Rev. Jesse Jackson in Crashing the Party, by Ralph Nader

On Corporations: Use corporate power to open doors to black businesses

Jesse certainly has paid his dues. No one has brought out more African-American votes for Democratic candidates at all levels. No one has stimulated more voter registration drives. No one has done more to show that political parties need to go where the anguish and injustices reign. He has logged hundreds of thousands of miles of effort. However, his self-restraint toward the manipulative elements of his party is now so extensive that it is affecting him. While he quietly moderated a few of the Clinton administration's calculating moves against principles, his counseling on the Lewinsky affair to the contrary, he no longer sees himself as a singular public force to push the party toward progressive actions. His son, Representative Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Illinois), already has assumed a more assertive role in this respect. Jesse Sr. now also sees himself as using entrenched corporate power to open doors to African-American businesses. Source: Crashing the Party, by Ralph Nader, p.250 Oct 14, 2002

On Principles & Values: 1995: A third party may be needed for progressives

Jackson was not mincing words when, a week after his National Rainbow Coalition meeting in Atlanta, he published an article on June 4, 1995 titled, "A Third Party May Be Needed for Progressives." Jackson was clearly very upset with the Democrats' loss of Congress to the Gingrich forces in the previous elections. "It is not enough," he wrote, "to throw out the conservatives and re-elect traditional Democrats. We need a new direction." He announced that the Rainbow Coalition would explore independent ballot access to run candidates who would stand for a progressive agenda. Citing falling real wages, growing inequality, spreading poverty even for working families, Jackson laid it on the line:

"Why talk about new political options now? Because it is clear that reelecting Democrats to Congress is not enough. We've done that. We registered people and helped bring out the vote. We delivered--and too often we were then ignored. We don't intend to be exploited anymore."

Source: Crashing the Party, by Ralph Nader, p.250-251 Oct 14, 2002

On Principles & Values: Opposed bipartisan conservative majority that ignored him

From his two presidential runs, Jackson knew better than anyone else what it felt like being wooed in the primaries and forgotten in the general election.

A bipartisan majority endorsed the supply-side, trickle-down economics of the early 1980s. The rich got richer and working people got stuck with the bill for massive deficits and S&L bailout. A bipartisan conservative majority blocked efforts to change priorities at the end of the Cold War. A bipartisan conservative majority enforced a trade policy that served Wall Street and multinationals, not Main Street and American voters.

Jackson was thinking like this before the shredding of the federal safety net for the poor, set for 2002, by the phony welfare reform legislation championed by Clinton and especially Gore in 1996.

Source: Crashing the Party, by Ralph Nader, p.251-252 Oct 14, 2002

The above quotations are from Crashing the Party: How to Tell the Truth and Still Run for President Taking on Corporate Governance in an Age of Surrender, by Ralph Nader. Click here for main summary page. Click here for a profile of Rev. Jesse Jackson. Click here for Rev. Jesse Jackson on all issues.
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