Issues & Views:Liberated from Jackson

January 31, 2005

Fighting the good fight

Liberated from Jackson

Could it be that the coercive powers of the master huckster are no longer what they used to be? Are businesses fighting back against the wiles of Jesse Jackson, to whom so many have acceded in the past? After years of coming up with one scheme after another to bilk major and minor companies out of millions of dollars, which culminated in his greatest jewel -- the "Wall Street Project" -- Jesse Jackson has been dealt a sobering blow.

His Wall Street Project, an annual three-day conference, supposedly founded to help black business people attain "economic parity and equity," is actually a strategem through which Jackson's upper-class cronies get to put the pressure on some of the country's major financial chiefs. The idea is to loosen up capital from prominent corporations, as well as coerce appointments for more blacks to corporate boards.

Since 1998, hundreds of companies have been urged to "contribute" the funds necessary to pay for this elaborate event, usually chipping in upwards of $50,000 each. Of course, this voluntary contribution comes with the silent understanding that such cooperation helps ward off possible future "race" troubles. Troubles that could very well be initiated by Jackson's organization PUSH.

This year, for the first time, it looks like some companies are squirming free of the Jackson extortion machine. Besides the fact that fewer corporate executives attended the conference, the New York Stock Exchange, a major participant in the Wall Street Project, refused to pay over its usual $100,000 shakedown fee. Last year, officers of the Exchange revved up enough courage to deny use of the main floor of the Exchange for the conference's closing fundraising "gala." This year, in addition to refusing Jackson the use of the space, they reneged on their "contribution" as well.

Not only were there fewer captured CEOs in attendance, there was no Donald Trump, no Alan Greenspan, and no Secretary of the Treasury -- all of whom have made appearances in previous years. In fact, the attendance of such big fish acted as a form of intimidation to smaller fish, who felt obligated to pay up and show up.

Of course, there are those diehard politicians, like New York State's Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, who will not miss up a chance to be seen and to pontificate. Spitzer, who is planning to run for Governor, was a speaker at the conference and promised the black audience, in the fashion of a good, pandering pol, to "study minority representation on corporate boards." He is going to see if there are any "legal irregularities" in cases where boards don't seem to have the appropriate number of colored faces on them.

Unfortunately for Spitzer and other politicians in attendance, the photo-ops left a lot to be desired, since the New York Times, Washington Post, and other leading newspapers, did not even cover the event. A sign of the times? Let's hope so.

By next year, perhaps the officers of still more companies will be as fearless as those CEOs who, this year, by their absence, told Jackson, "Enough!"

For more on this subject, see:

"Wall Street and Jesse Jackson"
and
"The Lawsuit Gravy Train"