Jesse Jackson: The Great Man's Conscience
Dannhauser, Werner J.
general. If, as seems most likely despite his "Rainbow" talk, Jackson is building a black-power bloc of a sort seen before in American ethnic politics, it is most disturbing to think that a...
...So we have something in common...
...The Democratic party has not repudiated Jesse Jackson, far from it...
...The good-natured advocates of such an argument lack, alas, the requisite acuity...
...For a while after that, it looked as though Jackson might actually win some primaries and caucuses, especially in the South--he told us so himself...
...Through the proper use of money and a positive attitude, we can stimulate self-development and give the people a vision...
...Jackson'sremarks about Jews have surely given pause to any number of decent Democrats, but the response to those remarks should give pause to us all...
...Nor is it necessary to have participated actively in the struggle for civil rights...
...Here is how it used Jackson as a vessel on April 18, 1976 according to the Chicago T r i b u n e : I believe we should look to the Third World for an answer...
...It was, to be sure, constantly violated, but there was, at least, a genuine conscience to violate...
...Internal rhymes provoke in him heady surges of power...
...Those murders, to be sure, turned out to have been committed by a black, apprehended as the result of a concentrated manhun t conducted by a community concerned with the safety of its children, regardless of race, but never mind that...
...They are perfectly correct...
...When it comes to the Third World, however, the conscience finds its true voice and becomes lyrical...
...The seven other Democratic candidates in the race at the'time of the "Hymie" incident scarcely even criticized him...
...That, however, does not matter all that much to Jackson or the rest of us, simply because Jackson has managed his appeal so ingeniously that he is no longer subject to repudiation at the polls...
...DuBois, for example--and the blatant selfpromotion that attends his every move...
...You were only dabbling in it, and could go back to the white middle class any time you liked...
...After all, in American politics one does not refer to "Hymies" with impunity, j But recent events can be understood better in terms of the rise of Gary Hart than the fall of Jesse Jackson...
...Jackson hardly remains a candidate at all, having become much more than a candidate, having turned into the conscience of the Democratic party--he tells us so himself...
...The Reverend Jackson was talking about the North Vietnamese after they marched into Saigon...
...The conscience exists to scrutinize others, not itself...
...He makes wildly ignorant statements in his speeches, such as the claim that there will be a cost overrun of $750 billion in the defense budget over the next fiv6 years--an allegation so extreme that it could only have proceeded from divine revelation...
...If one were to begin to inquire into the conscience of conscience, one would also have to wonder about the conscience of the conscience's conscience...
...The message from there is clear...
...They fail to distinguish between having a conscience and being one...
...Is this "the most gifted orator in American politics...
...Axing Paul out...
...In general one can say that it is mostly non-white, and in particular one can say it is mostly black...
...But what I did learn in those few summer months of 1964, and the brief intervals I spent afterwards working in black communities, is something that I don't think many liberals have ever discovered...
...Politics must eschew all the perilous subtleties of infinite regress...
...Oh, what a friend you have in white liberals, Rev...
...Asked why he had stated that he had no recollection, he said he did not want to lie...
...No matter...
...It constitutes a response to a gen -~ uine problem...
...What happened...
...J e s s e Jackson and I entered the civil fights movement about the same time...
...Watch Jackson whenever he debates the other Democratic candidates...
...The Rev...
...So far, the voters have not been all that kind to Jesse Jackson...
...themselves up in a huff and say something like: "Jesse Jackson and every other black person in this count r y entered the civil-rights movement the day they were born...
...Indeed, he was praised for his candor and courage...
...If anything, they are the polar opposites of much of the cultural liberalism that has found its home in the Democratic party over the last decade...
...Of course, I am only saying this to tweak my liberal friends...
...Yet strangely, they are all terrified of blacks...
...Hart came from nowhere to forge a coalition of realists looking for a more vibrant candidate to go up against Reagan, purists looking for somebody uncontaminated by the interest-group politics of trade unions, leftists looking for somebody more distant from Werner J. Dannhauser is professor o f government at Cornell University...
...They can point to the con man's stance he assumes once in a while, the variety of positions he has espoused and discarded in the past-sounding alternately like Booker T. Washington and W.E.B...
...Having been accused of calling Jews "Hymies" and New York "Hymietown," Jackson denied using those epithets...
...Paul...
...At whom is he glowering...
...The new conscience understands the treatment afforded to blacks as a litmus-paper test of morality...
...Jesus...
...They did it with military authority and a liberated attitude...
...But basically, black people are very patriotic and conservative...
...Jackson, as befits a working conscience, is big on litmuspaper tests...
...If I were to sum this up in a sentence, I would say one thing...
...Things could change, of course, but Jackson's popularity has waned since he came back from Damascus with Lt...
...Like the Shadow, the conscience knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men...
...Those who have, say, participated in civil rights activities know how to deal with tyrants, who--in the view of conscience politics--do not differ all that much from recalcitrant Southerners...
...I was reminded of this again recently when my wife and I bought a cooperative apartment in what is usually called a "changing neighborhood...
...If Jackson had gotten the whole thing to rhyme, of course, he would have known he was home free...
...Jackson, scared tO death of being called racist...
...It goes on to reassure us, because Communism turns out to be just another value system which our ethnocentrism prevents us from appreciating...
...I have no idea what advice Rather gave him, if any (Jackson did not go...
...in what passed for civilized debate before the largely white League of Women Voters...
...Peter and them...
...in his arms, and of the fact that other black leaders have called him a shameless liar, Jackson again soars to the pulpit...
...For a man who favors cutting the military budget by as much as 40 percent, and has the warmest regard for all Third World "liberation" movements, the trip clearly had its pros...
...This is not normal in a politician in a democratic society...
...The first see him as simply a charlatan...
...Goodman and a kiss from yet another Middle Eastern thug...
...The first thing they wanted to do was bar the windows, bolt the doors, and maybe even put sentries on the roof in order 22 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR MAY 1984...
...It would be comforting to suppose that Jackson damaged himself irreparably by providing the electorate with incontrovertible evidence of his anti-Semitism as well as his lack of veracity...
...But what is more curious is that he feels he has a friend in Dan Rather...
...Does he even know what longevity means...
...Peter and them got jealous of Paul and tried to ax him out based on longevity...
...I won't argue this...
...But perhaps it also had its cons...
...The new conscience had to contest the old one, although, and because, it struck many as being in reasonably good shape...
...But it is touching to think of Jackson turning to Rather for guidance, and I hope he will always feel free to turn to me as well...
...What can their excuse be, in this case, for their failure of conscience...
...When reminded today of his account of cradling the dying Martin Luther King, Jr...
...Peter was with Jesus physically," Jackson the preacher proclaims...
...When I mention these things, they usually draw William Tucker is a contributing editor o f Harper's...
...Black people are not soldiers in the liberal army...
...The n e w . . , l e a d e r s . . , have concentrated on rebuilding, putting people to work, inculcating new values and attitudes...
...In this connection, it becomes especially important to be fair to Jesse Jackson, and fairness dictates that one understand his anti-Semitism as incidental, though by no means accidental...
...A t this point, the reeling of the mind may reach a dangerous level, as it becomes ever more clear that the new conscience turns out to be more than a bit of a racist, one that has the effrontery forever to be charging others with racism...
...Thus one is able to comprehend Jesse Jackson's predicament...
...Hart hurt every other candidate, taking votes from one and all--mostly white votes, to be sure--and he has turned Jackson into the black candidate of mostly black voters...
...They paid dearly for the dubious privilege of being an indicator of decency--or rather, indecencymat any given time...
...Longevity...
...a conscience must offer fixed points of reference, and evil serves as well as good...
...Jackson-the-conscience has expanded on the slogan that black is beautiful to offer the profound teaching that black, and only black, is also true and good...
...In other words, he lied...
...In other words, he lied once more...
...I learned a bit about what black people are really like, in their homes, their churches, and their neighborhoods...
...They smile, joke, beam confidence in at least their version of the future, obviously want to be liked...
...The experience of blacks becomes transfigured into the Black Experience, a paradigm...
...Then he admitted using them but claimed he had been quoted out of context, without ever explaining the context...
...It is perfectly sufficient to hold up to the imagination a model of Evil, also known as South Africa...
...They are not the people liberals think they are...
...I know it doesn't rhyme, but try singing it out at the next camp meeting anyway...
...Well, you can understand it if Jesse Jackson feels he has a friend in Jesus...
...Jackson, basically, glowers...
...That experience has much more to do with suffering than with acting, according to Jackson...
...the Cold War than any disciple of Hubert Humphrey could ever be, and aesthetes looking for looks...
...He came to think of Zionism as a "noxious weed" because it was so bold as to assert rights that were far from first on his agenda...
...The role was thrust upon them by Crusaders, members of the Inquisition, and, most notoriously, by Nazis...
...Shouldn't Paul at least have been axed out on the basis of seniority...
...However, Jackson has at times displayed enough truculence and defiance, even when such displays could only harm him, to suggest that some genuine principles lurk beneath the fluff that emanates from him...
...He became "sick and tired of hearing about the Holocaust" because the Holocaust was cramping his style...
...He cried to the other Democratic candidates We want parity, not charity...
...The idea of Jackson as conscience goes down hard with two kinds of his opponents...
...So he picked up the telephone and called Dan Rather, at home, for advice...
...A second group of opponents does not deny that Jackson is authentic but regards him, rather, as authentically corrupt...
...Jesse Jackson stands exposed as unscrupulousness incarnate...
...They ask how so unconscionable a human being can serve as a conscience...
...It has been fascinating for me to observe what has happened.., in the past year...
...Jackson cannot, or will not, in any case, depart from the peculiar style of public speaking he acquired in the pulpit...
...At bottom, liberals have never understood what black people are about...
...He should be given the benefit of the doubt...
...in this case it divined the existence of " a cultural conspiracy to kill black people whether physically, politically, economically, psychologically, or s p i r i t u a l l y . . . " When it comes to the world beyond these shores, the same principles obtain...
...We both started college in 1960, and began participating in demonstrations shortly after...
...To know the face of absolute evil it suffices to have lived through the time of the Atlanta murders, which proved that it was "open season on the blacks...
...Much of the time, the conscienceas-Jackson employs a rather predictable rhetoric that has become rather soothing in its familiarity, as when it assures us that poverty causes Communism and forces us to counter the crude evidence of our senses, which suggests that Communism causes poverty...
...They may want the government to help them, they may accept some of the rhetoric about big corporations being evil and Reagan being the "friend of the rich...
...The Jews never sought to be the index of the West's morality...
...But Paul interpreted Jesus better than Peter did...
...Yet Jackson, to repeat, faced a genuine problem...
...The problem is that Western civilization already has such a test, the treatment afforded to Jews...
...In other words, he lied again...
...All our fellow co-op owners are card-carrying liberals, ready to rush at a moment's notice to the defense of welfare, school busing, and affirmative action...
...There is no need to point to any country of the Third World as a Utopia, an embodiment of the Good...
...Domestically, blacks have known the absolute oppression, having fought segregation in the South...
...Consider the recent uproar...
...Not long ago Jackson was pondering the advisability of going to Nicaragua to join in the celebration of the coming to power ofthe Sandinistas...
...Then he said he could not remember using them...
...The conscience also cries out that the rich ought to be taxed more, that minds are better weapons than missiles, that we should have constructive conversations with the Soviet THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR MAY 1984 21 Union, and that there is nothing wrong with any adversary of ours that cultural exchange would not cure...
...According to Jesse Jackson, apartheid is worse than Hitler...
...One crucial lesson remains to be learned, however...
...I was in Mississippi in the summer of 1964, and he joined the Selma march in 1965, and went on to become Martin Luther King's trusted aide...
...Now what is so special about the Third World...
...What shall we say of Jackson's fellow Democratic candidates, who have gone some distance in condoning him...
...If, as seems most likely despite his "Rainbow" talk, Jackson is building a black-power bloc of a sort seen before in American ethnic politics, it is most disturbing to think that a compelling ingredient of his attractiveness to some blacks might be his hatred of whites...
...Let us, then, attempt to summarize' the dictates of conscience that use Jesse Jackson as the earthly vehicle for their divine message...
...At any rate, one does not dispose of the merits of beliefs to which a pretender pretends by showing them to be a pretense...
...the new conscience is not only generally racist, but quite specifically anti-Semitic...
Vol. 17 • May 1984 • No. 5
