Van Jones Taken Out By School Yard Sucker Punch

Van Jones, leader in the profoundly progressive movement to train people in impoverished American communities into Green jobs, has resigned from the Obama administration saying,

"On the eve of historic fights for health care and clean energy, opponents of reform have mounted a vicious smear campaign against me. They are using lies and distortions to distract and divide. I have been inundated with calls - from across the political spectrum -- urging me to 'stay and fight.' But I came here to fight for others, not for myself. I cannot in good conscience ask my colleagues to expend precious time and energy defending or explaining my past. We need all hands on deck, fighting for the future."

An admirable position for him to take. I'm not so impressed by the position the administration took.

This uprising against Jones got started and fed by Glen Beck on his hateful tripe of a Fox TV show. Beck is a man whose work is actually banned in Britain. Beck, who appears to completely lack the moral center, intellectual abilities, and skills in emotion regulation to add anything of merit to the current national dialogue. Beck,who essentially is the school yard bully with a deep, unacknowledged desire to be the center of attention in a room full of adults. This Beck is the one who SUCCESSFULLY unseated a man like Van Jones, who has been doing that whole community organizing thing not for a few years, but for decades and seen POSITIVE solutions to seemingly intractable problems.

As hard as it is in the face of the deeply wealthy, politically entrenched and apparently soulless cancer of corporate opposition to health care reform with its legions of easily-manipulated hysterics as followers, to act with integrity, the need for integrity persists. There is no "negotiating" when the opponent completely lacks a common moral ground. These are people actively working to gain the support from millions of people who themselves depend on government assistance, particularly in health care. Our opponent here is so sadistic as to work diligently to convince people to surrender what little safety they have in the world in order to gain a sliver of advantage. And this advantage they would immediately use to tear apart the very government organizations that assist their supporters!

The Obama administration will not, through strategic resignations and obfuscated policy positions, tame and integrate the opponent into an alliance. The administration cannot make these opponents more like them. In fact, if the current course becomes the deep channel followed, the reverse may be true. Because these battles do not end the day the health care legislation is passed. That's just one moment in an on-going battle to reorganize a system where the profoundly powerful and wealthy few have stood squarely atop the disadvantaged to gain their height.

There is some ground that cannot be surrendered towards the ends of passing changing legislation because it is that ground that defines the difference between progressive legislation and repressive legislation. That's the moral high ground. We must stand up for our friends when they are under unfair attack. We must stand by those who do the good work inspired by love and passion to help out their fellow human beings.