This is a good companion piece to that \u201cDays of Rage\u201d post that was going around a few months ago.
\nGives context for how things felt \u201cfrom the other side\u201d, also gives some color to the radical lawyers that got filed as \u201cinstitutions\u201d. Reminds you they were going to trial, arguing that their clients were revolutionaries more legitimate than a tyrannical standing government, and seeing that affirmed by lawfully constituted juries.\n
\nWhich is a downright English faith in the ability of the people to use the law to challenge the regime, honestly. That\u2019s where we were in the 70s.\n
\nIn one direction, consider how the emergence of these radical lawyers connects to the post-war expansion of higher education access. In another direction, consider this as the context for Bill Clinton\u2019s 1994 crime bill and 1996 AEDPA. Remember, the function of Bill Clinton was to relegitimize the Democrats as an executive party by renouncing the \u201870s.
\n\nThat\u2019s also the context for my take on Mumia Abu-Jamal, which was still a cause even in Naomi Klein-era The Nation. I think he probably did kill officer Daniel Faulkner, I doubt that Ed Rendell and the Philly PD - still substantially organized as a direct tool of violence - acting \u201cproperly\u201d could have won a conviction in the formal justice system operating under period constraints. \n
\nAnd that the outcome - leaning on the system to yield conviction, result that he\u2019s neither \u201870s-style freed or directly punished with extrajudicial violence, an optimistic intention of the death penalty in the \u201880s eventually ground down to indefinite imprisonment\u2026 well, that\u2019s the story of American crime policy since.
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