So...Van Jones thinks that both He and Obama had No Idea about RW Media Control? WHAT!

[KoKo]

(You have to read the Transcript or view the Video to understand how angry this makes me feel. Van Jones is being interviewed on "Democracy Now" about his new book on leaving the Obama Administration and it's his "TELL All" but, this inteview made me feel sick. Like Obama and Jones (a long time activist) weren't aware of how powerful the RW/MIC Controlled Info-Tainment Media had grown? How much influence they had after they had been complicit in trying to impeach a Dem President for years...and led us into TWO WARS with countries who had nothing to do with those 19 who attacked the WTC? Please view the Video or read Transcript ...in case I've just over reacted... My snips can't tell the whole story...so check it out for yourself, please!Former Obama Adviser Van Jones on Life Inside White House and Right-Wing Smear Attack
Amy Goodman
Democracy Now! / Video Report
Published: Sunday 8 April 2012
"I am probably the only person in American life who was a grassroots outsider, who became a White House insider.”

(From Transcript Video of "Democracy Now" Interview)

AMY GOODMAN: Let me ask you, though, about the White House, what many perceived outside as abandoning you, not being there, not standing up. I mean, you were saying, "I’m not the issue, so I am just going to step aside."

VAN JONES: Yeah, yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: But for many, I mean, they saw Shirley Sherrod not originally stood up for. And then you see the difference now. For example, when Rush Limbaugh goes after Sandra Fluke, who was the young woman who was going to testify before Congress about the importance of contraceptives being covered by health insurance, when Planned Parenthood did not back off, when even the White House, when Congress did not back off, it was Rush Limbaugh who became the target himself instead of this young woman, and this young woman became stronger.

VAN JONES: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: While you’re saying, "Well, I didn’t want to be the issue," many other people saw you as an example of a very—coming out of movements, and that movements were being abandoned.


VAN JONES: Sure, but you have to remember, this—we’ve learned. I mean, this is two-and-a-half years later. We’re all a lot smarter. We’re all a lot tougher. This was a moment of change, an inflection point in the way the media system was operating. Up until then, you know, the concern that you might get sued for libel, for instance—I mean, he says I’m—not only—he called me a felon, all kind of stuff, which—you know, I know a lot of people who are felons; I just happen not to be one. But, you know, there was a sense that, well, geez, no big corporate media structure would allow libelous—well, it turned out that they made a calculation, apparently, they would rather have the lawsuit, if they could go after the President. That was new. So you have to give movements and you have to give White Houses opportunities to learn and to grow. Nobody in that building asked me to resign. Everybody in the building said, "We’ll fight ’til the last dog barks." I didn’t think that was the right way to go at that time.

AMY GOODMAN: Did you talk to President Obama at that time?

VAN JONES: I’m not going to talk about those kinds of things. But what I will say is this. I thought, and I think most people in the same situation—I thought, look, I know what they’re trying to do here. The President is about to reset the national conversation on healthcare. We had gone through the whole month of August with the town hall meetings, etc. He’s going to reset this conversation on healthcare. They need a distraction. They’re desperate. They’re going to go through every single position statement I’ve ever made in the history of my colorful left-wing career every day to try to keep us from having a discussion on healthcare. I thought that it was more appropriate for me to step back, take that away from them, and let the President move forward.

Now listen, to the extent that people wanted some other thing to happen, I don’t agree that that was the time and the place to have that fight. I think it was better for us to focus on the healthcare fight at that time. However, moving forward, now that we know more about how this thing works, I do agree that we’ve got to be tougher. I do agree that we’ve got to stick up. But you’re talking about a brand new playbook being created on the spot in real time with healthcare hanging in the balance.

Video and Transcript at:

http://www.nationofchange.org/former-obama-adviser-van-...

AYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!

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[rpannier]

1. Weren't we assurred that Rahm understood that and would organize against the cacaphony

nt

[No Elephants]

2. Quite a few on the left saw appointment of Rahm as a very bad sign.

I know some DUer's believe that a segment of the left began turning away from Obama when he named Warren to give the Invocation at the Inauguration, but that is not my recollection.

My recollection is that appointment after appointment, made before we knew who would give the invocation, was being met with shock and appal, not shock and awe.

Naming of Rick Warren was just one more unpleasant surprise.

However, many of us were still very excited about the Inauguration and stayed on board until Obama revised the what is now known as the Affordable Care Act just before it got passed by reconcilation--and it still did not have a public option. Maybe we were on board beyond that as well. But Rick Warren alone could never, never have changed my mind about Obama. Only Obama could have done that.

It's too bad we don't all share the same recollection because our GLBT brothers and sisters and those who support them are getting blamed for the disenchantment (almost literally) of a segment of the left with Obama and, IMO, that is utter nonsense.

[No Elephants]

3. Maybe people who remember any of my posts will recall that many of them are about the media.

I was not aware that they were intentionally libeling on the ground that it's worth it, but that concept is familiar to me.

I know of a businessman whose business model anticipated that his company would be sued over and over and over. And it was.

I learned from a third party his rationale was that there was a chance that people would not sue him. And, if they did, he could probably settle with them for 50% or less of what they were asking. Meanwhile, he was using their products to make himself bundles of money.

And what he settled the lawsuits for was always going to be less than if he had had made a fair deal for the products to begin with.

It was like Righthaven, but instead of having a business model of suing people, his business model was getting sued.

Luckily, I was about to part ways with the swindler anyway, so I never had to make a moral choice about whether to continue doing business with him.

[No Elephants]

4. P.S. if the upper crust of the Democratic Party says it does not realize

what media has been up to, they must be disingenuous.

If they truly had no clue, then maybe they should be wearing helmets.

[KoKo]

5. I'm still confounded by this article...Still Disbelieving...what he says in New Book...

It seems the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld REPLIE! Which Was: "Who Could Have Known."

I find this synopsis really "clueless."

Sort of a "TELL ALL" to get folks who don't know Dem Party History..."INTO LINE" to "VOTE FOR
OBAMA" and hope he "Does Better in Second Term?"

Did I read that wrong? If I DID...Tell Me why?

I love discussion about this.....unlike other site where it's LOCK DOWN.

[TheKentuckian]

6. I don't find that high a level of stupid encouraging

nor particularly believable.

[KoKo]

7. That's the saddest thing about this reporting of what he says in his new book...

and what you say...is what came to my mind, also:

"I don't find that high a level of stupid encouraging."

After what we Dem VOTERS have been put through for the last 30 years or So? EXACTLY...

It seems like the "Condi Rice" EXCUSE... "WHO COULD HAVE KNOWN?"

SHEESH!