!*Part 2 - Boots Interviews Mumia/Block Report Radio!

The Minister of Information
JRPOCC Block Report Radio
www.blockreportradio.com

Another World is Possible: Boots of the Coup Interviews Mumia Abu-Jamal

PART 2

The POCC: Block Report Radio show recently recorded a conversation where internationally known musician Boots Riley of the Coup interviewed political prisoner Mumia Abu Jamal. Although people can hear Mumia on prisonradio.org with his weekly commentaries, the Block Report believes that it is important to hear from Mumia in a looser setting where he can talk casually and interact, rather than just try to make a few concise points with credible evidence. The interview that we produced before this was with M1 and Mumia; it can be found at www.blockreportradio.com, along with the audio from this interview in its entirety.

by The Minister of Information JR

This is the final segment of the interview that legendary political rapper Boots from the Coup did with political prisoner Mumia Abu Jamal, via telephone. This is one of the many interviews that Block Report Radio has done in its project, to expose political prisoners to cultural and political forces on the streets. There are more to come.

In the 2nd segment of this interview, Boots and Mumia talk about unions, Mumia's favorite writers, as well as Mumia's comments on a recent Supreme Court decision giving Guantanamo Bay prisoners the right to see a judge. Check it out.

Boots: And I think that that was kind of the thought that I was having, is that the union movements that we see now, they are definitely not revolutionary or radical. There is some really good people trying to do things, do you think that people who do consider themselves revolutionary or radicals or progressives, more of them need to get involved with some issues that have to do with labor or economics on the grassroots level?

Mumia: I do. That might mean joining a trade union. That might mean just organizing among trade unionist and union members. You know in order to make this thing happen, in order to change society , all the factors of society have to be organized, and touched, and moved, and motivated. You see, if it doesn't happen that way, then there'll be increasingly smaller groups of people involved in organizations. And there'll be less and less influential. When people organized those union things that I've talked about, they did it because their lives were hell, and they also did it, if you think back and check back, the Supreme Court said "criminal syndicalism or syndicalization".The Supreme Court criminalized unionization, saying it was a burden on production, and a burden on business, and the private property of corporations. It took millions and millions of people organizing all around the country, to change that into the kind of normalization that...We now think of unions as a background noise. It's a normal thing. It's not extraordinary. Instead of what they could be, they're much better than they were. They can be much much better, but its going to take a change in consciousness among union people, and among organizers to work together, and work outside of the realm of work, and in the area of culture for example. I mean, we can not under-estimate the power of culture in a society where entertainment is one of the biggest industries in this country, in the world really, because that's where people hear things, that's where their minds are changed. Think of the impact of a Bob Marley for example.

THIS CALL IS FROM THE STATE CORRECTIONAL INSTITUTION SC GREENE, AND IS SUBJECT TO MONITORING AND RECORDING.

Boots: You and Commandante Marcos are two of the most beautiful right-on writers that I have read, to break down how society works.

Mumia: Thank you, brotha.

Boots: And who are some of your favorite writers?

Mumia: I have a lot, given the situation, I read a lot, but I've found that some of Huey's early stuff is, and it hasn't really been read even by former members of the Party. He was brilliant. He truly was brilliant. There is an old-head, a West Indian, who's no longer among us, he wrote some really deep stuff. His name was C.L.R. James. He was from Trinidad. This brotha was brilliant, because you know, he was a scholar, a thinker, and all of that, and he was also an organizer, a revolutionary, a political figure, a thinker, a writer, and one of his greatest collections of interviews and speeches was something called, "Every Cook Could Govern", where he analyses the world. He was just a brilliant cat. So I read a great deal, and a lot of people have influenced me in different ways; Eldridge. I was a teenager when I first got turned on to Eldridge. Eldridge was a very very powerful and brilliant writer, who influenced me deeply when I was a kid, and I still have that influence with me today.

Boots: What do you think about the Supreme Court decision letting people in Guantanamo get to see a judge?

Mumia: You know what is most amazing about that Boots, that 4 members of the Court said "no they don't". (Sarcastically Laughing) You know, I am surprised pleasantly that 5 members of the Court said that the Constitution covers them because they are under the jurisdiction of the United States of Amerikkka, okay. So there has to be some kind of hearing, or the availability of habeus corpus in federal court. But 4 justices, including the chief justice said "no they don't", and when you think about that, that should astound people. You know in the space of 7 or 8 years, in addition to Guantanamo, you have so-called "black sites", secret prisons, you have legalized for all intents and purposes torture, and there are other prisons that we don't even talk about, called Diego Garcia, and others around the world, where people are tortured in the name of Amerikkka. And the fact that more people aren't crazy about it, or making noise about it, or demonstrating in the streets about it, is stunning, and it shows you how repression really does close down the minds of people. Because people must be paralyzed by fear, instead of energized by indignation to say "this is not my country", "this is not the country I want", "this is not the world that I want to live in". Now we know, as African-Americans, that Amerikkka has rarely if ever followed its own Constitution. I mean, it would be a good idea if they did that. They certainly violated it for centuries when it comes to African-Americans. It doesn't even matter what the Constitution say, they passed the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendment and then said in so many words, this applies to everybody and corporations, but not niggers, you see? And denied Black people for a hundred years, the rights enshrined in the Constitution.

YOU HAVE 60 SECONDS REMAINING.

Mumia: It took people organizing in the streets, all across the South and the North to change those words into reality. Ona Move. Good to hear you Boots.

Boots: Thank you very much, and its an honor to speak to you.

Mumia: The honor is mine brotha. Keep doing what you're doing, because you're doing some real beautiful stuff.

Boots: Oh wow, I'm glad that you even know who I am. Thank you very much.

Mumia: I've read about you in the Bay View. I saw your interview, and it was all of that (laughing). Thank you brotha.

You could hear the entire audio version of this interview at www.blocktreportradio.com

-- The Minister of Information JRPOCC Block Report Radiowww.blockreportradio.com