NADER-GONZALEZ WOULD NEVER DITCH VAN JONES

by Jim Dorenkott

Obama has caved to the right wing talk show fanatics. He has allowed them to define what a “truther” is.

Van Jones is one of the few both extraordinarily gifted and committed to empowering all people that the administration has, and they let him go without a fight. He has a lot of respect in the community as both a great organizer and a stand up guy.

There was no signal from the White House that they would support him even a little bit.

What a shame.

This unfortunately for the Obama administration makes them look weak both to progressives and the Republicans.

They now smell blood in the water and are going to go on a feeding frenzy. Who is next?

The charges were baseless.

Cheney can say “f*#% you” on the floor of the congress and Van Jones gets the axe because at one time he called Republicans “assholes”. Who hasn’t and who hasn’t said worse on their side?

What was the petition? It was that there ought to be an investigation into government complicity in allowing the 9/11 attack to occur. Most people agree there ought to be. There was a lapse in responsibility from Bush on down. He was adequately warned by the outgoing Clinton administration. Rice was so surprised, but apparently forgot they ringed the NATO conference in Europe the preceding year with anti-missile batteries.

In fact when he signed it Zogby Poll which found half of New Yorkers believed the worst. The petition was in support of an inquiry and signed by many well respected activists and intellectuals.

“On August 31, 2004, Zogby International, the official North American political polling agency for Reuters, released a poll that found nearly half (49.3%) of New York City residents and 41% of those in New York state believe US leaders had foreknowledge of impending 9/11 attacks and “consciously failed” to act. Of the New York City residents, 66% called for a new probe of unanswered questions by Congress or the New York Attorney General.

“In connection with this news, we have assembled 100 notable Americans and 40 family members of those who died to sign this 9/11 Statement, which calls for immediate public attention to unanswered questions that suggest that people within the current administration may indeed have deliberately allowed 9/11 to happen, perhaps as a pretext for war.”

Quite obviously this statement is broad enough that it runs the range from dereliction of duty in the Bush administration to adequately prepare, to ideologically twisted administration officials dragging their feet not realizing the scale of the coming horror, to neo-con renegades participating all the way to Bush family complicity. The statement does not say anything specific about those possibilities; it calls for investigations which New Yorkers want as well. Van Jones is well regarded, and yet he is let go.

What is the fundamental flaw here?

Was it some minor actions blown out of proportion by Glen Beck?

Or was it the lack of political cover?

Neither Ralph Nader or Matt Gonzalez would have thrown him under the bus. They would have defended him and cited his record, which speaks for itself. There are not that many people who are both highly skilled as community organizers and as decent.

Frankly we can’t be too surprised that the administration abandoned him. Van Jones’s politics are closer to Nader-Gonzalez than they are Obama-Biden. He even endorsed Matt Gonzalez when he ran for District Attorney in 1999; they both had the same position on the death penalty. No.

This country needs a multi-party system. We need a relatively strong 3rd party to the left of the Democratic Party. The left in this country needs to self-examine whether their vote for Obama was wasted. In many states it would have been safe to vote for Nader-Gonzalez or McKinney-Clemente without jeopardizing the Obama victory. Maybe if there had been more votes to his left Obama would have even appointed someone from the left to the cabinet or other important position. It is called political cover, and realistically without a strong turnout to Obamas left he couldn’t cite its existence.

As it is Van Jones is it. Or now that he is gone WAS it. Just like Lani Guinier…gone. How is it that in all other developed countries with mature democracies the left is represented, but not in this country?

Lest visions of Florida overwhelm the logic of the moment realize that there is an answer to the “spoiler problem.” It is instant runoff voting and it enables the left to vote their highest ideals first and then for a moderate Democrat. I say moderate Democrat because that is the only kind of Democrats who get elected and appointed in this country.

Van Jones was the exception.

–Jim Dorenkott