Yes, I'd like to hear more discussion of bioregionalism. I'm currently working
on an essay about two contemporary novels--Jane Smiley's _A Thousand Acres_ and
Carolyn Chute's _Merry Men_--both bitter versions of American pastoral. In
reading A. Kolodny's _The Lay of the Land_, about TJefferson's faith in the
family farm, I kept thinking--"bioregionalism!" Jefferson rejected a profit-
motivated economy for an agrarian economy (and it seems to me that _one_ ((of
many)) of the problems with family farming is that the agrarian economy got
twisted up in profit and it all went to hell--or the corporations, which is the
same thing. :) ). TJ, in keeping with his historical moment, believed virtue
and fulfillment came from close contact with nature/the land.
OK, the usual disclaimers about TJ apply--slave owner, etc. I don't know how
much actual farming TJ himself did. And while he _sort of_ recognized the
environmental damage farming did, he mostly just hinted at it and left it to
later generations to cope with--much the same way he finally resolved the
slavery issue? And, of course, Kolodny's premise--that in America the
_metaphor_ of the land as female became a reality, in that it shaped the way
Euros lived on the land--both expecting maternal nurturing and controlling/
raping "her" for their own gain--is also a warning. It seems that if TJ's
18th C agrarian ideal was done in, in part, by a feminization of the earth that
allowed for environmental abuse, then we need to be on our guard for our own
residual feminizations of nature.
At any rate, even though we obviously can't recreate the 18th C ideal (even
the 18th C couldn't do that!), it helps me to know that "new" ideas like
bioregionalism have been around for centuries. What other historical "roots"
exist for bioregionalism? It seems to me that the more we know about
bioregionalism now, the better equipped we'll be for our own survival when,
inevitably, we can no longer maintain our current global consumerism. (Please
excuse my apocalyptic paranoia:) ).
Sara
>From [EMAIL PROTECTED] Wed Jul 5 09:48:40 1995
Date: Wed, 05 Jul 1995 10:48:35 -0600 (CST)
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: chivalry
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
This is for Al, if he's still listening. Your poor ears must be flamed
off by now. And while I agree with most of the criticisms you've gotten lately,
I did find myself feeling a smidge of sympathy. (gee, does that sound
patronizing?)
You said a while back that you value a certain kind of chivalry, and your
comments in general are very chivalrous--a male-to-female code of behavior
which ostensibly protects and values women while, in fact, it confines and
controls women. I'm not saying those are _your_ motives, but that's the
history of the code you embrace. There's a moment in Judy Grahn's poem, "A
Woman is Talking to Death," that illustrates my point: "In feudal Europe,
if a woman committed adultery/her husband would sometimes tie her/down, catch
a mouse and trap it/under a cup on her bare belly, until/it gnawed itself
out, now are you/afraid of mice?"
If you're genuinely invested in liberatory movements, and I'm willing to accept
that you are, then, like all of us, you have a lot of reading to do. Cornell
West says we must have a "deep sense" of history if we are to ever undo
oppressive behaviors. Find out what your chivalry was really all about before
you adopt it as tool for feminism.
Sara
>From [EMAIL PROTECTED] Wed Jul 5 11:39:58 1995
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Michael Golden)
Subject: Spartacists: Jamal Campaign Update (fwd)
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Wed, 5 Jul 95 10:41:38 PDT
Forwarded message:
Date: Mon, 3 Jul 1995 22:20:46 -0400
Reply-To: Progressive News & Views List <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sender: Progressive News & Views List <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
From: PNEWS <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Spartacists: Jamal Campaign Update
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[****PNEWS CONFERENCES****]
From: NY Spartacist <address withheld/replies via PNEWS>
The following article is from the June 30 issue of Workers
Vanguard, the Marxist working-class biweekly of the Spartacist
League. A one year subscription to Workers Vanguard is $10.00
(includes English-language Spartacist, Women and Revolution, and
Black History and the Class Struggle). Make checks payable/mail
to: Spartacist Publishing Co., Box 1377 GPO, New York, NY 10116.
Other articles in this issue are:
1982 Trial a Mockery of Justice: The Frame-Up of Mumia Abu-Jamal
An Open Letter to President Mandela to Save the Life of
Mumia Abu-Jamal
"From Death Row, This Is Mumia Abu-Jamal": "An Easy Kill..."
Imperialist Rivalry and the Balkan Slaughter
S.F.: Protest Mass Arrest of Jamal Demonstrators!
NYPD on the Rampage
S.F. Police Beat Black Man to Death
Angry Workers Protest Plan to Close L.A. County Hospital
Pro-Cop "Socialists" Substitute Fist for Brain...Again--ISO Goons
Beaten Back
The ISO, the Death Penalty and the Cops--Save Mumia Abu-Jamal!
Abolish the Racist Death Penalty!
Revolt in INS Hell
NYC Hotel Workers Gird for Strike/Lockout
Death Warrant Signed, Protests Erupt
MUMIA ABU-JAMAL MUST NOT DIE!
The fight to save U.S. political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal
has reached a critical hour. Late in the night of June 1,
Pennsylvania governor Tom Ridge signed four death warrants,
including one for Jamal, who has been on death row since 1982,
framed on charges of killing a Philadelphia cop. Ridge
vindictively signed the order setting Mumia's execution for
August 17 knowing full well that his defense attorneys planned to
file papers on June 5 demanding a new trial, a stay of execution
and the removal from the case of notorious "hanging judge" Albert
Sabo, who presided over Mumia's frame-up trial and sentencing in
1982. The state has now taken a giant step in its longstanding
campaign to silence Jamal, an eloquent journalist who years ago
earned the title "voice of the voiceless" for his commentaries on
the oppression faced by minorities and the poor in racist
America.
Mumia was immediately moved from his cell in the Greene
"supermax" isolation facility into more restrictive custody,
which he called "a prison within a prison within a prison." In a
telephone message, Mumia told his supporters that Ridge's action
"was clearly political. He is at the call of those who are
calling for my blood."
As we go to press, it was announced that the hearing for a
stay of execution and to recuse Judge Sabo is being held in
Philadephia on July 12.
The signing of the death warrant was met with a wave of
protests in over 40 cities in the U.S. and reaching around the
world. In the last two weeks, Mumia's cause has been taken up at
a workers demonstration in Johannesburg, South Africa of some
15,000 trade unionists and another in Rome, Italy drawing 60,000
to 70,000 workers and youth. Governor Ridge has already received
over 20,000 faxes, letters and cards opposing Jamal's execution.
One measure of the groundswell of support for Jamal is that
Ridge's office has shut down his toll-free "800" number and has
been changing his fax number virtually daily in a vain attempt to
thwart the flood of messages demanding that Mumia must not die.
A leader of the Black Panthers in his teens and later a
supporter of the Philadelphia MOVE group, Jamal was sentenced to
die for his political beliefs. Jamal has continued to speak out
even in prison, writing regular columns which have been published
in Workers Vanguard and in the black press nationwide. His
intensely compassionate writings on prison life, the death
penalty and racist oppression have now been brought to a broader
audience through his new book, Live from Death Row, published in
May by Addison-Wesley.
The emergency demonstrations on June 5 were built by the
Partisan Defense Committee, Refuse & Resist, Concerned Family and
Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal, the Coalition to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal
and others. The protests were kicked off with a press conference
and rally of 600 people in Philadelphia, as Jamal's legal team,
led by noted civil liberties attorney Leonard Weinglass, filed
court papers unequivocally establishing his innocence. Weinglass
told the crowd, "Mumia Abu-Jamal never had a trial." Evidence was
suppressed, witnesses were coerced, black jurors were purged. The
new legal papers document 19 constitutional violations in Jamal's
"trial" and present new evidence based on eyewitnesses as well as
a re-examination of medical and ballistics reports which tear
apart the prosecution's bogus case. Mumia should not have spent a
day in jail, and we must fight today to free him from the
clutches of this criminal injustice system.
Weinglass and PDC staff counsel Rachel Wolkenstein gave a
full explanation of the case for Jamal's innocence and evidence
that he was the victim of a racist, politically motivated frame-
up. The Philadelphia event was the largest demonstration to date
for Jamal in his hometown. This and other protests for Mumia
coast-to-coast and internationally, together with the powerful
legal brief, breached the media wall of silence and slander
against Jamal. For the first time in memory, both Philadelphia
daily newspapers wrote accurate articles on Mumia's defense case,
covering many of the key points of the legal statement. As well,
the black press nationwide has been flooded with front-page
articles protesting Jamal's threatened execution. The Wall Street
Journal (16 June), however, ran a front-page article which sneers
at "radical-left groups," including the Spartacist League
(described as "a group of 20 people"), who "have a new hero,
Mumia Abu-Jamal." This is a clear attempt to denigrate and
diminish the growing movement to save Mumia's life.
Even as protests for Mumia mounted, on June 6 South Africa's
Constitutional Court abolished the death penalty in that country,
where executions of black and leftist militants were a key prop
of the brutal, racist apartheid system. This action throws into
stark relief the bloody machinery of legal lynching in the U.S.,
which is rooted in the subjugation of black people under chattel
slavery. The current rate of executions in the U.S., now the only
industrialized Western country to retain the death penalty, is
double that of the highest previous annual rate since the
assembly line of death was started up again in 1976 after a brief
pause. For his part, Ridge has ordered 15 executions since taking
office in January after winning the state house on a right-wing,
pro-death platform. In May, Keith Zettlemoyer became the first
victim of "Governor Death" and the first to be executed in the
state since 1962.
The threat to execute Jamal comes in the context of a
concerted effort by the Democratic White House and Republican
Congress to massively increase police powers. By near-unanimous
vote, on June 7 the U.S. Senate approved Clinton's draconian
"Counterterrorism" bill. Among many other attacks on basic
liberties, this bill guts centuries-old habeas corpus protections
against wrongful imprisonment by limiting challenges of death
sentences to one federal appeal within one year of conviction--
which in many cases will mean no right to appeal at all.
In the midst of a bipartisan attack on social programs from
welfare to Medicare, particularly targeting the black ghetto
masses, Clinton and Gingrich are intent on reviving J. Edgar
Hoover's COINTELPRO terror operation of the 1960s and '70s. This
program of assassination, disruption and surveillance against
leftist and black organizations--which led to the killing of 38
Panther members--also went after Mumia from the time he was a 15-
year-old leader of the Philadelphia Panthers. Now the government
wants a new COINTELPRO directed at the entire population.
In their quest to kill this award-winning journalist, the
state of Pennsylvania has joined ranks with the reactionary
regime in Iran, which issued a fatwa (death sentence) against
author Salman Rushdie for his humanistic writings, and
Bangladesh, where a similar edict was proclaimed by Islamic
reactionaries against leftist woman writer Taslima Nasrin.
The publication of Jamal's book had already touched off a
well-orchestrated national campaign by the Fraternal Order of
Police (FOP) to vilify Jamal as "profiting from a crime" and to
call for a boycott of Addison-Wesley. Last month, racist FOP
thugs from New York, New Jersey and Philly picketed a fund-
raising event for Jamal in Manhattan featuring the actor
Giancarlo Esposito and other prominent personalities. And the day
the warrant was announced, Philadelphia assistant district
attorney Arnold Gordon issued a letter to celebrities who have
spoken out for Jamal. Repeating the tissue of lies that made up
the prosecution's "case" against Mumia, the letter denounced the
"ill-advised" publication of Jamal's book as "the only true
miscarriage of justice here" and threatened Jamal's supporters
for their "insult to police officers."
When it comes to "miscarriage of justice," the Philly cops
and their honchos in Harrisburg have been up to their necks in
scandals and convictions. Former Philly FOP head John Shaw was
recently sentenced to prison for racketeering and fraud, another
Philly cop was convicted earlier this month for shaking down
motorists, and state attorney general Ernest D. Preate Jr. just
resigned after pleading guilty to an illegal gambling scam.
Furthermore, a Jewish ex-cop has sued the Philadelphia police
department for blatant anti-Semitism.
Ominously, as Philadelphia's Police Advisory Commission
announced hearings into the savage 1994 cop killing of Hispanic
truck driver Moises DeJesus, FOP head Richard Costello baldly
vowed that no cop would cooperate with the panel. Such statements
show that the enforcers of capitalist "justice" feel they are
above even the fig leaf of legal restraint. In 1990 the FOP's
Costello threatened that Jamal's supporters should be put on an
"electric couch."
They Want to Silence Jamal Forever
As state officials ready the execution gurney, they have
simultaneously escalated their campaign to silence Jamal and his
supporters. Prison authorities have imposed new disciplinary
measures aimed at sealing off Jamal from the public. Only days
after the signing of the execution warrant, Pennsylvania launched
a vindictive disciplinary action against Jamal, accusing Mumia,
his attorneys, Addison-Wesley and others with being part of a
"conspiracy" to help bring his book out! The effect of this has
been to further cut Mumia off from his attorneys and the media.
On June 27, Jamal filed for an injunction against the prison to
stop the authorities' interference with Jamal's correspondence
with his attorneys and to allow paralegal visits and press
interviews.
Mumia refuses to be silenced by such measures. Even while
facing the most restrictive conditions, Jamal has produced a
stream of new articles countering the campaign to kill him. In
"First Amendment Rites," he reports on a June 9 Department of
Corrections hearing where an examiner concluded:
"`Jamal does not deny the [journalism] charges but cites a
violation of First Amendment rites.'... "The `examiner'
found me `guilty' and sentenced a man with less than 75 days
to live, to 30 days `DCS' or disciplinary custody status, to
start immediately. "(I've been called many things, but
`convicted journalist'? That's a new one!)"
The racist rulers intend to execute Mumia as a sign that
they will brook no defiance. Murderous police terror has
intensified as the ruling class pushes through a program aimed at
wiping out a whole layer of the ghetto population by dismantling
welfare and other social programs. In this climate of social
reaction, Mumia is being set up to be the first political
prisoner executed in the U.S. since Julius and Ethel Rosenberg
were killed in the electric chair in 1953, victims of McCarthyite
Cold War anti-Communism.
We must not let that happen! It is necessary to build on the
momentum of the wave of recent protests with a strategy aimed at
mass mobilizations of blacks, Hispanics and all the intended
victims of capitalist repression, centrally seeking to unlock the
social power of the integrated labor movement. The Spartacist
League and PDC have insisted on the importance of united-front
defense of class-war prisoners, emphasizing the need for
different organizations to join together in common action while
freely proclaiming their own political views. It is noteworthy
that of late a number of leftist groups have joined the campaign
to save Jamal. We have also insisted that this is not only a
struggle for Mumia's life--it's a fight against the institution
of the death penalty itself, a barbaric means of repression which
in the U.S. is necessarily racist. Free Mumia! Abolish the racist
death penalty!
Worldwide Rallies Demand: Mumia Must Not Die!
The emergency demonstrations in the U.S., which brought
thousands onto the streets across the country, were the largest
protests against the death penalty in decades. At a rally in
Boston held at the memorial to the black Civil War soldiers of
the Massachusetts 54th Regiment, a statement was read from
Michael and Robert Meeropol, children of the Rosenbergs. They
stated: "Our parents were almost saved by the mobilization of
thousands of Americans.... We must not shy away from the defense
of Mumia. We must make sure that NO AMERICAN POLITICAL PRISONER
suffers the fate of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg."
In Oakland, California over 500 demonstrated, including a
contingent from the International Longshoremen's and
Warehousemen's Union, which unfurled its banner next to the
speaker's platform. Owen Marron, executive secretary of the
Alameda County Central Labor Council, linked the defense of Jamal
with the struggle against anti-labor repression and pledged
labor's support in the fight for Jamal's life. Also on the West
Coast, the Los Angeles County Democratic Party Central Committee
recently passed a resolution urging a new trial for Mumia and the
recusal of Judge Sabo, who, it notes, "has sentenced more people
to death (31, all but two persons of color) than any other judge
in the United States."
In New York, over 1,000 marched around Madison Square
Garden, chanting, "Free Mumia!" A truck driver who honked his
horn in solidarity was arrested by police on the spot. Earlier,
on June 3 in Minneapolis, cops viciously attacked a demonstration
of 200 Jamal supporters, charging into the crowd on horseback,
macing them and arresting eleven. In his column "`Free' Speech =
Police Riot," Jamal condemns the cop attack, remarking that the
demonstrators "don't need to read Live from Death Row to find out
how innocent people can be beaten and arrested by brutal cops,
nor how cops routinely lie in police reports to support arrests.
They now know by their lived experience, what they saw, heard or
felt, how this evil abuse of state power proliferates."
Demonstrations for Jamal were also held in numerous other
cities, from Seattle to Detroit to Toronto, Vancouver and
Montreal in Canada. Around the world, the fight for Jamal has
become the focal point of struggle against the racist death
penalty in the U.S. Trade unions representing millions of workers
have added their voices to demand that Mumia must not die. On
June 15, the European Parliament unanimously approved a
resolution reaffirming its "complete opposition to the death
penalty" and calling for a stay of execution and a new trial for
Jamal, noting "the appeals of many people, human rights
organizations, trade unions and other organizations worldwide,
which are fighting to save the life of Mr. Mumia Abu-Jamal."
Nowhere is support for Mumia growing faster than in South
Africa, where militants identify his plight with their own
struggle against apartheid terror (see WV No. 624, 2 June). In a
May 31 letter to Governor Ridge condemning the threat to execute
Jamal, the predominantly black Congress of South African Trade
Unions (COSATU) wrote that "our organisation has struggled
against all forms of racism, oppression and the use of [the]
death sentence to silence political activists." Now the country's
second-largest union federation, the National Council of Trade
Unions (NACTU), has added its voice to the fight to save Jamal.
The very day the signing of Jamal's death warrant was
announced, African National Congress (ANC) secretary general M.C.
Ramaphosa fired off a protest letter to Ridge. On June 19, at a
rally in Johannesburg organized by COSATU as part of a national
day of action, a spokesman for the Partisan Defense Committee
addressed a crowd of 15,000 workers who enthusiastically took up
the chant, "Save Mumia Abu-Jamal!"
Internationally, within days of Ridge's execution order,
protests spread from Sydney, Australia to Tokyo and Paris. While
on tour in London, Jesse Jackson was informed of the death
warrant and told a public meeting June 4, "We are all in prayer
that Mumia Abu-Jamal must not die by capital punishment."
Addressing a June 7 London rally, Labour Party Member of
Parliament Jeremy Corbyn said, "This proposed legal murder of
someone who is not even guilty of the crime for which he has been
charged is yet another example of the brutality of the law and
order lobby in the United States and indeed exactly the same law
and order lobby that is at work in this country as well." John
Monks, head of the British Trades Union Congress, has also sent a
protest statement to Ridge.
A June 23 protest in Warsaw drew 200 supporters of Mumia's
cause. In Italy, a national demonstration for Jamal in Rome on
June 24 was made an official part of a larger protest against
pension cuts the same day. Demonstrators in the Jamal contingent
chanted, "Freedom for Mumia Abu-Jamal!" "Freedom for all the
comrades in jail!" and "Freedom for all communists!" As Jamal's
supporters merged with the larger rally, a banner was set up next
to the official podium reading, "Save the Life of Mumia Abu-
Jamal! No to the Racist Death Penalty!" signed by the Committee
for Social and Workers Defense, a fraternal organization of the
PDC. After a speaker from the Mumia contingent from Naples called
for Jamal's freedom, one of the official platform speakers said,
"I think that I can safely say that all of us here want to
express our solidarity with Mumia Abu-Jamal, that we all defend
Mumia Abu-Jamal. Do you all agree?" The 60,000 to 70,000 workers
there then shouted their unanimous agreement with this proposal,
placing the demonstration officially on record in defense of
Jamal.
Demonstrations in several cities in Germany have drawn
Turkish and Kurdish immigrant youth, anti-fascist militants and
leftists, including two protests in Berlin of some 300 people
each. The June 7 Berlin protest heard a statement from Markus
Wolf, a refugee from Hitler's Third Reich who was later the head
of East German intelligence and himself victimized by a vicious
witchhunt by the German Fourth Reich. Wolf recalled his parents'
support to the international campaign for the labor martyrs Sacco
and Vanzetti, executed in 1927, and declared, "During Nazi rule
and the Holocaust we owed our lives to international
solidarity.... I therefore ask every individual who has met with
injustice or who is fighting for his rights to join the demand to
save the life of Mumia Abu-Jamal."
A Proletarian Strategy to Smash Racist Repression
A massive outcry to save Mumia's life is urgently necessary.
It took a powerful worldwide movement in the 1930s to prevent the
legal lynching of the Scottsboro Boys, nine black youths framed
on charges of raping two white women in Alabama. What is
particularly critical today is to turn the support Mumia's cause
has begun to receive from the labor movement into the sort of
concrete action indicated by the workers' protests in
Johannesburg and Rome. While in the U.S. in particular the trade
unions have taken one blow after another under their pro-
capitalist misleaders, as part of the struggle to reinvigorate
the labor movement it is necessary to translate the evident
sentiment for Jamal's cause into mass protest and struggle.
There is no place in this fight, or in the labor movement in
general, for the police, black or white. Whatever their personal
feelings about the death penalty, black cops are just as much a
part of the capitalist apparatus of racist repression as their
white brothers-in-blue. At the June 5 Philly rally, after a
representative of the National Black Police Officer's Association
spoke, PDC speaker Ed Jarvis said of the threatened execution of
Jamal:
"This legal lynching is one side of the legal lynchings that
go on every day against black people, against working-class
people by both black as well as white cops.... It's time to
build a working-class party. It's time to save Mumia Abu-
Jamal. Abolish the death penalty! Finish the Civil War!"
The state's lust for the blood of a man whose "crime" is to
speak forcefully for those on the bottom of this society is an
object lesson for all those struggling for social equality and a
decent life for all. Black freedom, and the liberation of all
from conditions of social decay and regimentation, will finally
come only through a workers revolution that sweeps away the
bloody capitalist state, its prisons, courts and cops, and with
it the death penalty and all other barbaric vestiges of
oppression and exploitation.
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