As The Blaze previously reported, liberals assembled this weekend in Providence, Rhode Island, for Netroots Nation, an annual conference aimed at promoting the progressive cause. Closing out the event was Van Jones, the former White House official who has distinguished himself as being especially hostile toward the American right. In his address, the one-time green jobs adviser warned the audience about the Tea Party and encouraged them to fight diligently to ensure their policies are enacted.
http://books.google.com/books?id=r9XGjh4eypcC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_navlinks_s#v=onepage&q=van%20jones&f=false
Behind Enemy Lines: Inside the World
Economic Forum
By Van Jones
Van Jones founded the Bay Area Police Watch, which has been key in organizing effective challenges to police brutality. He is the national executive director of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights and an organizer with Books Not Bars.
Have you ever heard someone declare that the entire world is run by a small handful of people? You probably dismissed that person as a lunatic, right? Well, I have some disturbing news for you: “Yes, Virginia, there is a Global Ruling Class.”
I saw it myself, up close and personal, with my own eyes – on the rich folks’ side of the police barricades that surrounded the Waldorf-Astoria hotel during the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) “Davos” gathering in New York City in February 2002.
Having spent a few days in their company, I have two observations about the global elite. First: it is a remarkably self-confident class-absolutely assured of both the correctness of its “free market” course and its ability to carry forward that program on a world scale. In person, the global rulers maintain an easy confidence and grace, despite a global economic downturn. Despite the threat of terrorist violence from right-wing Islamic fundamentalists. Despite rising protests from anticapitalists on the Left. Despite the political and economic meltdown in Argentina. Despite corporate implosions like Enron. Despite various shocks to the system, the global rulers remain absolutely self-confident, genial, self-assured. One get the impression that they are just a few hundred old chums, playing a fun and leisurely game of golf-with the entire earth as their green.
Second, the global rulers are not wed to any of the present institutions of global governance (WTO, IMF, World Bank) that we “antiglobalizers” have targeted. Thy are committed to one thing and one thing only: the continued success and long-term stability of capitalism as a world system. In fact, leading intellectual elites and business leaders were freely debating at the forum how to reform or abolish all of those institutions-but for reasons that would horrify most people of conscience.
How I Got In
Before I elaborate on these themes, let me explain how I gained access to one of the most exclusive gatherings in the world. Every year the heads of the top 1,000 global corporations, members of parliament from dozens of nations, heads of state from several countries, and celebrities and notables from around the world gather in Davos, Switzerland, to mix and mingle over the course of an extended weekend. There are parties, galas, workshops, and speeches. And every year, the WEF selects 100 people (under the age of thirty-six) from around the world, declares them “Global Leaders for Tomorrow” (GLTs) and then invites them to attend.
As someone who inhaled tear gas in Seattle and got hit by a police car protesting the World Bank in Washington, D.C., I was shocked to be one of the few U.S. citizens to get the WEF’s award in 2002. I did not seek out the honor, nor did I apply for it. (I don’t think I’d even heard of the WEF before it sent me the award letter.) My only “claim to fame” is that I earned a law degree from Yale University in 1993 and then helped to found a human rights organization opposing U.S. police abuse and prison expansion. But most of the other GLTs were successful business leaders or elected officials in their own countries.
The selection process is highly secretive, so I don’t know why the picked me. My best guess: The selection committee wanted to add some token “social justice” flavor to the mix-and then picked my name off a list of people who have won other prestigious national or international awards.
To Accept or Not to Accept?
Whatever the rationale, I wound up with a coveted invitation to the ruling elites’ biggest schmooze-fest. Of course, given what the “World Exploiters’ Forum” stands for, it is not obvious that a Left activist like me should accept one of its awards. Many smart, hardworking progressives would “just say no” to any honors from the global rulers. And I fully respect everyone who feels that way.
But I took a different view. I looked at the award as a series of golden opportunities: to get on the other side of the barricades, to steal a first-hand look behind the ruling class’s curtains. And possibly to use the WEF’s own platform against it. Most activists have some degree of “privilege,” which we use as best we can to help build the movement. I saw the award as a special privilege that I could put to good use.
Plain and simple: I knew that, in the eyes of the media, someone being honored by the WEF would have the perfect standing to criticize it. Some of my colleagues worried that the WEF would try to “pimp” the fact that it was honoring someone from the “protest” community, to bolster its stodgy image. But the WEF never sent out one press release (or did anything else) to single me out from the other ninety-nine awardees (most of whom were mainstream political and business elites from around the world). Therefore, I was free and clear to go to New York and single myself out-by loudly challenging corporate-led globalization, from inside the WEF.
Media Coup
In that regard, my colleagues at the Ella Baker Center and I succeeded beyond our wildest expectations. My EBC colleagues worked overtime to get the media to spotlight my dissent at the super-elite gathering. Thanks to their efforts, literally millions of people around the world heard a searing critique of the WEF’s elitism and exploitative agenda-from someone whom the WEF itself was honoring. Our little “media coup” has earned us a tidal wave of positive feedback from all over the country, as well as from Europe and Africa.
I got spots on CNN, NPR, and national Pacifica radio. I got to call the WEF “corporate cabal of economic royalists” on National Public Radio’s Marketplace. And I sang the praises of the progressive World Social Forum in Brazil on CNN’s Business Unusual-which reaches an international audience of several million people. (A friend got a call from his wife in Ghana, who say she saw me on TB in the motherland!) And for my “acceptance speech,” I challenged the delegation with a hard-hitting poem that compared cops to “cavemen” and opposed the mass incarceration of youth. I did everything I could to forward the cause against corporate-led globalization, from the inside.
Massive Security Lockdown, Inside and Out
With practically the entire global ruling class in one building, security was tighter at the Waldorf-Astoria than anything I’ve ever seen or heard of. There were 4,000 police actively engaged in security for the event. To get into the Waldorf-Astoria, you had to have a special photo ID badge, with a computer chip embedded in it. After showing your badge at numerous police checkpoints just to get to the building and then into the foyer, you then had to press your badge against a translucent white panel. Your photograph and all your personal information would then somehow pop up on a computer screen that security guards would scrutinize. Only then would they wave you through the metal detectors and into the forum itself.
Inside, I noticed that every one of the hotel security guards looked very formidable-and that each one had the same small, red emblems on their lapels. “Hey,” I said, pointing to the starlike pin on one guard’s suit jacket. “What’s the name of your security firm?” He gave me a sly smile. “Secret service.”
Men in suits with bomb-sniffing dogs would come sweeping through the corridors of the ultra-posh hotel at random intervals. Once, a swarm of Israeli secret service came rushing through the huge lobby, instantly parting the scores of people casually assembled there like the Red Sea. In the center of the swarm: Shimon Perez.
The massive security presence had a huge psychological effect on any would-be dissidents (like me) inside. For instance, at a big breakfast meeting. I wanted to publically challenge former U.S. President Bill Clinton for doubling the U.S. prison population during his tenure. But the session ended before the moderator called on me. And-finding myself essentially alone in a strange place that was filled with hundreds of secret service agents, patrolled by dozens of police dogs and surrounded by 4,000 cops-I was too chicken-shit to just stand up and yelling at him. Having been tear gassed in Seattle 1999 and hit by a police car at the year 2000 anti-World Bank protests in D.C., I like to think of myself as a fearless protester—a true “bad ass.” But inside the locked-down Waldorf, I found myself acting as polite and cooperative as a choirboy.
Comic Relief
Of course, I saw all kinds of other famous people, the whole while. Bono, Bill Gates, Bishop Desmond Tutu, George Soros, Lauryn Hill, And—unforgettably—acting legends Sidney Poitier and Ossie Davis walking through the main lobby, arm in arm, like two shining Black Gods in a sea of pale faces.
And there are certain bizarre and laughable scenes that will be forever etched in my mind. For instance, I saw Bill Clinton bending all the way over at the waist to hug a small child. I was touched. But then I reaized he wasn’t embracing a kid. He was hugging sex expert Dr. Ruth. (No comment.)
And, one time, I was standing at a urinal, between two older white guys. I looked to my right and recognized one of the guys as GOP Senator Orrin Hatch. The guy to my left: failed GOP presidential hopeful Steve Forbes. I couldn’t decide which one to turn to and salute first. So both of them escaped, high and dry.
Political Observations
As surprising as I found some of the sights inside the Waldorf-Astoria, the things that I heard during the innumerable workshops, panels, and discussions were even more surprising.
First of all, the ruling class more or less understands itself to be a ruling class. Behind the closed doors, there is no pretense to democracy or humility. Countless sessions and workshops started with a discussion leader standing before a room of thirty to fifty power players and casually stating: “Okay, so we’re here to make the world run better. Right now we’ve got in this room together everybody who can make a difference on (issue X). So leg’s get started.” The idea that a few dozen CEOs and government officials should get together in a posh hotel and solve every problem from trade to AIDS did not seem to strike anyone as odd or undemocratic.
Second, everyone loved the protester. In fact, most attendees took the demonstrations—and the huge police response—as an affirmation of their own self-importance. It was almost as if a bunch of really nerdy kids were chanting and marching around outside the coolest frat house on campus. All the frat guys and gals inside would occasionally peek out the window and chuckle. But mainly they just kept their own party going.
While most attendees dismissed the demonstrations as “festive irrelevance,” they did feel some need to speak occasionally to key issues raised by our movement. Clinton himself said with a wry smile about the demonstrations: “I’ll be most of you sitting in here actually agree with about 80 percent of what the protesters out there are saying.” I looked around and saw dozens of heads bobbing n vigorous agreement. “Well, unlike them, you have a real opportunity to do something about it. So wha are you going to do?” That was the attitude among a lot of the power elite.
So it quickly became a cliché for a speaker to say, “You know, I must say that the protesters have gotten a few tings right. (Dramatic pause.) For instance, we have to do better on the issue of (hunger, the environment, whatever). But the way to do that is through more free trade, not less.” In other words, we are enough of a factor that the global elite cannot ignore us. But we are too small and marginal still to make them really bite their nails and worry about s. So they give us just enough attention to dismiss us.
Third, I was surprised to hear repeated and very candid discussions of the problems with the World Bank, IMF, WTO, and other institutions. A number of workshops began with one dignitary or another saying, “Well, clearly, the institutions of global governance are not working properly. How do we fix them, or what do we replace them with?” I had to remind myself that these were the people who created these institutions in the first place. To us, organizations like the WTO are huge monsters that terrorize the globe. But they are house pets to the global elite and they could easily imaging themselves trading them in for “something better,” Just like they do with their luxury cars and spouses.
But, lastly, I was horrified to learn the reason that the global rulers may seek real reforms of their institutions—bringing in civil society and labor unions, creating more transparency in their dealings, better incorporating human rights and environmental standards. It is not because of a concern for justice, ecological sustainability, or anything else admirable. It is because the present system is too unstable for them to plan well and earn their profits. It turns out that “instability” (their code word for everything from stock market crashes to terrorist attacks) is bad for business.
On greatly respected Harvard professor summed it up: “We can no longer export our capital to important parts of the Third World. But the Third World can still export terrorism and disease to us. Therefore, for our own safety and security, we must take serious steps to reduce hunger and poverty in the global south.” (Truly heartwarming stuff, I know.)
So be forewarned: we are not the only people saying “fix it or nix it” about the WTO and other institutions. Sections of the global elite are saying the same thing. But for very different reasons. Remember that when they come offering us the peace pipe and a smile.
Mainstream Media, Radical Message
My mission, as I saw it, was not to play politics on the inside, I wanted to use the platform to get a subversive message out to as many people as possible on the outside. And I did my best.
On CNN’s Business Unusual (worldwide broadcast), I said: “if I were not invited on the inside, I would be on the outside [protesting] … We are really I think at a point in history, we are going to look back and say, this was a point of global crisis in democracy. The World Economic Forum, 3,000 people with more decisionmaking power than 6 billion people on the planet. That’s not democracy…”
And I added: “[The] mothers around the world who are trying to figure out ways to raise their children have as much wisdom or more than any CEO, but they are not being included in this process at the World Trade Organization, or the World Economic Forum. Our point is, include everybody. We need the wisdom of the whole human family to solve these problems. And that’s the point we’re making on the outside and the inside.”
On National Public Radio’s Weekend Edition, I said: “This is a tiny, elite gathering of global, economic royalists. Three thousand CEOs sipping martinis do not have more wisdom than the working people and the mothers around the world who are solving real problems every day with very few resources. That’s the wisdom that we need to solve these problems. And these CEOs need to take their place at the table with the rest of us.”
On Pacifica Radio’s Democracy Now show with Amy Goodman, I said: “We have one, small, green soap bubble called planet earth. All of the life support systems are failing us. And we have 6 billion people who are locked out. We absolutely must speak truth to power. And we must build power to combat this global elite that is dominating decisionmaking for the rest of us.”
And I added: “The World Economic Forum is a symptom of a global crisis in democracy. And the World Social Forum is the antidote. And I think that there are certainly some honest people at the World Economic Forum. But the reality is that until the basic power relations have changed so that workers and ordinary people have the power to solve their problems at the grassroots level, the World Economic Forum is going to continue to be a corporate cabal, trying to run the planet, hoarding power at the top. And no amount of passing out awards and cookies and PR snow jobs is going to cover that up.”
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from 1964 to 1968 complete revolution was on the table for this country."--Van Jones
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"Kill all the rich people. Break up their cars and apartments. Bring the revolution home, kill your parents, that's where it's really at"
--Bill Ayers (1970), quoted in New York Times, September 11, 2001:
Article: "No Regrets for a Love Of Explosives; In a Memoir of Sorts, a War Protester Talks of Life With the Weathermen"
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F02E1DE1438F932A2575AC0A9679C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=1>
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"Dig It. First they killed those pigs [ie, rich people], then they ate dinner in the same room with them, they even shoved a fork into a victim’s stomach! Wild!"
-Weather Underground leader and wife of Bill Ayers, Bernardine Dohrn, referring to the Manson murders
Article: Allies in War -by David Horowitz
FrontPageMagazine.com | Monday, September 17, 2001
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=63512670-BF7C-42A0-B41D-5D0FB9E09C09
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Undercover agent Larry Grathwohl discusses the Weather Underground's post-revolution governing plans for the United States:
Larry Grathwohl:
"I asked, 'well what is going to happen to those people we can't reeducate, that are diehard capitalists?' and the reply was that they'd have to be eliminated. And when I pursued this further, they estimated they would have to eliminate 25 million people in these reeducation centers. And when I say 'eliminate,' I mean 'kill.' Twenty-five million people. I want you to imagine sitting in a room with 25 people, most of which have graduate degrees, from Columbia and other well-known educational centers, and hear them figuring out the logistics for the elimination of 25 million people. And they were dead serious."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWMIwziGrAQ
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From David Horowitz's FrontPageMag.com/DiscoverTheNetworks.org:
"FBI files from 1976, recently made public under the Freedom of Information Act, confirm the connections between Weatherman, Havana, and Moscow. Weatherman leaders like Mark Rudd traveled illegally to Havana in 1968 to engage in terrorist training. There, camps set up by Soviet KGB Colonel Vadim Kotchergine were educating Westerners both in Marxist philosophy and urban warfare."
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6808
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"In July 1969, [Bernardine] Dohrn [Bill Ayers' co-terrorist wife and leader of the Weather Underground], Eleanor Raskin, Dianne Donghi, Peter Clapp, David Millstone and Diana Oughton, all representing 'Weatherman', as Dohrn's faction was now called, traveled to Cuba and met with representatives of the North Vietnamese and Cuban governments."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernardine_Dohrn
July 27, 1970: The United States Army base at The Presidio in San Francisco is bombed on the 11th anniversary of the Cuban Revolution. [NYTimes, 7/27/70]
Chronology of Weather Underground attacks:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weatherman_(organization)#Chronology_of_events
Wikipedia's source for the Chronology of Events:
FBI files (on pdf)
http://foia.fbi.gov/foiaindex/weather.htm
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From American Thinker, September 16, 2008
Article: Obama's Foul Weather Friends
By Scott Swett and Roger Canfield
"As a gesture of solidarity, the Vietnamese who [Bernardine] Dohrn met in Budapest presented her with a ring made from an American aircraft shot down over North Vietnam. Bill Ayers would receive a similar ring while meeting with Vietnamese communists in Toronto. He later recalled being so moved by the gesture that he 'left the room to cry.' "
http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/09/obamas_foul_weather_friends.html
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"It was at the Chicago home of [Bill] Ayers and [Bernardine] Dohrn that Obama, then an up-and-coming 'community organizer,' had his political coming out party in 1995. Not content with this rite of passage in Lefty World — where unrepentant terrorists are regarded as progressive luminaries, still working 'only to educate' — both Obamas tended to the relationship with the Ayers."
Article: The Company He Keeps:
Meet Obama’s circle: The same old America-hating Left
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YThjYTU1ZDBjNmQ2YzcwNzU1MmYwN2JiMWY0ZGI0NDA=&w=MA==