March 25, 2005
The Richmond Offender
The Richmond Offender
In the past few days, dear reader, we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” have been lucky enough to experience an embarrassment of riches. As we noted in yesterday’s humble post, we were fortunate enough to receive the latest issue of “The Village Idiot” from one of our humble correspondents. To make matters even better, a member of our Richmond (VA) office has sent us the March 2005 number of the prestigious Richmond Defender.Never heard of it, you say? Well, perhaps that’s because the good ole’ RD (as nobody calls it) has only published two issues, and isn’t available on Al Gore’s World-Wide Web.
Yet the editorial collective in charge of the Rich. D (as nobody calls it) certainly has big plans for its publication. According to the magazine’s tag-line, the R. Def. (as nobody calls it) is the “Monthly Newspaper of the Defenders for [sic] Freedom, Justice & Equality.”
And what better way to defend for (sic) justice, freedom, and equality than with an article by convicted cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal? Our pals at the Rich. Def. (as nobody calls it) couldn’t think of one.
Accordingly, page nine of said edition of The Richmond Defender boasts Mr. Abu-Jamal’s opus, “American Liberty & Tyranny.”
Although TRD (as nobody calls it) claims that Mr. Abu-Jamal “has been imprisoned on Pennsylvania’s Death Row for more than 20 years after being unjustly convicted of murder,” we were more drawn to another biographical point it offers: “Mumia Abu-Jamal is an award-winning journalist, author and former member of the Black Panther Party.”
Well, we buy the bit about the Black Panther Party. But after reading “American Liberty & Tyranny,” we can’t fathom why anyone would hand him a writing award.
Take a gander, for instance, at the article’s first paragraph:
It is virtually impossible for one to sit through the meandering, imperial blatherings of president George W. Bush, and not hear, in the ears of the mind, the words of George Orwell, the great British writer, who wrote the pivotal political novel of the 20th century, “1984.”
We know what you are thinking, dear reader: The “ears of the mind”? What the heck is that? Why not simply hear something with one’s ears, instead of the more elusive “ears of the mind”?
In addition, we are glad to hear (in the ears of our minds, as it were) that Mr. Abu-Jamal is a big fan of George Orwell. But we think he ought to slink back to the top security prison library and give the book another read. We think he’ll be surprised to find that Mr. Orwell wrote a political dystopia about Communism. Although it may be painful for Mr. Abu-Jamal to realize this, George W. Bush is not a Communist. In fact, he’s not even a socialist.
If you thought the last paragraph was a specimen of meandering, imperial blather, just feast your eyes (of the mind) on the one that follows:
Almost with every ghost-written presidential phrase, its inner echo, like an interpreter speaking in another language in the halls of the United Nations, could be heard its [sic] Orwellian meanings: “War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.”
“Its inner echo”? What the heck is Mr. Mumia talking about? This sentence isn’t just rebarbative; it’s nonsensical.
Ignorance is strength, indeed.
