Memories of war protests and civil rights demonstrations.

You are right BillW

Joanne,

I am distressed to be the object of your rebukes - truly. I have enjoyed some of your posts on the Poetry section and once, seeing a reference to Iwakuni, suspected you had some connection to the USMC or USN in your past. Besides, anyone who quotes Thomas Merton on her signature line must be taken seriously.

Did your husband fly P-3s or fighters? Fleet Air Wing SIX and Miramar imply very different backgrounds. Perhaps we knew each other. From your window on 32nd street you could see the carriers berthed across the channel at North Island.

I did indeed think I was pretty cool as a "jet jock" as you called it (a term we never used). That lasted about six months until I found myself for the first time out of composure, calm, and ideas in the air. Very humbling indeed - happens to everyone. Now I know we all face equivalent limits. I try not to assume I fully understand those I encounter, but I do react to things I see and I do have opinions. I believe I explained my viewpoint fairly well in subsequent posts (above).

The late '60s and '70s were troubled times. I would hope that all of us learned something from them. Some do, some don't.

What in God's name is there to admire in Jesse Jackson? The story of the fire in the shirt factory in North Carolina sounds very much like a well-known incident that occurred in New York (or was it Boston) in the late 19th century. I don't recall reading about one in North Carolina.

Jesse is human, he has made mistakes and he has done many great things. You judge him from just a few of the ones you want to frame his entire life.

Jesse Jackson: Chronology


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

October 8, 1941
Jesse Louis Burns born.

1956
Takes his stepfather's name. Becomes Jesse Louis Jackson.

Spring 1959
Graduates from Sterling High School in Greenville, South Carolina.

Fall 1959-Spring 1960
Attends University of Illinois.

Fall 1961
Transfers to North Carolina Agricultural & Technical College.

December 31, 1962
Marries Jacqueline Lavinia Brown.

April/May/June 1963
Becomes a leader of civil rights demonstrations in Greensboro, North Carolina.

June 6, 1963
Arrested in Greensboro for "inciting to riot and disturbing the peace and dignity of the state."

May 1964
Graduates from North Carolina A & T.

September 1964
Enters the Chicago Theological Seminary.

March 1965
After watching 'Bloody Sunday' on television, Jackson is among thousands who head to Selma, Alabama. Meets Dr. King; asks him for a job.

Spring 1966
Becomes head of Chicago chapter of SCLC's Operation Breadbasket. Launches first economic boycott.

Summer 1966
Jackson among the leaders of King's open housing marches in Chicago.

Summer of 1967
Becomes the national director of Operation Breadbasket.

April 4, 1968
King assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee while there to support striking garbage workers.

June 30, 1968
Jackson becomes an ordained minister.

December 1971
Resigns from SCLC and starts Operation PUSH.

Summer 1972
Jackson and William Singer unseat the Mayor Daley delegate slate at the Democratic convention in Miami.

1977
Founds PUSH/Excel, a program to encourage inner-city kids in their schoolwork.

1979
Makes controversial visit to Middle East.

October 1983
Enters the 1984 Democratic presidential race.

December 1983
In Syria, frees downed U.S. pilot Robert Goodman.

February 1984
'Hymietown' comments reported; he apologizes.

1984
Founds the National Rainbow Coalition.

March 1988
With his victory in Michigan, Jackson takes the lead in popular votes and delegates in the 1988 Democratic presidential primary. Eventually loses to Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis.

1989
Moves to Washington, D.C.

September 1991
Wins the release of hundreds of foreign nationals being held in Kuwait by Saddam Hussein.

Fall 1991
Announces he will not run for President in 1992.

1996
Returns to Operation PUSH in Chicago.

February 1997
Jackson proposes an initiative to help close the learning gap between black and white children in part by emphasizing the role of parents. He seeks pledges from approximately 40,000 black parents to become more involved with their children's education and plans meetings with school officials from 45 cities.

December 1997
Jackson visits Kenya as President Clinton's "special envoy for democracy" and speaks with Kenyan president Daniel arap Moi to promote peaceful national elections.

February 1998
Jackson returns to Kenya to help defuse ethnic tensions and keep Kenya's democratic reforms on track.

April 29, 1999
During the Kosovo war, Jackson leaves for Belgrade to negotiate the release of three U.S. POW's captured on the Macedonia border while patrolling with a UN peacekeeping unit.

May 1999
Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic releases the three POW's. After his meeting with Milosevic, Jackson urges NATO officials and Milosevic to "choose the bargaining table over the battlefield."

Bill,

Great post! The low person bit pissed me off, but the prose that followed was so good! (wasn't "The irony of wistful recollections....." a great sentence!).

After all these years I'm taking $&it from a %&#$ing grunt!

Perhaps indeed we were but a few miles and worlds apart in that mess. I didn't see much of the BUFs - they came mostly after my last cruise there. However the picture you paint of the bomb walk is frightening enough.

I'm glad and grateful for your forgiveness (and anxious for God's). That was good!

Best wishes,

Yes he had an affair. So did Henry Hyde, Newt Gingrich, JC Watts, JFK, Bill Clinton and most of his accusers - so have I. I am not throwing stones.

This is the part of your statement that stuck in my craw. It seemed just a tad bit condesending particularly when preceded by the Navy jet jock stuff, like being an officer and a Navy pilot made a person better than another person. Just because a cause is not your cause does not make it a lessor cause.

But then it is late and I do shoot my mouth off sometimes before engaging my brain. In fact I am kinda famous for it.

Joanne,

Thanks for the response. So easy for us all to react to the surface of things - me too. I tried to encapsulate my experience and the associated point of view for my remarks as compactly as I could at the opening. I can see now that you might have found it condescending, but that was very far from my intent. The sentences that offended you were seriously meant, and conveyed my reactions to the first several pages of this thread. Perhaps they are better interpreted apart from the opening.

Don't be concerned that you are quick to react - better to be famous for that than for nothing at all !

Bill and Joanne,

We will likely never agree about Jesse Jackson. I don't fault him at all for the things you cited - I agree they are merely the usual signs of a venality that afflicts us all. I fault him because he has exploited the frustrations of black Americans for his personal gain and vanity and because he has advanced a theory and practice of victimhood that has given him prominence while denigrating the very individual achievements in the face of adversity that will ultimately bring the realization of the dreams and aspirations of the people he claims to represent.

Jesse Jackson is the living embodiment of the greatest current barrier to equal achievement by black Americans. He lives off the absurd notion that special programs (led of course by him) are required for the advancement of black people. The supreme irony is that this tyranny of low expectations continues to thwart a people who, like all of us, are guided and inspired far more by the examples of their best and brightest in a struggle against the odds than they are by the cold hand of government favoritism.

get over it Georgob1. politics.

georgeob1.....sorry

See what I mean? People so dead set against Jesse cannot concede that he is in the main sincere about doing good for people. They think that if black people are not listening to conservatives instead of Jesse they are somehow misguided - and it's Jesse's fault. Bull.

Edgar:

I am not a peace activist, but I am an advocate for the rights of all humanity.

Relative to Iraq, which is where this thread is headed, I say President Bush is correct in his approach. Get them, before they get us.

Relative to Jesse Jackson:

His particpation in the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s is something totally distinct from his involvement in politics. If Jackson was such hot stuff in Chicago, he would have been made mayor long ago. Today is 2002, not the 1960s. I remember the race riots in Chicago in the 1960s, 1970s, etc. Thank God, it's over with. Jackson seems to be a man, like so many others, who has had a problem growing up.

Everyone is welcome to express their opinions freely and I would not want them to hold back on this or any other thread. When Bush comes up with a single shred of proof that Saddam is such a threat to us as he says I will concede that his paranoia has at least some foundation.
Jesse has been in the public eye so long the process has decided to tear him down. He is still a positive force, always has been. I will support him for as long as he stays active.

Having grown up in Chicago and having known Jackson personally, I'm sorry to say, that Jackson's positivity is long gone.

I agree with President Bush, Saddam etc is a threat, whether we see it or not. Must we wait for nother WTC incident to occur?

If we're all so content, why the mad rush for smallpox vaccine?

b

Why? I believe the word is in my last response: paranoia.

As I said about Jackson, I will always support him. Knowing is not necessarily 'knowing'.

Nixon expanded the war and brought on thousands and thousands of needless deaths before declaring we had won peace with honor, then getting the hell out of 'Nam in humiliation and shame.
Ruthless, clever - He broke the back of the peace movement at the same time. He had thugs pretend to be demonstrators and create violent situations where violence need not have happened. He sent the message that peace and civil rights people were bums - It's okay to hurt them. The message came in loud and clear at Kent State on May 4, 1970.Kent State, May 4, 1970 It was not many months after that everybody I would have expected to be out protesting was saying, "I'm an environmentalist." True, the Veterans Against the War were very active, but most people I ran into were suddenly moving away from the days of protest.

And since I have mentioned the Vietnam Veterans Against the War more than once, here is their url.Vietnam Veterans Against the War

As a black man, I look at Jesse as not the greatest of the Civil Rights Leaders, but a good man, and a flawed man., as we all are. I most admired him when he came out an said, hey let's not put all problems on the white man, Let's get our own act together.

Yes, booman
I see Jesse that way myself. But the conservatives will never have any charity in their hearts for him because they apparently believe he does all the African Americans' thinking for them and they seem to think that is why few of them vote Republican - Silly, but, what else could it be?