Posted on 01/10/2006 1:22:10 PM PST by Miami Vice
Discrediting the legal system of a nation discredits the government of that nation. It not only creates suspicion about the government to foreigners – more importantly – it casts doubt among the citizens about the political system of that nation.
The criminal justice system enforces the rules of conduct for its citizens as they relate to one another. The system also has the authority to sanction those who violate the rules. The criminal justice system’s sanctions are the gravest the government possesses. As such, the criminal justice system is always the most controversial and prominent component of any legal system.
There have been many campaigns to discredit the policies and procedures of the American criminal justice system whether it is the federal, state, or local. Some of them have been justified. Fter all, there have been occasions when law enforcement has violated the civil rights of citizens.
Just as often, however, these campaigns have not been justified. They are merely the exploitation of controversial law enforcement policies and procedures for political gain.
Given the importance of discrediting a criminal justice system to a revolutionary campaign, it is understandable why those opposed to capitalism and democracy would do everything they can to discredit the United States criminal justice system.
Communist and anarchist groups (among others) have very often claimed criminals are “ unjustly convicted.” Their propaganda is the manifestation of these efforts.
The most famous of these propaganda campaigns have involved Sacco and Vanzetti, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, and Mumia Abu Jamal. Each of these convicted criminals was, and is, portrayed as victims of racial prejudice and unpopular political ideology.
It is why, for example, at the May 2000, International Communist Seminar in Brussels, Belgium, a resolution about Mumia Abu Jamal was issued claiming:
“…, Mumia Abu-Jamal is a political prisoner in the United States and is currently facing execution at the hands of U.S. imperialism…Mumia is a renowned Afro-American journalist, freedom fighter against police brutality and has become known as the "voice of the voiceless"…Mumia Abu-Jamal was railroaded to prison and death row in 1981 by the U.S. repressive state apparatus for the alleged murder of a policeman…” (emphasis added)
It is why Abu Jamal’s cause is that of the Leninist/Trotskyist League of the Fourth International. The November 1998 edition of their publication The Internationalist proclaimed, “ From the late 19th century on, the American ruling class has used the death penalty as a centerpiece of political repression designed to intimidate and outlaw radical opposition to its rule. There were the ….Italian anarchist workers Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti during the post-Word War I anti-immigrant “red scare”; Julius and Ethel Rosenberg during the post-World War II McCarthyite anti-communist witch-hunt. Mumia Abu-Jamal put on death row in the backlash against black militancy following the end of the Vietnam War.”
(emphasis added)
This statement by the Fourth International reveals how this “injustice” is nothing more than communist propaganda. Mumia Abu Jamal murdered Philadelphia Police Officer Daniel Faulkner in December 1981 and was convicted in 1982. The American involvement in the Vietnam War ended in 1973 - a decade earlier – and has absolutely nothing to do with Mumia’s conviction.
Yet, these cases of “injustice” were – and to a certain degree are - irrefutable truths of popular American culture. TV shows and movies have been made about each of these cases declaring them to be examples of discrimination. Regarding the Rosenberg’s, and Sacco and Vanzetti, the intelligentsia of their day pronounced them innocent.
Only the Abu Jamal case has received limited credence by the intelligentsia. Yet, despite the absurdity of the claims by Abu Jamals advocates, the mainstream media still felt obligated to investigate the Abu Jamal case because of the protestations of movie and TV actors such as Mike Farrell and Ed Asner. Their inquiries determined that the guilt of Mumia Abu Jamal was without question.
It is interesting that the claims of injustice for all three of these cases have been formulaic. According to the propaganda, each one of these people has not been convicted because of the evidence of their crimes. No, they have been convicted because they are victims of some type of racial prejudice - and because of their political beliefs.
According to the misinformation campaign Sacco and Vanzetti were convicted and executed because they were Italian (This ignores that one of their murdered victims was Italian). The party line also alleges that Sacco and Vanzetti were convicted and executed because they were anarchists – yet anarchists were not executed for their activities.
According to the propaganda, Julius and Ether Rosenberg were convicted and executed because they were Jewish and because they were communists. They were not executed because they were spies. Yet communists were not executed for being communists.
According to the party line, Mumia Abu Jamal occupies Death Row because he is an African-American and a black militant. It is not because he murdered Daniel Faulkner. Yet, black militants have not been executed for protesting.
The fraudulent nature of these assertions is illustrated by a December 24, 2005 Los Angeles Times article by Jean Pasco concerning Upton Sinclair, the famous writer, who ardently believed Sacco and Vanzetti were innocent. Sinclair wrote a novel titled, Boston, which was a condemnation of the Sacco-Vanzetti trial.
Pasco wrote that a recently discovered letter by Sinclair reveals Sacco and Vanzetti’s attorney Fred Moore told him that the men were guilty of the crime. Sinclair’s novel never mentioned this.
Similarly, the Venona Project transcripts - decrypted intercepts by the NSA of Soviet communications - established that the Rosenberg’s were indeed spies ( Venona also illustrates how important electronic surveillance is).
Will Barbara Streisand make a movie pronouncing the Rosenberg’s guilty as she did implying their innocence in the Way We Were? Will there be a TV mini-series or book that does the same? Will there be another “mock Rosenberg trial” by members of the American Bar Association (ABA),
as there was in 1993 declaring the Rosenbergs were not guilty – something that tells us much about judges and lawyers.
Many of the same people who claimed the Rosenberg’s innocence are claiming Mumia Abu Jamal is innocent. Ed Asner and E.L. Doctorow, among others, have declared these guilty people to be innocent. They were incorrect about their assertions of innocence for the Rosenbergs. They are incorrect about Mumia Abu Jamal.
The only thing that makes these cases controversial is the propaganda machine by organizations like the League of the Fourth International, the Communist Party USA, and those duped by them.
Michael P. Tremoglie is a writer who recently published his first novel "A Sense of Duty." His work has appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer, Philadelphia Daily News, Human Events, Front Page and Insight magazines. E-mail him at elfegobaca@comcast.net
Plugging "El Dorado" into the VCR just to watch A$$ner get blown away.
Sounds good
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