Van Jones Quits (Though Everyone Wanted Him To Stay)

Incredulity doesn't even begin to describe my reaction to Van Jones' comments offered in the wake of his resignation as Barack Obama's "Green Jobs Czar." Mr. Jones, who came under fire for a whole host of reasons ranging from his self-description as a communist, his support of 9-11 Truther paranoia, and his unifying theory that Republicans are "***holes," asserted that he had been "inundated with calls from across the political spectrum urging me to stay and fight." One wonders what Mr. Jones, the allegedly brilliant progressive Yale Law School graduate, could possibly mean. Is this -- really -- the best that "the best and brightest" can posit as evidence he is a victim of a "vicious smear campaign" by opponents of health-care reform?

How narrow must Mr. Jones' sense of the "political spectrum" be if he believes he has support "across the political spectrum"? Surely he has support from socialists to communists, from environmental extremists -- "The Earth is god" -- to everybody to their left. But surely he did not get calls from Karl Rove, Newt Gingrich, Glenn Beck, Laura Ingraham, or Dick Cheney to "stay and fight", unless such folks on the right found pleasure in seeing another Obama appointee hurt the Obama brand. Yes, yes, by all means stay, Mr. Jones. You ARE great theater, and you drive Republican poll numbers northward every second of the day.

(Maybe, just maybe, Mr. Jones is only capable of perceiving the political spectrum vertically.)

Some readers might know that Glenn Beck, the radio and TV commentator who has a potent show on Fox News, has hammered on most if not all of the Obama czars, particularly Mr. Jones. Mr. Beck, who in a conversation with colleagues averred that he believed Mr. Obama is a "racist" (a statement Mr. Beck did qualify, to a degree), found himself the victim of a rather massive boycott: he lost several key sponsors as a result of pressure from groups sympathetic to Mr. Obama's regime. But note this gem from the Associated Press story about Mr. Jones' resignation:

Fox News Channel host Glenn Beck repeatedly denounced Jones after a group the adviser co-founded, ColorofChange.org, led an advertising boycott against Beck's show to protest his claim that Obama is a racist.

Sounds like the left-wing of the political spectrum really helped their Man in the White House by going after Mr. Beck. Wow, boycotts really DO work! Speak truth to power, indeed!

Faux News, as the left calls Fox News, is obviously so irrelevant. At least that's what I've heard from the broadest possible sample taken from across the entire political spectrum.

More proof that the greatest presidency throughout eternity is finding it hard to walk on water. Next for the Obama administration: the appointment of a miracles czar.

©2009/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

"Taxpayer Money" Nonsense: Right Or Left, They're Confused About AIG

Whether coming from the right or from the left, from conservative talk radio or from liberal blogger land, you have heard some form of the following:

AIG has taken "taxpayer" money and given it away in ridiculous bonuses. Such avarice is unconscionable. American taxpayers have bailed out a company that deserved to fall into bankruptcy or receivership; this whole scandal is the rewarding of failure and incompetence. The American people now own 80 percent of AIG, and hence should be entitled to dictate how AIG is to spend taxpayers' hard-earned cash. America is sick of keeping such companies afloat, companies that flagrantly disregard the expectations of those who have come to their rescue.

With all due respect to the American "taxpayer," let me gently admit that I have never heard such abject lunacy. The whole world has indeed gone mad, losing both a sense of proportion and the rudiments of logic. Right-wing nutjobs believe that AIG should have just failed, that AIG had no right being bailed out by "taxpayers" in the first place. Left-wing moonbats rage at AIG's alleged greed and crass materialism, and denounce the distribution of "taxpayer" funds for unjustifiable compensation.

Please let me point out something so apparently ridiculous no one else is saying it: AIG -- and all its American employees -- are taxpayers! Over the years AIG has paid the US Treasury billions if not trillions of dollars in taxes; if anything, AIG, and companies like it, have been keeping the United States government afloat for decades. The common taxpayer, that man or woman who is not the owner of a massive Blue Chip company, is able to pay taxes to the Treasury -- the very taxes used to help struggling companies like AIG -- because he or she has earned money as an employee of a company like AIG: it's businesses that make taxation even possible. The American "taxpayer" is nowhere if someone is not generating wealth that creates the jobs that enable that "taxpayer" to pay taxes.

Moreover, AIG, being a taxpayer, also is a member of that taxpaying set that has paid for the bailout: AIG is also a shareholder in that "80 percent" of Americans who "own" AIG. In other words, AIG has bailed out itself, and it owns both public and private stock in its own company.

The shrill cry that AIG is somehow holding cash that is not its own but entirely someone else's is simply ludicrous. Yes, one can argue that AIG is holding some cash that belongs to the American people, but it is absurd to construe this bailout scenario as if AIG is neither a taxpayer nor essential to the viability of the Treasury and the American people. Lost, too, is the very real fact that Barack Obama is bailing out these companies in large part because he knows -- as all thinking Americans know -- that the government does not make wealth that is then returned in taxes: private business and industry provide the Capitol with capital, so to speak. All of Barack Obama's budgetary plans are contingent on thriving businesses: the bailouts are designed to stimulate the economy so the government can collect MORE revenue through taxes from businesses and employed citizens. This proves that economies and markets are not contingent on the state; the state is contingent on economies. The chicken and egg riddle is easily answered here: the state DOES NOT come first. Simple history proves this: the American government was not first established and then economies and wealth followed. The markets and economies of this continent were vibrant and potent, and hence provided the infrastructure upon which a government could be built. The American people, living freely, privately and in personal contract, produce the wealth of this country, the very wealth Washington seeks. Washington is the result and not the cause; Washington is the recipient and not the source of wealth.

So, in short, we have before us a strange, paradoxical riddle: AIG has bailed out itself. Thus, it should be allowed to do with its bonus money as it sees fit.

But listen to the Democrats rush toward punitive, confiscatory taxes to take back money they believe they "loaned." That rushing sound is the true sound of incompetence, failure -- and greed.

Amazing. And sick.

Peace through dissent.

[Addendum: It's time that the talking heads set, the talk radio set (including the "heavyweights" like El Rushmo), and the blogging set quit this insanity. (I have not heard Rush Limbaugh, Michael Graham, Jay Severin, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, Glenn Beck, Greta Van Susteren, Laura Ingraham, or anyone else, get this right.) The common locutions, like "taxpayer money," "your hard-earned tax dollars" and "our money," need to stop. Such phrases and terms are fine for fomenting outrage and envy; they make for great radio ratings and political boilerplate. But they are intellectually embarrassing. Ayn Rand is screaming from her grave, and this despite the fact that she denied any afterlife. Seriously, this whole manufactured outrage over AIG is embarrassing enough to stir the atheistic dead.]



©2009/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

Glenn Beck Is Right; But Christians, What Do You Believe?

A few moments ago, while driving in my car on my way to and from chores, I heard radio and TV talk personality, Glenn Beck, urge his listeners: Please, do not take Iran's president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad lightly -- do not dismiss him! Mr. Beck's language was not only urgent, it was dire, spiritually dire. His tone was apocalyptic; he freely admitted that he was talking even in spiritual terms, terms that transcend earthly politics.

Perhaps I heard too much, but I don't think so.

Mr. Beck further described how he felt while watching Mr. Ahmadinejad deliver his speech last night to the UN General Assembly: he felt he was listening to pure evil, evil of the most deceptive and capricious kind, and it made him literally tremble.

Christians might want to take note of what Mr. Beck seems to be implying, namely, that if Mr. Ahmadinejad is not the anti-Christ, or perhaps the false prophet promoting the beast described in St. John's "Revelation," then he comes awfully close. Of course, I cannot confirm what Mr. Ahmadinejad said in last night's speech; I've yet to read the transcript. But let me simply quote from Mr. Ahmadinejad's speech to the General Assembly delivered last year; permit me to quote his last few sentences, which end in prayer:

"He [god] commands His creatures to enjoin one another to righteousness and virtue and not to sin and transgression. All Divine prophets from the Prophet Adam (peace be upon him) to the Prophet Moses (peace be upon him), to the Prophet Jesus Christ (peace be upon him), to the Prophet Mohammad (peace be upon him), have all called humanity to monotheism, justice, brotherhood, love and compassion. Is it not possible to build a better world based on monotheism, justice, love and respect for the rights of human beings, and thereby transform animosities into friendship?

"I emphatically declare that today's world, more than ever before, longs for just and righteous people with love for all humanity; and above all longs for the perfect righteous human being and the real savior who has been promised to all peoples and who will establish justice, peace and brotherhood on the planet.

"O, Almighty God, all men and women are your creatures and you have ordained their guidance and salvation. Bestow upon humanity that thirsts for justice, the perfect human being promised to all by you, and make us among his followers and among those who strive for his return and his cause."[emphasis mine]

Interesting, no? Here we have a president of an important nation, praying before the General Assembly of the United Nations, imploring "God" to "bestow" upon us all the "perfect human being" who will "establish justice, peace and brotherhood on the planet."

Dear reader, what do you think? And my Christian friends, I ask you: Who is this "real" savior, the savior for whom Mr. Ahmadinejad eagerly awaits, if Jesus Christ is not the real one at all?

Peace.

BG

PS. I expended a few words on this whole thing in the not-so-distant past in this essay.

©Bill Gnade 2007/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.