This is the way the world ends.
This is the way the world ends.
This is the way the world ends.
Not with a bang, but with a whimper.

That’s the famous last stanza from T.S. Eliot’s poem “The Hollow Man” more or less concerning the sign of the times following World War I in 1925.  I first was familiar with that last stanza when ABC re-ran Stephen King’s “The Stand” four part miniseries when I was either in seventh or eighth grade and the ominous miniseries scored music waits to cue in but the first frame of the movie drops those four lines in dead silence.  I had already voraciously read the book and had the subsequent nightmares about King’s version of the apocalypse.  That quote stayed with me until now and I always wondered just how true it would or will be.

So that quote popped into my mind when over the weekend I heard that the now former green czar Van Jones issued his resignation at 12:12 Sunday morning, or rather that’s when it was received.  I actually saw it on a Twitter update Sunday morning and couldn’t believe what I was reading.  When I googled it and the transcript of September 6th, 2009’s ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulous” and White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs popped up I read it, and of course Gibbs gave the weak response toward Jones’ charge that he was the victim of a vicious smear campaign that “Well, what Van Jones decided was that the agenda of this president was bigger than any one individual. The president thanks Van Jones for his service in the first eighth months, and helping to coordinate renewable energy jobs that are going to lay the foundation for our future economic growth.”  And Gibbs goes on to say that

Well, the president and the CEQ accepted his resignation because Van Jones, as he says in his statement, understood that he was going to get in the way of the president and ultimately this country moving forward on something as important as creating jobs in a clean energy economy…He [the president] doesn’t [endorse Jones’ comments], but he thanks him for his service to the country.

It is my understanding that due to Van Jones’ calling for the boycotting of The Glenn Beck Show on the FoxNews channel that Beck and FoxNews operatives dug their heels in and ramped up the hate-speech toward Jones.  Granted FoxNews and of course Beck have been after Jones along with everyone else associated with the Obama administration, but once you have U.S. Rep’s calling for the heads of people, such as U.S. Rep. Kit Bond from Missouri, then you’re starting to have a problem.

What irks me to no end, and I’m sure a boatload of progressives in this country is the Obama administrations innate inability to clap back! I’m really hoping that taking this weird ol’ moral highroad is going to pay off in the long run because right about now, they’re losing the image battle horribly.  The fact that Van Jones’ resignation with this administration seems to barely have been a pimple on the ass of time is almost sickening to me.  I mean Gibbs said the Prez “thanks hims for his service” and moved on to healthcare!

A mere whimper.

How they couldn’t care about this guy is just amazing to me.  They knew what baggage he had before they brought him on, but they brought Jones on because he was qualified for the job and was going to do a damn good job.  But I’m actually appalled that no one on behalf of the administration substantially supported what Jones did for the time he was there or even say “we’re sorry to see him leave” or anything.  I mean, in my book, that just made Gibbs somewhat of an a-hole to me.

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In somewhat related news…

I saw over at Negro Intellectual that apparently there’s some pastor out in Tempe, Arizona by the name of Steven Anderson of the Faithful Word Baptist Church who walked the fine line of not calling for the death of President Obama, but rather saying that he’s “gonna pray that he [Obama] goes to hell.”

And yes, he entitled a sermon “Why I Hate Barack Obama.”

I think he and Pastor Manning out in NYC should do a tag team revival and just preach against Barack Obama.  I mean he said he wished Obama “would melt like a snail.”

So, for me, this brings up an interesting conundrum: to what level are we going to allow what gets said in the pulpit?  Most churches have an open door policy with typical civil restriction that would apply to any public area, and that means any yahoo can show up and have a seat–even go so far as to take communion–or so we say.  With that in mind, as was said in the interview, what happens if a mentally deranged person were to hear this sermon?  Seeing as how one of his congregants, the one and only infamous Christopher Broughton actually showed up at a public meeting with an ASSAULT weapon out in Arizona (I mean, it’s one thing to show up with a pistol or a .9mm, but assault weapon means that if you used, you intended to mow some people down in the process via bullets), it’s no telling what could happen.

Of course, for me, I can’t help but look at this through the eyes of Obama’s other pastor problems with Rev. Jeremiah Wright and by some extension Fr. Michael Pfleger as well.  I’m more than sure that FoxNews has NOT come out against this man.  If anything, I’m sure they were coming to his defense when he dropped this YouTube video back a few months when he felt he was wronged by the Border Patrol police.

The weird thing is that I actually remember watching that whole clip of his and actually feeling sorry for him.  But, just when I googled his name for the sake of this article, I saw the cross-reference.  Do I still feel sorry for him getting his ass kicked? Yes, but not as bad as I had before.  Apparently, Anderson is really small-time, but got a big platform.  Similar to James David Manning out in NYC.  Anderson has a storefront church (yeah, I’ve never heard of white people with storefronts, lol) and has been questioned, essentially, about the church’s 501(c)(3) status as a result of conflicting addresses with his business of fire alarms being run out of the back of the church in the strip mall.

All of this is just WEIRD to me.

I personally think it’s this small stuff that once its gets a head of steam, it’s going to be like that steam roller in “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?” and just start taking out people left and right.  I mean, this is definitely a win for the conservative movement in this country.  What apparently the Obama administration has failed to realize or at least act on the realization is that this is an ideological debate controlled by the leading rhetorical movement in this country.  And the leading rhetorical movement in this country is the right-wing and conservative ideologues.   I mean it’s easy to point the finger at FoxNews, so I’m going to–namely as they decry that mainstream media never covers the stories that they do, they still tout the fact that they are number one in the Nielsen ratings ad nauseum and ad infinitum.  So its more than clear that FoxNews is not just following the crowd, but in many ways leading the crowd.

Let’s be clear, socio-political and socio-economic thought is being literally dominated by the conservative thinkers.  So its no wonder that FoxNews wouldn’t call out a Steven Anderson because he’s doing just what they’re doing–providing a platform to inform the consciousness of the listener.

Sadly we as an American public don’t fact check the fact checkers.

That’s why it’s quite easy for an elderly clergy who’s a professor at my school to say that hurricanes come off of West Africa and follow the path of the Triangular Trade of slave ships that docked in North America and the Carribean and say that isn’t that an interesting connection that the fury of the hurricanes batters the Gulf Coast and eastern seaboard and the Carribean islands.  He can say that assuredly in the face of scientific facts that the Bermuda high is usually in place which acts a steering current or the fact that actually most slaves taken from West Africa went south of the equator toward Brazil and why is it that hurricanes devastate the Caribbean islands that are currently populated with people my skin color–why because according to him, he said “you gotta figure out who the people are that are disseminating that information about the Bermuda high….” and he waxed on for another five minutes of course.

Clearly he was wrong, but at least he had enough wherewithal to check the fact checkers.

That being said, it’s a sad day for progressives in this country.  Most of us thought by electing Obama that we would at least have some say-so at the table of democracy, but with the right wingers labeling Obama et. al. nothing more than Socialists and fascists, then we’ve been cut out of the conversation all together.  Moreover, I think that the lack of testicular fortitude that Obama has shown results in progressive emissaries being nothing more than eunuchs on behalf of the kingdom.  While eunuchs wield much power in the royal court of old, they were still considered impotent on behalf of society–which is about how most of us view a Nancy Pelosi or a Robert Gibbs.

I’m not even gonna lie, but this seems to be a rife set-up for a one time administration.  Granted he’s only been in office for 8 months, but damn, this is starting to get irritating to me.  Like I said, I hope this pays off in the long run because right now, it sure doesn’t look like it’s going to work.

Do you think I’m jumping the gun here by saying this is a death knell for the Obama administration?  What are your thought about Van Jones resignation?  Is this yet another instance in the Obama camp not showing any back bone?  What should be the Democratic/progressive response to such “blithering ignorance” on behalf of the the conservative talking-heads?

Keep it uppity and keep it truthfully radical, JLL