>jmage at panix.com wrote:
>
>>is the standard we should urge (for those people who believe that the death
>>penalty is in some cases appropriate) that it's OK provided there is a
>>doubt as to innocence? isn't that exactly the standard used in executing
>>Diallo and Dorismund, AND in exonerating their killers?
>
>I'm against the death penalty, even for people who've shot cops. The
>Free Mumia movement mostly claims he's innocent and should be freed.
>Maybe the cop deserved to die, but that's a different story entirely.
Then, participants in the Free Mumia movement may be working according to the Adbuster principle of propaganda. "Innocent" is one word shorter than "Not Guilty." In advertising, the shorter & punchier, the better. It appeals to a populist narrative of an "Innocent Man Framed," and appeal to existing popular sentiments is part of the staple of movement propaganda.
In my opinion, Mumia wasn't proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt in a fair trial (as fair as trials of politicized black men can be in a racist capitalist society); the quality of evidence put forward by the prosecution is such that in a fair trial Mumia can't be convicted (since in a fair trial doubt should work in favor of the defendant, not the prosecution) -- hence Not Guilty. However, the presumption of innocence until proven guilty is the very thing that no black man, however rich or well-regarded (recall, for instance, the experience of Alton Fitzgerald White here, recounted in his 11 October 1999 article in _The Nation_: "Ragtime, My Time" -- White ironically was starring as Coalhouse Walker Jr. in _Ragtime_ on Broadway at the time of his arrest), can count upon, much less a politicized black man with dreadlocks suspected of killing a cop. Beyond the question of racism which imposes the presumption of guilt on black people (aka "Breathing While Black"), the war on crime has worked wonders in giving more powers to cops & the prosecution & in taking away rights of defendants & lawyers who represent them. Railroading Mumia has been a tiny part of the broader program of the war on crime, which has been a pillar of the post-Vietnam counteroffensive by capital; the surplus population (aka the reserve army of labor) produced by neoliberalism must be contained in some fashion, and locking up a large number of them has been the American choice. And you couldn't lock them up efficiently if they had rights & competent lawyers. In this context, going on and on that "Mumia _could_ have killed the cop" merely plays into the hands of law & order conservatism, for this refrain _reinforces the presumption of guilt_, instead of the presumption of innocence until proven guilty that we must work to make hegemonic.
Before criticizing the Free Mumia movement (which, in my opinion, has been one of the few successes that the American Left can claim in recent years, an incomplete success as it may be), we might discuss how to mount an effective war of position against the hegemonic bloc of the FOP, the police-backed "victims' rights" movement, conservative judges, law & order politicians, working-class conservatives, etc. The Mumia case is a good example of the power of this conservative bloc.
At 6:32 PM -0400 5/27/00, Michael Yates wrote:
>7. The US's largest union, SEIU, a union dominated by women and
>minorities voted at its recent convention in Pittsburgh to go on record
>in favor of abolishing the death penalty and also in favor of a new
>trial for Mumia. Good news indeed.
We should rejoice in this good news and try to build on this success. We can't change the mind of the FOP, but we _can_ help build a sizable, active working-class block against the war on crime.
Yoshie