25 May 2010

John Africa on Water & Pollution

John Africa on Water & Pollution
[col. writ. 5/20/10] (c) '10 Mumia Abu-Jamal


It was after the first major MOVE confrontation in Philadelphia, August 8th, 1978, when MOVE Founder, John Africa dictated The Judge's Letter, 15 pages of pointed outrage, not just of MOVE's treatment by the government, but of corporate and state pollution of the natural world.

His words came back to me in the aftermath of one of the most destructive oil spills in history: the tens of thousands of barrels of oil boiling from below the Gulf, the direct result of corporate greed and government collusion; deregulation in everything but name.

In the very beginning of his letter, John Africa wrote:
The courts are the tools of industrial plague, granting big
business privilege to poison our earth...[T]aking our water, familiar
and clean, and turning it into a potion that's poison...[.p1]

These words brought to mind the recent U.S. Supreme Court case which greatly lessened damages on Exxon for its role in the 1989 leak of the oil tanker, Exxon Valdez in Alaska, destroying shore land and animal life for decades -- indeed, it has still not recovered.

Of water pollution generally, John Africa observed:
INDUSTRY HAS NOT ONLY POISONED THE SOURCE OF LIFE,
IT HAS CREATED ANOTHER MULTI-BILLION DOLLAR INDUSTRY
TO SO CALLED CLEAN IT UP, ALL THEM CHEMICALS THEY PUT
IN THE WATER TO SO CALL[ED] PURIFY IT IS A RESULT OF
THE SAME INDUSTRY THAT POISONED THE WATER, SO THAT
THEY NOT ONLY MAKE MULTI-BILLIONS FOR POISONING THE
WATER, BUT MORE MULTI-BILLIONS FOR SO-CALLED
CLEANING THE WATER UP...[.p7]

In light of the great and continuing disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, John Africa could've written these words yesterday, especially given the recent announcement that British Petroleum (BP) is now pumping tons of chemicals into the Gulf waters to clean up the oil, the effects of which no one can predict -- for no one knows.

This is a massive catastrophe; an experiment on the living that may have effects that we may one day come to rue.

--(c) '10 maj

[Source: Africa, John, The Judges Letter (ca. 1978) (typed) MOVE Organization, P.O. Box 19709, Phila, PA 19143
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3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Amazing whacko stuff on this blog.

Fraud, lies and deception - ClimateGate exposed it all.

'Save the world' was the cry of fascism, the evil Marxoid ideologies of controlling people from what the think to what they eat - Collectivist genocidal massmurders the whole bunch of the loonie left, inept and intellectual impotent, blind to all the cruelties throughout history from their lunatic inspired ideologies.

Oh, but we are the 'good ones', we stand for the poor and save the world - our intentions are good - War is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strenght.

And so they went repeating the folly, repeating history, in all their ignorant stupidity the lift prepares for murder, mayhem and destruction of the civilized society, they are blindfolded and can't see the consequence of their actions and ideological motivated deeds, they are believers and think they are the 'good ones', just like the Nazis...

chill breeze said...

Thanks for this post! Be interested to read the entire 'Judge's Letter' from John Africa. The MOVE organization were green before it became a household word. Set The Captives Free!

regarding the previous 'comment' from anonymous: sorry to see your medication is wearing out.

AMA LIVE! said...

Its good to be able to breathe through the written word.

When are they going to free Mumia Abu Jamal? Or perhaps, he is already free...as yet, his voice still rings out where they sought to silence him...

Reading this and gorging myself on YouTube videos about the MOVE organization, Mumia and various other initiatives, inspires me tocontinue to MOVE... I am fully aware that revolution begins with one, within one...I always have been. It is comforting to know that 'MY TRUTH' is in fact a 'UNIVERSAL TRUTH'...

Just a side note:
'Anonymous', when you do not have the courage to put your name beside your fatuous comments, you are a living contradiction of everything you claim to be convicted about.

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