Good Gone Bad

Now that, truly, is pathetic. The proud Jackson family has fallen on low times. Reverend Jesse Jackson Sr. prided himself as the inheritor of the reputation of the nobly fallen hero of modern black emancipation, the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. He posed himself as the leader in the black community, taking up the cudgel that fell from the dying hands of the assassinated Martin Luther King.

The African American Civil Rights movement was his to bring to a moment of triumph.

That moment began with his speech "I Have A Dream", and culminated in his dream's partial realization with the election of a bi-racial black President of the United States. President Barack Obama is the fully realized representation of his predecessor human-rights-battling black antecedent. He accomplished what the Reverend Jesse Jackson was not able to, in twice running for the presidency, and both times coming up very short.

Now the proud Jackson dynasty has been dealt a dreadful blow. With social standing and respect comes responsibility. But responsibility is so often impeded by the presence of unbridled human emotions and an accompanying sense of entitlement. Those who become so closely aligned in their minds with the ideology their efforts represent sometimes make the error of believing that they are entitled to all the benefits that accrue, not to them personally, but to the ideals which they champion.

And since their personal and sincere efforts on behalf of the project that represents the best interests of so many dependent on the good outcome of the project is so great they feel themselves inadequately compensated, and entitled to pick up some of the wealth being acquired for distribution to further the cause.

Jesse Jackson Jr., was so closely aligned with fundraising for American civil rights that he succumbed to the belief he was entitled to appropriate some of those funds that flooded through his fingers. The public shame and moral disequilibrium of a fine reputation shattered, one that impinges on his father's carefully assumed and earned reputation for upright morality and dedication to the cause of racial equality can never be erased.

In filtering out a three-quarter of a million honorarium for services rendered, he did himself incalculable harm, and forever disgraced his family name. Spending over $49,000 for a Rolex watch, encouraging his wife to spend thousands on furs, himself splurging on various types of celebrity memorabilia, furniture, nightclubs, lounges, restaurants, sport clubs, tawdry junk that briefly gave them pleasure.

For which lack of judgement and failure to restrain their greedy impulses they will now pay dearly.