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Monday, September 07, 2009

David Sirota: Van Jones’ Departure “A Serious Tragedy for the Progressive Movement”

Progressive activist Sirota expresses his dismay: “First and foremost, Jones was one of the only movement progressives in a policymaking position in the Obama White House. By that I mean, he was one of the only people in the White House who came out of grassroots movement work and not just political/partisan hack work, and one of the only movement progressives put in a policymaking job, and not ghettoized into a political/tactical job. Whenever I got sick to my stomach at the thought of Obama’s Team of Corporate Zombies - people like Rahm Emanuel, Tim Geithner, Larry Summers and Jim Messina - running the show, I was able to at least tell myself that hey, someone like Van Jones is at least in there somewhere fighting the good fight as he always has. No more - and that’s a damn shame…”

Topics: obama, van-jones, summers, progressive, rahm-emanuel, geithner, sirota

Posted by Peter Daou on 09/07 at 07:51 AM

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

The Bi-Partisan Repudiation of the Left

Over the past decade, there’s been a pathological need by Democratic leaders to seek the approval of the likes of David Brooks and Andrew Sullivan while secretly getting satisfaction out of angering progressive activists, due primarily to the stubborn conviction that it makes them more electable. Correspondingly, many traditional media figures identify with Obama and what they see as ’pragmatic’, ‘reasonable’ Democrats. They remain more intimidated by Drudge than by Huffington or Hamsher, still happier to mock the “far left” than the right. The unintended consequence of all this is the acquiescing by the media and Democrats to the rightwing message machine’s repudiation of liberals. Feeling unfettered and unencumbered, liberal-bashers like Limbaugh, O’Reilly and others spew their hate, which in turn fuels rightwing extremism.

Topics: obama, left, oreilly, netroots, progressive, democrats

Posted by Peter Daou on 06/17 at 01:00 PM

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