The hypocrisy and double standards perpetuated by some Republicans are staggering. Most recently, the Right’s hullabaloo over Van Jones’s “past affiliation with the 9/11 conspiracy ‘truthers’ and for calling Republicans ‘a**holes’ in a video before he was appointed to the Obama administration” resulted in Van Jones’s resignation as President Obama’s “green jobs czar.”

More on Van Jones’s associations from the New York Times:

Mr. Jones’s involvement in the 1990s with a group called Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement had prompted recent accusations by conservative critics that he associated with communists. The group, according to a post-mortem written by some of its founders, was an anti-capitalist, antiwar organization committed to achieving “solidarity among all oppressed peoples” with “direct militant action.”

In stimulating the controversy over Jones, Fox News snake oil salesman Glenn Beck “seized upon Mr. Jones’s statements and associations.” Consequently, outrage ensued that triggered Jones’s resignation. However, considering Van Jones’s statements and associations, numerous Republican politicians subscribe to equally ridiculous and spurious causes. For example, the tea parties from earlier this year oozed hypocrisy, and the inaneness of the birther movement was nothing more but a continuation of the tea party movement, which then morphed into a bogus grass roots movement to thwart healthcare reform.  Currently, the Right’s outrage over Van Jones, like the preceding shenanigans, is merely a frank Republican strategy to regain power in Washington D.C. In reality, and considering their own statements and associations, most Republican politicians probably don’t care about Van Jones’s past statements or associations—they’re simply using his statements as an opportunity to regain political dominance. Basically, Van Jones is a casualty of a political war that only one side seems to be waging—and it’s waging it very aggressively.

Where’s the outrage from the right over their own party’s shenanigans? For example, Glenn Beck routinely spews contempt for the federal government, in addition to conspiracy theories, on his show. Despite this, his show continues to draw record numbers. Consequently, too many Americans allow and condone worse statements and associations from our politicians and political pundits than Van Jones’s. From the Los Angeles Times:

An advertising boycott against Fox News host Glenn Beck has succeeded in keeping most major sponsors from running commercials on his show even as the controversial commentator’s viewership has grown.

Beck attracted 2.81 million viewers Monday, his third-largest audience since his show launched on Fox News in January, according to Nielsen Media Research data provided by the network. On Tuesday, nearly 2.7 million viewers tuned in, his fifth-largest viewership to date. And the conservative host got a plug from former vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, who urged people to watch his program in a post on her Facebook page.

“FOX News’ Glenn Beck is doing an extraordinary job this week walking America behind the scenes of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and outlining who is actually running the White House,” she wrote Wednesday to her 800,000-plus supporters.

Additionally, there’s Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann and former Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin—they routinely spew kooky statements about Democrats and the federal government. However, where’s the outrage from the right and their resignations (well, Sarah Palin did resign but not from politics)? No doubt Jones’s statements and associations compromised his credibility and raised eyebrows, but there’s undoubtedly a problem with—or lack of—equity in today’s politics. Consequently, considering Van Jones’s qualifications, were his past statements and associations worth his resignation? Has his resignation resulted in a slippery slope towards a new style of political maneuvering?

More on Van Jones from The New Yorker:

Jones published a book titled “The Green Collar Economy: How One Solution Can Fix Our Two Biggest Problems.” In it, he argues that the best way to fight both global warming and urban poverty is by creating millions of “green jobs”—weatherizing buildings, installing solar panels, and constructing mass-transit systems. A percentage of these jobs—Jones is purposefully vague about how many—should go to the disadvantaged and the chronically unemployed. “The green economy should not be just about reclaiming thrown-away stuff,” he writes. “It should be about reclaiming thrown-away communities.” Jones’s book was slated to appear in 2009, but during the Presidential campaign, when several of the candidates began talking about “green jobs,” he decided to advance the publication. The jacket of “The Green Collar Economy” features endorsements from, among others, the talk-show host Tavis Smiley; House Speaker Nancy Pelosi; the journalist Thomas L. Friedman; and former Vice-President Al Gore.

“I love Van Jones,” Gore told me. “I love his work. I love his heart and his commitment and his intellect. I love his mission. He has wisely picked a part of this set of interwoven challenges that should have been addressed much more forcefully by me and others long ago.”

“Van is a visionary,” Smiley said. “My grandmother had an old saying, ‘It’s just too much like right.’ What Van is saying is just too much like right. It just makes too much sense for us not to do it.”

“I think Van Jones is a big part of the future of environmentalism,” Gus Speth, the dean of Yale’s School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and a co-founder of the Natural Resources Defense Council, told me. “He, more than anyone else, is bringing together a concern about the environment and a concern about social justice. And, if I had just one thing to say, it is that we in the environmental movement cannot fail Van Jones.”

As Republicans continue to stifle change, the country’s biggest problems—energy, climate change, and health care reform—continue to grow. If the Republicans do take over Washington D.C. again, they’ll fail as they did under the Bush II Administration, because their shortsighted, inadequate, and lazy remedies will fail to solve some of our country’s greatest problems. These so-called remedies peddled by Republicans include (1) the belief that cutting taxes is healthy for society, although it’s not healthy for state and federal government coffers; (2) the theory that the free market will cure serious issues such as our dependency on oil; (3) or that deregulation costs corporations too much, so voluntary regulation is a much better option; (4) or that the federal government should be small or nonexistent; (5) or that the so-called “trickle down” economic theory is best for the middle class, though corporations concentrate our wealth for themselves.

Ultimately, it seems that unless the Democrats sink to the depths where Republicans frolic, they’ll never beat the Republican disinformation machine, because too many Americans seem too willing to believe these lies and worry about issues that don’t really matter.

—
Photo source for attribution. The author or licensor of this image does not endorse my work or me and their image is protected under an attribution license.

:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::