Via Grist:

First, on Tuesday evening, CNN broke the news that Van Jones would be receiving an NAACP image award. They published a fantastic Op-Ed by NAACP’s President Benjamin Jealous, which I’ll quote from at length:

He is quite simply one of the few Americans in recent years to have generated powerful new ideas that are creating more jobs here.He wrote the national bestseller, “The Green Collar Economy,” which provided the definitive blueprint for retooling American industry to create pathways out of poverty and generate a national economic recovery. He was a driving force behind passage of the 2007 Green Jobs Act. In fact, Van’s ideas have helped lead to the creation of tens of thousands of jobs across the industrial Midwest and throughout the nation’s decaying urban and rural areas.

Van Jones also may be the most misunderstood man in America.

He resigned from the White House last year after some sought to discredit him for missteps, such as political statements made years ago. However, we can never afford to forget that a defining trait of our country is our collective capacity to practice forgiveness and celebrate redemption. This is a nation built on second chances.

The real Van Jones story is about how a young leader became the father of the green jobs movement. In response to a longstanding jobs crisis in Oakland, California, he helped initiate the Oakland Green Jobs Corps, one of the nation’s first job training programs targeting low-income people for work in the solar and green industries. This program has become a renowned model for numerous initiatives that are now up and running across America.

Today, Van’s vision for seizing the opportunity created by the global shift to solar power and other forms of renewable energy is becoming a reality. Policies he has promoted are bringing change to downsized economies across America. In Ebensburg, Pennsylvania, workers have gotten new jobs from a county wind turbine plant and from other wind energy projects generated by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Then, on Wednesday morning, the Washington Post broke the news that Van will be returning to the Center for American Progress to lead the newly formed Green Opportunity Initiative. You can read a transcript of WaPo’s interview with Jones here.

When Van was chased out of the White House last fall it was a punch in the gut to all of us who know how much he is needed. Van truly is a national treasure, and we’re extremely fortunate to have him back on the public stage.

Much more on this from Cheryl Contee, Brad Johnson, Adam Siegel and David Roberts.

This week’s Time Magazine cover story is dedicated to an in-depth profile of Glenn Beck. One could reasonably expect Time to do an accurate piece on Beck, documenting his endless lies and distortions, or perhaps even his history of anti-science rhetoric and blatant racism. Indeed, Time’s Managing Editor Rick Stengel hints at such an angle in the editor’s note in the print edition of the magazine:

“One of our jobs as journalists is to be the referee, the honest broker who sorts through the accusations and says, This is fact, and this is fantasy.”

Greg Mitchell has already taken on the piece as a whole, taking particular issue with the he-said she-said style of journalism Stengel implies the piece would avoid.

I’d like to focus specifically on the short paragraph dedicated to Beck’s recent — and ultimately successful — smear campaign against former White House green jobs adviser Van Jones.

He is having an impact. Along with St. Louis, Mo., blogger Jim Hoft, whose site is called Gateway Pundit, Beck pushed one of Obama’s so-called czars, Van Jones, to resign during Labor Day weekend. Jones, whose task was to oversee a green-jobs initiative, turned out to be as enchanted by conspiracies as Beck — he once theorized that “white polluters and the white environmentalists” are “steering poison into the people-of-color’s communities” and signed a petition demanding an investigation into whether the Bush Administration had a hand in the 9/11 attacks.

Distortion 1: Van Jones “turned out to be as enchanted by conspiracies as Beck”.

This is absurd. Glenn Beck is a well-known conspiracy theorist. Here are a few examples of the crazy shit this guy believes:

• Cash for Clunkers was a secret plot to let the government take control of your computer.
• President Barack Obama is racist.
• The Obama Administration appointed the Dean of Yale Law School to be a State Department Lawyer as part of a secret plot to let international law supersede U.S. law.
• The goal of legislation to reduce the impacts of climate change is actually to allow the United Nations to “run the world.”

Media Matters has much more on Glenn Beck’s history of promoting delusional conspiracy theories.

Van Jones, on the other hand, is a well-respected activist and best-selling author. Time Magazine itself saw fit to name Van Jones an Environmental Hero of 2008 and one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2009.

Distortion 2: Time’s justification for claiming Jones was “as enchanted by conspiracy theories as Beck” was a statement Jones made prior to joining the Obama administration: “The white polluters and the white environmentalists are essentially steering poison into the people of color communities because they don’t have a racial justice frame.”

This statement is largely true. United States history is filled with examples of corporations, state/local governments, and the Environmental Protection Agency — all run by white people — intentionally steering toxic and hazardous materials into impoverished communities of color. The Institute for Southern Studies recently documented some of this history. Here are just a few examples:
Sumter County, Alabama (1974)

In 1974, EPA nominated Sumter County, Alabama as a possible hazardous waste landfill site. The county, located in the heart of Alabama’s Black Belt, is 71.8 percent is black. Over 35.9 percent of the county’s population is below poverty. In 1977, Resource Industries Inc. purchased a 300-acre tract of land just outside of Emelle, Ala. where over 90 percent of the residents are black. The permit for the facility was approved by the Alabama Department of Environmental Management (ADEM) and EPA Region 4 over opposition of local residents who thought they were getting a brick factory. In 1978, Chemical Waste Management, a subsidiary of Waste Management Inc. bought the permit from Resource Industries Inc. and opened the nation’s largest hazardous was landfill, often tagged the Cadillac of Dumps.

Warren County, North Carolina (1979)

Between June 1978 and August 1978, over 30,000 gallons of waste transformer oil contaminated with polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) were illegally discharged on roadsides in fourteen North Carolina counties. The PCBs resulted in the U.S. EPA designating the roadsides as a superfund site to protect public health. North Carolina needed a place to dispose of the PCB-contaminated soil that was scraped up from 210 miles of roadside shoulders. In 1979, North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) along with EPA Region 4 selected rural, poor, and mostly black Warren County as the site for the PCB landfill.

In 1982, the local National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) filed suit in district court to block the landfill. The residents lost their case in court despite the fact that the Warren County PCB Landfill site was not scientifically the most suitable because the water table at the landfill is very shallow, only 5-10 feet below the surface and where the residents of the community get all of their drinking water from local wells. William Sanjour, head of the EPA’s hazardous waste implementation branch, questioned the Warren County landfill siting decision. The first truckload of contaminated soil that arrived at the landfill in September 1982 was met protesters. More than 500 demonstrators were jailed protesting landfill, sparking the national Environmental Justice Movement.

While an individual reporter for Time Magazine can be excused for complete unfamiliarity with the environmental justice movement, the magazine’s editorial staff can not. Portraying an accurate expression of environmental justice concerns as a conspiracy on par with Glenn Beck’s consistently hysterical lunacy is just not credible.

Distortion 3: Van Jones “signed a petition demanding an investigation into whether the Bush Administration had a hand in the 9/11 attacks.”

Reporting on this claim without so much as noting the questions surrounding the claim’s veracity is the height of irresponsible journalism. Consider these facts:

• Jones’ statement on the petition:
  

  As for the petition that was circulated today, I do not agree with this statement and it certainly does not reflect my views now or ever.

• Several of the other supposed signatories of the petition have disputed the method in which signatures were collected. Rabbi Michael Lerner: “I did not authorize my name to be used for all the other stuff that I now see was included surrounding the letter.” Howard Zinn: “I did not sign a statement suggesting that ‘Bush had prior knowledge.’ I signed a statement calling for an investigation.”

I will never cease to be amazed by the corporate media’s ability to cram three blatant distortions into one short paragraph. I’d accuse Time of printing such distortions intentionally but they would probably respond by calling me a conspiracy theorist and comparing me to Glenn Beck — a fate I’d rather avoid if at all possible.

Looking for further evidence that the Time profile of Beck was way off the mark? Glenn Beck himself has deemed it fair. This alone should make it clear to the casual observer that it is in fact anything but.

Via email.

Dear Friends:

My family and I want to thank everyone for the outpouring of love and support that we have received over the past week or so. I resigned from the White House on September 6, and I have remained silent since then – in keeping with my promise not to be a distraction during a key moment in the Obama Presidency.

Over the past several days, however, many people have been asking how they can help and what they can do.

The main thing is this: please do everything you can to support both President Obama and the green jobs movement. Winning real change is ultimately the best response to these kinds of smear campaigns.

I ask everyone to:

1. Support President Obama’s efforts to fix our nation’s health care, energy and education systems. His victory last fall did not represent the “finish line” in the fight to renew America; his election was just the “starting line.” This autumn, it is time to make history again – with victories on health care and clean energy.

2. Sign up to support groups that are working for green jobs. As others seek to vilify or marginalize the movement for a clean energy economy, the leading groups deserve increased support. This is the year to ensure that the clean energy transformation creates good job opportunities for everyone in America.

3. Spread the green jobs gospel. The ideas and ideals of the green jobs movement are grounded in fundamental American values – innovation, entrepreneurship and equal opportunity. My true thoughts can be found in my book: The Green Collar
Economy. Check it out from the library – or order a copy and share it with a friend. See for yourself why clean energy and green jobs are good for our country.

4. Stay connected and speak up for me via your favorite blogs (e.g., Huffington Post, Grist, Jack & Jill, etc.), on message boards and all of your favorite social networking platforms (Twitter, Facebook, etc.). Supporters have set up a couple of them, to help you stay engaged, including: I Stand With Van Jones and I Love Van Jones.

In due course, I will be offering my perspective on what has happened – including correcting the record about false charges. In the meantime, I must get my family affairs in order and sort through numerous offers and options.

I want to be clear that I have nothing but love and admiration for President Obama and the entire Administration. White House staffers are there to serve and support the President, not the other way around. At this critical moment in history, I could not in good conscience ask my colleagues to expend precious time and energy defending or explaining my past. The White House needs all its hands on deck, fighting for the future.

Of course, some supporters actually think I will be more effective on the “outside.” Maybe so. But those ideas always remind me of that old canard about Winston Churchill. After he lost a hard-fought election, a friend told him: “Winston, this really is just a blessing in disguise.” Churchill quipped: “Damned good disguise.” I can certainly relate to that sentiment right now. :)

Nonetheless, we must keep moving forward. Let’s continue our work to make an America as good as its promise. These are historic times. And we have a lot more history to make.

Sincerely,

Van Jones

Brave New Films:

In any other profession, Carl Pope might be considered a “company man.” He has worked loyally and tirelessly in the name of the Sierra Club for thirty years, running the organization – the largest of its kind in the country – since 1992. Van Jones has founded several organizations within the last decade, including The Ella Baker Center for Human Rights and Green For All. They both live in the Bay Area. They both care intensely about saving the environment. The thing is, they use very distinct methods, although the lines differentiating those methods are blurring as we race further into the 21st century. From the environment to the economy, from old fashioned door-to-door fliers to streaming internet video, Pope and Jones discuss the myriad elements effecting our lives today and the many possible solutions that are nearly within reach.

Kevin Grandia, writing at Huffington Post, catches Americans For Prosperity gloating about their role in the smearing of Van Jones:

Turns out that the attack was orchestrated by a fringe group of free-marketeers called the Americans for Prosperity (AFP) who describe themselves as “grassroots leaders who engage citizens in the name of limited government and free markets on the local, state and federal levels.” You can read a complete backgrounder on AFP here. It suffices to say they get a lot of money from some of the biggest players in the right-wing attack machine.

On Fox News forum AFP’s director of policy, Phil Kerpen brags about how his oragnization brought down Van Jones:

“I spent the next two weeks researching everything I could find about Jones and the Apollo Alliance (much of which is still to be published, including a forthcoming paper from the Capital Research Center next month), the national umbrella organization for coordinating between the environmentalists, the labor unions, and the social justice street organizers that Jones has served as a board member and a primary national spokesman for.”

EnviroKnow has obtained two flowcharts created by American For Prosperity outlining the “Green Jobs Radical Network.” Both documents place Van Jones near the center of this so-called radical network. Other prominent individuals in the environmental and progressive movements mentioned in the documents include Stephen Chu, John Podesta, John Holdren, Jason Grumet, Bracken Hendricks, Robert Borosage, Carl Pope and Andy Stern, among others.

On July 28th, this rudimentary chart was created:

green_jobs –

Then on August 28th, an updated version was created:

Green Jobs Network August –

The July 28th version was authored by an individual named “Rich.” The only Rich on AFP’s staff list is Richard Burke, who joined AFP in January after serving as the Executive Director of the Oregon Libertarian Party.

Ella Baker Center:

The Ella Baker Center family is deeply saddened by the news that Van Jones has resigned as Special Adviser on Green Jobs, Enterprise, and Innovation to President Obama. It’s a dark day when attacks based in half-truths, full lies, and old news deny the nation its most talented advocate in the fight against climate change and for rebuilding our economy.

“Smear campaigns designed to sabotage our movement for an equitable, green economy are attempts to distract people from what really matters: building a future that is green and just for everyone,” said Jakada Imani, Executive Director of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights. “It’s our dream, shared by Van Jones and so many others, that this country can rise above the politics of hate to once again become a beacon of hope and innovation for the world. When fear-mongering and sensationalism drown out important discussions about the real issues of the day, we all lose.”

Co-founded 13 years ago by Van Jones, the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights promotes positive solutions to some of the most pressing problems facing our country. At this critical time in our nation’s history, the Ella Baker Center champions policies that lift people up and bring about renewed hope and optimism for all. We’re outraged by the attacks Van and his family have suffered at the hands of those who have made it their mission to derail a clean, green, and just future for our country.

Van Jones has been lauded as a modern day civil rights hero and champion of change who has worked to bridge the gap between communities and across lines of race and class. For years, Van has helped lead the social and environmental justice movements with solution-oriented, market-based ideas that provide some of our most marginalized communities with effective tools to create lasting change in their lives — and for the greater good of their communities.

Under Van’s leadership, and continuing under the direction of Jakada Imani, the Ella Baker Center has led the charge to build California’s movement for a green-collar economy that truly creates opportunity for all by fighting poverty and climate change at the same time. Through vibrant, cross-sector coalitions that bring together unions, green businesses, environmental organizations, social justice groups, and education and training institutions, we’ve helped craft cutting edge public policy solutions and pilot programs like the Oakland Green Jobs Corps that prove what’s possible. Our focus has always been — and will remain — providing solutions that lift people up rather than tearing them down. Solutions that unite, not divide. Our goal — and Van’s — is simple: save the planet and its people.

Late last night, Van Jones resigned from his position with the White House Council on Environmental Quality. Many of us are left with pain and anger after seeing a leader of integrity, vision, and commitment targeted by hateful personal attacks. Van stepped down in service to our movement. He felt that fighting the attacks would draw attention to him and detract from our mission.

Now, our challenge is to turn our disappointment and anger into action and renewed resolve for our common goals.

Like the great social justice movements of the 20th century, our movement for an inclusive green economy is based in the most fundamental American values: equality, justice, and opportunity for all.

That’s why our opponents reduced the debate to fear, hatred, and division. They cannot win a debate about values. They cannot win a debate about solutions.

Our allies and friends may be redirected by these attacks, and focus on the rants of those who fear our vision. For Green For All, our struggle must be defined by the issues our opponents refuse to debate: ending global warming; lifting people out of poverty; restoring the economy; and bringing health to our communities. These are the challenges that matter the most.

This moment reaffirms our commitment and makes us more steadfast in pushing for our goals, including a climate bill that delivers on the promise of a clean-energy economy. We will not be led astray. We will not let our anger cloud our vision.

Instead, it is the time to come together around the values our movement stands for: clean air; healthy communities; good jobs; and opportunity for all.

Please sign our Petition in support of the Green Jobs Movement.

Then pass it on to 10 friends. Let’s use this opportunity to grow in numbers and strength.

In the face of tactics intended to frighten and divide, we must stand strong around our core values and renew our commitment to our shared vision.

Thank you for taking a stand with us.

Via 350:

Van Jones resigned his White House post as green jobs adviser after a week of incessant attacks from the far right of American politics claiming that he was a communist or a black nationalist or wild-eyed. These are wrong–we’ve known Van for years, and there’s no more thorough-going capitalist in the environmental movement, completely committed to the principle that before we talked about polar bears we needed to talk about jobs.

Youth climate activists the world over have been wearing green hard hats the last few years largely because of Van’s example. And no one spent more time trying to bridge the gaps between races and classes than Van, addressing one of the environmental movement’s most glaring weaknesses.

The reason the right wanted to bring him down was that he was effective. And if there’s even a glimmer of good news here, it’s that he’ll be freed from the restrictions of high officialdom to bring all his eloquence and all his energy to bear on the challenges we face. We’re very proud to be among his many many colleagues.

Via Think Progress:

Van Jones is an exceptional and inspired leader who has fought to bring economic and environmental justice to communities across our country.

He has chosen to resign because he believed he was serving as a distraction to the president’s agenda. I respect that decision.

Van was working to build a common ground agenda for all Americans, and I am confident he will continue that work. Unfortunately, his critics on the right could find no common ground with him.

Clearly, Van was the subject of a right-wing smear campaign shrouded in hypocrisy. Van’s chief tormentor Glenn Beck, who spent weeks engaged in vicious name-calling, retains his perch at Fox News after calling the president a racist who has “a deep-seated hatred for white people.” Van has set a standard that Beck would never impose upon himself.

I look forward to working with Van to move our country towards a clean energy economy that empowers and lifts up all Americans.