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Today's
Stories
July
16, 2004
Dave
Zirin
Adonal Foyle: Master of the Lefty Lay-Up
Shervan
Sardar
Dershowitz, the ICJ and Jim Crow Laws
Ron
Jacobs
The Lil' Engine That Couldn't: Kucinich Surrenders on Anti-War
Plank
Robert
Fisk
Iraq, According to Edgar Allen Poe:
Coffin Bombs in Baghdad
Greg
Moses
The Forts of Iraq
Mickey
Z.
Ad Infinitum?: Presidential Campaigns in the Age of TV
Dan
Bacher
A Landmark Win for Salmon and the Tribes
Dave
Lindorff
The Mumia Case: Support from NAACP,
But a Movement in Shambles
Paul
McGeough
Did Allawi Shoot Inmates in Cold Blood?
Website
of the Day
10 Reasons to Fire Bush (and 9 Reasons Kerry Won't Be Any Better)
July
15, 2004
Heather
Williams
McMissing
the Point: Supersize Me Crashes on Its Message
Werther
Iraq: Follow the Money
Tom
Crumpacker
The Birds of Guantanamo
Brian
Cloughley
What Does the Bush Regime Object To?
Bill
Christison
Reorganize the CIA? Of Course,
But...
July
14, 2004
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Chronicle of a Nomination Foretold:
the Green Deceivers
Neve
Gordon
Of Socrates and the Apartheid Wall
Diane
Christian
The Priesthood of Death
Stefan
Wray
Who Benefits from Missing Data at Los Alamos Nuclear Lab?
Josh
Frank
The Nader / Dean Debate
Conn
Hallinan
Divide and Conquer as Imperial Rules
Elizabeth
Weill-Greenberg
Bring My Brother Home!: Class, War
and Education
Website
of the Day
Hijacking Catastrophe: 9/11, Fear and the Selling of US Empire
July
13, 2004
Ray
McGovern
The CIA and Iraq: an Intelligence
Debacle...and Worse
Mark
Donham
The Sierra Club's Inexplicable Treatment of Cynthia McKinney
Ben
Tripp
Politus Interruptis: With Friends Like
These, Who Needs Electorates?
Mark
Gaffney
Slipping Towards Armageddon: Israel
in Iraq
Dave
Lindorff
Osama Wins! Election Postponed!
Chris
White
Double Think: the Bedrock of Marine
Indoctrination
July
10 / 12, 2004
Kathleen
Christison
The Problem with Neutrality Between
Palestinians and Israel
Janine
Pommy Vega
Trail of the Comet: a Gathering of the World's Poets Against
War
Sherry
Wolf
From Maverick to Party Attack Dog: Howard Dean Gay-Bashes Nader
Saul
Landau and Farrah Hassen
A Transfer of Power, Sort Of
Michael
Donnelly
How to Steal an Election: the Green Version, 2004
Stanton
/ Madsen
Iraq Survey Group: Rumsfeld's al-Qaeda?
Richard
Lichtman
The End of Innocence: Reflections on American Pathology
Gila
Svirsky
Thank You, Your Honors: a Legal Blow to the Wall
Kurt
Nimmo
Clinton's Life
Toni
Solo
Empire-Speak: What Roger Noriega Really Means
Ron
Jacobs
The Black Panthers and the Rest
Camelo
Ruiz Marrero
Gene Warfare in Oaxaca: Genetic Mutation of Mexican Maize
Omar
Barghouti
Wither the Empire: Rise of a Global Resistance
Poets'
Basement
Curtis and Albert
July
9, 2004
Dave
Zirin
Carlos Delgado on Deck: Blue Jays Slugger
Stands Up Against War
Justin
Delacour
Wishing Kerry Would Shut Up About
Latin America
Robert
Fisk
Iraq in Reverse: Martial Laws Fuel Insurgency
Boris
Kagarlitsky
Two Congresses and a Funeral
William
S. Lind
The October Surprises
Sibel
Edmonds
Our Broken System: John Ashcroft's War on Truth
Ron
Jacobs
Reading Tea Leaves: What Vietnam Tells Us About Iraq's Future
Gary
Leupp
The Lie That Will Not Die: Cheney and
the Iraq/al-Qaeda Link
July
8, 2004
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
The Inexplicable John McCain
Toufic
Haddad
Protesting Israel's Apartheid Wall:
a Letter from the Hunger Strikers' Tent
Dave
Lindorff
Liberation as Martial Law
Joshua
Frank
The Fall: How Beltway Dems Sank Howard
Dean
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush & Cheney Play the Hitler Card
James
Petras
The Truth About Jimmy Carter
July
7, 2004
John
Chuckman
Kerry's BBQ: a Deafening Silence
of Meaning
Virginia
Tilley
A Line in the Sand: Azmi Bishara's
Hunger Strike
Susan
Martinez
A Letter to Bill Cosby
Mickey
Z
Elie Wiesel's Strange Parade
Michael
Donnelly
Our Own Private Wilderness: Trusting the Land in the Inland Empire
Sean
Donahue
Boston Social Forum: the Dems aren't the Only Show in Beantown
Diane
Christian
Sovereignty and Freedom in Iraq
July
6, 2004
Lisa
Viscidi
Fleeing Guatemala: Central Americans
Risk Lives to Reach El Norte
Marc
Norton
The Felonious Five Ride Again: the
Supreme Court and Enemy Combatants
James
Brooks
Chemical Warfare on the West Bank?
Ray
McGovern
Porter Goss as CIA Director?
William
Cook
Legacy of Deceit: If Dante Knew of Bush and the Neo-Cons...
July
5, 2004
Forrest
Hylton
US Imperialism in Latin America: Sept.
11, July 4 and Systematic Torture
Chris
White
A Former Marine Sgt. on the Meaning
of Independence Day
Joe
Bageant
Cranky Reflections on the 4th of July
Robert
Jensen
Stupid White Movie: What Michael Moore
Misses About the Empire
Kathy
Kelly
"Two Days an' a Wake-Up"
July
3 / 4, 2004
Elaine
Cassel
Bush's Police State and Independence
Day
Stan
Goff
ABC of Opportunism: "Progressive"
Latin American Leaders Support the Coup in Haiti
Snehal
Shingavi
"We Want Real Justice for Bhopal": Two Survivors Speak
Out
Bruce
Anderson
The Cheney-Leahy Metaphor and the Greens
Sharon
Smith
Twilight of the Greens: the Chokehold of "Anybody But Bush"
Josh
Frank
Ralph Nader's Revolt: an Interview with Greg Bates
Robert
Fisk
Pentagon Tried to Censor Saddam's Hearing
Joe
Bageant
Sons of a Laboring God: Leftnecks Unite!
Brian
Cloughley
Fortress Bush and the One Law Doctrine
Justin
Delacour
The Anti-Chavez Echo Chamber: Venezuela's Media Tycoons
William
S. Lind
Saudi Spillover
Linda
S. Heard
A Joke Called "Justice"
Greg
Moses
"It's Illegal, But It's Our Right": Korean Labor Won't
Back Down
Ron
Jacobs
"Ain't You Proud to be White on Independence Day?"
Toni
Solo
Weary of Indigenous Resistances? Just Pretend They're Not There
Dan
Nagengast
Chicken Manure as Cattle Food: Safe, But Do We Want to Eat It?
Stew
Albert
Brando, a Personal Recollection
Dave
Zirin
From the Black Panthers to Sacheen Littlefeather: a Eulogy for
Our Brando
Patrick
W. Gavin
The Progressive Case for Dodgeball
Steven
Rosenthal / Junaid Ahmad
The Problem is Bigger Than the Bushes: a Review of F911
Poets'
Basement
Kearney, Ford and Davies
Website
of the Day
Global Peace Solution
July
2, 2004
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Suicide Right on the Stage: the Demise
of the Green Party
Douglas
Valentine
Fahrenheit 911: Mocking the Moral Crisis of Capitalism
Gary
Leupp
"Just Because I Could": On Obscenities and Opportunities
Lee
Ballinger
Illegal People: Kerry Opposes Immigrant Rights
Robert
Fisk
Saddam in the Dock: Confused? Hardly
CounterPunch
Wire
"What Law Formed This Court?": a Transcript of Saddam's
Arraignment
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush's Drug Card Lottery: the Price Ain't Right
Saul
Landau
Buzz Words and Venezuela
July 1, 2004
Katherine
van Wormer
Bush's Damaged Mind: the Madness in
His Method
Joe
Bageant
Is Our President a Whackjob? Does It Matter?
William
James Martin
The Dogma of Richard Perle
Dave
Lindorff
Bush's Evacuation Moment
Robert
Fisk
Bread and Circus Trials in Iraq
Alan
Maass
Green Party in Reverse
Website
of the Day
Michael Moore and Israel: Blind or a Coward?
June
30, 2004
Kurt Nimmo
Nicholson
Baker's Checkpoint: a New Kind of Anger About Bush
Tariq
Ali
Getting Away with Murder in Iraq
Jennifer
Van Bergen
Bush and the Detainees
Douglas
Valentine
Apotheosis of the Psychopaths: Instead of Fahrenheit 9/11, Rescreen
The Quiet American
David
Price
Fahrenheit 9/11 Through the McCain-Feingold Looking Glass
Roger
Normand
America's Criminal Occupation of Iraq
Stan
Cox
Sanitized for Your Protection: Ashcroft's
War on Art
Henry
David Thoreau
On the Futility of Bush v. Kerry: All Voting is a Kind of Gaming
Ben
Tripp
Who Dast Call Him Liar: a Rebuttal to Nicholas Kristof
Hot Stories
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante
Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click
Here for More Stories.
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July
16, 2004
The
Mumia Case
Support
from NAACP, But a Movement in Shambles
By
DAVE LINDORFF
The NAACP, after years of ducking taking
a public stand on the case of Pennsylvania death row prisoner
Mumia Abu-Jamal, voted on an "emergency resolution"
near the end of its annual convention in Philadelphia Thursday
to call for a new trial for the black journalist/activist, and
to urge local NAACP chapters to work toward that goal.
The resolution didn't come
easily. Mumia supporters found that delegates who had hoped to
introduce the measure had been decertified and barred from the
convention, which met in the Philadelphia Convention Center.
They also found that a planned panel on the death penalty, at
which they had intended to raise Abu-Jamal's case, had been unexplainably
cancelled. Only when MOVE activist Pam Africa and some other
MOVE supporters threatened to picket the convention and even
attempt to crash the delegates assembly, holding a white flag,
did the organization-the nation's oldest civil rights group--relent.
Even then, a behind-the-scenes bureaucratic effort was made to
water down a draft resolution of support by removing the specific
call for a new trial and making it a call for a review of all
death penalty cases. Finally, with the help of several delegates,
including David Graham Du Bois (a descendent of W.E.B. Du Bois)
and Mayor John Street's son Sharif, NAACP Chair Julian Bond was
persuaded to endorse and sign a resolution draft that made the
specific call for a new trial.
The NAACP's endorsement of
the call for a new trial is an important victory for Abu-Jamal,
whose 23-year-old case is moving forward into the last stages
of his appeal--this time in the Third Circuit Court of Appeals.
For while the venerable civil rights organization has supported
Abu-Jamal in the courtroom-it filed an amicus brief in 2000 in
support of his federal appeal-it had not until now put the organization
on record as demanding for a new trial.
Abu-Jamal, though his attorney,
noted the support which the NAACP has offered in his case over
the years, and said, "I am humbled by and very
grateful for the NAACP1s support. The NAACP has taken stands
through the
years on behalf of so many people who have been victimized in
society  because
of their race. I hope this resolution will help many others in
situations similar to mine."
His lead attorney, Robert R.
Bryan, added, "I think to have the support of the oldest
and largest civil rights organization in the U.S. is of enormous
importance to this case. Along with my client, I am very grateful
to the NAACP for taking this stand."
In fact, while support for
the resolution on the floor-it passed with one dissenting vote--was
overwhelming, the NAACP leadership had to be dragged kicking
and screaming into taking such a public position on this case.
This despite the fact that this case was so cruelly and obviously
contaminated by racism (the presiding judge was overheard, on
day one of the trial, saying he would "help them fry that
nigger" as he left the courtroom, and 11 qualified black
jurors were barred from serving by the prosecution's use of peremptory
challenges, ultimately leaving Abu-Jamal facing a jury with only
two black members in a city that was 40 percent black).
Perhaps more important, this
episode is also evidence of how weakened Abu-Jamal's support
organization has become. Only Pam Africa's tactical skill at
holding NAACP leaders' feet to the fire by threatening them with
an embarrassing incident on the day Democratic presidential candidate
John Kerry was speaking to the gathering managed to win the day
and get the resolution to the floor.
Back in the mid to late 1990s, whenever there was a Mumia demonstration
in Philadelphia, organizers could count on bringing out thousands,
even tens of thousands of supporters, both local and bussed in
from around the country. Today, Free Mumia demonstrations in
Philadelphia-like the rally and march on Abu-Jamal's birthday
back in April--are lucky to attract a few hundred people, half
of them pulled in from New York and elsewhere.
What has happened?
The case, certainly, is as
outrageous and compelling as ever. Abu-Jamal, who always has
and continues to maintain his innocence, was convicted on the
basis of the testimony of two key witnesses, a white taxi driver
and a black prostitute, neither of whom was seen at the scene
of the crime by any other witnesses (no one even recalled seeing
the taxi, which was supposedly parked directly at the scene of
the 1981 shootings of police officer Daniel Faulkner and Abu-Jamalexcept
for the prostitute, who said she saw it after the shooting, but
not before). Both of those witnesses had grave credibility problems,
too. Robert Chobert, the taxi driver, had been driving his cab
on a suspended license, and unknown to the defense, had asked
the prosecutor if he could help him get his license back--a request
for a favor that makes his entire testimony seriously suspect.
Cynthia White, the prostitute and star prosecution witness, had
been repeatedly arrested and questioned--or coached--by detectives,
in the weeks following the shooting of police officer Daniel
Faulkner, and her story of what happened had evolved over those
weeks to conform with the story ultimately presented by the prosecution.
Suspiciously, of all the witnesses picked up at the scene on
Dec. 9, 1981, only White, supposedly the prosecution's key eyewitness,
was not brought to the paddy wagon to identify Abu-Jamal as the
shooter, suggesting that police knew she probably couldn't.
The other evidence that played
a key role in convincing the jury to convict was testimony by
a hospital security guard and a police officer that they had
allegedly heard Abu-Jamal confess to killing Faulkner in the
Jefferson Hospital emergency room--but both had waited two months
to report this stunning alleged confession to detectives. Neither
said a thing about what  would have been dramatic evidence
of guilt to police investigators at the time of the shooting
investigation. In fact, the police officer who was guarding Abu-Jamal
at the time the alleged confession occurred told investigators
the day of the shooting that Abu-Jamal had made "no comment"
during his entire time in the ER.
Some "open and shut"
case!
As I wrote in my book, Killing
Time, the prosecutor, Joseph McGill, also managed to purge
75 percent of the qualified black jurors from consideration during
jury selection--exactly the percentage of black jurors he routinely
managed to keep off juries during six other murder trials he
handled as an assistant DA. That's a record of unconstitutional
racial bias in jury selection that the NAACP should have been
damned upset about, especially since it was ignored by the federal
judge who considered Abu-Jamal's appeal in 2001. It's also the
main basis for his appeal of his conviction before the Third
Circuit Court of Appeals, currently pending.
Why has there been so little
public pressure for a new trial? Why weren't masses of people
outside the NAACP demanding that the organization support Abu-Jamal?
Because there's almost no one left to do it.
The throngs of people who used
to come out to demand a new trial for Abu-Jamal have faded away
as his case, over the past several years, was taken over by ideological
lawyers and others who managed to convince Abu-Jamal to make
his case a political attack on the entire legal system, instead
of dealing with the key issues in his trial that offered the
best chance to get him a new hearing.
They dredged up a whacked-out
"witness," Arnold Beverly, who claimed he, and not
Abu-Jamal, had shot Faulkner. Though Beverly's story was incredible,
sounded coached, though no other witnesses had seen him at the
scene, and though his story conflicted with the evidence presented
in court by Abu-Jamal's own witnesses in key ways, Jamal's then
attorneys, Eliot Grossman and Marlene Kamish, ploughed ahead,
sowing dissension in their wake, viciously maligning anyone in
or out of the movement who questioned the strategy or their tactics,
libeling Abu-Jamal's prior attorney Leonard Weinglass (about
whom they sketched wild and unfounded conspiracy theories), making
factual errors in their filings, and needlessly annoying judges
before whom they needed to plead his case. In the end, Abu-Jamal's
defense fund dried up as key supporters like Ossie Davis and
Michael Farrell backed away from this train wreck.
In the past year, Abu-Jamal
has finally seen the light. Dropping his flakey and woefully
inexperienced legal duo (neither attorney had any federal death
penalty appellate experience at all), he has hired the San Francisco-based
Bryan, an acknowledged death penalty litigator and appellate
pro, for his lead attorney.
He has also dropped the Arnold
Beverly appeal, though many of his more ardent backers seem still
to have missed-or ignored--this important development.
For his part, attorney Bryan
has been reaching out to people and groups that had backed away
from the movement in recent years. "I'm convinced that Mumia
is innocent. Not everyone agrees with that, but this movement
is open to anyone who feels that there has been a miscarriage
of justice and that Mumia deserves a new, fair trial," he
says.
Unfortunately, Abu-Jamal has
not yet spoken out publicly against the sectarianism and personal
ego-tripping that have poisoned his splintered movement, so it
remains in ruins, as the latest campaign to persuade the NAACP
to support him, and the small turnout at the April demonstration,
amply demonstrate.
Meanwhile there is still a
massive, unified government and law-enforcement campaign to see
Abu-Jamal executed. The Fraternal Order of Police, the Philadelphia
District Attorney's office, and even Governor Ed Rendell, who
was D.A.-and McGill's boss-when Abu-Jamal was prosecuted in 1982,
are all committed to seeing him die.
Until Abu-Jamal himself insists
on seeking to rebuild a broader coalition, and openly condemns
the sniping and character assassination that has been going on
in his name outside the prison, he will pretty much be fighting
his legal battles alone, with his attorneys and a few highly
energetic supporters, but without any mass base.
Which is pretty unfortunate
for him, and also for the many thousands of others on death row
and in prison, for whom his case could be a clarion call for
reform of a criminally corrupted justice system.
Dave Lindorff is the author of Killing
Time: an Investigation into the Death Row Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal. His new
book of CounterPunch columns titled "This
Can't be Happening!" to be published this fall by Common
Courage Press. Information about both books and other work by
Lindorff can be found at www.thiscantbehappening.net.
He can be reached at: dlindorff@yahoo.com
Weekend Edition
Features for July 10 / 12, 2004
Kathleen
Christison
The Problem with Neutrality Between
Palestinians and Israel
Janine
Pommy Vega
Trail of the Comet: a Gathering of the World's Poets Against
War
Sherry
Wolf
From Maverick to Party Attack Dog: Howard Dean Gay-Bashes Nader
Saul
Landau and Farrah Hassen
A Transfer of Power, Sort Of
Michael
Donnelly
How to Steal an Election: the Green Version, 2004
Stanton
/ Madsen
Iraq Survey Group: Rumsfeld's al-Qaeda?
Richard
Lichtman
The End of Innocence: Reflections on American Pathology
Gila
Svirsky
Thank You, Your Honors: a Legal Blow to the Wall
Kurt
Nimmo
Clinton's Life
Toni
Solo
Empire-Speak: What Roger Noriega Really Means
Ron
Jacobs
The Black Panthers and the Rest
Camelo
Ruiz Marrero
Gene Warfare in Oaxaca: Genetic Mutation of Mexican Maize
Omar
Barghouti
Wither the Empire: Rise of a Global Resistance
Poets'
Basement
Curtis and Albert
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