Posted on 09/09/2009 10:16:05 AM PDT by nickcarraway
Melissa Harris-Lacewell: His Resignation As "Green Jobs Czar" Is A Setback For Environmental Justice
In March, I wrote here on The Notion in celebration of the appointment of Van Jones. I am both politically committed to and academically interested in issues of environmental justice. Jones' appointment was a clear victory for the EJ movement.
The modern environmental justice movement emerged more than three decades ago. Its fight has been centered on two important issues: the disproportionate impact of local decisions that site polluting industries and undesirable land uses in poor and minority communities, and the damaging health effects of urban pollution on black and brown citizens.
Distinct from the earlier conservation movement, EJ linked environmental injustice to racial injustice. It opened a new era of civil rights activism in many localities and created new Latino, African American, and Native American leaders who became important, if largely unknown, actors in green activism. EJ organizing was often done by ordinary men and women in Southern rural and Northern urban areas. These were not middle-class "race leaders" dictating a particular political agenda, instead these were truly grassroots organizing efforts focused around immediate concerns and readily identifiable problems.
Still, these decentralized movements have not been understood as central to green politics. Conservation and climate-change environmentalism has dominated both federal policy and the national imagination. The local movements were often effective in blocking specific land use decisions, but largely ineffective in creating coherent national policy agendas.
The early months of the Obama administration seemed likely to change that reality. Van Jones embodied a new civil rights agenda combining concerns of racial equality with labor fairness and environmental sustainability. Along with the appointment of Lisa Jackson to head the EPA, it appeared the Obama administration was prepared to elevate environmental justice concerns to equal billing along with climate change environmentalism. It seemed one outcome of this presidency was that black politics was turning green.
There are likely to be real political consequences for the Obama administration as a result of Jones' exit. John Nichols calls it "an unnecessary and unwise surrender." Baratunde Thurston likens it to "negotiating with terrorists." They identify Jones' resignation was hasty, unnecessary, and ultimately more distracting than useful.
But it is not the politics of this episode that trouble me most. I am most concerned with the substantive consequences. The EJ movement was just beginning to gain a foothold in national politics, just beginning to develop a more cohesive and identifiable national platform, and Jones' position within the White House was important to those efforts.
With all due respect to Arianna Huffington who thanks Glenn Beck and welcomes Jones back to the "outside" where his voice will somehow be more effective, I believe this resignation is a kick in the gut to the EJ movement.
Huffington seems to believe Jones will be more effective lobbying for progressive environmental interests from some place other than the West Wing. While I appreciate that Jones is now unfettered from the overly conciliatory Obama administration, this perspective strikes me as hopelessly naïve and stunningly uninformed about the history of environmental justice.
Activism, community organizing, expression of local interests, and development of indigenous leadership has always been where EJ is at its best. In fact, Jones is a latecomer to that activism, not the leader of it. The limitation of the environmental justice movement has been its decentralization, limited policy agenda, and lack of access of government power. EJ critic Christopher Foreman even asserts that grassroots advocacy is the movement's only real accomplishment, claiming it has made no significant policy contributions.
Jones was an important ambassador of EJ to the White House. Not only did his position bring a particular kind of beltway legitimacy to EJ claims, but his presence might have helped close the "green gap" between black American concerns with pollution, land use, and health issues and the broader green movement concerns with global climate change. Linking those initiatives is critical to truly fair and comprehensive policies of sustainability.
Environmental justice advocates have already perfected outsider strategies, we needed Jones on the inside.
These people are insane.
He'll be in the background.
The arrogance of Obama ... he is adding another LAYER of bureaucracy that doesn't REQUIRE vetting or Senate approval. These “CZARS” are totally unconstitutional. Obama is circumventing our democracy thought these appointment's. He is setting up a dictatorship right before our eyes. The stupid Demoncrats are just props to pass his crap for the "party". As more and more "CZARS" are appointed the House becomes less important. Their only importance is LOOK like a "democracy" and to ensure what Obama wants through the "CZARS" happens - through partisan puppets.
Female with a hyphenated last name.
Usually a bad sign......
This seems to be another agenda driven movement attempting to circumvent the legislative process.
Does EJ include those Tree Huggers that blow up Transmission Towers, Oil Pipelines and destroy SUV’s and Ski areas? I doubt this writer would include those folks.
Enviro Whacko’s
What the hell is “environmental justice”? This is what happens when a society has no real external threats to its existence. Things that were stupid and inane are brought to the forefront and treated credibly. How about creating jobs by doing away with stupid and idiotic environmental regulations? Try to build something and enjoy the cost and expense of bureaucratic red tape. Even better - try to manufacture something and put people to work and see how much the various levels of government bleed you.
Or her last name is Harris, but she’s good at tying shoes.
Inside?
As in PELICAN BAY???
What is “environmental justice?”
What relation does it have to actual justice?
America is overripe, spoiled and a victim of its own magnificent, unprecedented prosperity.
This entire diseased mindset had its genesis in the mid-sixties with the emergence of the spoiled, baby-boomer, counterculture brats. You know the ones who thought it was hip to think in terms of:
- up is down.
- bad is good.
- The sky is....well... whatever color you think it is.
Moral equivalency and disdain for judgmentalism were just further progressions of the same sick syndrome.
There must be a Gospel passage about becoming a victim of your own success....
Not much difference between being a Nazi and being a Communist.
Except academic bias via infiltration from Communist professors tells us that we should continue to “try” Communist theories.
Both belong on the scrap heap of bad ideas and NEITHER ideology has any room in our government.
Socialism is an internal threat to our society's existence. Barack STILL bemoans capitalism.
At Cranky Kronkite's memorial, Barry O cried about how the media is "afraid" to let journalists do their "job" fearing the bottom line. Their "job" does not include activism or demonizing one of the two major parties in this country.
That my friends is the best reason of all for him being outed.
Let me guess????????????? By the way, the absolute winner so far is a local Philly reporterette named, Get This.................Nefertitti Jaquez. Go ahed, beat that!
Do their kids have hyphenated names too?
Imagine the logistics if two people with hyphenated names got married? In two or three generations if this caught on their names would eat up more memory and cause more problems than Y2K.
Inside?
As in PELICAN BAY???
Also called "Enviromental Racism", it is using the tree huggers and green movement to promote "social justice" for black and minorities. All of this is just a means of justifying the redistribution of wealth.
“Environmental justice” is a Progressive code phrase for a radical program that aims to prevent the private development and use of natural resources by any means necessary, from lawsuit to nationalization. The goal is explicitly socialist: to deny property rights in favor of collective (state) ownership of resources, and to redistribute those resources based upon need or grievance. The promotion of global warming (a/k/a “climate change”) is a major element of their strategy, along with the promotion of a radical concept of animal rights, “green” energy (meaning “no” energy), and extreme interpretations of land use regulations to allow government taking of private property (thank you, Supreme Court).
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