2013-05-23T11:53:14-04:00 Rev. Jesse Jackson http://www.huffingtonpost.com/author/index.php?author=rev-jesse-jackson Copyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc. HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Rev. Jesse Jackson Good old fashioned elbow grease. tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1738147 2012-08-03T12:43:54-04:00 2012-10-03T05:12:02-04:00

Rev. Jesse Jackson http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rev-jesse-jackson/
Speaking at a news conference with Rep. John Conyers and myself, Chief Godbee expressed dismay that there has been no action to revive the assault-weapons ban that was allowed to expire in 2004 when George W. Bush was president.

In the Aurora, CO, movie theater slaughter, the number of victims likely would have been much higher -- except suspect James Holmes' assault weapon apparently jammed, limiting his ability to spray the audience with deadly rounds of bullets.

An assault weapon is not useful for hunting game. It isn't easily available, like a handgun, for self-defense. It is designed for one purpose: war. These are weapons for domestic, homegrown terrorism. Aurora is close to Denver International Airport. A gunman at the end of a runway could shoot bullets through an airplane. Bullets were shot from the street into the back porch of the White House last year.

Leaders calling for a renewed ban are, not surprisingly, those most exposed to them on the streets: America's police chiefs. Many of them are NRA members, but they know assault weapons put the lives of their officers and citizens at risk.

According to Miami Police Chief John Timoney, assault weapons have become "the weapon of choice among gangs here... The guns keep coming in, their prices are dropping." In Miami, assault weapons were used in about 4 percent of all homicides in 2004 as the weapons ban expired. Now, Timoney says, the number is about 21 percent.

This month, Police Chief magazine reprinted a letter from Chief Joseph M. Polisar, then head of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, originally published in 2004 as the assault weapons ban expired. Polisar vowed that the chiefs would continue to push for the ban, noting it had proved "remarkably effective in reducing the number of crimes involving assault weapons. Since 1994 the proportion of assault weapons traced to crimes has fallen by a dramatic 66 percent."

But politicians are more intimidated by the gun manufacturers and the National Rifle Association than they are moved by the police chiefs or by common sense. The result is that gun ownership is less well-policed than driving. There is no required training to own or use a gun, even an assault weapon. And as Holmes showed, in Colorado and many states, you can build an arsenal overnight capable of bringing down an airplane or shooting up a baseball crowd without any meaningful checks or accountability.

Will the laws change now? Speaking on ABC News, Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey was skeptical, and he was worried that outrage will "fade into the background" and nothing will be done: "We talk about this constantly, and absolutely nothing happens, because many of our legislators, unfortunately, at the federal level, lack the courage to do anything."

To change that, Americans must stand up and face down the gun lobby. Police chiefs -- Republicans, Democrats, NRA members -- will help show the way. The national debate is not about the Second Amendment, a gun for housekeeping or guns for hunting. We are talking about guns for terror that threaten national security and aid domestic and foreign terrorists.

Let's lift the conversation from gun control to guns out of control and ban assault weapons to protect national security and domestic tranquility.

Our national security should be a common note for all of us.

This piece was originally published by the Chicago Sun-Times.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1698345 2012-07-24T11:41:59-04:00 2012-09-23T05:12:09-04:00

Rev. Jesse Jackson http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rev-jesse-jackson/ were hurt outside a bar in Tuscaloosa, Ala., when a gunman opened fire.

There is no safe zone.

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and 18 others were shot in a Tucson, Ariz., shopping center. Virginia Tech students were mowed down on campus. In Chicago, 228 people have already lost their lives to gun violence as of mid-June. Nationwide, there have been 60 mass shootings since the Tucson horror, according to the Brady Campaign. Every year, about 100,000 Americans are victims of gun violence, with about 30,000 killed. Aurora is shocking -- but the shock has become routine.

We fixate on the details of the alleged killer. James Holmes was an honor student who ran into trouble, dropped out of school and, it seems to me, suffered from depression. He saw himself as the Joker, the villain without a cause, eager only to sow violence and disruption for its own sake. Dressed in black body armor, he walked into the movie theater playing the new Batman movie carrying two handguns, a shotgun and an assault rifle. There was no defense when he opened fire.

Our leaders offer condolences and prayers, as President Obama and Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney did immediately. But we need both prayer and policy to provide for domestic tranquility. Depression isn't isolated. Mass depression and mass access to guns is a recipe for massacre. We must do more than mourn. We must act to limit domestic terrorism.

Holmes purchased the four guns he carried in local Colorado gun shops along with 6,000 rounds of ammunition in the last 60 days. How could he arm himself with an assault rifle that is useful only to hunt humans? It was easy because in Colorado, it was perfectly legal. According to the Brady Campaign, this is the current state of gun laws in Colorado:

There is no ban on assault weapons, no ban on high-capacity ammunition magazines, no registration requirements, no gun owner licensing requirements, no background checks for Internet sales, no "good cause" required for a concealed carry permit, no limit on the number of handguns you can buy in one purchase.

Our police chiefs campaign hard for a ban on assault weapons that put them at risk. A weak federal assault weapons ban existed from 1994 until George Bush let it lapse in 2004. During that time, the number of crimes committed with assault weapons declined dramatically. But the National Rifle Association -- the powerful gun lobby -- campaigned hard against the ban and intimidated politicians in both parties.

Now the gun lobby has won. People have begun arming themselves, as if that would protect them. Last year, nearly half (47 percent) of Americans said they have a gun in their home. In 1959, 60 percent of Americans supported a law to ban possession of handguns except by police and other authorized persons. By 2011, only 26 percent supported it. Last year for the first time, a majority of Americans said they were opposed to a law to make it illegal to manufacture, sell or possess assault weapons.

In "The Second Coming," the poet William Butler Yeats captured our time when he warned "the ceremony of innocence is drowned; the best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."

How many must die before "the best" stand and speak? We must revive the ban on assault weapons in America. The Joker's goal of creating chaos through violence is not a joke. Arming ourselves is not a solution; it is a defeat. We must demand action to defend the domestic tranquility against a gun industry, lobby and culture that now pose a clear and present danger.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1670105 2012-07-16T14:05:23-04:00 2012-09-15T05:12:02-04:00

Rev. Jesse Jackson http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rev-jesse-jackson/
As the 2012 election approaches it is important to realize how young people, especially youth of color, are using new media to amplify their voices in the political realm. While we know Obama'a 2008 campaign used social media to reach and mobilize young voters, we are less familiar with innovative ways youth of color are circumventing political elites and engaging in a new form of politics called participatory politics. That's the term researchers in the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Youth and Participatory Politics use to describe acts such as starting a political group online, circulating a blog about a political issue, or forwarding political videos to friends. Like traditional political acts they address issues of public concern. The difference is that participatory acts are interactive, peer-based, and do not defer to elites or formal institutions. They are also tied to digital or new media platforms that facilitate and amplify young people's actions.

To explore the impact of participatory politics, the survey research team, led by Cathy Cohen and Joseph Kahne, conducted a nationally representative survey of 3,000 young people aged 15-25. The findings in that just-released report, Participatory Politics: New Media and Youth Political Action, indicate that black and Asian-American youth are the most avid users of new media, using online venues to pursue interests and engage politically. Specifically, black and Asian-American youth are more likely than white and Latino youth to use digital platforms such as Facebook to communicate with family and friends. They are also more likely to use new media for interest and hobby-driven activities. Moreover, black and Asian-American youth are more likely than white and Latino youth to pursue political news online. And most importantly, black youth participate in participatory politics at rates equal to or slightly higher than white, Latino and Asian-American youth.

In contrast to claims that young people of color are using their digital dominance to waste time on the Internet, we might be witnessing a new form of the digital divide where black and Asian-American youth use new media more regularly than white youth for friendship, interests and participatory-activities and politics. If participatory politics can be harnessed so young people gain access to and control over their politics, then we might expect that young blacks and Asian Americans, whose voices are often marginalized and silenced, will gain greatly from these new forms of expression and political activity.

A key question that emerges from these findings is "Are we prepared to provide the resources, supports and media literacy training necessary for youth of color to transfer their digital social capital into influence in the political realm?" Record numbers of young blacks and Latinos went to the polls in 2008. A number of states responded by making it more difficult for young people to register to vote, under the cloak of fighting fraud. Will we respond similarly to the opening of the political realm through participatory politics? Will we give young people the chance to use new media to pursue their own political agenda or only to respond to yet another unnecessary tragedy? Participatory politics offers a political realm where voices of young people are at the center and driving the agenda. Are we prepared to embrace their innovation, support their engagement, and give them greater control, voice, and potentially influence over the issues that matter most in their lives?]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1662927 2012-07-10T15:23:19-04:00 2012-09-09T05:12:04-04:00

Rev. Jesse Jackson http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rev-jesse-jackson/ greatest loss of personal wealth, the highest percentage of families losing their homes.

The calamity has led many to call for programs that would target states and communities most in need. Washington has been unresponsive if not downright hostile to this notion, yet Republicans do target when it suits them -- particularly with the largely African-American residents of the District of Columbia.

This year, Rep. Trent Franks, an Arizona Republican who knows next to nothing about the District or its people, has insisted that its appropriation include not only a ban on D.C. taxpayers helping poor women pay for abortions, but a ban on any woman using even her own money for an abortion after 20 weeks -- with no exceptions for rape or incest. Republicans aren't opposed to targeting; they are just opposed to helping.

But the economic calamity visited on the African-American and Latino communities cannot be ignored. The Department of Labor reports that African-American unemployment is officially at about twice that of whites. African Americans were more likely to lose jobs in the economic collapse and have been slower to find jobs in the halting recovery. The situation for the young is particularly desperate. High school graduates face the worst job market since the Great Depression. Roughly 65 percent of African Americans ages 16 to 19 were in the work force in January.

Close to one in three African-American children are now in poverty.

Middle class African Americans were particularly devastated by the collapse of home values. The wealth gap between blacks and whites doubled, with median black net worth falling below $5,000. As the Washington Post reported, the financial damage to African Americans caused by the subprime mortgage crisis is the most severe among all Americans and will be longest-lasting.

A big reason for this is that African Americans, like Latinos, live disproportionately in areas with high unemployment -- the ghettos and barrios of our cities. This makes jobs harder to find and harder to get to. In addition, our urban areas are the last to recover. In Chicago, for example, black unemployment increased from more than 17 percent in 2010 to more than 19 percent in 2011, even as the economy was growing.

This economy is not working for most Americans. With hard-hit families tightening their belts, employers won't hire until they see a lot more customers with cash in their pockets.

Government action is needed. We know what to do. With the construction industry idle and interest rates at record lows, we should use this opportunity to rebuild the country's decrepit infrastructure. Aid to states and localities would keep teachers and cops on the job.

We should end tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas and use that money to benefit small-business startups. And we should target funds to areas of high need -- with urban corps and green corps for the young and veterans. We should ensure that everyone who returns home from risking his or her life in distant battlefields starts off with a job.

But in Washington, we get partisan paralysis. Republicans posture for their base with their D.C. antics. They are simply deaf to the people who need action, not antics.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1646096 2012-07-03T10:37:06-04:00 2012-09-02T05:12:16-04:00

Rev. Jesse Jackson http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rev-jesse-jackson/ cast almost one out of every six votes in that election and voted for Obama by a 2-to-1 ratio. We saw what happens when they are discouraged in 2010, when young voter turnout fell a staggering 60 percent, and a Tea Party Congress was elected.

What will young voters do in 2012? The president showed his concern by kicking off his campaign with speeches on two college campuses. The New York Times reports young people are more discouraged and disaffected than ever. The youngest voters particularly -- the 18- to 24-year-olds -- are struggling in the worst economy since the Great Depression. Obama still leads Romney by 13 points in early polls, but that is half his lead among 25- to 29-year-olds. Many are undecided and many turned off and tuned out.

Young voters are still largely Obama territory. Today's aging, white, Southern-dominated Republican Party has little appeal. Millennials are the most diverse generation in our history. They are the most accepting of equal rights for all -- minorities, gays and women. Most can't even imagine that we're arguing about birth control in the 21st century.

The president reflects their values far more than his opponent. Obama fought to free student loans from the private banks, to extend Pell grants and defend lower student loan rates. He is bringing young men and women home from Iraq and Afghanistan, while Romney calls for more war. His Justice Department is defending the right to vote against efforts by Republicans in various states to erect obstacles against the young. He defended Planned Parenthood when the Republican Congress targeted it. He's pushed for renewable energy and common sense on catastrophic climate change, against the "Drill, baby, drill" Republicans. It's no wonder current polls show Romney winning only 29 percent of the millennial vote, less than John McCain garnered in spring polls four years ago.

But while Obama will win the most young votes, the question is how many will vote? The overwhelming issue for young people is jobs, and the jobs picture is lousy. Nearly one in four 18- or 19-year-olds was unemployed in May, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. For 20- to 24-year-olds, the rate is 12.9 percent. Discouragement, despair and cynicism are the natural result.

The campaigns are gearing up their Twitter, text, video, Facebook and other communication capacities. They plan dorm-to-dorm volunteer campaigns. But cool campaign technologies won't answer the concerns of the young. Young people are looking for a plan to put people to work. Romney's trickle-down ideas have little appeal -- particularly since they entail tax cuts for the already wealthy and deep cuts in education, college support and public services that appeal to the young.

To get young voters excited, Obama will have to offer more than his record. He'll need to fight for jobs that will give the young a future.

When cynicism or dismay wins out and the young withdraw, unintended consequences result. We saw that in 1968 when Nixon beat Humphrey by the margin of our despair. We saw it in 2010 when only 20.9 percent of young people bothered to vote, and the Tea Party-dominated Republicans took the Congress, leading to two years of partisan obstruction.

Young voters have the power to transform America's future, but to do so, they have to come alive once more.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1630783 2012-06-27T11:05:10-04:00 2012-08-27T05:12:06-04:00

Rev. Jesse Jackson http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rev-jesse-jackson/
There is also a fake drug war being waged by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Issa has been running a search-and-destroy mission not against the drug cartels, but against our own attorney general. Instead of prosecuting criminals, he now is pushing for a House vote on holding U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress for not acceding to his fishing expedition. This unprecedented maneuver could lead to a constitutional crisis.

Issa's fake drug war is not investigating the war raging on our borders. Rather, his offensive is targeted at harassing the U.S. attorney general and winning political points against the president in the 2012 presidential election season.

At issue is a misguided program that began in the Bush years as "Operation Wide Receiver." Agents from the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives cooked up a plan to sell guns to presumed criminals, allow those same guns to "walk" across the border so they could be tracked when used in crimes and, ultimately, lead to the arrests of supposed of higher-ups in the Mexican drug cartels.

Not surprisingly, many of the guns disappeared, as discovered by the Holder-run Department of Justice in 2009. This ill-conceived program was continued under President Barack Obama and Holder, renamed "Fast and Furious" and remained under the radar until a few of the lost guns resurfaced near the scene of the murder of ATF Agent Brian Terry in a drug shoot-out in Arizona.

Holder immediately ended the program, dismissed or transferred the officials responsible and dispatched an inspector general to investigate how and why this "gun walking" operation was done. Although this program began under Michael Mukasey, George W. Bush's attorney general, Holder took responsibility for it and apologized to Terry's parents.

Issa is going after Holder in the hope of getting Obama. He has launched a fishing expedition to discover email related neither to Operation Wide Receiver nor to Fast and Furious; rather, his focus has been on the attorney general's reaction to Terry's death.

Holder has been dragged before the committee nine times; 7,600 pages of documents have been sent to the committee. But Issa has continued to up the ante, requesting items that the Justice Department says might interfere with ongoing investigations. The president has sought to protect these investigations and the integrity of our government by invoking executive privilege -- a maneuver employed by nearly every president for 40 years. Yet, Issa has continued to ask for more.

Does he really want something else? Perhaps so. Indeed, for the first time in history, the House of Representatives will hold a vote which, if party lines are followed, will result in the U.S. attorney general being held in contempt of Congress.

Holder has been at the vanguard of the president's progressive agenda. He is a leading opponent of a right-wing drive to suppress the vote in states across the union. He is at the forefront of Obama's policy of prosecutorial discretion to protect the DREAM kids. He will lead the effort to forgo enforcement of the federal statute against same-sex marriages, ceding the turf to the states. Harassing Holder into resigning or pushing to have him prosecuted for contempt are clearly partisan strategies designed to obstruct this mission.

In this election season, Republicans have abandoned all pretense of cooperation in a crisis. This may please some in our nation, but it is a disservice to all of America.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1610085 2012-06-19T16:28:03-04:00 2012-08-19T05:12:08-04:00

Rev. Jesse Jackson http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rev-jesse-jackson/
We shouldn't trade in the legacy of the New Deal and Fair Deal for a Raw Deal. It follows from the Declaration of Independence that declared that "all men are created equal," expanded over time to include all men and women. It follows from the Pledge of Allegiance that promises "liberty and justice for all." Not for a few. Not for most. For all.

For some, it's the 1 percent and SuperPAC Deal. For others, it's the Middle Class Deal. In America, the land of opportunity, every American deserves the Fair Chance to Succeed Deal.

Notice the limits. Success is not promised. Some succeed; some fail. Only a fair chance is promised. It does not promise equality. People have different gifts, different capacities, different amounts of luck and pluck.

But we are a long way from reaching this goal. If you are born in Appalachia or in South Chicago, a fair chance at success isn't the norm. Children are likely to suffer from inadequate nutrition. Preschool will not be available, schools will be underfunded, understaffed and overcrowded. After-school programs will be unaffordable.

If you are a young person entering the work force or a veteran returning from service, you face the worst job market since the Great Depression. It's hard to have a shot at success if you can't even find a job to get started.

A college education or advanced training is becoming more important and less affordable. The extraordinary can make it by juggling classes and jobs and taking on debt. But it is hard to argue that everyone has a fair shot at the middle class when many must take on tens of thousands of dollars in debt (an average of more than $25,000) to get the education they need.

Health care also is essential for a fair chance to succeed. But our broken system rations health care by the ability to pay. Those with the money can get the best health care in the world. Those without go without. Health-care reform was designed to ensure that almost all Americans have health insurance. But rollbacks of Medicaid and Medicare, and efforts to repeal health-care reform put that at risk.

A fair chance is essential to the American dream -- to the belief that if you work hard, you can provide a home for your family, an education for your children and a secure retirement for yourself at the end of your working life. Now we are stunned to learn that the U.S. falls behind other industrialized countries in upper mobility -- and that your parents' economic status is more likely to determine where you end up.

We know how to create remarkable public schools, but we don't create them for all children. College used to be affordable to working families. Now cutbacks in state aid have sent tuition soaring, and stagnating family incomes make college a forbidding expense.

Surely this should inform the president and Congress as they begin to negotiate over how to get our books in order. Everyone deserves a fair chance to succeed. We need to guarantee a healthy start for every child and access to a first-rate education. A job for everyone willing to work must be our first priority. Affordable health care cannot be a privilege. We can cut back on things that are less essential.

We needn't squander trillions on wars of choice. We can crack down on offshore tax havens. We can cut the subsidies to powerful corporate interests. Those who have done well in America can be asked to do well by America.

When it comes to a grand bargain needed to reduce our deficits, let's start by ensuring that everyone has a fair chance to succeed.

We owe one another at least that.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1608580 2012-06-19T09:47:16-04:00 2012-08-19T05:12:08-04:00

Rev. Jesse Jackson http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rev-jesse-jackson/
For Adidas to promote the athleticism and contributions of a variety of African-American sports legends -- especially Olympic heroes Wilma Rudolph and Jesse Owens and boxing great Muhammad Ali -- and then allow such a degrading symbol of African-American history to pass through its corporate channels and move toward actual production and advertisement, is insensitive and corporately irresponsible.

These slave shoes are odious and we as a people should be called to resent and resist them. If put into production and placed on the market, protests and pickets signs will follow. Adidas cannot make a profit at the expense of commercialized human degradation.

I spend a good deal of time in America's public schools urging young men and women to pursue academic excellence. Students repeat the phrase -- strong minds break strong chains. Even if no allusion to slavery is intended, chains conjure only negative images. The only things we chain in this society are slaves, prisoners and beasts. This is exactly the kind of mindless commercialism our children need less of -- especially in young urban America where 55 percent unemployment, under 50 percent graduation rates, drugs and violence have them chained to uncertain futures already. We urge the NBA, NCAA, state high school athletic associations, Parent Teachers Associations, coaches associations, players associations and the U.S. Olympic Committee to reject these shoes. African-Americans have made too much progress since slavery to allow any company to profit by selling images reminiscent of our enslaved past.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1552680 2012-05-29T10:48:02-04:00 2012-07-29T05:12:04-04:00

Rev. Jesse Jackson http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rev-jesse-jackson/ more than 530 young people have been killed in Chicago. Almost four-fifths of these killings were in 22 African-American and Latino community areas on the city's South and Southwest sides.

Each year, across the country, about 7,000 African Americans are murdered, more than nine times out of 10 by other African Americans. Far more African Americans are killed on our streets than on foreign battlefields. If a foreign foe took these lives, we would mobilize armies and armadas to stop them. But here, because much of this violence is contained in racially concentrated neighborhoods, there is too much resignation and too little outrage.

We know the roots of this violence. The poor are crowded into desperate neighborhoods. Joblessness produces despair, depression and hopelessness. Drugs and guns spread in the underground economy. Gangs start warring on mean streets. The young go to the poorest schools. They are more likely to be suspended, less likely to graduate. They face the worst job market since the Great Depression.

We know where the guns come from. There are no gun manufacturers or gun shops in Chicago. If we knew the location of a terrorist base providing weapons to kill U.S. soldiers, we would take it out with a drone attack. No one wants drones used here at home, but that's no reason to ignore the problem.

Chicago knows how to protect people when it has adequate resources. When NATO came to town, the police secured the streets and protected the guests. Historically, when the violence heads uptown, the police react faster and investigate more thoroughly. More police have been dispatched to neighborhoods where the murders have spiked, but citizens there still aren't protected as well as our guests or uptown businesses are.

In his poem, "The Second Coming," William Butler Yeats writes of a time when "The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned. The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."

In the face of this violence, our society seems to lack conviction. Social permissiveness allows the vulnerable to remain unprotected by law. Mass unemployment threatens to become a normal condition. Starving schools of resources is a budgetary item.

And the worst are full of passionate intensity. The National Rifle Association and its lobbies push to weaken gun laws, to free gun stores from responsibility, to block the ability of our municipalities to crack down on the gun flow.

Making our neighborhoods safe won't be easy. We must target the areas that suffer the most pain, and put young people to work. We need to provide the young with the best, not the worst, educational opportunities. We need the police to make protecting the citizens of those streets a greater priority. We need to crack down on the flow of drugs and guns.

This won't start from the mayor's office or the police department. Change will come only when victims demand it. People whose backs are against the wall can imitate the violence of the broader society or they can adjust to it or they can resist. They must resist. In Chicago, many courageous community groups and churches have taken up this cause. We must march on the gun sellers and challenge the gangs. We must march to demand jobs.

One of Franklin Roosevelt's Four Freedoms is the Freedom from Fear. Violence on our streets tramples a basic human right. Responding requires all the energy and invention that we used in the civil rights movement -- from litigation to demonstration, from nonviolent protest to the power of the vote.

We must have for our youth more graduations and fewer funerals. We must choose life over death. We choose nonviolence not because we are scared, but because we are wise. And it is transformative.

We must make the unspeakable unacceptable again.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1524116 2012-05-17T10:31:15-04:00 2012-07-17T05:12:20-04:00

Rev. Jesse Jackson http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rev-jesse-jackson/
Why protest a meeting of U.S. allies? One major reason is that after the Soviet Union collapsed and Europe united, NATO became an organization in search of a mission. It was created as a defensive alliance to bolster the West against the Soviet threat. Now that threat is no longer. And NATO has slowly turned from a mutual defensive alliance to a mutual offensive alliance. In the Balkans, Afghanistan and Libya, NATO has coordinated interventions into areas outside the alliance.

The summit will focus on Afghanistan. The allies will discuss how quickly to transfer authority over to the Afghans, and what kind of commitments will be sustained after the troop withdrawals, slated to be completed by 2014. After more than ten years, Afghanistan is an unpopular war, opposed by the vast majority of Americans.

National Nurses United will organize one of the most visible demonstrations. They oppose the war in principle, but also because of its costs. The U.S. spends almost as much on our military as the nations of the world combined spend on theirs. President Barack Obama has helped bring the Iraq War to an end, but the administration's budget spends more on war in Afghanistan than it does on education here at home.

NATO is the symbol and the centerpiece of the U.S. commitment to global military intervention. The demonstrators are right to take their protests to its doorstep. Nonviolent protest will make their message clear. Violence or vandalism will only divert attention. Gandhi and King chose nonviolence because they were wise. Nonviolence works. Its moral witness is far more powerful than the fear and anger created by violence.

If the message is clear, Americans will stand with the demonstrators. The only country the U.S. should be focused on rebuilding is right here at home. We have the most powerful military in the world, but our students aren't keeping up, our roads and bridges and basic infrastructure are in decline, poverty is spreading. And abroad, we're increasingly known not for the aid we provide but for the bombs we drop.

Last week in Washington, Republicans in Congress passed a budget resolution that increased military spending while cutting funding for food stamps and child nutrition. Republican Mitt Romney has called for raising military spending -- already above its Cold War levels in comparable dollars -- even as he supports a budget that would require cutting Medicare and virtually eliminating domestic government investments in education, food safety, roads and bridges, new energy and more. Obama's budget is less unbalanced, but even he would sustain a military budget far higher than required for defense.

Instead of diplomacy and peaceful engagement, the U.S. increasingly employs drones and remote-controlled missiles to "speak" to our adversaries. Too many scorn diplomacy as weak, as "soft power." But in fact, Americans would be better served if we had fewer smart bombs and more educated kids. We'd do better if our military were smaller, our diplomats more active and our economy stronger.

If nonviolent, the protests at the NATO Summit will be compelling because their means fit their ends. Chicago and America would be far better off with more peaceful citizen organizing and less military mobilization.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1499432 2012-05-08T09:32:51-04:00 2012-07-08T05:12:08-04:00

Rev. Jesse Jackson http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rev-jesse-jackson/
For months, conservative pundits have criticized President Barack Obama for not forcing more deficit reduction. House Republicans boast that their Mitt Romney-endorsed budget would cut deficits faster by slashing spending -- although they refuse to reveal what they would slash. Deficits are unpopular. They represent out-of-control government spending. Tightening our belts in hard times seems both responsible and inevitable.

For years, Greece's soaring deficits have been the object lesson of the right: Run up deficits and investors won't buy your bonds and you'll face bankruptcy.

But the real lesson of Greece, Spain, France, Ireland and others is that slashing spending in a weak economy serves only to drive the economy back into recession, increase unemployment and spread poverty. And it does little to reduce deficits or to reassure investors who worry about the economy tanking. Austerity is like bleeding a patient who is still recovering from a heart attack.

The U.S. enjoys better growth than Europe because we've done more to stimulate our economy and have been slower to turn to deficit reduction. But states and localities forced to balance budgets because of state constitutional requirements are laying off teachers and police and firefighters. Now the federal budget is being cut, adding to the drag on the economy. And if, no matter who wins this fall, the administration and Congress join in a "grand bargain" that combines spending cuts and tax increases, Americans may well learn the European lesson about austerity directly.

This economy is barely out of the operating room and just beginning to recover. Large companies are sitting on trillions of profits looking for customers. Small businesses won't hire until they see consumers coming in the door. We still have mass unemployment, falling wages and more families losing their homes. Yet Washington seems unable or unwilling to act.

This week, a committee of the Senate and House will consider the only major jobs program before the Congress: the transportation bill, which funds rebuilding roads, bridges and mass transit. The Senate passed a small, two-year authorization with overwhelming bipartisan support. But zealous House Republicans have defeated everything except temporary extensions.

This makes no sense. In fact, we should be doing much more to rebuild America. Interest rates are at near-record lows. The construction industry is idle. There will never be a better opportunity to borrow the money needed to rebuild an infrastructure that is in dangerous disrepair.

Maybe we should pay the legislators to junket in Europe. Let them see the riots, visit with defeated politicians, talk to embarrassed economists now calling for a change in course. The House Republican caucus doesn't seem to worry about the growing poverty in our cities or wonder whether those cities will blow up this summer. Perhaps they might reconsider if they learn from the Europeans that enforcing brutal measures on citizens to pay for the mess caused by banks doesn't just increase poverty and unemployment, it shortens political careers.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1467581 2012-05-01T10:58:30-04:00 2012-07-01T05:12:24-04:00

Rev. Jesse Jackson http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rev-jesse-jackson/ slated to double to 6.8 percent in July. That would add up to $1,000 to the burden of students dependent on loans to help pay for their education.

Not surprisingly, President Barack Obama has called on Congress to sustain the lower rates. When Mitt Romney agreed, House Republicans reversed their previous position and passed the extension. Now, the Senate and House are descending into a nasty debate about how to pay for the extension, not whether to do it. Enough, as the Chicago Sun-Times editorialized; they should fix this and move on.

Keeping interest rates low on student loans is a good thing, but it does not answer the real question: How do we make college or advanced training affordable for the young?

The reality is that soaring college costs are pricing ever more students out of the education they need. Tuition and fees at colleges are rising faster even than medical costs. Students now graduate with an average of $25,000 in loans. Two-thirds of all students rely on loans to help pay for their education. Student debt -- now over $1 trillion -- exceeds credit card debt.

These loans are like a noose around students who are graduating into the worst jobs market since the Great Depression. One in two recent graduates under 25 is in need of full-time work -- unemployed or able only to find part-time work. Wages are still sinking for recent graduates, even as their indebtedness rises.

For many, the student loan burden is crippling. If they can't find work, they can defer payment on their loans, but interest keeps adding up on the unpaid balance. If they find work, they often can't pay the basics -- rent, car loan, health care and student loan. Instead of their education lifting them into the middle class, it too often suffocates hope.

This country can't afford to waste a generation. High-quality public education has been central to our success. We led the world in providing K-12 public education. With the GI Bill after World War II, we offered an entire generation free access to college or advanced training. The result was the best-educated work force in the world, which helped build the American middle class.

All now agree that college or advanced training is more important than ever, yet we are making it less and less affordable. College tuition is soaring because the state contribution to budgets is being slashed. We're privatizing public colleges piecemeal by putting more and more of the costs on the students.

We should go the other way. Invest the money needed -- an estimated $30 billion a year -- to make public colleges free for all who qualify. Let all children know that if they can get the education, then they earn. Last week, Mitt Romney, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, offered this advice to college students: "Take a shot, go for it, take a risk, get the education, borrow money if you have to from your parents, start a business."

He doesn't get it. Fewer and fewer families can afford to finance college for their kids.

Conservatives argue that making college free would just encourage idleness among the young and, anyway, we can't afford it. Those were the same arguments that were made against the GI Bill. We can afford it -- the cost is far less than the 20 percent cut in top tax rates that Romney champions. In fact, we can't afford not to do it.

If the American dream is to stay alive, the young must have access to the best education in the world. We will all pay the price if we don't provide it for them.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1399598 2012-04-03T11:08:00-04:00 2012-06-03T05:12:01-04:00

Rev. Jesse Jackson http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rev-jesse-jackson/ found marijuana "residue" in his book bag. No actual contraband was found; no arrest or citations were issued by police.

When news of the suspension was leaked, Sybrina Fulton, Trayvon's mother, was understandably outraged. "They killed my son," she said, "and now they are trying to kill his reputation." But in part because the man who killed Trayvon remains uncharged and at large, the leak served mostly to shine a glaring spotlight on the racially skewed suspension policies in our public schools.

Early last month, the U.S. Department of Education released a report on school equity issues that revealed that minority stu­dents face "much harsher discipline" than whites in our public schools. African Americans were more than three times more likely to be suspended or expelled than white students. More than 70 percent of students arrested or handed over to law enforcement in school were black or Hispanic.

Chicago's schools rank among the worst in racial discrepancy. African-American students represented 45 percent of the Chicago Public School enrollment in 2009-10, but 76 percent of students receiving at least one out-of-school suspension that year. African-American students were five times as likely to be suspended as their white classmates.

Students from Voices of Youth in Chicago Education calculated that students lost a stunning 306,731 days of school last year due to out-of-school suspensions. VOYCE made the common sense conclusion: Public schools are too quick to suspend, particularly for nonviolent incidents, and too seldom talk out problems with students.

"We need a discipline code that works for all students, not one that sends black and Latino students a path to prison," said Victor Alquicera, a Roosevelt High School student. (The protests have had an effect, with expulsion rate dropping 43 percent compared to last year, according to school officials.)

Alquicera has it right: five- and 10-day suspensions are brutal punishments. They put kids on the street. They put them behind in class work. They label them for trouble. There is a range of positive interventions that could be done -- including personal meetings, restorative justice, classroom management and a range of in-school discipline. The vast bulk of the suspensions are for disruptive, nonviolent behavior. These are kids in need of discipline, not in need of suspension.

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan admitted he was "troubled" by the data.

"The undeniable truth is that the everyday education experience for many students of color violates the principle of equity at the heart of the American promise," he said. "It is our collective duty to change that."

We have moved to a multiracial society, but we have not moved beyond disparate treatment.

It is time to revisit the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights; it has been noticeably absent in this crisis in Sanford. In the great legacy of Theodore Hesburgh and Mary Frances Berry, I would appeal to the president to take this opportunity to reconstruct and revitalize the commission and charge it once more with investigating discriminatory practices, rousing public concern and forcing the pace of reform.

The effort to diminish Trayvon Martin's reputation succeeds only in raising questions about whether young African-American men can gain equal protection under the law.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1382097 2012-03-27T09:00:56-04:00 2012-05-27T05:12:02-04:00

Rev. Jesse Jackson http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rev-jesse-jackson/
George Zimmerman, the man who shot him, has not been arrested, apparently protected by Florida's "Stand Your Ground" law, which "authorizes" anyone to shoot someone whom he or she feels is threatening.

This surely is a test of our faith. Faith, the Bible tells us, is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. For decades, African Americans risked their lives if they walked in certain neighborhoods. The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., however, had a different dream. And he helped build a movement to achieve the "substance of things hoped for."

Now we must choose: We will decide if Trayvon Martin's death is a moment, or becomes the spark for a movement. We can't bring him back. But we can make his voice louder in death than it could be in his short life.

Emmett Till's murder sparked a movement. After he was brutally beaten, his mother put him in an open casket to show the horror that he had endured. Although he was crucified as a warning to others who might demand freedom, his murder gave some the courage to join the civil rights movement.

Rosa Parks remembered. When I asked her why she decided to risk being beaten, jailed or worse by refusing to move to the back of the bus, she said, "I thought about Emmett Till and couldn't go back."

When King was assassinated in Memphis, it triggered a 40-year journey of progress, culminating in the election of an African American to the presidency.

Yet, that achievement is misleading. Athletes are cheered by fans of all races. Oprah Winfrey is trusted by viewers across lines of race. In a shining moment, Barack Obama is elected. But behind the klieg lights, we have a long way to go. The action in the spotlights has blinded us to the realities Trayvon Martin's tragic death exposes.

African Americans are still too often victims of vigilante justice. African Americans are more likely to be arrested, more likely to be charged, more likely to be jailed for a nonviolent offense. A private, profit-making prison-industrial complex now lobbies for harsher sentences -- and minorities are disproportionately the victims.

African Americans were more likely to be steered to risky subprime loans, more likely to pay high interest on auto loans, more likely to find it hard to get financing for businesses.

Over the past 30 years, opportunity has narrowed. Incomes for non-college-educated men fell, as labor unions were crushed and the exporting of good jobs undermined wages. More young people, disproportionately minorities, found themselves priced out of college or forced to go deeply in debt to gain the education they earned.

We must go from moment to movement and struggle to gain the substance of things hoped for. What do we hope for? A fair and healthy start for every child. An end to Stand Your Ground laws and vigilantes. Quality public education for everyone. Full employment and an end to discrimination that results in an African-American jobless rate twice that of whites.

Given the realities beneath the klieg lights, we need a new Kerner Commission to report on the status of race and discrimination in 21st century America. We need a renewed Civil Rights Commission that issues an annual report detailing our progress -- or our regression -- in racial relations.

We have to decide. Let us take a moment to grieve for Trayvon Martin, whose life was so brutally taken from him. Then let us move from moment to movement, and revive the struggle for a more perfect Union.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1366944 2012-03-20T10:43:21-04:00 2012-05-20T05:12:01-04:00

Rev. Jesse Jackson http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rev-jesse-jackson/
Apparently Michigan's Gov. Rick Snyder thinks so.

In Michigan, Detroit and other cities have hit the wall. The Great Recession has devastated city finances. Everyone agrees tough steps are needed.

Snyder's response is what Canadian author and social activist Naomi Klein calls economic "shock doctrine." Use the crisis to force-feed an unpopular far-right agenda: privatizing basic services; selling off public parks and assets for private gain; breaking labor contracts; laying off teachers, cops and other vital service providers.

Meanwhile, the governor calls for cutting taxes for corporations, and his Republican colleagues in the House slash federal support for states and localities, intensifying the pressure.

Citizens oppose this, so democracy itself must be trashed -- particularly in majority minority cities. In Benton Harbor and Pontiac, the governor has invoked Public Act 4 and appointed emergency managers with extraordinary powers. The emergency managers can break all city contracts; abolish all city offices; sell off the public's assets; pass and revoke laws, all without consultation or approval of the citizens' elected representatives.

In Detroit, Snyder has said, "Let's have it so the city can keep running the city." But his formulation of that doesn't include the elected City Council members. Rather than invoking the economic martial law of Public Act 4, the governor has offered Detroit a "consent agreement."

Instead of an emergency manager, the governor's draft would create a nine-person "Financial Advisory Board" with similarly unlimited budgetary and economic development powers. The mayor and City Council would name three board members; the governor would pick the rest.

Not surprisingly, the document has received a skeptical response from elected officials. U.S. Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) said he objects because the proposed agreement "essentially asks the city to forfeit its citizens' rights in exchange for no tangible benefit."

The governor offers no new assistance from the state. While city workers face another blow, corporate vultures are circling, salivating at the possibilities of gentrifying public parks or profiting from privatized services.

But Detroit didn't cause the housing bubble or the Great Recession. It is bizarre that Wall Street's excesses cause the mess and then the bill is sent to the victims.

Moreover, Snyder and other Republican governors are competing to lower taxes on corporations and the wealthy, even as they savage services for working and poor families and sell off public assets. The result will starve vital investments -- in infrastructure, in schools and children, in health care and worker training. This is a road to impoverishment.

What's needed instead is more democracy. Federal aid should be increased to cities and states to avoid layoffs. A regional development plan should be put together by federal, state and local officials.

In the city, community meetings are needed to discuss diffi­cult choices. The mayor and the City Council should insist that the city's creditors share in the sacrifice. Union workers have made significant concessions; they must not be trampled. It simply isn't right to claim that contracts with banks and creditors are sacrosanct, while those with workers can be discarded.

The financial elites who caused the mess should not be given dictatorial powers to clean it up.

And democracy isn't a luxury; it is a fundamental right.
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