HE'S BACK - AT 11:18 P.M. ET:  Remember Rev. Jesse Jackson?  He's been pretty silent recently, existing in the shadow of Barack Obama.  Now he's back, giving the British some advice, as London's Evening Standard reports:

LONDON will never defeat the scourge of teenage gang killings until it beats poverty, American civil rights campaigner the Rev Jesse Jackson said today.

In an exclusive interview with the Evening Standard, the charismatic black activist urged: "There must be a war, not just on knives but on poverty and illiteracy."

He also issued a challenge to next week's G20 summit, gave his verdict on Barack Obama's first two months and revealed why he thinks Britain has yet to have a black prime minister.

Mr Jackson, 67, is in London to give evidence to a home affairs select committee inquiry into Britain's epidemic of knife crime and violent youth gangs.

COMMENT:  The sixties crowd, with its ideas, is trying to make a comeback.  Jackson speaks patent nonsense.  New York City, under Rudy Giuliani, reduced violent crime dramatically by changing police tactics, establishing modern computerized law enforcement techniques and making it clear that crime would not be tolerated.  It's amazing how people's lives suddenly improved.

While there may well be some connection between poverty and crime, we've seen over and over that the connection is greatly exaggerated.  A heavy majority of poor people don't commit violent crimes.  Crime during the Depression era in the United States actually went down.  We're also told, by the way, that the "root cause" of terrorism is poverty and oppression, but that has been thoroughly discredited.  Many terrorists are middle-class and well educated. 

It isn't surprising that some in Britain have sought Jackson's advice.  There is a large element of the British elite that yearns for the simplistic theories of the sixties.  Jackson will provide them.  He should be ignored.  Those looking for the real causes of violence might concentrate on cultural breakdown and appeasement of criminals. 

March 25, 2009