And his audience of 1,000 union delegates in Las Vegas stomped and cheered his absurd rantings and ravings as they heard him blame the anthrax attacks on so-called "anti-union forces," and charge Attorney General John Ashcroft with police-state tactics.
Here, thanks to a blockbuster report from the prestigious Capital Research Center, "Tolerating Demagogy" by Ivan G. Osorio and Paul Kersey, are some of Jackson's more outrageous remarks, which appear to have escaped the notice of the anti-Bush elitist media.
"Jackson compared the Administration and its allies to terrorists," charging that 'denying workers the right to organize is a form of economic terror,'" the authors wrote.
Sounding like a confirmed left-wing conspiracy nut, Jackson told his audience, "Anthrax did not come from a cave in Afghanistan," but from "[t]he same people who blew up the building in Oklahoma City, Ruby Ridge, the terror attack in Atlanta, Georgia - those same anti-union forces."
"To thunderous applause Jackson claimed the U.S. Justice Department was conspiring with the 'right-wing media' to destroy the labor movement," the authors wrote.
Jackson went on to imply that the Ashcroft Justice Department and other government agencies were employing Gestapo-like tactics against organized labor.
"He accused Attorney General John Ashcroft of coordinating strategic leaks of government information to Fox News, the Washington Times, and other conservative news outlets: 'Ashcroft is using the FBI as one weapon, the IRS as another weapon, and leaks to the right-wing media as another weapon' to 'destroy the leadership' of organized labor."
"Suppose a labor leader protests a policy ... raises a question about war policy, even for debate - you are a suspect." Jackson continued: "Suppose you then give a donation to a peaceful [sic] organization. They then trail your money and then they tap your phone and then IRS and then Washington Times and then Fox - [the] time they spend tying up labor leaders will keep you too busy to fight back in the year 2002.'"
Wrote the authors, "The claims in Jackson's rambling diatribe may seem bizarre, but more troubling is how union leaders reacted. At one time, a politically astute labor leader would distance himself from this kind of demagogy and conspiracy-mongering. But AFL-CIO President John Sweeney agreed with Jackson's rant.
"Asked by CNSNews.com reporter Marc Morano whether he believed the Justice Department coordinated leaks of information to harm unions, Sweeney replied, 'There are examples where it appears that they are.' He did not specify any cases, however."
Even more shocking was the reaction of Ron Richardson, an official of the Las Vegas local of Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees union (HERE). He agreed with Jackson's charge that Republicans were exploiting the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Richardson blamed the fact that 30 percent of its approximately 40,000 members in Las Vegas had been laid off because of the drop in tourism after Sept. 11 on Republicans, who he said are "using 9-11 to get everything that they were never able to get any other way. They want to get tax breaks for their richest constituents; they want to take away civil liberties."
He ended this diatribe to CNSNews.com with this scandalous statement: "Somebody should paint a picture of a couple of these Republican leaders sitting on the knees of Santa Claus saying, 'Thank you for giving us everything we always wanted,' and Santa Claus's face would be that of bin Laden."
Wrote Osorio and Kersey: "Union leaders' reactions to Jesse Jackson's speech is significant because it shows just how out of touch the AFL-CIO leadership is from ordinary Americans and from its own members. New York City police officers and firemen, most of them union members, suffered grievously from the World Trade Center attacks. They and other workers support the Bush Administration's conduct of the war and new domestic security policies. They don't share Jackson's paranoid vision."
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