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"Jackson Criticizes Reagan Foreign
Policy"
Harvard
Law Record - November 21, 1986 - Pages 11, 16
By Jamin B. Raskin
reprinted by permission
Calling November's election results "a major victory for progressive forces," the Reverend Jesse Jackson appeals to an enthusiastic, overflow audience of 400 to work "not just for a change in parties in America, but for a change in direction." In his speech, sponsored by the HLS Forum for its fortieth anniversary, Jackson attacked military interventionism abroad and "class warfare" against the poor at home.
Jackson, whose 1984 bid for the Democratic presidential nomination galvanized black voters and progressives in a "rainbow coalition," hinted that he might run again despite the official disfavor of the Democratic Party apparatus. "The Fairness Commission was not fair to us," he said, referring to the commission formed by the Democrats in response to Jackson's and Gary Hart's complaints about delegate selection procedure. "And we were locked out of the Policy Commission," he said.
When asked by a student if he might run outside of the Democratic party, Jackson said that "I prefer to fight rather than switch." The Rainbow Coalition will meet at the end of November to discuss 1988, but Jackson said that he intends "to represent the locked-out wherever the power is."
Jackson used the revelations of President Reagan's secret dealings with Iran to renew his long-standing criticism of the President's foreign policy. "[The United States has] been exercising power with arrogance instead of with grace. The new deal with Iran jeopardizes Americans in the region by raising the ransom price on their heads."
Jackson stated that the "president has a foreign policy which he can neither understand nor articulate himself."
Drawling loud applause from the audience, Jackson said, "it's time to recognize that most people in our world are not rich and not white, and we need policies that work for the world's majority."
Denouncing President Reagan's South Africa policy as "destructive engagement," Jackson said that corporations leaving South Africa should not just transfer control of local operations to other teams of white executives, "but actually get up and go and take their business to Tanzania, Mozambique, Zambia, and other countries which are crying out for the capital." Urging that the divestment movement keep the pressure on, Jackson said that, "GM has not pulled out, they've sold out."
Declaring that "the black vote was the major factor in the winning 1986 progressive coalition," Jackson heralded the coming of a new liberal majority in the country. "The Afro-American vote does not stand alone. When we move, Hispanics move, and when Hispanics move, women move, and when women move, the peace movement moves. Progressives in coalition can win everywhere. [Senator-elect] Terry Sanford won in Jesse Helms country."
Jackson, who has been touring the country speaking to groups of farmers and urban workers dislocated by economic change, said that, "full employment is the key plank of the progressive platform because too many people are unemployed too much of the time. Who are they? They are farmers and cab drivers, they sweep streets, they change beds in hotels, they mop halls in hospitals, they're the first to die in war, the last to share in the benefits of peace, the children in the dawn of life, the obstructed geniuses who never got a chance to blossom, our grandparents. They are the working poor and they are losing under the Republicans."
Asked if he was not replicating the mistake of 1984 by relying on the "politics of special interest," Jackson responded, "You can be sure that Business Week and The Wall Street Journal are going to keep talking in 1988, so I will, too."
Challenging law students to break from "the politics of selfishness," Jackson concluded by saying that, "There is no world market for yuppies, buppies, or preppies, and there is no human need to be fulfilled by selfish materialism without spiritual balance. I urge you all to be on the frontlines of justice. It's your challenge, it's your chance, it's your choice." He received a standing ovation.
Jackson was received after his remarks by the Forum in a wine-and-cheese reception in ILS. HLS Forum President Jim Peck-Gray told Jackson that he thought student response was unusually enthusiastic. After speaking to assembled friends and Forum members for a few minutes, Jackson excused himself: "It's not that I don't like your cheetos and brie," he said, "but I've got to get some sleep."