As giant corporations move production abroad, the poorest laborers in this country have become expendable. Just as the policies of the IMF are backed up by U.S. military power, the attack on poor people and people of color in the United States depends on state repression in the form of police terror and of the prison warehousing of a huge percentage of poor people, particularly youth of color. Immigrants and refugees are similarly targeted and held in wretched detention centers. This easily exploited source of labor is transforming American's prisons into its worst sweatshops. The criminal justice system is a daily insult to democracy.
Prisons silence thousands of voices from the most oppressed communities in the country.
Brutalized by the police and denied a fair trial, Mumia has spent 18 years on Pennsylvania's death row. His case is in its most critical phase and demands our presence in the streets of Philadelphia. Like the thousands of other prisoners on death row who face execution under the racist death penalty, Mumia's case illustrates the barbarity of this system. Bill Clinton's signing of the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act and George W. Bush's presiding over a record number of executions indicate the responsibility of both the Democrats and Republicans for these policies. This summer we have a historic opportunity to bring the energy that has been building for the past year to a collective fight, long overdue in this country, for democracy and human rights.