Mumia and His Boy Ahmadinejad

(Pic of pro-Ahmadinejad protester holding Noam Chomsky book upside down. I am both amused and horrified at the same time. Photo courtesey of
Urban Infidel)

Another Mumia article, another insidiously insulting apologetic for despotism and maniacal cultism.

The death-row moralist, whose act of shooting a man in the back and than emptying the rest of the rounds from his weapon into the powerless man’s body, apparently has convinced Jamal that the truth is also there for him to destroy.

I don’t often go into Jamal’s articles as they are often just carbon copies of what somebody has already written, often better than he does, or are so self-evidently absurd, that there is no point in bothering. There are, however, some occasions in which he even reaches too low and makes claims so beyond the pale, that I must, out of conviction to the truth, offer a response.


In a recent article about the reaction to the President of Iran’s visit to the United Nations and his stated desire to visit the site where the World Trade Center once stood, Jamal crassly called the response to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s infuriating antics as "politics of emotion and imagery posing as reason". Incidentally enough, that is the exact definition of what Jamal embodies and the "movement" to free him exemplifies.


Another strikingly perverse example of just how twisted the "voice of the voiceless" has become is in his feigned indignation at the "sacredness" of Twin Towers site. He writes:

"...what will Ahmadinejad’s mere presence do to the Manhattan site? Desecrate it? Lastly, the Trade Center is a national site: it is an historic site – but how can it be a religious site?"


I would argue that Ahmadinejad’s presence would in fact "desecrate" the site. He has no business there. Does anyone belief that his appearance at the site is anything more than a photo-op to be used in Iran’s state-run media? And more than that, as the leader of a nation that sponsors terror and has literal "daily hates" directed at the United States, his presence would only add insult to injury to all that suffered and continue to suffer the effects of that day. If he really wants to do something to abate the suffering of the victims of 9/11, he could start by turning over the members of Al-Qaeda that are presently "guests" in his country.

As someone who is by definition, pretty much an atheist, I don’t think much of "religious sites". But I would contend that if any site deserve the title of that of a symbol of faith it would be that relatively small section of New York City. For it was there that we saw faiths collide. One set of believers attached to a cult of death, sought to destroy as much innocent life as humanly possible, and in doing so destroy our collective hopes and dreams in one moment of horror. The people the jihadists attempted to destroy en masse represented everything the jihadists did not. Those people in NYC of a hundred different faiths and no doubt some of no faith, stood for, whether they knew it or not, the plurality of peoples and ways of thought that make this flawed country so much more than the Islamic despotisms could ever hope to be. While the jihadists were doing all they could that day to take life in the name of Allah, the courageous people who were there victims were doing what they could to save life.

It is simply sickening for someone as morally bereft as Jamal to cast judgement upon someone elses choice of what to believe in, or of what location to elevate to that of a sacred spot. He, whose choice of a deity is and was, John Africa, who was a suicidal, abuser of children, a man who sought to destroy all that he could not understand, and whose followers attempted to crush those who got in his way of doing so than. And destroy those who get in the way of the cult’s perceived interest now.

Jamal gets one thing correct in his article. The President of Iran holds little in the way of power.

Being that Iran is an "Islamic Republic", a place where there is no wall between Mosque and State, the President of that nation serves at the pleasure of the Theocrats whose arcane, fourth century way of thinking has the people of Iran in a state of perpetual fear of war, punishment for "thought-crime, and the religious police, who will beat and terrorize people at will for lack of piety.

Being that Mumia is of MOVE, he has the self-appointed ability to read minds and see into people’s hearts. He claims that "Ahmadinajad couldn't declare war on the U.S. if he wanted to; and he doesn't want to." How he has attained this clairvoyant power from the bowels of a Pennsylvania jail cell, has yet to be explained, but Mumia it seems has mastered John Africa’s voodoo.

We don’t know what Ahmadinajad’s intentions regarding war with America are and neither does Mumia. But what we do know about the man is pretty scary.

By all accounts Ahmadinejad, as a devout Shia, is a "true believer" in the return of the"occulted" or 12th imam.

Ahmadinejad believes the 12th imam is on his way. He claims that he is to personally prepare the world for the coming Mahdi. In order to save the world, it must be in a state of chaos and subjugation. Ahmadinejad claims he was "directed by Allah to pave the way for the glorious appearance of the Mahdi". This apocalyptic directive includes some very creepy proclamations considering Iran’s thirst for all things nuclear.

Ahmadinejad,, claims to have a "signed contract" with al Mahdi in which he pledge himself to his work. Part of this "work" apparently means that Israel ought to be wiped off the map and some would argue that his rhetoric is more than hyperbole, but is rather a clearly stated intent brought on by his religious delusions

He says he must prepare the world for the coming Mahdi by way of a world totally under Muslim control. This, by the way, is not just the way of "Islamic extremists", but is taken directly from the Koranic injunctions as well as the extremely violent "Hadiths", or Muslim traditions.

While the above is not so widely known about Ahmadinejad, what is well known are his announcements to the world that his country is free of homosexuals (MOVE may want to consider taking up in Iran considering their view of gays) or questioning the holocaust, and the "official" version of 9/11, it wouldn’t be a stretch of the imagination to find him wishing to wage "jihad" on the United States. In essence, if reports coming from the battlefields of Iraq have any validity, Iran may already be fighting a proxy war against the United States through it’s agents and Shia militia groups.

It is known that Iran has provided vital assistance to terrorist organizations in at least all of the following nations/areas: the Palestinian territories (Hamas, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad), Lebanon (Hezbollah), Egypt (the Islamic Group and Egyptian Islamic Jihad), Sudan (a variety of terrorist groups), Somalia (Sunni terrorists), Algeria (an al Qaeda affiliate), Saudi Arabia (Saudi Hezbollah), Southeast Asia (various terrorist groups, including affiliates of al Qaeda), Iraq (both Sunni and Shiite terrorist groups), and in Afghanistan (Iran now even arms the Taliban, its one-time enemy). Those places and probably a half-dozen or so locations that are unknown at this time are the battlegrounds of Iran.

Arguably the most ignorant proclamation of Mumia comes as usual, in it’s standard package of arrogant stupidity, when he writes that " The Islamic Republic of Iran had nothing to do with Sept. 11th – and neither did Ahmadinejad." Perhaps he meant to say Iraq. But the fact is that there are clear ties between al-Qaeda and Iran that go back numerous years and reach to the highest levels. This, not to speak of the obvious fact that Iran is an exporter of terror and has been since the ascendency of the Islamic Republic in 1979.

According to Lawrence Wright in his Pulitzer Prize winning book "The Looming Tower", a top al Qaeda operative named Ali Mohamed told the FBI that Ayman al Zawahiri (al Qaeda’s current number two man) and the Iranians agreed to cooperate on a coup attempt in Egypt in 1990. The Iranians have long targeted Hosni Mubarak’s regime and so they were very willing to assist Zawahiri’s Egyptian Islamic Jihad ("EIJ") in a coup attempt. According to Mohamed, the Iranians gave Zawahiri $2 million and trained his EIJ operatives for the coup attempt, which was ultimately aborted.

The 9/11 Commission reports that the Iranians and al Qaeda held discussions in the early 1990’s. During the embassy bombings trial we learned that one of these meetings involved a sit down between Imad Mugniyah, who is Iran’s master terrorist as well as Hezbollah’s chief of terrorist operations, and Osama bin Laden. The result of these high level meetings was an agreement that Iran and al Qaeda would cooperate on attacks on the United States and Israel. Al Qaeda jihadists were then trained in Iranian and Hezbollah training terror camps in Lebanon, Sudan and Iran.

In addition to that, The 9/11 Commission found that in addition to strong evidence of Iran’s involvement, there were also signs that al Qaeda played a role in the Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia that killed 19 Americans and wounded hundreds of others, including many Saudis. Al Qaeda had reportedly been planning a similar operation in the months prior to the attack and intelligence officials found that bin Laden was congratulated by senior al Qaeda members, such as Ayman al Zawahiri, shortly thereafter.

The 9/11 Commission also concluded that the al Qaeda cell in Kenya, which was responsible for bombing the embassy there on August 7, 1998, was trained by Hezbollah for the operation. The 9/11 Commission also found that there is evidence that Iran and Hezbollah helped a number of the 9/11 hijackers in their travels prior to their attack on America.

So while there is no "smoking gun", so to speak, that directly links Iran to 9/11, it is disingenuous to argue that they had "nothing to do with" the attacks. Much like the Taliban, the terror state of Iran has harbored, funded, trained, and worked with al-Qaeda going all the way back to 1990. Currently, Iran keeps safe, within it’s borders senior al Qaeda leaders such as Saif al Adel (al Qaeda’s military chief) and Saad bin Laden (Osama’s son and heir). It is also strongly believed that Iran’s proxy army, Hezbollah was responsible for the 1983 suicide attack on the Marine barracks in Beirut that resulted in the deaths of 300 Americans.

It has been argued that the attacks of 9/11 and other similar terror strikes were devised to emulate this attack that led to the American withdrawal from Lebanon. Many analysts, having studied Bin Laden’s tactics are convinced that this American retreat and the withdrawal from Somalia after the deaths of 18 American soldiers led Osama Bin-Laden to think that America lacked the resolve to fight protracted battles against Islamists who did not mind dying if it meant a quicker reunion with Allah. The train of thought follows that Bin-Laden thought that the carnage that he unleashed would be so horrific that America would lack the will to fight.

Looking at the situation today, it appears that he may have had a point.

So again, we have Mumia Abu-Jamal, the alleged "voice of the voiceless" giving voice to yet another despot who has the power of state run media to amplify his megalomania and fools at Columbia University to allow him a pulpit to spew his religiously inspired hatred.

If Mumia was the journalist that he and his supporters claim that he is, than he might concern himself a little more with facts and not just boilerplate propaganda. If he was truly the "voice of the voiceless", he would be writing on behalf of Iranian dissidents who risk life and limb as they attempt to rescue their country from an Islamic state bent on destroying the freedom of it’s citizenry and plunging the already burning region into a more violent abyss.

It is for those true "freedom fighters", who face true oppression and risk death for speaking out, and for the victims of Islamic terror, that I dedicate this post.

It is they, and not their oppressors, who deserves to be defended and who deserve to be at Columbia University.

For John

"I could get killed for what I'm doing, but I have to do it."

-John Gilbride prior to his murder

Five years ago today, John Gilbride’s body was torn apart by bullets.

He did not live through that barrage of gunfire, aimed at him by parties still "unkown" to the police, who likely stalked him and waited for him to arrive home so that they could murder him in cold blood.

John was killed for the "crime" of wanting to be a father to his little boy. He was killed for his un-willingness to bow to the wishes of the death-cult of which he was formerly a part of.
But, what did not die that evening was his spirit and dedication to his son. His struggle for justice

Nor did his courage in the face of evil.

Here was a man who had taken everything that MOVE and it’s misguided supporters, myself included, could throw at him and he could stand tall. He had endured threats that he had to know deep in his heart were not hollow rhetoric. He had been able to break through the psychological manipulation and terror inflicted upon him while he was in MOVE that only worsened as he left the cult and began the painfully slow process of working through the bureaucracy of the court system to be able to see his only child.

More than that, he had to accept that his son was being turned against him by a woman whose insane vision of creating a "white messiah" for the cult she led, fueled her hatred, and blinded her to the pain that she inflicted and continues to inflict. John’s ex-wife, Alberta Africa, cared not for him, not for their son, only for herself, as the poison of John Africa’s "teachings" had long ago twisted her into the maniacal, vicious, destroyer of life, that she is today.

Alberta hid behind her supposed "religion", a faith that she only adheres to when it serves her purposes, as a means of attempting to manipulate the courts into keeping John’s child out of his reach.

When it became clear that the family courts were starting to see through her fictional and cynical facade of piety that masked her vulgar display of hypocrisy, she altered her tactics.
It became utterly brutal. John’s own parents were libeled and slandered as "abusers". His own career was not safe as MOVE members and supporters called the airline where he worked to tell them that they had a "terrorist" in their midst.

Judges were picketed, Philadelphia’s politicians along with those of New Jersey came under attack by MOV, nor were members of the press safe who tried to cover the issue before and after John’s death as threats were cryptically aimed towards them. MOVE members and supporters barricaded the cult’s headquarters in order to evoke in Philadelphia, the terrible memory of the events of May, 13th 1985.

What could have and should have been a custody case of the variety that occur every day in this country became an exercise in crass manipulation of MOVE’s support network, the media, and politicians, who were collectively struggling to understand how a custody dispute could go so far off the charts. Nobody, outside of MOVE’s inner circle could have known how far things were truly going to go.

Although we had all heard Alberta Africa and other MOVE members vows to never let John have un-supervised access to his son, I don’t think many amongst us who were acting in concert with MOVE could have expected them to take as far as murder. But that is what happened.
And although it is true that nobody has been arrested yet. We do know that investigators have ruled out the nonsensical conspiracy theories that MOVE trotted out after John’s death, that were as rehearsed and contrived as anything I have been a witness to. From Alberta’s fake tears, to the mock outrage expressed by other MOVE members who blamed the "system" for John’s death.

Does it not raise suspicion in anyone other than myself that MOVE has clearly done whatever they can do to blot John out of existence? It is not good enough for them that he is dead and gone. They want his story, what he went through, the suffering they imposed upon him because he wanted to be a dad to his little boy, to simply disappear. Is it not shocking that a group whose entire marketing scheme is predicated upon the martyrdom of it’s adherents, refuses to acknowledge John’s life and death? After all, according to MOVE he was killed by the "system" because he wanted to go back to the "cult".

Much has been said and many things have changed in the past five years. What has remained constant is the fact that for John and ultimately his little boy who is still in the grip of MOVE, justice has been elusive.

I have discovered that I am not the only one to abandon MOVE, not by a long-shot. We have all observed the slow decline of the cult responsible for John’s death along with the inevitable diminishing returns from the faux cause of freeing Mumia. Mumia, the MOVE apologist, and cash cow for the sect, who from death row did his part in MOVE’s war against John.

Although I never met John Gilbride or saw him outside of our protests against him, I feel he is a now a posthumous friend and know that if I can embody any part of his physical and mental courage, that I am much the better for it.

I have seen a number of MOVE’s tactics that were used against John be turned on me. And I am disappointed to say not just by current members of the cult. Call it karma. This only proves to me the residual effect of authoritarian groups cuts deep and that although one may have abandoned one particular cult, the very same factors that caused your susceptibility to such a scheme still exist. If you don’t root them out, you may find yourself making a change for the same, one mental prison for another, an example of the axiom that insanity is defined by repeating the same behavior again and again while expecting different results.

But if these last five years have taught me anything, it is that hope is the brightest of the lights that guide. I have come to know people whose commitment to justice inspires and serves as dignified examples of how to make it through the worst of adversities. I have met people whom I could help and have met many who have helped me, many of whom had absolutely no reason to trust, nor care anything about me.

I have re-discovered the authentic love of family that will forever eclipse the conditional and contrived emoting that passed for love in a cult. And I have learned that while many who care about me don’t quite get while I do this, they do understand there is a need for somebody to do it.

But for all that I have learned and accomplished, there is the constant reminder that the world is rife with injustice.

The struggle that John Gilbride waged was not in vain as long as people continue it. The terror that is MOVE must be thoroughly and consistently rebuked. The torrent of lies that is spread through the internet about the sect must be combated and venues and groups that provide MOVE with safe havens will be exposed as the enablers of a cult that is wedded to death, a wicked ideology, and the abuse of children.

For John Gilbride, the children of MOVE, the families of loved ones who are lost in the cult, and for those who may unwittingly get caught up in the group’s web I continue.

And while I don’t do it near enough I thank everyone who has sent me kind words of encouragement, offered advice, and most importantly those who do what they can to keep John’s memory and fight for justice alive.

For More about John Gilbride, search this site, as well as the main site about MOVE. Also, try goggling his name cross-referenced with MOVE. Read what MOVE has had to say about John, how their story switched over and over again. And today notice their silence. It speaks volumes about John and about MOVE.

New Pro-Mumia Film Soon To Be Released

"In Prison My Whole Life", the latest in a string of pro-Mumia films is set to be screened simultaneously at The Times London Film Festival and at Rome's International Film Festival on Thursday 25 October.

After seeing the trailer for the upcoming "documentary" that is sure to celebrate Mumia and ignore his crime, I am not surprised that the film’s star, William Francome, refused to grant me an interview, using the excuse that un-named producers would not allow him to do so.

If I was about to unleash on the world what appears to be a completely one-sided waste of celluloid, I might have reservations about answering questions from someone who actually knows something about the case.

For me, the idea of yet another pro-Jamal and therefore factually challenged film, is especially vexing.

More than any single factor, the 1996 film "A Case For Reasonable Doubt", helped to solidify my support for Mumia, as I am sure it did for many others. It is a film that is still used by Jamal devotees, for their propaganda purposes

And while now it is known that the film is essentially a work of fiction, for me, at that time, it was a very real, riveting, story of true injustice. After all, HBO would not knowingly or even accidentally mislead it’s viewers, or so I thought.

The likely difference between this new film and "A Case For Reasonable Doubt" is that the latter had a cast with credentials who were able to speak with authority on the case. That there comments were slickly taken out of context by producers of the film in order to bolster Jamal’s defense is clearly the fault of the producers of the film and HBO for not doing adequate fact-checking prior to it’s airing.

"In Prison My Whole Life", by all appearances is set to make official the latest party line of the pro-Mumia crowd. In place of reasoned arguments bolstered by trial transcripts and testimony, those who make the mistake of paying money for this film will likely be force-fed a heaping helping of "white guilt" and conspiracy theories along with their popcorn and soda.

This would explain why the characters in the film are fixtures on the far-left and could not even be confused with anyone even marginally knowledgeable about the case.

The most stunning statement so far from the film is from the godfather of the far-left himself- Noam Chomsky. The comment he makes in the film’s trailer "guilty or innocence is irrelevant", shocked me to the point that I had to watch a few more times to make sure that I got it right.

I will readily admit that I have a good quarter of a book-shelf stocked with Chomsky’s works. Many of which deal crimes against humanity on a grand scale. From Chomsky’s early books and activism dedicated to chronicling the tragedy of America’s misadventures in South East Asia to the genocide in East Timor, to Clinton’s cruise missile attack on a civilian Pharmaceutical plant in Sudan, Chomsky has made it his business to lay out in excruciating detail, just who is guilty of what, and why. That he can so crassly turn a blind eye to the reality of Mumia’s case is just more evidence that this once great, secular moralist, has lost his way.

Another clip from the trailer shows Snoop Dogg, who once proudly rapped "187 On A Mother Fucking Cop", an explicit celebration of the murder of police officers. The former gang member is no stranger to the wrong side of the law. In April he pled "no contest" to felony gun and marijuana charges. He received five years probation and must serve 800 hours of community service. And just a few days ago, the "artist" once signed to "Death Row Records"pleaded guilty on to one count of felony possession of a dangerous weapon. His attorney said the rapper received a sentence of 160 hours of community service and three years probation.

These two incidents are just the latest in a near continuous history of criminality of the former Crip, who now apparently is an expert on the Jamal case.

Another hip-hop artist who appears in the film is Mos Def. He is known for his "uplifting" and "positive" lyrics that steer clear of the violence and misogyny that are so often a part of the troubled world of hip-hop. ,

But while Mos Def is a respectable artist, his views are saturated with outdated, identity politics, and conspiracy theories that diminish his irrefutable talent.

In 2004 he recorded a song that laid the blame for 9/11 on George Bush and the policies of Ronald Reagan.

Earlier this month, Mos Def appeared on "Real Time With Bill Maher", incidentally also on HBO, and in a nearly hysterical state of derangement declared that Al-Qaeda was not responsible for 9/11 and went so far as to question the terror group’s existence. The co-star of the film "A Hitchhikers Guide To The Universe", also claimed the Moon landings were a hoax and that there were no violent teachings in the Koran. To top it all of he asserted his belief that Mumia is innocent and should be freed.

It is hard for me to believe that William Francome honestly wanted to investigate Jamal’s case. given what I have seen of his work so far. What seems more likely is that he entered this project with a conclusion and than sought to work in details that supported his beliefs. He than enlisted a group of people whose opinion on the matter reflected that of his own and that had to have known prior to enlisting them to be in the film, and on down the road of "group think" he went.

A real investigator or an honest documentation would start out and allow the facts to lead them to the truth. Both sides would be fairly portrayed. Experts and not entertainers would be invited to share their analysis and the viewers would be left to decide for themselves.

If the trailer for "In Prison My Whole Life" is an apt reflection of what the film is about than one should not have much in the way of expectations. Instead of a film that chronicles the history of this case, we are likely to instead be subjected to the partisan views of an ideologue with an agenda that he hopes will be covered up by slick production and the spectacle of celebrities gathered together for the latest example of "radical chic" gone bad.

Fatirah Visits Mumia

(Ha Ha...Look at me. I have all these stupid people kissing my ass all day long...I am so smart to have killed someone and still have people love me...OJ ain't got shit on me...Long Live John Africa!)

It is extremely difficult for anyone with any sense at all of justice, or basic morality, to look upon the adulation of un-repentant killers as anything but madness under the guise of benevolence.

One needs to look no further than the "Free Mumia" cause to see just how high upon the pedestal that a murderer can be placed. Of course, Mumia is not the first, nor will he be the last of the exhalted murderers. However, at this point,it is Jamal who is arguably the top prize amongst cop-killer groupies, societal rejects, and politically inspired Euro-trash.

Every day, somewhere on the web, at any given moment, somebody is writing some kind of homage to Mumia.

Recently, the former webmaster of the website of International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia, a woman named Fatirah authored a nauseating account of her visit with Mumia. And as much as it is sickening to read, not to speak of dealing with the brutish reality that people still think in the way that Fatirah does, it is something that I understand.

After all, I spent my honeymoon visiting members of the MOVE 9 and must confess that I shared with these destroyers of life, a kind of comradery that transcended mere political affinities. MOVE members and supporters became like family to me.

And so the obvious question is how do you reconcile a purported concern for justice with embracing people who clearly have no regard for life, not their own, not outsiders, and as history has demonstrated, not even their own children?

There are really two answers to this. The first is that like so many supporters of Mumia and MOVE, I was a "true believer" for much of the time that I was involved with the "causes".
I really did believe in the things that I was being told and I mouthed the lies to others while believing them myself. For that abandonment of critical thought I was rewarded by being allowed to live amongst MOVE and be a part of the things that were going on.

The second answer as to why people can treat people like Jamal as revered figures is through cognitive dissonance. It is a psychological exercise in which you ignore any and all information that conflicts with your existing beliefs. This is the reason why Mumia and MOVE supporters continue to ignore the facts of these cases and instead cling tenaciously to the myths, confusing fiction with fact and furthering their disconnect from reality.

That is how you end up with a seemingly intelligent and likely very moral person like Fatirah writing things like the following about a man who she very likely knows deep down is guilty.
Fatirah writes:

"It was the day that I had long hoped for, the day when I would be face-to-face with this great man of indomitable spirit, razor wit, and uncompromising insight and critique on our world and society...He is in good health and spirits and during the visit, many times he flashed that smile, and when someone said something funny, (often it was Mumia himself), the room echoed with his booming laughter...What was really surprising (to me), was his sense of humor. He can do dead on impressions of everyone from Dubya to Cuban expatriates, and believe me, they are hilarious! It was he who entertained us, rather than the other way around...Mumia is our symbol for all political prisoners; his fight is all of their fight. We must continue the struggle, we cannot lose this shining light! "

It is no exaggeration to say that a personality cult has built up around Mumia, to the point that it may as well be a text book example of how one is constructed and maintained.

Typical of demagogues, Mumia himself has participated in the re-writing of his life to make it more marketable to the extreme left who still adores the Jamal brand. The persistent myth of Mumia as a crusading, fist in the face of establishment journalist, prior to his arrest and conviction for the murder of Officer Faulkner is widely accepted as fact.

The audaciousness of this falsehood must be insulting to real journalists who were actually leading the charge against corruption in the city, but more importantly it helps portray Mumia as not only a victim, but a victim who was just doing his job as a journalist when he was "framed". How interesting it is that there is plenty of talk about Jamal’s pre-murder journalism, but not much in the way of proof that Jamal did or said much about police brutality and corruption prior to his arrest.

This whole shameful episode of revisionist history seems to lend credence to the Nazi axiom that says "the bigger the lie the easier it is to believe".

The fashion in which Fatirah and others choose to write about Mumia in comes very close to

describing him in a religious kind of way. This idolatry is actually somewhat appropriate considering that the "Free Mumia" cause now rests on a shaky foundation of faith. This has always been the case, but with rationality and common sense breaking through the Mumia mythology in the wonderful way that it does, one can only wonder how much longer before it crumbles. Of course there will always be people like Fatirah, whom I have already pointed out in other posts, has no clue when it comes to the facts of this case. As long as Jamal remains the dread locked, deep and steady voiced panderer, the terminally predictable writer of ideologically driven screeds, there will be people flocking to his side. Never mind the fact that he is a murderer.

As Noam Chomsky recently said in the trailer for the Mumia propaganda film "In Prison My Whole Life", "guilty or innocent is irrelevant".

This statement by one of the most prolific and respected scholars of the left is as infuriating as it is informative. This is what the Mumia cause has devolved to. With their myths stripped bare and rendered meaningless, many within the movement are clinging to the idea that even if Mumia shot Faulkner, that he did not receive a fair trial and should therefore be re-tried or set free.

This of course, is a much easier argument to make in the face of overwhelming amounts of evidence against Jamal than would it be to claim that he is "actually innocent". The facts do not support either statement, but certainly one can be more readily manipulated than the other.
As for Chomsky’s notion that guilt or innocence is not relevant, I must whole heartedly disagree.

Jamal being guilty or not is everything. I was told and so have thousands of people throughout the world that Mumia is innocent and has done nothing wrong. Working off of the premise that an innocent man may be put to death, people all over the world have quite literally given up everything in order to work for a man they believed to be completely innocent. I literally observed people who essentially worked themselves into the grave for this faux cause that they believed in with all that they had.

And all for what? So that Fatirah can have a good day with her cop-killing idol, whose guilt or innocence is now "irrelevant".

Mumia For Jihadist Schools

Many people over the years have mistakenly thought that Mumia is a convert to Islam.

This has much to do with the name he took in 1971, of which the first part "Mumia" is of African origin and the second part, Abu-Jamal is Arabic and means "father of Jamal". Apparently being named "Wesley Cook" was not good enough for Mumia.

The other reason that many have mistakenly assumed Jamal’s religion to be Islam is his repeated pronouncements on behalf of Islamic causes as varied as the Nation Of Islam, conspirators in the attack on 9/11, to convicted terror enabler Lynne Stewart, etc...ad nauseam.

Many Muslims have also been heavily involved in the efforts to "Free Mumia", with many individuals and organizations publicly signing on to his cause.

Recently, Jamal again took up for the Jihadist cause in a nearly fact-less essay about the controversy surrounding the opening of Kahlil Gibran International Academy, which Jamal claims will be a "center for the study of Arabic language and culture.

Not surprisingly, Jamal considers those who question the merits or validity of the school "racists".

Far from being rabid bigots, the people raising questions about the school are making legitimate points and are making appropriate inquiry’s about the school.

It has been pointed out that despite numerous requests, the City of New York has provided no explanation to the public about the exact nature of the curricula, the text books that will be used, the publishers of those texts, or the lesson plans. Further, no one from the City has provided information about the selection process of the teachers for the "Arabic" and "Middle Eastern" subjects, whether they will be certified, and if not, how they will be effectively supervised

These are reasonable questions to be asked by taxpayers considering they are expected to foot the bill for this school.

It is no secret that Islamic schools throughout the world are preaching the gospel of Jihad.
According to Brooklyn Assemblyman Dov Hikind, "I think there’s a special problem with an Arab school because of the reality of the world that we live in today. The sad reality is that a lot of the terrorism...almost all of it, has come from a particular community — a minority — but a particular community. That’s a reality we better face."

In light of the fact that thousands or perhaps millions of Muslims throughout the world consider America the enemy, it is not racist to question the establishment of a Madrassa on American soil paid for by you and I, it is only responsible.

Moreover, the first principal of the school, Debbie Al-Montaser resigned after it came to light that she shared office space with an Islamic group that sells T-shirts encouraging New York Muslims to join an "intifada."

The" intifada" refers to the attacks on Israeli Jews by Islamic radicals between 1987 and 1993, in some of the territories gained by the Israelis after the Six Day War in 1967 and includes the daily rocket attacks against Israeli citizens.

In addition to their being questions as to the curriculum there is also the issue of how much access extremist groups like the "Council On American Islamic Relations" or "CAIR" will have to the children. The group has already interjected itself into the debate and has made clear it has no respect for the Jeffersonian "wall" between religion and state. To them and their jihadist ilk all that matters is the Koran and the furtherance of their faith.

It is already known that instruction to the 55 or so students will be at least partially indoctrinated by a front group for "CAIR" known as the "American Muslim Lawyers Association" and the "American Mideast Leadership Network", the latter of which is reportedly run by a supporter of the terrorist network Hezbollah.

To question the wisdom of funding or even allowing such an "education" to occur is anything but racist, and Jamal I am sure knows this.

Mumia, like so many others who share his ideological bent, cares not for the preservation of this country or it’s institutions. So, you can pretty much be sure that if he is for it, you may well be against it

And it is not like anyone needs Jamal to tell us that Kahlil Gibran was a great writer.
But what should be pointed out is that those who are committed to preserving Gibran’s legacy are calling the school into question.

The Friends of Gibran Council (doesn’t sound like a "racist" or "right-wing" group to me) stated that, based upon available information to date, the school "would not honor the legacy of a great poet, an artist who achieved greatness in the US as an emigrant fleeing Lebanon where his community has been suffering persecution in their ancestral home in Lebanon at the hands of religious powers." They further point out that Gibran’s ancestry was Lebanese, Christian, and Maronite, making the act of attaching his name to a school dedicated to Arab language and studies somewhat disingenuous.

And as you may well have noticed, the Gibran Council noted that the famed writer was not, as Jamal wrote an Arab. Proving once again that the "voice of the voiceless" is more an architect of ignorance than the contributor to intellectual discourse that his acolytes portray him as.

As usual, Jamal’s essays are more symbol than substance. Ideology over facts and are reeking

from the stench of anti-Americanism.

And while there is always room for informed and well-intentioned dissent. Mumia represents neither. He is a cult apologist, a friend of tyrants, and resides firmly on the side of terror, all while presenting a facade of empathy, concern for victims, and intellectual tenacity.

Marching Towards Mediocrity

(Free MUMIA With Every Happy Meal: Some restrictions may apply.
McDonalds is not responsible for personal injury incurred while playing with Mumia. Some assembly required)

What does any organization do once it’s novelty has run it’s course?

Diversify of course.

That is what the incredible shrinking International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia has been doing lately.

Now that the group has to "share" a website with the "NYC Free Mumia Coalition", it has also now taken to embracing any and everybody even loosely connected with the far left as a means of stemming the attrition from the Mumia cause and more importantly, finding ways to convince people to part with their money in the name of Jamal.

I would argue that is the reason that ICFFMAJ decided to hold a nighttime rally for a whole menagerie of supposed"political prisoners". This, a mere two days after the anniversary of Sept 11th. Another reason for that I could presume could be to use the darkness to mask the fact that many of those who came out to "protest" are children of MOVE members who don’t exactly have a choice in the matter.

The image of totalitarian societies busing in citizens for their state-sponsored "activities" comes to mind.

It is not a question to me that forcing young children to participate in such activities is barely a step above child abuse.

I can recall with stark, sickened, vividness, of my time with MOVE when Sue Africa would call me to bring my than infant daughter out for this MOVE protest or that Mumia action. She was emphatic that it was crucial that our little "white" baby would stand out and help to garner the sect the media attention that it so craved prior to the murder of John Gilbride.

In a sense, Sue Africa, one of MOVE's white leaders, was correct. When the media did come out to events and my daughter was there, her picture was almost always taken and it is a fact that my little girl’s face has been in newspapers many more times than has mine.

Thankfully, she remembers nothing of MOVE and instead concerns herself with the important things in life like dinosaurs, her friends, and her cat. Her life is a million miles from what it might have been had we stayed with MOVE. A life of compulsory, near slavish devotion to the whims of the sect’s leaders, a life of enforced ignorance, of intellectual deprivation, and being that she is a girl, the strong likelihood that she would have been expected to become a mother once she entered adolescence.

That is what I see when I see these MOVE protests. All of the "Free so-and-so" signs are just petty props in a psycho-drama that is not really aimed at anyone in particular except for those close to MOVE. As with any cult, it is imperative that the devotees be kept busy lest they have time to think and possibly doubt the validity of the world they have built around them.

As for the children in MOVE, I hope nobody suffers under the idea that they know the slightest about Leonard Peltier, The "Cuban 5", or even Mumia, outside of the fact that they have been told what to think about such things.

For an entity like MOVE, teaching the children how to think instead of what to think, would be more devastating that any "bomb" or "police conspiracy" that could ever be imagined.

Why Is Philly's Top Cop Turning To Mumia Supporters For Help?

(Attorney Michael Coard For Mumia)


















(Update 9/19 The Philadelphia City is running this article at their website at http://www.citypaper.net/blogs/clog/2007/09/19/3754/)

The streets of Philadelphia are practically running red with blood.

This year, some 300 people have been murdered within the city and there seems to be no end in site to the bloodshed as city leaders scramble at solutions to the city’s violent crime problems.

This past week, Police Commissioner Sylvester Johnson, who is African-American, made nationwide headlines with his call for 10,000 black men to come forward and volunteer in an effort to stem the tide of violent crime in the city.

Whether this act is a sincere proposal by the embattled top cop or a publicity stunt is not for me to say.

What can be said is that some of those who Commissioner Johnson is teaming up with to organize these efforts are themselves questionable.

Radio executive, E. Steven Collins has met regularly with Commissioner Johnson regarding the organization of the effort, and it is Philadelphia attorney Michael Coard’s organization,
"Philadelphia Millions More Movement", that is offering the online registration for volunteers.

Philadelphia, the nation's sixth-largest city, has nearly 1.5 million residents, 44 percent of them black. It is a city that has seen nearly 300 homicides this year. AP news reported that more than 80 percent of the slayings involve handguns, and most involve young black males.Johnson plans to introduce the "Call to Action: 10,000 Men, It's a New Day" program on Oct. 21, three months before his planned retirement.

The potential problem that some may have with all of this, aside from the obvious racial divisiveness, is that E. Steven Collins and Michael Coard are both outspoken in their support of convicted cop-killer and cult apologist, Mumia Abu-Jamal.

When Collins was starting out in the journalism business he considered Jamal to be a "mentor" and the two shared a close relationship. One that was spelled out when Collins testified on Jamal’s behalf during the cop-killers 1995 Post Conviction Relief hearings. In fact, Jamal was dining with Collins on the night that ended with his killing of Officer Faulkner in 1981.
Collins remains a supporter of Mumia to this day.

Michael Coard, a self-described, "angry black man", has been at the forefront of the Mumia cause for a number of years.

In addition to helping to craft an amicus brief on behalf of Jamal, he has become a vocal advocate on behalf of the murderer, participating in rallies, forums, and events of all stripes. In this role he has also been predictably critical of those who do not buy into the Jamal myths.
Back in May, when counter protests initiated by citizens of Philadelphia caused the "Clef Club" to close it’s doors to a Mumia fund-raiser, in a statement of raw irony, Coard was quoted as describing the anti-Mumia activism as a "creeping fascism". Proving once again that even a law degree cannot fix stupid.

That the police Commissioner would align himself with a man who clearly has a warped sense of reality and clear cut animosity towards the victims of crime and the police is nothing less than disturbing.

With due respect to the Police Commissioner and the terribly difficult task that he has in stemming the tide of relentless violence in his city, I must contend that it is an affront to the citizens or all races that he has sworn to serve and protect for him to embrace the champions of police murder and outdated identity politics.

The people of Philadelphia deserve better and if this is the best that the city’s top cop has to offer than perhaps the city is in worse shape than was previously thought.

Suffer The Children

(Polygamist Cult Leader Warren Jeffs)

"Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength because of thine enemies, that thou mightiest still the enemy and the avenger."



-Psalms



"Give yourself over, mind, body and soul to your husband."



That's what prosecutors say Warren Jeffs, the 51-year-old leader of the largest polygamist group in North America, advised a 14-year-old girl who had earlier got down on her knees and begged not to have to go through with an arranged marriage to her 19-year-old first cousin.

Referred to in court as Jane Doe, the young woman was married in a 2001 religious ceremony officiated by Jeffs to the cousin, then 19. She said she disliked him because he once had sprayed her with a water hose on a freezing day.



"I preferred to stay away from him," she said.



Later, miserable in her marriage, she testified she sought a meeting with Jeffs, and she told him she couldn't see herself having a family with her husband and "could not do what they expected me to do." She begged to be released from the marriage, she said.



But Jeffs told her she needed to repent and to "go home and give myself to [my husband]," she testified, and he gave her a book of teachings.



Afterward, she said, she was extremely depressed, saying Jeffs "was the only one who could get me out, and he wouldn't."



Jeffs, 51, who leads the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, is charged with two counts of rape as an accomplice for using his church authority to coerce the unwilling juvenile into marriage.



There is much controversy surrounding Warren Jeffs and the case made against him. With polygamy being made a part of pop-culture through the HBO series "Big Love" and it’s very dark side being chronicled in the stunning book "Under The Banner Of Heaven", the issue of "plural marriage" is one that should not be ignored.



For me, the parallels between the abuse of children in polygamist communities and that of MOVE are impossible to ignore.



Of course, the FLDS and polygamist cults are far more numerous and much more "successful" than MOVE could ever hope to be. There are whole expanses of land in the Midwest, Canada, and Mexico and perhaps thousands of people that are under the thumb of various polygamist sects that are offshoots of Mormonism.



Yet the tactics of brutality of authoritarian entities are sickeningly similar.



The grotesque image of grown-ups scaring the children in their charge with stories of "hell" and "damnation" in order to bolster faith is as common as it is vile.



But it is the lengths to which certain sects go to in order to push kids into accepting the nightmarish world of the adults who claim to "love" that demands a response from people with even a vague concern for the plight of children



There was near universal condemnation (except of course in the Muslim world) of the child-directed propaganda on Al-Aqsa TV. The immediate victims of that attack on the life of the mind were Palestinian children. The Islamists used a figure of Mickey Mouse in order to preach Hamas ideology. An death-cult with no scruples that inculcates children with a barrage of hatred of the outside world that is endemic within the world of Islam, both "mainstream" and "radical"
So to has there been a fury of scorn directed towards polygamists to the point that Mormon Presidential candidate Mitt Romney has felt the heat, despite the fact that his church disavowed "plural marriage" back in 1890.



But what of Philadelphia and MOVE?



I can honestly say that I have done my part. I have not just written about this issue. I have spoken to the District Attorney’s Office, to journalists of prominence, and anyone else who will listen. And nobody will lift a finger.



It is hard to say exactly why this is the case. Is it the ominous specter of another multi-million dollar confrontation, dead cops and kids if MOVE is confronted? Perhaps it is pure out and out racism. I really don’t know.



What is frustrating, and I don’t mind admitting it, is that MOVE has never denied that the cult "marries" off it’s young girls to sightly older "men" in order for them to become illiterate breeding machines for the cult.



In fact, they have admitted it.



Ramona Africa wrote this over a year ago:



" Women in MOVE do marry and have babies at what this american society might now consider to be a young age but we follow the coordination of Mother Nature who coordinates it such that she determines when a woman is ready for marriage and babies, which is when a woman has her monthly period, then she is ready to have babies and be married. It's just that simple."



It really is that "simple". Rape is rape. Child abuse is child abuse. That it is done under the auspices of "faith" or "religion" should be no defense. Those MOVE leaders who enforce this barbarity along with the "supporters" of the cult who act as enablers need to be held accountable for their actions.



The question that begs to be asked is just who will be the one in power to start the process of bringing the abusers of the children of MOVE to justice?

The Bigger Picture

"I left the world of faith, of genital cutting and forced marriage for the world of reason and sexual emancipation. After making this voyage I know that one of these two worlds is simply better than the other. Not for its gaudy gadgetry, but for its fundamental values"

-Ayaan Hirsi Ali, author Infidel

Long before the twin towers were felled by terrorists working in the name of Allah, I found myself somewhat familiar with Islam.

Working in the "Free Mumia" movement, I had met a number of Muslims of various sects and the MOVE supporter whom I lived with had a brother who was a convert to Islam.

But even before I was a supporter of Jamal I had been intrigued by the religion and the controversy that seems to perpetually surround it. As a child addicted to books and reading, I had followed, as much as I could understand, the madness that followed the publication of Salman Rushdie’s book, "Satanic Verses". The supposed offenses against Islam’s prophet had led to world wide calls for Rushdie’s murder that caused him to spend years in hiding.

I can still recall thumbing through Rushdie’s book at the mall and not understanding much from his fictional work, certainly nothing that would allow my mind to comprehend how words on a page could possibly mean the end of somebody’s life. The controversy was once again recently inflamed as Britain bestowed Knighthood on Rushdie, leading again to threats against his life as well as calls for the destruction of the United Kingdom.

Oh to be so naive again.

A few years later, as I started down the road of radicalism I watched Spike Lee’s brilliant cinematic adaption of "The Autobiography of Malcolm X" more times than I care to admit. And while I clearly could not identify with the racialist conspiracy theories of the Nation of Islam, my interest in orthodox Islam was piqued.

I wandered off to the public library one day while skipping school and snatched up the one copy of the Koran from the shelves and between sitting in the near empty library and reading while walking home, I got most of the way through it.

It was hardly impressive to me. Confusing, cruel, and riddled with contradictions, my flirtation with the "religion of peace" ended with my reading of it’s holy tract.

As the years went by, and I became more extreme in my thinking and acquaintances, I crossed paths with Muslims of various stripes on numerous occasions. One event that will forever be etched in my mind was a "political prisoner" conference held in New York City that I attended with MOVE members. All of the usual suspects were there giving there usual "down with the system" speeches. One speaker in particular stood out to me then, and stands out now. He was a representative of an Islamic group whose name escapes me, although I think he had something to do with the so-called "Blind sheik" who orchestrated the original attack on the World Trade Center. This speaker was clear that America would "soon" be made to pay for it’s transgressions against the Muslim world. His fiery oratory was met with the most rousing applause of the evening. Everyone was clapping, myself included.

I think about that speech by that angry young man when the subject of 9/11 comes up. I realize that on that day I had more in common with the terrorists than I did with their victims and the heroes who rose up that day to fight back.

It would be comforting to myself to pretend that as the towers where falling that I was swept up in the moral outrage that the terrorist’s attack deserved, but while I quietly mourned, I did not immediately toss my hat in with the people throughout the world who were awakened to the threat of radical Islam.

Only after leaving MOVE would I fully appreciate my own freedom and the nature of the threat against it by the proponents of Islam and their enablers on the far-left who have lost the ability to recognize fascism when they see it.

As someone who has spent a considerable amount of time reading the works of anti-authoritarian writers, the parallels between tiny, essentially inconsequential cults like MOVE, and terrifying entities like al-Qeda, can not be overlooked. Nor can I deny that the Islamic world in general is a threat to our values, our communities, and the freedoms that we hold so dear.

Although there are only a reported 2 million Muslims in the United States, the fact that this backward cult reduces women in it to veiled breeding machines, one can expect that even if there were a precipitous drop in immigration from Islamic nations this number will continue to grow, and so too the danger.

People like to make the comforting, but self-delusional argument that Islam has been "hijacked" by the extremists, that it is quite similar to the Bible and the Torah. It is true that the Koran is similar insofar as it is a poorly executed compilation of plagiarisms, but it is hardly the "religion of peace", as has been asserted by the President, and countless others.

Islam’s demands for complete submission by it’s adherents and an obsession with forcing non-believers to be disallowed from making criticisms make Islam fertile ground for theocratic despotisms.

It is a faith born of warfare, butchery, and terror, that we act surprised when Muslims act like they have acted since the inception of their religion only demonstrates our lack of knowledge about Muhammad and the teachings he left behind. The current "schism" between Shia and Sunni Muslims is not a result of British and American "imperialism", but is actually continuation of a conflict nearly as old as the faith itself.

Perhaps most egregious to me, for more reasons than I have space and time to write, is Islam’s treatment of women and female children. It is perhaps arguable that Islam was liberating at the time it was conceived by Muhammad, but as writer Ibn Warraq points out "Islam is the fundamental cause of the repression of Muslim women and remains the major obstacle to the evolution of their position." But after all, what can be expected by a religion made up by a man who enjoyed the "pleasures" of his female slaves and married to a nine year old child?

If anyone bothers to read the Koran itself, you discover that it considers women to be terminally inferior in every way imaginable, the repository’s of sin, and gateways to hell whose only worth is in that they are virtually property of their husbands.

More indicting than even the Koran is the Islamic hadiths or traditions which are based the Islamic laws or Sharia in which the nature and role of Muslim women is spelled out in excruciating detail. Even a hermaphrodite exists on higher level of Islam’s hierarchy than does a woman.

Modern apologists and Islamists when faced with the glaring reality of the centuries of brutal misogyny of their faith respond that Islam serves as a protectorate of women and point to the

sexual objectification of women in the West as a way to demonstrate Islamic superiority.

They do have a kind of point in all of this, but the notion that the West could solve this problem by forcing veils and second-class citizenship on women is patently absurd. Moreover, it is an argument that ignores the epidemic of horrific abuses of women that occur in Islamic countries.
Abuses that are codified in laws and the culture of many Islamic countries. In Pakistan for example, women who are victims of rape are often charged with adultery or fornication. In order for the woman to prove she has been raped, she must produce four Muslim men of good character to testify that not only did an attack take place, but that penetration occurred. If pregnancy occurs as a result of rape, it is taken as a sign from Allah that adultery or fornication has occurred and the woman again finds herself facing charges. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan reported that one woman is raped very three hours in it’s country and one of every two of these victims is a child.

Like MOVE, the primary victims of Islam are it’s own adherents. For too long people who know better have turned the other cheek to these abuses under the guise of political correctness. This while women and children suffer untold abuses at the hand of a thoroughly backwards faith have been sacrificed upon the alter of multiculturalism.

There is a war. There are sides to be taken. I have chosen mine.

The Abandonment Of Arnold Beverly

(Video of Beverly Played At Mumia Protest)

If one were to be writing about Mumia’s case back in 2001 thru 2004 you would invariably be writing about the "confession" of Arnold Beverly.

In case you don’t know, he was the man who was "found" by than Mumia attorney, Rachel Wolkenstein whom she claimed to have met back in 1989. Beverly claimed, in part, that he was a hit-man who had been hired by nefarious forces to execute Police Officer Daniel Faulkner and that Mumia was completely innocent of any wrong-doing. For a more thorough explanation of the fraud that is Arnold Beverly’s confession visit the site dedicated to Officer Daniel Faulkner.

Like so many of the previous "revelations" of the Mumia cult, the Beverly debacle imploded under the weight of it’s own un-believability and insane contradictions. Yet, despite the disintegration of this myth, there are many who still trot it out on message boards and websites as proof positive evidence of Jamal’s innocence.

But it is not just Jamal’s critics who have pointed out the absurdity of Beverly’s claims, it was also some of the most important people within the Mumia movement. Most recently, and perhaps most importantly was Jamal’s current attorney, Robert Bryan’s repudiation of Beverly back in May during the post hearing press-conference. One of the questioners asked Bryan about the confession of Beverly and he quickly responded that "Beverly was not an issue in this case, that Beverly was rejected by Mumia years ago", and most interestingly that "we don’t need to make things up".

Bryan’s comments are interesting and perhaps a little more than slightly disingenuous in light of the actual trial record and crucial role that Beverly’s confession played in Jamal’s legal and public crusade for the first few years of this century.

In June 2001, after Jamal fired Weinglass and company and hired Elliot Grossman, Marlene Kamish and J. Michael Farrell, the Beverly confession came into play. A legal brief was filed asking Federal Court Judge William Yohn to delay his decision until a request could be presented to the Pennsylvania court system to hear the testimony of Arnold Beverly.

To make a long and tedious story short, the judiciary has rejected all attempts by Jamal’s legal team to enter Beverly into the equation, but this has not stopped the movement from using the confession as a means to further dupe the public into believing that Beverly had some degree of credibility.

But it is not just Jamal’s current attorney, the courts, myself, and the "fry Mumia" crowd who have some misgivings about Beverly, so to did Leonard Weinglass, Dan Williams, two of Jamal’s former attorneys, as well as Mumia himself, at least initially.

In his pro-Jamal book, "Executing Justice", former Jamal attorney Dan Williams states emphatically that he was not going to embarrass himself by "running with such a patently outrageous story on the most visible death penalty case in the world". The esteemed head of the Jamal legal team at the time, Leonard Weinglass concurred stating that "the (Beverly) story was insane". And Williams even credited Jamal for not running with the confession.

This respect was to be short lived as Mumia sacked Williams and Weinglass and than ended up using the confession anyways with the aid of the woefully incompetent Marlene Kamish and Eliot Grossman, two attorneys who were lacking in death penalty experience and any sense of dignity.

Pro-Mumia writer Dave Lindorff, in a rare moment of great clarity summed up the absurdity of the Beverly debacle in the following analysis.

"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."

One would think that after the devastating critique of Jamal supporters like Dave Lindorff, a thorough judicial rebuke, and after being fired by Jamal, that Eliot would find a rock to crawl under, but that would not be the case.

In a response to my official withdrawal of support for Mumia, Eliot Grossman responded with a near hysterical batch of ad-hominem attacks and a squalid defense of his work on behalf of Jamal, that included a half-hearted defense of Arnold Beverly. This was in December of 2006 that Grossman wrote "Anyone who might be interested in our detailed analysis of the evidence corroborating the Beverly confession will find it in a number of the documents my colleagues and I filed in state and federal court when we were Mumia's attorneys and which are posted on various "Free Mumia" websites, particularly our PCRA petition, our Pennsylvania Supreme Court appeal briefs, and our motion to certify additional issues for appeal in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit."

But it is not just Eliot Grossman who lives in a state of denial concerning Arnold Beverly, Jamal supporters throughout the world still cling fastidiously to the debunked myth. When debating the case with people, invariably, without fail, somebody will bring up the fact that the "real killer confessed", at which point I concur and explain that Jamal shouted out his confession. Needless to say that this seldom goes over well.

Even the primary websites of the "free Mumia" cause still advocate the Beverly confession as more evidence of Jamal’s innocence.

From the official website of the MOVE Organization:

"In 1999, Arnold Beverly confessed to killing Officer Faulkner. This confession is validated by a lie detector test administered by eminent polygraph expert Charles Honts. Despite concrete evidence supporting this confession, the Philadelphia District Attorney has refused to investigate, and the courts have not even allowed it to be heard. The injustice continues . . ."

From the combined website of International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia and the New York Free Mumia Coalition:

"Arnold Beverly" The former mafia hit-man who confessed to killing Officer Faulkner during a mob hit. Mumia is on death row due to be framed up for the murder of Officer Faulkner."


As late as 2005, the chief "Free Mumia" organization, International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia, featured the Beverly Confession in one of their "information booklets" and a year later the Partisan Defense Committee used the confession in a fund-raising letter.

Presently, the website of the International Action Center, a long-time Organization that has done a tremendous amount of work on Jamal’s behalf has ten entries alone concerning Beverly, none of which point out that Mumia or his legal team have rejected the confession.

In 2004 the National Black Caucus of State Legislature passed a resolution that says in part that

"WHEREAS the appellate courts have also refused to consider strong evidence of Mumia Abu-Jamal's innocence, most notably a confession by Arnold Beverly to the crime..."

It is a fact that the Beverly debacle is just one more in a string of what should be embarrassing grasps at anything that might bring Jamal judicial relief. Unfortunately for Jamal’s supporters, the Beverly episode is another failure brought forth by a dying and morally adrift movement.

One other point that must be made is that while the Jamal supporters flip-flop around from one conspiracy theory to the next, is that they are so deluded as to expect people outside of their echo chamber to buy into it. If you do as I do, and point out the outrageous campaign of deceit and deliberate misinformation you are met with the most vicious kind of vitriolic. This kind of hubris on the part of Jamal's devotees is just astounding.

Almost as astounding and absurd as Beverly's "confession". Almost.