" Why did the AAA run amok, when all other involved scholarly institutions instead worked to document the phenomenal extent of Tierney’s falsehoods? ... But it also looks to me like the AAA went overboard because of problematic bias of the sort where political liberalism is mistaken for intellectualism. Once the Yanomamö were positioned as an oppressed minority (which they are) while Chagnon and Neel were positioned as evil right-wing Nazis (which they were not), it seemed clear who would count as a hero and who as a villain. "

" “If a group circles around sacred values, they will evolve into a tribal-moral community,” he said. “They’ll embrace science whenever it supports their sacred values, but they’ll ditch it or distort it as soon as it threatens a sacred value.” "

" All these things are true. And all these things are enormous outrages and significant problems. It's just that they are not the same outrage or the same problem. And Naomi Klein's relentless lumping together of all her ideological adversaries in the service of a monocausal theory of the world ultimately renders her analysis perfect nonsense. "

" At the headquarters, each day can bring a series of “meetings”: interrogation and therapy sessions that can last a half-hour or all night, depending on the issue or offense. “When you first come around, they’re very light. They say, `It’s a messed-up world, we want to show you how fortunate you are to have come to MOVE,”’ Lori Allen said. “But the longer you’re around, the harder and heavier and more intense they get – if you have a certain look in your eyes, they will have a meeting on you,” she added. “You’re constantly being told you’re racist, you’re bigoted, you’re not good enough, strong enough or loyal enough. You could never measure up, because you’ve never met John Africa.” "

"But mixed with the left's prisoner fetish is something even uglier, especially in a movement supposedly devoted to economic justice: a hideous class bias. The telegenic dreadlocked Mumia, with his books and commencement addresses and public radio commentaries, is so much more loveable than, say, Anthony Porter, the scruffy Illinois African-American man with a low IQ who was wrongly locked up on death row until a group of Northwestern students, led by a crusading journalism professor, came up with the evidence that freed him late last year.

Those students, armed less with ideology than curiosity, have helped free three death row prisoners, while Mumia's minions are content with marching in the streets and signing petitions on behalf of their cuddly convict."

"And no one can dispute this crowning absurdity: the only two people who know exactly what happened on Dec. 9, 1981, have refused to utter a single word of explanation. One is Abu-Jamal. The other is his brother Billy Cook,"

" Those blacks who are aware of Mumia have long exhibited ambivalence toward his cause. ... Those black leftists and nationalists who support Mumia know that they need to win the hearts and minds of average black people over to his cause. Angela Davis, for example, bemoans the lack of involvement of black ministers in the battle. ... The Rev. Al Sharpton, interviewed in the same article, agreed, "

"A principled person can both reject the call of Free Mumia and still be a committed opponent of the death penalty. In the same sense, it's quite possible that Mumia can be both guilty and framed by the police. Such outrages happen every day in America. "