Does anyone else see a pattern here? Don't look at what I said yesterday, do as I want today.
Bye Bye Van Jones.
by AK - Jeff 42 Replies latest social current
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beksbks
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1920883,00.html Viewpoint
Van Jones Goes, But His Ideas on Green Jobs Should Stay
By Bryan Walsh Monday, Sep. 07, 2009
I met Van Jones, the social activist turned environmental czar, a few times before he joined the Obama Administration, when he was still criss-crossing the country spreading his message: that the creation of green jobs could revitalize America's eroding blue-collar class. I can't judge if some of his past statements and actions-his signature on a letter suggesting former President George W. Bush might have allowed the Sept. 11 attacks to occur, his 1990s membership in an avowedly anti-capitalist group — should have disqualified him for government service. But I do know his resignation is a loss for the environmental movement, and I think, for the country as well. Because Van Jones was right about green jobs.
I spent a day with Jones in Oakland, Calif., his adopted hometown, back in November 2007, just as his star was beginning to rise. A Yale Law School graduate who, like Barack Obama, turned his back on a corporate paycheck and returned to work in his community, Jones founded the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights in 1996, initially focusing on police brutality and prison reform. By the time I met him, Jones had shifted his attention to the environment — but not out of an overwhelming desire to save polar bears on melting icebergs or prevent the rainforest from burning in a foreign country. Jones cared primarily about the people in his community, and he knew that for those struggling to get by, the planet could never be as important as a paycheck.
Jones' genius was in welding the two issues together: hence "green jobs," new employment opportunities in solar panel installation or wind turbine manufacturing that could reduce carbon emissions even as they provided steady pay for struggling blue-collar workers. It was perfect — something for everyone — and it's no surprise that President Obama returned to the theme again and again on the campaign trail and in the White House. But it was Jones who said it first, and best.
That day in Oakland with Jones was instructive. After visiting a community garden and a job training site for solar panel installers, we spent some time back at his office, where he addressed a visiting youth group, troubled kids, about the importance of staying in school and the new opportunities that might be available — if they could seize them. Then we went to an Oakland community meeting at a local church, where Jones gave a talk that was half-sermon, half economic brief, on the coming green jobs revolution. Next we crossed the bay to San Francisco's gilded city hall, where Jones received an award from the Full Circle Fund, a philanthropic organization founded by Silicon Valley's wealthy. That was Jones's singular talent: his ability to be a human bridge, from gritty Oakland to green San Francisco, all the way to the White House, because he knew that environmentalism could only break out of its niche if it could be made to matter to everyone.
Environmentalists, Jones included, sometimes make too much of green jobs, as if we can beat climate change and poverty without paying a cent. That's obviously not true: the transition to a greener economy could be a wrenching one, and it won't be free. But it should be a better economy, a fairer one, and certainly one that is better for the planet. Jones knew that, and the movement had no better spokesperson. In some ways, he might be better off out of the White House, liberated to speak freely again, not buried in West Wing bureaucracy. I look forward to seeing him do what he does best: connect disparate communities and energize audiences from the pulpit. But the fact that he was hounded out of government should give us all pause. Jones deserved better than this — and so did we.
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Gregor
Time Magazine? Bryan Walsh? Is this supposed to be important?
BULLETIN - Van Jones RESIGNED day before yesterday because he was exposed for what he is. Nobody made anything up about him. He apologized for his remarks in two separate speeches. Why? You don't care why. It's much easier to blame the MINORITY party for his prat fall. Bob Beckell, among other Dems, called for him to resign. This administration continues to look stupid and that's because they are.
The, uh, White, uh, House, uh, Press , uh, Secretary is afraid to complete a plain spoken sentence because he's trying to remember what the spin is for the days screw ups and flip flops. This is better than Monty Python.
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AK - Jeff
Van Jones' own 'spin' got him where he is - out. No one did anything to him to cause this.
Jeff
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beksbks
Hey Jeff, can you give me one paragraph of facts as to exactly what Jones actually did wrong?
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purplesofa
Wouldn't we love it if as an ex-JW we would try to run for office and the preaching door-to-door to bring on a new Kingdom(government) were scrutinized???
How some as elders formed judicial committees to ex-communicate and have people shunned from their families were divulged?
Or how we stood shoulder to shoulder in our commitment to refusal of life saving blood transfusions?
And how at one time we believed but no longer do?
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beksbks
Let's run for office Purps! As long as we run on the Republican ticket, we should be ok.
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purplesofa
Never, too many skeletons in my closet
But, given the chance, I would make one hell of a shaker and mover.
People can keep picking others pasts apart till the only candidates worthy are the squeeky clean people we
have worshipped before, The Governing Body.
purps
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AK - Jeff
I never stated that Mr Jones did anything wrong did I?
I stated that he made his own bed, beks. No one lynched him. He had to know that those facts [his speeches, his comments, his viewpoints on tape and paper - well documented all over the place by now] could come back to haunt him.
No one made them up. If he has changed his opinions, then he had every right to defend that. He chose to exit stage right.
Jeff
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purplesofa
Exiting may be a choice of escaping the insanity and putting energies into a more useful and positive place.