--- Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu> wrote:
> I know little about the case, but if I recall
> correctly, the original
> question was not really whether he was guilty or not
> but whether, as a
> practical political issue, it is correct for
> speakers at an anti-war
> rally to defend him.
Of course it is, why the hell not? I mean, it might not be tactically wise for some reason or other (divert attention from the war, etc.), but improper? Absurd.
Or more precisely, is the fqct
> that some speakers
> at an ANSWER rally _did_ support him a reasonable
> bit of evidence
> against ANSWER?
Evidence of what?
My general feeling is that we are
> right to defend our
> own! And that a "we" that does not include Mumia at
> least,
Yes, absolutely.
and probably
> Al-Amin, is I think not an "adequate" _we_. (I'm not
> sure what adjective
> I want here, hence the quotes around _adequate_.)
Legally speaking I wouldn't care to say, based on what I know, that the verdict was a miscarriage of justice in the el-Amin case--unlike Mumia's, where there is an unequivocal case for a consititutional violation leading at least to his entence, and this was so found by thedistrict court in a very careful opinion. That doesn't mean that it is politically improper to rause doubts about a troubling case (el-Amin) in a political context. There were similar widespread doubts voiced about the _acquittal_ of OJ Simpson, who was almost certainly guilty, although no one doubts the unquestioned right of jury to acquit for any reason or none.
>
> And before that the thread concerned Corn, and among
> other things his
> calling Al-Amin "Rap Brown." That puts Corn in the
> same category as
> those rather aggressively racist sports jounalists
> of the mid-60s who
> insisted on calling Muhhamad Ali "Cassius Clay."
>
I haven't read his piece, but Corn may have been giving el-Amin's old name to identify him to people who wouldn't know him under his new name, something that would not have been the case with Ali.
jks
__________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus – Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com