Jesse Jackson has died


We need more loud, assertive, aggressive activists who aren’t afraid to speak their mind, and now one of the loudest has faded away.

I remember when Jackson was a goad to the Democratic establishment. He was mostly ignored. Now look at what the country thinks of the establishment.

Sad. Especially that last guy, a victim of conservative paranoia about immigrants.

Comments

  1. birgerjohansson says

    I am not sure which phylum the Dem leaders belong to. Hemichordata? Or wossname those weird small parasites that live inside the mouth of fish?

  2. Walter Solomon says

    And nothing will change anytime soon. In two years time, assuming the country is still here, we’ll likely be holding our noses and casting a vote for the corporatist, moderate Democrat Gavin “Billionaires are part of the Big Tent” Newsome for president.

  3. birgerjohansson says

    Walter Solomon @ 2
    Agreed. But at the local, regional, state and national level you have the tool of primaries. Keep the Ferengi out!
    Defeating fascism is a full-time job. Your politicians must not get distracted by insider trading.
    .
    Fuck Schumer and Jeffries. And Newsome is not yet the candidate. Keep reminding people of the problem with homelessness at Newsome’s home turf.

  4. birgerjohansson says

    Myself @ 1

    Crinozoa! They sit on their asses and wait for some juicy morsel/ campaign contribution to drift within reach.

  5. Akira MacKenzie says

    The Dems “strategy” seems to be let Trump make a huge mess and hope the voters come running back. That way, they don’t actually have to run on any policy that might divide their collation or offend their donors. However, as morally satisfying as voting against Trump is, what exactly am I voting for besides a system that didn’t really work all that well?

    Face it folks, America is done. Regardless of party, one with power wants to fix anything because they profit from the system and the politicians don’t give a shit what us peasants want or need.

  6. says

    Tying a string around my finger so that I remember to vote local down here in Texas. I may be Gerrymandered to hell, but I’ll still do what I can on that front.

    Alongside direct action, of course: I’m more interested in things like a general strike or the continued demoralizing of ICE.

  7. robro says

    Walter Solomon @ #2 — And Gavin isn’t even the worst of the Dems.

    My personal fav is AOC. She’s speaking some truths.

  8. beholder says

    The New York Times was prescient here:

    Don Rose, the public relations man, recalls meeting with Jackson after King’s death; he claims it was decided that Jackson could be sold to the press as the new King. Jackson became a celebrity. How the press loved him, … his aphorisms which fit so well into stories in the news magazines. The press loved him too because he was, in Life’s words, “militant but nonviolent.” Jackson was good copy but safe copy; he was a radical in style, not action. … The Jesse Jackson of 1972 is not a threat to established institutions.

    And so he remained. Jackson was the forerunner of Bernie Sanders, AOC, Mamdani, and the like, who seem to be good at corralling popular energy and safely funneling it into the dead end that is the Democratic Party.

  9. raven says

    My personal fav is AOC. She’s speaking some truths.

    Yeah, she is good.
    Another one is Jasmine Crockett, the Representative from Texas 30th. She is outspoken and voluble.
    LaMonica McIver (D-NJ) is the U.S. Representative for New Jersey’s 10th Congressional District, Indicted for trying to get into an ICE concentration camp, which is her right as a member of Congress.
    Kat Abughazaleh is one of the Democrats running in the Illinois 9th district. She is a secular Palestinian American and progressive with a grass roots campaign.
    Senator Patty Murray of Washington has a lot to say.

    Governor Pritzker of Illinois is good.
    Gavin Newsom is OK. The bar may be low here but he has fought the fascists effectively.

    Seeing the pattern here?
    Most of the visible resistance are..women.
    And most of the large number of visible fascists are men.

    It is the same at the local level.
    Our active local resistance is almost all led and organized by…women.

  10. says

    So now beholder is trashing ACTUAL PROGRESSIVE-LEFT DEMOCRATS as blah moderates, while not mentioning any of the actual moderates, like Biden, Harris, or either Clinton? Doodyful trollbot doing its doody I guess…

  11. says

    Don Rose, the public relations man [for whom?]…claims it was decided that Jackson could be sold to the press as the new King.

    Any corroboration for that claim?

  12. lanir says

    I would have said facade.

    The establishment Democratic politicians see the country’s politics much like a child alone in a yard with nothing to play with except for one swing. The child can wander around. The child can take a nap in the grass. The child can sit in the swing and not move. But eventually if the child wants to play, it will sit in the swing and push backward and forward. Republican or Democrat. The harder the swing is pushed in one direction the more force will accumulate to go back in the other direction. Even if the swing is pushed scarily far in one direction it will only ensure a return to the other side.

    This is a wrong and very foolish way to look at politics. But it’s why they’re nothing but a facade. They say the right things, which is better than the Republicans. They don’t completely betray the things they say (usually), which is again better than the Republicans. But they give up and they sell out in a myriad of small and large ways so very little worthwhile actually gets done. Unless it’s to give money to or protect the interests of very wealthy people.

    The simple truth is we need to vote against these aspiring seat warmers. But the only safe time to do so is in the primaries. By the time we reach the general election we’re almost uniformly voting between a democratic system and someone who will enable an authoritarian coup and shrug off the immense destruction needed to make that work.

  13. StevoR says

    @1. birgerjohansson : “I am not sure which phylum the Dem leaders belong to. Hemichordata? Or wossname those weird small parasites that live inside the mouth of fish?”

    Their phylum is Chordata, their class Mammalia, their order Primates, their sub-order Haplorhini, their family Hominidae, their genus Homo and their species sapiens just like the rest of us.

    Because they are human and people should NOT be dehumanised.

  14. Nick Wrathall says

    Erm, in two words I describe the Democratic Party currently as ‘house minority’.

    The US two-party system with a little help from Citizens United has simply produced two options – shitty and shittier.

    But what else did you all expect? You do know that your country is the paragon of predatory capitalism where money = power, don’t you? But I guess one consolation is your evident hatred of your own country – maybe you can all use it to drive for substantive change.

  15. StevoR says

    @11. The Trump enabling bad faith troll “”beholder” (TEBFTB) : More questions you’ll never have the decency or honesty or courage to actually answer for ya that destroy your lying bullshit here.

    If the Democrats are a “dead end” what does that make the Greens and anti-science Stein?

    If the Democrats are such a “dead end” then why did they win with Biden and come within a tiny %~age of the vote – and maybe in reality actually won being robbed by voter suppression and perhaps Musk manipulation with Kamala?

    If the Democratic party are a “dead end” then what does that make the Repugliklans – the Trump fascist party that you clearly prefer?

    I guess at least we now have the answer to a question asked of you ages ago about which Democratic candidate you preferred to Kamala – none.

    There are clearly no Democratic people you would ever support – whether more centrist or strongly progressive – and your pretence of being in the tiniest, least, little bit actually progressive is exposed as the lie it always was.

    Shall we take your #11 above as your admission as such and all understand that you are in reality a Trumpist scumbag commenting here in bad faith to do as much damage to the progressive left wing of politics as you could? I think we should.

  16. StevoR says

    PS. Note again that the Trump enabling troll has not provided aa link and only a very general source and that he has cherry-picked the words of a PR man to support his extremely pitiful alleged “evidence” re Jesse Jackson supposedly not being a threat.

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