Challenge, page 6

Most recently, 404 U.S. House Representatives passed HR 1955 titled the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007, which in the series of bills has substantiated the means and method for the application of martial law. This latest initiative establishes a crime for the promotion of ideological terrorism, and Section 899D creates a Center of Excellence for the Study of Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism in the United States under the auspices Department of Homeland Security. “On May 9, 2007, President Bush issued National Security Presidential Directive 51 entitled, “National Continuity Policy.” In it, he instructed the Secretary of Homeland Security to coordinate with “private sector owners and operators of critical infrastructure, as appropriate, in order to provide for the delivery of essential services during an emergency.”7 This policy federalized an FBI program of deputizing corporate business representatives under the auspices of InfraGuard as citizen spies for the FBI and Homeland Security in preparation for the implementation of martial law.8 All of these laws severely erode the U.S., Inc. Constitution, violate civil and human rights, and project and promote martial law and a fascist police state agenda. The question must be asked will the Black bourgeoisie require Barack Obama to reverse these nefarious laws that upend and severely limit civil and human right protest of U.S. corporate-government constitutional violations?

Domestically, the police, courts and prisons are the primary institutions for repressing the aspirations of human rights the mass and popular movement seeks to achieve, prisons being the last rung in the ladder of judicial coercion. Hence, the Black bourgeoisie must demand the closing and moratorium on prison building, strengthening support for the prison movement. They must call for reopening Cointelpro hearings and demand the release of political prisoners of war, and end of torture of captured revolutionaries, demand the abolition of capital punishment, and for the end of prison slavery as instituted by the 13th Amendment of the U.S., Inc. Constitution. When they fail to do so, the Black progressive and the human rights movement must take up this charge in a class struggle for national unity. In this way, the judicial process is explain as being inequitable, indicating how most laws serve to suppress the will of the Black masses aspirations for freedom, and show how the police, courts and prisons are coercive bureaucracies of corporate monopoly-capitalism. This will ultimately demystify the judicial process and will build a mass and popular consciousness to become fearless in confronting the State.9

At this time, the Black progressive human rights movement is factionalize on various issues subject to the socio-economic crisis, and the relationship of the crisis to a particular class or nationality. Such issues include the struggle in the trade union industry, miners, farmers, teachers, social services, and industrial workers' strike, and various civil rights issues, all are of substantial concern to many progressives in many different ways. However, factionalism tends to drain the masses enthusiasm in a struggle for change, ensuring their participation only when their livelihood is directly in jeopardy. This reaction in a struggle for change can preserve competitiveness that will serve to maintain divisions between classes and nationalities.

To remedy factionalism, the Black progressive forces must build national campaigns and mobilizations developing working class solidarity amongst the many progressive elements within a popular civil and human rights movement. It is in internationalist solidarity amongst the most progressive forces combating racist, capitalist-imperialism that will provide the impetus for greater unity throughout the entire mass and popular civil and human rights movement. The struggle for the preservation and restoration of democratic and civil-rights, must evolve towards a struggle for Human Rights which in turn will take the class struggle for national unity towards the final and complete destructions of corporate-capitalist class exploitation and racist imperialist neo-colonialist oppression.

While it cannot be expected that Barack Obama will function outside of the class interest of the plutocracy without the CIA threatening his existence, it is extremely important that the Black bourgeoisie is forced to challenge the presidency of Barack Obama on issues highlighted above. The progressive elements in the oppressed Black nation, euphemistically referred to as Black Americans or African-Americans, must begin to take the lead in developing a national agenda. Such a national agenda need to comprise the issues raised here, but also be inclusive of universal political issues affecting the daily lives of all poor and oppressed peoples in the incorporated United States.

The guiding theoretical principle that offers insights on how the Black liberation movement should govern its political determination is the implementation of a “Class Struggle for National Unity, National Unity for Self-Government and Self-Government for National Independence.”

February 21, 2008
We Are Our Own Liberators!
Jalil A. Muntaqim

7 Since April 15, 1861, every succeeding so-called President has issued an Executive Order proclaiming a national emergency virtually extending federal military powers and control of the United States, Inc. The introduction to Senate Report 93-549 (93 rd Congress, 1st Session, 1973), states in part: “A majority of the people of the United States have lived all of their lives under emergency rule… And, in the United States, actions taken by the Government in times of great crisis have - from, at least, the Civil War - in important ways, shaped the present phenomenon of a permanent state of national emergency.” See, also, November 14, 1994, Executive Order No. 12938, by then so-called President William Jefferson Clinton, where he states: “…Therefore, in accordance with Section 202(d) of the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1622(d), I am continuing the national emergency declared in Executive Order No. 12938.”
8 See, “The FBI deputizes business – InfraGard prepares privileged citizens to ‘shoot to kill' with impunity” by Matthew Rothschild, BayView National Black Newspaper, Vol. 33, Number 7, February 13, 2008. See, also, www.InfraGard.net.
9 In 1998, two organizations were formed for this specific purpose, the Jericho Amnesty Movement and Critical Resistance, and both continue to be a source of information and resistance exposing the overall criminal (in)justice system. Check: www.thejerichomovement.com and www.criticalresistance.org. The Jericho Amnesty Movement has also called for the reopening of Cointelpro hearings, in behalf approximately 100 Cointelpro victims, U.S. political prisoners languishing in prison for 30 to 40 years.
To learn more about the case of the SF 8 check: www.freethesf8.com or www.CDHR.org.
This article represents the political thinking of Jalil A. Muntaqim, and not a joint statement from the San Francisco 8. To learn more about Jalil, check: www.freejalil.com

To continue reading Jalil's Challenge, click on the following page numbers

1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6