On Election Day, Newark police took down Booker posters; power outages mysteriously occurred at voting locations favorable to Booker; and James' operatives arranged for people who lived in Philadelphia to be bussed into Newark, where they were paid to vote, illegally, for Sharpe James.

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 has 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, Jesse, you're now part of the problem.

During one confrontation, in which the police tried to 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. Again, Curry refused to surrender his camera.

What mainstream media -- The New York Times, The Newark Star-Ledger, the New Jersey television stations -- were reluctant to do, that is to say, expose longtime machine boss Sharpe James for the antidemocratic, political thug he was, Marshall Curry (this, amazingly enough, being his first documentary) did with his commitment, his courage and his integrity.

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 supporter, a lawyer no less, 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 a couple nights earlier someone smashed down his front door and that since then he was carrying a gun.

(Continued)

But that's not nearly how dirty a campaign Sharpe James ran. …

James used various forms of blackmail and physical force 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 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 dared to host a Booker fund raiser … or if you simply verbally expressed support for Cory Booker – Sharpe James would use his power as mayor 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.

(Continued)

Jesse Jackson is a phony!

If anyone doubts that statement, take a look at the political documentary "Street Fight." (I got it from my local public library).

"Street Fight," an Academy Award-nominated documentary by Marshall Curry, 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 Cornel 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 obviously 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 a light-skinned black and Yale and Stanford-educated.

These were Sharpe James's accusations. And this is the candidate Jesse Jackson supported.

(Continued)

@flyerman -- "Chuck Cliff, as you pass that story along in your family, might it be with some expression of regret?"

No, no regret -- I think you miss the point. A wagon train in the middle of nowhere, consisting of 100-150 people, cannot tolerate such a rip in the social fabric as a brutal murder in broad daylight.

A more practical element -- could they spare meager resources to guard the killer? Or should they send out an all-points bulletin to the police?

The Poor pay for the sins of the GREEDY! Pervasive Corpirate Corruption.
Jesse has been marginalized by FAUX.
Stuck his hand in The FAUX Media cookie jar and had it Chopped off.
You think he would have known better?
O does!
No invitation to the
Totally unfair and unbalanced network.
Shut them down.
Who does Jesse think he is going to reach on FAUX?
Uncle Tom and The Red Necks?

The rest of the Crass Media is little better.
Access is the key.
Lock the door.
STOP The BU__! SH__!

What will come of any of us if someone had a hidden mike under our pillows. J Edgar Hoovers FBI tried same with MLK and caught him in bed with some other woman. Had MLK been alive today, the majority of americans, white, black and all will be throwing stones at him, the few who understand the game will be statistically insignificant, AKA background noise. The onslaught is unabated and draining. We ignore the power of the media to construct, deconstruct and invent what is newsworthy at our ultimate peril. Whatever is put on our plates is what we eat, hence our collective false consiousness.

What the heck is going on with wordpress anyway, I'm getting the same wierd stuff.

ChrisHorton July 23rd, 2008 2:36 pm

He lost my respect years and years ago. So we'll just disagree amicably about Mr. Jackson.

WordPress keeps giving me weird results. Sorry.

Last night my roommate was switching channels, mostly listening to the show Black America. We caught one speaker, pundit and public personality after another talking about Jesse Jackson, his remark, what he really said and all the hidden twisted reasons he said what he said. Everything that has been laid against him in the past, including how Dr. King's blood got on his shirt, was being re-hashed. Not one word was heard in his defense, and not one word spoken about the issue he was talking about when his remark was recorded. It reminded me of the public "hate events" and "hate week" from Orwell's "1984".

Jackson off stage can have a potty mouth, and this has taken a toll on a number of occasions when his enemies got ahold of his words. He probably won't win election to sainthood. But he has consistently been on the side of the people over the years, and has been a leader and a unifier, winning nearly 30% of the vote on a stunningly (in the American context) progressive platform in the 1988 Democratic primaries, and handily winning a seat as "Shadow Senator" from the District of Columbia. Recently he has been a leader in the struggle for election reform.

The major media are leading a highly visible campaign to get his supporters to throw him under the bus. Don't buy it. We need our leaders, and they need us. Senator Jackson has earned our trust and support and we owe it to ourselves to defend him.

ChrisHorton July 23rd, 2008 12:41 pm

Frankly Chris, I hope that thread has been cut. Jackson was the man early on, but now he just makes a living out of exploiting "racist" incidents that aren't even that or speaking for a community that no longer exists.

Jackson is the thread connecting the past and the future.

PissantNobody July 23rd, 2008 9:59 am

You can't have economic equality by law. It won't work, it's never worked.

I would agree however that we don't have a system of justice, we have a system of law that does not always provide justice. Especially with lawyers in the mix providing themselves with public financing to extend as far as possible the time poor people spend in the system.

Jackson is the past.

This essay is good as far as it goes, but the justice system is not the basis of injustice. The death penalty (and the general incarceration system) has always had a striking racial and economic tilt, and it is not accidental. Until we are economically equal by law, there will be no justice. That equality will never happen this side of workers' taking the reigns of society from the vile capitalist masters who are the inheritors and perpetuators of the unfair justice system. To pose DNA tests (post-conviction, no less!) as a solution is far short of the mark, and actually sows the illusion that the courts can ever be fair in a system where riches is the main thing that determines who is in jail.

Jesse, Jesse...you know speaking truth to the american people is not gonna get you anywhere. You old school...you still care about issues of justice, compassion and understanding. It just doesn't fit in today's america and our word of celebrity and reality tv shows. If you would just pander to the backwards elements in america, say things that are regressive, cruel or stupid...why we might just get you elected. You know no progressive is gonna get anywhere in this place. But keep talking about it cause we know it's right.

Speaking of Jesse Jackson, the media is not allowing the issue of his remarks about Obama that FOX caught on a live mike to die.

Jackson was foolish, very foolish, to get caught speaking the way he did about Barak Obama. However the whole debate about what Jackson said has been about what's wrong with Jackson. No one is addressing what Jesse was talking about, which is that Obama, a candidate for President of the United States, with all of America watching, was talking to Black people about the breakdown of fatherhood as a Black issue, rather than talking about it as an American issue, and as just a moral issue, rather than one which also involves public policy.

Fatherhood - the importance and responsibilities of fathers, and all the legal, economic and cultural obstacles that are making being a father more difficult and less valued - is indeed a crisis in the Black communities, but it is also a national issue. A Black preacher talking to a Black congregation can be excused for ignoring this context; but Obama is a national leader on a national stage. When he speaks, even in a Black church, he speaks to a national audience! He should be saying to all of America: fatherhood matters, fatherhood is vital to our youth and our future. Boys and men need to know this and take it seriously. If you father a child, that child needs you to be in his or her life. Lawmakers, judges, lawyers, social service workers and mothers need to understand that it is terribly wrong to shut fathers out and reduce their responsibilities - and often their rights - to sending money.

White America has a long history of taking its own problems, giving them a black face, and saying that's what those people over there do, that's their problem, in fact they *are* the problem. That is one of the essential dynamics of racism, and it's seriously wrong and foolish, and a lost opportunity, for Obama to feed into it.

So enough of tearing down Jesse Jackson; let's get the conversation back to the issues. He's been with us for 45 years, time enough to show his true colors, and we should know better than to listen to all the people who are trying to tear him down. We are going to need his leadership when, inevitably, President Obama, under pressure from his wealthy donors and the Washington establishment, starts forgetting about the people he represented in the Illinois legislature.

"THOU SHALL NOT KILL"

Its "Thou Shalt Not Commit Murder" not "Thou Shalt Not Kill"

Thats a huge difference in meaning and context.

You wrong. The Quakers are definitely against the death penalty.

But Brother Man Jackson is right on the mark!

There are five men serving death sentences based on snitch testimony after the 1993 prison rebellion at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility at Lucasville. Four of the five men are in solitary confinement at the Ohio Supermaximum prison in Youngstown, a few miles from my home. Staughton Lynd has written a play about the Lucasville prison rebellion. A group of Youngstown actors, calling themselves the Ohio Supermaximum Players, will be performing the play at The New York International Fringe Festival in August. Check out http://www.fringenyc.org or http://www.lucasvilletheplay.com for more information.

Why is it of all the organized religions only the CATHOLIC CHURCH is totally against capital punishment.

"THOU SHALL NOT KILL"

The trouble with the death penalty is that everyone can think of someone who deserves it. Each individual in the society that conducts it apparently enjoys some self-reinforcing stimulus by substituting in their minds their own idea of who should die for the actual recipient. We should recognize this as a real, although unfortunate (bug not a feature) aspect of our nature. It is fundamental to our survival that we overcome this and be vigilant against its reappearance

Chuck Cliff, as you pass that story along in your family, might it be with some expression of regret?

Boognish, remember those elections when only one candidate was saying the right things?

The industry of criminal justice consumes for profit, and, although generally ignored, is more than occasionally just a deplorable system of human warehousing and destruction.
Ironically, ball-less Obama considers the death penalty "a-ok" in certain situations. Revenge wins!

I can't even read what that hypocritical sell-out, Jackson, has to say. He's lost all credibility on all issues with me.

Jesse Jackson is right on! The criminal justice system cannot ensure that justice is served when jail-house snitches and accomplices are used to testify against the accused and as long as the death penalty can be imposed upon a defendant who did not commit murder or did not even participate in the crime itself. Why would the State put itself in the position to exact revenge when it has been shown over and over that the death penalty does not deter capital crimes? By maintaining the penalty of death the U.S. remains in the good company of China, Iran, Pakistan, Iraq, and Sudan. "Retaliation, vengeance, and retribution have been roundly condemned as intolerable aspirations for a government in a free society."

Until the criminal justice system is -- unlike any other human institution -- inerrant and infallible, capital punishment is unacceptable in any society that calls itself humane.

What could be a worse crime than for the state to coldly and deliberately kill an innocent person?

"There is perhaps no greater failure in our democracy and our justice system than the conviction and incarceration of those who have been wrongfully accused,"

Absolutely. And this failure stems in large part from those who say, or think, "these people". "These people" don't deserve a fair trial. "These people" are just playing the system. "These people" should be taken out back and shot. Whether these people are terrorists, communists, sex offenders, witches, blacks, or even, ironically, criminals.

It also stems from a culture of Victory. Get that conviction, no matter what the cost, even if the cost is justice itself. Too many rewards for getting the convictions. Too much pressure to "achieve closure" for the victims, as I suppose closure is all in the eye of the beholder, so who cares if it's the wrong person?

And, paradoxically, the problem is unlikely to be addressed because "these people" - the "criminals" - are certainly not entitled to more rights than they already have, if you know what I mean.

I am not an absolute opponent of a death penalty in itself, but am an opponent of its practice for a number of reasons.

My great-granduncle Watson was on a wagon train to Utah. On the way, a trail-hand murdered the wagon boss in cold blood -- slit his throat in full view of several witnesses including the wagon boss' wife. The perp took a rifle and some some supplies and swore thathe would shoot the first man to follow him. Twelve men did follow him, surrounded him with raised rifles. The perp surrendered, judge and jury were appointed, the facts were laid out, he was found guilty, sentenced to death and hung from a tree by the side of road under a full moon.

In this case, what could they do? It was a week or more to civilization in both directions. This small society was weak and had no real choice. America is strong, isn't it? Only in the rarest of rare cases could it be considered necessary to kill to preserve the fabric of society.