Jesse's Pajama Game: Jackson scrapes for digital dough
HEMlNGWAY, MARK
The key to high-tech's recovery is speeding up broadband deployment Jesse's Paj ama Game through de~gulation. The Clinton FCC's approach - to to broadband the J ~acb~n scrapes for digid...
...I did learn, though, that nearly every major company in ShconValley has someone who specializes in "diversity issues...
...Chambers has given the presentation before, and it goes off without a hitch until the Q & A session...
...Repeal of the 3 percent federal phone excise tax, which Pmident Clinton vetoed Jackson is auctioning off the privilege of giving him money, a notion that hangs over the room in uncomfortable silence, broken only by the sound of the audience shifting in its seats...
...feigned a similar interest in Jackson, or did...
...Kvarnme and the White tage...
...AT&T alone gave cion" of government to tax and regulate paign Jackson started in 1996 with Jackson's Citizenship Education Fund the new economy will again reign Rainbow/PUSH's "Wall Smet Project," $425,000...
...Jesse is worlung himself up into a mellifluous frenzy, clearly excited by the idea of raising money, even if the crowd is not...
...A god first step...
...In some cases, minority House must move quickly to develop a jackson, is supposed "to increase access to firms were cut in on the ded...
...Jackson subsequently dropped supreme...
...When asked why sexual preference is not a diversity requirement, he stumbles down a slippery slope...
...0 The seminar I attended, "Digital Diversity: Building an Inclusive Corporate Culture in Silicon Valley," was any selfrespecting executive's nightmares room full of Human Resources people, many of whom had microphones...
...Now he's putting out actual dollar amouna and exhorting them to write checks...
...have already been overturned by the courts...
...In each case Jackson Ad hoc, quick-6x solutions aren't held back by discrimination and disadvan- stopped agitating once the proper pockes gmd enough...
...By my count it's Jesse Jackson's sixth plea for money in two hours...
...I turn back to John, who does Internet i&-astructure in Oakland...
...The national trade imbalance, m 6 the fact that we're now a debtor nation, the huge 2 9 federal de$cit, and I think I picked the wrong long-distance service...
...If John wires Oakland he could make a lot of money...
...Swiftly he draws our attention to the envelopes jammed into the centerpieces on every table, then launches into a tirade that has Growth...
...There are photos of smiling children, and bar charts showing the ethnic make-up of various Cisco departments...
...It's part of a cam- umbrella organizations...
...Then he admits that he's here just to network, make it happen, and make some money...
...You reach this point where words like dversity are meaningless," he says...
...One such bill, the "Internet Freedom and Broadband Deployment Act," will likely pass the BY MARK HEMINGWAY ho here will A "w p l e d g e 6 1,000...
...Do I hear $1,000...
...Before this, he had merely stressed "the importance of 1 giving" to the crowd of mostly black business executives...
...Who here will give $1,000...
...Who here can gve $750...
...Judging by the number of constantly chirping cell phones in the room, he's not the only one...
...Bush should urge FCC Chairman Powell to deregulate as aggressively as current law will allow, taking full advantage of the fact that certain key Clintonera decisions, including central elements of the "unbundling and resale" rules that punish local phone companies for building broadband infrastructure...
...The lunch speaker is John Chambers, described by Jackson as "a mountaineer from West Virginia in touch with the common people," but better known as the CEO of Cisco Systems, the Internet router giant...
...He smdes and hands me his card...
...and spins out into the rhetorical ether...
...Now he's auctioning off the privilege of p i n g him money, a notion that hangs over the Street Project" (Chicago), the "Peachme Project" (Atlanta...
...Money...
...At lunch afterward I meet John, a black executive from a telecommunications infrastructure company in Oakland...
...Talent...
...For the next two wery major telecom merger: SBC and broadband deployment, so long as they are days, we'll listen to Jackson mourn the Ameritech, Sprint and MCI...
...Well, the only thing important to us is talent," he says, "and we don't care what a person's sexual preference is...
...his opposition to Ma Be115 merger with George W. Bush surely wd too...
...Silicon Valley has at least "Say it with me...
...pable sense of relief as a flurry of ushers shares, then use this leverage to force comdescend to collect his contribution enw- panies to increase minority repmtacion lope...
...When the lnternet Tax Freedom Act comes up for renewal this fall, the adttunistration should insist on new language making clear that broadband, like other Internet services, is exempt born discriminatory state and local taxes...
...Jesse Jackson," a sort of hIp-hop hagiography, whch hghlighted Jackson's trips to a i c a as a special envoy for the Clinton ahnistration...
...Chambers pats himself on the back-repeatedly-for giving away 10 percent of his net worth to charity...
...Ira Magaziner understood that...
...Sharpton may be a fraud, but as columnist Rod Dreher of the NewYork Post pointed out, for the price of a room at the hotel where the Digital Connections conference was talung place, Sharpton could buy the freedom of five slaves...
...Honda makes some pleasantries about the Bush admmstration's rehsal to let Jackson negotiate the release of the American air crew held hostage in Chma...
...Then everyone on stage hugs one another, whde > m u, m u, m 0 2 6 L 4 "What's bothering me...
...Meanwhile he displays an outsized CEO swagger, while making a power-point presentation on screens of Orwellian proportions...
...Without one, the "natural inclina- under served talent...
...Next, Bush should strongly support legslation to exempt broadband hrn telephonestyle regulations...
...He has agitated on initiative of Jackson's R;unbow/PUSH b e h a of minority concerns in just about in 2000...
...Finally an elderly black busi- other things, he hopes to organize ismdon must finish the job of telecom nessman raises his hand, and there is a pal- churches to pool their mources and buy deregulation by, among other things, introducing legidation to further limit telecom regulation by the states...
...Now Jackson has started up the "LaSalle TCI...
...eral diversity seminars before lunch...
...The adminismation's broadband agenda should also include tax cuts...
...This is the opening night of the Similar strategies have worked well Digid Connections 2001 conference, an for Jackson in the past...
...This is the second Digital Connections Conference, and nearly every returning participant tells me that attendance was higher last year...
...ness with minority firms...
...According to the Department of Commerce, African Americans are going online at a rate twice that of white America...
...The crowd is soon warmed up for Congressman Mike Honda...
...It was not lost on his critics that while Jackson was in SlliconValley groveling for money, Kwesi Mfume was in Cincinnati trying to quell race riots and A1 Sharpton was in the Sudan conh-onting the issue of slavery...
...Reversing th tpgdatory creep is the most imporrant single step the Bush adrmnistration could cake...
...Most attribute this to the cloud of scandal over Jackson's head...
...he next morning Jackson has shucked his gray three-piece suit in favor of what appeared from my table in back to be a set of black pajamas bridging the sartorial divide between Ho Chi Minh and Hugh Heher...
...Jesse thanks the man, and doesn't on their boards and conduct more busimiss a beat...
...AT&T and technology neutral...
...and expanded to Silicon Valley in 1999...
...14 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR . June 2001...
...The film omitted the trip in whch Jackson pressured the democratically elected president of Sierra Leone into signing a treaty giving control of the country's diamond mines to the murderous rebel leader Foday Sankoh, who was backed by the equally murderous Charles Taylor, president of Liberia and another Jackson pal.After Honda speaks, Ron Gonzales, the mayor of San Jose, offers up sdl more praise for Jesse...
...Next, support m incentiws for Sdicon Valley Project...
...Among Hollings in the SenattThird, the adrnin- in its seats...
...and the "9th Street Project" (Cleveland), each one named for House this summer, but it will face strong room in uncomfortable silence, broken &-financial district in its ci~Jackson has opposition h m Ted Stevens and Ernest only by the sound of the audience shifting grand plans for this network...
...in others, market-oriented framework for high-tech capital to under served communities with money was given directly to one of Jesse's issues...
...f THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR . June 2001 Jackson is very interested in info-tech the audirncc chanting along with hm- the crowd goes off to attend one of the sevcompanies...
...The conference, according to had been lined...
...We've been takng about this for 40 years.When are they going to actually do something...
...Market...
...plight of black executives and businesses TCI, to name a few...
...We all know hs record for going overseas and dung care of thngs," Honda says, and the crowd hoots and hollers.Yes, indeed it knows.The night before, there was a screening of "Keeping Hope Alive: The Country Preacher-A Year in the Life of the Rev...
...The Clinton FCC's approach - to to broadband the J ~acb~n scrapes for digid dough complex regulamry hmework origdly designed fbr the heavily monopolized local telephone market...
Vol. 34 • June 2001 • No. 5
