PHILADELPHIA 1985, PRISTINA 1999
A story of two bombings
By Deirdre Griswold
In searching for explanations for the hideous bombing now
being methodically carried out by NATO military planners
against the small country of Yugoslavia, the U.S. media keep
trying to find answers in the history of Balkan ethnic
conflicts. But they are looking in the wrong direction.
One place to look for a clue as to why this war is happening
is in Philadelphia, dubbed the "City of Brotherly Love" by its
boosters. In that city on May 13, 1985, a firestorm was ignited
by a bomb dropped on a house in a residential section. The fire
burned down the whole block--close to 60 houses. Eleven people,
including four small children, died in the bombed
residence.
It wasn't an accident. The bomb didn't just fall from a
plane by mistake. It was deliberately dropped by a police
helicopter. Just as in the bombing of a passenger train and
columns of refugees in Kosovo, the pilots knew what they were
doing.
The police of Philadelphia, the Federal Bureau of
Investigation, the mayor's office--all were involved in this
unbelievable act. As they explained it, they wanted to evict a
Black organization called MOVE from the house this collective
lived in, and they just couldn't figure out any other way to do
it.
They claimed the group was annoying its neighbors, had
strange habits, and--most importantly--was resisting their
authority. The same night that the authorities burned down that
neighborhood, they also forced a Black woman and her five
children out of another MOVE house in nearby Chester by lobbing
tear gas into the upper stories in the wee hours of the
night.
The media softened up public opinion after these atrocious
events. They ran stories about people who left MOVE because
they were "tired of the rats." The group's ideas about life and
the environment were called "irrational rantings," although
they make more sense than many religious dogmas.
In other words, the MOVE members were demonized in the
press, just as Serbs have been demonized by the Western
imperialist media for a number of years now. The press saw its
role as rallying approval for the deadly course of action set
by the capitalist state.
A few years later, a murder occurred on a luxurious estate a
few miles outside Philadelphia. It was committed by a member of
the fabulously wealthy du Pont family. John du Pont shot and
killed an athlete he had hired to be his personal wrestling
trainer. It turned out du Pont had done a lot of strange things
before that. He had his own private tank, which he drove around
his estate. He had threatened people in the nearby town.
Finally, he committed murder.
That's when the police came and oh so gently took du Pont
into custody. He was declared insane and is living out his days
in a comfortable asylum.
They didn't fly helicopters over his mansion. They didn't
bomb it or burn it to the ground. They didn't put the people
with him behind bars--like the MOVE 9, survivors of the
Philadelphia bombing who are still in jail.
Mumia Abu-Jamal, the Philadelphia journalist on death row,
tried to win public sympathy for the members of MOVE from his
prison cell. He explained how they were persecuted because they
were Black, they had their own ideas and way of life, and they
refused to follow the dictates of the oppressing state.
The authorities gave MOVE an ultimatum: surrender or we'll
force you out of your house with whatever it takes. These same
authorities have now given Yugoslavia an ultimatum: surrender
Kosovo or we'll force you out of your own country with whatever
it takes.
In both cases, terror is the weapon of choice. When the
Philadelphia authorities and the FBI bombed the MOVE house,
they were telling all the oppressed in that city and in this
country that they wouldn't tolerate insubordination. In the old
days, they would have called it being "uppity." Today, these
racists have to watch their language a little more
carefully.
The Pentagon and NATO are telling the whole world that they
have the means to pulverize any country that refuses to knuckle
under--and the will to use those means. They are exulting in
finally having overcome the "Vietnam Syndrome" that forced them
to withdraw from that heroic country even though their military
advantage was overwhelming.
This bombast will be short lived
No matter how sophisticated the technology, wars must be
fought with people and that's why the Pentagon brass eventually
had to leave Vietnam with their tail between their legs.
Because the U.S. soldiers, many of them Black, Latino and
Native, couldn't see any reason to fight and die over there
when racism, injustice and class oppression were riding
roughshod over here. Better to be a soldier in a real army of
liberation than a tool of imperialist expansion. Ona move!
This article is copyright under a Creative
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