Mumia, Miami, May 1st

Posted April 22, 2009

Thinking forward to an auspicious May 1st this year.

May 1 is celebrated worldwide as International Workers Day. May Day 2009 promises to be more interesting this year given the increasingly deepening crisis of legitimacy that afflicts capitalism on a global scale.

For May Day 2009–in a city not widely thought of as exactly being a hotbed of proletarian internationalism–an impressive and highly diverse coalition of groups coming from the workers/immigrant rights’ movement and progressive social struggles such as antiwar/peace and international solidarity groups has emerged to organize a march and rally.

That city is Miami and the city’s May Day protest is taking place in its very heart of this city, a city that is much more readily associated with right-wing Cuban-American terrorism than international working class solidarity. The rally and march, complete with speakers, music and spoken word will take place during that Friday’s afternoon downtown rush hour on Brickell “Bank” Avenue.

Read more about this organizing here: http://miami.indymedia.org/news/2009/04/13053.php. Be sure to check the list of groups that are sponsoring it listed on the poster.

Thinking about Mumia. While remaining a living symbol of the racism, repression and complete injustice of the U.S. criminal “justice” system, Pennsylvania Black death row political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal writes about this year’s May Day and the tasks of the international workers’ movement. This while his own case reaches a very key legal conjunction (see, and be sure to sign the petition at: http://www.freemumia.com/civilrights.html

Here’s what Mumia had to say about May Day 2009. Thanks to Sis. Marpessa Kupendua for passing this along and providing the additional support information that follows Mumia’s column.

May Day ’09
[Speech writ. 3/23/09] (c) ’09 Mumia Abu-Jamal

While May Day has historically been a day of worker’s solidarity and a celebration of labor power, this is not a day or year like any other.

That’s because many nations are in the midst of economic recession and financial failure, and it is workers worldwide who are suffering from layoffs and mass firings in almost every sector of the global economy.

While labor is depressed, capital is aggregating to itself bigger and larger shares of national and global wealth, as governments rush to bail out banks and investment firms, but only if they are “too big to fail.”

Under the newly amended rules of capitalism, corporations (especially in the financial sector) can scam, steal, and hustle virtually everyone, and when the economy falls, the government sails in and bails them out with public money!

Under a system such as this, capitalism can never lose. It’s like a gambling casino, where the house rules change every half hour (or depending on who’s winning and who’s losing!)

But workers are losing.

Around the world, workers are facing lost jobs, vanished careers, foreclosed homes, and families broken and shattered against the grinding wheel of Capital.

This will be one hell of a May Day — but it’s the one that globalized capital has fashioned for us all.

Only if labor is truly globalized can it fight for and demand its fair share from the ravages of capitalism.

Let that be our mission for May Day — and for tomorrow.

–(c) ’09 maj
=================

Audio of most of Mumia’s essays are at: http://www.prisonradio.org

http://mumiapodcast.libsyn.com/
Mumia’s got a podcast! Mumia Abu-Jamal’s Radio Essays – Subscribe at the website or on iTunes and get Mumia’s radio commentaries online.

The Power of Truth is Final — Free Mumia!

Mumia Abu-Jamal’s new book — JAILHOUSE LAWYERS: PRISONERS DEFENDING PRISONERS V. THE USA, featuring an introduction by Angela Y. Davis — will be released soon! It will be available from City Lights Books at a 30% discount weeks before you can get it at any other bookstore, or from Amazon. Sign up for an email alert and when the book becomes available for sale you’ll receive an email letting you know: http://www.citylights.com/book/?GCOI=87286100448090

In support of Mumia and the publication of JAILHOUSE LAWYERS, organizations around the country will be holding “More Than a Book Party” events on or around Mumia’s birthday, April 24, 2009. If you are planning to organize an event or would like to order in bulk, you can also receive a 45% discount on any bulk orders of 20 copies or more. The book retails for $16.95, for orders of 20 copies or more the discounted price would be $9.32 per book, plus shipping and handling. Prepayment would be required and books are nonreturnable. If you or your organization would like to place a bulk order, please contact Stacey Lewis at 415.362.1901 or stacey@citylights.com

Let’s use the opportunity of the publication of this brilliant, moving, vintage Mumia book to build the momentum for his case, to raise the money we desperately need in these challenging economic times, to get the word out – to produce literature, flyers, posters, videos, DVD’s; to send organizers out to help build new chapters and strengthen old ones, TO GET THE PEOPLE OUT IN THE STREETS … all the work that we must do in order to FREE MUMIA as he faces LIFE IN PRISON WITHOUT PAROLE OR EXECUTION!

Please make a contribution to help free Mumia. Donations to the grassroots work will go to both INTERNATIONAL CONCERNED FAMILY AND FRIENDS OF MUMIA ABU-JAMAL and the FREE MUMIA ABU-JAMAL COALITION (NYC).

www.freemumia.com

Please mail donations/ checks to:
FREE MUMIA ABU JAMAL COALITION
PO BOX 16, NEW YORK,
NY 10030
(CHECKS FOR BOTH ORGANIZATIONS PAYABLE TO: FMAJC/IFCO)

FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:
215 476-8812
212-330-8029
Send our brotha some LOVE and LIGHT at:

Mumia Abu-Jamal
AM 8335
SCI-Greene
175 Progress Drive
Waynesburg, PA 15370

WE WHO BELIEVE IN FREEDOM CAN *NOT* REST!!

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