A while back I lampooned a Glenn Beck segment on Van Jones, who's an advisor to the White House Council on Environmental Quality. According to Beck, Jones is the man on the inside for a vast cryptosocialist conspiracy involving the Apollo Alliance, Color of Change, the Center for American Progress, George Soros, ACORN, Al Queda, and the Trilateral Commission. Everything that goes bump in Beck's closet at night.
Back then I still thought the Gomer Pyle meets Father Coughlin shtick was harmless, too clownish to be taken seriously. Ah, those innocent days before the nation was locked in a room with frantic teabaggers.
Since then Beck's fruitcakery has taken off all over the rightosphere and gotten him what every demagogic infomercial host craves above all else: attention. Advertisers have sprinted away by the dozens, but there are more than enough angry old white people to boost cable ratings.
I suspect his effort to slime Jones will have little effect, as long as the White House doesn't get jumpy. Nobody who isn't already around the bend buys this stuff. It's a game Rupurt Murdoch's playing. He knows it will implode sooner or later, but he's going to suck every last Nielsen point out of it.
Meanwhile, Beck is selling fear like hotcakes, effectively inciting people to violence, telling them their country is being taken from them by blacks and commies. Even black commies! The longer Beck goes on, the higher the chances that a Fox viewer with a screw loose will take him seriously and hurt someone. Think Murdoch's ratings will take a hit if that happens? Me neither. It's morally reprehensible, but what can you do? It's a free country and people are free to be two-bit hucksters.
Anyway, just for the record, let's address a few of the Not-Too-Swift Boat attacks. (Where you're done here, you might also check out some similar fact-checking from Eva Paterson, Jones' old boss.)
But of course, he's black. And Beck's audience just knew a black president would bring in more of his kind. You know how those people behave. There goes the neighborhood.
If you know Jones, you know he's extremely candid; you also know the guy absolutely loves talking, loves the richness and drama of language, loves a funny or dramatic turn of phrase. (Would that more progressive leaders loved language the same way.) So things like this, when he talks about his anger at police overreaction --
Convinced that American society needed a wake-up call on race, Jones abandoned his plan to become a journalist, concluding that he would rather make news than report it. "If I'd been in another country, I probably would have joined some underground guerrilla sect," he said. "But as it was, I went on to an Ivy League law school."
-- are just funny to me. But they're easy to demagogue. Of course it's true that Jones was a self-styled radical in his youth. Hell, I was once a "self-avowed" libertarian. People grow up.
Around 2000, faced with a fractured and infighting movement, he had something of a breakdown/epiphany. He turned his back on radicalism and focused on finding a political program that inspires and unifies. If there are two signal features of Jones' subsequent activism, one is that it builds bridges among demographics that have historically approached one another with suspicion; the other is that it relies crucially on both the private and public sectors. It reclaims what conservatives have stolen and perverted: respect for free markets, patriotism, and family values. Indeed, when Jones talks about targeting jobs and economic development at struggling urban areas, he sounds like nobody so much as the late Jack Kemp. I once saw him deliver a short talk to a crowd of largely white, middle-aged, besuited businessmen at a Wall Street Journal business conference; he was sandwiched in the middle a long line of droning talks. Within 10 minutes, he had the executives on their feet in a standing ovation. They don't do that for communism.
If you want to know what Jones thinks now, instead of what he thought in his early 20s, read his book: The Green Collar Economy: How One Solution Can Fix Our Two Biggest Problems. He's out to save America's free-market economy and get its people working. If the conservative movement were smart it would take yes for an answer and claim him as one if its own. But then, it's not smart. It's Beck.
If it's not going to claim him, the right is correct to fear him, though. He has synthesized the best of environmentalism, progressivism, and capitalism into a program with appeal both broad and intense. It's particularly notable among young people, but Jones gets acclaim from virtually everyone who's met him or seen him speak. The more his kind of can-do, entrepreneurial, win-win green solutions spread, the more modern-day conservatives look like panicked, lumbering dinosaurs.
Sooner or later the American public will see something like this:
They'll see that Jones bears no resemblance to the caricature painted by the right. That caricature is just another shadow on the wall of Plato's cave (or Fox's studio, as the case may be). It's another campfire story, another cloud for righties to shout at, another adrenalin boost for a frightened, angry, shrinking audience. This too shall pass.
Follow David Roberts on Twitter: www.twitter.com/drgrist
James Rucker: Eleven More Companies Ditch Glenn Beck
Great news today -- 11 more sponsors have distanced themselves from Glenn Beck's television program, bringing the total to 57.
Is this going to characterize this administration?
Cave in to every dirty, nasty, cheap crusade by the desperate, impotent Repubican Party?
Jones had planned to move to Washington, DC, and had already landed a job and an apartment there. But in jail, he said, "I met all these young radical people of color -- I mean really radical, communists and anarchists. And it was, like, 'This is what I need to be a part of.'" Although he already had a plane ticket, he decided to stay in San Francisco. "I spent the next ten years of my life working with a lot of those people I met in jail, trying to be a revolutionary." In the months that followed, he let go of any lingering thoughts that he might fit in with the status quo. "I was a rowdy nationalist on April 28th, and then the verdicts came down on April 29th," he said. "By August, I was a communist." In 1994, the young activists formed a socialist collective, Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement, or STORM, which held study groups on the theories of Marx and Lenin and dreamed of a multiracial socialist utopia. They protested police brutality and got arrested for crashing through police barricades. In 1996, Jones decided to launch his own operation, which he named the Ella Baker Center after an unsung hero of the civil-rights movement.
Strangle the government till you can drowned it in a bathtub?
The Government is the problem
business should not be regulated
ie democracy is bad, plutocracy is good.
I'm sure you can spend days, months reading various worse things spoken by conservatives.
Communist, socialists, my god, how evil? The label is all you need? You don't need to know anything about the people, and their beliefs?
After the utter shame of McCarthy, you still reject political freedom for communists?
USA, the land of the the free?
1) President Obama hiring a racist/radical;
2) President Obama is out to give the money of whites to blacks;
3) President Obama is a Racist;
4) President Obama is a Socialist
5) President Obama wants to pay for Health Care for Illegal Immigrants;
6) President Obama hates America;
7) Michelle Obama hates America;
8) President Obama is turning the Country into a Socialist Country;
9) President Obama is turning the Country into a Communist Country;
10) President Obama wants to indoctrinate your children by asking them how him can best stop the drop-out rate; therefore, you should keep your kids home;
11) President Obama has a deep seated hatred toward whites;
12) President Obama is a Radical;
13) President Obama is going to set-up Re-education camps;
14) President Obama wants to kill Grandma;
15) President Obama wants to set-up death panels;
16) President Obama is a baby killer;
17) President Obama has the media on his side; and
18) President Obama is trying to change the country into his image.
If I believed all the above and more, I would probably hate this president too, but I choose to believe the truth over lies; therefore, I can sleep at night, because a belief in conspiracy theories only destroys critical thinking. And it keeps you frustrated for naught.
1) President Obama is hiring a Racist;
2) President Obama is out to give the money of whites to blacks;
3) President Obama is a Racist;
4) President Obama is a Socialist
5) President Obama wants to pay for Health Care for Illegal Immigrants;
6) President Obama hates America;
7) Michelle Obama hates America;
8) President Obama is turning the Country into a Socialist Country;
9) President Obama is turning the Country into a Communist Country;
10) President Obama wants to indoctrinate your children by asking them how him can best stop the drop-out rate; therefore, you should keep your kids home;
11) President Obama has a deep seated hatred toward whites;
12) President Obama is a Radical;
13) President Obama is going to set-up Re-education camps;
14) President Obama wants to kill Grandma;
15) President Obama wants to set-up death panels;
16) President Obama is a baby killer;
17) President Obama has the media on his side; and
18) President Obama is trying to change the country into his image.
If I believed all the above and more, I would probably hate this president too, but I choose to believe the truth over lies; therefore, I can sleep at night, because a belief in conspiracy theories only destroys critical thinking. And it keeps you frustrated for no reason all.
If the tools of the plutocrats, the "rank and File" conservatives, fall for this,
They prove the Super rich Elite plutocrats are correct:
People are too stupid, too gullible, too emotional to have any say in society.
Let us Plutocrats runs things.
All you Beck fans have is a bunch of scurrilous distortions and over-hyped statements. Nobody wants to address the substance of Van Jones' ideas, the policies for which he advocates. All you can do it throw names at him and his ideas--communist, radical, etc.
What I've said before, I'll say again: if wanting to reinvigorate the American economy by investing in innovative green technologies and providing job training for green jobs to impoverished communities makes you a radical communist, then count me it. I'm a radical communist too.
Seems like "communist" is well on its way to joining "fascist" and "Nazi" as words that have been totally stripped of their meaning and only continue to be used by people who love them for their shock value.
Jones said he was "a rowdy nationalist" before the King verdict was announced. By August of that year, he said, "I was a communist"
If you really feel that Glenn Beck is wrong in his assessment about Van Jones, go on his show and debate the issue. I'm sure he will accomodate you if you asked. But I doubt that you would entertain such an idea. I have a feeling that you would not necessarily welcome being challenged, it's safer to contibute articles to a known, and predictable audience.
Roberts has refuted Beck's nonsense on Van Jones. What would be the point of giving Beck that much recognition? And with a tone-deaf audience at that.
I also find it interesting that Glenn Beck has made similar statements about the President’s other advisors, or as he refers to them, Czar’s. The only one I see the left going nuts about is Van Jones. Perhaps if you weren’t so biased, you would understand that you don’t have to be patronizing to African Americans in order to avoid being labeled a racist.
I may not agree with Glenn, but at least his judgments are the same regardless of race (if you pay attention you’ll notice that he says the same thing about the white guys). If you see race as the issue, then you are truly a racist yourself, or you are just relying on the race card because you can’t dispute what he said
Whether or not you're a close minded racist will reveal itself based on your words.
Glenn Beck is clearly a close minded racist.
Oh, you disagree? Prove he's not then.
I read the article last week and again today and neither time did I find anything that renounces his claim to be a Communist Revolutionary or Black National Radical.
I have read that he learned that that holding signs was not as effective as becoming involved with the progressive movement so he changed his tactics to reach the same goals of social justice.
The video & Audio released today clearly has him professing moving the green cause slowly so it will be accepted but that they will reach the goals of changing the entire social system in the country.
Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclination, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.
John Adams
Would be nice if they apologized for all of the hateful comments, but that will never happen.
Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclination, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.
John Adams
If a broken clock is right twice a day, do you not take it to the shop to get it fixed, or curse at it when it tells you the wrong time, simply becomes it happens to be right twice a day? Your assertion is laughable. That's like saying people should take back the nasty things said about Hitler because he was right about a few things. It's unbelievably shallow.
I'm a Van Jones fan. I wouldn't really care about Beck if he weren't trying to smear a good man who has good ideas.
All you Beck fans have is a bunch of scurrilous distortions and over-hyped statements. Nobody wants to address the substance of Van Jones' ideas, the policies for which he advocates. All you can do it throw names at him and his ideas--communist, radical, etc.
What I've said before, I'll say again: if wanting to reinvigorate the American economy by investing in innovative green technology and providing job training for green jobs to impoverished communities makes you a radical communist, then count me it. I'm a radical communist too.
Seems like "communist" is well on its way to joining "fascist" and "Nazi" as words that have been totally stripped of their meaning and only continue to be used by people who love them for their shock value.
If you give inner city youth summer jobs and training, they have skills to take to a 'real' job the next year, it builds confidence and they have some money in their pocket. Since you all are econ wizards, I don't have to mention the multiplying effect of that cash in their community.
Since it is 'green' work, making homes more efficient, it adds value to the property and lowers heating costs long term, another financial benefit for the non-heating oil economy.
A more interesting question would be to ask about the financial incentives against 'green jobs'. From where I sit, Beck's problem with it seems to be almost entirely religious.
I'm so NOT surprised by his take on black people.
Well if its NOT run from central headquarters, it ain't socialism. So what the heck are you talking about?
http://bit.ly/mGtpD
http://bit.ly/cewLy
He is good at changing his tactics to reach his goals of wealth distribution and social justice.
And I guess you are a member of the 9/11 truthers as well. Where was your signature on the document, Van's was # 46
Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclination, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.
John Adams