Well, the right wingers have done it again: Acted against their own interests. That would make a difference to them if they took a long term perspective. But, they don’t. They like winning small victories. However, the end result is that they will lose the proverbial war. Right wingers (and ultra right wingers like Glen Beck) have hounded a President Obama appointee, Van Jones. Jones was in the Obama administration in a position to generate “green jobs”. The “whitee rightees” dug up statements that Van Jones had made earlier this decade in which he referred to some Republicans as “assholes”. They also found Jones’s name on a petition calling for a government inquiry into who knew what about the 9-11 attack on the Twin Towers. About three and a half centuries ago French Cardinal Richelieu once said “Give me six sentences by the most innocent of men and I will hang him with them”. Well, I guess some Republican obstructionists are using the Cardinal’s playbook on dealing with the opposition! But the whitee rightees are not thinking things through. Sure, they got a person dedicated to improving the well-being of Americans to resign from working inside the government bureaucracy. Inside the government, comments by Van Jones would have had to been restrained. He would have been silenced in a way, unable to respond to the worst statements they might make about progressive politics. Instead they put him once again on the outside of the controls of government, no longer a government bureaucrat. Now he is free to call the Republicans as he sees them, as right wing obstructionists. Political talk show hosts — guys like Beck, Savage, Reagan, and Limbaugh along with senators like Inhoff (R-Oklahoma) — are not true Republicans. They are really “REPUBLICAN’Ts, putting their own blinding hostilities against the well-being of the American people. Welcome back to an “open mike”, Van Jones. Your voice will be louder than ever.
WHO is Van Jones? [from: www.vanjones.net]
Who is Van Jones?
Van Jones is a globally recognized, award-winning pioneer in human rights and the clean energy economy. He is a 1993 graduate of the Yale Law School and an attorney.
Van wrote the definitive book on “green jobs”: The Green Collar Economy. In 2008 — thanks to a low-cost, viral marketing campaign — his book became an instant New York Times bestseller. It is today being translated into six languages.
As a tireless advocate for disadvantaged people and the environment, Van helped to pass America’s first “green job training” legislation: the Green Jobs Act, which George W. Bush signed into law as a part of the 2007 Energy Bill. He is the co-founder of a number of successful non-profit organizations, including the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights and Green For All.
Van is the recipient of many awards and honors, including: the Reebok International Human Rights Award; the World Economic Forum’s Young Global Leader designation; the prestigious, international Ashoka Fellowship; and many more. Van was included in the Ebony Magazine “Power 150″ list of most influential African Americans for 2009. In 2008, Essence magazine named him one of the 25 most inspiring/influential African Americans. TIME Magazine named him an environmental hero in 2008. In 2009, TIME named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world.
In March 2009, Van went to work as the special advisor for green jobs at the White House Council for Environmental Quality.