Posted on 03/31/2015 10:12:08 PM PDT by Impala64ssa
Imprisoned journalist and former Black Panther Mumia Abu-Jamal is in intensive care for treatment of diabetes and is “not doing well,” his family said Tuesday, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.
Abu-Jamal, 60, was taken from the Pennsylvania state Correctional Institution in Mahanoy to Schuylkill Medical Center in Pottsville Monday after passing out, his wife Wadiya Jamal said outside the hospital. She says prison officials told her he is in diabetic shock.
According to the Philadelphia Inquirer:
His blood sugar level was very high – 779 – when he arrived at the hospital and remains at more than 300, she said. (Anything above 186 is considered dangerously high.)
A hospital spokesman said he could not confirm that Abu-Jamal is a patient at the hospital or release information about his condition. Family members said they have not met with a doctor, but have pieced together information from conversations with nurses and Abu-Jamal.
The former death-row inmate is shackled to a chair and receiving an insulin drip treatment in intensive care, his family said.
Abu-Jamal’s family tells Philadelphia’s ABC 6 that prison officials have failed to provide proper medical treatment.
Abu-Jamal is a former Black Panther serving life in prison for the 1981 murder of white Philadelphia Officer Daniel Faulkner. His conviction was upheld through years of appeals, but he has gained international support for his claim that he’s the victim of a racist justice system.
We’ll keep you updated with the latest.
A racist injustice of the highest order!
A travesty!
Oh crap! My toast is burning! Gotta go!
>>His blood sugar level was very high – 779 – when he arrived at the hospital and remains at more than 300, she said. (Anything above 186 is considered dangerously high.)
Friend of mine found out the hard way he had diabetes—went into shock day after Easter and got a 600. Part of high risk group, being black; very overweight, family history (mother had it), almost 40 y.o. He was told one thing that saved him was the fact he didn’t smoke or drink. He uses insulin tho is still overweight but prob has it in control.
Well, you can rest assured that it is.
One night I almost died from having a blood sugar of 435. That was after 8 hours of nonstop vomiting from my toes up every 10 seconds. That alone pretty much almost did me in.
But made it to the hospital at 600 am dying of thirst and sicker than I’ve ever been. I can’t even describe to you how miserable it was. I had ketoacidosis and spent the next 5 days in intensive care.
As a result of that night, I am scared to death of diabetes and high blood sugar as well as any sort of nausea.
So with this guy at a 779... dude is in Hell. He ain’t having a good time.
Pour salt on his body and let that slug melt away...
May the fleas of a thousand camels infest his rectal area and may the crabs of the entire Bering Sea fleet be deposited in his genital area.
May he die a painful, wrenching and agonizing death.
To hell with him...as soon as possible.
“Wonder if Obama would pardon him on his way out of office “
From the sound of things, I don’t think he’s going to get the opportunity, or at least I hope so. I have a very good old bottle of wine that I was wondering for what celebratory issue I could consume it. Mumia going to Hell is perfect! That scum has been using up oxygen for far too long.
Mumia will likely be out and ready to give graduation speeches before you know it.
It doesn't matter anyway. All Mumia has to do is hang on until January 2017.
Then he and all of his democrat buddies are going to be pardoned.
If does die, he'll become a martyr.
So who is the culprit here and who is guilty RATS?
Prayers for his soul.
I don’t think people should be jailed for committing journalism, even when they deserve it.
“Sorry to disappoint, but DKA is very treatable.”
Yes, but EVERY TIME your BS is out of control, irreparable CV damage is being done. My wife has type II, and we have a number of family members who are full-blow diabetics, so while your statement is true, Mumia is not in a good place. What I’d like to know is what is the bastard’s A1C. If we knew that, we would know better if he’s going to croak any time soon.
Free Republic
Browse · Search Bloggers & Personal
Topics · Post Article
Skip to comments.
(Oct. 2003) Mumia made honorary citizen of Paris
free mumia dot com ^ | Oct. 2003
Posted on 7/21/2005, 10:44:31 PM by doug from upland
Mumia Made Honorary Citizen of Paris
On October 4, 2003, the city of Paris made an honorary citizen of celebrated US death row inmate and black activist Mumia Abu-Jamal, falsely accused and sentenced to death for the 1981 murder of white Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner.
It is the first time Paris has bestowed the honor since Pablo Picasso was made honorary citizen in 1971, Socialist Mayor of Paris Bertrand Delanoe told an audience of 200 people, taking the occasion to attack the barbarity of the death penalty. In attacking the “barbarity called the death penalty,” the mayor said “as long as there is a place on this planet where one can be killed in the name of the community, we haven’t finished our work.” Raising his fist in a sign of solidarity, Delanoe then shouted “Mumia is a Parisian!” as the crowd cheered and applauded.
Black activist Angela Davis, a former member of the Black Panthers and the Communist Party, hailed the “profound sense of humanity” of Abu-Jamal, attacking American unilateralism and racist attacks against immigrants.
The movement to free Mumia Abu-Jamal “takes on a new sense in face of American unilateralism, the aggression against the Iraqi people and the racist attacks against immigrants which can only further gnaw away at the vestiges of democracy in the United States,” said Davis, a professor at the University of California in Santa Cruz.
Mumia Abu-Jamal, a former Black Panther civil rights activist and journalist who has maintained his innocence, was sentenced to death 21 years ago for the murder of Daniel Faulkner. and scores of movements and organizations have sprung up around the world in his defense.
Abu-Jamal is regarded worldwide as the most well-known political prisoner on death row. Another person, Arnold Beverly, has come forward to claim responsibility for the death of Officer Daniel Faulkner. Both the federal and state appeals courts have to this day refused to hear this significant testimony that should have led to Abu-Jamal’s freedom.
His case has provoked particularly vivid debate in France, which abolished the death penalty in 1981. French school children are required to study the case as part of their education.
Mumia Abu-Jamal’s message to the French on the occasion of his being awarded honorary citizenship of Paris.
My friends, comrades, brothers and sisters. I want to take this opportunity to thank our good friends in France, to the many good people who are deeply opposed to the modern barbarity of the death penalty, and for those who have retained the taste of liberty that sparked the great French revolution over two hundred years ago.
I have been forced to think about what it means to be a citizen, even an honorary one. I have often wondered what such a thing meant for I have seen precious little of what it means in my life and in the lives of many of my contemporaries. It must mean far more than the empty right to vote. Does it mean the so-called right to have Black jurors summarily removed from your jury? The right to have openly racist judges appointed to decide whether you shall live or die? The right to a trial that violates the laws of the land and indeed international law?
If that is so then I am an American citizen and it has become virtually meaningless. I am hoping that an honorary citizenship may mean something more. What more? I don’t have the experience to know. But I do have the knowledge to thank you and the French Republic for–since the time of Mitterand, 1981, taking the side of life. There are indeed over three thousand men, women, and juveniles, who if they could would surely thank you all for such a choice.
I am but one of them. So I thank you all. Merci, On a Move! LONG LIVE JOHN AFRICA!
(Note: Rachel Corrie of bulldozer fame was from Evergreen State College)
1999, A Graduation to Remember (Evergreen State College - the ones blocking military shipments)
academic dot evergreen dot edu ^ | orig 1999 | Peter Bohmer
Posted on 11/14/2007, 6:27:44 PM by doug from upland
A Graduation Day to Remember
by Peter Bohmer
June 20, 1999
“Out of the many here assembled, it is the heart of he or she that I seek who looks at a life of vapid materialism, of capitalist excess, and finds it simply intolerable. It may be 100 of you, or 50, or even ten, or even one of you who makes that choice. I am here to honor and applaud that choice and to warn you that, though the suffering may indeed be great, it is nothing to the joy of doing the right thing.”
Mumia Abu-Jamal, at the Evergreen State College, Olympia, Washington, June 11, 1999
Mumia Abu-Jamal gave a memorable speech, recorded from Pennsylvania death row, to 8000 attendees, including more than 1200 graduating students, at the Evergreen State College graduation on June 11, 1999. During his 13 minute talk, you could have heard a pin drop, as almost everyone listened intently to Mumia’s articulate voice. Drawing on the history of racist oppression in this country and the resistance to it, Mumia Abu-Jamal, in his taped address prepared for the graduating students, urged them to live their lives deliberately and join the revolutionary struggle. He pointed out that “race” is a social construct but also a social reality, and that whites had made and could and should make the choice to fight against white supremacy and the evils of capitalism, and for the liberation of all people. At the conclusion of his talk, a large majority of the audience gave him a loud standing ovation that could be heard all the way to his death row cell and hopefully to the U.S. Supreme Court, who will soon decide whether to consider the case. The attention paid by the graduating Evergreen students, their friends and relatives to Mumia’s words, the interest in Mumia and the issues he raised, and the solidarity expressed by the applause, was very moving.
The idea of Mumia being the graduation speaker had been put forward in the fall of 1997. Although not initially successful, the idea did not die. In the last year, a group of students, primarily seniors, with support from a small group of faculty, staff and alumni organized to promote Mumia Abu-Jamal as the speaker for the 1999 graduation at the Evergreen State College, a 4000 student state college in Olympia, Washington.
Graduating students have usually had the primary say in selecting the speaker. Since it was announced in March, 1999 that Mumia was going to be a graduation speaker a furious, although ultimately unsuccessful campaign was launched to prevent this from happening.
Friday, June 11th , 1999 was a great day, especially for those who had worked so hard to have Mumia Abu-Jamal’s voice be heard. One result of the organizing and outreach to gain support for Mumia speaking, is an increased awareness at Evergreen about the unjust nature of his conviction. By hearing him speak at graduation, there is also a more personal connection to Mumia which will lead to increased efforts to gain a new trial and prevent his execution. The national publicity will also help. At the college and in Olympia, it has led to real discussion about the racism and injustice in all aspects of the criminal justice system: police brutality; inadequate legal representation for most defendants; unjust arrests and imprisonment of political activists (especially people of color); juries that are often not of ones peers; the imprisonment with longer sentences of almost two million people, disproportionately Black, Native American and Latino; and the death penalty. The Philadelphia Fraternal Order of Police, many other police associations and the “law and order” crowd do not only want to execute Mumia, they also are committed to silencing him. On June 11th, they failed. (See my ZNET commentary of May 30, 1999 for background.) Their campaign escalated in early June of this year.
GRADUATION DAY APPROACHES
Less than a week before the scheduled graduation, on June 5th and June 6th, Maureen Faulkner, the widow of Daniel Faulkner, the cop whom Mumia was convicted of murdering in the deeply flawed 1982 trial, took out big ads in the local newspaper, the Gannett owned “The Olympian” with the headline, “A Convicted Cop Killer, Speaker at Evergreen State College Commencement?” In the ad, she announced she would be attending the commencement with a picture of her dead husband and asked people to walk out when Mumia’s speech began. The pressure to prevent Abu-Jamal from speaking was intense. Editorials in “The Olympian” and other newspapers, repeatedly called him a cop killer; hundreds of letters and emails to the campus demanded he not be allowed to speak; a Washington State legislator demanded the same; and U.S. Congressman Tom DeLay, the Republican House whip from Texas, called for a moment of silence in the U.S. Congress on June 11th at 1 P.M. to protest Mumia’s participation in the graduation. DeLay called the college socially irresponsible. Socially irresponsible is something DeLay truly is an expert in. As June 11th approached, anxiety continued to rise. There were rumors that 300 armed cops were coming to support Maureen Faulkner and protest the graduation, that Mumia’s speech would be drowned out by bullhorns, and that hundreds would walk out. In response to her ad, an open and respectful letter to her, signed by 20 faculty and staff and distributed two days before graduation, contested Ms. Faulkner’s claims of Mumia’s guilt, and summarized some of the worldwide support for a new trial.
Maureen Faulkner demanded to address the graduation. The Evergreen college administration, to its credit, did not give her time to speak from the podium. The day before the graduation, the college president, Jane Jervis, in an interview with the New York Times said that Abu-Jamal deserved inclusion because he used his free-speech “to galvanize an international conversation about the death penalty, and the relationship between poverty and the criminal justice system.” This was a step forward from earlier attempts to apologize for and minimize Mumia’s verbal presence. Partly because of student organizing, the college did not cave in to the concerted and organized attempt to remove him from the college graduation. Students in support of Mumia became increasingly organized, strategic and effective in increasing the number of people involved in the campaign. There was systematic outreach to the mass media, the alternate media and the Internet. They sent out a message far and wide that Evergreen graduates were being honored by having Abu-Jamal speak; that he deserved a new trial, and that he was raising issues of fundamental importance for the future of this country.
For the graduation itself, the symbolism put forward was that Mumia was the canary sent into coal mine shafts to test for lethal gas. If the canary died, the miners knew not to descend into the mine, because it was poisonous. The pamphlet, which was handed out to 6000 people during the graduation stated, “Mumia is the canary in our coal mine. If he dies without a fair trial, we will know that we live in a society that is unsafe for all of us.” This well-received pamphlet concluded, “If we don’t defend justice for others, who will defend justice for us.” Yellow armbands and/or flags with a picture of a canary in a cage were worn by hundreds of graduating seniors and many supporters. It was decided to set a nonconfrontational tone at graduation and not respond to provocation by the police or the right wing who were sure to be there.
GRADUATION DAY
The local newspaper, “The Olympian” on the morning of the graduation headlined, “Eyes of the nation are on Evergreen for Abu-Jamal speech.” At 1:00 P.M., the graduating students marched to the main square on the campus and took their seats. It was a warm and sunny day, a good omen. After welcoming comments and a speech, by Evergreen faculty member Stephanie Coontz, that strongly encouraged people to listen to each other and bridge differences, President Jane Jervis introduced Mumia Abu-Jamal. She asked people to listen respectively and gave them the option to leave the square for the duration of his speech. Although some faculty and students had predicted mass walkouts, only about 15 graduating students walked out and another 20 to 25 remained but turned their backs in protest of Mumia’s speech. Perhaps another 25 stayed away from the entire graduation to object. These three forms of protest together adds up to only 5% of the students receiving their bachelor’s or masters degree, a very small percentage of those graduating. Given the pressure exerted on students to protest Mumia by the mass media, by police and by Maureen Faulkner who walked out with her supporters, that the overwhelming majority listened respectfully and attentively speaks well for the Evergreen community A significant number of those who walked out or turned their backs worked in law enforcement or had close relatives working as cops or a similar job.
During this day, the media swarmed around Maureen Faulkner but most students ignored her. There were no disruptions or confrontations at the graduation. Mumia’s speech was the center piece of a meaningful day. By 4:30 P.M., each student who was graduating had their name called, received their diploma and left with friends and family.
THE MEDIA SPIN
Not surprising but still somewhat disappointing was the TV and newspaper coverage of the graduation. All of the stories began with the protest against Mumia. Maureen Faulkner and the few students and non-students who protested Mumia’ speech were the center of almost all of the accounts. For example, the Associated Press (AP) story was titled “Abu-Jamal Protested at Commencement”, and the first half of the story only mentioned those who walked out in protest with all the quotes from this group. There was not one word about support for Mumia. The second half of the AP story included one short quote from a graduating senior who supported Mumia speaking at the graduation, a little bit about his case and two sentences from Abu-Jamal’s speech. The protest against him speaking became the main story, and the remarkable story that Mumia Abu-Jamal spoke at a college graduation with overwhelming support from thousands was not reported.
The press in the U.S. proudly calls itself free, and reporters no doubt believe they are objective. It was very revealing to see these reporters and the TV cameras continually seek out for interviews and comments from those who protested Mumia speaking, and ignore or minimize the far larger numbers who supported him. The supporters were far more organized with press packets, and prepared statements from a diverse group of students, alumni and faculty, but this didn’t matter. The media did not actually lie in the sense that they changed what Mumia said, or exaggerated the numbers who walked out. Rather the main story ended up being the protest against Mumia, which fit best with the status quo view that there are no political prisoners in this country, that we live in a country where for the most part, racism is a problem of the past, that people who are convicted of crimes or in prison must be guilty, that poor people are to blame for their poverty, and the wealthy and powerful are rewarded for their ability.
It is a viewpoint which is unconsciously accepted by reporters and their editors. They consider it perfectly normal and appropriate for people like Henry Kissinger and Robert Rubin, whose policies have led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, to be honored college graduation speakers, while they condemn Mumia Abu-Jamal as violent and inappropriate. It led these reporters to look for and focus on the protest against Mumia. This illustrates why media with a different framework is so important. “Democracy Now”, hosted by Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzales, played the entirety of Mumia Abu-Jamal’s talk, in reporting on the Evergreen graduation on their June 14th radio show.
A SUCCESSFUL DAY FOR THE LEFT
There was a Mumia benefit, Friday night, June 11th, after the graduation that many local musicians played at. In spite of reports of the media spin, there was a solid feeling of positive accomplishment by those attending the show as people recounted the many discussions they had heard or participated in during the day of students with their parents and relatives about the criminal injustice system and the death penalty. Many parents said they would look into Mumia’s case more carefully in the future as well as oppose the locking up of more and more of our population.
The silence about Mumia Abu-Jamal was pierced in Olympia on June 11th, 1999 and the ripples reached much farther. It was a day that those in attendance will always remember and for most, the memories will be about the social significance of what occurred. The struggle continues!
There, fixed it.
I hope the cop killer is in a lot of pain.
Blood sugar count at 779??? Yowza!!!! Force feed the POS a bushel if Snickers bars and watch the fun. Oh, and get video.
Like Mr. T says; "Get some nuts!"
Jeez. Sounds like he might die of his last meal, if they ever get around to it.
These black activists need to engage in a healthy lifestyle before worrying about blaming the white man.
Why do the so called “uncle toms” always look healthier?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.