OPINION Page4 Tuesday, April 19, 1988 The Michigan Daily I Edited and managed by students at The University of Michigan Jesse Jackson: Millionaire By Noah Finkel Vol. XCVIII, No. 135 420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109 Unsigned editorials represent a majority of the Daily's Editorial Board. All other cartoons, signed articles, and letters do not necessarily represent the opinion of the Daily. Support Joy IN THE FALL OF 1987 Joyce Dixson and Mary Glover, prisoners in Michi- gan penal institutions, were accepted to the University's College of LSA. Dix- son and Glover are among the first women prisoners in the country to gain the right to attend college. They should be applauded for the determination with which they have fought an unequal and discriminatory system. Women in prison in Michigan gained access to educational and vocational programs as a result of a civil rights suit filed against the state in 1976. The suit was filed because women in prison were given less access to jobs, job training and schooling at all levels than were men. The court ruled that women must be given equal access to opportu- nities and available services in the pris- ons. Consequently, educational pro- grams and prison industries, in which the women could work full-time, were established in the two women's prisons in the state. Dixson is incarcerated at Florence Crane Women's Facility in Coldwater, and Glover is in the Huron Valley Women's Facility in Ypsilanti. Both women participate in classes through a correspondence system with the Uni- ce and Mary versity, which is run by students. They also work full time as paralegals for Prison Legal Services, providing aid to women prisoners. People at the University need to be aware that these women are students here although they cannot attend classes on campus. Because this program is so new and has not been publicized, it has often been difficult to get cooperation from students and faculty. Physical separation has made getting course materials and supplies difficult and frustrating, particularly for Dixson who is ninety miles from campus. Taped lectures often are not received until the following week or longer, making.it impossible for these women to keep up with their classmates. Students can become involved with this program and provide help for both women. They need the assistance of you, their classmates, to continue their undergraduate education. Jesse Jackson takes great pains to iden- tify with the poor, the downtrodden, and the dispossessed. He even tries to portray himself as part of that group and thus the best representative for it. This has won Jackson scores of success among the working class and redistribute-the-wealth liberals. But a look past the rhetoric reveals something the media will not say or print: Jesse Jackson is a hypocrite. Jackson capitalizes on the low budget of his campaign and on his humble back- ground to bring out a touch of solidarity with the poor and perhaps compassion from the liberals. He says "Our campaign may be poor, but the message is rich." He has even been known to hold up his wallet (we are supposed to believe there isn't much money inside) and proclaim that this is all the funds his campaign has. But no one should feel sympathy for the Rev. Jackson because he in fact is a millionaire, and with the addition of some stock hold- ings, potentially a multi-millionaire. According to sparse press reports of his financial disclosures, Jackson earned a salary of over $200,000 in the past year through $192,000 in speaking fees and through almost $19,000 for "services" from the National Rainbow Coalition, one of Jackson's political organizations. It took the London Sunday Times to fi- nally pick this story up and most of the American media has chosen to ignore it. Of course, there is nothing incriminating about wealth. But ironically, Jackson is rich, and has been for some time, while his movement is always impoverished. It seems as though Jackson, the one who campaigns against "economic violence" and exploitation etc., has exploited the cause of civil rights in order to gain mate- rial benefits for himself. Jackson will tell the public the contrary. Said the Reverend in a 1984 interview in Ebony magazine, "I have the option of making money in Hollywood, the option of making commercials. I could probably be one of the highest paid speakers on the speaking circuit, if that was my interest... So what I'm doing I'm doing by choice. And some people in their cynicism cannot imagine the amount of sacrifice involved." Actually, the sacrifice involved is Noah Finkel is a Daily Opinion page staffer. imaginable: The year prior to that inter- view, 1983, Jackson had an income of $115,000. He received $37,000 in speak- ing fees, $60,000 as salary at Operation PUSH, and $15,000 from PUSH as com- pensation for vacations and leaves that he never took. Out of that income, Jackson reported to the IRS that he gave only $500 worth of charitable contributions. Jackson can call me cynical, but I wouldn't mind such a "sacrifice." Interestingly, Jackson did become one of those money-making commercial speakers he so decries. Just after the '84 campaign ended, Jackson signed a contract with the Hollywood-based Agency for the Perform- ing Arts, in which the talent agency was committed to deliver Jackson $1 million in lecture offers and media appearances. So Jackson, who bragged about not making money in Hollywood or on the speakers circuit, actuallydid. And lotstof it. Jackson's recent financial disclosure estimates his net worth at close to $600,000. That does not include the value of his two homes, worth probably $250,000. The disclosure also neglects the $350,000 advance Jackson received from Simon and Schuster for an upcoming au- tobiography. And according to Percy Sut- ton, the chairman of the Inner City Broad- casting Corporation (ICBC) which owns. Harlem's famous Apollo Theater among other things, Jackson will eventually be even wealthier because of his hefty amount of stock holdings in that com- pany. Sutton has said that if ICBC were sold, the Jackson holdings, valued at $250,000 on his disclosure, would be worth "in excess of $1 million." The question now is how did Jackson accumulate all this capital as a civil rights leader? Sure, civil rights may be a growth industry. But never was it considered a field in which one gets rich. The money Jackson has, contrasted with his claim that "I'm not interested in mak- ing money," is no aberration. It is more of a pattern in his character. For example, Jackson has concocted a story of an im- poverished adolescence. He says, "I used to run bootleg liquor, bought hot clothes. I had to steal to survive." Jackson claims his father was a janitor and his mother a maid. Said Jackson, "I am a child of the Third World." But in fact, Jackson grew up in a rather middle-class environment. His step-father, Charles Jackson, was a postal employee and his mother contributed to the family's income by working as a beautician. As far as poverty goes, Charles Jackson says, "We were never poor. We never wanted for anything. We've never been on welfare because I was never without a job... And my family never went hungry a day in their lives." When Jackson moved from his South Carolina home to go on his own it was not as if there was a "sacrifice involved." He actually did quite well as head of Oper- ation PUSH in Chicago. He started the organization in 1971 for the purpose of continuing his work at Operation Bread- basket, but independently of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. PUSH's mission is to exert businesses and local governments to hire more Blacks through economic and political pressure. Over time, PUSH branched off into other pur- suits, such as improving education and educational opportunities for the poor. PUSH has always been in deep financial straights, even after receiving over $5 million dollars in federal aid. The financial difficulties and mismanagement of the or- ganization have been well documented. But while his organization was always poor, Jackson by no means suffered or "sacrificed." In a biography of Jackson, author Barbara Reynolds describes parts of Jackson's living conditions in 1973, two years after he began PUSH, "On tree-lined Constance Avenue, [Jackson] occupies a fifteen-room Romanesque residence... In his closet among the Brooks Brothers pin stripes are denim suits from Los Angeles' Fred Segals and several shades of browns from Wilson's House of Suede." Reynolds also describes how Jackson was chauf- feured in his brand new 1974 Lincoln Continental. Jackson has tried to justify this. He has said of his wealth in the past, "It's hard to help hungry people when you are hun- gry... My income, according to my talents and abilities, is modest." Maybe, but his ego sure isn't. And while that statement may justify a healthy income, it does not address Jackson's great wealth. How does a man who runs an organization in deep fi- nancial trouble make so much and acquire the capital to make such investments? And why does he insist on making such money for himself as he represents an organiza- tion that is so poor? Lastly, as a presidential candidate, does Jesse Jackson really seek to help the poor? Due to his history at PUSH and after, Jackson the candidate will have to prove that his actions can match his rhetoric. A 4 Mary Glover Huron Valley Ypsilanti, MI #145435 Women's Facility 48198 Joyce Dixson #145440 38 Fourth Street Coldwater, MI 49036 BSU and BLSA leave UCAR -Associated Press A policy of state terrorism. U.S. soldiers in Honduras wait for helicopters to transport them on a training mission at Palmarola Air Base on March 19. State terrorism, U.S.A. IN A REMARKABLE Interview on National Public Radio recently, U.S. political analyst and heretic Noam Chomsky claimed that the United States is the only nation in the world with an on-the-books policy of state terrorism. While other states - such as Iran and Libya - also engage in various acts of terrorism, only the United States has openly formulated terrorism as a cor- nerstone of its foreign policy, according to Chomsky. Low Intensity Conflict, for example, is a policy of state terror- ism based on the notion that the United States has the freedom to use whatever means necessary - domination, ex- ploitation, subversion, psychological warfare, robbery, assassination - to preserve its position of privilege and hegemony. Curiously, as Chomsky points out, the State Department's defi- nition of Low Intensity Conflict is al- most identical to its definition of terror- ism. The amazing revelations about the ends and means of U.S. foreign policy that continue to come out of Central America during Reagan's waning days provide support for Chomsky's argu- ment. Panama Although Panama suddenly dropped out of the news in the last few days, all signs indicate that the U.S. troops re- cently deployed are there for the long haul. In 1912, President Taft said of U.S. foreign policy in Panama, "[it] may well include active intervention to secure for our merchandise and our capitalists opportunity for profitable in- vestment The whole hemisnhere tool of the U.S. government, continue to use stalling tactics to drag out high- level negotiations with the Sandinistas. Miami-based contras are pushing for outrageous demands such as the right to receive military aid and communications equipment during the negotiations. Meanwhile, the State Department in- sists that humanitarian aid to the contras should be channelled through the Agency for International Development in spite of the ruling by the Organiza- tion for American States that AID, an arm of the U.S. government and CIA operative, does not qualify as a neutral agency. Sometime during the first week of May, it is expected that President Rea- gan will ask for tightening of the trade embargo on Nicaragua. Honduras In Honduras, according to the North American Congress on Latin America, AID now openly functions as a shadow government, harassing Honduran dis- sidents and cutting off funds when U.S. goals are not met. Arrests without due process followed anti-American protests last week. The fate of those detained is not yet known. Ann Arbor The hearings now before the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee on ter- rorism, narcotics and international rela- tions offera rare glimpsefinto how a policy of state terrorism is financed. Michael Palmer, who operated out of a safe house here in Ann Arbor, ran drugs and guns for the CIA as part of By Jeff Williams and Barron Wallace When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dis- solve the political bands which have con- nected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of na- ture and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights COALITIONS are instituted among men, deriving their just powers the con- sent of the COALITION members; that whenever any form of coalition becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it... We, the presiding officers of the Black Student Union (BSU) and Black Law Stu- dents Association (BLSA) formally disas- sociate ourselves and our organizations from the United Coalition Against Racism (UCAR). The UCAR does not represent our aims or perspectives. We declare this unequivocally. The history of the UCAR from September 1987 to the present has been a history of repeated injuries and usurpa- tions: -The UCAR steering committee's con- certed effort to convene a BSU meeting over the express order of the president of BSU in order to nominate UCAR mem- bers to executive positions in BSU. bThe physical attack by a UCAR mem- ber on a BSU member at a BSU meeting where UCAR members, the vast majority of whom had never attended a BSU meet- legedly lied to the Morris Hood Investiga- tive Committee last year. Moral qualifica- tions not withstanding, this is the only case in memory of a predominantly white group (UCAR) banning a Black student leader. -UCAR's running tQ the administration - the same administration it berates weekly - in an attempt to gain control of the BSU by manipulating its constitu- tional process. -UCAR's public denigration of the Of- fice of Minority Affairs (OMA) over the Steiner issue without first attempting to utilize the OMA - an office which stu- dents fought to create - instead opting for an obvious publicity stunt. -The irony that UCAR's new interest in the BSU is coincident with the granting of a $35,000 budget. That $35,000 was a Black Action Movement (BAM) demand NOT a UCAR demand. -UCAR steering committee members have bragged of "making the BSU defunct by September." One UCAR steering committee member asked, "Why don't we just take their money?" JThe philosophical incongruities be- tween the BSU and UCAR. BSU and BLSA reps in particular have taken an ac- tive role in going back to middle and high schools in Detroit and Ann Arbor to ad- dress problems of disadvantaged kids at the source instead of engaging in "verbal" or "symbolic" attacks on what administrators "ought" to be doing. While UCAR looks for a sister school in Tanzania, the BSU looks to help the eastside Detroit schools, Ann Arbor schools. They are our immedi- ate concerns. Students must be aware that most of the student leaders who led UCAR during the tumult last spring have left that group for various reasons. These founders of UCAR did not intend to make an organization but a coalition of organized groups with the central aim of mitigating and eradicating the egregious effects of racism in our uni- versity communities. The integrity of the individual organizations was and is paramount. As issues of crime, drugs, in- fant mortality, kids killing kids, and ba- bies having babies gain in salience over specific issues of racism we find that our resources are better served in attempting to address these issues. Moreover we find that all issues from crime to racism are best addressed apart from the UCAR. For all of the above stated reasons, and many more, we officially dissolve our re- lationship with the UCAR. The UCAR does not represent our organizations, our motivations, or our membership. ? Zinn AND FOR EXRA CREDIT, COM PLETE TH15 PoPULAR PROTEST ClAWT= HEY HEY, Ho IAO- 1$ - \ m