I was even drawing my own parallels throughout your book- for example I saw the censoring of the 2 Live Crew in what David Stern is doing to his NBA Players. And if we wanted to stretch it, what Stern is doing is on the edges of old Apartheid/Jim Crow laws where you can’t do this, you can’t do that, you can’t go here or there. Everyday in this kountry we see things that we thought was Rights being rolled back.

Even my case is an example of where they’re trying to execute me, because they say I should anticipate something and now they’ve passed laws to make repeat sex offenders eligible for the death penalty. Pretty soon we’ll be back to the old Emmitt Till days where you get murdered for looking at the wrong person (system wise).

And so, all of this ties into a deeper issue. For those of us in these movements we have strong allies in the athletic field. You did a great job highlighting Roberto Clemente and Etan Thomas. I have even tried to reach out to Etan. I think for those of us in the movement we have to start making demands from athletes (and rappers too). Athletes have the money and platforms. I’m sure that many fear going through what Carlos Delgado went through, but in this day and age stances must be made. It’s never easy to make them, but we, as a people, must stop feeling uncomfortable to stand on what we know is right. We must not feel uncomfortable to ask for things back from persons that benefit from us so much. We have to find more Etans and create coalitions. They must become serious and passionate like CEDP members. And when one try to silence them, like they did Delgado, we will let their bias and racist be reflected on their own.

Athletes, Artist and Activist: from solidarity to power is the next book you should work on. We have to connect the Glovers, Etans, dead prezs and Fred Hampton Jrs; also the Delgados, Welfare Poets, and other Latin movements. And then we have to take that internationally building with ones like Chavez and other countries open for progressive change. We have to put challenges up like Dennis Brutus did with SANROC.

Speaking of such, though I don’t know where it was initiated from, I have a great feeling that you probably had your hands in it, and that was the Jocks for Justice petition done on my behalf. That touched me greatly and whomever is responsible I’d like to thank them from the bottom of my heart.

I’ve read Dennis Brutus work and I was always enchanted by the photo of Tommie Smith and John Carlos. It’s time to bring this new generation out.

You wield power, because you have vision and like Baldwin said- ‘Where there is no vision the people perish’. I only wanted to share a piece of my journey with you and want to continue to be a pebble in the pond. Though I wanted to save your book as a collectors item since you signed it, I’m going to try to circulate it around here and see what I can spark in these dry prairies.

Brother, I wish you much success in all that you do and will pray that your work opens more eyes and empowers even more minds. It’s been a great blessing for me to have met you, even in this limited fashion.

Revolutionary Love to you!

In Spirit/Strength/&Struggle

Haramia Ki Nassar
(Kenneth Foster Jr.)

On July 17th, The White House quietly announced an Executive Order entitled “Blocking Property of Certain Persons Who Threaten Stabilization Efforts in Iraq.” Among other developments, it gives Bush the power to “block” the property of people in the US found to “pose a significant risk of committing” an act of violence which might undermine “political reform in Iraq.”

The terms “significant threat” and “act of violence” are unclear. If you attend a demonstration against Bush’s definition of “political reform in Iraq” would that count? How about writing an angry letter to the editor?

The vague language also includes outlawing “the making of any contribution or provision of funds, goods, or services by, to, or for the benefit of any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order.” What if you donate to an anti-war group which, outside of your knowledge, has been blacklisted by the government? Does that mean that your property can be “blocked”?

Similar to the Patriot Act, the potential implications are staggering.

2. Market meltdown

Economic fallout from the subprime mortgage market collapse has extended further, with prominent investment company Bear Stearns admitting last week that two of its hedge funds, once valued at $1.6 billion, are now of “very little value.”

Meanwhile, the prestigious Bank for International Settlements released a statement warning that the global economy could be facing a Great Depression, and that the dollar in particular “remains vulnerable to a sudden loss of private sector confidence.”

Fasten your seatbelts.

3. Escalating US military operations in Pakistan

Following 911, the Bush administration propped up Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf as a key ally in the “war on terror,” spending billions of dollars on Pakistan’s military while ignoring Musharraf’s support for the Taliban. Those days might be over. Just last week, the White House announced US military forces could be deployed to strike “actionable targets” in the country — with or without Musharraf’s permission.

The Bush administration threatened to bomb Pakistan “back to the Stone Age” in 2001 if it didn’t deal with the Taliban, but Musharraf has so far been able to convince the US that if his administration falls, then Pakistan will be ruled by Islamists. As a former CIA officer recently told National Public Radio, “I’ve heard Gen. Musharraf … tell American presidents that if you don’t support me, the next person will be the ‘bearded ones’.”

But Musharraf faces growing domestic opposition for his strong-arm tactics, and while last week’s brutal storming of the Lal Masjid Mosque in Islamabad may have won bonus points in Washington, it only served to further alienate the Pakistani people.

In other words, US military action in Pakistan will most likely destabilize the Musharraf government, and may in fact push Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal into the hands of a government of “bearded ones.”

4. Loose nukes

It was recently reported that the US had quietly removed 130 of its nuclear warheads from Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany. That still leaves over 350 US warheads across Europe, but the question remains: what happened to the Ramstein nukes? The Pentagon and German Defense Ministry aren’t talking, and it can’t necessarily be assumed that the warheads have been destroyed. Shuffled to some different country with less stringent weapons controls or hidden away for use in future conflicts perhaps — who knows.

Meanwhile, in late June, the Senate Appropriations Committee voted to fund by $66 million the production of even more nuclear warheads.

5. VP Arnie?

Schwarzenegger visited his hometown of Graz, Austria in late June, ostensibly to attend the birthday party of a friend. The warm welcome he received was quite a change from two years ago, when tensions flared with town elders over his position on the death penalty and failure to stop an execution in California. The war of words escalated until Schwarzenegger requested that Graz remove his name from a local sports stadium, and in a move reminiscent of high school crushes, he returned a ring which city officials had given him.

This time around, however, Schwarzenegger was conciliatory and local politicians clamored for photo ops — effectively sweeping bad blood under the carpet. How convenient, and how necessary, for Schwarzenegger and any ambitions he may have for 2008.

6. Cutting off Iraq’s water supply

For years, the Turkish government has tried to get international funding to build a dam across the Tigris River. The potential impact on villagers and the environment has stalled the project, and both Iraq and Syria have expressed concern that the proposed Ilisu dam could give Turkey power over their water supply.

European entities considering funding the project have received strong public pressure to back out, and if they do, China appears only too happy to step in and help build the dam.

Meanwhile, an estimated 250,000 Turkish troops are amassed near Northern Iraq and just this week, the Prime Minister of Turkey threatened to invade the country.

Long story short, Turkey and China are increasingly likely to assume a major role in both Iraq and Syria. Doesn’t bode well for the Bush’s administration’s plans.

7. GPS losing its way

The US monopoly over satellite navigation systems appears to be drawing to a close. The Global Positioning System (GPS) has enabled civilians to find their destinations and the military to coordinate troop movements and detect nuclear detonations, but the US system will soon face international competition. Global Navigation Satellite Systems are being developed by Europe, China and India while a Russian system may be operational as early as 2009 — another challenge to US hegemony on the international stage.

8. New Russian arms race?

This month, Russia pulled out of the Treaty for Conventional Armed Forces in Europe, established in 1990 to reduce the number of conventional weapons (such as tanks and combat aircraft) in Europe. Russia’s move signals the latest salvo in a power struggle between European leaders and Russian President Putin, who is dead set against the establishment of new US military bases and anti-missile systems in eastern Europe and central Asia. But if Russia is not convinced to rejoin the arms Treaty, then by the end of the year it can establish weapons arsenals without NATO inspections and Putin may begin pulling out of other international arms agreements, as Bush has done. Could be the start of a new global arms race.

9. Murdoch’s megalomania

Media mogul Rupert Murdoch has his sights on Dow Jones & Co., publisher of The Wall Street Journal and Barron’s, among others, and owner of stock market indicators such as the Dow Jones industrial average. Murdoch’s News Corp already controls an outrageous number of newspapers, magazines, TV networks, cable channels and film studios across the world and as Business Week observed in 2004: Murdoch “is not shy about using his media outlets to pursue agendas, whether they’re politically conservative causes or his own business interests.”

For example, the UK’s Guardian pointed out that every single one of Murdoch’s 175 newspapers across the globe parroted his pro-war views before the invasion of Iraq.

News Corp offered $5 billion for Dow Jones, the board of directors gave its approval and as early as next week a final decision will be reached. If successful, Murdoch’s power in the US will expand even further.

10. “Bring it on” Iran

The Senate recently voted 97-0 in favor of hawk Joe Lieberman’s Amendment effectively blaming Iran for complicity in the death of American soldiers; it’s worth noting that both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton sided with Lieberman on the vote. Meanwhile, a third US aircraft carrier is on its way towards Iran and the UK’s Guardian quoted a “well-placed Washington source” as saying “Bush is not going to leave office with Iran still in limbo.”

So the drumbeat of impending doom continues, along with warnings of upcoming false flag events — a new Gulf of Tonkin or 911 — timed before Congress votes on Defense Appropriations in September.

Stay tuned…

The reason for the July 4th date is because it was the date in 1776 that the Declaration of Independence was signed. Of course, this independence was really only for the southern white male planters and their northern counterparts, but the seed it planted has inspired men and women around the world to make the words of that declaration’s preamble universal. Yet, we are still quite far from that goal, even here in the United States. Indeed, especially here in the United States. Poverty prevents millions from achieving their right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” Hundreds of thousands of those denied these rights end up in prison not only lose the latter, but quite literally lose their liberty. Of those hundreds of thousands, hundreds have lost their lives because of the state’s’ insistence on their right to execute certain prisoners, most of them black and brown-skinned.

One of these men is Kenneth Foster, a young African-American resident of Texas who is facing execution at the end of August 2007. His case revolves around a very controversial law known as the “law of parties.” In essence, this law imposes the death penalty on any body involved in a crime where a murder occurred, even if the accused was not involved in the murder or even aware that the killer intended to commit murder. If this law were applied to Scooter Libby’s case, there’s a good chance that Dick Cheney and Karl Rove would have also been convicted, even if they didn’t know that Libby was going to lie to Congress.

Kenneth is also a founding member of the Death Row Inner-Communalist Vanguard Engagement, or DRIVE. Members of DRIVE have organized in the worst of circumstances to protest the awful living conditions on Texas’ death row and against the death penalty in general. DRIVE is a first-of-its-kind social movement with a growing base of support in the U.S. and internationally. They have also created a politicized environment on death row in which condemned inmates are refusing to walk to their

executions, forcing guards to drag them instead. More information about DRIVE is available online at http://www.drivemovement.org

I ran into Marlene Martin of the Campaign to Abolish the Death Penalty in Chicago a couple of weeks ago and she told me about the case and gave me the name of Bryan McCann, who is an organizer of the campaign to prevent Foster’s execution. Bryan has been a member of the Campaign to End the Death Penalty since 2005. His writing on the Texas death penalty has appeared in the Socialist Worker and New Abolitionist. He lives in Austin, Texas where he is a PhD student in Communication Studies. I contacted Bryan and we carried on the following exchange.

Hi, Bryan. I just finished reading the materials on Kenneth Foster’s case sent to me by the Campaign to End the Death Penalty, along with some other news articles that I found on line. To help out the readers, can you answer a couple background questions. Who is Kenneth Foster? Can you summarize the state’s case against Foster?

Kenneth Foster is a native of San Antonio, Texas. He has been on death row since 1997, sentenced to death for the 1996 murder of Michael LaHood, Jr. Kenneth did not shoot LaHood. This is not an innocence claim made solely by his supporters. The state of Texas will be the first to admit that Kenneth is factually innocent of murder. How is he still on death row? Texas’s Law of Parties, the only legislation of its kind in a death penalty state, holds individuals criminally responsible for the offense of another if the prosecution can prove they actively promoted or assisted the commission of the offense or should have anticipated that it would have taken place.

On August 14, 1996, Kenneth Foster was driving a car carrying Mauriceo Brown, Dewayne Dillard, and Julius Steen. That night, Brown and Steen committed two armed robberies, at which point Kenneth asked Dillard to persuade them to stop. On the way home, Foster ended up behind a car carrying Michael LaHood, Jr. and his girlfriend, Mary Patrick. Concerned that Foster was deliberately following them, Patrick waved the car down in front of the LaHood residence. Brown exited the car, presumably to talk to Patrick and get her phone number. Dillard testified that no one anticipated violence, and that Brown took the gun without permission or knowledge of the other men. When Brown approached the woman, her boyfriend Michael LaHood appeared in the driveway. Brown and LaHood exchanged words, a shot was fired, and Michael LaHood lay dead. All of this transpired while the other three men remained in the car, 80 feet away from the scene of the crime, with the windows rolled up and radio turned on. After hearing the gunshots, Kenneth began to drive away, but Brown managed to get back in the car.

All of the above is well-corroborated by all four of the men on that evening. Brown admitted to shooting LaHood but insisted it was in self defense. However, the state tried Kenneth and Mauriceo together for capital murder, basing Kenneth’s charges on the Law of Parties. They claimed that because two robberies had already taken place that night, he should have anticipated that Brown might have tried to rob LaHood and Patrick. Because he should have anticipated a robbery could have taken place, he also should have known a murder could possibly take place. This shaky logic, along with testimony from Steen (who later retracted part of his testimony), was enough to sentence both Brown (who was executed in 2006) and Kenneth to death.

What kind of legal representation did he have at trial?

Like the vast majority of death row inmates, Kenneth had a court-appointed attorney. This is largely due to the fact that the victim, Michael LaHood, Jr.’s father was a prominent San Antonio lawyer. This fact made it difficult for Kenneth’s family to find an attorney willing to take the case. Kenneth’s lawyers failed him on many counts, not least of all failing to interview Julius Steen during the original trial. In the sentencing phase, they failed to mention that both Kenneth’s parents were drug addicts and his mother died of AIDS. This gave the jury little basis for sympathy. Also, Brown’s attorney referred to his client as an “animal” and a “thug.” Because the two men were tried together, this likely prejudiced Kenneth in the eyes of the jury.

Has the case been appealed? What were the results and reasons given?

With the exception of his subsequent writ of habeas corpus, Kenneth’s appeals have been exhausted. In 2005, federal District Judge Royal Furgeson overturned Kenneth’s death sentence on the grounds that it violated his Eighth Amendment rights. Furgeson ruled that the jury in the original trial was not asked to determine if Kenneth harbored any intent to kill Michael LaHood. As a result, Kenneth’s case constituted a misapplication of the Law of Parties. However, Texas appealed the decision to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals and won. Since then, Kenneth has categorically lost all of his appeals

What is the “law of parties?” Has it ever been on the books in other states? I noted in the summary on the law that the Supreme Court that the ” imposition of the death penalty on a person who aids and abets a felony in the course of which a murder is committed by others but who does not himself kill, attempt to kill, or intend to kill violates the 8th and 14th Amendments of the US Constitution.” Can you provide the readers with a comprehensive history of this law and its interpretation in the courts?

The Law of Parties was adopted in 1974. It states that a person is equally responsible for the criminal conduct of another if “acting with intent to promote or assist the commission of the offense he solicits, encourages, directs, aids or attempts to aid the other persons to commit the offense” or “If, in the attempt to carry out a conspiracy to commit one felony, another felony is committed by one of the conspirators, all conspirators are guilty of the felony actually committed, though having no intent to commit it, if the offense was committed in furtherance of the unlawful purpose and was one that should have been anticipated as a result of the carrying out of the conspiracy.” The U.S. Supreme Court has indeed ruled on laws of this nature, drawing the conclusion that you cite above in the 1982 Enmund v. Florida decision. However the court has not heard any cases from Texas related to this issue. The only other case related to policies such as the Law of Parties is the 1987 Tison v. Arizona decision in which the Justices upheld the death sentences of two brothers who aided their father in a deadly prison escape. The decision stated that “”knowingly engaging in criminal activities known to carry a grave risk of death represents a highly culpable mental state.” They added that “We will not attempt to precisely delineate the particular types of conduct and states of mind warranting imposition of the death penalty. … Rather, we simply hold that major participation in the felony … combined with reckless indifference to human life is sufficient to satisfy the Enmund culpability requirement.” Thus, the legal precedent on policies like the Law of Parties remains highly ambiguous.

Obviously, you feel that this law has been wrongly applied to Kenneth Foster. How and why?

There is very little basis for believing that Kenneth had any malicious intent toward Michael LaHood, Jr. Yes, he was driving the car that night and robberies took place. However, there is every reason to believe that Kenneth had no idea LaHood’s life was in danger. There was also no conspiracy to rob him. He did not even know the gun had left the car. His jury, moreover, was only instructed to determine if he was associated with Brown and should have anticipated his actions. As Judge Furgeson pointed out in 2005, these instructions are not consistent with the intent of the Law of Parties. Kenneth is effectively facing an execution date for a failure of hindsight. As Kenneth’s criminal lawyer, Keith Hampton, wrote in his federal appeal, “By employing the conspiracy liability statute, the state is able to make persons death-eligible on nothing greater than a negligence standard – that the defendant ’should have anticipated’ that his conspirator would, in the course of any planned felony, intentionally kill another person.” He added, “negligence is the least culpable mental state known to criminal law.”

What about the justness of the law itself?

The Law of Parties is a pretty transparent attempt to optimize convictions. By placing such a low threshold of proof, under which someone can be sent to death for failing to anticipate the actions of another, prosecutors have a multitude of strategies they can enlist to negotiate plea bargains and send multiple people to prison or the death chamber. Sentences ultimately boil down to who chooses to cooperate with the state, rather than who actually committed the crime. For example, Irineo Montoya was executed in 1997 for restraining a man while Juan Fernando Villavicencio stabbed him. Villavicencio, on the other hand, was acquitted of the murder after key witnesses in both trials (relatives of Villavicencio) changed their testimonies. The Law of Parties shows the lie to the notion of the death penalty as something reserved for the “worst of the worst.” Instead, it shows what a cynical political strategy the sanction actually is. Also, by asking jurors to determine if a defendant should have anticipated that a crime was going to take place, when that very jury obviously already knows that it has, the prosecution is asking individuals to make life and death decisions based on what seems logical in retrospect. It is a law that is ripe for abuse.

I noticed when reading the materials accompanying the case that Foster attempted to drive away after LaHood was shot. What does this mean to the case and how important is it to proving Foster’s intent (or lack of intent)?

This important piece of information never came out at the original trial. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to have new evidence stand during appeals, as the defense must be able to demonstrate that something prevented them from acquiring the evidence in the first place. One of the jurors in Kenneth’s original trial said that if he had known Kenneth tried to drive away, he would have voted for a different verdict.

When the trial judge told the jury that they could “find the defendant Kenneth Foster guilty of the offense of capital murder, though he may have had no intent to commit the offense,” was the judge correct?

According to the Law of Parties, a defendant is responsible for another person’s felony if it is committed in furtherance of a crime they were both responsible for. However, the jury should have been asked to determine if Kenneth was an active agent in a criminal conspiracy that he either knew would result in LaHood’s death or should have anticipated would have ended in murder. Under the judge’s instructions, the prosecution did not even have to meet this low threshold of proof.

Most everyone knows that Texas leads the United States in executions. Given Texas’ reputation, how does the defense hope to prevent Kenneth’s execution?

Texas will perform its 400th execution since 1982 in 2007. It is obviously a state out of control in its use of the death penalty. Because of this, there are many reasons to believe that Kenneth’s odds are rather low. Furthermore, conventional wisdom dictates that little hope is left when an execution date is set. However, the death penalty is on the defensive in the United States in a way it has not been for years. Beginning with the 2003 death row commutations in Illinois, the nation as a whole has begun asking hard questions about capital punishment, especially regarding innocence and lethal injection. While Texas still manages to be the exception to the rule in its flagrant use of capital punishment, there are signs that the tide is turning here, as well. Recently, the Supreme Court decided against the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals in three death penalty cases. Also, the CCA has been deciding in favor of death row defendants at an unusual rate. Over the past several years, the cases of Ruben Cantu, Carlos DeLuna, and Cameron Todd Willingham have emerged as instances in which innocent men were almost certainly put to death in Texas. The statewide anti-death penalty movement continues to grow in size and confidence. While it is hard to make definitive predictions about what will or will not happen on August 30 (Kenneth’s scheduled execution date), I believe we have plenty of reasons to be hopeful. Texas is beginning to feel pressure where its use of the death penalty is concerned, and a case such as Kenneth’s is certainly one that can fan the flames of public discontent and create enough political pressure to halt his execution.

You are a member of the Campaign to End the Death Penalty. Can you tell us about their work?

Formed in 1998, the Campaign to End the Death Penalty is a national grassroots anti-death penalty organization based in Chicago. We oppose the death penalty for five reasons: it is racist, it targets the poor, it condemns the innocent to die, it does not prevent crime, and it constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. We organized in order to call attention to the broad systemic implications of the death penalty, insisting that it is inseparable from the unjust society in which it operates. Committed to putting those who experience the death penalty first-hand on the frontlines of this battle, we work closely with current and exonerated death row inmates, as well as their families. The Campaign was active in the movement that persuaded former Illinois Governor George Ryan to clear the state’s death row in 2003. Our chapters have also played leading roles in the movements to save Gary Graham, Stan “Tookie” Williams, Vernon Evans, and Kevin Cooper. The Austin chapter is also working to win a new trial for Rodney Reed, an innocent man on who has been on Texas’s death row since 1998. Our national website is NoDeathPenalty.org.

What can people do to help prevent this execution?

Our experience teaches us that we cannot halt executions by appealing to the better intentions of men like Texas Governor Rick Perry. Rather, those who wield the power to execute individuals respond to political pressure. That is why we must build a vibrant and visible movement around the Kenneth Foster case. Those living in Texas should join the Save Kenneth Foster Campaign and help us as we plan a July 21 press conference, rally, and benefit concert in Austin. Those who are out of state can visit the Save Kenneth Foster Campaign blog at http://savekenneth.blogspot.com/ and download petitions, clemency letters, and case fact sheets. People can also learn more about Kenneth and his case at FreeKenneith.com. Fortunately, a number of activists form across the country are beginning to take notice of Kenneth’s case. What we need is a broad base of awareness and action to put the spotlight squarely on Texas, a state that for too long has continued to execute individuals with impunity.

Hans Bennett: While many of us gathered here in Philadelphia on April 24 celebrating the birthday of Mumia Abu-Jamal, you were in Texas visting Haramia KiNassor (Kenneth Foster, Jr.) on death row. How was your visit?

Walidah Imarisha: It was a hard decision to be down in Texas instead of in Philly for Mumia’s birthday. Mumia’s Live From Death Row was a catalyst for so much of my political understanding and organizing work, and working on his campaign is one of the main reasons I moved to Philadelphia.

But I knew that being in Texas and meeting with Haramia would be one of the organizing moves that Mumia would be supportive of, and Haramia and I kept his birthday on our minds and our tongues as we talked about the work Mumia does, in relation to the work that Haramia and the other brothas on death row in Texas are doing.

Texas is rough. Prison in Texas is incredibly difficult, and death row in Texas brings to mind Mumia’s quote of a “bright shining hell.”

I met Haramia, who has been on death row for 10 years, first through his poetry, when I was the editor of AWOL Magazine, where he has had several pieces published, and then through The Human Rights Coalition, a prisoner family organization I work with in Philadelphia. Hasan Shakur, a close comrade of Haramia’s, started an HRC chapter in Texas and brought Haramia in, and he served for a while on our advisory council. I had never met him in person before April 23rd.

I entered the death row visiting area, the same area I went to see Hasan Shakur before they executed him Aug. 31, 2006. Usually visits on Texas’ row are only two hours, but because I came from out of town, I was able to request two four hour visits on consecutive days. I sat down in front of a cage, behind glass, an all white cage. As I sat and waited for them to bring Haramia out, I remembered looking through that same glass to see Hasan on the other side, his dark frame looking even larger in the cramped whiteness of the mesh cage.

They finally brought Haramia out, dressed all in white as are all prisoners at the Polunsky Unit. I was struck by how young he looked. Just like Hasan, these two strong brothas, who have been through hell every day, who are committed souljahs to the struggle, still can have their faces split with wide summer day smiles that call their child selves back into their bodies.

The time visiting with him today flew by. He has such an incredibly quick mind, we went from one subject to the next, and he never lost his concentration. We could get forty minutes and five topics off point, but he was still able to bring to back home and tie it together.

He has really tapped into art and poetry and hip hop as tools in the anti-death penalty movement, and in the struggle in general, which is a vital organizing tool to get the word out. He was one of the inspirations for the hip hop/spoken word band/collective The Welfare Poets’ anti-death penalty compilation CD Cruel and Unusual Punishment, www.myspace.com/deathpenaltycd, which is a powerful collection of raw conscious hard hitting pieces about criminal injustice in this country.

Cruel and Unusual Punishment also includes a song by Haramia’s fiancée, a hip hop artist from the Netherlands called Jav’lin. She did an incredible song called “Walk With Me,” and she just released the video of it, which is up at www.freekenneth.com, in addition to other places. I watched it as soon as I got back, and I was really moved by it, both as a piece of art (she did it on her own and out of her pocket and I thought it was really well put together and professionally done) and as a political organizing tool that really speaks to the realities of the people who love folks caught up in the criminal justice system, especially death row.

The first day was tense, because we were waiting to hear back from the U.S. Supreme Court. Haramia had gotten a positive ruling from San Antonio federal District Judge Royal Furgeson, who overturned his death sentence on March 3, saying that he could not be given the death penalty for his part in the crime. However, the state appealed and the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned that judge’s ruling, and reinstituted the death penalty. Haramia’s lawyer then appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. The minute I walked out of the prison on April 23rd, I had a message from Claire, one of his tireless supporters. The Supreme Court had declined to hear his case. It was definitely a moment of feeling completely hopeless for me, because the facts in the case that everyone agrees on so clearly do not warrant a death sentence. I did not expect justice from a system so flawed and corrupt, but it was still a hard blow.

But it was Haramia who walked me through it, by showing his resilience and inner strength the next day. He walked in with his head high, knowing that they would issue him a date of execution (which they did five days ago – the date set for his execution is Aug. 30, the day before they executed his comrade Hasan a year ago), and still committed mind, body and soul to continuing the work for freedom, just as Mumia is, and Hasan and all the other conscious folks locked down across this nation, and they struggle not for themselves, but for all of us, for our collective freedom.

Visiting flew by on April 24th, and it seemed like I had just walked in the door when the guard tapped me on the shoulder. I put up my hand to touch his through the glass, the closest to a greeting and a goodbye possible. I walked out, past the cages they hold the prisoners in, through the automatic metal doors. I looked back through the window, and the white mesh backing of the visiting cell almost obscured his frame, but then he raised a black fist in the air, and I felt his smile through the glass.

HB: Haramia’s execution date is set for Aug.30. You’ve written that everyone, from the prosecutor on down, agrees that Haramia did not kill anyone, he never even touched the gun? How can someone be executed on these grounds?

WI: Haramia was convicted under the Law of Parties, which has two parts: “A person is criminally responsible for an offense committed by the conduct of another if “acting with intent to promote or assist the commission of the offense he solicits, encourages, directs, aids or attempts to aid the other persons to commit the offense” or “If, in the attempt to carry out a conspiracy to commit one felony, another felony is committed by one of the conspirators, all conspirators are guilty of the felony actually committed, though having no intent to commit it, if the offense was committed in furtherance of the unlawful purpose and was one that should have been anticipated as a result of the carrying out of the conspiracy.”

So basically it’s saying you are as responsible for a crime if you knowingly help and support someone in that crime OR you are guilty for the crime if you SHOULD HAVE KNOWN it would happen based on your actions.

Haramia was 19 years old when the crime he was convicted for occurred. He and three other young men were out riding around, and decided to commit a series of armed robberies. Haramia’s role in them was only as the driver of the car. After holding up two parties, Haramia asked them to stop the robberies, which all agreed to.

On the way home, they stopped the car so one of the men, Mauriceo Brown could talk to a woman. He got into an argument with her boyfriend Michael LaHood, and shot and killed LaHood. Haramia had no knowledge that this was occurring until it was too late. Brown acted on his own, and admitted to the shooting (claiming it was in self-defense), and freely stated that he acted alone. Brown has been executed by the death machine of Texas. In invoking that statute, prosecutors had to prove that Foster and his cohorts agreed to commit armed robbery when they encountered LaHood, and that they should’ve anticipated that their risky behavior might cause LaHood’s death.

Those of us supporting Haramia argue that he was falsely convicted under the Law of Parties, that this case does not fall without the jurisdiction of that law (he was not charged with armed robbery, only with first degree murder).

But on the bigger scale, which is the way Haramia, as a political organizer and activist, wants it framed, we also hold that the Law of Parties is completely flawed and needs to be eliminated. To try someone for what they should have known was going to happen is Orwellian in design and horribly frightening in its application. But of course, the work doesn’t stop there; we have to address the fact the death penalty is a brutal corrupt flawed and pointless means of “justice,” and do it away with it. We must build a criminal justice system that is based on rehabilitation, restoration and healing, about making whole, rather than punishment and further violating the communities and individuals who have been victimized by the ravages of oppression. This is the work that Haramia does every day from a cell the size of a bathroom. This is the work that we, out here, are tasked with as well, if we are look ourselves in the face.

HB: Do you think him being a political organizer is a motive for attempting to carry out this extreme sentence?

WI: Haramia became a political organizer after his conviction, while on death row. The reactions that he and other political organizers in prison and on the row suffer is definitely based on their commitment to justice and uncovering the truth. There is a strong desire, on the part of the prison system, the courts and this society, to silence the voices of the oppressed who demand not only answers, but solutions and who refuse to compromise or negotiate away pieces of their liberation.

HB: You wrote that Haramia’s death row organization DRIVE is “an amazing example of oppressed people in the worst of circumstances organizing themselves for self determination.” What kind of organizing is DRIVE doing? Has the movement now spread to Philadelphia?

WI: (www.drivemomovement.org) DRIVE is a very powerful case of oppressed peoples directly affected in the bowels (not even the belly) of the beast organizing themselves. It was founded by Haramia and other brothas on the row in Texas. It is organized across racial lines, which is fairly unheard of in prisons. DRIVE is committed to nonviolently opposing the death penalty in all its manifestations. They protest not just their own death sentences, but those of people across this country.

This has taken the form of hunger strikes, the last of which went from October of 2006 to January of 2007, a three month strike. Haramia spoke of that when I went to visit him, saying how difficult it was to see these men turn into walking skeletons. But they feel that they can not in good conscience go along with the death penalty, with all its contradictions, the overall racism and classism of who is issued the death penalty, and the inherent inhumanity of taking a person’s life.

They also have on their website a memorial to the people who refused to “walk,” that is, when their death sentence came time, they refused to go along with the program and walk to the death chamber. Haramia said they refuse to be led like cattle to the slaughter, that as human beings, it is an inherent desire to want to continue to live, and that each person who refuses to walk is engaging in an act of civil disobedience.

A recent really exciting development with DRIVE is that they have expanded to include a chapter from women on death row in Pennsylvania. This is such a powerful step because these women are organizing and mobilizing themselves, and also because there is so little discourse about women in prison, let alone women on death row.

HB: Are there any appeals left, or any other grounds to stop the execution

WI: Haramia has one appeal left, back in Texas state court. But they have never granted an appeal. And there is one more push, to ask Governor Perry for clemency, this from a governor who has never granted clemency. Haramia’s lawyer has filed the appeal and feels it is strong.

HB: What can people do to support Haramia right now?

WI I can’t stress enough how vital public pressure is right now for Haramia’s case. There needs to be a public outcry that there is no question in this case, everyone agrees that he did not pull the trigger, he never even touched the gun. He is being sentenced to die for driving a car, and that should outrage every single person that hears it.

We’re asking folks to write letters to Governor Perry:

Office of the Governor

P.O. Box 12428

Austin, Texas 78711-2428

To log onto his website www.freekenneth.com and sign the online petition, and to spread the word as far as possible to people. We have to act now while this brotha is still here with us. I know that I, personally, am heartsick at losing people in this struggle.

HB: Anything you’d like to add?

WI: One of the most powerful things about DRIVE is that it shows that for as powerless as the system tries to convince each of us, that it is simply not true. These men on death row, locked down in the heart of the biggest state killing apparatus in the world, who are supposed to be completely at the mercy of the DOC, instead are reclaiming their power and taking stands. When I am feeling depressed and hopeless, I think of all those struggling where we are told everyday struggle is impossible. I think of those who should be so warped by their circumstances, but instead are more human than those who keep them in captivity. I think of these people who make something out of nothing, and I know that not only can all of us go on, we must.