As Republicans anoint Bush, Cheney:  MUMIA SUPPORTERS SEIZE PHILLY STREETS
Militant youths defy police--470 arrested

By Brian Becker-  Philadelphia

 Thousands of young people poured into the streets of Philadelphia Aug. 1, surrounding the buses of Republican Convention delegates, blocking intersections and courageously holding their ground against heavily armed police.

 "No justice, no peace, until Mumia is released" was a chant heard over and over as the youths tied up downtown Philadelphia in large and small actions starting at 3:30 p.m. and continuing through rush hour and well into the evening. By the end of the day 470 people had been arrested.

While it was the Republican National Convention that originally sparked the Call for protests, it was clear that the Philadelphia police had become a focus for demonstrators. It was easy to see why.

 In an incident eerily reminiscent of the Rodney King beating in Los Angeles, cops were caught on videotape July 12 carrying out the lynch-mob-style  beating of an unarmed Black man, Thomas Jones.

 A few days later a cop gunned down Robert Brown, an emotionally unstable homeless man, in the middle of the Amtrak train station. His crime: he had raised a chair against police officers in the train terminal.

 The police in Philadelphia framed-up death-row prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal in 1981, as they have hundreds of innocent African American and Latino prisoners who  were only recently released after the web of police misconduct and  wrongful arrests was exposed in court actions.

 In the hours preceding the demonstrations, police raided the offices of  protest organizers, confiscating their puppets and literature. The police also  arrested 80 people during the raid. This is the same tactic the police  used in  Washington, illegally shutting down the protest headquarters on April 15,  prior to the mass protest against the IMF.

 Police brutality was met with stiff resistance and determination on Aug.  1. The police had the guns and clubs. They violently attacked   demonstrators, especially after the 6 p.m.-7 p.m. news hour had ended.  But the youths fought back.  Police reported that the windows of 20 police cruisers were broken in the daylong  confrontations and skirmishes.

 TWO PHILADELPHIAS ON DISPLAY

 Philadelphia was a city of contrasts that day. Inside the First Union Center was the assembled throng of Republican Convention delegates. Ninety-seven  percent white, mostly rich, they represent the most right wing and racist political  sector in the United States.

 Their swank, minutely scripted extravaganza ran as a free infomercial on all TV networks. The lavish convention banquets and parties were paid for by  a generous gift of more than $28 million from Microsoft, General Motors,  Lockheed-Boeing and other capitalist corporations and banks.

 Outside, thousands of youths took to the streets carrying placards  bearing the likeness of two death-row prisoners. One was Shaka   Sankofa/Gary Graham, who Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush executed on June 22. The  other was Mumia Abu-Jamal, who sits on Pennsylvania's death row awaiting   execution.  Across the placard was emblazoned the slogan, "Not one more lynching!"

 Many organizations participated in civil disobedience, mass marches and other protest activities in defense of Abu-Jamal and against the prison-industrial  complex Aug. 1. They included the New York Free Mumia Coalition, International Concerned Family & Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal, Hunter  College Student   Liberation Action Movement, New York Direct Action Network, Philadelphia Direct Action  Group, Refuse & Resist!, International Action Center, Workers World Party  and others.

 While anti-racist demonstrators "locked down" intersections at 16th St.  and Vine, 12th St. and Market, 30th St. and Market, and many other strategic locations, a march led by the International Action Center was  joined by hundreds of militant youths chanting "Free Mumia, remember  Shaka." As that demonstration grew in numbers and militancy it poured  into the streets.

 At one point the marchers surrounded a chartered bus as it was picking up   Republican delegates at their hotel. Prevented from moving for more than  20 minutes by the throng of marchers, the delegates were confronted with George  Bush and the Republican Party's ugly record of racism, toleration of the KKK  and other white supremacist organizations, executions and union busting.

 Just blocks from the First Union Center, a delegation organized by the  IAC was arrested while carrying a huge six-foot-wide sign with Sankofa's picture.  Eight IAC members were arrested.

 "George Bush is guilty of the murder of Shaka Sankofa, an innocent Black   man," stated Larry Holmes, an IAC leader who was arrested. "We will not  let the  memory of Shaka fade away. Bush is a racist murderer. The death penalty  is an extension of lynch-law justice in the USA. We will remember Shaka as we fight to free  our brother, Mumia Abu-Jamal."

 Mike Africa Jr. of the MOVE Organization was also arrested at the  demonstration. While some demonstrators were engaged in civil  disobedience, a large number were arrested when they were victimized by police attacks and sweeps. Africa was not carrying out civil disobedience.

 "Mike Africa's arrest shows a pattern of harassment ... to intimidate   MOVE members," stated a MOVE press release. Africa's parents were both imprisoned  in a police action against the organization in 1978. On May 13, 1985,  Philadelphia police dropped a bomb on the MOVE house, killing 5 adults   and four children in a blaze that wiped out an entire African American neighborhood.

 NEXT STOP: DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION

 Dozens of protests, meetings and direct actions were held in opposition   to the convention. Supporters of Abu-Jamal and opponents of police  brutality organized contingents in the July 29 march for health care, the July 30 Unity 2000  march, and the July 31 March for Economic Human Rights, among others.

 While the convention has been a closely orchestrated event to give the  Republican Party a warm and fuzzy "compassionate" makeover, the event has  been exposed by demonstrators in the streets as a festival of corporate vultures  who profit from prison labor while celebrating an institution of terror that is reserved exclusively for poor people: U.S. death row, where nearly 4,000  people await their execution.

 George Bush's "compassionate conservatism" is a fig leaf for the racist  and anti-worker program that he represents. Texas has more poor people  than any other  state. It is a "right to work" state, which makes it illegal to have a union  shop in the factories, offices and fields. The labor movement dubs this  the "right to work for less."

 And George Bush has distinguished himself as a cold-blooded executioner.   He killed Shaka Sankofa, even though so much evidence pointed to his innocence,  because he wanted to show that the Texas Death Machine is infallible. He has  killed 138 prisoners so far, more than any other governor in U.S.   history.

 As bad as the Republicans are, the Democratic Party does not represent   any authentic progressive alternative. Both are parties that represent  big business and capitalism. The same corporations that fill the coffers  of the Republican Party make the same or similar contributions to the  Democrats. While they  have some tactical differences on domestic and foreign policy, both  parties have  supported and maintained the blockade of Cuba, the 1991 Iraq war and ten  years of genocidal sanctions that have followed, and the war against Yugoslavia.

 Both Democrat Al Gore and Bush promote the death penalty.

 It was under the Clinton/Gore administration that death-row prisoners   lost most of their rights of appeal. Shaka Sankofa would not have been  executed on  June 22 except for Clinton's signing of the so-called Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996.

 Clinton adopted most of Newt Gingrich's Contract on America. He  eliminated welfare rights for seven million children. He strengthened   anti-gay bigotry in the military with his notorious "don't ask, don't  tell" policy after initially promising lesbian, gay, bi and trans people that he would outlaw discrimination.

 Clinton promoted HMOs and the profit margins of insurers, thus abandoning  his pledge to provide health care for all people. After eight years the number  of people who can't go to the doctor has increased from 42 million to 44  million. Instead of providing universal health care, Clinton spent  billions on Star Wars and National Missile Defense schemes, plus billions on prison construction and the hiring of 100,000 more police.

 So the new movement that filled the streets of Philadelphia demanding  freedom for Abu-Jamal, an end to the death penalty and shutting down the prison-  industrial complex will move next to Los Angeles, the site of the Democratic  Convention.

 This is the right thing to do. Progressive change occurs only because of  struggle and militant mass action. That's the real lesson of the vast  changes that came from the 1960s and 1970s. The movement must be politically  independent of the capitalist parties.

 Without losing an ounce of its militancy, the struggle must broaden to  draw in larger segments of the working class, especially the lowest-paid  workers and youths.

 For information on the protests at the Democratic Convention in Los  Angeles from Aug. 13-17, call the International Action Center in Los  Angeles at (213)   487- 2368 or visit the Web site www.iacenter.org .

photo credits: Peoples Vido Network