A Significant Challenge to DON’T WORRY, BE HAPPY Conventional Revolutionary Thought by Mumia Abu-Jamal Excepts From a Review by Steve Bloom In the wake of the revelations by As for Congress, it may do some things Maroon the Implacable--The Collected refused to adapt to white settler-colo- intelligence contractor Edward Smowden, well, but oversight ain’t one of them. L. Writings of Russell Maroon Shoatz, edited nial society, and disaffected whites who that the US government reads billions of Fletcher Prouty, an Air Force officer who by Quincy Saul and Fred Ho, 2013, dropped out of that society. Creating an American’s records, and noted tens of worked with the Joint Chiefs of Staff on PM Press, Oakland, CA., 294 pages, $20. independent culture within territories millions of Americans’ cell phone records, various CIA missions, tells of meeting considered by others to be unsuitable for apologists for the PATRIOT Act’s draconi- with a Senator to brief him on undercover Reading this book was a rare experi- habitation. These maroon communities an snooping program rushed to defend this operations. According to Prouty, the Sen- ence: both revelatory and challenging. battled for decades against all attempts to governmental intrusion, by citing court ator told him before the briefing began, There are ideas here that you have not wipe them out, providing a refuge for es- and Congressional approval and oversight. “Keep it short. What I don’t know about heard before and that deserve to be caping slaves and a fighting force that was It sounds good, but what does it really it, won’t hurt me.” In other words, don’t engaged and discussed in a serious way. among the elements that led to a Northern mean? The court isn’t really a court, in the tell me. Everything Shoatz writes is intelligent, victory in the Civil War. traditional sense. It’s not in any courtroom The government says, “It’s ok. Don’t based in a deep, complex appreciation of Shoatz distinguishes “treaty maroons,” open to the public. It’s a secret court, with worry. Be happy.” the social and historical context. who won their own independence, then secret judges, who sit inside a soundproof From imprisoned nation, this is Mumia Russell Maroon Shoatz is not a house- attempted to institutionalize what they room in the US Justice Department. In the Abu-Jamal. These commentaries are hold name. Not even all those engaged in had won -- often agreeing to sell out the book The Shadow Factory by James Bam- recorded by Noelle Hanrahan of Prison work to free political prisoners in the US interests of other slaves or native peoples ford, we find judges on this secret tribunal Radio. http://prisonradio.org/media/audio/ have heard about his case -- though a cam- to their former oppressors in the process referring to the FISA court – FISA for mumia paign launched in early 2013 is changing -- and those he labels “fighting maroons,” Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act – as * A “Potemkin village” was a false- that. Go to www.freemaroon.org to find who never compromised the struggle for a “Potemkin* court,” or a fake court, that front village designed to fool the Russian out more. Shoatz is a political prisoner, a genuine independence. looks like a court but is really something tsar into thinking his subjects were well- former Black Panther and revolutionary In “The Dragon and the Hydra: A else. housed. activist from Philadelphia. He’s been Historical Study of Organizational Meth- behind bars since 1972 -- except for two ods” (2006), he focuses on how maroon brief periods when he escaped, earning the communities that refused to subordinate Cathelene Hughes’ Revolution nickname “Maroon.” More than 30 years themselves to any centralized authori- have been in solitary confinement. His ty were able to survive and continue to by Ramona Hampton ability to remain so in touch with what’s struggle, whereas those that attempted to This is a follow-up to an article that ran her tenant out in October. ColFin now happening in the world, to discourse establish more conventional forms of state appeared in the last edition of Turning takes the rental income from that home. intelligently on popular culture and polit- structures were consistently beheaded, the Tide. We hope you enjoy Ms. Hughes’ Her lot measures about 5000 square feet. ical events, is a testimony to his intense co-opted, or transformed into new kinds continuing struggle to save her home. In March, Ms. Hughes filed to evict intellect and profound perseverance. of repressive instruments, as in Haiti. His Strategic Property Management, the This collection of essays, written most- conclusion is that the proper organization- LOS ANGELES, 8 June 2013--Cathe- property management company hired by ly for the education of fellow prisoners, al model for genuine revolutionary strug- lene Hughes and her South Central Los ColFin, from her home. She filed a quiet is therefore in a popular, easy-to-read gle should be the multi-headed ‘hydra,” Angeles neighbors are turning themselves title lawsuit against Strategic, ColFin, and style. But it’s also filled with profound rather than the centralized “dragon.” This into the nemesis international billionaire Barrack, asserting that the transfer of her insights. Most of the material -- except for constitutes a particular challenge for those real estate mogul Thomas J. Barrack. In home through half a dozen titleholders one essay written explicitly for the book who have built organizations based on a late April, Ms. Hughes reclaimed her and several finance companies had so -- previously existed only in the form of version of the “Leninist” paradigm. South Central home on Wall Street and damaged the title that purchasing it consti- scattered pamphlets or manuscripts in the We have to acknowledge Shoatz’s her human right to housing from ColFin tuted fraud. files of family and friends. The editors insights. Yet there’s something that he AI-CA5, a subsidiary of Colony Ameri- If you stroll through her nearly treeless have included everything that was avail- doesn’t consider: even if the decentralized can Homes. Barrack, the CEO of Colony neighborhood you’ll notice every fifth or able to them. “Respect Our Mothers, Stop maroon struggles were able to survive, American Homes and its parent company, sixth house is empty, some waiting for Hating Women” (2010), with conclusions they weren’t able to stop the global ad- Colony Capital LLC, claims that he pur- the real estate company to slap on a coat that might seem obvious to those who vance of the imperial project that threatens chased title to her home in a foreclosure of paint and “genuine granite counter- went through discussions in activist and the destruction of our planet. Something sale last August. tops,” others already painted, sodded, and academic circles after the feminist rebirth else needs to be factored in, if we’re going With help from family, friends,and the sporting new windows with a “For Rent/ during the 1970s, takes on a qualitatively to dismantle the machinery of patriarchal Los Angeles Anti-Eviction Campaign, Se Renta” sign in the yard. It’s not to Ms. Hughes turned the tables and evicted difficult to imagine the remaining home- ColFin’s property management compa- owners, who seem to be at work day and ny. This otherwise unassuming block of night scrambling to make ever-escalating working class neighbors threw a wrench mortgages in the rows of decades-old tract into the collusion between banks and real homes, and it’s not difficult to imagine estate companies to convert homes to that in the near future, these same home- rentals and homeowners into homeless owners will, like Ms. Hughes lose their people. They have declaried their neigh- savings and years of investment to a real borhood a “No Displacement Zone.” estate billionaire. Colony American Homes uses Col- Strategic has sent a pair of strong-arms Fin to acquire “single-family homes to to her house twice, demanding “their” execute a residential rental strategy across house back, only to be rebuffed by Ms. the US,” according to its website. Colony Hughes’ determination. She has turned Capital’s investment plan is to invest in away the Los Angeles Police Department “real estate and real estate-related debt and the Los Angeles County Sheriffs, sent investments, non-performing loans, dis- by Strategic, on five visits, asserting that different meaning if we understand the white supremacy and imperial conquest. tressed assets, and real estate-dependent her filings with the court gave her custody context of the masculinist culture that I’ve begun a correspondence with Maroon operating companies.” Colony Capital of the land. predominates in a prison where men are on this question. From our exchange it’s has raised $2.2B to colonize U.S. homes Strategic has dragged Ms. Hughes incarcerated. This was also a prominent clear he’s an honest, creative revolution- in bulk and rent them out, according to in and out of court, claiming that they feature of the Black revolutionary milieu ary Bloomberg News. Since April, ColFin need an emergency judgment against her that Maroon himself comes out of. It thus One influence Shoatz names promi- has purchased twenty homes in South because the owner of Strategic, Peter represents a significant personal testament nently is Fred Ho, an editor of this vol- Central, Compton, and Watts. Baer, is being “irreparable harmed” by her by a human being who challenged himself ume, whose proposal to embrace “matri- Barrack privately or through Colony continuing occupation. Baer is claiming and the culture that surrounds him. archy” as an alternative to patriarchy and Capital has major investments in Miramax losses of $100 per day as long as she Subject matter ranges from the fraud “manifest destiny Marxism” Shoatz em- Studios, casinos, resorts, and a winery.