#62 - Follow the money

Last week it was revealed that Jesse Jackson had an affair and had a child by his mistress about two years ago. My concern is not that Jesse Jackson did this, as he has stated he was wrong and admitted it when it came out. This was a different approach than Bill Clinton. Jackson did basically the same as David in the Bible, and God continued to find favor in him.

There appears to me to be another story here that has not been covered in the media. The question is where is all the money coming from? In the Watergate scandal one of the things the reporters revealed later that they were continuously told was to follow the money and that ultimately led to Nixon's downfall.

Jesse Jackson is the founder and Head of the Rainbow Coalition/PUSH. It had always been my thought that Jackson had created these organizations for the purpose of helping move people out of poverty and bondage and that they used their money to achieve these purposes. Some of the things I have seen him encourage in the past with these organizations is jobs for unemployed young people, voting rights for the oppressed and fighting to make sure that the oppressed, be it for color or economic situations to rise over the oppression.

We have watched over the years that Jackson demanded and received large sums of money from major corporations to be given to his organization to settle or prevent discrimination lawsuits or boycotts. Jackson has often used his pulpit to fight for the poor to rise and to ostracize the rich.

Now we discover that he has paid some large sums of money to his mistress. Not only was she an employee of PUSH/Rainbow Coalition, but after she became pregnant and had the child large sums of money exchanged hands. If this had been a head of a large profit corporation, would Jackson and his followers have believed it was not a silence payoff to the mistress?

The moneys spent so far are not small. Jackson is a preacher and a head of a non-profit organization. How can he afford to pay her $40,000 to move her out of site from Washington DC to California? Where did the money come from for him to buy her a $340,000 house? What is the price of the house he and his wife of 38 years live in? Where is the money coming from that he is paying her $10,000 per month child support? That is $120,000 per year. Many of the people that Jackson has been fighting for live on in one year what she gets in 1 month? Does he really still understand poverty?

It may be time for the media and the IRS to "follow the money". This would not be the first preacher, white or black, to fall because of a sexual misdeed that really uncovered a bigger financial misdeed. Remember Jim Bakker of PTL fame. The public, individuals and corporations, need to know what is happening to the money at PUSH/Rainbow Coalition and whether it is being used wisely, or as a cover to cover-up Jesse's and maybe other's misdeeds. Similar problems have been uncovered in other organizations in recent years such as the United Way. Suspicion of this only hurts all non-profits, not just the PUSH/Rainbow Coalition.

Dwight

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