The Wonk Room

Joe Klein Compares ‘Left-Extremist’ Van Jones To ‘White Supremacist,’ ‘Nazi’

Joe Klein, the prominent Time Magazine liberal columnist, has embraced the right-wing assault on Van Jones, the White House green jobs advisor who resigned this weekend. Stung by a successful boycott for calling the president a “racist,” Glenn Beck led a campaign against Van Jones as a “self avowed communist” who is a “danger to the republic.” Yesterday, Klein said “good riddance” to the “too-angry blowhard” Van Jones, comparing him to a “white supremacist” and a “Nazi”:

Anyway, Jones: He has, in recent years, done some valuable work trying to steer green jobs into poor communities…but there is a bright line in American political life: Self-proclaimed “communists” need not apply. Communism is too odious and foolish a philosophy for anyone reasonable to believe in, or even to use as red-flag hyperbole, as Jones did after the Rodney King riots of the early 1990s, when he said that he’d been a [black] nationalist, but was now a communist. It’s sort of like a Republican President appointing someone who had said, “I used to be a white supremacist, but now I’m a Nazi.” So, good riddance. The work of this presidency is too important to be side-tracked by a too-angry blowhard spouting foolish radicalism.

In the past decade, Van Jones has been at the vanguard of a green capitalism that combines progressive and conservative ideals, “focusing on job, wealth and health creation” in poor and minority communities while healing the planet. His work has helped establish the Oakland Green Jobs Corps, the Green Jobs Act, and community partnerships for job training and retrofit programs in cities across the nation.

Before becoming a leading green capitalist, Jones was a progressive leader in the Bay Area. The “communist” smear hinges on a 2005 interview with the East Bay Express, in which Jones described how he had “renounced” his radicalist politics of the 1990s, when he participated in STORM, a utopian, anti-racist peace collective in Berkeley, CA that drew from Marxist teachings. Jones was radicalized by the 1992 Rodney King trial, in which four LAPD officers were acquitted of police brutality although their beating of Rodney King was caught on videotape. While acting as a legal observer for a non-violent rally in San Francisco protesting the trial and its aftermath, Jones was caught in a mass arrest for which the city later apologized.

Klein’s comparison of Jones to a “Nazi” “white supremacist” is both repugnant and ironic, considering Jones’s record of fighting racism and embracing compassion for all people. Following the Rodney King verdict, Jones worked effectively against police brutality, establishing first the Bay Area PoliceWatch and then the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights. The Ella Baker Center successfully campaigned against San Francisco police officer Marc Andaya, who led a team of cops in beating Aaron Williams, “emptying three cans of pepper spray into his face, and hogtying him in an unventilated police van where he died.” With its “Books Not Bars” campaign, the Center also stopped the construction of the Alameda County “Super Jail for Kids” in 2001.

Klein — a compelling writer who has argued for legalizing marijuana, a war crimes tribunal for the Bush administration, and the same green-jobs vision as Van Jones — should be the last person to promote a McCarthyite purge of “left-extremists” from the Obama administration.

Van Jones Seeks A ‘Healing For Our Politics’: ‘Let’s Be One Country’ »

White House green jobs advisor Van Jones is under attack from Fox News as an “avowed radical revolutionary communist” and from ABC News as a “truther” with a “history of incendiary and provocative remarks.” In an attempt to assassinate the character of Van Jones, the right-wing media are distorting his past political activism and cherry-picking Jones’s critiques of the pollution and injustice that still haunt this nation. However, Jones’s true record is one of turning away from anger and finding hope, abandoning division and seeking consensus.

Speaking at the National Clean Energy Summit 2.0 in Las Vegas this August, Van Jones argued that “for all of the battleground politics that’s going on,” energy policy should be “the one place that should be a safe harbor for all of us.” Van Jones praised the “bipartisanship” of Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis, who as a representative from Los Angeles succeeded in getting “the first president ever to sign into law a green jobs act, President George W. Bush.” He recognized that the summit participants came to find a “healing for our politics” in a “common ground agenda”:

Many of you have taken chances to start companies, you’ve written books, you’ve been grassroots champions for the change that we need. And I think you’re seeking not just a healing for our economy or a healing for our planet, but a healing for our politics. And I want to acknowledge that many of us are here because we are seeking something deeper. This is the common ground agenda. It should be the common ground agenda. We should be able to come together as a country on this one. Finally.

Watch it:

Jones then explained that “the values that underlie this clean energy conversation” are “the common ground values of America.” Underlying the call for clean energy is the value that “clean air is better than dirty air for the health of our children.” Underlying the call for energy efficiency is that value that treating our country’s resources “with wisdom and respect is more important than wasting them.” And “if we have the opportunity to fight both poverty and pollution by putting people to work in these new industries, we would be wise as a country to do that.”

To extended applause, Van Jones explained that the Obama administration has committed $5 billion to improving the energy efficiency of low-income households because the same investment “that cut unemployment and cut an energy bill and cuts greenhouse gases is also going to cut asthma, and take asthma inhalers out of little girls’ and boys’ pockets.”

Jones discussed in further detail how President Obama’s clean energy agenda tears down traditional ideological divides by “asking questions progressives like” but “giving answers that conservatives should like”:

We’re asking questions progressives like but we’re giving answers that conservatives should like. We’re asking questions about how to move the needle on poverty and pollution and how we create more economic opportunity especially for people in the lower part of our economy. But the answers are answers that conservatives should like. We’re not talking about expanding welfare, we’re talking about expanding work. We’re not talking about expanding entitlements, we’re talking about expanding enterprise and investments. We’re not talking about redistributing existing wealth, we’re talking about reinventing an existing sector, and creating new wealth by unleashing innovation and entrepeneurship. This should be common ground. We should be able to stand together and be one country on this.

Jones concluded by again making the call for us to “be one country” and connect “the people that most need work” to the “work that most needs to be done”:

There is so much work that needs to be done in this country to retrofit America, to cut these energy bills. And there are so many people who need work. This is our opportunity as a country — and it comes around very rarely — to take the people that most need work, and connect them to the work that most needs to be done, to fight pollution and poverty at the same time, and be one country. Let’s be one country.

During the applause at the conclusion of Jones’s speech, prominent Republican oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens — who in 2004 funded the Swift Boat attacks on Sen. John Kerry — turned to Jones and shook his hand.

Transcript: More »« Less

Wonk Room’s Van Jones To Be White House Green Jobs Adviser

The Wonk Room would like to congratulate Center for American Progress Senior Fellow and Green for All founder Van Jones, who is joining the White House as the adviser for green jobs, enterprise and innovation.

Van Jones was a regular contributor to the Wonk Room, clearly expressing an inclusive vision for a green economy that benefits everyone, not just the few. He challenged progressives to stop “getting rolled by the Happy Meal politics” of conservatives, who sell unhealthy policies under feel-good slogans. In response to the $700 billion Wall Street bailout last October, he called for a “green bailout” to “retrofit and repower America using clean, green energy — and create millions of new jobs, in the process.”

Read all of his posts here.

Watch Van in action:

Van is a visionary, a unique voice, and a reliable friend. We wish him all the best.

Van Jones To Congress: ‘We Can Build A Green Economy Dr. King Would Be Proud Of’ »

Out guest blogger is Center for American Progress senior fellow Van Jones, CEO of Green For All, who testified yesterday before the first hearing of the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming. This is his testimony.

Mr. Chairman, other committee members, I’m just happy to be here and I appreciate the opportunity to talk. I was here in 2007 when the term “green collar job” was very rarely heard anywhere. This may have been the first place it was heard in Congress.

And now it is everywhere, and that reflects something. It reflects a hunger and desire on the part of the American people to solve the two biggest crises possibly ever to face this country: an economic catastrophe and a climate crisis, both of which could undermine our nation’s security, our economy, not just now but for decades into the future.

You, unlike the rest of us — next week, we’re going to be celebrating — you’ll celebrate for about ten minutes and then you’re going to go back to sweating. Sweating over the details of this recovery, sweating over the details of how it is that we can actually beat the recession and global warming at the same time.

The 111th Congress will be in the history books. A hundred years from now, students will study this Congress, and they will ask one question: “Were you able to solve the problem? Were you able to able to deal with this twin crisis? How did you do it?”

And you’re going to get a grade from our great-grandchildren: Yes or no. Pass or fail.

The reason that green jobs are so important is because they are the most secure way to ensure success for this Congress. And the whole country now is looking for a change. You have the opportunity now to turn this breakdown into a breakthrough. And you can if you honor three principles. More »« Less

It’s Time To Build The Green Collar Economy

Our guest blogger is Van Jones from Green for All, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

At best, the federal government’s bail out of Wall Street will help the U.S. economy — which is already in a ditch — avoid a total meltdown. Fine. Now we need a plan to jumpstart the economy and actually get America moving again.

In my new book, The Green Collar Economy, I propose a bold, green cure for the economic mess we are in. Think of it as a comprehensive plan to bail out ordinary people — and the planet, too.

We just found $700 billion. Let’s find another $350 billion. That’s half the price tag of the Wall Street rescue — which has no guarantee of success. But with $350 billion investment, we absolutely and positively could retrofit and repower America using clean, green energy — and create millions of new jobs, in the process.

In other words, a comprehensive “green bailout” could give America TWICE the bang … for half the bucks. Other experts agree with me. A new report just released by the U.S. Conference of Mayors says that we can create more than 4 million green jobs if we aggressively shift away from traditional fossil fuels toward alternative energy and a significant improvement in energy efficiency.

Another report just released by the Political Economy Research Institute and the Center for American Progress shows that the U.S. can create two million jobs over two years by investing $100 billion in a green economic recovery plan. The report also shows that this investment would create four times more jobs than spending the same amount of money within the oil industry.

The time for choosing has arrived. Looking at both our energy system and our financial system, we face some hard choices. Our energy system can create awesome storms. Or it can create awesome jobs. Our financial system can become a global sinkhole — or a global springboard.

The gray economy that is collapsing is based on consumption, debt and environmental destruction. The green economy that is emerging will be based on production, smart savings and environmental restoration.

The bottom line is: you can’t base a national economy on credit cards. But you can base it on solar panels, wind turbines, smart bio-fuels and massive, a program to weatherize every building and home in America.

A green economy would be less vulnerable to oil shocks and financial bubbles. In a green economy, we would rely on less credit from overseas and more on creativity right here at home. It’s time to stop borrowing and start building.

As Thomas Friedman says, “We don’t just need a bailout. We need a buildup.”

Rather than just giving platinum parachutes to those who wrecked the economy, let’s throw a green lifeline to the ordinary people who want to rebuild it. We can’t drill and burn our way out of our present mess. But we can invent and invest our way out. And in The Green Collar Economy, I suggest a game plan for getting started.

Join MicCheck Radio to hear an exclusive interview with Van Jones about the Green Collar Economy.

UPDATE: Living on Earth’s Jeff Young explores the “elements of a green economic bailout” with CAPAF fellows Bracken Hendricks, Carol Browner, and Van Jones:

As Washington rescues Wall Street, a growing chorus of big thinkers from the left and right are calling for a greener approach– using investment in clean energy and efficiency as a way to stimulate the economy.

Van Jones: ‘We’re Getting Totally Rolled By The Happy Meal Politics’ Of Drill Here, Drill Now

The Wonk Room sat down with Van Jones, founder of Green For All and a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, in the Big Tent at Denver for an interview on the energy fight, what the right wing is selling, and what progressives need to do about it.

Van didn’t mince words. He called it “disgusting” when right-wing politicians only talk about hurricanes Katrina and Rita to falsely claim they didn’t cause oil spills. He reminds us that “we didn’t stop offshore drilling for the duckies and the fishies,” but because coastal communities were suffering. And he discusses how now we have to make the choice between a “pollution-based suicidal economy” and a green economy that lifts everyone up. Van also calls Newt Gingrich’s American Solutions for Winning the Future campaign “Happy Meal politics”:

First of all, I’m mainly focused on spreading the word about the need for green-collar jobs and green communities, as usual. But, I’m also very concerned about the way that we’re as progressives getting totally rolled by this happy meal politics of “drill here, drill here pay less,” this false solution to this gas price debate. I think it’s really important for us to push back on that.

Watch it:

Van Jones concluded by discussing the Green Jobs Now day of action taking place September 27, the day after the first presidential debate. Go to the website — GreenJobsNow.com — and join the fight.