One-Fifth of Pennsylvania Prisoners, Including Mumia, Need Hep C Treatment
Lawyers for Mumia Abu Jamal have filed suit against the State of Pennsylvania for refusing to treat the nation’s best known political prisoner for Hepatitis C, a serious liver disease. “Mumia has severe symptoms that are consistent with, and almost certainly caused by, his Hepatitis C,” including a rash that sometimes covers as much as 80 percent of his body, said Atty. Bret Grote. Pennsylvania has refused to treat any of its prisoners with Hepatitis C, citing costs. In June of this year, a class action suit was filed on behalf of all inmates infected with the virus, which could involve “as many as 20 percent” of the total prison population – “and that’s likely a conservative estimate,” said Atty. Grote.
Mumia: Trump Channels Resentments of the “Other”
Although health problems have somewhat diminished his broadcast output, Mumia Abu Jamal continues to contribute essays to Prison Radio. His latest, titled “Donald Trump and the Politics of Resentment,” describes the real estate and casino mogul as “plugging into the live-wire of American resentment of the Other.” Trump’s constituency is “the thousands, and perhaps millions, who rage at Latino immigrants,” and who “also worship the rich.” In Donald Trump, said Abu Jamal, “they have found their voice, and he has found the energies of resentment.”
Min. Farrakhan Seeks 10,000 Avengers
On a tour to gather support for the 20th anniversary of the historic Million Man March, October 10, in Washington, Nation of Islam Min. Louis Farrakhan said: “I’m looking for 10,000, in the midst of the million – 10,000 fearless men...who say death is sweeter than continued life under tyranny.” The Koran teaches that “retaliation is prescribed in the matters of the slain,” Farrakhan told the Mount Zion Baptist Church, in Miami. “So, if the federal government will not intercede in our affairs, then we must rise up and kill those who kill us.”
Nation’s Most Respected Movement Couple Speak Out on Criminal Injustice
“The police are a top-down army of occupation in our communities,” said veteran activist Ralph Poynter, a member of the Black Is Back Coalition for Social Justice, Peace and Reparations, which holds its national conference in Philadelphia, August 22 and 23, with a focus on Black community control of police. “Let’s begin to talk about changing the army of occupation to an army of people who support the community,” he said. Poynter’s wife, Lynne Stewart, the people’s lawyer who spent four years as a political prisoner until her compassionate medical release, said President Obama’s recent visit to a federal prison “was just a photo-op.” Obama promised to commission a study of the effects of solitary confinement – but that’s nothing more than a cynical ploy, said Stewart. “Everybody knows that solitary confinement, as practiced in the United States, is torture.” On any given day, 80,000 U.S. inmates languish in isolation from human interaction.
Nwangaza: Obama Playing Dumb
Efia Nwangaza is also a veteran people’s lawyer, who has been instrumental in persuading United Nations panels to denounce U.S. treatment of prisoners. “Barack Obama not that long ago signed the bills to create a 400-plus solitary confinement unit in the state of Illinois, and I cannot believe that he expects anybody to think that he just discovered solitary confinement and the abuses that go along with it,” said Nwangaza, director of the Malcolm X Center for Self-Determination and WMXP community radio, in Greenville, South Carolina. “Barack Obama is a Manchurian Candidate,” she concludes.
U.S. Empire Weakening, But as Dangerous as Ever
The rulers of the United States “can’t be the bullies that they been have in the past” because U.S. corporate economic power is waning, said Sara Flounders, of UNAC, the United National Anti-War Coalition. The recently concluded deal to end sanctions against Iran was necessitated by the fact that Russia and China had already served notice they would soon cease complying with the embargo, said Flounders. However, “powerful forces” may “use their proxies in Syria,” numbering at least 100,000 mercenaries, to sabotage the Iran agreement and draw the world deeper into war.
Black Agenda Radio on the Progressive Radio Network is hosted by Glen Ford and Nellie Bailey. A new edition of the program airs every Monday at 11:00am ET on PRN. Length: One hour.
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