Mumia: ‘They are constitutional outlaws’

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This time, the Philadelphia chapter of the Fraternal Order of Police and its allies went all out to intimidate the Goddard students and administration into revok­ ing their invitation to Mumia. The controversy that the FOP created over Mumia’s speech was further amplified in the media. As a direct consequence of the hysteria that the police had stirred up, a number of threats of violence and sexual assault were sent to Godard members. At the last minute, Pennsylvania’s right-wing U.S. Senator, Pat Toome, was enlisted to write a letter to Goddard that included many of the FOP’s fabrications against Mumia—but he too failed to convince the college administration and students to back down.

Bob Kenny, Goddard’s interim president, explained to the media that the students’ choice of Abu-Jamal “shows how this newest group of Goddard graduates expresses their freedom to engage and think radically and critically in a world that often sets up barriers to do just that.” Dylan Byerly, Goddard’s associate di­ rector of advancement and alumni affairs, added that “[Abu-Jamal] brings up in racism, imprisonment, the prison industrial complex. I think these conversa­ tions are important to have. We encourage our stu­ dents to have complicated dialogue, and they don’t run from them.”

On the day after Mumia’s speech was broadcast at Goddard, the Revictimization Relief Act was intro­ duced into Pennsylvania’s legislative assembly. The bill was presented as amendments to Pennsylva­ nia’s current Crime Victims Act, and rushed to a vote merely 10 days later. Although a number of Black members of the House had indicated that they would Anyone even remotely familiar with my case knows about the “Mumia Rule.” That’s when the court or agency changes its rule or precedent to go against me.

When Amnesty International wrote about my case, that was its essential focus: that laws and precedents that applied to other cases would be changed when it came to me.

In fact, when my habeas corpus case went be­ fore the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, one judge in dissent, Judge Ambro, essentially said, “I know of no reason why we don’t apply our precedents to Abu-Jamal.” There was one reason: the Mumia Rule.

Now, the Mumia Rule has been enacted into law, the so-called Victim Revictimization Act, signed into law by Unconstitutional Tom: Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett.

What makes this remarkable is that Corbett, a former attorney general, knows perfectly well that this is an unconstitutional law, in violation of the First Amendment to the Constitution. An un­ constitutional law is like no law at all. He knows this, for he’s a lawyer first.

Interestingly, he’s so much a politician, that he was busy running for governor when, under his very nose, children were being raped and abused in the Penn State scandal. As attorney general, he was on Penn State’s board of trustees at the time these rapes and molestations were happening and did next to nothing—until the scandal broke.

Oh, he reportedly received a generous contribu­ tion from the chairman of the board and mem­ bers—and Jerry Sandusky, the central figure in the Penn State scandal. Nice job, Tom. Too busy picking up campaign contributions to protect the kids?

Every politician and every lawyer who sup­ ported this so-called law did so by knowingly vio­ lating their oath of office to protect and defend the Pennsylvania Constitution, Article 1, Section 7, and the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.

They took an oath to honor the Constitution— not their campaign contributors. They took an oath to protect the constitutional rights of all Pennsylvanians—not just their funders, the FOP, the Fraternal Order of Pigs.

By violating their oaths, they bring disrepute on their oath and their office. By signing a law they knew to be unconstitutional, they departed from the realm of lawmakers—and became constitu­ tional outlaws.

They passed a Mumia Rule, yes. But the damage they have done is greater to themselves than to me. n SOCIALIST ACTION NOVEMBER 2014 3

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Simela Pantzartzi / EPA (Left) Workers in Athens bang pots during general strike in July. Now, the country’s major unions have called a 24-hour strike for Nov. 27 to protest layoffs and pension cuts demanded by EU lenders.

In the fall of 2010 France saw the biggest strike since 1968 against a pension “reform” scheme that would actually cut benefits. Rail­ road workers and oil refinery workers were on an all-out strike for 17 days. There were huge protests and one-day strikes in other industries like the postal service, auto, edu­ cation, civil service, etc.; high school and col­ lege students took to the streets as well. It is estimated that 8 million people took to the streets or went on strike at some point.

But the pension reform did pass, and since then austerity has intensified. Not only that but the election of a “left” president (François Hollande from the Socialist Party) was the perfect excuse for the trade-union bureaucra­ cy to do nothing and go along with the layoffs and the concessions.

What happened since Hollande was elected in 2012? People had voted for the “left” to get rid of the unpopular right-wing president Sar­ kozy and also because they told themselves: it cannot be worse than the right wing. But it