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Blackmail (no pun intended)
dheffley
Member Posts: 25,000 ✭
Old Al took this straight out of Jesse Jackson's play book.
Rev. Al Sharpton Soaks Up Boycott Bucks
Sunday , June 15, 2008
NEW YORK, New York -
Anheuser-Busch gave him six figures, Colgate-Palmolive shelled out $50,000 and Macy's and Pfizer have contributed thousands to the Rev. Al Sharpton's charity.
Almost 50 companies - including PepsiCo, General Motors, Wal-Mart, FedEx, Continental Airlines, Johnson & Johnson and Chase - and some labor unions sponsored Sharpton's National Action Network annual conference in April.
Terrified of negative publicity, fearful of a consumer boycott or eager to make nice with the civil-rights activist, CEOs write checks, critics say, to NAN and Sharpton - who brandishes the buying power of African-American consumers. In some cases, they hire him as a consultant.
The cash flows even as the US Attorney's Office in Brooklyn has been conducting a grand-jury investigation of NAN's finances.
A General Motors spokesman told The Post that NAN had repeatedly - and unsuccessfully - asked for contributions for six years, beginning in August 2000.
Rev. Al Sharpton Soaks Up Boycott Bucks
Sunday , June 15, 2008
NEW YORK, New York -
Anheuser-Busch gave him six figures, Colgate-Palmolive shelled out $50,000 and Macy's and Pfizer have contributed thousands to the Rev. Al Sharpton's charity.
Almost 50 companies - including PepsiCo, General Motors, Wal-Mart, FedEx, Continental Airlines, Johnson & Johnson and Chase - and some labor unions sponsored Sharpton's National Action Network annual conference in April.
Terrified of negative publicity, fearful of a consumer boycott or eager to make nice with the civil-rights activist, CEOs write checks, critics say, to NAN and Sharpton - who brandishes the buying power of African-American consumers. In some cases, they hire him as a consultant.
The cash flows even as the US Attorney's Office in Brooklyn has been conducting a grand-jury investigation of NAN's finances.
A General Motors spokesman told The Post that NAN had repeatedly - and unsuccessfully - asked for contributions for six years, beginning in August 2000.
Comments
quote:www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-gun-protest_web_15jun15,0,1884762.story
chicagotribune.com
Jackson leads protest at Lake Barrington manufacturer of semiautomatic weapons
Assault rifles turning Chicago into war zone, he says
By Robert Channick
Special to the Tribune
8:40 PM CDT, June 14, 2008
Vowing to intensify his campaign against gun violence, Rev. Jesse Jackson held a protest rally Saturday at a Lake Barrington semiautomatic rifle manufacturer.
Leading 80 supporters to the remote industrial park that houses D.S. Arms, Jackson said assault weapons were turning Chicago into a war zone.
"It does not stand to reason that we'll fight a war to end weapons of mass destruction from flowing in Iraq and increase the flow of weapons at home," he said.
Notably absent from the protest was Rev. Michael Pfleger, who often joins Jackson's protests against gun violence. Both were arrested last June after a confrontation during a protest at a south suburban gun store. Criminal charges of trespassing were dropped.
Pfleger is on a mandated leave from his parish at St. Sabina Catholic Church following incendiary comments he made last month about Sen. Hillary Clinton during a guest sermon at Trinity United Church of Christ.
Last summer, Jackson, accompanied by Pfleger, first visited D.S. Arms, the closest gun manufacturer to Chicago. The company has a catalog of 20- to 30-round semiautomatic rifles geared mostly for military and police use.
"We're a very convenient target, even though we don't manufacture any of the type of weapon systems that are used by the gangbangers in the city of Chicago," said Michael Danforth, an attorney for D.S. Arms.
The company has been in business for more than 20 years, the last eight on Industrial Avenue in Lake Barrington. The company's 25 employees work in the gray, aluminum-sided building with temporary placards reading, "Support Our Troops and Law Enforcement Professionals."
"They can't manufacture guns in Chicago because it's illegal," Jackson said. "So they come to the suburbs to hide in the sanctuary of a very peaceful community."
Marching to the beat of shakers, Jackson led his supporters on a 30-minute march, carrying signs and circling the sleepy street in front of two dozen Lake County sheriff's police and a small gaggle of onlookers.
Setting up on the curb in front of D.S. Arms, which was cordoned off by yellow police tape and a row of officers, Jackson took the microphone and called for a ban on assault weapons, universal screening and a limit on the number of guns an individual can purchase.
His speech rang ever stronger for some in the crowd who lost relatives to gun violence.
"This is a cancer, and it's got to be removed," said Stephen Young of Evanston, a spokesman for the Illinois Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence whose son was shot to death 12 years ago. "We don't need these weapons; things have got to change."
Alice Norris of Hillside, a member of the Million Mom March, which is part of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, said her daughter was killed by a semiautomatic weapon in Chicago 15 years ago.
"When I got there, there were bullet casings all over the ground," she said. "It's a war weapon, and why would honest, decent citizens need the right to have that kind of weaponry?"
Though Danforth acknowledged that the company's weapons are available for purchase at the retail level, he said they have never been linked to a crime in Chicago.
Undeterred, Jackson said he would return again soon and enlist many more supporters.
"We're going to visit the churches in this area, and meet the city councils in this area, and meet with students in this area, and build a mass demonstration," Jackson said. "We shall march in big numbers in this place, across the state and across the nation."
Lake County Sheriff Mark Curran Jr. said Saturday in a statement that his office provided a security detail for last year's visit by Jackson and Pfleger that cost county taxpayers $5,200. The cost of Saturday's visit has yet to be determined, the release said.