The latest TIME describes how former Obama administration “green-jobs czar” Van Jones has been working to promote the Occupy movement.
Jones’ remarks that day were in many ways the start of a full-scale embrace of Occupy by the liberal establishment. The protests have remained a diffuse operation, directed only by local activists who meet in city squares across the country. The protesters didn’t solicit outside leadership, and for weeks Democratic politicians, from President Obama on down, didn’t quite know whether or how to get on board. But with Jones’ participation, the protesters are now supported by a coalition of more than 70 liberal organizations–including MoveOn.org several large labor unions and Planned Parenthood–that provide resources and a more coordinated message.
Jones’ support of the Occupy movement makes perfect sense, especially if you remember George Leef’s characterization of Jones back in 2009.
Jones is a pseudo-intellectual redistributionist who knows how to play on white liberal guilt. I’d bet that privately, Obama would find nothing to disagree with in Jones’ notions about the use of political power to channel wealth to “progressives” and how to remake society. The trouble is that having Jones around the White House was just too revealing. He endangered the masquerade of reasonable, moderate change that Obama needs to maintain, so he gets thrown off the train.
