More Van Jones info

When I first went through the list of "fans" of Draft Van Jones at facebook, I saw mainly the familiar names that I would have expected. Today, I saw another name that I did not expect but it does give me hope. That name is Kelpie Wilson. Not only did she list her name as a fan, she also wrote a great post on her own web site: Thomas Paine Would Have Loved Van Jones.

Not only does Wilson defend Jones, she takes a hammer to the convoluted illogic of Glen Beck.

They say Van Jones is a Marxist, anarchist, Communist, socialist revolutionary. Now, we are getting closer to the real grip Beck and company have on this country and the president as well. McCarthyism has never been far from the skirmish line in post WWII American politics. McCarthyism is based on a string of lies that tie Stalinism to Marxist theory, to socialism, to the labor movement and, finally, to modern liberals. It's like saying all Christians are torturers and pedophiles because the church burned women at the stake, tortured heretics and harbored child-abusing priests.

We need a new Murrow, but it is easier to expose a politician than to have the courage to expose the rants of a new McCarthy embedded in the media.

Your assignment, if you choose to accept it, is to get 10 more people to become Fans of Draft Van Jones... today. Then go read some more of Kelpie Wilson. You won't be sorry that you did.

Democrats v. Republicans v. Greens: Van Jones

So much has been written about the saga of environmental activist Van Jones, that there is little that I can add. At the top of the California Greening blog my friend, Wes Rolley, has written "Greens come from many backgrounds. There are more than a few who were, like myself, once Republicans and who left that party... or rather found that the party left them. Right now, having found a political home with the Greens, I want to make sure that the Green Party of California does not leave me. I am too old to go through this again." So true. The Van Jones saga is painful for me personally because even though I do not know Mr. Jones well, I have followed his career and read his writings with great interest, because his path has been so similar to my own.

Accordingly, I will here just post links to my favorite commentaries about the firing of Van Jones by the cowardly Obama Democrats and conclude after the jump with the full text of a powerful statement released by the Green Party.

Dumping Van Jones: Why Give In To Republicans' Tantrums? by John McWhorter, posted on the web site for (of all media) The New Republic.

Meet the Real Van Jones by Judith Lewis published as an Op-Ed in The Los Angeles Times.

Obama Has Fed His Green Jones to King CONG by Harvey Wasserman posted on Common Dreams.




GREEN PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES

For Immediate Release:
Thursday, September 10, 2009

Top Ten Reasons Why Van Jones Should Give Up On Obama and the Democratic Party, Come Home to the Green Party

WASHINGTON, DC -- Green Party leaders invited Van Jones, who stepped down recently as President Obama's advisor on Green Jobs, to abandon the Democratic Party and "come home to the Green Party."

Greens called Mr. Jones, who resigned last Saturday after coming under rightwing attack, the best of what the Obama Administration had to offer America, but said that Mr. Jones' principles were bound to clash with President Obama's capitulations to corporate lobbies and to 'blue dog' Democratic and Republican ideologues.

"The Green Party invites Van Jones, with his decades of experience working for justice and the environment, to join a political party that embraces and defends that agenda and the people who work for it -- the Green Party. Like the Greens, Van Jones sees green jobs and a healthy environment as interconnected pillars of a sustainable and just economy. We encourage Van to bring that agenda into the electoral arena as a Green Party member, leader and possible future candidate, either nationally, statewide in California, or locally in Oakland, his home," said Mike Feinstein, co-chair of the Green Party of the United States and former Mayor of Santa Monica, California.

Greens offered 'Top Ten reasons why Van Jones should give up on President Obama and the Democratic Party, and come home to the Green Party"

1. The Obama Administration's failure to defend Mr. Jones recalls similar retreats by the Clinton Administration, when Bill Clinton allowed Republicans and some Democrats to bully him into removing Assistant Attorney General nominee Lani Guinier and Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders. The targets tend to be Black -- consistent with Republican fury over the election of Barack Obama to the White House.
2. The extremists who sought Mr. Jones' removal see their action as part of a wider plan to derail measures against global warming and block greens jobs programs: see "How Van Jones Happened and What We Need to Do Next," by Phil Kerpen, Fox Forum (Fox News), September 5 (http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2009/09/06/phil-kerpen-van-jones-resign/). They smell blood, and the Obama Administration and Democratic leaders are cowering.
3. Van Jones is a national leader for human rights, public health, and the environment. As 2004 Green presidential nominee David Cobb said, "The Democratic Party is the graveyard of progressive ideas." These ideas -- including green jobs, the 'Green For All' agenda (http://www.greenforall.org), and other ideas expressed by Mr. Jones -- are thriving in the Green Party.
4. 
   Among Greens, Mr. Jones need not play down his activism on behalf of the lives and well-being of Black Americans. He will not get called "reverse racist" of "anti-white" by Greens for addressing persistent racial disparities in economics, employment, health, treatment by the justice system, the response to Katrina and post-hurricane rebuilding, etc. The Green Party shares Mr. Jones' goals of racial justice.
5. Among Greens, Mr. Jones will not get scolded for calling former President George W. Bush a 'crackhead' in the context of Mr. Bush's obsessive devotion to industries that are feeding America's addiction to fossil fuel energy.
   
6. Among Greens, Mr. Jones need not apologize for questioning the behavior of the Bush Administration in connection with the 9/11 attacks. (See http://www.gp.org/press/pr_07_29_04b.html)
7. Mr. Jones has called for an end to coal energy, while President Obama continues to repeat the myth of 'clean coal.' Mr. Jones' analysis of the global warming threat and the need for conservation and a green economy are reflected in the Green Party's platform and principles. (See also http://www.gp.org/press/pr-national.php?ID=242)
8. If the epithet that Mr. Jones used to describe Republicans was offensive, imagine the words people will use later this century, when the effects of global warming have grown more severe, to describe Republican (and Democratic) officeholders from 2009 who refused to take necessary action to curb global warming's advance.
9. The media have given Glenn Beck and the 'Tea Party' crowd generous coverage. (Compare the minimal and dismissive reporting on the hundreds of thousands of Americans who protested the Iraq War in 2003.) Republicans have benefited from the current political paradigm, which places extreme Republicans like Mr. Beck at the right end and 'moderate' Democrats like President Obama at the left end of the spectrum of allowable debate. Van Jones is a target for the same reason that former US Representative (D-Ga.) and 2008 Green presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney and others have been dismissed and ridiculed -- because they offer ideas unacceptable to media dominated by corporate interests. The emergence of the Green Party is key to overturning this paradigm, changing the political landscape, and expanding the public debate.
10. The Green Party sees no reason to appease Republicans, Fox News, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Democratic leaders, or others who've used their power to serve corporate elites, to the detriment of working people and America's future. Greens call Van Jones too important for America to disappear from the public forum.

"As a Green, Van Jones can be a strong national voice for justice and the environment, independent of the constraints of the Democratic Party hierarchy, the corporate lobbies that pull their strings, and the right-wing appeasement and selling out of grassroots social movements that appears to be their strategy," said Marian Douglas-Ungaro of the DC Statehood Green Party and the Green Party Black Caucus.

Recruiting Candidates

It seems that Greens are always trying to recruit a candidate from outside the party as we don't have that many inside who have both the integrity that we demand and the name recognition to be successful. Even when we do bring a bigger name into the party, the fit is not always there, as witness the 2008 presidential campaign.

Now, we have an opportunity to try it again and this time I am fully supportive. Let's recruit Van Jones to run for California's Governor in 2010. It may be a long shot, but I can not think of a better choice, especially as his standing with the Obama Democrats is now somewhat diminished.

There is now a facebook based effort to draft Van Jones as a Green Party candidate for Governor. The list of those supporting this idea is growing and filled with Greens that I respect: Erika McDonald, Gary Ruskin, Genevieve Marcus, Ben Manski, etc. If you have a facebook account, now is a good time to go become a fan of Van. (note to self.. put a banner on this site that says "I'm a Fan of Van" and link it to the group.)

There are a number of thing that might argue against this.. not the least of which is Jones's long time association with the Center for American Progress, a John Podesta run think tank that provided many Obama Administration advisors. Remember that Podesta was one time Chief of Staff for Pres. Clinton. At lest Jones left the Center when joining the Obama team and now is a member of neither.

If we are going to make this happen, then we need to be talking to Jones quickly and have a long list of fans who are willing to donate time and money to make a real campaign.

Good Green Advice

I've been reading Green Collar Economy by Van Jones. In this book, Jones suggests that the environmental movement... and I am suggesting the Green Party... needs to change it's narrative. In biblical terms, Jones says that the story of environmental activism has been that of David and Goliath, of the individual against the big, bad corporation, Erin Brockovich, the career of Ralph Nader.

While there is a need for a David at time, he did not save the earth, Noah did. Jones suggests that we need to change our goals from those of David to those of Noah and offers a some principles to explain what that means. I would agree. I have challenged more than a few to consider global warming and to ask themselves "What would Noah do?" Click Read more! for a list and my interpretation of what that means for the Green Party of California.


Jones suggest that we need to deal with:

* Fewer "issues," and more solutions.
* Fewer "demands, " more goals.
* Fewer "targets, " more partners.
* Less "accusation, " more confession.
* Less "cheap patriotism," more deep patriotism.

This is a rich enough field that I will take his principles one at a time.

Fewer "issues".

Jones states the obvious when he says that "defining any cause based on a negative can lead to a great deal of negativity." Negativity may not get you to your goal. I offer the example of the efforts to stop all new nuclear power plants. While the rationale is obvious to those of us who would act on this, then answer is always "then how are you going to meet our energy needs." Would it not not be better to spend the effort on Green Solutions that make the nuclear option unnecessary?

If I look at the major problems facing California today: the annual conflagrations that sweep the state, the annual budgetary impasse in Sacramento as symptomatic of a failed fiscal policy, the every day growing problems to supply our state, both urban and rural with a supply of water for agriculture, industry and households, I find a singular lack of Green Solutions.

Jones quotes Julia Butterfly Hill as saying "Many of us have gotten so good at defining what we are against that what we are against has started to define us."

Over the next two years, we have an opportunity to make a major contribution in California by becoming advocates for sensible solutions at the nexus of global warming, energy and the economy. The risks of doing this are few. Politics as usual will not deliver solutions for the people, only carve up the economic pie in a different way. Republicans are afraid of the ghost of Howard Jarvis and will block any effort to introduce new taxes unless they are disguised as usage fees. Democrats will never back down on funding of government services where the service delivery is backed by large scale union demands.

In the past summer, California's legislature was over 90 days late in delivering a budget. When they did, we were already so far into a recession that they must have know it would not hold. However the pressure to pass a budget, any budget, was so great that they compromised by postponing the day of reckoning until they would all be out of office and someone else would have to clean up the mess.

While there is need to continue participating in the drive for equality under the law, something that those for Prop 8 lied about, we have to find the energy to do more than one thing at a time.

Fundamental problems

The economy is in disarray. By any measure, this has been the worst year for the economy that most living Americans have experienced and it has not ended. While the government is trying to resuscitate the banking system, Whirlpool today announced that they were cutting ~5000 jobs because their products, the necessities of a good kitchen, just are not selling.

I will try to expand on this as part of my argument that Greens should be making the most of this situation, but are not. Click Read more! to get rest of the info.


It is easy, as Obama is wont to do, to blame this all on George W. Bush and the Republican Administration. McCain's running a messy campaign makes that easier. There is a connection between the current Republican administration and Congress, the raft of Grover Norquist funded libertarian leaning think tanks in Washington and the general idea that the market is more effective than government in creating what is good and the regulation only stands in the way of prosperity forever. Even Alan Greenspan operated on that premise from the time he first read Ayn Rand until the last couple of weeks.

Buried in this is the fact that Wall Street and the banking system had been turned into a bucket shop looking a lot like a NY OTB betting parlor. They would play a 'futures' game betting on the future price of a stock without actually owning it. By the early 1920's there were outlawed. This was just plain gambling and both state and federal laws prevented it until the year 2000. In that year, the Federal law was changed to allow what we have all heard of as credit default swaps.

Some explanations that I have heard of credit default swaps compares them to buying an insurance policy against losing your money. However, there was no regulation and you did not actually have to own the obligation (in this case mortgages) in order to get the insurance. That is rather like buying and selling insurance on your neighbor's house. Now, when the prices fell, everyone wanted to collect their money but it wasn't there to be collected. We now know why our grandfathers outlawed the practice.

As early as April of this year, the word was out. This should not have been a surprise.

The sacrosanct free market would supposedly regulate itself. The problem with that approach is that regulations are just rules. If there are no rules, the players can cheat; and cheat they have, with a gambler's addiction. In December 2007, the Bank for International Settlements reported derivative trades tallying in at $681 trillion - ten times the gross domestic product of all the countries in the world combined. Somebody is obviously bluffing about the money being brought to the game, and that realization has made for some very jittery markets.

So, we blame everything on Bush when this practice was signed in Federal law by Bill Clinton and he is no Republican. Better yet, the Federal law stipulated that no state could regulate the practice either.

Where does this have to do with Greens? It would seem to be a great time to go forward with an alternative. We know the problems, we should be telling everyone what will get us out of the mess, but we are not. We are not even making much of an effort to do so.

Greens have never come to any agreement on a set of fiscal policies. There Greens who are socialist, communists, anarchists or just generally convinced that big corporations are inherently evil. We need to be really clear about the alternative. We need to understand just what we mean by a Green Economy. It is not just, as Van Jones or Thomas Friedman (God, I hate put them in the same box) would have us believe: an economy based on global warming and energy, though that is part of it.

Even Ralph Nader comes off as being only an activist against some vaguely evil corporate state. His CounterPunch OpEd on the bailout outlines some steps to a remedy, but there are NOT based on any idea of what a Green Economics would really look like. It is only tweaking a broken system with any systemic modification. Still, that is more than I have seen from our leadership.

Republican have a Free Market ideology with a little bit of policing. Democrats have a different public ideology, but it looks a lot like the Republicans, only with more policing because they know that the Republicans are evil. Greens have no common understanding of either economic or fiscal policy and, for that reason, are not able to take advantage of the current turmoil to advance our cause.

Just look at the various committees that we have in the national party. None of them deal with economic or fiscal policies.

Bailout? How about a bootstrap?

Van Jones's new book is now available. The Green Collar Economy is getting a lot of good press. It is (as of 10 minutes ago)#27 in sales at Amazon. If you don't know Jones, have not heard of his green economy pitch, he has a great introduction on YouTube with an alternative to the $700 Billion bailout. Made sense to me.