Publius Returns

Van Jones and Family

America, A Country Controlled By Professional Activists

Anti-Racism for Global Justice is part of the Colours of Resistance network. COR is a grassroots network of people who consciously work to develop anti-racist, multiracial politics in the movement against global capitalism. We are committed to helping build an anti-racist, anti-imperialist, multiracial, feminist, queer and trans liberationist, anti-authoritarian movement against global capitalism. We are committed to integrating an anti-oppression framework and analysis into all of our work.

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Anti-Racism for Global Justice333 Valencia Street, Suite 325San Francisco, CA 94103415-431-4204 x 210ChrisCrass@mutualaid.org

Obama’s Czars are growing in numbers by the month. It is interesting, if not frightening, to look at their backgrounds, their beliefs, and the energy with which they approach their determination to change America. One such example is a black man who rose quickly to prominence within the community organizer movement. Van Jones is married to a white woman, is lauded by Leonardo DiCaprio, yet insists on decentering whiteness. It appears that Jones is doing just that on a very personal level. Although his group is fronted by “saving the environment organizations”, their theme, by some, is highly weighted by an insistence on the abolishment of the white race.

One cannot fault the supposed nobleness of their cause. Bringing people out from under the bonds of poverty appears to be a loving endeavor. But these people never talk about just how that is to be done. The answer is that they do it by tearing down everything that America is. Thence Obama’s campaign motto of Change?

Jones and those of his kind remain convinced that whites are racists, if often only on a subconscious level. They make no mention of minorities being so. I have worked with Blacks, Hispanics, and Asians all my life and had no particular feelings about them one way or the other, or for that matter, the whites around me. All could do the same job as I, and they could function in society without creating chaos. I have never met a man who was willing to work hard who did not succeed. Is that not enough? Well … no. Not according to the Anti-Racism for Global Justice group and other organizations like them.

People like Jones may be champions of the poor. They may be the priests of social change for the better. They may be honest. But they do not lead us beyond their own noses, for they know not the real and long-term consequences of their actions. Jones was appointed Czar over Green, his promise being that positively affecting the environment by going green will give people jobs, saving them from poverty. A noble undertaking. But there his noble endeavor breaks down.

Jones’ dream is gaining ground exponentially. Why? Because he now has the government behind him. It is one thing to try to help people, if help is what they need. It is quite another to have the government not only endorse your efforts to do so but to force and then enforce them on society as a whole.

I use Jones here only as example. I singled him out because he was brought to my attention. But when one begins researching the background of these Czars, one is suddenly stricken with a realization that is abhorrent to traditional America. The potential for encroachment, intrusion, and control over every American’s life begins to form an even stronger, unbreakable alliance with authoritarianism and fascism, approaching the ideology of either of two evils: The empowerment of weakness or its antithesis, the ideology and precursor to identity politics like those of early Marx, Hitler, Stalin, and Mao. It is interesting to learn that although Jones’ young years were spent as an activist, Maoist, Marxist, and Communist, he has come to realize that what he works to accomplish can be done neither by organizers nor the government, but only by capitalist entrepreneurs.

Such movements always have one or more scapegoats, evils that are behind all that is bad to those who believe themselves to be oppressed. In this case those evils are whiteness, corporations, the wealthy, and capitalism. If they can level the playing field, reduce the wealth of the wealthy, reduce the poverty of the poor, and integrate the races into one, the world will be a better place.

But this assumes a world where everyone is equal in their views, their ability, or that they even care about this great utopia they hope to create. Some were simply criminals before they understood what Jones or the Anti-Racism for Global Justice group was all about. And were they to understand it fully, they would not care. Some simply don’t care about creating wealth or having any at all. Some simply don’t care about being benevolent, kind, charitable, or virtuous. They want something for nothing, and if the government will give it to them at someone else’s expense, great. If not, they will simply take it either through the force of a knife at a victim’s throat or the enforcement of their will by the government.

What they desire is to force their will on you. And if the government can be changed or made to enforce that will, they are more than happy to let them. No reasonable person in our society wants to revert to the days of slavery. Yet they seem willing to allow the government to become the thought police, the enforcers of someone’s will against another’s, to reduce your liberty by having to comply with regulations on social interaction, if not belief. It is one thing to dislike black people, quite another to make that a crime. And what is slavery but the complete control of another’s liberty to think, chose, and act as he wishes without victimizing someone else’s liberty.

As it happens, the new God Czar, Joshua DuBois, is just 26 years old, and is charged with domestic poverty, responsible fatherhood, reducing the need for abortion and preventing unintended pregnancy, and interreligious dialogue and cooperation. What does that mean, interreligious dialogue and cooperation? Will it mean that Christians must accept, for example, the Islamic faith or else … what? He will only accomplish what the administration wants by further reducing the liberty of American citizens through the forced acquiescence of America’s majority.

Would it be naïve to assume that hundreds of new regulations controlling people’s lives, their interpersonal relationships, commerce, wealth, decisions, religion, public faith, and the creation of huge staffs would be the outcome of these commissar’s power over our liberty? Government’s job is to protect liberty, not to mold it to their liking. Will it be Jones’ job to see that I become a good little communist, that I succumb to his ideology that decentering whiteness is good for America and the world, that capitalism is oppressive and must be overcome, and that protecting the environment is all about reducing poverty while cleaning up the atmosphere … and is he now in a position to force them on me?

What gave rise to these activists who produce nothing, but who contribute to America only by their dislike for it? I believe thinking people know the answer.

You can choose to ignore these thoughts. You can choose to deny that they exist. You can chose to believe that such things can’t happen in America. But such denial has no survival value.