This is lovely. Impossible to listen to Jackson speak without appreciating-and enjoying!-his command of rhetoric which, as you say, is a pillar of the much-vaunted "classical" tradition these jerks claim to venerate.
Trump has A Rhetorical Style, sure, but one that makes you feel sick to listen to - I always think of the parts of Macbeth where you can hear him losing his grasp on language, and what that says-or used to say?-about a king's grasp on power.
A good example of Jackson’s influence for me is that Mike Davis, toward the end of Prisoners of the American Dream, said that if social democracy were to come to America, it would be ushered in by a coalition a lot like the one Jackson was assembling.
What a joy to read this understanding of Jackson and the social/political thread he lived and kept alive. I listened to the long debate by the UC Regents in their ending of affirmative action in the mid 1990's. Jackson spoke at that meeting and ticked off the business ties that each Regent had. I cried because that political economy argument, the whimper of the other Wallace (the one with FDR's skid marks on his back), was near death in the democratic party. Bill Clinton and Al Gore ensured that it would be so.
The passage of time has also shown that he correctly assessed Bill Clinton’s moral character, too.
“ "I can maybe work with him but I know now who he is, what he is. There is nothing this man won't do. He is immune to shame. Move past all the nice posturing and get really down in there in him, you find absolutely nothing . . . nothing but an appetite".
Wonderful tribute to Jackson. His convention speech is the first political event I have any memory of. The language he crafted to invoke working people ("They take the early bus. They work the late shift.") have come back to me at various times across all of those decades. It was a tribute that gave them dignity while still staking out a demand that they were not getting their due. I can't think of any Dem since Jackson who has been able to do that.
This is excellent, John. Maybe the best tribute I’ve read since the news hit. I was just reaching voting age in the ‘88 cycle. I think I was too young to fully appreciate the gravity of his run or his full skills. He deserves all you’ve put here and more.
I appreciate the analysis of his decline. I just finished reading today's Chicago Sun-Times that was largely the same glowing obit without any real depth. You had to read between the lines to see his split with Harold Washington or self-destructive feud with Obama.
This is lovely. Impossible to listen to Jackson speak without appreciating-and enjoying!-his command of rhetoric which, as you say, is a pillar of the much-vaunted "classical" tradition these jerks claim to venerate.
Trump has A Rhetorical Style, sure, but one that makes you feel sick to listen to - I always think of the parts of Macbeth where you can hear him losing his grasp on language, and what that says-or used to say?-about a king's grasp on power.
A good example of Jackson’s influence for me is that Mike Davis, toward the end of Prisoners of the American Dream, said that if social democracy were to come to America, it would be ushered in by a coalition a lot like the one Jackson was assembling.
What a joy to read this understanding of Jackson and the social/political thread he lived and kept alive. I listened to the long debate by the UC Regents in their ending of affirmative action in the mid 1990's. Jackson spoke at that meeting and ticked off the business ties that each Regent had. I cried because that political economy argument, the whimper of the other Wallace (the one with FDR's skid marks on his back), was near death in the democratic party. Bill Clinton and Al Gore ensured that it would be so.
The passage of time has also shown that he correctly assessed Bill Clinton’s moral character, too.
“ "I can maybe work with him but I know now who he is, what he is. There is nothing this man won't do. He is immune to shame. Move past all the nice posturing and get really down in there in him, you find absolutely nothing . . . nothing but an appetite".
Wonderful tribute to Jackson. His convention speech is the first political event I have any memory of. The language he crafted to invoke working people ("They take the early bus. They work the late shift.") have come back to me at various times across all of those decades. It was a tribute that gave them dignity while still staking out a demand that they were not getting their due. I can't think of any Dem since Jackson who has been able to do that.
This is excellent, John. Maybe the best tribute I’ve read since the news hit. I was just reaching voting age in the ‘88 cycle. I think I was too young to fully appreciate the gravity of his run or his full skills. He deserves all you’ve put here and more.
I appreciate the analysis of his decline. I just finished reading today's Chicago Sun-Times that was largely the same glowing obit without any real depth. You had to read between the lines to see his split with Harold Washington or self-destructive feud with Obama.
Great leader, RIP