corrente

Back a couple of decades ago when apartheid was still the Hot New Thing in South Africa, folks started noticing that all the marching and protesting in the world didn't seem to be doing much to bring about change. Sound familiar?

A Rev. Sullivan came up with an idea--cut off their money. Not just trade restrictions, but direct punishment of any company doing business there. They made this work by going around to investors, particularly those handling retirement accounts, and persuading them to not just dump the stock of any company whose efforts enabled the system, but to publicize the fact heavily.

Churchs were among the first to sign on, at least those churches that believe in social justice. Public employee pension programs were a quick second.
(via Yahoo but not a "Yahoo News" story--this is an actual CACI press release):

CACI International Inc (NYSE: CAI - News) reported today that members of the company's management met with representatives of the California State Teachers Retirement Fund (CalSTRS) and the California Public Employees Retirement System (CalPERS) in Sacramento to provide information about the company's work in Iraq. Even though CalSTRS and CalPERS hold only about one-half percent of CACI shares, the company met with the funds to respond to questions raised by the funds.

CACI recognizes that consideration of investment potential is always a bona fide subject for shareholder evaluation. CACI welcomed the opportunity to engage in a dialogue with the funds on that and related subjects. CACI believes that it has fully responded to the funds' questions with regard to its operational and fiduciary responsibilities in performing its contract work to support the U.S. military mission in Iraq.

California Treasurer Phil Angelides, however, chose to use this meeting for political grandstanding. By taking the position that CACI should get out of its interrogation line of business or the funds should get out of CACI stock, Mr. Angelides has expressed his willingness to turn his back on solid investments and the companies that support America's military mission and troops deployed in harm's way.

CACI, however, has no intention of abandoning the fine people who serve the country or our customer's vital mission to protect America's future and to project the war against terrorism. CACI regrets that, rather than participating in responsibly evaluating investment potential to California fund participants, Mr. Angelides chose to pursue his own political agenda. With little or no knowledge of the requirements surrounding the interrogation process, Mr. Angelides rejects CACI as an investment opportunity by arbitrarily assigning a disproportionate significance to this one area of intelligence collection and analysis.

Isn't that just awful of Treasurer Angelides? Doesn't he realize that the most important thing in the world is PROFIT, not mere moral agendas? I don't know if he has any political ambitions or not, but I rather hope so as I would love to vote for him, for just about anything. Maybe he can get this CACI flack to run his press office.