Socialist Action /February 2002
Mumia Abu-Jamal's Statement to Anti-WEF Protests:
Who Benefits from War?
When George II (or is it III?) was enthroned in the White House by the
Gang of Five of the Supreme Court, as a kind of American Emperor, a thought
came to mind, chillingly: There will be a war. It came with such a clarity
that it was surprising.
Why? A couple of reasons. First, because George II was a man who was
a darling of big corporate interests, and such interests are always able
to profit from war.
For if there are armed conflicts in Sierra Leone, or in Kashmir, or in
Colombia, you can bet your bottom dollar that 70 percent of the weapons
used in these struggles are American manufactured. How could it be otherwise,
when the U.S. is the world's largest arms merchant?
Second, because George II learned an important lesson from his father:
that nothing spurs a president's popularity like war.
Now, one wonders, what's this got to do with the World Economic Forum,
the World Trade Organization, or the growing specter of globalism? The globalist
economic structure is undergirded by the globalist, capitalist, military
structure. They are interconnected.
Indeed, one cannot exist without the other. Consider the words of New
York Times writer Thomas Friedman, who wrote back in early 1999: "The
hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist-McDonald's
cannot flourish without McDonnell-Douglas, the designer of the F-15. And
the hidden fist that keeps the world safe for Silicon Valley's technologies
is called the United States Army, Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps"
(New York Times Magazine, March 28, 1999).
And what could be more secret, more hidden than the WTO, powerful, undemocratic
international multi-state, corporate entity that sets the rules governing
the lives of billions? How about the World Economic Forum, the body that
claims it brought the WTO into existence, and one of the world's engines
of the corporate globalist movement? These are the forces behind the war,
the vicious attacks on anti-globalists in Genoa, and the equally vicious
slurs in the corporate media against the anti-globalist movement.
War, ultimately, is fought for the wealthy, the well-to-do, the established,
with the working class and poor doing the lion's share of the fighting and
dying. It has nothing to do with patriotism, for the rich and super-rich
know no nationality higher than capital.
Think of these things when you hear the siren's song of globalism; it
is but a call for more war, more poverty, more exploitation and more death.
I urge you to resist it.
Ona Move, Long Live John Africa!
Down With Corporate Globalism!
© Copyright 2002 MAJ
Mafundi Lake
Mafundi Lake is a political activist inside Alabama's St. Clair Correctional
Facility-known as the "House of Horrors" because of the brutality
of the guards toward prisoners.
At present Mafundi is isolated in the prison's segregation unit on a
bogus charge of writing anti-American propaganda on a blackboard during
a discussion he was conducting concerning reparations.
He was placed in the segregation unit on Sept. 19, eight days after the
Sept. 11 attack. In response, Mafundi has filed a suit in the U.S. District
Court in Birmingham for conspiracy and retaliation against him by the prison
authorities.
Mafundi and other prisoners are also asking people to write to the U.S.
Justice Dept. (Washington, D.C. 20035), demanding an investigation of the
brutality by St. Clair guards, who often beat the prisoners while they are
handcuffed and shackled.
They are also asking people to write the warden, asking for an end to
the beatings. Write Warden Ralph Hooks, 1000 St. Clair Road, Springville,
AL 35146-5582.
Send copies of your letters to the Committee for Prisoner Support (CPSB),
P.O. Box 12152, Birmingham, AL 35202-2152.
Also: Commissioner Mike Haley, Alabama Department of Corrections, 101
S. Union St., Montgomery, AL 36130.
Solidarity letters may be sent to Richard Mafundi Lake, #079972, 1000
St. Clair Rd., #H2G-13, Springville, AL 35186.
Socialist Action /February 2002 |