April 1 broadcast<\/a>, Van Jones said, \u201cWe sat back and we let the Tea Party crowd dominate the protest world in the streets. For the first time, we had the biggest economic catastrophe since the Great Depression. And there was not one left wing protest. The right wing was marching. The left wing was munching popcorn, hoping that Obama would do it.\u201d<\/p>\nWhat he fails to mention is that the Tea Party was bankrolled by the billionaire Koch Brothers. Would we even be talking about the Tea Party if it weren\u2019t for the Kochs and Dick Armey\u2019s Freedom Works, the other major sponsor? When the Tea Party took to the streets, every media outlet was there; when labor groups or anti-war activists took to the streets, they were mostly speaking to themselves. Why doesn\u2019t he mention this? <\/p>\n
Van Jones went on to say that in order to change the country, \u201cyou have to have a head of state willing to listen, and willing to move, but you have to have a movement willing to do the movement.\u201d<\/p>\n
I have to say, that munching popcorn line and his overall argument about too many activists sitting down makes me cringe. Not one left-wing protest? <\/p>\n
First of all, you can\u2019t blame activists for taking a much needed break after eight horrific years of George W. Bush, but the break didn\u2019t last very long. The problem is, the national media ignored most of the activism. <\/p>\n
Over the past few years, I\u2019ve been writing articles about undercovered activism for Truthout and I started doing commentaries for Uprising in January 2011. While it\u2019s inspiring to interview and give a voice to people who are standing up for a more just and equitable society, it\u2019s incredibly frustrating to see these actions ignored by the media and people like Van Jones.<\/p>\n
I wonder if Van Jones is familiar with the incredible organizing happening within the disability rights movement. They didn\u2019t munch popcorn after President Obama was elected. On April 27, 2009, disability rights activists from across the country marched on Washington, many in wheelchairs, to speak out against the administration\u2019s failure to include long-term care in the healthcare bill that would allow them to live independently rather than in a nursing home. Ninety-one activists were arrested for chaining and handcuffing themselves to the White House fence. They chanted, \u201cI\u2019d rather go to jail than die in a nursing home.\u201d <\/p>\n
A number of single payer rallies and arrests took place that year. I remember attending a single payer rally in October in Washington DC. Not one media outlet bothered to send a reporter. In that same month, 61 activists were arrested for protesting the occupation of Afghanistan, and thousands of immigrants marched on Capitol Hill calling for comprehensive immigration reform. Many more actions took place at the state and local levels.<\/p>\n
I could make a separate list for every month in 2009. <\/p>\n
These people weren\u2019t munching popcorn. They were out on the streets building upon their movements and pushing the administration when it wasn\u2019t popular. Give the President a chance. He hasn\u2019t even been on the job for a year. Look at the mess he has to clean up. Remember those sentiments? <\/p>\n
The activists who took to the streets back then saw through the \u2018Hope and Change\u2019 PR campaign. Despite the fact that they rarely get the attention they deserve, they\u2019re still in the streets raising their fists for what they believe in. Let\u2019s give them the credit they deserve.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Activist Beat with Rose Aguilar, host of Your Call on KALW in San Francisco is a weekly roundup of progressive activism that the mainstream media ignores, undercovers, or misrepresents. Van Jones, the long-time racial and social justice activist who served as the green jobs adviser in the White House in 2009, is currently doing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18,34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28836","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-radio-commentaries","category-the-activist-beat"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28836","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28836"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28836\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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The Activist Beat with Rose Aguilar, host of Your Call on KALW in San Francisco is a weekly roundup of progressive activism that the mainstream media ignores, undercovers, or misrepresents. <\/em><\/p>\n