[GPCA Updates] GP RELEASE Top 10 reasons why Van Jones should give up on Obama & Dems, come home to the Green Party

[Green Party of California Updates]

GREEN PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES
http://www.gp.org

For Immediate Release:
Thursday, September 10, 2009



Top Ten reasons why Van Jones should give up on Obama and the
Democratic Party, come home to the Green Party


WASHINGTON, DC -- Green Party leaders invited Van Jones, who stepped
down recently as President Obama's advisor on Green Jobs, to abandon
the Democratic Party and "come home to the Green Party."

Greens called Mr. Jones, who resigned last Saturday after coming under
rightwing attack, the best of what the Obama Administration had to
offer America, but said that Mr. Jones' principles were bound to clash
with President Obama's capitulations to corporate lobbies and to 'blue
dog' Democratic and Republican ideologues.

"The Green Party invites Van Jones, with his decades of experience
working for justice and the environment, to join a political party
that embraces and defends that agenda and the people who work for it
-- the Green Party.  Like the Greens, Van Jones sees green jobs and a
healthy environment as interconnected pillars of a sustainable and
just economy.  We encourage Van to bring that agenda into the
electoral arena as a Green Party member, leader and possible future
candidate, either nationally, statewide in California, or locally in
Oakland, his home," said Mike Feinstein, co-chair of the Green Party
of the United States and former Mayor Pro Tem of Santa Monica,
California.

Greens offered 'Top Ten reasons why Van Jones should give up on
President Obama and the Democratic Party, and come home to the Green
Party"

(1) The Obama Administration's failure to defend Mr. Jones recalls
similar retreats by the Clinton Administration, when Bill Clinton
allowed Republicans and some Democrats to bully him into removing
Assistant Attorney General nominee Lani Guinier and Surgeon General
Joycelyn Elders.  The targets tend to be Black -- consistent with
Republican fury over the election of Barack Obama to the White House.

(2) The extremists who sought Mr. Jones' removal see their action as
part of a wider plan to derail measures against global warming and
block greens jobs programs: see "How Van Jones Happened and What We
Need to Do Next," by Phil Kerpen, Fox Forum (Fox News), September 5
(http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2009/09/06/phil-kerpen-van-jones-resign/).
  They smell blood, and the Obama Administration and Democratic leaders
are cowering.

(3) Van Jones is a national leader for human rights, public health,
and the environment.  As 2004 Green presidential nominee David Cobb
said, "The Democratic Party is the graveyard of progressive ideas."
These ideas -- including green jobs, the 'Green For All' agenda
(http://www.greenforall.org), and other ideas expressed by Mr. Jones
-- are thriving in the Green Party.

(4) Among Greens, Mr. Jones need not play down his activism on behalf
of the lives and well-being of Black Americans.  He will not get
called "reverse racist" of "anti-white" by Greens for addressing
persistent racial disparities in economics, employment, health,
treatment by the justice system, the response to Katrina and
post-hurricane rebuilding, etc.  The Green Party shares Mr. Jones'
goals of racial justice.

(5) Among Greens, Mr. Jones will not get scolded for calling former
President George W. Bush a 'crackhead' in the context of Mr. Bush's
obsessive devotion to industries that are feeding America's addiction
to fossil fuel energy.

(6) Among Greens, Mr. Jones need not apologize for questioning the
behavior of the Bush Administration in connection with the 9/11
attacks.  (See http://www.gp.org/press/pr_07_29_04b.html)

(7) Mr. Jones has called for an end to coal energy, while President
Obama continues to repeat the myth of 'clean coal.'  Mr. Jones'
analysis of the global warming threat and the need for conservation
and a green economy are reflected in the Green Party's platform and
principles.  (See also http://www.gp.org/press/pr-national.php?ID=242)

(8) If the epithet that Mr. Jones used to describe Republicans was
offensive, imagine the words people will use later this century, when
the effects of global warming have grown more severe, to describe
Republican (and Democratic) officeholders from 2009 who refused to
take necessary action to curb global warming's advance.

(9) The media have given Glenn Beck and the 'Tea Party' crowd generous
coverage.  (Compare the minimal and dismissive reporting on the
hundreds of thousands of Americans who protested the Iraq War in
2003.)  Republicans have benefited from the current political
paradigm, which places extreme Republicans like Mr. Beck at the right
end and 'moderate' Democrats like President Obama at the left end of
the spectrum of allowable debate.  Van Jones is a target for the same
reason that former US Representative (D-Ga.) and 2008 Green
presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney and others have been dismissed
and ridiculed -- because they offer ideas unacceptable to media
dominated by corporate interests.  The emergence of the Green Party is
key to overturning this paradigm, changing the political landscape,
and expanding the public debate.

(10) The Green Party sees no reason to appease Republicans, Fox News,
Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Democratic leaders, or others who've used
their power to serve corporate elites, to the detriment of working
people and America's future.  Greens call Van Jones too important for
America to disappear from the public forum.

"As a Green, Van Jones can be a strong national voice for justice and
the environment, independent of the constraints of the Democratic
Party hierarchy, the corporate lobbies that pull their strings, and
the right-wing appeasement and selling out of grassroots social
movements that appears to be their strategy," said Marian
Douglas-Ungaro of the DC Statehood Green Party and the Green Party
Black Caucus.


MORE INFORMATION

Green Party of the United States http://www.gp.org
202-319-7191, 866-41GREEN
Fax 202-319-7193
• Green candidate database and campaign information:
http://www.gp.org/elections.shtml
• Green Party News Center http://www.gp.org/newscenter.shtml
• Green Party Speakers Bureau http://www.gp.org/speakers
• Green Party ballot access page http://www.gp.org/2008-elections
• Green Party Livestream Channel http://www.livestream.com/greenpartyus

"5 Reasons Why Van Jones and Progressives are Better Off With Jones
Out of the White House"
By Don Hazen, AlterNet, September 7, 2009.
http://www.alternet.org/story/142460/5_reasons_why_van_jones_and_progressives_are_better_off_with_jones_out_of_the_white_house/?page=entire

Green Pages: The official publication of record of the Green Party of
the United States
Summer 2009 issue now online
http://gp.org/greenpages-blog


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