[Vision2020] Rev. Jesse Jackson at UI says Spokane Would-Be Bomber ‘more sick than mean’

[Tom Hansen]

Courtesy of today's (February 8, 2011) Spokesman-Review.

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Rev. Jesse Jackson at UI says Spokane would-be march bomber ‘more sick
than mean’
Kevin Graman, The Spokesman-Review

Freedom does not mean equality, the Rev. Jesse Jackson told a packed house
at the University of Idaho on Monday night.

“We are all free, but we are becoming less equal every day,” the civil
rights leader said, pointing to a widening economic disparity.

About 4,500 turned out to hear Jackson at the Kibbie-ASUI Activity Center
to mark Black History Month. His lecture, “Keep Hope Alive,” targeted
young people who he said are challenged with the struggle for economic
justice, just as their predecessors fought for racial justice and voting
rights.

“Black history is not for blacks only,” Jackson said. “Blacks were the
catalyst for change, but they were not alone” in suffering the effects of
inequality.

We must ask ourselves who we are as a nation, when 1 percent of us control
as much wealth as 90 percent of the rest, when 59 million are without
health care, 30 million are without jobs and 50 million lack food
security, Jackson said.

“Is not our character measured by ‘how we treat the least of these’?”
Jackson said.

When President Barack Obama was elected it was “midnight for our economy”
because the banks had chosen investing over lending. The problem today is
that when the banks were bailed out, it was not linked to lending. “So the
banks got bailed out and we got left out,” he said.

“We have globalized capital. Now we must globalize human rights.”

During a news conference in advance of his address, Jackson said that
whoever left a backpack bomb on the route of Spokane’s Martin Luther King
Jr. Day march last month “was more sick than mean.”

“We must address the issues that drive us to sickness,” he said.

Jackson spoke of the conditions in the United States today that make
unthinkable violence thinkable. Law enforcement continues to hunt for
clues to the apparently racially motivated bomb attempt in Spokane.

“We are the most violent nation on Earth,” Jackson said, a nation where
each year 32,000 people are killed by gun violence. Yet we remain
“addicted to semi-automatic weapons.”

The Super Bowl, Jackson said, was not just a game but “a metaphor for our
dreams of America.”

“On the playing field there is an inherent sense of justice,” Jackson
said, where referees and instant replay make sure the game is played
fairly. But off the field, minorities and the poor are still struggling to
find their place in America.

On the subject of Egypt, Jackson said the United States “chose stability
over democracy and ended up embracing tyrants” as it has done in Africa
and Latin America.

“Today we have achieved freedom in America,” he said. “Now we need to
achieve equality.”

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The Rev. Jesse Jackson addresses thousands Monday night at UI.

http://media.spokesman.com/photos/2011/02/08/cop_jackson08_t620.jpg

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Seeya round town, Moscow.

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho

"It is time for us to turn to each other, not on each other."

- Rev. Jesse Jackson