by BAR executive editor Glen FordA shining progressive star of the Obama administration was unceremoniously dismissed to satisfy the McCarthyites of the GOP. But it must be noted that “Glenn Beck didn’t fire Van Jones, Obama did.” Jones' “talents are best put to use outside of this 'progressive-unfriendly' administration."
The Van Jones Affair: An “Unfriendly Environment” for Progressives at the White House
by BAR executive editor Glen Ford
“The president behaves as if progressives are his primary problem in forging a grand, 'nonpartisan' consensus.”
The firing of White House “green-jobs” point-person Van Jones is the latest manifestation of the Obama Administration’s abiding fear of the Right and distaste for progressives – although it is unclear which is the more powerful reflex. This weekend’s dismissal of the veteran activist, author and powerful motivational speaker turned administration functionary cannot but send a chill through the ranks of those who style themselves “progressives for Obama,” in and out of government, who believed they had found a political “home” under the Obama umbrella.
It would be wrong to conclude that Jones was “hounded” out of the White House by Fox News telereactionary Glenn Beck’s charges that the 40 year-old Yale-educated lawyer was a supporter of Mumia Abu Jamal, had signed a letter questioning the Bush Administration’s version of 9/11, and once referred to Republicans as “assholes” (quickly adding that he, Jones, “can be an asshole,” too.) This is pretty tame stuff, considering that the feigned outrage emanates from a crowd that routinely refers to the president as a socialist, an Arab and a non-citizen – epithets of the worst kind in Beck-Limbaughland. Besides, this is an administration whose Treasury Secretary neglected to pay taxes and whose top economic advisors, Larry Summers and Robert Rubin, were key players in setting the stage for the current economic disaster. Walking catastrophes like these men are thought by the administration to need no defense, yet the rising young Black star is cast out of the firmament.
“Jones' dismissal cannot but send a chill through the ranks of those who style themselves “progressives for Obama.”
If one assumes that color is no hindrance in the Obama White House, then the conclusion is obvious: Van Jones, co-founder of Oakland, California’s Ella Baker Center for Human Rights and the internet activist organization Color of Change, was ejected because of his progressive politics. There is more than a subtle difference between being hounded from office and being thrown to the dogs.
Glenn Beck’s and the GOP’s regurgitated McCarthyism – of which Obama, himself, is the main target – is as transparent as it is vicious. But remember that Sen. Joseph McCarthy, the 1950s Red-hunter, could not personally fire anyone outside his own staff. Neither could the many freelance witch-hunting vigilante outfits of the era. McCarthyism’s many thousands of victims were laid low by employers and college deans and such who acted on the diabolical politician’s charges. Glenn Beck didn’t fire Van Jones, Obama did.
Or, to be more technically correct, the president and Jones’ boss, Nancy Sutley, chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, accepted his resignation. Although often referred to as the White House “green-jobs czar,” Jones was officially a Special Advisor for Green Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, one of nearly thirty special advisors in various disciplines scattered about the White House, most of whom are not required to be confirmed by Congress. Obama’s spin doctors encouraged the media to call these advisors “czars,” doubtless because some, like Jones, represented otherwise under-served political constituencies that the president wanted to feel empowered. Jones described himself as “the green jobs handyman,” and said “there’s no such thing as a green-jobs czar.”
Jones was unceremoniously discarded so that Obama might reconcile with modern-day McCarthyites.
As is clear in light of events, Jones’ version was much closer to the truth. The Obama administration, thoroughly corporate at its core, guided by the profoundly conservative philosophy that “a rising tide lifts all boats,” has invented new White House positions to give the impression of political diversity, jobs that were intended as a kind of window dressing. With great fanfare, for example, Obama announced creation of the White House Director of Urban Affairs – and then filled the post with former Bronx, New York, Borough President Adolfo Carrion, a political hack whose imagination has never ventured beyond the next campaign check from the real estate industry.
Jones is anything but a hack, nor would he consent to be mere widow dressing. In making his now-infamous “Republicans are assholes” remark, Jones declared that “some of us who are not Barack Hussein Obama are going to have to start getting a little bit uppity." The uppity Jones got slapped down by his own president, who behaves as if progressives are his primary problem in forging a grand, “nonpartisan” consensus. Progressives were made unwelcome at White House forums on health reform, lest they spoil Obama’s courtship of Republicans and the drug and insurance companies they serve. Now Jones has been unceremoniously discarded so that Obama might reconcile with modern-day McCarthyites. It is not unreasonable to describe Obama’s White House as an unfriendly environment for progressives, and getting worse.
Jones’ talents are best put to use outside of this “progressive-unfriendly” administration. It is a historically misleading cliché, most often bandied about by Black Republicans and other rascals, that one has to be on the “inside” to effect real change. What is most desperately needed are political instruments to exert pressure on this administration from the Left, especially Black-led instruments. Had such formations existed in sufficient strength, perhaps Jones would not have been so peremptorily dismissed. But then, lots of things might be different if the Black Left stopped behaving like Obama camp followers and groupies, immune to insult. It’s downright racially embarrassing, and earns us nothing but contempt.
BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.
Comments
Walking catastrophes like
Walking catastrophes like these men are thought by the administration to need no defense, yet the rising young Black star is cast out of the firmament.
acne treatment
Van Jones a "progressive"
I have said for a long time that we use that word progressive too loosely and there is an urgent need to redefine the term. I am sorry but Van Jones is not what I consider a progressive. He has been involved in what some might call progressive issues over the years, but so what.
Van Jones supported Obama just as a number of "progressives" and worked hard for his election, as if he did not know what Obama represented and it was not an agenda which a true progressive should have felt comfortable with in the first place.
Then when he left his job he was full of apologies just like any other beougois politician sucking up to the power structure. He blamed Republicans, but democrats are just as guilty of shuting him out.
Van Jones got what he deserved ,,for like many of us we have one foot in and one foot out of the system.
You are either for the destruction of this rotten system or you are not and there was never any indication that Van Jones was, period!
Van Jones
I read THE GREEN COLLAR ECONOMY and agree wholeheartedly with each of his points, especially the need for the left to stop dismissing people of faith, but wanted to ask Jones directly: "where were you when the coal industry was shredding the current ACES bill?" As far as I noticed, he was inconspicuously silent. Its one thing to publish and be another New York Times bestseller like Tavis and other people with important progressive ideas. Its another to stand by your principles and communicate with a supportive public your struggles in TRYING TO IMPLEMENT YOUR GREEN PRINCIPLES so that younger generations like myself could learn from your path in an effort to ultimately IMPLEMENT them. But we didn't get that from Mr. Jones. What we got was a silencing not from Obama but from Jones himself on the need to IMPLEMENT OR AT LEAST COMMUNICATE DIFFICULTIES in IMPLEMENTING GREEN PRINCIPLES, then a sudden resignation. The younger generations that myself are part of does not need symbols more than they need earnest communication and dedicated commitment to one's written principles. I really don't know if Mr. Jones had either, with all due respect. -RF.
"Silence of the Lambs"
"I read THE GREEN COLLAR ECONOMY and agree wholeheartedly with each of his points, especially the need for the left to stop dismissing people of faith, but wanted to ask Jones directly: "where were you when the coal industry was shredding the current ACES bill?" As far as I noticed, he was inconspicuously silent." -rrhone
Just so I get it off my chest, no group, with as much moral and historical responsibility as the Black Faith Based Community has been so obviously silent as Right Wing Christian Identity Facists have trashed both the Bible, and the Country. The "Lambs" of God, the Black "Flock" in US Christendom has failed pathetically. Nothing against those of faith, just the facts. Let's apply critical thinking across the board, not pick and choose.
(I'm listening to Max Blumenthal on NPR with Terry Gross describing the impact and infiltration of these White Devils that Black Christians kissed up to, cozied up to sell "books", movies, records, for sheer material wealth and power, remained silent and complicit as they plant the seeds for a White only nation, the seeds for their (Black people) very own destruction, taking us back into the dark ages of Cotton Mather and Salem Witch Trials).
Symbolism vs. Dedication
rhone, you make salient points. It's encouraging to a boomer that "younger generations don't need symbols more than communication and committment." I'm not here to defend Jones, he can do that himself. I didn't read the book but listened to him on C-Span (not my usual genre) during a bout of insomnia. And from what I could gather, Jones WAS Implementing some green principles. As a planner and contract compliance officer I understood the thrust of Jones's thesis and I totally agree on it's implemention, Jones has concrete examples of heretofore unemployed workers, earning decent wages (in the new restructured American economy), $15-$20/hr. Fundamentally I believe in building trades and the jobs Jones outlines and has seen come to fruition are great vehicles for expanding building trades skills. I also believe that resurrecting craftspersons and skilled trades are keys to resurrecting America's industrial/manufacturing base. If we had 1000s of carpenters, craftsmen, insulators, ect. in the "ghetto" think of the impact on dilapidated housing/living conditions? Think of the potential impact on homelessness? AND, from a green perspective this simple "retrofitting" is doable, affordable and reaps concrete savings. No pie in the sky theoretical BS like "cap and trade." I've spoken to individuals who are doing this and they can't understand why we are not investing billions into proven, extant technologies. A gentlemen I met that travels around the country installing solar and wind technology was making more than $25/hr. The potential jobs out there are not fantasy.
The REAL ISSUE (imo) is putting Jones into the "veal pen" and McCarthyism that is so rampant, and poisonous it's damn near entertaining. How can one have faith in a country's future, one that disdains critical thinking? You are correct that Jones will land on his feet quite well. There are stories circulating that (Obama's Transition Team Chair) John Podesta's Center for American Policy will offer Jones a position (or is it a rehire?). So weep not for Van Jones, he'll do fine as you, I, we continue looking for a job, a part-time job, or more hours at the job or part-time job.
I hope others of your generation continue to mature in thought and analysis, and not get caught up in celebrityitis, or identity politics. It may in fact, rest with the younger generation who are not impressed that Deacon Smith is in the Statehouse, or Ms. Jones on the City Council and therefore KNOW ALL AND KNOW BEST. The boomer generation seems to have gotten quite complacent and deferential over time and more attached to symbolism than dedication and committment. I hope you've turned your social networks on to BAR so that your generation can get some unvarnished truths.
p.s. Speaking of the "Veal Pen" let's see if Podesta "pens" Jones or he becomes more emboldened? That aside, I still stand by my belief in some of his green implementation strategies as stated above.
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A NOUN, A VERB, AND 9/11
Just because a professor has a bachelors, masters, and doctorate degrees in a particular science field; and teaches/trains other students to become science professors; and leads an entire research department at their respective university; and goes on book tours giving lectures on the research done at her university doesn't give her, or any professor, the right to give a scientific explanation of what happened to WTC building 7. Everybody watched on television as those brutal terrorists, by the orders of Mohammed Omar, Saddam Hussein, Kim Jong Il, Fidel Castro, Osama Bin Laden, and Hugo Chavez, knocked down three steel buildings with two airplanes. Van Jones listens too much to scientists. He needs to start listening to journalists, pollsters, and Glenn Beck.
three buildings with two airplanes
LL,
I was following your point as soon as you said that.
I'm sorry Jones apologized for signing a Truther petition, even if some of them propose a some ideas that might be a little whacky. That's a personal perogative to sign a petition. All VJ had to point to was (not the best resource) Patriots Question 9-11, which has quite a few ranking military officers (ret) who signed on to dispute the Bush story and gave their reasons. He could have even pointed to the (lying) 9-11 Commisssion (including the serial bi-partisan liar, Lee Hamilton, of Iran-Contra and BCCI and October Surprise coverup fame), which attempted to defend the grotesque flaws in their report by admitting that the White House and various agencies LIED to the Commission --- but the Commission evaded all mention of WTC7 in their report. The collapse of WTC7 on 9-11 was not relevant to 9-11, because it never got struck by a plane, they said.
I must predict we're going to get hit with another attack, and it will be blamed not only on Obama, after all, Bush "kept us safe" after the first stand-down and disaster, but it will be blamed on Leftism itself. It will be blamed on civil rights activists who defend Arabs. (That's unless some "Christian" group blows up something.)
Why do I predict a new attack? Various officials and pundits on TV keep telling us we're going to definitely be attacked, maybe with a nuclear weapon, and these pro-terror people, who said they want it to happen again, have connections to the original pro-terrorism crowd that hoped for a major catastrophic event, like Pearl Harbor, before Cowboy George was even officially selected by them to "lead" them --- AEI, PNAC, CFR, etc.
War Mongers and Propagandists are working Overtime
I reluctantly agree with you. The proto-facists and war mongers with their perpectual propoganda machine (aka the US "media") are working overtime to gin up another war. The IAEA is even in on the fix, refusing to ackowledge forged documents that incorrectly characterize the Iranian nuclear project.
http://original.antiwar.com/porter/2009/09/14/iaea-conceals-evidence-ira...
Anyone with half a brain, whose mind is not awash is America the Beautiful Propaganda, knows there "is a fly in the ointment" with respect to 9/11 and VJ should have had the balls to call it like he sees it. How can one ignore the growing signs of a Police State?--H1N1 "quarantines," "police censorship of demonstrators," "contracts to build "detention centers," "the evisceration of the 4th Amendment," "Homeland Security" tenacles creeping into every arm of law enforcement.
Yes, the "Right", the facists running this country are out to destroy the "Left" once and for all. Only a dreamer can't see it. And GWB has "kept us safe" so it's the "Black" President and the "Leftisits" fault we haven't nuked the mad mullahs." Seymour Hersh has written that Cheney left behind acolytes in the DoD, CIA, et. al. when he left office. Cheney has been perfecting the Police State and warmongering since his disappointment with Iran-Contra probe.
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Hersh_US_has_been_running_executive_0311.html
Hersh replied, "After 9/11, I haven’t written about this yet, but the Central Intelligence Agency was very deeply involved in domestic activities against people they thought to be enemies of the state. Without any legal authority for it. They haven’t been called on it yet."
Hersh then went on to describe a second area of extra-legal operations: the Joint Special Operations Command. "It is a special wing of our special operations community that is set up independently," he explained. "They do not report to anybody, except in the Bush-Cheney days, they reported directly to the Cheney office. ... Congress has no oversight of it."
"It’s an executive assassination ring essentially, and it’s been going on and on and on," Hersh stated. "Under President Bush’s authority, they’ve been going into countries, not talking to the ambassador or the CIA station chief, and finding people on a list and executing them and leaving. That’s been going on, in the name of all of us."
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/03/31/hersh-cheney-behind/
HERSH: I’ll make it worse. I think he’s put people left. He’s put people back. They call it a stay behind. It’s sort of an intelligence term of art. When you leave a country and, you know, you’ve driven out the, you know, you’ve lost the war. You leave people behind. It’s a stay behind that you can continue to contacts with, to do sabotage, whatever you want to do. Cheney’s left a stay behind. He’s got people in a lot of agencies that still tell him what’s going on. Particularly in defense, obviously. Also in the NSA, there’s still people that talk to him. He still knows what’s going on. Can he still control policy up to a point? Probably up to a point, a minor point. But he’s still there. He’s still a presence."
No longer are we a democracy, we are unofficially a National Security State, a media slick variation of the Weimar Republic. We don't round up defenseless Jews we round up defenselss Arabs/Muslims or Americans (Jose Padea) who are caught up in our national security web of murder and intrigue. We've rounded up Latin Americans since the early 1900s and left them prey to our "trainers" and their paramilitary, right wing death squad partners. And we'll round up Africans or Asians if they get in our murderous path.
Anyone who believes the "official" version of 911 is a goddamn fool, as stupid as those who believe the government had no role in MLKs assassination. It's going to be a chicken or egg dilemna: what is necessary to get the "public" to sign off on an attack of Iran or Venezuela? 911 worked quite well the last time, no doubt another 9/11 is on the drawing board. It will probabaly be the final push that releases the National Security State from it's stealth to full bloom.
Look how long and how many years the "media" spent trying to pin US failures in Iraq on the Iranians? The M.Fs. ignored that General Paetreus didn't know the whereabouts of 100s of thousands of missing weapons, they were to busy writing his hagiography. What a pathetic, lying ass, hypocritical war monger state we've become.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/05/AR200708...
The fascist Right doesn't
The fascist Right doesn't have to work very hard to destroy the Left. The Left is doing a bang up job of descending into irrelevancy all by itself.
? ? And why?
?What?
SCIENTISTS ARE ANTI-AMERICAN
WTC building 7 is irrelevant. WTC buildings 1 & 2 are what real Americans want to hear about. Van Jones should have been stronger than to let scientists brainwash him into signing a petition inquiring about WTC building 7.
What's a "real American"?
Who is a "real American"? Are you writing satire?
the red indians are the real
the red indians are the real americans!!!
Lyrics
9/11 CHANGED AMERICA
Real Americans don't question their leaders. The collapse of WTC buildings 1, 2, and 7 is an American tragedy. There's nothing special about WTC building 7; so all of these people who are obsessed with science deserve the treatment that they are going to continue receiving.
"real Americans" satire needs to relate to the subject to work
....
Nearly 30 special advisers in
Nearly 30 special advisers in addition to the regular staff? Just how many goldbricking jobs are our tax dollars paying for in the White House?
No one will notice a difference whether Jones stayed or left the administration. Any ideas for true change for the better won't see the light of day in the Obama administration. Speaking of "green" jobs, where are they? I thought Fauxbama's stimulus package included funds for such. I haven't seen much of job creation via the stimulus package - green or otherwise.
I don't know much about this Jones fellow but his Color of Change site needs to adopt a tougher kicking ass/naming names attitude to better educate readers on issues and rally them to take action. Glenn Beck is the least of their problems. The betrayals, lies, and co-opting of Obama and the Dems are wreaking far more havoc than a right wing ratings whore blowhard.
A letter to the President
I couldn't agree more with Glen Ford, Chris Floyd, and Enlightened Cynic. This is my latest e-mail to the President:
Dear President Obama:
You are establishing a new record for gutlessness. You've hired a Secretary of the Treasury from Wall Street, a Secretary of Education who is not an educator,a Secretary of Defense who defends the imperial wars of the Bush administration. You've backed off single payer, thrown your former pastor to the wolves, and have not yet closed torture centers or prosecuted torturers. I guess I shouldn't be surprised by your cowardly failure to stand up for Van Jones anymore than I was by the Clintons' disgraceful treatment of Lani Guineer or Jocylin Elder.
I'm glad I voted for Ralph Nader. I couldn't look myself in the mirror if I had voted for you.
Gutless. Gutless and without principles. How do you look at yourself in the mirror?
Respectfully,
Dosamuno
it's even sadder than that, Dosamuno
It's worse than Obama being gutless. You see, for him to be "gutless" you'd have to be correct in assuming he actually wants to do differently, but is afraid.
Realistically, Obama is doing precisely what he wants, courageously even. He is serving the interests he always intended to serve.
What is wrong here is that many people assumed Barack Obama was a man of the people, a voice and a force for the under-represented poor, powerless unprivileged Americans.
He was never that. He is a snake, a dirty snake, a filthy scoundrel. This should have been clear to everyone when he threw Rev Jeremiah Wright under a bus during the campaign.
Of course, one look at his track record since finishing law school would have confirmed that he is nothing more than a half-Black** yuppie who is eager to enrich and empower himself by serving the richest corporate interests in America. That's all he's been since he got out of school, and it's all he's going to be for as long as he's in the White House.
Talking about his "gutlessness" therefore is a misunderstanding, because he never intended to do anything for anyone but himself and his corporate masters.
**I mention his half-Black status because a lot of people of all races and colors seem to have invested a lot of faith in having our first Black president, and a lot of that faith seems rooted in the fact that one of Obama's parents was Black. If all it takes is at least one Black parent to exempt a politician from skeptical critical analysis, why aren't there more people praising Condoleezza Rice? Skin color and race should not be in the equation, folks. What should matter is how a politician behaves. White, Black, Yellow or Red -- should not matter. Barack Obama deserves no easy pass. He should be examined as harshly as Dubya Bush or Dick Cheney were examined.
pyre=fire
"At times, keeping quiet is equivalent to lying."
(Miguel de Unamuno)
Micah:
As always, your comments are fierce. As always, they are accurate.
I used the word "gutless" incorrectly in referring to Obama’s cavalier abandonment of friends like William Ayers, Jeremiah Wright, and Van Jones when they became political liabilities.
The correct word is "ruthless".
If Obama’s wife and daughters become political liabilities, he will dispatch them with the same alacrity
And this craven hireling of big banks, big insurance, and big pharma, has been "zealous", not "gutless", in pursuing the agenda of these gangsters and monsters.
Thank you for correcting me.
.
I like to think of it as clarification.
Dosamuno, I don't want to "correct" you. I just want to clarify the facts. I think you can do any correcting on your own, I trust your intelligence and reasoning to bring you to the point of clarity.
Thank you for the compliments. My handle was chosen for the reason you guess, with "micah" being a game on the geologic element mica, which offers reflective qualities and was used in toasters to reflect heat back onto the bread being toasted.
The Issue Goes Deeper than "who is Van Jones"
Jane Hamsher get's it right critiquing the Obama Groupie Effect in an essay entitled:
Van Jones: A Moment of Truth For Liberal Institutions in the Veal Pen
By: Jane Hamsher Sunday September 6, 2009 11:24 am
http://campaignsilo.firedoglake.com/2009/09/06/van-jones-a-moment-of-tru...
"If these groups, if these liberal leaders, let Jones just hang there while Glenn Beck pounds his chest and celebrates the scalp, we have no liberal institutions. What we have are a bunch of neoliberal enablers who have found a nice comfortable place in the DC establishment that they don't want to jeopardize, a place on the new K-Street gravy train that they don't want to lose. Dropping Van Jones from their rolodex is a small price to pay."
From what I've read Jones is a decent guy, anyone who champions prison reform or can tie a green economy to real jobs is okay by me. (I actually was introduced to Jones by channel-surfing, caught him on C-Span. The guy knows his shit when it comes to practical, sensible "green jobs" (installing solar panels, insulation, retrofitting buildings ect. No pie in the sky shit theorectical bullshit). The issue isn't who is Jones. If Jones is so "insigificant" then why was he targeted by the Right Wing Media? Their attack on Jones is a proxy for an attack on progressive views (what they like to call the "Left"). The attack on Jones is also further proof of a virulent, rampant form of GOP/Amerikkan modern day McCarthyism. If the Dems had any tactical moxie and balls they would use every instrument of government from the FCC on down to muzzle the voice of Right Wing Hate Media, but they don't. The issue is substituting CRITICAL THINKING for Right Wing Noise. How will the USA solve its REAL PROBLEMS if problem solvers are censored, shouted-down, muted, smeared?
This is why the country is going down the f****king tubes. Because we have to deal with the friggen Becks and Limbaughs of the world instead of collective problem solving. What a joke we've become.
Keep thinking this is but a "distraction" that we are somehow "missing the big picture," we should be focusing on health care, blah, blah, blah. I aver that if you don't understand the intent and forces behind Jone's smear OR the "Liberal's" capitulation to RW Noise YOU are missing the big picture.
Better Off
Whoever this Jones person is-if he is serious about effecting any sort of difference in the US of A, I am curious as to why he thought he could do it inside the same oldpolitical process that the Obozo is a part of. And what exactly is he talking abou that is any help to anybody anyway?Okay, so he believes in a cover -up of 9/11. Great. But inside a puppet administration is no place to do anything about that. Okay, he's made some (in my opinion) ridiculous/offensive remarks about the Columbine horror. What exactly difference does it make that no people of color do school shootings-they do enough mayhem in other ways-AND-there are excellent books out there describing the climate of that schoool (which actually is the climate in MANY k-12 facilities in the US)-where NO ONE stood up to bullying and other unpleasant goings on-it's obvious he has read none of them-is making a foolish comment on a serious subject-ANYWAY- the fact that he is a friend of the weasel turns me off of him anyway(I guess youall guessed that!)-and he is willing to take taxpayers dollars knowing he has ideas that more than just GOPers are going to question.Itis not about political parties, that is just who you hear more of making a stink about things that in fact more folk should be making a stink about.
OH, by the way:
Color of Change would do better to raise some protests about the illegal wars/occupations going on and the death, maiming, slaughter and psychological destruction of millions of people instead of worrying about what Glen Beck and his advertisers say and do.
Where are the protests against the nighmarish no child left behind policy that this administration has continued and rev-ved up?
What about the violation of people's privacy with the airport searches and the requirement to have passports to come back into the USA from even Mexico and Canada?
What about the fact of all the job losses that continue and the non-creation of jobs for people?
Just my opinion.
ColorofChange.org
should extend their boycott to ALL advertisers on Fox programs. Next is to challenge their FCC license. The REAL issue that Glen Beck lost 55 advertisers to his show(but they'll come back when the controversy dies down-see Don Imus). So Beck "rants" about edited segments of Van Jones speechs,signing a four year old petition about White House complicity on September 11 2001and his support for still imprisoned Mumia Abu Jamal(to protect a corrupt law enforcement department). That said, I condemn the cowardice of fake white progressives/liberals on the removal of Van Jones. Where are the voices from white environmental groups like Greenpeace, Sierra Club, etc.? The same applies to members of the Black Congressional Congress and the NAACP, Urban League, SCLC, and other so-called black organizations on their telling silence. Accepting faith-based funds is a bitch, huh? Once again, a black American male (who is doing or saying SOMETHING to improve the lives of black Americans) is sacrificed for the empire. The Mulatto-in-Chief cannot take criticism from the ruling class/Wall Street plutocrats; he is so desperate for acceptance (not unlike Bill Clinton) so he jettisons any black person that displeases them. Has anyone read the full transcripts of what Mr. Jones said? Or viewed the petition that he and others signed? This is ridiculous; in this fascist police state, a person,regardless of ethnicity cannot speak the truth, peacefully protest, sign petitions or advocate for anything the ruling class hates.
Obama Groupies need a wakeup call, psst.. turn off the Tee Vee
"Obama Groupies" is such an appropo term. Another fine essay Brother Ford. The essence of a "groupie" is the unabashed lust to be on the "inside" not matter how helplessly they bow and flail themselves about. "I pity the fool."
It is a historically misleading cliché, most often bandied about by Black Republicans and other rascals, that one has to be on the “inside” to effect real change."- Glen Ford
This is the essential mindset and framework conducive to "Black" sellout or "progressive-change" sellout, phrase it as you please. In our quest to "integrate" into society, to "go-along-to-get-along" (read become amorphous, bland, uninspiring, capitulators) we fear agitation and fail to heed Douglass's admonition that:
"If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle."- Frederick Douglass
Van Jones will be a better servant outside of the Obama Groupie Sessions. I venture that rather than being cowed he will be increasingly emboldened to speak truth to power, though he will in all probability mute his criticism of Obama for various reasons such as loyalty and his belief in Obama's symbolic power.
Chris Floyd, Empire Burlesque, goes "deep" into the Obama "war" against progressives, treading on territory that most Blacks (outside of BAR) are afraid to tread, exposing the moral and intellectual bankruptcy of this phenomena called Barack Obama. He links Arthur Silber he takes the analysis even deeper. The title of his essay sums it up:
Van Overboard: Obama's Problem With Strong Black Voices
Written by Chris Floyd
Monday, 07 September 2009 09:47
Barack Obama seems to be making quite a habit of throwing overboard any black person associated with him who might have spoken an uncomfortable truth or raised some disturbing questions at some point in their lives. First his lifelong friend and mentor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, now his "green jobs" advisor, Van Jones. As Jonathan Schwarz puts it:
Van Jones is a genuinely worthwhile person, from which it follows he's someone whom America's right-wing would inevitably go berserk about. Yet if Obama were willing to face down their berserkitude, this would mean I would have to redraw my mental map of who and what Obama is.
Thank god that turned out not to be necessary. I have enough on my plate as it is.
Floyd adds:
Let's look again at the precursor to Obama's latest cave-in to rightwing white folks: his skewering of Jeremiah Wright during the 2008 campaign. It's worth re-considering as an indicator of the character and outlook of the man -- traits we are seeing confirmed, over and over, now that he's in power.
Arthur Silber wrote with savage brilliance on this subject last April, and you should read his piece in full. Taking off from that deep foundation, I offered a few observations of my own at the time, which are excerpted below:
On Monday, Barack Obama humiliated and demeaned himself with yet another denunciation of his old friend and mentor, Jeremiah Wright. But there was no "national dialogue on race" this time around -- just cold, flat-out condemnation. Obama even declared that Wright was "not the same man I've known for 20 years" anymore -- echoing the newly crowned King Henry's blast at Falstaff: "I know thee not, old man; fall to thy prayers." ...
Obama ridiculed Wright for "caricaturing himself" at a National Press Club appearance, and declared that his preacher was a vain showboat: "What mattered to him was commanding center stage." Obama bristled with disdain as he condemned Wright for his "divisive and destructive" remarks....
But this is indeed a curious and telling episode. If one actually takes the trouble to read Wright's remarks before the Press Club -- which almost no journalist in America did, although they are easily available at the Washington Post's web site -- it is difficult to see what in God's name all the brouhaha is about. Even Wright's most "controversial" remarks -- about AIDS, Louis Farrakhan and, in Obama's words, "equating America's wartime efforts with terrorism" -- are couched in plausible contexts, and are actually more nuanced than the, well, caricature of them that Obama condemned. Most ludicrous of all were Obama's hysterics about the "divisiveness" of Wright's remarks, when the theme of racial and cultural and religious reconciliation was sounded over and over throughout the appearance.
At any rate, let's do something really radical here. Let's actually see what Wright actually said.
YOU GOTTA READ THE ENTIRE PIECE, and Silber's link. And the next time one of your "Obama Groupie" friends, the inestimable insider-type, send you an email praising Bill Cosby's latest slap down of Rev. Jesse Jackson, send them BAR, Floyd, and Silver in return and tell them to stop the sanctimonious groupie jerk-off sessions. I'm searching back through my old emails today to give my good colored friends a wakeup call. Let's go back and revisit Rev. Wright and connect to Van Jones, you fawning groupies, and stop bullshitting about who and what Barack Obama is and stands for.
Obama Groupies need a wakeup call, psst.. turn off the Tee Vee
"Obama Groupies" is such an appropo term. Another fine essay Brother Ford. The essence of a "groupie" is the unabashed lust to be on the "inside" not matter how helplessly they bow and flail themselves about. "I pity the fool."
It is a historically misleading cliché, most often bandied about by Black Republicans and other rascals, that one has to be on the “inside” to effect real change."- Glen Ford
This is the essential mindset and framework conducive to "Black" sellout or "progressive-change" sellout, phrase it as you please. In our quest to "integrate" into society, to "go-along-to-get-along" (read become amorphous, bland, uninspiring, capitulators) we fear agitation and fail to heed Douglass's admonition that:
"If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle."- Frederick Douglass
Van Jones will be a better servant outside of the Obama Groupie Sessions. I venture that rather than being cowed he will be increasingly emboldened to speak truth to power, though he will in all probability mute his criticism of Obama for various reasons such as loyalty and his belief in Obama's symbolic power.
Chris Floyd, Empire Burlesque, goes "deep" into the Obama "war" against progressives, treading on territory that most Blacks (outside of BAR) are afraid to tread, exposing the moral and intellectual bankruptcy of this phenomena called Barack Obama. He links Arthur Silber he takes the analysis even deeper. The title of his essay sums it up:
Van Overboard: Obama's Problem With Strong Black Voices
Written by Chris Floyd
Monday, 07 September 2009 09:47
Barack Obama seems to be making quite a habit of throwing overboard any black person associated with him who might have spoken an uncomfortable truth or raised some disturbing questions at some point in their lives. First his lifelong friend and mentor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, now his "green jobs" advisor, Van Jones. As Jonathan Schwarz puts it:
Van Jones is a genuinely worthwhile person, from which it follows he's someone whom America's right-wing would inevitably go berserk about. Yet if Obama were willing to face down their berserkitude, this would mean I would have to redraw my mental map of who and what Obama is.
Thank god that turned out not to be necessary. I have enough on my plate as it is.
Floyd adds:
Let's look again at the precursor to Obama's latest cave-in to rightwing white folks: his skewering of Jeremiah Wright during the 2008 campaign. It's worth re-considering as an indicator of the character and outlook of the man -- traits we are seeing confirmed, over and over, now that he's in power.
Arthur Silber wrote with savage brilliance on this subject last April, and you should read his piece in full. Taking off from that deep foundation, I offered a few observations of my own at the time, which are excerpted below:
On Monday, Barack Obama humiliated and demeaned himself with yet another denunciation of his old friend and mentor, Jeremiah Wright. But there was no "national dialogue on race" this time around -- just cold, flat-out condemnation. Obama even declared that Wright was "not the same man I've known for 20 years" anymore -- echoing the newly crowned King Henry's blast at Falstaff: "I know thee not, old man; fall to thy prayers." ...
Obama ridiculed Wright for "caricaturing himself" at a National Press Club appearance, and declared that his preacher was a vain showboat: "What mattered to him was commanding center stage." Obama bristled with disdain as he condemned Wright for his "divisive and destructive" remarks....
But this is indeed a curious and telling episode. If one actually takes the trouble to read Wright's remarks before the Press Club -- which almost no journalist in America did, although they are easily available at the Washington Post's web site -- it is difficult to see what in God's name all the brouhaha is about. Even Wright's most "controversial" remarks -- about AIDS, Louis Farrakhan and, in Obama's words, "equating America's wartime efforts with terrorism" -- are couched in plausible contexts, and are actually more nuanced than the, well, caricature of them that Obama condemned. Most ludicrous of all were Obama's hysterics about the "divisiveness" of Wright's remarks, when the theme of racial and cultural and religious reconciliation was sounded over and over throughout the appearance.
At any rate, let's do something really radical here. Let's actually see what Wright actually said.
YOU GOTTA READ THE ENTIRE PIECE, and Silber's link. And the next time one of your "Obama Groupie" friends, the inestimable insider-type, send you an email praising Bill Cosby's latest slap down of Rev. Jesse Jackson, send them BAR, Floyd, and Silver in return and tell them to stop the sanctimonious groupie jerk-off sessions. I'm searching back through my old emails today to give my good colored friends a wakeup call. Let's go back and revisit Rev. Wright and connect to Van Jones, you fawning groupies, and stop bullshitting about who and what Barack Obama is and stands for.