Reason 8,00,000 Jesse Jackson is a blackmailer

It's wingnuttery, Dooley.

Sheehan, Jesse, Sarandon, the whole lot of them.

They are fruitcakes, nutballs, wingnuts and wackjobs.

Some are greedier than others.

Jackson, the shakedown specialist, is the greediest. Fuck him.

 

How, precisely, does Jesse Jackson profit if more minorities get gas stations? They gonna pay him a kickback? And yes, Jesse Jackson needs money to further his political aims. So what? Nothing wrong with trying to raise funds for your cause.

And Poin, you say you're not a journo, so I don't expect any better on the issue of right to expression. You'd rather us be drones who silently take it and take it.

 

If Jesse Jackson and Cindy Sheehan are the best voices you have to fight your battles, Dooley, hang it up.

 

Maybe Jesse's sons want to own a gas station:

In 1982, Jackson launched a "this Bud's a dud" boycott of Anheuser-Busch because it had only three Black-owned distributors nationwide. After languishing for over a decade, the boycott movement received a boost when Budweiser’s River North distributorship was accused of denying promotions to several of its African American employees. Jackson came to the aid of the employees in 1997 shortly after the first EEOC blackmail suit was filed. Shortly thereafter, Anheuser Busch contributed $10,000 to Jackson’s Citizenship Education Fund, contributed over $500,000 to the Rainbow PUSH coalition, and established a $10 million fund to help non-whites buy distributorships. In 1998, the River North distributorship was purchased by two of Jackson’s sons Yusef and Jonathan Jackson. They refuse to publicly disclose how much they paid for the distributor, but the business was worth an estimated $25 to $30 million. Shortly after the sale, Jackson dropped his prior support of the Anheuser Busch boycott campaign. The St. Louis American, a Black-owned paper in St. Louis, Missouri, reported that Jackson had demanded $500 each from local African American businessmen to help support the Anheuser-Busch boycott campaign. Jackson sued the paper for libel but dropped the suit when a judge ruled that the paper could inspect the finances of Jackson as well as his many organizations in order to prove their case. Jackson’s critics, such as Chicago Sun-Times reporter Tim Novak, claim that Jackson had in effect blackmailed Anheuser-Busch into selling the distributorship to Jackson’s sons in exchange for Jackson dropping the boycott. They also point out that Yusef and Jonathan Jackson had no prior experience in alcoholic beverage distribution or any other business.

I'm not denying Jesse's right to hold a peaceful protest. I'm just saying that I don't trust his motives.

 

Doools, do you know how many companies have been visited by the Rainbow Coalition, only to be told that we don't like the way you treat blacks (whether or not it is deserved doesn't matter to them), but if you give us some $$$, we just might be willing to look the other way and not protest.

How is that not blackmail?

 

Whether they're fighting my battle or not (I don't always feel strongly about Jackson's causes, but I am 100 percent behind Sheehan) doesn't matter. I admire them for using their First Amendment rights and putting their asses on the line. Same as I would support the right of people to picket an abortion clinic (as long as they don't physically impede people), tho I don't agree with their aims.

 

Dools, I understand what you are saying, but how can you think this has ANYTHING to do with the First Amendment when it comes to Jesse?

 

At colleauge at my work participated in the Jesse shakedown meeting when she worked at Toyota. Very entertaining story.

 

Maybe you ought to post that picture one more time.

 

So there have been times when blacks have deserved a certain kind of treatment? Interesting. And I (and you) do not know how many times (or even if) this supposed shakedown took place.

 

No, they deserve better representation than the "Reverend", whose First Amendment on free speech means he protests or not dependent on how much money goes in his pocket. They also deserve better representation than the supposed man of God who goes around screaming immorality exists in this country at every turn while he supports a bastard child but tries to pay off everyone so it stays quiet.

 

No, Dools, you misinterpret what I said there.
I am saying the Rainbow Coalition will go after a company and say they mistreat blacks. Whether or not THOSE COMPANIES deserve the label doesn't matter to to Jesse as long as he knows he can get some money out of it.