There’s not much I have in common with Van Jones, the Yale-educated lawyer, community organizer, former advisor to President Barack Obama, author of a new book, Rebuilding the Dream, and self-proclaimed communist. But that doesn’t make him wrong on everything.
Yesterday, as I was fixing lunch and experimenting with political hormesis by watching “Now with Alex Wagner” on MSNBC, I caught a discussion about leftwing frustration with the president.
“We thought we had a movement that was for the people,” Jones said about electing Obama.
“We have the wrong theory of the presidency,” Jones explained. “LBJ did not lead the civil rights movement.… You have to have two kinds of leadership, not just one, if you want to change the country. You got to have a head of state who’s willing to be moved, but you have to have a movement willing to do the moving.”
Rolling Stone magazine writer Tim Dickinson told the story of President Franklin Roosevelt, who responded to organized labor’s complaints, by saying, “Make me do it.” Dickinson explained, “He meant: ‘I need you guys to go out and create the conditions that force the government to act.’”
Van Jones has a frightening agenda, but on political strategy, he’s correct.
Remember when conservative activists, led by the late Paul Weyrich, stood up to block Bush from nominating Harriet Myers to the Supreme Court, giving us Justice Samuel Alito, instead?
Those of us fighting for freedom at the grassroots cannot rely on those we elect to do the right thing. We have to make them do it.
This is Common sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
6 replies on “Agreeing with a Communist”
I don’t have enough details to know if we can use the same tactics to preserve American freedom that Jones would use to destroy it.
It’s a problem of ethics, I think.
As Dr. Ron Paul has commonly expressed, the most powerful force of all is ideas.
The ideas of of Hayak, Mises, Friedman, the thirst for true personal liberty, with an understanding of its requirement for personal responsibility, are regaining traction with the youth. That is why this primary season Ron Paul rallies consistently has the largest and most spirited gatherings on the campuses of America. They do not come because the believe they will win this cycle but because they are hopeful, indeed certain they cannot lose in the future.
Mr. Jones would not be assigned, nor fill or need, an auditorium for a presentation or rally today. However his hypothesis for implementing change is correct.
There is growing a new movement which will indeed move their “representatives” and I am feeling much less lonely than at any time in my past.
Where people are on the socialist-capitalist spectrum is not important compared to where you are on the democratic-totalitarian spectrum. If you believe in democracy, you’ll let people decide how much government & private property they want. The Zapatistas, which Chase Bank said had to be eliminated, let each town decide those details, democratically. And they did it using “consultas,” very similar to referenda.
John — I know the feeling. 🙂
Drifter — I’m NOT suggesting we employ all of Van Jones tactics, nor do anything unethical, certainly. I’m saying that he is right about this: If we want politicians to do the right thing, we need to be prepared to make them do it. Leave them no room to avoid doing it. It means we have to be there not only on election day, BUT EVERY DAY.
Ron Paul has often stated that when he’s elected, he’s going to need a grassroots army of activists and statism ‘undoers’ in order to be successful. I advocate that the highest priorities for effective hard stop of the state right now are a) Nullification (https://tenthamendmentcenter.com/2012/03/28/on-mandates-and-everything-else-dont-count-on-the-courts/) and b) exposure of the truth of 9/11, particularly in the work of Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth (www.AE911truth.org).
Longer term I feel we all need to personally and individually nullify coercive government… which will change the world when it becomes a self-conscious movement.
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