by Mumia Abu-Jamal
All across the nation, hundreds of people, and ultimately, thousands of people, are involved in protests against state or corporate policies and activities, and therefore, they are acting on their alleged First Amendment rights "guaranteed" by the U.S. Constitution. The Constitution contains a provision that states, in essence, that "Congress shall make no law, abridging the free exercise of speech," and further attesting to the rights of the people to assemble, for the purpose of seeking "redress of grievance" against the government.
Every schoolchild can quote these sections, so interwoven are they in the American framework and traditions of the so-called "law." Yet, for hundreds of people, the very act of assembly, of free speech, of protesting against state and corporate policies, means arrest, jailing, and, in some cases, convictions and sentencing, all for acts said to be "protected" by the First Amendment to the U. S. Constitution!
If someone can be punished by the state for the mere exercise of a so-called constitutional right, then there ain't no such thing as a right. If one is punished in the name of a right, then one is wronged for doing that which is right!
From the Seattle Demonstrations to the Mumia Demonstrations, and on to the D.C./Anti-WTO/IMF Demonstrations, protesters are punished for their beliefs - by a state that disagrees with the very content of their message. Where is the "right?" That famous baby-rapist and U.S. President Thomas Jefferson once wrote: "I have a right to nothing when another has the right to take it away." Spoken like a true slave-owner, eh? Yet, there is truth in his words, for they illustrate the limits imposed by governments against "rights" that they oppose.
The U.S. Supreme Court, in the famous Buckley case, equated money with speech, in finding that a law that limited political ads limited free speech. Thus, the wealthy, and those with financial resources, can buy speech, over every network, every TV station, and every radio station, and every media available.
For the poor, however, and those without resources, speech is an expensive commodity. For them, for trade unionists, for activists, and those even remotely in opposition to the corporate state, speech may be many things, but "free" it ain't.
For many protesters, the right of redress and assembly, is more than a "legal inconvenience," for they were not just arrested, mug shot, convicted and sentenced; they were beaten, brutalized, and in fact, terrorized by the state for their non-violent practice! What can the words written on the U.S. Constitution, no matter how glorious their promise, mean to them? What can a court victory mean? What can any of it mean, to men and women, in Chicago, Minneapolis, San Francisco, and D.C., who were beaten by agents of the state, for their protests?
What people learn from these experiences, is that the courts are not their courts, and that the agents of the state do not serve their interest. They learn that the words written in Philadelphia in the 1770s, no matter how gilded, no matter how deified, no matter how hallowed in the traditional national memory, are only words.
I think it was Judge Learned Hand who, when a litigant complained about an injustice in his proceedings, lectured from the bench; "Young man, this is a court of law, not of justice!" Like something out of a cheap grade-B movie, the people who dared to protest against the state's death machine were ordered to surrender their passports, and the government was henceforth to be instructed of any of their movements, anywhere in the country! Free Speech? Freedom of Protests? Free Assembly?
For well over two centuries after the founding of the U.S., the Constitution promised to protect the rights of all in the nation; that didn't pertain to African-Americans. And for a century after the U.S. Constitution was amended to include Blacks (The 13th and 14th Amendments) the courts spit on the Amendments, ignoring, restricting, and misreading them, to insure white supremacy, and the repression of a black, rural labor force.
The clock has changed, the scenes have changed, and the restrictive spirit of an ancient time now restricts the First Amendment to a dead letter.
Column Written 4/27/2000
©MAJ 2000 All Rights Reserved
[posted 5/3/00]
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