First Avowed Marxist In An American Administration

A short while ago, I posted an article in which I did some chatting about the McCarthy era and how the expression has come to mean "witch hunt." But I have good news for you. We no longer need McCarthy. For the first time in American history, we now have an administration official who is an open, public, avowed Marxist. I have provided you with a peek at the new official White House uniform.

Glenn Beck, David Horowitz and Michelle Malkin have been on this story for awhile, but I think it bears repeating here, along with a short discussion of just how far to the left the Obama administration has really gone.

Meet Van Jones. President Obama has appointed him to be one of the multiple czars in his administration, although it's probably more appropriate to call him commissar. Jones is in charge of developing green energy policy. What are a few convicted felons and communists in your administration if it means we're all going to have our energy needs fulfilled without the necessity of oil, coal, water, nuclear facilities, or any other technology currently known to man?

Jones first came to public attention during the Rodney King riots. He was a leader and organizer for "black justice." Their cry was "no justice, no peace." He was arrested, tried and convicted of inciting to riot, and went off to jail. Like most rioters, he didn't spend a lot of time incarcerated. But he was there long enough to know he had found his people and his true calling. In one of his sort-of autobiographical works he declared: "I met communists and anarchists and decided this is what I need to be part of. I spent the next ten years of my life working with a lot of those people I met in jail, trying to be a revolutionary."

Recognizing that Los Angeles wasn't the top environment for revolutionaries, he came to my neck of the woods. He became an active member and occasional leader of several Marxist groups in the San Francisco Bay Area. He joined STORM (Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement), a Marxist-Maoist cell staffed by members of several different revolutionary/radical not-for-profit groups. Several STORM staffers were also involved in the activities of antiwar groups "Not In Our Name" and "International ANSWER." Jones brought his Ella Baker Center for Human Rights into the larger body. He had founded the Baker Center for the purpose of diverting black convicts from prison sentences into "public service" activities which were actually nothing more than daily seminars on Marxist revolutionary rhetoric with a black "liberation" twist.

STORM eventually became the umbrella group which controlled many of the smaller organizations. Using an old communist tactic, many of the groups used words like "peace," "antiwar, "racism" and "justice" in their names, and rarely allowed the satellite groups to use communist phraseology in any of their literature or public statements. In fact, though carefully watched by their Marxist overlords, many non-communists and just plain radicals joined the satellite movements without any knowledge of the true underlying purpose of the parent organization.

But STORM itself has no such reservations. In a semi-manifesto entitled Reclaiming Revolution: Standing Together to Form a Revolutionary Movement," the organization used all the old-time Marxist lingo. "We are a revolutionary cadre organization that understands that revolutionary Marxist politics would be central to the development of a successful liberation movement in this country. We are committed to Marxist-Leninist politics." Nothing in this mission statement has ever been rescinded or modified by STORM. Clear enough for you?

Too clear, in fact. These are dedicated communists but they are not entirely stupid. They recognized that many deluded liberals and radicals were looking for causes, but they were generally hostile to the old revolutionary style and not educated in or committed to traditional communist ideology. So they've simply changed the public face of the satellite groups into "women's groups," "peace groups," "green energy and conservation" groups, and "anti-racism" groups. And the second-echelon groups are "working together for unity." "Unity" is the word used to replace "revolution."

And yet even there, it doesn't take a genius to see the connections which Jones and Storm lovingly embrace. There are close ties to the South African Communist Party, a break-off group from the American Communist Party, and other "socialist" and "collective" groups. And lest we forget, there is the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism" whose main hero was the ruthless Marxist leader of the revolutionary movement in Guinea-Bissau and the Cape Verde Islands, Amilcar Cabral. Should anyone think that Cabral was a mere socialist, he called Lenin "the greatest champion of the national liberation of the peoples." I'm sure you've all heard the short definition of communism: socialism in a hurry. Cabral fits that mold perfectly. Van Jones in 2006 named his newborn son Cabral.

If 2006 is too far back for thinking that Jones is still an active Marxist-Leninist-Maoist, how about 2007? In 2005, Jones specifically denied any break with his communist friends in the East Bay Express (the Daily Worker for really dumb Oaklanders who obviously don't work). His words were "I still consider myself a revolutionary, but just a more effective one." Jones authorized the article's re-print as a revolutionary pamphlet in 2007.

Meanwhile, STORM has developed intertwining relationships with both the SEIU and ACORN. Jones has maintained his position with STORM right up to the time of his appointment, and will not disavow its goals in any event. Glenn Beck has been doing a series on the leftist takeover of America, and according to several independent sources has attempted to elicit a direct answer from the White House as to whether Obama and his advisers were aware of and/or approved of Jones's connections. The non sequitur which came back was that "Van Jones is focused on one policy goal: building clean energy incentives which create 21st Century jobs."

You don't have to be a lawyer to want to scream "Objection! That answer is non-responsive." Maybe the White House doesn't know the old communist mantra that the ends justify the means. Or maybe it knows it all too well. And the end in question with Jones is the economically and socially critical area of energy. What socialist programs of make-work, public employment and destruction of energy production does Jones intend to use in his March to Marxism? Or as the leftist detractors of Ronald Reagan's policies of keeping America safe used to say, "What did Obama know about Jones, and when did he know it?"