Date: Mon, 17 Mar 1997 16:33:33 -0800 (PST)
Subject: M-TH: Re: M-I: fellow zubatovists!


Sid --  In fact I did not know what "Zubatovist" meant; the very 
obscurity of the denunciation made it seem laughable enough, and I just 
assumed it was another ideological deviation.  As for my article, as it 
indicated, I looked at evidence on both sides of the Mumia case 
and concluded that, Phillie cops being racist shits though they are, it 
was not unreasonable to conclude Mumia did, in fact, shoot the cop he 
found beating Mumia's brother over the head with a flashlight.  That 
article also noted that the original trial was grossly unfair to Mumia, 
and stated my belief that he should have a new trial.  Since publishing 
that article, I have learned that Adolph Reed expressed similar 
misgivings about the quasi-religion of Mumia-ism.  A lot of folks on the 
left had such misgivings.  But many progressives operate on the principle 
of "better activism through self-hypnosis."  I don't.  At the risk of 
upsetting the Church of the Precious Radical Martyr, I put my doubts in 
ink, and have had to put up with morons who accuse me of ... 
Zubatovism, or whatever.  That's okay.  Mumia is a fine writer, the cops 
in Philadelphia are pigs, and it is really too bad he shot one of them in 
a fit of anger.  The real world is sufficiently complex to make 
all three statements -- and still, upon examining the record, to agree 
that the man deserves a new trial.  If some people need require a 
simplistic morality tale to function politically, that is all the more 
reason a gadfly like me is necessary, from time to time.  -- cheers, Scott  

	



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