The Van Jones Resignation

To start off, this isn’t what I want to be blogging about. I had a lovely post all ready to go about the new Gardening Club on campus, but news of Van Jones’ resignation has pulled my time away from more enjoyable things. I saw something out of the corner of my eye Saturday on CNN about Van Jones being linked to 9/11 conspiracy theorists, which I intended to check out the next morning. But I didn’t need to look past the front page of Yahoo! News. “Controversy over fiery remarks fells Obama adviser”.

What I saw on CNN was only the beginning of what Jones’ described in his resignation statement, which he gave late Saturday night, as “a vicious smear campaign against me.”

“They are using lies and distortions to distract and divide,” Jones’ stated in his resignation. The 9/11 conspiracy thing is concerning a minuscule petition Jones signed, which he stated he did not read thoroughly. Read David Roberts from grist.org assessment of the the “truther” controversy (also posted below).

It started back in April, when the conservative right “news sites” World Net Daily, which is famous for pushing the racist conspiracy theory alleging that President Obama wasn’t born in the U.S., and isn’t therefore a U.S. citizen, ran an article about Jones’ past as a communist sympathizer and radical. The article entitled “Will a ‘red’ help blacks go green?” must have caught the eye of Glenn Beck from Fox News because he too has been assaulting Jones over the past few months.

While it greatly pains me to post such slanderous, twisted and fear-mongering speech as Glenn Beck on this blog, it does help explain the irrational pressure the White House was under. But still, listen to how Beck twists Jones’ words. I was at the Powershift conference, and these words didn’t bother me. I’ve read Jones’ Times best-selling book, “The Green Collar Economy,” and I understood that his message wasn’t communism, but was “justice for all!” That wealth should be given to those who deserve it. A day’s work deserves a day’s pay is what Jones meant, not that we need to take from the white rich and give to the black poor.

For the best breakdown of everything that’s happened which lead to Jones’ resignation, check out Gawker’s article, “Who is Van Jones?”:

“So here we have a radical youth turned respectable liberal. Respectable enough to be on Time magazine listicles and win World Economic Forum prizes and everything. Respectable enough for Tom Friedman to profile him. And The New Yorker. Respectable enough for Meg Whitman, as in former eBay CEO and wealthy Republican California gubernatorial candidate and John McCain advisor Meg Whitman, to proclaim herself “a huge fan of Van Jones.”"

It explains that Jones was arrested but not a criminal. It qualifies him as a respectable activist for the black communities. What is most interesting in the piece is how one crazy blog/news site carries itself onto a right-winger commentator’s show, then a few “tea-party” activists bring it up at a town hall, which then needs to be covered by the Main Stream Media. It’s ridiculous! It goes from crazy to crazy to crazy and then passes through a legitimizing filter like CNN, which makes it real news. Beck, you talked about the vetting process? Well, how about vetting some of these stories from ones that are based in reality and not your fear-based radical right bubble?

Furthermore, I was again very happy with Grist.org coverage of this smear-campaign. David Roberts wrote an impassioned post early yesterday morning entitled, “Thoughts on Van Jones’ Resignation.” I don’t blame Roberts for getting a little peed off at Beck and the like:

“In other words, they don’t care what Van Jones does, they care what he is. Beck peddles a message that’s been around since America was born: They’re taking your country away. They—the non-white races, the immigrants, the urbanites, the communists, the elites—are stealing the country from nice, simple white Christians.  They’re taking what rightfully belongs to us, to Real Americans.”

Joe Romm from Climate Progress had little to say about the matter, and Andrew Revkin from the NYT’s Dot Earth blog didn’t say anything about the matter, but I guess it’s not really his subject. Treehugger, Switchboard were voiceless and even Think Progress, the blog for pushing back against the right, had little to say today, except to post their leader’s, President and CEO of the Center for American Progress Action Fund John Podesta’s statement.

On a personal note, this was a big disappointment for me. I remember first seeing Van Jones at the AASHE conference in North Carolina, and then again a month later in Washington, DC at the Center for American Progress. He is smart, passionate and invigorating. He’s a true leader, filled with gusto and fancy, sweet-sounding canned statements, but with evidence and chrisma to back it up. While the country looses a champion of green jobs in the White House, we don’t loose him all together. Jones has been on the streets, in classrooms and in front of podiums for a long time. It’s what he’s good at. It’s what he’s best at. I wish him the best of luck in his fight to “change the system!”