{"id":1448,"date":"2009-09-07T20:16:53","date_gmt":"2009-09-08T00:16:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/iomaire.com\/?p=1448"},"modified":"2009-09-07T20:24:57","modified_gmt":"2009-09-08T00:24:57","slug":"van-jones-and-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iomaire.com\/index.php\/2009\/09\/07\/van-jones-and-america\/","title":{"rendered":"Van Jones and America"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday morning, I learned that Van Jones had resigned from his position in the Obama administration. On March 21, 2009, I wrote a post<\/a> in which I explored the role of faith in advancing the goals of progressives. I learned then of Van Jones, so I am surely in the minority of those who knew who Van Jones was before he resigned early on Sunday morning. Please follow this link to learn more about who Van Jones<\/a> really is. Educate yourselves about the extent of the ignorance of the right-wing populists.<\/p>\n

One part of me is angry that the right-wing populists, led by Glenn Beck, mounted a smear campaign to force Van’s resignation. Another part of me is glad that he has resigned, for now he can get on with the critical work that he has been doing for the last 14 years. The reality is that Van Jones and the establishment just cannot work together – his vision is too radical (and true) and simply will not be tolerated by the establishment. The publicity surrounding his resignation will have a positive impact on his work in the future, I’m sure.<\/p>\n

Robert Shetterly wrote the following article, which is posted at Common Dreams<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Van Jones is Dead. Long Live Van Jones!<\/h3>\n

“… the 20th century has been characterized by three developments of great political importance: The growth of democracy, the growth of corporate power, and the growth of corporate propaganda as a means of protecting corporate power against democracy.” — Alex Carey, Australian social scientist<\/em><\/p>\n

Three years ago I traveled from Maine to the Ella Baker Center in Oakland, California, to meet Van Jones so I could paint his portrait<\/a> for my Americans Who Tell the Truth series.<\/p>\n

I had heard a lot about him & read his speeches & was incredibly impressed with his courage and articulate vision in taking on some of the world\u2019s most serious problems: poverty, environmental racism, and climate change. More importantly, he understood the relationship between those issues, and that they could be confronted in the most efficient and just manner if seen as one problem: bring the manufacturers of green energy equipment into the poor and despairing ghetto where the jobs are most needed, educate poor minorities to do these jobs ( thus providing hope), and then construct the solar panels, windmills, and geothermal machinery that will be needed to power our future in a sustainable way. Everybody wins. Right? Van Jones invited the people of this country to begin dreaming again — to dream that a future based in justice and sustainability was possible. He said, \u201cDr. King didn\u2019t get famous giving a speech that said, \u2018I have a complaint.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n


\nWell, it should come as no surprise that the \u2018everybody wins\u2019 scenario is not popular with everybody. It\u2019s a loser if you are a big oil or coal corporation that doesn\u2019t want a lot of attention paid to climate change. It\u2019s heresy if you don\u2019t care about the poor and consider them the necessary collateral damage of capitalism. It\u2019s anathema if you believe that economic justice is for socialist wimps, and sustainability is a code word for cutting into corporate profit. It\u2019s threatening if you are corporate media supported by the dissemination of corporate friendly news.<\/p>\n

So, when Obama invited Van Jones into the White House as his guru for green jobs and innovation, the attack dogs howled. They smelled blood.<\/p>\n

I suspect that most Americans had never heard of Van Jones then, and were still unaware of him until he resigned. And then they probably breathed a sigh of relief that this \u201ccommunist,\u201d \u201cracist,\u201d \u201c9\/11 conspiracy nut,\u201d \u201cenemy of America\u201d had been ratted out.<\/p>\n

How do I know he was these things? For the past month my website has been bombarded with vicious attacks on Van Jones. How could I possibly have supported and honored this monster who is trying to poison our apple pie? Didn\u2019t I know that this gremlin was perched on Obama\u2019s shoulder whispering his loathing of America into his ear?<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t really know who writes this nasty stuff. But I suspect, like with many of the people who are shouting lies to block health care reform, that it comes from people who have been easily manipulated with fear and racism to attack those who would actually make their lives better. It\u2019s come to that — to advocate for the common good is to advocate for communism. To defend justice is to commit treason. To be concerned for the future is to impede progress. To feel compassion, to walk a mile in another\u2019s shoes, is to be an pathetic idiot. To think that democracy means equality rather than domination is na\u00efve.<\/p>\n

One might wonder why Obama did not do more to protect Van Jones. But when Jones referred to Republicans as \u201cassholes\u201d as a euphemism for ruthless, he was beyond protecting. It didn\u2019t matter that Jones said he would have to become an asshole himself to fight for his policies. The soundbite was history. Nothing to do but cut him loose. But the deeper reason he had to be cut loose was that Obama would have had to tell the truth to protect him: yes, Van Jones is for economic justice; he is for conservation and alternative energy; he\u2019s for prison reform; he\u2019s for a re-structured economy based in sustainability, not exploitation and profit; he\u2019s for a serious investigation of 9\/11; he believes that \u2018clean coal\u2019 is absurd, etc. Obama could not protect him, because to do so he would have had to endorse Van Jones\u2019 beliefs. He was not about to do that.<\/p>\n

I think it\u2019s all for the good. I don\u2019t think that Van Jones should have ever joined the administration. He\u2019s much stronger on the outside organizing people to fight for the things he believes in. But he\u2019s tainted now. He won\u2019t be able to get grants from the status quo philanthropic organizations. He\u2019s a mongrel with a tin can tied to his tail. That\u2019s good. This brilliant man will now have to embrace courage, truth, justice, nature and love and start over. Leading. Organizing. As Frederick Douglass said, \u201cPower concedes nothing without a demand.\u201d And you can\u2019t make demands if you hoping for crumbs while camped in the Man\u2019s coat pocket.<\/p>\n

Robert Shetterly [rshetterly{at}prexar.com] is a writer and artist who lives in Brooksville, Maine. He is the author of<\/em> Americans Who Tell the Truth<\/em><\/a>. See his<\/em> website<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday morning, I learned that Van Jones had resigned from his position in the Obama administration. On March 21, 2009, I wrote a post in which I explored the role of faith in advancing the goals of progressives. I learned …<\/span> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,10,57],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iomaire.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1448"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iomaire.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iomaire.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iomaire.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iomaire.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1448"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/iomaire.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1448\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1457,"href":"https:\/\/iomaire.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1448\/revisions\/1457"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iomaire.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iomaire.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iomaire.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}