If history teaches us anything it’s that war changes everything, for wars by their very nature are both external and internal affairs. The Civil War, the most violent war in U.S. history, brought us the income tax; the establishment of Chicago as the nation’s meatpacking industrial center; the Homestead Act, which granted millions of acres of land to white settlers; and the Legal Tender Act, which introduced and systemized the use of paper money across the U.S. These wars, in Iraq and Afghanistan, have brought indefinite detention, Guantánamo, the so-called Patriot Act, and the regime of Homeland Security.
Under the rubric of national security and fear of terrorism, the Constitution, never truly reliable against State repression, has slid into silent obsolescence. Yet there is more. As the nation directs its wealth and technical expertise to the arts of war, the schools crumble, cities experience economic and social disaster, foreclosures strike millions, and joblessness soars. Unions are under attack in ways not seen since the 1930s, and the wealth is concentrated in fewer and fewer hands. Activists find themselves silenced, on the sidelines, and unable to rebel when Commander-in-chief is the nation’s first Black president. This is so, even after the latest military adventure in Libya. Quick. Why can the West assemble its war machines to ravage an oil-rich country yet can’t help Japan as it faces its greatest threat since World War II? Which nation faced the greatest humanitarian threat?
There will come a time when generations hence will look back with something like incomprehension as we now do at slavery. They will look back and conclude that this era was, above all, stupid. Meanwhile, the right has more juice now than at any time since the Know-Nothings of the late 1800s, as it wages a culture war to return to the days of Ozzie and Harriet, the 50s. For all intents and purposes the war is as much against workers, students, teachers, and the poor as it is against the Taliban and Al Qaeda. For they are being targeted and bombed with repression, joblessness, homelessness, and hopelessness amidst cities of waste. It’s time to organize, to stop the wars, both within and without. I thank you. On’a MOVE! From Death Row, this is Mumia Abu-Jamal.
These commentaries are produced by Noelle Hanrahan of Prison Radio.
