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Carl Pope, Executive Director of the Sierra Club, writes at the Sierra Club blog:
If you watch the infamous "assholes" video carefully, it’s clear that what Jones was saying was that Republicans play hardball better than Democrats, and that we need to start playing by their rules. He said it, though, in the language of his own community — and that, at the end of the day, was his crime. He spoke to and was of a part of an America that Fox and the reactionary right would like to put back on the plantation or pretend is not part of our nation.
Anyone who has been an effective advocate for these communities has said things that will sound shocking to people in some other parts of America — just as anyone who genuinely represents certain evangelical communities will have beliefs about morality that more-secular Americans might have a hard time with.
So lynch mobs can form up from all perspectives. This one, though, was clearly not spontaneous. It was organized by the Republicans as part of a conscious strategy, and it is only the first. We should be critical of ourselves for having blown this one. But we shouldn’t forgive either ourselves or the Administration if the next time we sense this happening we don’t fight back harder, faster, and in a way that calls a mob a mob, racism racism, and an attack on the president an attack on America.
Sometimes I feel like the lessons of the Swift Boaters were lost on a lot of people, but Carl stepped up. I wish he’d gone further and asked the Administration to reinstate Jones, but I hope that others follow suit.
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I was asked to introduce Carl to members of the Sierra Club 2004 Environmental Voter Education Campaign in Columbus. In researching about Carl I learned he cut his teeth banging on doors in the South (for what I don’t recall). He was surprised I had found that information. I was surprised he didn’t get pissed when I said, “I’m still not sure why they asked me to introduce ol’ what’s-his-name, but here he is.”
I only got to talk with him for a few minutes but my impression was he walks the walks.
Glad to hear he’s still on the right path.
waving to the Sierra Club staff FDL reader :D
I was a volunteer, but waving back nonetheless. ~8^)
COlorblindness scale: hindsight, but at least it’s 20/20.
Better late than never…but better never late.
Too late to impact this fight, but if he gathers his fellow white greens and other lefties to act quickly an decisively against the next political lynching, whether it uses a racist, sexist, homophobic, national origin, religious or other wedge, that this would have been worth it.
Remember, POC groups like the NAACP and Equal Justice Society, both of whom are far smaller than Sierra Club, CAP etc, got out statements on Sat, BEFORE the resignation.
How is it that an attack on the president is an attack on America? That is about the most un-American thing I’ve ever read. We have a tradition of supporting free speech in America… even when we don’t agree with it.
Van Jones resigned because he was a political embarassment to the president. He was right; if he had stayed he would have been a distraction and Obama doesn’t need any more distractions.
Here’s Obama’s problem: he has the votes to pass anything he wants but he doesn’t have the public support. He can ram through health care, but that will cost him a Democrat-controlled Congress. Or, he can try to work with the opposition to craft a bill that has bipartisan support. It may not be what you want, but is it better than nothing? The real problem is, Obama hasn’t sold his solution to a majority of the country. Yes… you guys are buying it, but the public at large isn’t. All the frothing and yelling doesn’t change that.