A Shout Out to Brother Van Jones

Stravinsky's "Sacrificial Dance" from "The Rite of Spring"

From the David Sirota at HuffPo:

CNN Debate on Van Jones: Obama Sells Us Out to Political Terrorist Glenn Beck & His Lynch Mob

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Somehow, nobody gets fired for lying us into Iraq, Tim Geithner keeps his job after tax evasion and gift scandals, Republican Congresspeople remain credible while championing the "birther" lunacy -- but Van Jones must be fired for carelessly signing a petition years ago, which he later apologized for.

As I said on CNN, the hypocrisy uncovers the real truth of this whole affair: Van Jones was targeted by the political terrorist known as Glenn Beck -- the man who leads a 21st century lynch mob looking to hunt down anyone (and especially anyone black) who has ever been a part of progressive movement politics. I don't use that term "political terrorist" lightly. According to the dictionary, a terrorist is "a person who terrorizes or frightens others" -- and usually does so with an ideological objective. There are, of course, many different kinds of terrorists, and I'd say Beck -- with his fearmongering, paranoia and hate -- fits the letter and spirit of the dictionary definition of a political terrorist quite well. Indeed, just listen to this clip or look at this not-so-veiled threat and then try to claim with a straight face that Beck isn't explicitly using the mass media to scare and terrorize people.

In placating the demands of this terrorist and his lynch mob, the Obama administration has simultaneously empowered that terrorist and that lynch mob, while abandoning its own progressive base.
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I get that politics is rough. And I always figured that once they shook off their initial shock, the Right would be coming after President Obama every day with everything they had in Lee Atwater and Karl Rove's vast and toxic bad of tricks. That unless he broke them brought them to heel early and and firmly, the Right's relentless, berserker attacks on the Obama Administration would make the Clinton Years seem positively Coolidge-y.

What pisses the hell out of me is that -- based on his flat-footed reaction to these first, few Flying Monkey Wave Attacks -- no one seems to have pointed out this fairly pedestrian and widely-held observation about the inexorable laws of political cause-and-effect to the leader of the Free World. Barack Obama seemed to have believed his own hype that mad-dog politics was somehow just another bit of petty Baby Boomer legacy narcissism that he was free to eschew; some antique bong he could politely refuse as it was passed around the Beltway, instead of a rabid political reality that was gonna climb right up his ass no matter how nicely he "Just Said No".

And so, thanks to some cocktail of arrogance and infuriating naivete, the point person for one of the Obama Administration's critical Big Five Initiatives -- Green Jobs and the environment -- gets tossed under the bus, leaving a vital post leaderless when it most needs direction, and leaving the Administration looking weak and gullible when they most need to appear strong and confident.

About all of which, more later.

Meanwhile, far, far away on a seemingly unrelated topic:

The Green Mayor's Green Policy Maker Leaves for Vancouver

Posted by Mick Dumke

Mayor Daley has been saying for years that he wants to make Chicago the greenest city in the country, but his environmental record is decidedly mixed.

After the mayor, no one has been as deeply involved in the administration's successes and as evasive about its shortfalls as Sadhu Johnston, Daley's chief environmental officer, deputy chief of staff, and frequent cheerleader.

But Johnston won't be on hand to offer justifications or lead the applause for Mayor Daley much longer: he's leaving at the end of this month to become the deputy city manager of Vancouver.
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So what do these two things have to do with each other?

Well, Van Jones is an inspiring speaker and organizer, enjoys a fine rep outside of those regions of Murrica where folks don't have to take off their socks to cipher up to 20, and his selfless act of political impalement on behalf of the Obama Administration over trivia means the President of the United States owes him some fairly heavy political giri.

His expertise also puts him squarely at the nexus of three of the non-Olympics-based issues most important to Da Mare -- the environment, finding Chicago's footing in the new Green Economy, and coping with the massive influx of ex-offenders (approximately 20,000 each year) into the city -- at precisely that moment in time when the City's Green Policy Wizard suddenly decided to take off

to the Great White North.

Not for nothing, but it seems to me that any halfway smart Chicago administrator could figure out a way to transmute the Obama Administration's craven mistake into something of genuine value for our city.

Especially given that around here, referring to Republicans as "assholes" is considered less of a career-crippling faux pas than it is a civic responsibility. And, occasionally, a sanctioned, semi-professional sport.