Bullies of Babylon

Taken from a March 6 audio column at prisonradio.org.

The U.S. Senate rejection of U.S. Department of Justice nominee Debo Adegbile for the post of head of the Civil Rights Division is more than anything the triumph of fear and lies over reason and fact.

Adegbile by all accounts is an able, skilled litigator who had been an exemplary candidate for the post. But the Broad Street Bullies also known as the FOP [Fraternal Order of Police] had other ideas and they didn’t let truth get in their way.

In a mad attempt to hurt me they slimed a man whom they neither knew nor cared to know. And moreover, they soiled their own Constitution, you know, that document they swear to obey, honor and protect.

For it is bitter irony that the man nominated for the nation’s highest civil rights post was himself denied the civil right of due process and the human right of self defense, and this is so simply because he dared to do what defense lawyers are legally and constitutionally required to do: defend their clients.

For this he was spat upon by vile men; for this he was denied by a raft of lies.

What do you call a country where cops decide who will be judges, prosecutors and government officials? We call it a police state. And the greasy politicians who are paid to support this pact, who too, swore on the Constitution only to shred it, will usher in an era that will inevitably turn on them.

The late Albert F. Sabo, a judge, my judge, who was so biased he became an embarrassment on the bench, was a life member of the FOP. The judges of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court announce proudly that they accepted money from the FOP. They called it “campaign contributions,” of course. And whether bought or bullied, this millionaire Congress who now have 10 percent support for defending the 1 percent of wealth, have sold what remains of their souls to the highest­ ­bidder.

We need to cut out the middle man, and just paste a giant $10 bill on the podium and background of Congress, for they are all for sale. What they have shown is, “You get what you pay for.”

From imprisoned nation, this is Mumia Abu-Jamal.