COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."

Monday, September 07, 2009

Van Jones will become the symbol of the Progressive Left



Another fallen victim under the Barack Bus.


Progressives decry resignation of Van Jones
Joe Garofoli, Chronicle Staff Writer
Monday, September 7, 2009 Sfgate

The middle-of-the-night resignation Sunday of longtime Bay Area activist Van Jones as a White House environmental adviser left many progressives angry at the Obama administration for buckling to conservative criticism of Jones' controversial past comments and actions.

The administration is losing not only one of the nation's leading environmentalists, progressives say, but one of the few liberal voices with President Obama's ear.

Jones resigned amid a furor over his signature on a 2004 petition questioning the government's actions around the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Supporters say the administration surely knew his background when they appointed Jones, the first African American to write a best-selling environmental book, as special adviser for green jobs at the White House Council on Environmental Quality. In fact, agents interviewed at least one of his former supervisors in San Francisco - Eva Paterson - when the FBI vetted his appointment.

This year, Time magazine named Jones one of the 100 most influential people in the world. Former Vice President Al Gore is a fan, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said his best-selling book, "Green Collar," showcased his "sparkling intelligence, powerful vision and deep empathy."

Little backing

But few stepped up to protect Jones during the past few weeks.

"He was swift-boated," said Medea Benjamin, a co-founder of the anti-war group Code Pink and a San Franciscan who has known Jones for 15 years. She spoke to him recently and said he was "very conflicted" about whether to resign.

But with Obama facing an uphill battle to gain bipartisan support on health care, as Jones said in his resignation statement Sunday, "I cannot in good conscience ask my colleagues to expend precious time and energy defending or explaining my past."

"The timing was hideous for Van," said Paterson, a San Francisco civil rights attorney who hired Jones, a Yale Law School graduate, at her Equal Justice Society organization in the early 1990s and has remained close to him.

"Still, I find it very disturbing that real progressive people with a track record of lots of speeches and actions will find it difficult to speak out," Paterson said. "That's going to have a chilling effect on anyone like that who may some day want to serve in public office."

Some feel that the White House caved too quickly to pressure from conservative activists and commentators - particularly Fox New Channel's Glenn Beck - who have hammered on Jones' mid-1990s Marxist affiliations and liberal activism. In the mid-1990s, after he co-founded the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, an Oakland group focusing on police brutality, Jones became known for headline-grabbing statements like "Willie Brown's Police Commission is killing black people." Regarding the 2004 petition calling for a congressional investigation into the actions of the Bush administration surrounding the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Jones issued a statement last week saying, "I do not agree with this statement and it certainly does not reflect my views now or ever."

Jones also drew conservative fire for calling Republicans "- holes" during a speech in February in Berkeley. In the speech, Jones used the same term to describe himself and the political resolve needed to move legislation.

Even though Jones apologized, the campaign to oust him gained steam Friday when conservative legislators like Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., called for an inquiry into his comments.

Often, an administration will send a representative to the Sunday morning TV talk shows to defend an embattled appointee. But none came Sunday. On ABC's "This Week," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs only thanked Jones "for his service to the country" and said that Obama does not agree with his views.

Increased pressure

Beck first criticized Jones earlier this summer on his radio show and recently increased the pressure. An online Berkeley organization that Jones co-founded but no longer is associated with, Color of Change, called on advertisers to boycott Beck after he said in late July that Obama "has a deep-seated hatred for white people." A few dozen companies responded by pulling their ads from Beck's show.

"Van's resignation is the tragic result of a retaliatory witch-hunt by Glenn Beck and Fox News Channel," Color of Change co-founder James Rucker said Sunday. "Beck's attacks against Van Jones haven't been about finding the truth, they've been about changing the subject from his bigoted comments and continued race-baiting."

In response, Fox News Channel referred to Beck's statement to the New York Times Sunday that "instead of providing (answers about Jones' background) the administration had Jones resign under cover of darkness," and Beck's promise to focus on other "radicals" in the Obama White House.

48 comments:

  1. Comedy Gold!... Leftist MSM Reporters Beat Up On Internet After Van Jones Resigns (Video)

    Comedy Gold...Gee, who would have predicted this?The Far Left reporters on Meet the Press discussed "the open sewer of internet disinformation" this morning after Van Jones resigned.

    What makes it even more hysterical is that they all take themselves so seriously.

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  2. Left Is Seething That Golden Boy Commie-Truther Van Jones Was "Driven From Office" By "Lunatic Bullies"

    The left is seething that their Golden Boy, the Truther and cop killer supporter, Van Jones was driven from his White House office.The Politico reported:

    "As we've seen before, succumbing to these types of propaganda attacks from the right wing only emboldens the aggressors. This controversy will go away and they will trump up another one tomorrow,” said David Brock, founder and chairman of Media Matters for America, a group that has taken on conservative commentators.

    No good comes from appeasing a lunatic bully like Glenn Beck."

    "If Jones left under pressure from the Obama administration then we are in for a very long and painful four years,” said Melissa Harris Lacewell, a political science professor at Princeton University.

    “I would hate to think that Glenn Beck can simply shout down any member of the administration he chooses to target.”



    The martyrdom of communist-Truther Van Jones has begun.More...
    At a commencement address in the spring, first lady Michelle Obama held Jones up as an example to students of people who are doing interesting and innovative work.

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  3. How did this subhuman scumbag loving jerk get past the FBI?

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  4. I think not, doug, since he does not hate Jooos, either

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  5. Mr Olmert has compared Israel to South Africa, does that qualify him as a Jew-hater, doug?

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  6. You, doug, have criticized Mr Obama, do you hate Blacks?

    If it was not for your hate of Black people, you'd love Obama?

    It is not the policies he pursues that you object to, it is that he is a Black man, correct?

    Is it all about religion and race, doug, or does policy ever enter into your whirled?

    I know policy is the major factor in my considerations, but you cannot seem to get by the two R's, religion and race.

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  7. No, he already was a self-loathing Commie Jew.

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  8. The idea that Jones, a Yale educated Lawyer, didn't know what he was signing when he signed the "truther" petition is preposterous. I imagine that when he signed that petition, outside a coop in Oakland, he never dreamed that it wouldn't play well on a national stage.

    The progressives seem to be having a hard time realizing that not everyone thinks as they do. Their leaders, Howard Dean, Maxine Waters, Katrina vanden Huevel, etc are ready to "damn the torpedoes" but half the country is saying, "Not so fast!"

    A sure fire way around a shady past or Marxist orientation is through a general election and we can expect to see Congressman Jones in the future.

    Man! That President Obama certainly has an interesting group of friends.

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  9. So the past PM of Israel was a self-loathing Communist?

    That may explain why the Russians immigrants fit right in to that City State in the Levant, they're all self-loathing Commies, like mat?

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  10. That sounds like a C4 line that you are on, doug.

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  11. Cairo Journal
    A Public Embrace of a Jewish Past

    The culture minister’s desire to be the next director general of Unesco may have helped push a display of affection for the country’s Jewish heritage.

    But Mr. Badr’s ideas have recently been challenged.

    He has had to confront the reality that his neighborhood was once filled with Jews — Egyptian Jews — and that his nation’s history is interwoven with Jewish history.

    Not far from his shop, down another narrow, winding alley once called the Alley of the Jews, the government is busy renovating an abandoned, dilapidated synagogue.

    In fact, the government is not just renovating the crumbling, flooded old building. It is publicly embracing its Jewish past — not the kind of thing you ordinarily hear from Egyptian officials.

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  12. Are all Communists self-loathing, or only the Jewish Communists?

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  13. Or are there some Jewish Communists that are not self-loathing?

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  14. Whatever.
    I just don't understand why the fact that Jews have been kicked out of every country in the ME counts for nothing to you.

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  15. What happened to the sacred
    "Right of Return?"

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  16. Because none of those countries count with me, doug.
    Not a fuckin' one.

    Then, on top of that, the religion that folks profess does not count with me, but to diminish their standing with their increases religious devotions.

    The colonists in Israel, that we are subsidizing and supporting, requiring US to pay off the Egyptians and Jordanians, are Eastern Europeon, for the most part, and they mean less than nothing to me, either.

    I'm an Americas kind of a guy, which for you in Polynesia may be hard to understand.

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  17. The "Right" of the Jews to return or the Arabs?

    Seems to me we should support opening up the Levant to all comers, regardless of religion.

    The US should not support quotas of a religious or racial nature, anywhere.

    Nor should we support people that do support their use.

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  18. Just the sacred right of the Palis to return to one small patch of Earth at the same time the Jews are excluded from the entire ME.
    Fair's Fair.

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  19. And further, doug, I do not think it is in the national interests of the United States to be attempting to rectify the misdeeds that were done to the Jews, by Arabs after the creation of the Jewish City State.

    It certainly is not my responsibility to do so.

    The idea that "Israel" and "Palestine" should be two separate entities, on a speck of land smaller than Maricopa County is farcical.

    The two, combined, do not qualify for Nation State status.

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  20. Life is not fair, doug

    Even you know that.

    I do not attempt to put a stamp of "Fairness" to the whirled. I do not think that my Government should, either.

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  21. "It certainly is not my responsibility to do so."
    ---
    Why is it our responsibility to see to it that the Palis get the right to return?

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  22. Or we'd be in Dargur, fair being fair, but the Darfurians are black. So we let them die by the hundreds of thousands.

    Let 'em all die, over there. I have no need to advocate US sacrifice for Europeons or Africans

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  23. ...but you advocate for the Palis against the Israelis.

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  24. I would not say that it is, except that the US has decided, by election, to empower folks that do.

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  25. Yeah, that's why I support BHO 100%.
    The Election tells me so.

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  26. No, doug, I advocate equality between the two. Not the one sided policy we have been following for almost a decade.

    Or that we should disengage, which would be the better path, for US.

    But we will not. So if we must be engaged, we have to be fair and balanced, or at least appear so, to the majority of those involved.

    We advocate equality, not quotas. Israel is a City State governed by racial and religious quotas.

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  27. I support the United States, doug.

    Always have, always will

    Presidents come and go.

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  28. How can it have been one sided when we pay and arm the Palis?

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  29. We pay and arm them less than we have paid and armed the Israeli, doug, over the past 60 years.

    The pittance the Palis are getting from US now, does not balance the scales.

    But giving them anything is an error. On either side.

    The place will have to be occupied, before there is any semblance of order.

    Per the Conflict Resolution SOP.

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  30. "But giving them anything is an error. On either side."
    ---
    Agreed.
    I would not sacrifice 1 American's Life for said Occupation.

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  31. It was the "Just in Time" inventory delivery of US ammo that allowed the Gaza assault to continue. When that arms flow stopped, so did the Israeli offensive.
    The conexs were brimming with US ammo, waiting to off load.
    Until 20Jan09

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  32. Europeons and the Turks, doug.
    Nato minus US.

    That's who resolves the conflict, there.
    The historical norm. Send in the Romans and the Franks, along with the Ottomen.

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  33. The latest from Krauthammer:
    The conventional wisdom is that Obama made a tactical mistake by farming out his agenda to Congress and allowing himself to be pulled left by the doctrinaire liberals of the Democratic congressional leadership. But the idea of Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi pulling Obama left is quite ridiculous. Where do you think he came from, this friend of Chávista ex-terrorist William Ayers, of PLO apologist Rashid Khalidi, of racialist inciter Jeremiah Wright?

    But forget the character witnesses. Just look at Obama's behavior as president, beginning with his first address to Congress. Unbidden, unforced and unpushed by the congressional leadership, Obama gave his most deeply felt vision of America, delivering the boldest social democratic manifesto ever issued by a U.S. president. In American politics, you can't get more left than that speech and still be on the playing field

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  34. I'd agree with Charles, but for his last sentence. Obama is not a representative of the far left, he represents the new center.

    He is "down" to those that voted for him, which is more than he needs to continue apace, being that they are more than half the voters.

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  35. He has lost the "fellowship buzz" that followed the Inaugural parties, but his 52% popularity remains constant, for now.

    RCP Average 8/27 - 9/5 Approve = 52.8
    Disapprove = 42.2

    Spread = +10.6

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  36. Year to year, this to last, Obama is as popular now as then.

    52%

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  37. I think he has lost much of the independent swing vote which swung his way.

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  38. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  39. He won with right around 51%, did he not?

    He polls at 52.8% approval.

    Looks like those that voted for him, still support him. Those tha "got on the bandwagon" after the inaugural, have gotten back off.

    But those that voted for him, seemingly, are still with him, based on the RCP computations of the various polls.

    Which they have done reasonably well at, historically.

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  40. The RCP indicates that 95% of US have decided and that 5% neither approve nor disapprove of Mr Obama. Even if everyone of those undecideds decided against Obama, he'd still win, today.

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  41. And that may be why the Dems decide to "damn the torpedoes" and try to ram through their health-care reform.

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  42. Cleaning some of the Fox off of Van Jones Grist
    ---
    Scroll down for CNN's Warm and Fuzzy view of Mr. GreenJones.

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  43. "The RCP indicates that 95% of US have decided and that 5% neither approve nor disapprove of Mr Obama."
    ---
    I'd have have to drop Acid
    to "Access" 'Rat's "Logic."

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  44. desert rat said...
    "I'd agree with Charles, but for his last sentence. Obama is not a representative of the far left, he represents the new center."
    ---
    Only responding to this wackjob for giggles.

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  45. Rasmussen = - 11
    But, of course, RCP is God.
    Rasmussen, pile of Shit.

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  46. "Year to year, this to last, Obama is as popular now as then."
    ---
    War is Peace.

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  47. Rat's kurds of shit wisdom:

    desert rat said...
    We pay and arm them less than we have paid and armed the Israeli, doug, over the past 60 years.

    The pittance the Palis are getting from US now, does not balance the scales.

    -----------------

    Ah but Rat, the last 60 years? the ARAB world has gotten far more than the israelis on that juicy American tit...

    the palios are a sub-group invented AFTER the failure of the collective arab world's failure at genocide of the Jewish state..

    to be fair one MUST look at the entire context.

    the muzzies are squatters on everyone else's lands...

    and the current problem is that israel sits on 1/650th of the middle east and the arabs squat on the other 649/650th.

    the arabs now want 50% of the 1/650th...

    but you judge israel as a city state because it's tiny and not a nation...

    you state you dont support israel's right to be because it's a jewish state.. and yet you do not decry every other christian nation or moslem nation that America supports, that is anti-semetic...

    equal standards of decrying....

    for every anti-israeli post you should be posting 649 additional posts decrying arabs...

    America aid should be based on loyality to the USA, last i checked Israel voted with the USA more than any other nation on the face of the earth...

    Rat doesnt understand WHY America is bonded with israel, might i suggest it's clear the vast numbers of Americans...

    palestinians=death

    israelis = life...

    real simple

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