For many, the very mention of ‘Bombs’ puts one in mind of attacks by terrorists — although, in fact, the most well-known such attack, 9/11, wasn’t a bombing at all, but a series of plane-hi-jackings which were used to target symbols of wealth and power.
 
But this isn’t about such bombs.
 
It’s about social, economic, and racial bombs — ones long planted by politicians who are now out of office; ones which we are seeing arise today.
 
Millions of people are terrified, in deep fear of the bleakness of their futures, as joblessness and even poverty threatens their dreams.
 
We are all witness to the vast amounts of wealth passed to the banks and investment firms that caused the great economic upheaval of late 2008. Public wealth went to private businesses in a way that was unprecedented, even as public services got de funded, and as citizens who invested in bogus stock scams got swindled, left broken and dazed.
 
And while corporate media types mock the tea parties, they miss the deeper flood of fear — driven by economic experiences — that pervades the land, feeding rivers and tributaries of racism, xenophobia, paranoia and hatred.
 
These poor, pale trees we see are the sproutings of  the North American Free Trade Agreement, that Clinton-signed and supported bill which saw the leakage of manufacturing jobs to Mexico, and later to China. Those jobs, once gone, are gone forever, for business, given the option of cheap, non-unionized labor, will always go for it, for this simply means more profits.
 
And while these politicians served their corporate paymasters well (who are even rewarded when they leave office).
 
They served their constituents and voting publics poorly, setting them on the grim road to economic and social disaster.
 
For, what future have they wrought?  The only viable jobs left are service jobs – serving up burgers at McDonalds, or gigging as prison guards, or soldiers in brainless wars abroad.
 
Schools are de funded, and college education increasingly becomes the private preserve of the wealthy and well-to-do.
 
The bombs are ticking.

Mumia Abu-Jamal is an acclaimed American journalist and author who has been writing from Death Row for more than twenty-five years. 
 
Mumia was sentenced to death after a trial that was so flagrantly racist that Amnesty International dedicated an entire report to describing how the trial "failed to meet minimum international standards safeguarding the fairness of legal proceedings." The complete report is posted here on the Amnesty website.
 
Mumia is author of many books, including Jailhouse Lawyers: Prisoners Defending Prisoners vs. The USA, forthcoming from City Lights Books.
Donate
Leave A Reply

Subscribe

All the latest from Z, directly to your inbox.

Institute for Social and Cultural Communications, Inc. is a 501(c)3 non-profit.

Our EIN# is #22-2959506. Your donation is tax-deductible to the extent allowable by law.

We do not accept funding from advertising or corporate sponsors.  We rely on donors like you to do our work.

ZNetwork: Left News, Analysis, Vision & Strategy

THE WIND CRIES FREEDOM

The Wind Cries Freedom, the new book from Z co-founder Michael Albert, is a sweeping oral history of a future American revolution.

Through thirty interconnected chapters, it draws out the strategies, failures, turning points, and hard-won wisdom of a movement that called itself the Revolutionary Participatory Society. These are not the polished memoirs of politicians: they are the unfiltered accounts of people who organized in neighborhoods, hospitals, universities, stadiums, courthouses, and places of worship, and kept a shared vision alive through cynicism and exhaustion.

The result is speculative political fiction that reads like history: messy, human, and quietly hopeful in the way that only real experience and long thought can produce.

Get your copy and peruse more features on the book’s website below.

“Read it, argue with it, but don’t look away. The future it recalls is one we must still fight to deserve.”

Yanis Varoufakis

“The most unusual and intriguing combination of prophecy, manifesto, and movement building manual that I have ever encountered.”

Bill Fletcher Junior

“This work fills a huge gap in our social movement literature.”

Cynthia Peters

Subscribe

All the latest from Z, directly to your inbox.

This is your article this month.

We’re glad you keep coming back. If Z’s work has informed, challenged, or inspired you, that’s no accident: there are no paywalls, no ads, and no billionaire owners here, and there never will be. Independent media survives because readers choose to support it.

Billionaires fund their own media. We fund ours. Help us reach 1,000 sustaining donors:

Number of donors692
Our goal1,000

Sustainers at $9/month or more receive the digital Z Magazine.

Already a sustainer? Click here and we won’t ask again. Thank you!

Your reading count is stored only in your browser and is never sent to us.

Sound is muted by default.  Tap 🔊 for the full experience

CRITICAL ACTION

Critical Action is a longtime friend of Z and a music and storytelling project grounded in liberation, solidarity, and resistance to authoritarian power. Through music, narrative, and multimedia, the project engages the same political realities and movement traditions that guide and motivate Z’s work.

If this project resonates with you, you can learn more about it and find ways to support the work using the link below.

Independent media is not disappearing because the ideas are weak.

It is disappearing because platforms reward speed, outrage, and algorithmic visibility over thoughtful analysis.

More than 100,000 people read Z every month, free of paywalls, ads, and billionaire owners. It takes fewer than 1 in 100 of them to fund all of it: 1,000 donors who keep Z independent, for everyone, and build what comes next.

Number of donors692
Our goal1,000

Sustainers at $9/month or more receive the digital Z Magazine.

Subscribe

Join the Z Community – receive event invites, announcements, a Weekly Digest, and opportunities to engage.

OUT NOW: "The Wind Cries Freedom" by Michael Albert

Exit mobile version