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.
Time Bombs
Mumia Abu Jamal
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.
