Didn’t take long
After receiving some grief for this post, I now point you to Exhibit A in what I mean:
Jesse Jackson accused the Republican Party, conservatives and the retailer Wal-Mart of attempting to “push the ideology of the Confederacy” in America.
Jackson made the comments in several speeches he delivered during his 33rd annual Rainbow/PUSH Coalition Conference in Chicago.
“The ideological right in control of our nation knows what it wants,” Jackson said. “The right wing fights for a series of constitutional amendments. They intend to have their ideology protected by law. They intend to push the ideology of the Confederacy and continue to challenge the vision of the Union,” Jackson told conference delegates on Monday.
“In this competing vision of America, we choose the Union over the Confederacy. We chose a simple but comprehensive plan to make America a more perfect union,” Jackson added.
On Tuesday, Jackson applied the Confederate label to the Bush administration’s economic policies and to the retail giant Wal-Mart.
While a prominent black leader engages in useless rhetoric, SayUncle estimates that in America today: 21 black people will commit murder; 22 black people will be murdered; 506 black people will be arrested for drug trafficking crimes; 1,000,000 black people are in prison; and 26,500,000 black people live in poverty. The focus by Jackson is on what keeps black folks down, never what can lift them up.
July 6th, 2004 at 10:51 am
[…] ;t you just feel the love coming from a select few on the left?), the esteemed Mr. Jackson harkens back to the confederacy: The right wing fights for a series of constitut […]
June 30th, 2004 at 8:07 am
Oh…my…GOD.
My head a splode.
June 30th, 2004 at 8:23 am
Umm, so the Republican Party is NOT interested in states rights, in breaking down the wall of seperation of church and state and for a much reduced and influential federal governemnt? And those weren’t — aside from slavery — the underpinnings of Confederate thought?
June 30th, 2004 at 8:33 am
They may have been, however, the flag denotes slavery (as you have said), which was the real implication.
June 30th, 2004 at 8:35 am
Personally, I find some irony in Uncle “calling out” Jackson for having nothing useful to say about race relations, while himself having nothing useful to say about race relations. 😉
June 30th, 2004 at 8:37 am
And I’m pretty sure we’ve said all along that the Confederate Flag primarily represents two things: Slavery, and opposition to civil rights legislation. Jackson could be talking about either here, probably the latter.
Oh, and I think the flag also stands for “I don’t wanna be a part of the US,” but I’m not sure about that.
June 30th, 2004 at 8:44 am
Not ironic at all. After all, i don’t hold myself out as a black leader.
June 30th, 2004 at 8:45 am
Gee, Uncle, it took me all of three minutes and Google to find Jackson publicly saying this:
Hmm, looks to me like he’s railing against the very same types of things that you complain he should be railing about. Your beef, it would seem, then, is with what else he says. (And believe me, there’s plenty of stuff in that speech that you’ll hate.)
If you want to criticize what he says, that’s fine, and that’s your right. That doesn’t mean you should falsely accuse him (or, more conveniently for you, the ever-vague “black leaders”) of not caring about those issues which you (now clearly falsely) claim he doesn’t address.
June 30th, 2004 at 8:47 am
“They may have been, however, the flag denotes slavery (as you have said), which was the real implication.”
Except, of course, he is not talking about the flag. He was talking about the ideology of the Confederacy. I seriously doubt anyone thinks the Republican party is advocating a return to slavery, that leaves the less incendiary aspects of the Confederacy to be discussed.
Alternately, one could say that Jackson was drawing a parallel between slavery and the loss of rights at the workplace that the union busting and anti-labor practices of the Republican party in general and Wal-Mart in particular. it would be a stretch, but I suppose one could see it. You would be even more wrong then, of course. You complain that Jackson is engaging in useless rhetoric while ignoring poverty. But under this scenario even more so than the last scenario, Jackson is attacking directly what he feels is one reason for the poverty of the working classes in this country. So, in other words, he is trying to affect the status of poor people in the country. You may think he is wrong, and you may think his choice of rhetoric is counter-productive, but to accuse him of ignoring the problem when he is engaging it directly is a bit silly. otherwise, you are reduced to a position that is the equivalent of “People who do not talk about exclusively about an issue I think they should be talking about on exactly thew terms I think they should use to talk about it are not serious about the problem.”
In other words, these posts seem to boil down to your complaint that Jesse Jackson is not, well, you.
June 30th, 2004 at 9:22 am
That language smacks of the debate surrounding the original Constitution vs. the Articles of Confederation, not the war between the U.S. and the Confederate States a century later. The former had nothing to do with slavery or civil rights, both of which fared just as badly under the original Constitution as they had under the Articles of Confederation. Worse, really, when you think about it; under the Articles of Confederation, Dred Scott v. Sandford would almost certainly have been decided in Mr. Scott’s favor.
Methinks Mr. Jackson is playing a cynical semantic game with the word “confederacy,” a la “I meant X but if my followers get riled up because they thought I meant Y, oh well.”
June 30th, 2004 at 2:52 pm
Yes, becasue its common to use Union and Confederacy when speaking of the Federalsits and Articles of OCnfederation …
June 30th, 2004 at 3:22 pm
Tom, your google skills are nice but in this case i think less relevant than you believe. Where, for example, did the Rev. actually address what to do about them, other than to blame lack of black judges, the criminal system, etc.?
I will concede that it is good to see him addressing some of the issues. And i may now agree with you (to an extent, because jackson loves to sensationalize asinine things) that the media coverage is also an issue.
June 30th, 2004 at 7:04 pm
Gee, I dunno, Uncle. Maybe it’s the part where he says we need to guarantee quality public education for all? Or the part where he talks about labor protections. Or the part where he talks about providing health care? Or the part where he says we need to rebuild infrastructure, and schools, and expand health care?
You may disagree as to whether or not those things will have the desired effect of reducing poverty (and therefore crime), but it’s not the same thing as failing to suggest any remedies.
I’ll be the first to admit that Jackson’s as much about rhetoric as he is about substance, but that doesn’t mean there’s no substance there. But then, Jackson’s really no different than Coulter or Moore — the harder they blow, the more headlines they get.
June 30th, 2004 at 7:48 pm
Kevin,
The arguments between the federalists & the anti-federalists are very similar to the issues argued over in the War of Nothe’n Aggression. Remove slavery & it can be compared to the sides pushing for the Constitution or the Articles of Confederation.
But almost everyone other than myself doesn’t think about the issues involved with the confederacy other than slavery. when people hear “confederacy” most have visions of plantations & whips & chains, not the idea that the federal government cannot & should not meddle in a state’s affairs outside the scope of the constitution.
Jackson himself may have a very one sided view of the confederacy & what it meant, so it’s possible that he uses the reference out of ignorance. But whether it was intentional or ignorant he does want to make the mental association between the republican party & the confederacy – which for most people is like equating conservatives with klansmen.
Now if the repubs did return to the ideology of the confederacy in most areas I’d probably break down & vote for them. But since they have as much a chance of doing that as Lenin does of coming back & making that communism thing actualy work I’ve got to assume Jackson wasn’t talking about anything other than slavery when he mentioned the confederacy.
Oh, for the record, the Republicans party is for state’s rights – as long as it doesn’t interfere w/ federal power. They’re also for a smaller & limited government (than the democrats, but only slightly so) & as for the seperation of church & state…from what I’ve sen they general don’t want institutions & practices that have been long established to be changed because a misconception about a phrase Jefferson wrote in a private correspondence wound up as somehow appearing in the text of the constitution. So from a very unconstructionist viewpoint that one you may be correct on. Everything else they’re not much different than the democrats – well, except for their reputation.
The libertarians are closer to what you accuse the republicans of.
September 5th, 2004 at 11:44 pm
i just need help to really see how the articles of confederation didnt work!! i need to see your point of view!!!