Jesse Jackson is a phony!

If anyone doubts that, take a look at the political documentary "Street Fight." (I got it from my local public library). "Street Fight" is an Academy Award-nominated documentary by Marshall Curry that tells the story of the 2002 mayoralty election in Newark, New Jersey.

The two candidates who squared off in this nonpartisan election – both Democrats and both African-Americans – were Sharpe James, the four-term incumbent, and Cory Booker, the 32- year-old challenger.

Each candidate had various "celebrity" endorsements: Cory Booker was supported by notables such as Spike Lee and Cornell West; while Sharpe James was supported by Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson – the Fric and Frac of political phonies.

What sort of a campaign did Sharpe James run? What kind of mayor was he?

Well, during the course of the campaign, Sharpe James called Cory Booker: a Jew (which he isn't); a Republican (which he isn't); a gay (which he isn't); someone who had the support of the Klu Klux Klan! (which he didn't); someone who had 10 million dollars in campaign money when, in fact, Booker had only 3 million dollars in campaign money; and someone who, according to James, "wasn't black enough to be mayor," Booker being both a light-skinned black and Yale and Stanford-educated.

But that's not *nearly* how dirty a campaign Sharpe James ran. ... James used blackmail to try to intimidate Booker supporters. For example, if a Newark storeowner displayed a "Booker For Mayor" poster in his shop, James would get the Building Code Department to go down to the business and shut them down, citing some minor code violation.

But it wasn't just Newark shop owners and businessmen James tried to intimidate. Filmmaker Curry interviewed a policeman who after he expressed support for Booker was reassigned to an extremely dangerous neighborhood.

And so if you did something as fundamentally democratic as displaying a "Booker for Mayor poster" in your shop window … or if a restaurant owner dare hosted a Booker fund raiser … or if you simply verbally expressed support for Cory Booker – Mayor James would use his power to, as one person put it, "make your life impossible."

One woman who was interviewed by Curry who lives in the projects was afraid to display a "Booker for Mayor" poster for fear that she'd lose her public housing.

Curry himself was told by James' plainclothes police thugs that he couldn't film James giving as campaign speech. Why? Because James and his police thugs knew that Curry was also filming Booker's campaign, and the contrast between the two campaigns would be obvious to anyone viewing Curry's film. In short, only campaign lackeys were allowed media access to Mayor James.

During one confrontation, in which the police tried to physically take Curry's camera away from him, the police threatened to "lock him up" if he didn't stop filming and give them his camera. Curry refused. Another time the police pushed Curry around to where they broke his microphone.

At one political rally, a Booker supporter, wearing a Booker for Mayor cap, was accused by Mayor James of being a "terrorist." This was the same rally at which James lunged at a Booker supported and tried to physically assault him.

The strong-arm tactics used by James operatives – that Mayor James was fully aware of – were carried out by the police, by housing authority personnel and by building code inspectors. Newark was, in effect, King James' kingdom for 16 years and you dare not cross him.

Death threats were made against Booker and, after a while filmmaker Curry asked one of Booker's campaign workers if *he* should be afraid. Yes, said the campaign worker, telling Curry that he didn't feel safe and had just recently started carrying a gun.

NOTE: Booker – who is Stanford and Yale-educated and who was also a Rhodes scholar as well as an All-American/All-Academic football player – for several years and while running for mayor lived in Newark's Central ward in one of the projects: a neighborhood awash in drugs and crime, unpatrolled by the police and mired in generational poverty. … By contrast, during his four-terms as mayor Sharpe James voted his annual salary up from $70,000 in 1986 to $200,000 in 2002 – more than the governor of New Jersey made, and more than any other mayor in the United States made. James also had a 46-foot yacht and two vacation homes.

This then is the lowlife political thug Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton supported for mayor of Newark in 2002 – Jackson calling Cory Booker, "a sheep in wolf's clothing." Wow, talk about ironic! Talk about "The Big Lie."

One can only assume that Maritn Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X and Medgar Evers are all rolling over in their graves. Shame on you, Jesse Jackson. Shame on you.

But this is hardly "breaking news." Jesse Jackson sold out, long ago, to Corporate America. The Right Reverend is comfortably in bed with the multinational corporatists who have raped the planet and corrupted political systems the world over, the United States most prominent among them. In supporting political thugs such as Sharpe James, Jackson shows himself to be far from a progressive, but is rather instead a quisling, a defender of the status quo and an opportunist of the worst kind.

Jesse, you've come a long way, baby. There was a time when any progressive would have been proud to march with you. Now you're nothing but a transparent phony.

Congratulations, you're now part of the problem.

For more info on "Street Fight," see
http://oldschoolreviews.com/rev_2000/street_fight.htm .And for more information on Cory Booker, who lost to James in 2002 but won in 2006, by the biggest landslide in Newark history, see the following, especially the link that accesses Booker's recent interview with Bill Moyers -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cory_Booker

Yes, that would be creativ and uplifting but the USA in obsessed with power and profit not people.

Yes, that would be creativ and uplifting but the USA in obsessed with power and profit not people.

I agree with Jesse Jackson's agenda.

In some communities the military base or the prison is the major employer. We have a LOT of bases. Those communities will be hesitant to support cuts in the military budget or to consider non-prison approaches to poverty, drug use and mental illness unless there is a way to provide income for the families living there.

We need a plan to re-purpose these facilities and find positive alternative jobs for the workers / soldiers there. I can think of so many wonderful things they could be doing on our dime, including environmental projects, all kinds of mentoring and enrichment for young people etc.

Military bases are full of young people with potential and a need for lifetime skills. Soldiers could be trained and put to use to build clean energy facilities, to repair infrastructure, to build rails and monorails, to be experts at rescue and disaster recovery etc. etc. We are paying them anyway. Why not for something other than killing?

We were just in Paris visiting relatives. In that city every community has several large government buildings that offer scores of courses in art, music, dance, swimming and sports for kids, teenagers and adults. The variety is astounding and the price is on a sliding scale. Imagine this as an alternative to prison. Imagine this as an alternative way to reduce stress and build mental health as opposed to legal and illegal relaxation drugs.

Personally, I think what Obama should do is make McCain's addiction to the Iraq occupation toxic.

A few, well-chosen questions to McCain on US military "honour", how a military can keep their minds on their job when they know they have been consistently lied to, what team spirit means when a large number of the team are raping other team members and getting away with it because they can, how a military can keep its self-respect when they realize they have not been trained for occupation duties but instead for lightning-quick wars, about the number of US soldiers committing suicide monthly and what that means for morale in general ... etc. Ask McCain to repeat his statements at the prolog to the war, the invasion and the occupation, and then explain to the audience how that qualifies him to be commander-in-chief.

Make McCain toxic to the general public.

I am afraid my friend CITIZEN BLOG that Nader, although a fine fellow in most ways, concerned and probably honest, but must recognize that the USA is a country of business first ideas second, people third, the environment last. The poor, old, helpless and children in that order are an afterthought, You're writing is ironic! I agree. In terms of making friends, I am not running for office because I would have to tell the truth and TO KEEP FRIENDS AND TELL THE TRUTH IS INCOMPATIBLE. Running for office would be like throwing money into the sewer which is what running for office HAS TO BE UNDER THE PRESENT CIRCUMSTANCE.

BUT, BUT, BUT, JESSE JACKSON the recent speech written by Chris Hedges as Furnam University, printed in Truth Dig, says it so well for all of us who fighting the corporate monster and what it has created — a planet that is a "World On Edge" my documentary one that covets acquisitiveness and consumer ideology as a reason for existence, as an end in itself.

Humanity is in peril because the USA elected George Bush as president with the complicity of the media which shows the lowest level of this corporate mentality that is so much an affront to humanity, a measure of the levels of intelligence of Americans, even though it was an illegal fifty-percent that elected him to office. Bush's election to office showed the flaws of this so-called democracy, and the level that the corporate empire will sink to be able to operate with impunity in the world, to rape the very survival of humanity for their greed-driven existence. This was notably seen at the Exxon hearings before the senate and the shareholders meeting at Exxon where the lowest level of corporate responsibility was fought so hard as to show that it even sickens the stomachs of the very wealthy.

All of this to continue a global economy, known as globalization with ideas of value promulgated by a country that is two hundred and fifty years old, led by an old shock jock, born again drunkard, with little regard for intellectual thought, or the very values that spiritual thought should imbue. Welcome to America!

In the present Congress and in the blogs most people avoid reality and don't really deal with the issues head on. Most are still looking for the magic technological bullet that will save the American economy so the USA can continue on the way it's going with ever more growth and ever more and greater GDP as the bankers, advise. Even some scientists think we can continue this way of life unchanged if we just, ease a little bit on energy consumption and wait until we figure it out. SOOO, TURN OUT THAT LIGHT AND DRIVE TO THE 7-11 IN YOUR HUMMER!

There are some who say it does not matter who one votes for in this political system, yes squander your vote on in another close election with a vote for Nader - We all know how perfect this man is and that he will be able to get things done! - If Nader were elected he would not be able to enact any meaningful legislation of consequence, but i thank him for his service to the American people. Not a single bill would become law because he would not have a congress that would give him the right time. It would be a fair day in hell to get anything done. With the leadership of Nancy Pelosi's, helping him, it would be worse.

Moreover, however bad Obama may be, there are no illusions that he is and must be, in the hands of the Democratic machine, but at least the platform will offer some relief for the masses and there is some hope, even now felt by the world, for the future and the environment.
Should Obama lose you have eight more years of the Bush/Cheney nightmare, that is just the facts so lets stop the idealistic nonsense offered up on the star-struck silver screen and your media driven nonsense TV and get real, this is the USA. There are too many important issues that require change to take chances. But some of you here have so much grand illusion that you feel that these past seven years, thanks to Nader in part, and Gore's ineptitude, were worth the experiment?

Nader is not the answer in a failed political system backed by corporate mentality that fifty percent of Americans have bought into must be changed quickly. The congress is where the laws of greed are enacted, such as it is, it's the system that must be changed and whether or not one likes or agrees with Obama, he has been chosen by the Demorepubs to try to change this woebegone imperfect idea of a system. Americans can be and are a much better people than their leaders have shown the world. For the first time Obama is suggesting only some of the changes that must be made.

The USA has some very serious problem that involves helping the rest of the world understand that they are not alone with the problems we all face. They must know once again and understand the people of the USA care! Obama has alluded to those issue recently. But the most important issue of all, who doubt Obama-for the first time I think in the annals of recent history or memory-the young people are involved with the democratic process. They believe in what this country could become and I with all my remaining breath will help them to do it. I too refuse to give up on hope what I once believed in and fought for, and what could become the global dream instead of the failed selfish American Dream that has become the global nightmare!

The future belongs to the young and it will be they who must take up the mantle of true change, which Obama offers and later in this primary and presidential race, all the others echoed! They the young want to make this country become what all of us here once hoped it would be, like Gore Vidal. So many of us who write here are disappointed, but for those who like what Rev. Wright said, when he spoke to the issues of his life, had to be bitter and critical about the past, I agree. He simply says many of things that Dr. Martin Luther King spoke to. Michelle Obama, recently being attacked and will no doubt be attacked by the Republicrats, is referring obliquely to American racism, which still exists but thanks to Obama is going. What Michelle Obama experienced is typical by white racist America that refuses to look in the mirror although it is now cracking not only for racism but for corporatism in favor of humanism as well.

I search my mind in wonder at the scientific and social perfection that has been attained in this forum. We have glorious information at out fingertips to tell us in great detail how we are destroying the world for human habitation. Since these blogs are a cross section of the so-called erudite community and writers who combined make the right-wing decisions for those who have been conditioned to find meaning by trying to think, I am amused with the petty squabbles undertaken here to prove that one has the intellectual rectitude to tell other fellows how to deal with crisis.

Having had — our say at the computer, well satisfied that our studious application of the accumulated data offered here has been properly digested, showing our intellects to be above the fray we continue to defend our miniscule positions of rectitude. This often involves cursing and slurs at others for some, impugning character for others, showing our Republican party credentials for some — we know that that brand is truly American-or showing our professional credentials, engineering or letters offered in proper ego sneering mode, in some instances-a group brought together to speak to the problems of humanity facing disaster. How good, a blog (definition: a collection of opinion based nonsense that lands right beside the point)! — as rarely seen in the annals human development.

Certainly a places of higher learning have produced great advances in species development but at the same time, based on the imperfect nature of thought a have allowed these advances and breakthroughs in science to turn those developments back on their creators. After a successful blog, the writers, having satisfied themselves with their contributions to the greater good, turn to the financial media to see whether their fortunes have gained significantly during their pursuit of ego gratification, so they may live out their days peacefully amused, as the remainder of the world suffers the agony of western invention and greed. As spoken from the White House, "Let them eat cake" and may they choke, on it as their Asthma inhalers have lost their ability to forestall the wonders of air pollution.

I find my attention drawn to other thoughts when I read the bickering of whether the methane is spewing, leaking, puffing, or gaining greater more importance as it impacts on the climate change. I think of the institutions of science and the government led by a group of evil men and women from both parties, who in the pursuit of power, would care so little about humanity that the present leader "evildoer" would veto a bill to reduce the impact of work to limit emissions of the very gasses that would essentially destroy their children's lives. When one speaks of evil it cannot be greater than to directly affect the life of one's progeny, never mind the world where it will exist. Cold-blooded reptiles offer more protection and care for their offspring.
I have commented on previous science presented here on CD associated with climate change since this is my work. Many here echo many of my thoughts, as those above, associating GDP with CO2 but it must be recognized this condition is also associated with the laws of the USA, the governing establishment and the values of the culture which would vote for "Wall Street profit" above human survival. The places of higher learning and scientific development also teach successive generations value systems, the rule of law necessary for any society and should be discussing human purpose and meaning as it has developed over the eons of species advance.
This time we are the catalyst for our own extinction. The Chinese are producing more coal plants that will substantially diminish their fresh water supplies as well as adding to the globes greenhouse gasses, is a grand example of this environment be damned global economy. The ethanol versus food production shows us that the chance to change rapidly is out of our grasp. We have all done it!

Who has turned off their life style or their 401k? America's selfish opportunism has turned love to stone? Will we spin to oblivion on a dead planet, probably? Where is the profit to be found here can someone from Wall Street explain this? 
Their is a fundamental feedback problem between the economic styles that Americans are trying to get the world to accept; a consumer disposable auto centered existence, and its affect on continued life.
Sadly, the most important survival mechanism which are associated with those ideas of higher levels in thought are absent in most current curriculums, or considered so abstract they rarely find their ways into the deliberations that are involved with the discussions surrounding, for example, the use of coal to power a culture or society (most of the so-called developed world). This however is appropriate if we consider that we use Jurassic energy conversion to continue the existence of Jurassic thinkers in the present day.

I am still suffering from "shock and awe" of the "Stern Report" commissioned by the UK for the "edification" of the global community, with regard to: the dangers of climate change to the world economy. Many of you remember the UK our partners in war, global hegemony, imperialism, lying to the electorate and also a great coal and oil burning culture. The economic report was trying to let the G8 economy down easily by accepting anywhere from three to five degrees of warming. It found that the economy could stand this amount of warming as inevitable but by acting immediately through a "cap in trade" philosophy the West could continue on its merry-way to greater consumption unabated. This philosophy is flawed from the outset by accepting pollution at all, particularly under this present circumstance of a ten-year window for survival.

It must be remembered that James Hansen has warned that western culture, now joined by the Chinese and Indians, has a TEN-YEAR window to radically shift its economic direction and choices of energy into a less Jurassically intense mentality. However, Hansen too thinks we have time to retool and believes we have until 2050 to make these changes. I have reminded him that less than five years ago we had until 2100 to make these changes. We have lost 50 years of that projection in two years. At the current rate of scientific perfectitude the forty-year time frame remaining may be down to the ten years, Hansen has predicted from the outset of his research. To his credit his measurement abilities have been enhanced by the Grace satellite-greater technology to deal with greater technological disaster.

Jackson's prescription for an Obama platform makes a lot of sense both in terms of substantive policy and a winning political message. The challenge for elite interests (the Pentagon system, big Pharma, big 5 oil, financial sector, etc.) will be to set the agenda to make sure most of this platform is not publicly debated and get put on the table. Look for distracting messages like "the grave threat from Iran," "the on-going costs of our commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan," "the irresponsible tax and spend liberal policies of the Democrats," "government should not burden business with rules on healthcare for employees," and "government should not interfere and try to pick winning technologies by investing in alternative energy and technologies that reduce energy expenditures."

When the chips are down and any one of such items of Obama's platform is seriosly debated and has garnered insurmountable public support, a watered-down "business-friendly" and "less costly" alternative will be proposed. They will then proclaim that of course they have always been on the forefront on the issue and now offer a "more flexible" alternative with no "mandates" for business and more "choice." The buzz words are well worn.

Here's a simple one that should be on the top of this list: RETURN THE BILL OF RIGHTS AND HABEAS CORPUS TO WE THE PEOPLE. Second:...STOP TORTURE IN OUR NAME. Third...RESCIND ALL SIGNING STATEMENTS. Fourth: PROSECUTE THE WAR CRIMINALS. Fifth: ABOLISH THE FEDERAL RESERVE. Sixth: DEMAND A REINVESTIGATION OF 9/11. Seventh: REVAMP THE ENTIRE ELECTION SYSTEM. Now, there's a list with some BALLS!! You don't like the caps?? Who gives a crap!

That's funny, Jackson is applauding Obama for his position on universal health care ... but Hillary Clinton was pushing it way back in 1994 and everyone laughed at her then. I guess it's a better idea when it comes from a man.

In addition: Where does he get the idea that American workers are the best educated in the world? That is simply not true, many countries surpass the US in that measure. Graduates today have trouble finding jobs because India, for example, has a more educated population than the US and costs a lot less to employ. Dream on Jesse, it is free.

Jesse Jackson has been producing these vapid articles lately. I appreciate the wish list but what does it have to do with reality? What the people need is the pôwer to do these things. The congress is corrupt. Why not a word about electoral reform and how to take back the congress from the rich? Education? What, to more effectively teach the children a twisted version of history that makes the US out to be a good guy? What about the fact that every state has an interest in the military industrial complex that provides the people with jobs? How do you change that? How about the rule of law and prosecuting these criminals? I can come up with a wish list too, that is not very hard to do. Does anybody really think that outlawing some guns will make much difference to the American temperament? How do you change that temperament? Where is the word empire in this article, and is sustaining the empire more important than rebuilding the nation? Right now the US has to choose where to spend money because there isn't enough. Empire or domestic well-being? How do you induce the American people to stop fearing others? Mr.Jackson has nothing to offer except a pathetic letter to Santa Claus.

"America has built its prosperity by having the best-educated workers in the world. Now we must invest in its future by extending that promise to every child."

Sorry I missed this. Education is not for a purpose like getting a job. Much as the system seems to work like that. It is good in itself. A great delusion of otherwise intelligent people.

I read Jesse's book "A More Perfect Union" last year. He is a fighter for working people. I'm not so sure about Obama. Has anyone read his "Audacity of Hope"? I don't know if I agree with Jesse that starting at home first is the answer. I see home and Iraq as so intertwined that it is impossible to separate them. Maybe both at the same time?

Here it is, writ large: the tendency, as I have noted throughout this campaign, for "progressives" to project their views onto the shoulders of Mr. Hope and Change, Barack Obama. Jackson's is a beautiful clarion call for the kind of country and world we could have if the reforms in both domestic and international politics for which he calls were ever enacted. A President Jackson, if such could ever be, would be fully palatable to me. But the recurring theme of his essay is that Obama needs to "stake" a position on such and such issue. Almost without exception, they are positions on which Obama has not put down any "stakes," as it the genius of his campaign that he has given voice to a consensus of good-hearted intentions which don't challenge the power of the powerful forces that are funding his campaign.

So yes, let's call for Obama to take these positions and give him our whole-hearted support if he does; but let us be prepared to look beyond the usual myopia of a choice between the nominees of the two parties, if these nominees don't distinguish themselves in what they actually advocate in public policy. It is unlikely, as I see it, that these distinctions will ever occur unless and until a true "debate" occurs in which candidates participate who fully embrace and put down "stakes" on those very progressive issues that Mr. Jackson has so well defined.

ericdoc June 3rd, 2008 11:06 pm

"Jesse Jackson says not a word about the environment or global warming. Without attention to those, disaster awaits!!!"

From above:
"Stop squandering resources in Iraq and start rebuilding America. Invest in conservation and renewable energy and end our dependence on foreign oil. Create a new strategy in the global economy that works for Main Street, not Wall Street."

??

Sadly, Reverend Jackson will likely be proven wrong. The election should be about the economy, Iraq, Afghanistan, the environment, the Constitution and Geneva Conventions, education and healthcare, but the right wingers will distract the electorate with Reverend Wright, lapel flag pins, hand position during the national anthem and other irrelevant matters that somehow stimulate outrage in the conservative mind. Wars of aggression killing over a million people, 4000+ US military deaths, $3 trillion wasted, New Orleans abandoned, and the planet trashed don't bother the good church-going red-state folks.

June 3, 2008 Republicans begin to highlight Clinton's criticism of Obama.

Hillary is working for the Republicans. She and Bill did everything they could to destroy Obama. She doesn't deserve to be vice president.

NEW YORK (CNN) " Hours before the polls closed Tuesday in the final two Democratic presidential primaries, the Republican National Committee began circulating a video of Hillary Clinton questioning Barack Obama's qualifications to be commander-in-chief, and acknowledging John McCain has this important presidential credential.
"Senator McCain will bring a lifetime of experience to the campaign, I will bring a lifetime of experience and Senator Obama will bring a speech that he gave in 2002," Clinton says in the one-minute video of CNN's coverage of a news conference she held on March 8, the day Obama won the Wyoming caucuses. "I think that is a significant difference. I think that since we now know Senator McCain will be the nominee for the Republican Party, national security will be front and center in this election. We all know that."
"And I think it is imperative that each of us be able to demonstrate we can cross the commander-in-chief threshold. And I believe I have done that. Certainly, Senator McCain has done that. And you will have to ask Senator Obama with respect to his candidacy."
The RNC posted the video on YouTube early Tuesday afternoon, just as Obama was on the verge of locking up the Democratic nomination and speculation heated up about Clinton being his running mate.
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/06/03/republicans-begin-to-highlight-clinton%e2%80%99s-criti...

Misogyny. A male dominated society will only accept a male Commander in Chief.

Jesse Jackson says not a word about the environment or global warming. Without attention to those, disaster awaits!!!

If the next US government did one tenth of the things Jackson is talking about, you lot would think you were living in paradise.

For too long you have gotten used to expecting nothing from you public officials as they dismantle your public services and transfer the proceeds to multinational corporations. Put someone like Jackson in a cabinet post and in weeks he would have the place doing more for you than you have ever seen in your lifetime.

ticonderoga,

It's true that a lot of people in America drink beer, and many of them are liberals who are going to vote for Democrats anyway---not switch to McCain because he's the beer man.

But CHURCH voters, conservative CHURCH voters, are the ones putting Republicans over the top. These are the ones who need to be separated from McCain. Many of them simply DO NOT KNOW about Hensley---I'm telling you they just haven't heard. I have asked several of them and they say "Huh?"
This is because the MEDIA is politely avoiding the subject.
If liberals want to win, they have GOT to get this word out.

There is a distinction, by the way, between liking a beer now and then or being a major marketer of it. People who responsibly drink are not "hurting" those who drink too much. But the sellers ARE. And plenty of church folks see this not only as sinful, but also as non-leadership-----if they know the details.

OldBadgertoo June 3rd, 2008 3:18 pm

"Misogyny. A male dominated society will only accept a male Commander in Chief."

If that's the case, then there are a lot of misogynistic women.

As a point of reference - the President is not our Commander in Chief, he is the Military's Commander in Chief. That's the way the founders set it up - civilian rule. We have a President, they have a Commander in Chief.

Hillary endorses McCain. Cannot stand losing.

For the most part I agree with Jesse Jackson on this one. Daniel David has a point, too, in that it's very difficult to get elected in America by promising gun control. But all Jesse said about gun control in his article was that he thought we should ban assault rifles, and that's not quite the same as banning guns across the board. As far as the beer dealers thing is concerned, going after McCain for that will backfire, bigtime. There are far more people in America who drink beer than who own guns, and attacking their favorite beverage obliquely by attacking McCain will only make them like McCain all the more. IMO, if you don't like beer, don't drink it, but making it a political issue by demonizing it is a surefire recipe for defeat. All McCain would have to do to fight that one would be to point out that the Koran forbids drinking alcoholic beverages and Christ and his disciples drank wine at the Last Supper, and he'd be done with it.

"Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy."
-Benjamin Franklin

Obama is pushing deadly nukes to please the industry. Doesn't seem like he would end the WOD and displease the prison industry, big pharma, conservatives and the religious right.

I'm not pushing any wagon unless I'm getting paid.

Why is Jackson relevant ? Just because he's black ? He's just another adulterer and scammer. He even produced a kid out of his affair, and he paid his mistress out of his organization's funds. Why are we rewarding this loser with a voice ?

Hey, when is Larry Craig's book (bathroom reading ?) coming out ??

That's what I'm talking about, Jesse! What you say makes so much sense, I just find it hard to believe we could really do this. We've been living in the Twilight Zone so long. We can get plenty of young men and woman to do community service as long as it doesn't involve fighting in Iraq, Afganistan, or God forbid, Iran.

Beer can't be that bad. Its been around a long time.

McCain is not Obamas problem. Obama is. Lets see if he can get elected before we waste a lot of time on programs that are discarded the first day.

I would hope that one of Jesse Jackson's "people" will monitor this site for reactions to Jesse's words reprinted here. Two comments:

Although we do need to reduce the number of assault weapons and handguns on our streets----NO ONE CAN WIN AN ELECTION IN AMERICA BY PROMISING GUN CONTROL. DOING SO ABSOLUTELY POSITIVELY GUARANTEES LOSS. (Win first. THEN mention the word guns.)

The key to defeating John and Cindy McCain are to paint them CEASELESSLY as long-term, large-scale BEER DEALERS.
When Americans know more about the magnitude of Hensley & Company of Phoenix than we know about John McCain having once been a POW, we will see Barack & Michelle in The White House on 1/20/09. Selling billions of doses (yes, billions) of the juice that invites drunk driver crashes, DWI incarceration, street violence, domestic abuse, teen delinquency, binge drinking, and loose-as-a-goose unwed sex (followed by abortions) is not congruent with the teachings of any church in America, or of any "Family Values" or of Jesus Christ, himself.

Separate McCain from the church voters on this, and guess what, Jesse. THE BLACK CANDIDATE WINS. Please listen.
This is all pretty important, as you know. We need to DEFEAT racism---not just "talk" it up until you lose again.
The unique opportunity to dwell on the BEER instead of RACE is the "gift" given to people of color to WIN this time.

"Since these blogs are a cross section of the so-called erudite community and writers who combined make the right-wing decisions for those who have been conditioned to find meaning by trying to think, I am amused with the petty squabbles undertaken here to prove that one has the intellectual rectitude to tell other fellows how to deal with crisis." Ike.

Not trying to make many friends are you? Nader has just as much right as you, assuming you are a citizen, to run for president. I agree with a lot of what you say. A moratorium on the burning of coal is important. The funny thing is the UK invented the scrubbing process for removing CO2 from coal fired burning plants but never implemented it and it was taken up by the Scandanavians. One thing I don't see punters here talking about is the organisation of business. There seems to be only one way of running a business. Boss, investors and workers. Politics seems to go the same way. Chief, lobbyists, leaders and followers. Few challenge that incongruity when we are supposed to be in a "democracy" fighting for people's "freedom". We are slaves because we can't imagine a new way of running our businesses and politics where the needs of the weakest and environment are put first. There are alternatives!

The way to sway CHURCH people is to point out that a vote for corporate America, is a vote for Satan. Corporations after all have no conscience or soul. All corporate decisions are based on greed and not humanity. By pointing out candidates that support evil, predatory corporations, it should be a no brainer who to vote for!

Jesse's article covers some good points, however his call for us to eliminate our 'dependency on foreign oil' needs to go a step further and state that we need to eliminate our dependency on fossil fuels.

His fear of cutting the amount of policemen counters his objection to the prison industrial complex. More cops usually translates into more arrests. Reducing crime is a task that requires attention on many fronts such as reducing poverty, increasing wages, improving education, implementing universal, health care, creating community projects and cracking down on corporate crime and lobbyists.

Unfortunately I don't think that Obama has the guts to call for universal, single tier, non-profit health care. This issue alone could cause him to win in November despite the Republican tricks to disenfranchise the poor voters. But it seems that ev4ryone is weary of taking on the powerful Medical Industrial Complex because of their deep pockets and armies of lawyers. That issue alone makes me question Obama's courage to take on corporate America.

Some people chose to attack Jesse Jackson's character by bringing up the fact that he had a child out of wedlock, a mistress and other personal slips. But these are immaterial to a politicians ability to bring up important issues. Jesse Jackson has been a tireless warrior against social injustices, corporate America and our illegal wars since Vietnam. His personal problems pale in comparison to the massive theft, corruption and lies that the vast majority of the current administration is guilty of. At least Jesse Jackson can never be accused of being a corporate sycophant or a tool of the MIC.