Van Jones, a self proclaimed communist was hand chosen by Barack Obama to be his Green Jobs Czar. His official title is ‘Special Advisor for Green Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation’. As special advisor to the President he has Obama’s undivided attention. Conversely, Jones is at the beck and call of President Obama and will no doubtedly be carrying out his agenda. One has to wonder what it is that he advising the President on and is Obama listening. We can only assume that he is because he was the one who appointed him.
Van Jones has a colorful past. He was born on September 20, 1968 in Tennessee. His father was a junior high school principle and his mother was a teacher. Clearly he is not a getto child. He graduated from Jackson Central-Merry High School in 1986 and earned his B.A. from the University of Tennessee. By 1989 Jones attended Connecticut’s Yale Law School. He showed up wearing combat boots and was carrying a black panther book bag, signs that even in his youth he displayed radical and/or rebellious views. He is quoted saying at the time, “If I had been living in another country I probably would have joined some underground Guerrilla sect but instead chose to go to an ivy league college. He earned his J.D. in 1993 and then he moved to San Francisco.
Who Is Van Jones?
A look at President Obama’s green jobs ‘czar’
August 25, 2009
The Rodney King case became a turning point in Van Jones’ life when he became emeshed in the San Francisco riots. He along with several others were arrested but his case was later thrown out.
To recap:
On March 3, 1991: “After being seen speeding on the 210 freeway by CHP officers, King led them on a chase at speeds estimated at up to 110 to 115 mph. When finally stopped, King refused requests to get into the prone position and appeared to charge one of the officers. He was beaten and arrested. King was charged with felony evading. Charges were later dropped.” Source
On April 29, 1992, the jury acquitted three of the officers. All this took place while Van Jones was still at Yale. While there Jones participated as a volunteer legal monitor for a protest of the Rodney King verdict in San Francisco. He and many other participants in the protest were arrested. The district attorney later dropped the charges against Jones. I do not know how long he was in jail for but he is noted as saying that while there he met all these really radical people and he knew it was something he needed to become part of.
Later, the arrested protesters, including Jones, won a small legal settlement. Jones later said that “the incident deepened my disaffection with the system and accelerated my political radicalization.” Jones said he was “a rowdy nationalist” before the King verdict was announced. By August of that year, he said, “I was a communist.”
Jones’s radicalism was also influenced by his internalization between what must have appeared to him to be the social injustice between the rich affluent Yale students and the blacks still living in the poorer neighborhoods. He is noted as saying that when rich kids were arrested for drug possession they might have been sent to a drug rehab center while the poorer kids living just blocks away were oftentimes sent to prison and for the lesser amounts of drug possession. It is not clearly known but we can glean from this statement that Jones were comparing the outcomes not only between rich and poor but also between whites and blacks for the same crimes. What we are not told is that this may not be a total racial issue but one of economics. Namely, those attending Yale had well off parents who could hire a good attorney while the parents of poorer kids could not. Hence the differences in outcome and sentencing.
[Note: And although I can see where this type of difference may have had an impact on the mentality of Jones and others of education like him, getting to the root causes of poverty sticken neighborhoods is a very complex matter. Yes, it is true that blacks in America were and are still treated unequally; yet at the same time, oftentimes it is the black community itself, who after school desegregation has taken place will still insist upon self-segregation. They may live in the same black neighborhoods, attend the same black schools and go to the same black churches, etc.
Even Michelle Obama noted in her college thesis that although blacks are in the minority while attending Princeston University, after school hours each group will go home to their perspective neighborhoods only to socialize in their own groups. Whites go home to their white families and friends and blacks will do the same with their inner circles. Rarely do they co-mingle and socialize together, she noted. And while there many blacks develop an us against them mentality, blaming all of their woes on what they might consider the more affluent white folks.
Conversely, the same can be said about caucasians living in predominately white communities. They tend to notice the higher crime rates and lower income status among black communities. The reality is this: blacks tend to band together in the same black neighborhoods even when they no longer have to. That is to say, as their incomes increase one might expect a black person to move to a better neighborhood yet many do not.
The same can be said of whites. They might start off purchasing a house in a poorer white neighborhood but as their incomes increase will tend to look for another home in yet another more influential white neighborhood. This is economics 101. And unless forced into it by loss of job both whites and blacks alike will not move into a lower income housing. As we do better in life our taste tend to change---inner city dwellers move into suburban areas, for example. But should we begin to backslide and lose our suburban homes due to bankruptcy or foreclosure we each begin the journey back into a city setting and relocate into an apartment dwelling. (The reasoning here is simple: Most suburban areas do not have apartments so this is not a racial issue at all). That being said, when given the choice, whites will gather around white neighborhoods and blacks to black neighborhoods where a self imposed segregation begins anew; but this time around both sides may have some regrets.]
Glenn Beck’s
The New Republic:
America’s Future
Part I
Back in the 2001 Van Jones signed an online Petition at 911truth.org blaming the Bush Administration for the 911 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. They further claimed that the Bush administration planned and implemented the worst manmade disaster in our history since the bombing of Pearl Harbor. But now since this information has come to light, Mr Jones is backing away from his original stance saying that he never supported 911truth.org. When asked if President Obama knew about Van Jones’ radical ties before hiring him, press secretary Robert Gibbs speaking for the President said, “The President does not support nor believe in the 911truth project.
When the Glenn Beck show wrote to the White House, the reply was similarily evasive in tone, they saying: “Mr Jones is entirely focused on one policy goal: building clean energy incentives which create 21st century jobs that improve energy efficiency and utilize renewable resources.” (Statement from White House Council on Envirormental Quality.” end quote.
This recent firestorm is not soon to go away because several have now asked for Van Jones to resign and/or for the President to fire him. So we will just have to wait and see what takes place and how Obama handles this latest of distractions. My own personal view is that a declared communist should never have been approved by either our President or the FBI should a normal vetting process have taken place. So the real question is, how did Jones slip through the cracks—or did he? In other words, I like so many others wonder if Obama himself is a radical. We may never know because he has chosen to seal his college records; records that may very well reveal to us the real man beneath the suit.
Glenn Beck’s
The New Republic:
America’s Future
Part II
During the 1990’s Jones co-founded a group called STORM (Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement). STORM grew out of a group called RAW (Roots Against War) a radical black organization that was located in the San Francisco bay area, It was a group devoted to protest the Gulf War by organizing young blacks against it. Among other things STORM as well as Jones revered Mao Zedong and published a booklet called ‘Reclaiming Revolution’. Clearly this is just another sign of Jones leaning toward living a radical lifestyle; and dare I say, if it does not prove, it at least shows that Obama has the same kinds of leanings for him to associate himself with Jones, and by way of a direct appointment to a White House position of importance. The two may not be inseparable!
Van Jones spent the next ten years working for STORM until he helped organize the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights. The Ella Backer Center is an Oakland California based non-profit group devoted to helping urban areas get better schools, a cleaner environment, and more opportunities for young people and working people. It seeks to break the cycle of urban violence, racial policing and what it calls over-incarceration of the black minorities. Clearly it is another group focused on social justice.
Glenn Beck’s
The New Republic:
America’s Future
Part III
On February 11, 2009, Jones gave the Berkeley Energy and Resources Collaborative’s 2nd Annual Lecture. He also signed copies of his book. A female student got up and asked, why our senate with a 60% majority cannot pass the Healthcare bill yet when the republicans under president Bush could pass billes with lesser votes. But instead of telling this student that in the last two years of the Bush administration the Democrats had control over the house and senate with Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, Van Jones replied in the crudest of terms, “Because the Republicans are assholes,” he said. Then he said something that to me is rather telling. He noted that Barack Hussein Obama was not an asshole and that taking his lead from him, he and other blacks would have to get quote/unquote ‘ugly’ in order to get anything done. So the question is, what does getting ugly mean? Does it mean fighting, or carrying guns, or knives or is he calling for a revolt? Whatever its meaning, those in attendence should not have laughed at his rude comments—but they did and he did. Yet being forced into submission and resignation no doubt he is no longer laughing. His exact words were as follows:
“The answer to that is: They’re assholes. That’s a technical political science term. And Barack Obama’s not an asshole. I will say this, I can be an asshole. And some of us who are not Barack Hussein Obama are start getting a little bit ugly.”
Glenn Beck’s
The New Republic:
America’s Future
Part IV
On working for the Obama administration as the Green Jobs Czar Jones said, “I couldn’t be prouder to be laying my sword on the table along with everybody else in the Obama Love Army, and I’m excited about it.” (wikipedia)
The above is a revealing statement. One takes immediate notice of the phrase “Obama Love Army” as if to suggest to us that the Obama administration is somehow organizing a militant society hell bent on a form of social justice for blacks and blacks alone. In any event, the words that Van Jones chooses are polarizing to say the lest and do very little to amend the racial tensions that still exist in America; if any only raise them to new heights.
I am reminded of CNN’s Roland Martin’s constant remarks during the primaries and general election that we need to understand the reality of blacks and that they will oftentimes talk in colorful passionate terms. To me, that was code for the radicalization of America. When that became clear to me is when I began to switch to FoxNews channel. That and the way Hillary Clinton was portrayed and mistreated by CNN and other stations like ABC, MSNBC etc. And so I switched to the station whose motto is, “We Report, You Decide.”
In August of 2005 Van Jones criticized the government and FEMA for what happened in Louisianna during Hurricane Katrina which hit the gulf coast on August 29, 2005. He later became a strong proponent for stopping what he called, Eco-Apartheid adding a social justice component to the debate. And even though his numbers do not add up, Jones is quoted saying: “You can not be about global warming unless you understand that 40% of greenhouse gases are not coming from carbon emissions—they’re coming from buildings; and 75% of gas emissions are coming from the cities. “You cannot beat carbon emissions unless you green the cities; you cannot green the cities unless you green the getto, and you cannot green the getto in 2009 unless you give old pokey a job.” This may sound like a noble cause but if Obama’s 785 billion dollar Stimulous package is being geared for job creation for the inner cities and nothing more, than this administration is unduely slanted to help the blacks at the expense of the whites. And this is exactly what will happen because the Stimulous package as well as the more recent healthcare bill was written largely by the Apollo Alliance Foundation yet another organization bent on eradicating the social injustice among blacks in our communities because both bills say there should be a preference to minorities. In the words of Van Jones that means that our hard earned tax dollars will be going toward helping prisoners.
Glenn Beck’s
The New Republic:
America’s Future
Part V
In a way, helping lower income communities and households is not such a bad thing but this type of mandate is what caused the Fannie Mae and Freddie Max housing crisis. That is to say, federal laws promoted by liberals like Barnie Franks and Chris Dodds pushed for and got legislation passed that gave preferencial treatment to lower income families who could not afford to purchase houses at normal interest rates. So when the prime loans readjusted after a few years foreclosures became the name of the game. Hedge funds and bundling eventually led to the housing crash and one of the worst recessions in decades. To me, the answer to why this should happen is simple: Whether black, brown or white when people are artificially uplifted up out of poverty they move into better neighborhoods leaving their lesser compatriots to suffer the decline of their already failing neighborhoods. And should those who have moved out be forced back they usually find conditions worse than when they left. This is because people do not stay to improve upon their communities themselves but instead rely upon government and tax dollars to fix what they cannot, in my opinion.
Instead of moving into the getto to help the getto Van Jones now having a position of power wants to take money from the richer white folk and just give it to the poor black folk; and another name for that is redistribution of power or socialism.
As then candidate Obama said during the general election to Joe the Plumer, “It’s not that I want to punish your success but I want to level the playing field by giving more to the poor.” Therefore he said, raising taxes on Americans making more than 250,000 dollars a year seemed appropriate to then Senator Obama and now to President Obama. But what he fails to realize is that the small business owner whether black, brown, or white will not have the incentive he or she needs to excel at what they do best, create jobs! And as we can see by the latest housing crash, foreclosures, even in better neighborhoods will bring down those neighborhoods also. So, if this is Obama’s idea of social justice he is dead wrong in his policies. Leveling the playing should not mean bringing one group down while unsuccessuflly trying to bring another up.
Perhaps the most telling of all statements by Jones was when he said this,
“People often say to me, “Your’e black, how can you be an enviromentalist,” and I say to them, “No no, I am African how can I not love the earth.”
This is a statment often heard by those of color. And to many white immigrants who have also had to fight their way into the social strata of America, to say that you are African first is to defile the very face of America. For only when asked our nationality or heritage do any of us say as Americans that we are Irish, or German, of French, etc. Ah yes, we may say that we are of Irish decent or German decent etc. or we might say and proudly so, that we are Irish-American or German-American, or French-American, but normally we do not exclude the word American from our description as Jones has done. This one fact alone should give us pause because many African Americans will do this same sort of thing, as if to suggest to us that they are not really Americans… not really patriots, but instead are living their lives as if they are still living in Africa under an African rule. If this is true, then many blacks do not think of themselves as Americans or belonging to America but rather are exposing their real world views to us. Namely, social justice to this segment of our society is not leveling the playing field as our President once suggested to us, it is the radicalization of America by taking it over. Social justice is not a means to an end, it is the end. Social justice is not about equality but about black supremacy. It’s all about an I am better than you mentality. Hence, when Jones makes claim that he is proud to be working for the ‘Obama Love Army’ or that he is proud to lay down his sword at (the feet of the master; my words not his), one has to wonder what he means when he proclaims that Obama is not just about changing America but is intent on changing the world.
So when Jones tells his supporters radical things like: know your enemy; be creative; and whup-ass; we do have to wonder what he means when he implies that President Obama and his ‘love army’ are about changing the world into their vision. We wonder, just who is this enemy and what kinds of change they are really envisioning. And finally, we wonder what kind of rapport is actually taking place behind closed doors when Obama and Jones sit face to face planning their next step. As then candidate Obama has told us just before winning the general election, and I quote, “We are five days away from ‘transforming’ America.”
So the real question is, what are we being transformed into and by whom?
