Jessie Jackson Doesn't Know Sh*t From Shineola

Please excuse this post’s title if it offends you, but I can’t think of a more appropriate phrase to use here. I’m usually not inclined to actually use profanity in my posting, although I do use references like “%$#*@” where you can mentally fill in the blank with your favorite curse word or words depending on the situation.

Further, I’m generally not inclined to make personal attacks on individuals, although I made a previous exception in Michael Tells Us Mo(o)re Than We Need To Know. I prefer to instead allow the individual’s own words and actions speak for themselves and let the proverbial chips fall where they may. The Internet has a long memory.

This morning I want to talk about the latest utterance from the gigantic mouth of the irrelevant, irreverent, Reverend Jessie Jackson. If you haven’t already noticed, placing yourself between the Reverend Jackson and a TV camera or radio microphone could be hazardous to your health.

Jackson seems to draw each and every breath for the purpose of getting his inane thoughts and words into newsprint, his bug-eyed face onto our television screens, and to advance the goals of his professional reverse-racist “shake-down” organization, Operation Rainbow/Push.

There are several crisis situations affecting the continent of Africa. Mostly they involve one group of Africans killing another group of Africans. The United Nations has been guilty of sitting on their hands for decades while millions of lives were lost. Jessie Jackson and the balance of the black so called “Racial Leaders” here in the United States have not uttered a single word in protest. Likewise, the mainstream media and national leaders of colors other than black or brown have remained mute on these genocides.

When it comes to the actions or in these situations, inactions, of the UN, no one seems to have a problem. UN good, US bad. The UN sits idly by while millions die, but God forbid that the US actually does something with the intention of saving some African lives and that it produces any un-foreseen side effects.

“The Rev. Jesse Jackson (news - web sites) is calling for a U.S. congressional investigation into a report that U.S. health officials were warned that research on nevirapine was flawed. The warning was withheld from the White House weeks before President Bush (news - web sites) announced a plan in 2002 to distribute the drug in Africa, The Associated Press reported this week.”

Here is a little fact that the Irreverent Mr. Jackson needs to understand—80% of the worldwide cases of AIDS are in sub-Saharan Africa. AIDS is ultimately fatal 100% of the time.

The drug in question, nevirapine, while still being in the “investigative stage” of deployment, has been shown to be 50% effective in preventing the transmission of the AIDS virus from the mother to newborn infants.

“Studies show that a single dose of nevirapine to an infected woman during labor and another dose to her newborn baby can reduce the chances of HIV transmission by up to 50 percent.”

Let me quantify this story for you in my own ever-accurate terms. A woman is HIV positive. Based on current medical therapy, the woman’s HIV infection ultimately will develop into AIDS, and AIDS ultimately allows her to develop some rare form of cancer, pneumonia, or other fatal condition.

In the mean time, the woman gets pregnant after contracting the HIV virus. By delivering a single dose of nevirapine to the woman during labor and a single dose to the newborn infant after delivery, the chance of transmission of the HIV virus is reduced by 50%. Instead of both the woman and her child dieing, at least half of the children survive to be killed by their fellow Africans and ignored by Jessie Jackson and the balance of the US “African American” population.

“In calling for the investigation, Jackson demanded that nevirapine no longer be distributed in Africa.”

By making this demand, Jessie Jackson is risking increasing the HIV infection rate of the infants born to HIV positive mother by 50%.

"This was not a thoughtful and reasonable decision, but a crime against humanity," he said Thursday in Chicago. "Research standards and drug quality that are unacceptable in the U.S. and other Western countries must never be pushed onto Africa."

And the complaint everyone is arguing about? There is some bureaucratic argument about the testing of the drug here in the US. The drug is proven effective, the moronic researchers are just having a turf war over the testing protocol. No one is saying the drug doesn’t work on the newborn kids, just that it limits the effectiveness of the future treatment of the child’s mother.

The choice here is to let the woman and her child face a guaranteed death from AIDS, or to give the child a 50% chance of being born free from the HIV virus while at the same time risking the possibility that the mother’s life cannot be extended to the theoretical maximum with future doses of nevirapine.

This is a fine line to be walking, but it seems to me that the use of the drug produces an acceptable benefit regardless of the risk to the mother. Regardless of what the American press and Jessie Jackson say, the African medical establishment wants continued access to the drug…

“Doctors working in the public health system, which serves the vast majority of South Africans, have privately expressed fears they will be pressured to stop using single-dose nevirapine for pregnant women before alternatives are available.”

"I'm of the view that we should use nevirapine till a better situation can be created," said Dr. Ashraf Coovadia, head of the pediatric HIV clinic at Johannesburg's Coronation Mother and Child Hospital. "To halt the program would cause damage to what we have already achieved."

Let’s face it folks, JESSIE JACKSON DOESN’T GIVE A TINKER’S DAMN ABOUT THESE AFRICANS—Jessie Jackson just sees an opportunity to get is ugly face into the news after being irrelevant and invisible during the presidential election cycle and to use this story to attack the US government and the Bush administration.

If everyone will just mail $5.00 to Jessie, he’ll shut the heck up and crawl back into his hole, waiting for another "perceived injustice" to occur so he can start blithering again.

“Hey Jessie, wanna buy some really good smelling shineola for use on those thousand dollar shoes you're wearing???”