This is the challenge facing the "Black Progressive Establishment" in America.
They are living in the days that they have long advocated for - Total Democratic/Progressive control over the places where they live in their highest concentrations. This power extends vertically. Most assuredly locally and nationally. In many cases they also have a clean sweep in the state.
Sadly despite having all of these "portraits upon the wall" their spirit is still uneasy. Having operated so much upon grievances to gain power they are now still grieving but they have an array of favorable forces in power and thus their "attacks" must turn to "gentle nudges".
I suspect that Jesse Jackson and other operatives will STILL be talking about the "Recession that Bush handed to Obama".....even if Obama receives a second term in 2013. There will be no inclination for Jackson to talk about what the president who occupied the office in 2009 to 2012 handed the next office holder - even if it is Obama.
Out of all of this talk we never seem to hear anything about the power of the US Congress and the force of the local political establishment has rendered with respect to he places in America that are suffering from hyper unemployment.
We are more inclined to hear about the "intransigence of RACISM that allows certain areas populated with Black folks to have unemployment that is 20%+. Never will we hear the "self-prognosticators" express any intellectual curiosity about the possibility that the aggregate policies that have been hoisted in these places upon the ascension of their own favored ideology might have set into motion the large gap between the "sellers of labor" and the "consumers of labor" that seek to employ them.
I am actually quite surprised that Rev Jackson did not more explicitly call for a "Protest March for Jobs".
BY JESSE JACKSON
On the day the "jobs summit" convened in Washington, I was in Toledo and Detroit. The Washington confab considered many ideas for job creation but served mainly to put jobs back on the national agenda. On Saturday, the president pledged to "focus every single day on how we can get people back to work."
He might have begun by convening the summit in Toledo or Detroit, instead of inside the Beltway. The world looks much different from here. Detroit is devastated, an economy that has descended from the Big Three automakers that offered good jobs with good benefits, to one featuring casinos, the tawdry, neon-glittered way to legally stiff the desperate. In Toledo, the shelters are full, often with nicely dressed families, working people stunned to find themselves there.
I met with high school students and urged them to study. One lad, a football star named Carlos, said, "I don't study." His teacher sadly confirmed that. I met with him separately. "We live in a shelter," Carlos explained. Where is it? I asked. I'd like to talk with your parents. "We aren't in any one place," he said, "we move from week to week, from place to place."
No home, no security, no hope. We need action now.
We lost more than 8 million jobs, many of which aren't coming back. According to the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty, the number of homeless Americans is up by 61 percent since the Great Recession began in December 2007. The number of people in poverty increased by 2.5 million in 2008 and has continued to rise. Some 49 million Americans experience what the government calls "food insecurity," otherwise known as hunger. More than 36 million now use food stamps, up by about 25 percent in the last year. And, given "welfare reform," only about 5 million parents and children get any cash assistance.
This reality is ruinous to the poor and to the country. People lose their jobs, and then default on their mortgages. As foreclosures keep rising, housing prices stagnate and decline. Neighborhoods are devastated. Local and state tax revenues plummet. Teachers and police are laid off. Businesses cut back. A vicious cycle continues.
Most of the deficit -- as the president pointed out at the jobs summit -- comes from the structural deficit inherited from Bush or the fall in revenue and rise in costs associated with the deep recession. The recovery plan added the least amount -- and that is spread out over three years. Given the cuts in state and local spending, it was too small, not too large.
We need a bold program to create jobs, starting with direct public service employment, particularly of young men and women in our inner cities and rural areas. We need aid to states and localities to avoid deep cuts. We need to weatherize homes and rebuild parks and put people to work. We need both short-term and long-term commitments to rebuild America. Once the economy gets going and people go back to work, we can figure out how to reduce the deficit.
What we can't do is allow poverty to spread, a generation to be lost. But at this point, the White House is said to be considering only small, "targeted" programs.
That won't do. Those hit the hardest by this crisis must organize. It is time for mass, disciplined collective action, for poor people's campaigns to mobilize in cities across the country. Dr. King understood the importance of direct action. By acting collectively, the poor express their humanity. They create a forum to tell their stories. Collective action demonstrates not just their desperation, but their discipline. It will mobilize allies. The poor do have power -- but unlike the wealthy, to exercise it, they must act collectively, not individually; in the streets, not in the suites.
Today, the malnourished children, the homeless, those families forced from homes to shelters are largely hidden from sight. It is time to act, to come together and march together. Human lives are being crushed by this crisis. They need bold action now. People of conscience must join their call. We must act together to make their voices heard.
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