A Sad Anniversary And "The Great Unwashed"

Usually, the sad anniversary of the murder of Officer Daniel Faulkner is overshadowed by the celebration and protestations on behalf of the man who murdered him.

This year however, it appears to be an altogether different situation.

With the release of Maureen Faulkner’s book and the media coverage of it, the increasingly irrelevant Jamal supporters are relegated to what appears to be a half-hearted, mini-event, starring "author" Michael Schiffman.

Long story short, it looks like a this years Mumia celebration will be little more than an attempt by Schiffman and those duped by his conspiracy theories to push his book.

More interesting to me is the promise of a "response" to Faulkner’s book, of which nobody in the Jamal movement could even have read yet.

What are they going to do? Further try and slander Maureen Faulkner? Assert that she is doing the book for personal enrichment?

They cannot do that as the proceeds from the book are slated to go to charity.

Perhaps Pam Africa will scurry out of her hole, scream a few versions of the word "motherfucker" while she paints Officer Faulkner as a whore mongering bigot, who pretty much had it coming, as she did at a Jamal fundraiser at New York’s Madison Square Garden.

Or maybe they will attempt to take the slightly higher road and trot out the old critiques of the several year old "20/20" report that was done on Jamal and was one of many serious blows to the cause.

What one can be sure of is that no matter what kind of corny or vulgar tactics they seek to employ will undoubtably backfire.

If they further besmirch the name of a dead police officer in a city awash in violent crime, they will only anger citizens who are more fed up with the blood soaked streets than they are apprehensive of the police.

If they again target Maureen Faulkner they will help to publicize her book as they make the point for her that the "movement" is one of no shame, integrity, lacking in humanity, and in the case of "bloody shirt" incident, prone to just making things up.

What they also cannot do is offer a viable version of the events of December 9, 1981, corroborated by the facts, that points to anyone other than Jamal as the shooter. This is something that no amount of "teach-ins" and propaganda as offered by an anti-American, German "hacktivist", can alter with their mental gymnastics.

They only possible route they can conceivably go is the tried and true attacks on the Fraternal Order of Police and perhaps Michael Smerconish. However, no amount of hatred of a police union or the man who is responsible for debunking so many of the Mumia myths can change the fact that Mumia is a murderer and that those who continue to support efforts to release him, are either duped, cynical opportunists, or morally blind political ideologues.