Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Taking the Movement Out of the Obama White House

From: Anthony Saidy
Sent: Sunday, September 06, 2009 3:59 PM

It will soon come down to this: Obama's only purpose in life will be
re-election. Never has a progressive mandate been more quickly squandered. I
predict that Wed.'s big speech will advocate nothing more radical than
paying Big Insurance to cover the bare. -AFS
.

http://open.salon.com/blog/david_sirota/2009/09/06/taking_the_movement_out_of_the_obama_white_house/

Taking the Movement Out of the Obama White House

By David Sirota
September 6, 2009

My column that was published on Friday of this week was about the difference
between a political party and a political movement - and I can't say I'm
happy to see the lessons of that difference being highlighted so intensely
and so negatively as they are with today's news that Van Jones was forced
out of the Obama administration (and let's be real clear, despite the
"resignation" billing, the White House's pathetic behavior this week makes
clear Jones was forced out by the higher ups). This is a serious tragedy for
the progressive movement on three levels.

First and foremost, Jones was one of the only movement progressives in a
policymaking position in the Obama White House. By that I mean, he was one
of the only people in the White House who came out of grassroots movement
work and not just political/partisan hack work, and one of the only movement
progressives put in a policymaking job, and not ghettoized into a
political/tactical job. Whenever I got sick to my stomach at the thought of
Obama's Team of Corporate Zombies - people like Rahm Emanuel, Tim Geithner,
Larry Summers and Jim Messina - running the show, I was able to at least
tell myself that hey, someone like Van Jones is at least in there somewhere
fighting the good fight as he always has. No more - and that's a damn shame.
Second, Jones being forced out will not mollify the racists, crazies, tea
baggers, Republican congresspeople and other assorted conservative
freakshows - it will only embolden them. When lynch mobs in the Old South
lynched someone, when a witchhunting band caught a target in Salem, when
HUAC "proved" the supposed communism of its victims, that didn't calm them
down - it only intensified their bloodlust because it made them believe they
could be even more successful in the future. So if the White House's
political "gurus" believe booting Jones was the safe and prudent way to
mitigate right-wing hatred, then they are as short-sighted and stupid as
they've proven themselves to be in mismanaging the summer's health care
debate. Seriously, folks - if you think you can appease or mollify someone
who takes to the public airwaves and does this, then you are as crazy as
that screaming lunatic is.

Finally, the Jones announcement will inevitably create a chilling effect on
the aspirations of other movement progressives. Van is a fantastic person
who has done fantastic work. He's kept his advocacy real and didn't
compromise his principles. And so when he was appointed to a high-level
White House job, it seemed to validate that you could, in fact, keep it real
and also advance in American politics and government. That is to say, his
story seemed to prove that an outsider could also succeed on the inside -
and that outside advocacy doesn't automatically prohibit you from one day
working on the inside.

Now, though, because of today's announcement, that lesson has been
rewritten. Jones being tossed from the White House says that even in an
administration headed by a former community organizer, progressive movement
activists (as opposed to far-right conservative movement activists who are
celebrated in D.C.) probably cannot hope to ever enter or rise in
government.* I'm not saying that's an ironclad rule - but that is the
message of this particular event, and you better believe that all the
movement activists who know Jones or looked to him as a hero will get that
message loud and clear. And that's a tragedy.

The obvious rejoinder to these points is that Jones supposedly brought this
on himself by long ago making a mistake and signing a misguided petition
about 9/11. Obviously, he made a mistake** - and he admitted that. But even
if you don't accept that apology or admission of fault, the idea that him
signing that petition means he's worthy of removal is just a pathetic
argument that highlights the most damning hypocrisies of all. For instance,
are we really expected to believe that Jones signing one random petition is
a bigger problem than, say, Geithner accepting free room and board for the
industry he is supposed to be regulating? I could make a huge list of such
contrasts, including the tellingly different media/political Establishment
treatments of "birthers" (cheered on) and "truthers" (totally ostracized) -
but you get the point: the entire brouhaha about Jones supposedly awful
transgressions is manufactured, considering the genuinely problematic
transgressions of so many other White House officials are treated as no
problem at all.

Let me just end this post by saying I'm sincerely disappointed about Jones
getting kicked out of the White House for all three reasons I've laid out
above - and also because I've been personally inspired by the guy. I've seen
him speak, read his work and met him at the Democratic convention here in
Denver. Out of all the activists and leaders I've met in more than a decade
in movement politics, he's really one of the best. And while I hope - and
expect - Jones will be back in movement politics soon, losing him as a voice
in an Obama administration that is so mobbed up with corporate sycophants
and political hacks is a real bummer.

* For the 9/11 truthers out there, let me just say this: Yes, there is ample
evidence that the government was grossly negligent in ignoring intelligence
warnings about 9/11. And yes, there is evidence that the government has not
been all that forthcoming about acknowledging that fact. To say that is not
controversial at all - it's verifiably true, and to support better efforts
to uncover the evidence around 9/11 isn't controversial either. But no,
there is no evidence that proves or strongly suggests the government
deliberately orchestrated 9/11. The 9/11 Truth movement has tried to
aggressively harass/intimidate almost every person in public life - me, Van
Jones, and everyone else - in an attempt to force people to sign onto its
statements that the government wasn't just negligent, but orchestrated 9/11.
These people are absolutely incessant - and their tactics and statements
attempting to equate governmental negligence with governmental orchestration
is as offensive as it is awful. It's the worst mix of bullying and
conspiracy theorism - and it's not merely "controversial," it's unacceptable
and it needs to end.

** By the way, that message is especially true for African American movement
activists, because let's just be honest - the fact that the right chose to
mount a hysteria campaign specifically around an African American, Jones,
was no coincidence. The right didn't just randomly pick some mid-level guy
working on noncontroversial issues (green jobs) - they were specifically
looking for a black guy with movement politics in his background. Remember,
he was targeted WAY BEFORE the 9/11 stuff ever came out - in other words,
the right-wing started attacking him before those conservative voices ever
even KNEW about the 9/11 controversy.

Hence, we can be assured the original targeting of Jones was a calculated
move with race in mind - a move designed to fit the criticism into a larger
racial backlash framework first perfected in the 1980s. That framework has
created a simple reality: In America, governmental advancement is wide open
for right-wing movement players, and you can even vaguely hope for a seat at
the political table if you are a white progressive former
hippe-turned-yuppie liberal. But if you are a black person with any enduring
loyalty to progressive movement or social justice activism, the loud and
clear message from politicians and the media is that you are not welcome
anywhere near the halls of power, because you will be billed as some
nefarious combination of Al Sharpton, Huey Newton, Malcolm X, Stokely
Carmichael and Willie Horton.

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