Mumia Helps To Make My Point

(Pic of Frank Africa)

As a MOVE supporter, I recall the late Frank Africa (MOVE's Naturalist Minister) telling me about seeing guys fighting pit bulls in West Philly's Cobbs Creek Park. Frank would challenge them to fight him instead of the dogs. (He didn't find a lot of takers)
-The Vick Kick, by Mumia Abu-Jamal



Sign The Petition To Keep The MOVE 9 In Prison!





The above quote comes from one of Jamal’s recent commentaries from death-row. This particular piece by Mumia purportedly tackles the controversy surrounding Michael Vick and the scourge of dogfighting. However, in doing so, Jamal inadvertently ends up underscoring one of the essential points about MOVE that I have been attempting to make for the last couple of years.



It should be known by now that MOVE, is not, in the eloquent words of Pam Africa, "motherfucking pacifists"



However, it should be noted that there is a fine line between self-defense and aggression. And while MOVE’s rhetoric throughout the years has often been rife with references to the sect’s beliefs concerning self-defense, the distinction between these beliefs and the reality of MOVE can not be overstated.



Frank Africa, whose life ended when he joined his Uncle, John Africa, in his suicide-by-cop scheme that resulted in the deaths of 11 people had a particularly violent role within the group.
Having been partially raised by John Africa, Frank was as devoted as anyone could possibly be to MOVE’s leader. There are plenty of stories about Frank like the one that Mumia mentioned in his article that reference violence. In MOVE, Frank played the part of a physical antagonist who would not only take on dog fighters, but also his own mother.



Prior to May 13th 1985 when Frank’s mother, Louise James, left the group, she ended up abandoning her home on Osage Avenue. It would be this home that would end up the fortified fortress constructed by John Africa and his minions. Desperate to try and get her son away from MOVE because she knew that a violent confrontation was in the works, she reached out to the police for help.



According to media reports and the book "Burning Down The House", Louise James was subjected to vicious emotional and physical abuse at the hands of MOVE members, including her own son.



She reportedly told authorities that during one of MOVE’s corrective "meetings" that John Africa had her own son beat her to the point that she vomited and than he covered her face with a pillow. According to Louise, Frank asked John Africa if he wanted his mother "cycled" (MOVE-speak for killed). "No, not now," was the response. In yet another violent incident with his mother, Frank was seen chasing his mom down the street with a hatchet.



Yet despite these acts, other physical altercations with neighbors on Osage Avenue, as well as a warrant issued for his arrest, Frank was never able to be taken into custody. This because, he kept himself in MOVE’s secretive web until his own violent tendencies morphed into suicidal ones and he ended up dead along with the living god he worshiped.



Within MOVE, Frank is a legend. The stories of his physical prowess and courage against the "system" are held up as the standard to be emulated, although for obvious reasons his more domestic conflicts are kept as more of MOVE’s macabre secrets. In MOVE, if you are compared to Frank Africa you are recieving the highest of compliments.



And it is not just adults who are encouraged to be a part of the Frank Africa legacy. You cannot talk about MOVE without talking about what they do to the children in their midst.



I can recall quite vividly while still technically "in" MOVE being at a park directly across the street with some MOVE members and their children. One of the "seeds of wisdom" as John Africa called the youth of the cult approached us excitedly on his bike recounting an incident he had with another child on the playground.



It seems that one of the kids playing at the park made the mistake of killing some ants in the presence of this particular child of MOVE, and because he wouldn’t stop doing it, was shoved to the ground. Instead of chastising the child, who was not more than 5 or 6 years old for pushing another child to the ground, possibly hurting him, he was rewarded. His "parents" told him how good it was that he had stood up and protected "life" from the "perverts". It is worth mentioning that the term "pervert" is MOVE-speak for any and everybody not committed to the group.



So in addition to teaching their children that violence is the proper way to stop people from doing something they don’t want them to, they are also teaching these kids them that they are superior to other children and even adults outside of the cult. Quite a departure from their supposed egalitarian ideals don’t you think?



I would contend that MOVE’s assertion that all life is "equal" does not lead towards increased sensitivity towards the sentient beings of the world, but instead negates the value of human life.





After all, if the life of a cockroach is no more important than a person, than how hard is it to convince somebody that it is ok to crush a human being like you would a bug?



This is just another way in which MOVE abuses the children in their care. They teach them violence as a way to settle disputes at the park while telling them they are better than everybody else in the world. And while this is much more subtle than the brutality of the forced impregnation of barely teenage girls, it is still corrosive and detrimental.



With MOVE members extolling these "virtues" so fervently to their young, it will not at all come as a shock to me to find that the group’s three decade reign of terror will be continued.

Fools On Parade

Some things are beyond comment

British Actor Produces Pro-Mumia "Documentary"

(British actor Colin Firth)

In 1996 when the "documentary" about Mumia called "A Case For Reasonable Doubt" aired on HBO, the movement to free him was at it’s high-water mark.

For me personally, it was a solidifying moment that wedded me to the cause.

Of course, little did I know than, that the film was a slickly produced bit of propaganda that would have made Nazi film-maker, Leni Riefenstahl proud.

Since than, numerous other films on the case have been produced, all of which have been made as contributions to Jamal’s cause, none of which bother with potential impediments to their story like factuality or integrity.

Now, over a decade later, another pro-Jamal piece of agit-prop is in the works. Directed by Marc Evans, an established British film-maker, produced by the actor Colin Firth, the documentary is said to give viewers"A look at the life of imprisoned political activist and former Black Panther member, Mumia Abu-Jamal, who's death sentence for killing a police officer was overturned in 2001 due to errors made during his original 1982 sentencing hearing."

The title of the as of yet un-released film is "In Prison My Whole Life" and is set to take a new spin on the usual theme of Mumia as an articulate victim of bigoted oppression. According to Firth "My point of entry was this white, middle-class English guy named William Francome, whose birthday coincided with the killing, and a journey of this boy's consciousness," Firth told Variety Magazine. "It's a prism to look at how much society and grassroots politics have changed over 25 years."

At the film’s Myspace page is an entry from William Francome whose expertise in Jamal’s case seems to go no further than the fact that he was born the day that Mumia shot Officer Daniel Faulkner. Fancome writes that he has "no idea" whether or not Mumia shot Officer Faulkner and there is no indication from either his writings or his website that he gives a damn. He is clearly interested in the intrigue of Mumia and not the facts of the case.

Like many other people enamored with Jamal, Francome made the pilgrimage to see the great Mumia where he resides on death row. Francome wrote of his nervousness and of being "overwhelmed" at meeting the convicted cop-killer. He writes about how "painful" it must be for Jamal to be in prison. A point that will no doubt be made in the film, one has to wonder however, how Maureen Faulkner’s pain will be conveyed.


Of course, what will likely be lacking in this latest hagiographical offering will not only be any
semblance of balance, but also intellectual curiosity.

The credited cast does not list anyone who will speak on behalf of Officer Faulkner and instead of featuring respected journalists or legal experts, the film is stacked with pro-Jamal activists and heroes of the far-left.

Alice Walker, Howard Zinn, and Noam Chomsky are all slated to be in the film and despite the fact that they are all prolific writers none of them have penned any work of significance about Jamal’s case.

So why are they even in the film? Ideology of course. They are "good" leftists, Mumia is a "good" leftist, therefore they will no doubt offer up self-serving platitudes, and slogans that are crafted for cheap applause, but will very likely not offer any new insights into the case.

In preparation for this article I asked William Francome via email for an interview and recieved this response:

"Yes I have read your blog and page before. I can't actually do interviews unless I given permission from the press agent for the film at the moment, but when things are moved forward, if you get back in touch I'd be happy to talk to you."


The smell of fear is in the air.

"Report" From MOVE Protest

(Convicted Killer Eddie Africa w/MOVE supporters)

I am not in the business of giving my political opponents helpful advice. But I don’t think I am going out to far out on a limb, or giving away company secrets, when I inform the supporters of MOVE that it takes a little more than just their word for it when it comes to the innocence of the "MOVE 9".

In the "report" from the protest of behalf of the MOVE 9 that occurred on August 11th, one Sundiata Sadiq claimed without a hint of doubt or a nod to reality, that "Having now spent 29 years in prison, despite being innocent, the MOVE 9 will be eligible for parole on August 8, 2008 when their minimum sentence will be met." Syntax aside, this statement has some immediate and self-evident flaws.

After all, it is now the burden of the MOVE supporters to convince people that the murderers of James Ramp are innocent and not the other way around.

Considering that for over 30 years MOVE has proclaimed their innocence and has enjoined their perpetually tiny core of supporters to do the same and that nothing has happened, that maybe a change of plans may be in order.

But what do I know?

Since it is known that MOVE has abandoned their attorneys (or was it the other way around?) and have now pinned their hopes on John Africa’s voodoo, the only real hope for release for them comes down to the parole board.

Perhaps there is the hope that the great John Africa will descend from his heavenly perch and bitch-slap the parole members into seeing past the cult’s record of brutality inside and outside of prison. But given the state of affairs of MOVE, it is rather obvious that the late John Africa is not particularly interested in alleviating the suffering of his devotees.

Another thing that stuck out at me from Sadiq’s semi-literate rant, was the claim that "the attack against MOVE on August 8 of 1978 and the dropping of the bomb killing 11 MOVE members in 1985. We think it was a move to wipe out the whole family of MOVE women and men, and in particular the children."

Ignorance like that is simply precious.

I have written about this before and will likely a thousand times more, but I must remind the Sadiqs of the world that it was MOVE who orchestrated the confrontation in 1978 and 1985. It was MOVE who flagrantly violated the law, terrorized their neighbors, fortified their home, and than filled said home with children and women.

Now, it is a fact that the police did not act properly in the face of MOVE’s complete lack of concern or regard for their own children. But, it is also a fact that in addition to having to attempt to save the lives of MOVE’s children, that they were having to do so while protecting themselves from gun-toting MOVE members. It was a cult that had killed James Ramp, wounded other officers and fireman and had vowed a repeat in 1985.

Further, if it was the position of the authorities to "wipe out" the children of MOVE, than they did a poor job of it. There were MOVE children all around the city of Philadelphia in May of 1985, yet there were no police raids on those homes. There was also a MOVE house in Chester PA that was in fact raided where children were remitted to social services, but the mother of the children was able to have them returned to her, despite her continued connection to the cult.
If there was a genocidal conspiracy to kill off the children of MOVE than why did the police not round up the children of MOVE en masse? And why give the children back to the cult that had been taken? The answer is obvious and dispenses with Sadiq’s nonsensical, and ignorant assertions.

The one entity that has proven consistently bad for the health and well-being of MOVE is MOVE. It is a sect who sits idly by while children’s teeth rot out of their mouths, while their education is neglected to the point that these children cannot function on their own outside of the cult’s orbit. It is MOVE that forces the young girls in their care to become baby-making machines at age 11, depriving them of any semblance of a future in the "outside" world.
It is obvious through Sadiq’s writings that he is frustrated that more African-Americans have not sprung up to MOVE’s defense.

Perhaps he is unaware of the fact that the victims of MOVE have been primarily African-American, and for them to embrace the cult would be to embrace the destroyers of their community. It would also mean endorsing the destruction of the life of children’s minds, the vast majority of which are African-American. A modern day version of slavery dressed up in political platitudes that is enabled by white liberals and ignorant blacks like "Sadiq".

Sadiq also spouts the latest of MOVE’s myths about their children and that is they are "home-schooled". Really?

There is a criteria for how home-schooled children in PA are to be taught. I wonder how many geography lessons Mr. Sadiq was witness to while he was visiting. How many children in MOVE know Algebra or even what it is? And who there is competent to teach them? Many of the mothers of MOVE children can barely read and write themselves.

To claim that MOVE "home-schools" their children is the same as saying that MOVE members are innocent of killing James Ramp.

My retort to this kind of audacious idiocy is "prove it".

The burden is on you. I already know what MOVE is and what it isn’t. Do you?

The “Mumiafication” of Kenneth Foster Jr.

(Free Kenneth! Look Familiar?)

Update 8/30

Today, Kenneth Foster Jr recieved a commutation and was removed from death row and given a life sentence.

"Death has got something to be said for it:
There’s no need to get out of bed for it;
Wherever you may be,
They bring it to you, free!

-Kingsley Amis

It is relatively safe to say that Kenneth Foster Jr. will be executed in a Texas prison at the end of this month for his role in a murder that he claims he had virtually nothing to do with.

He is all set to become another grim statistic, pushing the state that brought us President Bush that much closer to the disturbing number of 400. That is 400 human beings who have had their lives snuffed out by the state. Human beings with mothers, fathers, brothers, wives, children.

People, who despite the crimes that they have committed, have the ability to change.

One can liken the loss of life, whether it be at the hands of a brutal thug or through the calculated machinations of the state, to a ripple effect. The pain reverberates regardless of the justification, the idea of closure one that is contrived and further imprisons the victims just as it does the victimizer through the notion of more death bringing relief to the pain of loss.

I cannot and will not accept the killing of human beings by the state. For me there are no exceptions to that rule. You do not demonstrate your superiority to someone by emulating their behavior. You can dress up banality and attach a bureaucracy, but in the end, when all is said and done, you still have another dead body to add to the toll taken on society by violent crime.
But at the same time I deplore state sanctioned killings, I similarly cannot accept the cynical and brutally dishonest propaganda that seeks to paint the perpetrators of violent crimes to be something other than what they are.

This is something that I saw personally while I was in the "Mumia" movement and observed from a distance the same kind of disingenuous mythologies spring up around the likes of Stanley "Tookie" Williams and "Hasan Shakur". Not surprisingly, the same people who have made idols of Mumia are now attempting to do the same with Kenneth Foster Jr. They are claiming to want to save his life, but in the cold, hard reality is that their actions and attempted deification of him aren’t doing his cause any favors.

By building him up as some kind of "innocent" victim of the "racist system", they are virtually ensuring that people outside of their echo-chambers will ignore his plea for mercy. This is of course, because in reality, Mr. Foster is anything but innocent. He may have not actually pulled the trigger on Michael Lahood, but he bears a good deal of responsibility for the man’s death.

And that is why he stands to die at the end of this month.

It has been established that Foster and his accomplices were violent criminals.

At the punishment phase of trial, the prosecutors presented evidence showing that Foster was a member of a violent, street gang. It was established that he was involved in the nearly-fatal shooting of two individuals. He was also a drug dealer who just prior to the murder of Lahood was involved in the armed car-jacking and robbery of a tourist in downtown San Antonio.

Far from being a young black man in the wrong place at the wrong time, Foster was a member of the Black Gangster Disciples and had been since 1990. He was a violent young man who was in the midst of participating in a sadistic crime spree when he willingly and knowingly participated in the murder of Mr. Lahood.

Prior to this deadly incident, Foster had demonstrated his flagrant disregard for life when he had without provocation, fired several shots into a vehicle, striking two of the occupants of vehicle and seriously wounding one of them.

Christine Santana, the only one of the occupants of the victims' vehicle who was not wounded in the shooting, identified Foster as the person who had shot at them from a moving vehicle. This incident, being just one of many that demonstrate Foster’s violent tendencies.

Foster’s jury found at the punishment phase of trial that there was a probability that Foster would commit criminal acts of violence that would constitute a continuing threat to society, Foster actually caused the decedent's death or intended to kill the deceased or anticipated that a human life would be taken, and taking into consideration all of the evidence, including the circumstances of the offense, Foster's character, background, and personal moral culpability, there were insufficient mitigating circumstances to warrant a sentence of life imprisonment.
In pertinent part, the state trial court determined that all four men in the vehicle driven by Foster split the proceeds from their robberies on the evening in question, the four men followed Patrick's vehicle or LaHood's vehicle to the LaHood residence.

It was determined that Foster's involvement in the attempted robbery and fatal shooting of LaHood was the same as his involvement in the other robberies earlier that evening, to wit, Foster drove the car to the scene of the robbery and drove the robber(s) away from the scene and shared in the proceeds from each robbery.

At trial there was testimony that the Foster and his accomplices drove away from the scene of the second robbery in search of additional victims. Given this fact, the courts ruled that Foster's jury "...could reasonably have inferred that, having threatened the use of deadly force during their first two robberies that evening, the four co-conspirators were fully prepared to employ such force to effect robbery if and when, as occurred at the LaHood residence, they happened upon a victim who was unwilling to immediately comply with a demand for money made at gunpoint." Thus, Foster's jury could have reasonably inferred that Foster anticipated deadly force would be used by Brown or another member of their armed robbery conspiracy during the course of one or more of their robberies if the circumstances warranted such."

Foster’s subsequent appeals have been denied and there has been much conjecture over the "Law of Parties" which allowed for him to be sentenced to death without being the actual shooter. In essence it is a law that holds that "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."

Article 37.071(b)(2) of the Code of Criminal Procedures permits the infliction of the death penalty only if the jury believes beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant "intended to kill the deceased or another or anticipated that a human life would be taken."

Under this law, and given the facts of the case, it is hardly a stretch to see how a jury could have come to the conclusion that it has, and why the courts have subsequently upheld the jury’s verdict.

It is also easy to see how such laws draw such ire from opponents of capital punishment and the families of those convicted of death or given long sentences through the application of such laws.

But the idea that we need to turn violent criminals into heroes in order to save their lives ought to be one that has seen it’s day come and go. Yet the same "activists" who have perpetuated and clung tightly to, the mythology of Mumia, are set to attach the same kind of nonsensical revisionist history to Kenneth Foster.

It is not enough for them to argue that it is morally reprehensible for the state to murder a citizen. They have to take it a thousand steps further into their crypto-Marxist delusions that alienate anyone not already of their political persuasion and cause further harm to those they claim to want to help.

If you look for information about Foster online, you will run into a mess of political diatribes that are as heavy upon rhetoric as they are deficient on facts.

Moreover, the Mumiaphiles who have apparently grown weary of their cop-killing hero, have turned their attention to Foster and are busy re-writing his life and re-casting him as a political activist that they want him to be, instead of the career criminal that he is. They don’t want to just save Foster’s life, they love him, they idolize him, they assign him a new identity and in doing so they alienate anyone with any sense of compassion for those that Foster and his cohorts victimized.

Take for example an excerpt from an interview of Walidah Imarisha (a long-time Mumia addict, and now a Foster activist), by Hans Bennet (also a long-time Mumia junky turned Foster devotee.)

Walidah is talking about visiting Foster whose name when he is proselytizing to the revolutionary crowd, is Haramia:

"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."

It is hard to think of this slimy attempt at some kind of poetic description of an un-repentant criminal as anything but grotesque, but imagine yourself as one of Foster’s victims or their families. For them it must be nothing less than infuriating.

All the more so once you realize that, as far-left extremists, Walidah and Hans reserve their compassion only for people such as Mumia and Foster. Had these black men on death-row not been convicted of murdering whites, that there would be no interviews or flattering babble.

I am convinced that the Walidahs and Hans Bennets of the world care not whether those they champion are guilty or not. I doubt that either has taken the time to read the transcripts of either Jamal or Foster’s case. For them, these human beings are a living breathing means to a political end.

There are most certainly many decent people fighting for the life of Kenneth Foster. But when they put people like "Mario Africa" of the violent cult known as MOVE, Walidah, or Hans to the forefront of their movement they are all but destroying any semblance of credibility that they may have.

By putting people on a pedestal who worship death and those who bring it, they are not saving Foster from his date with the executioner, they are helping to ensure it.

Pro-Jamal "Journalist" Slanders Faulkner's Widow

("Journalist" Dave Lindorff)



In 1994, Maureen Faulkner asked herself whether she would publicly respond to the swell of support for Mumia, or whether she would sit idle as the spectacle gained momentum. The answer came when she learned that National Public Radio was planning to air Mumia’s commentaries. "I believe they were going to make him their poster boy," she says. "That was the beginning of it."



She couldn’t have been more precise in her assessment.


Now, over a decade later, the Mumia machine, although diminished, still creaks onward.
It is a movement that purports to decry bigotry, the right to speak, respect for life, all of the things that are great in America. The reality is that it is force for, not against, all of the things it claims to be.




The heroes of the Mumia cause are often those who are most vociferous and over-the-top in their rhetoric and proclamations.


To be sure, if you want to be a true Mumia supporter you better be skilled in the art of personal attacks, because in reality that is all that the movement has left in it’s failing arsenal.


And while it is usually the Fraternal Order of Police and various politicians who bear the brunt of these ad-hominem attacks, also on the list is Maureen Faulkner, Officer Faulkner ‘s widow.
Now one can expect such cruelty from the likes of MOVE members such as Pam or Ramona Africa and nobody should be surprised when MOVE members engage in such a vile enterprise.


But when "respected journalists" make an all out defamatory offensive against victims of crime, than it is the place of people of conscience to speak out.




Recently, in an interview about Jamal’s case, "journalist" and author Dave Lindorff again took it upon himself to take a crass swipe at Maureen Faulkner.


If Lindorff was just some hack from a Marxist weekly with a circulation of three, than it might not be so big a deal. But Lindorff, in addition to writing a pro-Mumia book that was reviewed favorably by the Philadelphia Inquirer, has also written for the paper as well as other "mainstream" media outlets in the city. He has also written for Salon magazine (http://www.salon.com/), Businessweek, The Nation, Rolling Stone, Mother Jones, Village Voice, Forbes, The London Observer and the Australian National Times.




In the interview, Lindorff made the claim that Maureen Faulkner had gone all around the country saying things that were "simply not true" about the case, and worse still, was pandering to bigots as she was purportedly working to "appeal to the worst instincts of white racists". Lindorff cited no proof of his claim, and being that it was pro-Mumia Pacifica Radio doing the interview, no proof was asked for.


I challenge Lindorff to provide one sentence or utterance when Maureen Faulkner exploited the race of her husband or that his killer as a means of inciting animus towards Jamal. Providing he cannot than I fully expect him to apologize. Not to me, but to Mrs. Faulkner who has had to endure enough abuses at the hands Jamal supporters that she need not be subjected to contrived allegations of racial exploitation.


For if any group of people in this equation has exploited the racial dynamics of the case it is the "free Mumia" crowd, of which Lindorff is a happy participant in, despite his own delusions of somehow being "independent", and above the fray. This is also not the first time that Lindorff has gone on the offensive against Maureen Faulkner. He also did so in his deeply flawed book on the case "Killing Time".




As a reviewer from the far-left website counterpunch.org , which itself has published some disturbingly inaccurate articles on the case noted, "None escape the scythe of Lindorff's truth-finding pen, not even the widow Maureen Faulkner, who lied to the media about a devilish gesture that Abu-Jamal could not have made at her."


In this instance, both Lindorff and the reviewer were wrong in their re-counting of an incident that has become part of the mythology of the Mumia movement. At issue was the fact that former Jamal attorney, Leonard Weinglass had led people into believing that Mrs. Faulkner was making impossible statements when she claimed that Mumia "turned and smiled at her after her husband’s blood stained shirt was displayed". Weinglass denied that Jamal was even in the courtroom when the shirt was put on display, but that was not the case. Court transcripts and media reports prove that Mumia was in the courtroom and so was Maureen Faulkner.


It is true that Lindorff and other apologists for Jamal have made half-hearted and obviously obligatory statements expressing sympathy for Maureen Faulkner, but their false acts of concern never deter them from unleashing their repugnant attacks.




And, of course by stepping into the public arena Mrs. Faulkner had to know that she would face critics who take issue with her position on the death penalty and opposition to all things Mumia.


But there is a distinct and clear-cut line between articulating a difference of opinion with someone and unfairly branding them as the leader of a racist lynch-mob as Lindorff did during his interview.



It should also be noted that Lindorff has repeatedly represented himself as an "objective journalist" and his book on Jamal's case an independant investigation into the murder of Officer Faulkner.



Even a cursory examination reveals that neither of Lindorff's claims regarding his journalistic integrity will prove that he is certainly partisan. He is decidedly pro-Jamal, and that his assertions to the contrary are but examples of his attempts to work within the contemptible "mainstream" media, as he did recently with the Philadelphia City Paper where he wrote an article about Jamal.




Back to Mrs. Faulkner, during one of Jamal’s many appeal hearings, as Maureen Faulkner was in the hallway, out of the courtroom, a supporter of Mumia, no doubt a courageous "revolutionary" spat upon her.


Obviously, it is not enough for Mumia supporters like Dave Lindorff ,that her husband was murdered. They expect her to be silent about it. And when she dares to speak out against the multitudes who are either ignorant or willfully deceitful with regards to the case, she is either spat upon or defamed by pro-Jamal zealots posing as objective journalists.




That she continues to act as a true "voice of the voiceless" in the face of such abuses is a testament to both her courage as well as her confidence that Mumia was without a doubt the man who killed her husband.

The Distortions of MOVE

"The police announced that MOVE had two more minutes to surrender and that water was about to be pumped into the house. Then a gun was spotted, protruding from a basement window (of the MOVE house. "Put that gun down" officers shouted. "Put it down!"...."Water, water!" One of the fire department’s big deluge guns began to blast through a partially opened basement window. Then gunshots."

-Burning Down the House
by John Anderson and Hilary Hevenor

A month ago I started a petition calling for the murderers of Police Officer James Ramp to not be granted parole. The eight surviving members of the cult who were convicted of his death, as well as other charges pertaining to the MOVE-instigated shoot-out are slated to begin parole proceedings soon. They will be eligible for parole next August.

At the time of this writing we have obtained over a thousand signatures.

It is my position that it would be unconscionable for the parole board to grant these MOVE members relief. And not just because of the crime they committed.

Many people have argued that murdered someone should either be executed or remanded to prison for the rest of their lives. But this is not the sentence given to the members of MOVE during their sentencing hearing back in 1981. The convicted killers were handed a sentence of thirty to a hundred years in prison.

If you were to assume that MOVE had "mellowed" over the years as some journalists have claimed, you would be wrong.

Moreover, despite the propaganda as offered by MOVE and their supporters, the case against the "MOVE 9" could not be more clear.

The police action against MOVE was actually long in coming and not the result of some blood-thirsty, racially induced rampage.

On July 21, 1977, federal agents raided two cars full of explosives, weapons, the components to assemble some forty additional bombs. The impetus for this raid was the cooperation of MOVE co-founder turned informant, Donald Glassey. As a result of Glassey and another informant named William Smith (who would later turn up dead in a river) federal arrest warrants were obtained against John Africa and Mo Africa.

Both Africas went on the run and weren’t in town during the 1978 shoot-out with police. Instead, John Africa orchestrated the confrontation safely from Rochester New York and than according to MOVE lore calmly watched the events un-fold on television.

Prior to the bloody finale on Powelton, MOVE had been making the lives of their neighbors a living hell by staging amplified protests, running around toting guns, and issuing bold threats to anyone who got in their way.

On March 1, 1978, city attorneys received permission from a judge to form a blockade around the MOVE compound. The attorneys cited MOVE’s past violent tendencies, the cult’s refusal to allow Licence and Inspections to investigate the compound and nonpayment of water and gas bills.

But MOVE was ready for this. Anticipating a show-down with the city, MOVE had stockpiled months worth of provisions and the spectacle of the blockade garnered sympathy from people and became an embarrassment to the city.

On May 3, a compromise was brokered between MOVE and the city. A ten-point agreement, which was made public allowed for MOVE members charged with a variety of crimes to be released and their charges dropped. The city, for it’s part, wanted MOVE out of Powelton Village entirely. MOVE was given 90 days to hold up their end of the bargain, and in typical MOVE fashion they ignored it.

The ninety days came and went. MOVE reportedly said that "MOVE gonna move when we ready to move." The group had changed it’s mind according to Delbert Africa. That was their story than, but if you ask MOVE now, you will hear that the city had broke their end of the bargain and that is why they did not vacate the houses. This, however, is simply not true.

The city though had enough of MOVE’s games and took action.

It was through MOVE’s un-willingness to abide by the agreement that they had signed off on that paved the way for the death of James Ramp and the incarceration of nine of their members for what should amount to a lifetime in jail.

They can blame nobody but themselves. It was MOVE who broke the agreement, who

barricaded their home, who used children as "human shields", who opened fire on the police and firemen. It was MOVE who ignored the pleas of a priest and their own sympathizers to at least allow for the children to leave the house.

It is MOVE members in prison now who still hold true to their death drenched ideology and who refuse to take any responsibility for their actions back in 1978.

During my time in the cult I got to know the "MOVE 9" fairly well and will readily attest to the fact that they have no sympathy for the death of James Ramp. They simply don’t care that their actions ended the life of another human being and wrecked the careers of a number of others.

Accountability is just not something that is on the radar screen of anyone in MOVE.

And these are the people who were are supposed to want out on the streets?

For an example of MOVE’s delusions, revisionist history, and attempts at manipulation you need to look no further than their own propaganda. What follows is the "official" MOVE story about the "MOVE 9" from a pro-Mumia website.

"HISTORY OF THE MOVE 9
This August 8th will mark the 29th anniversary of the 1978 confrontation in Philadelphia that was completely provoked and carried out by the Philadelphia police. Over 600 heavily armed police officers came out to MOVE headquarters to serve an eviction order to MOVE members, charging them with failure to leave their Powelton Village headquarters in supposed violation of an earlier agreement. With their concocted story to justify a military invasion, public officials and the media blamed MOVE for the deadly assault that followed.

On the morning of August 8, 1978. police fired over 1,000 rounds of ammunition into a basement that was filled with MOVE men, women, children, and animals. The police flooded the basement in an attempt to drown MOVE members. They fired tear gas knowing full well that MOVE babies would be gassed. In their bloodthirsty frenzy to kill MOVE members, the police killed one of their own fellow officers. As MOVE members came out of their house, mothers had their babies snatched out of their arms and were shackled. MOVE men were savagely beaten and shackled.

The police, rather than admitting that they had killed one of their own, charged nine MOVE members with the murder of the one police officer, James Ramp. The nine were, as in the case of Mumia, tried and convicted for the murder of the police officer. Each member was sentenced to 30-100 years in prison. The trial judge admitted, when questioned by then still unimprisoned journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal, that he did not have the faintest idea as to who shot the cop. He said he had sentenced the MOVE members as a family because they insisted that they were a family!

It was partly because of Mumia’s extensive and fair reporting on MOVE, rare among Philadelphia journalists, covering all the events that led to August 8th as well as the trial and conditions of imprisonment for the MOVE 9, that he was later framed. Mayor Rizzo specifically threatened Mumia for what he defined as biased reporting.

That was 29 years ago. MOVE members are still in prison today. Merle Africa died in prison under mysterious circumstances after doing 20 years. August 1978 led directly to the infamous bombing of MOVE on May 13, 1985, as MOVE would not stop protesting the incarceration of their nine sisters and brothers.

We cannot allow one more freedom fighter to die in Amerika’s dungeons! A year from now the MOVE 9 will go before the parole board for the very first time. Interviews will begin in the next few months. Join us in a campaign of massive steady public pressure to bring our freedom fighters home. The struggle to parole the MOVE 9 is key to reinstating the right to parole for all prisoners.

NO EXCUSES! NOW IS THE TIME TO PAROLE THE MOVE 9!"

The Demise of Mumia.org

It is probably a bad sign for the International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia that the MOVE front-group cannot even keep a website up.

For years, the pre-eminent advocacy entity for Jamal has been ICFFMAJ.

However, the group has been plagued for years by mis-management of funds and from the dictatorial rampages of it’s leader, and MOVE member, Pam Africa.

One could argue that the decline of ICFFMAJ began with the firing of former Jamal attorney Leonard Weinglass. But in reality the demise of the group began much earlier.

It was a long standing practice of the ICFFMAJ to either subvert or attempt to control other pro-Jamal groups, wherein minor conflicts were overblown and exploited to the point that many people in the "Free Mumia" cause just threw up their hands and walked away. This was the case with the group "Equal Justice", which was actually instrumental in bringing Jamal’s case to the forefront of leftist politics. However, the group, in particular it’s coordinator, Jane Henderson got on the bad side of Pam Africa and was subsequently forced to walk away from Jamal’s cause. This incident with "Equal Justice" occurred all the way back in 1996 and was indicative of the way that Pam Africa attempted to exert control of the "movement", even if this "control" would be to Jamal’s long-term detriment.

Another hallmark of ICFFMAJ was the shaking down of black politicians in Philadelphia. Pam Africa would quite literally stalk various politicos around the city attempting to curry favor with them with either her indelible charm or by being profanely annoying. Whatever got the job done.

This was still going on when I left the "movement", but I have the sneaking suspicion that many of these politicians who have to face real problems likely grew tired of Pam’s guilt trips and harassment told her where she should go.

At one time ICFFMAJ had a rather large office that was filled with "donated" computers, fax machines, copiers, etc...As far as I know this is no longer the case.

Instead, the Mumia apparatus has been largely outsourced to New York City. An hour and a half a way geographically, but a million miles away from the reality of what occurred back on 13th and Locust in 1981.

Now, there is not even a website in Philadelphia dedicated to Mumia. That should tell you something considering that in a city that is more than 40% black that there is virtually no support for Mumia..

People have emailed me inquiring as to what has happened to the website of ICFFMAJ and I must confess that I do not know with any exactitude what happened. What has been publicly released by the "movement" came in the form of a statement on the front page of New York Coalition to Free Mumia which noted that the webmaster of mumia.org was suffering from "personal problems". This statement has been removed as of today and now it is clear that the New York Coalition website is now also that of the International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia.

This is certainly good news. Not only is this yet another indicator that the faux cause of "freeing Mumia" is suffering from diminishing returns and is sinking further down into the ether, but also demonstrates MOVE’s waning control and support from even Jamal supporters.

Now it is a fact that the webmaster of mumia.org, Fatirah Ali, was completely under the thumb of Pam Africa. She very literally posted on the site any bit of trash that she was told to regardless of fact or even relevancy to Jamal’s case. Fatirah was also, or perhaps remains, a determined supporter of MOVE and mumia.org served as much as a site for Mumia as it did for MOVE.

During the MOVE terror campaign against John Gilbride mumia.org was the primary conduit for MOVE’s propaganda as it was updated more often than that of MOVE’s own site. And given the amount of traffic that the Mumia site garnered, far more people were subjected to MOVE’s vitriolic against John Gilbride than they otherwise would have. Mumia himself wrote a commentary about the conflict that in retrospect was actually rather prophetic.

In it he wrote that "MOVE will not submit to this uninformed, unjust, and profoundly biased opinion, just because it is produced by a politician who occasionally dons a black robe".

Indeed, MOVE did not submit to the judges ruling. Instead they murdered John and Fatirah and mumia.org helped to pave the way for John’s demise and than worked to spin wild conspiratorial tales that had no basis in reality that were designed to steer people away from the facts of MOVE’s un-holy war against John and those he loved. The conflict that ended with him being blown apart in his own drive way.

Since than it has been business as usual at mumia.org. The usual Mumia essays and the occasional story from some Jamal acolyte somewhere, mixed in with the paranoid rants about the persecution of the "movement" by the loathsome Fraternal Order of Police.

Than, a few months ago, I caught up with Fatirah as she was posting pro-Mumia rants on a message board of a Philadelphia radio station. True to form I began taking her to task and much to her obvious dismay, some of the other posters on the site were writing in agreement with me. This apparently infuriated Fatirah because these were African-American posters bashing her and her hero Mumia on a website based in Philadelphia.

I caught her in a number of flat out lies and she did what people normally do when they are factually deficient, they make personal attacks. Unfazed, I continued onwards and had her so frustrated that she even went to mumia.org and made a personal appeal for people to help her at the message board in attempts to refute me. She had no takers and this must have made her even more angry as she took to pathetically "flaming" this blog’s comment section with articles that I had written while I was involved with MOVE. None of this was particularly shocking to me.

What did surprise me was when a unsigned and completely un-hinged attack on me showed up on the mumia.org site. I say surprised because it has long been a policy of MOVE and the dead-enders of the Mumia cause to ignore my assertions and pretty much pretend that I do not exist. This slanderous attack on me (un-signed clearly to protect the author from what I can assure you would have been a lawsuit), was a complete break from the MOVE party line and if I had to take a guess was done without anyone in MOVE knowing about it until it was already up on the site.

Whether Fatirah wrote the piece or not I do not know. But she did post it on the site as well as the message board on where we had been going back and forth. And being that she was in such a near, hysterical frenzy to get at me, I would bet more than a couple of bucks that she was the author of said piece.

What I do know for certain is that not long after this article went up on mumia.org, that the website went blank and was that way for nearly a month without explanation. There were also no more posts on the message board by Fatirah. It was as if she just vanished. Good riddance. But why she left I don’t know. Was it "personal problems" as was claimed by the NY Mumia site, or was it something else?

Another thing I know for certain is that MOVE has done everything in it’s power to keep people from discussing John Gilbride and the fact remains that if people look me up online than they will inevitably be led to information pertaining to the circumstances of John’s murder. And as much as my criticisms may sting MOVE, these refutations of MOVE’s cultism is nothing compared to the ominous cloud of suspicion that lingers over the sect insofar as bad press goes.

Was Fatirah, a loyal and long-serving devotee of Jamal pushed out of her job as Jamal webmaster by witlessly directing people towards information about John? If this was the case than I think that cloud over the MOVE cult just got darker.

Whatever the reason for the demise of mumia.org I think we can all celebrate the fact that another cyber-shrine to an un-repentant murderer is out of business.

Keep "The MOVE 9" In Jail

"Anyone who kills a cop is okay in my book."

-post on a message board in response to "No To Parole For The MOVE 9 Petition"

Another year comes and goes as it approaches three decades since MOVE members shot down Police Officer James Ramp and wounded a dozen other police Officers and firefighters, the myth of the cult member’s innocence remains persistent and ever-present.

Type in "James Ramp" into the search engine of your computer and you will be treated to a lesson in the most vulgar examples of propaganda. Hundreds, if not thousands of websites across the world help to perpetuate the false-hoods and alternate reality that MOVE and their supporters have been polluting the world with for some three decades.

The MOVE "story" of the death of James Ramp is a story that I know all to well. Many articles are still floating around with my name attached to them that extol the virtues of the MOVE cult, and arguing that the imprisoned members of the group are nothing more than "freedom fighters". The MOVE version of the events of August 8th, 1978 may well be germane to any writings on the matter, but on this day, the anniversary of the murder of Officer Ramp, I believe it imprudent to repeat MOVE’s lies, even if it is in the interest of debunking them.

Not only do I know well the MOVE version of events, but I also know, or to be more exact, "knew" the incarcerated MOVE members rather well. To be sure, I considered them to be family.

I made dozens of trips to the various prisons throughout my years as a MOVE supporter to visit the so-called "MOVE 9". In fact, I spent my honeymoon visiting the MOVE members, and after my child was born, I asked Phil Africa to be her godfather.

In a secure location there are literally hundreds of letters from the MOVE members, including Merle Africa who died in prison nearly a decade ago. I took their collect calls from jail and assisted MOVE in smuggling contraband into the prison.

That was the life I lived for too many years. For so long I lived in denial. But truth has this dogged persistence that gradually began to tear away the myths and lies and propaganda that I had heard and in turn had spewed to others. Eventually, I could no longer bear the burden of conscience and tore myself away from the cult and the killers of James Ramp.

But to say that the burden has been lifted completely would be yet another lie. To write about this or talk about it is not easy. I shudder to think how MOVE’s actions affected the family of Officer Ramp, how my own attempts to revise history and re-write the life of James Ramp as a victimizer instead of a victim must be a consistent source of additional pain to those who loved him.

It is not an easy thing to do to put yourself out there and say that you were completely wrong about something. Especially the murder of another human being. To admit you were working on the side of terror instead of freedom.

This is not a plea for pity. I am un-deserving of it and am not asking for it.

What I am doing is apologizing.

I am apologizing to the victims of MOVE, both past and present. I am apologizing to the family members of the people I helped recruit into the cult. I am also apologizing to my own family for my emotional abandonment while I was immersed in the fools paradise that is known as the MOVE Organization. I could not be more sorry.

So I go forward and attempt to thoughtfully take on the myths that MOVE exists off of.
Sometimes I am successful and other times I do not do as well as I think I should.

I suffer under no illusions that I can about-face people’s way of thinking. I knew when I started this that there would be a segment of the populace who are to involved and invested into MOVE or a similar extremist ideology to hear what I have to say or write.

I knew that the threats against myself and those I love would be made. I also knew that instead of people engaging me in a rational discourse on the subject that I would be subjected to vicious and outrageous ad-hominem personal attacks.

In the past couple of years I have been told that I was everything from a Klan member to an "extreme right-winger", to a police infiltrator who was implanted into MOVE as a teenager to bring the group down. The latest story about me to be hurtled across cyber-space was some bizarre story about me being some raging dope fiend who had been busted by the cops and forced to churn out these blog posts as a way to avoid prison.

It is all absurd of course, but that doesn’t keep people from saying what they do.

After all, we are talking about a cult who believed that a man calling himself John Africa was God incarnate. A man who preached an interesting, but ultimately deadly combination of radical environmentalism and black-power politics that was delivered either through profanity laden harangues or nearly poetic prose on paper. A man who sought to destroy all that he could not understand and who raised from the ashes of the 60's a cult of personality and turned it into a cult of death.

A sect which has at it’s heart rank hypocrisy that abuses children and animals, and seeks to free and idolize murderers in the name of "God" and for the sake of power and greed. MOVE exists today as a means of perpetuating it’s leaders ego and self-enrichment.

Oftentimes, there isn’t much people can do in the face of an entity like MOVE, but to sit on the sidelines and hope that some kind of bureaucracy will step in and do it’s job and make justice happen.

Today is different though.

As I have written before, and as I will likely dozens of more times in the up-coming year, the murderers of James Ramp will be coming up for parole in 2008.

For their part, MOVE is rallying support for their cause through their world-wide network of activists in an effort to persuade the parole board to release the killers of James Ramp.

As a way to counter this audacious attempt to influence the board to release these cop-killers I have started an online petition that calls upon the parole board to deny the murderers of James Ramp parole. It is my hope that this sends a message on two fronts. The first being that society cannot tolerate un-repentant murderers of peace officers being let onto the streets. And secondly that the sacrifice of Officer James Ramp has not been forgotten.

To sign the petition go to:

http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/no-to-parole-for-the-move-9.html

The Return of "Mario Africa"

(Mario and Mumia apologist Sonia Sanchez)

"How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning."

There are some people who just personify the word "cynical".

The man occasionally known as "Mario Africa" is one of those people. Although he has several other aliases, for the sake of clarity, I will stick with this one for now.

Mario is truly one of the most sordid people I met while I was involved with MOVE. He manages to be a pimp for, as well as a prostitute of, one of the foulest cults of modern times. But the taint of collusion and corruption extends much further than his pathetic figure, and one day, slowly but surely, we shall find out the whole disgusting truth about his involvement in the most wicked of MOVE’s affairs.

For instance, the murder of John Gilbride, if Mario didn’t pull the trigger, I have no doubt he knows who did. Yet that secret, as well as many other things about MOVE are items of fact that Mario would rather keep to himself.

Recently, I had the opportunity/misfortune to watch him speak on behalf of a current death-row inmate (not Mumia), who faces imminent execution. And while I don’t know the facts of this case and oppose the death penalty anyways, I would be remiss if I did not mention that involving someone like Mario in your cause is not a good way to lend it an air of credibility.

For while Mario likes to present himself as an advocate of justice, etc...He is but a shallow opportunist with an apparent and un-quench able desire for acceptance, the sound of cheap applause, and a true capitalist at heart. The evidence of which is all over his "speech" as well as his My Space page in where he writes "will SOMEONE PLEASE shoot dog, the fucking bounty hunter?!?!?". Quite an astounding statement from a man claiming reverence for life.

But his speech is where Mario really shines. He is announced as a "MOVE activist" and proceeds to regress into the typical MOVE victimization routine and than manages to plug Mumia, "The Peoples Army", as well as obliquely mentioning his t-shirt making business etc...

The truth is however, that Mario is no more a MOVE member than I am.

What he is doing is walking that pathetic tightrope wherein he teeters on the brink between illusion and reality. He is using the residual attachment to the group as a means of self-aggrandizement when he must, and his endearing, yet savagely disingenuous, charisma when he can.

One can speculate as to why Mario continues to occasionally play the role of a MOVE member, whether it be his more-than-likely involvement in the death of John Gilbride, the two children he abandoned to the cult, or perhaps some other hidden motivation.

Whatever the precise cause for his duplicity remains unknown, but what is self-evident is that Mario is a man deficient of character, who has honed manipulation into a kind of art form, and who will say or do just about anything to further himself.

That much became horribly clear to me as the drama that culminated in the death of John Gilbride played out before me. Mario was up to his fat neck in MOVE’s vulgar displays of propaganda, as was I and many others. But unlike the rest of us, he was in MOVE’s inner circle and took the terror campaign against Gilbride to the next level. He reportedly threatened John’s life and participated in Alberta Africa’s campaign of terror waged against Gilbride and his loved ones with a macabre kind of enthusiasm that is reserved for either sadists or psychotics.

Now, it has been reported that MOVE members have not cooperated with the investigation of John’s murder and that certainly includes "Mario Africa". That he has yet to come clean with what he knows about John’s death, coupled with the fact that he has left the fate of his two innocent children to a cult that he knows is going to, at the very least, deprive them of any semblance of an education, convinces me that he is a man with no sense of self, true

compassion for others, or any semblance of a conscience.

But than again, he is a busy man. There are hip-hop records to be reviewed, political rallies to attend, t-shirts to sell, poetry dedicated to his new girlfriend to be written, weed to be smoked, and a massive ego to be stroked.

How could anyone expect a man like this to have time to save his children or do his part to solve a murder?

There are, after all, priorities.

Vacation

It has been years since I actually have had an actual "vacation" of any significant length of time.

I will happily confess that being off the "grid" was utterly satisfying.

There wasn’t a computer in sight for days, I ignored the occasional TV, and those days drifted off into star filled nights that bared no resemblance at all to the life I lived in MOVE, the one ostensibly disconnected from the "system".

Nobody asked me about MOVE. Nobody there cared. Just like most people don’t care. Nobody should have to.

There was a quiet satisfaction in watching my daughter play amongst nature and than have her ever-so-seriously tell me that she "was not a country girl".

In getting away I had the chance to see relatives that I had been separated from by more than distance.

It is true that while in the cult that I never cut off my family in the way that many adherents of the sect do, but I would be lying if I didn’t admit that while being engrossed with MOVE, I neglected the things that truly mattered.

I missed my grandmother’s funeral. The same grandmother who breathed life into my tiny body when I nearly died as an infant. MOVE didn’t tell me not to go. It was my choice. But it was the wrong choice while I was with the wrong people.

What I realize more and more, as the years go by and my time with MOVE becomes a hazy and bitter memory, is that it was a force in my life of severe negativity. It is a cult of hatred, born of madness, perpetuated by myth, and a worship of death. It is not something that could ever bear any fruit of worth.

So, while I never made an official "break" with family, I was on an emotional disconnect that led me to the false belief that I was something better, more than, not equal to. That is the pattern and hook of cults like MOVE. When they are not breaking you down they are building you up. You go up and down until your will is demolished or you say "enough is enough" and go and try and build your life again.

That is why now I try and hold onto to what I love. It doesn’t matter what you "believe in", it matters what you do, the things you care about, how you treat people.

It takes a terrible toll on you to place yourself so far above those around you. To be honest, I don’t know exactly know why that is. Perhaps it is the distance you are putting between yourself and them. Maybe it is the fact that deep down you know that it is illusory and that the lie you are living will be unveiled.

What I got out of it all was a yet another reminder to keep what is important at the forefront of your life and let the things that you cannot control or that are not important go. It is a lesson that I am glad to have learned before it was too late.