Socialist Action /July 2002
Commentary by Mumia Abu-Jamal:
Into the Twilight Zone
With the seizure of the person (one can't say "arrest," for
the government has announced it has no intention of prosecuting) of the
American citizen alleged to have been planning "dirty bomb" strikes
against U.S. targets, Abdullah Al-Muhajir (formerly Jose Padilla), the government
goes down a dark and long road, the destination of which can only be-the
Twilight Zone (with apologies to the late Rod Serling).
A charge, under Anglo-American jurisprudence, is only a charge, and remains
so only until a duly constituted selection and decision of one's peers-a
jury-decides otherwise.
This is the boast that Americans have used for over two centuries, to
hold their noses higher than the rest of the allegedly uncivilized world,
as an expression of their trust in the wisdom and insight of the average
American citizen to decide the fate of their fellows.
Under the present Bush regime, however, there is a marked perception
that the American people, and more importantly, the institutions erected
in their name, are not to be trusted. This view was apparently one of long
standing.
Let us go back, back-way back to the days of the 2000 elections for the
(Electoral College's) choice of who would be president of the United States
of America. Do you remember when the Republican lawyers appealed the decision
of the Florida Supreme Court?
It was not merely that the Bush-Cheney government-in-exile mistrusted
the machinations of the Florida Supreme Court. The Court's second recount
order did more than order a selective recount in certain counties-yes. Florida's
Supremes ordered its lower circuit and county judiciary-essentially trial
judges-to do much of the counting!
Therefore, the reversal of the order of the Florida Supreme Court did
far more than slap the faces of the Supremes; it, at least implicitly, suggested
that the circuit court judges in the affected counties were not to be trusted!
Ever since the promulgation of the military tribunals, which had no tie-in
with the civil, state, or federal judiciary, there has been the sense that
the administration has little or no trust in the nation's judicial apparatus,
that somehow they were unable or perhaps unwilling to come out with the
results that the Bush regime would approve of.
No civil courts, no judges, and no juries-what does this say about how
much the administration trusts not only people in other branches of government,
but average Americans themselves?
Not much, it seems.
If these same types of things were happening in, say, Peru, or North
Korea, or Zimbabwe, so-called human rights activists would be baying to
the moon about "shadow government," "secret, unreviewable
tribunals," and the big one-"the lack of democracy."
But the silence is deafening.
The right has so cowed what passes for the "left" in America
that they bite their tongues bloody, to prove they are "proud Americans"
while a de facto coup takes shape right before their very eyes.
Secret tribunals. Unlimited detention. Military courts. No right to counsel
(such as it is!). Incommunicado. Is this Fujimori's Peru? Is this Botha's
South Africa? Is this government by the people, or government by fiat?
This, then, is the real consequence of the sham democracy that is America
at the beginning of the 21st century. Where legislators are but bagmen for
industry, and when the press is but a wholly owned subsidiary of yet another
big business conglomerate.
Fujimori had his boogiemen-the Sendero Luminoso (a.k.a. "Shining
Path")-to whip the bourgeoisie into lockstep with the neo-fascist narco-kleptocracy.
Botha had his boogiemen-the African National Congress (and the PAC, and
Biko, and AZAPO, etc.)-to whip the white bourgeoisie into lockstep with
the Herrenvolk, white supremacist, racist- fascist military dictatorship.
Bush has al-Qaeda-a plastic, ever-changing, shapeless boogieman, which
is being used to whip the nation's bourgeoisie into an unconstitutional
frenzy of spy craft, skullduggery, and unprecedented federal intrusion into
the lives, opinions, and beliefs of millions of Americans.
Is such-and-such a thing true? Who knows? The government said it, so...?
We are watching the very erection of Papa Bush's New World Order, and
it ain't pretty. What are you going to do about it?
© COPYRIGHT MAJ 2002
To communicate directly with Mumia, please write to him at:
Mumia Abu-Jamal, AM 8335, SCI-Greene,175 Progress Drive, Waynesburg,
PA 15370.
Socialist Action /July 2002 |