George Rebane

We know that this formerly proud communist has been busy since he had to be jettisoned by Team Obama, but all that has been relatively sub-rosa.  Now the newly-minted Marxist in mufti is on his ascent to the top of the pile located somewhere beyond the American Left.  The man again deserves a feature article – ‘The Return of the Rabble Rouser’ – in the 21nov11 Time magazine that celebrates his political rebirth.

Mr Jones has been working on his American Dream Movement to bring socialist change to America.  His message has been embraced by no less than the Center for Community Change, “one of the left’s most active institutions”, and funded by Soros’ moveon.org.  Cheered on by a slew of Democratic notables like Nancy Pelosi (“Van Jones has made it his life’s work to speak truth to power.”), Jones is looking at the occupiers of OWS as his next legion of action-ready acolytes.

Joining in with labor unions and various leftist NGOs, Jones plans to organize and focus the occupiers into a cohesive voice akin to the tea party movement, and then make an impact on the 2012 elections.  His vision for our country is more than scary, “You talk about the Arab Spring, we could be on the verge of an American Autumn.”   Now American Autumn is about as open and as stark a translation of the promised “fundamental transformation” that I have heard.  This man and his fellow ideologues do not like what they see in our land (“banksters … the worst people in the world”), and they intend to finally marshal the masses to do something about it.

So there will be movement afoot.  One of the more significant asymmetries between the Left and Right is how they evolve in times of stress.  Leftwing movements transit through various stages of collectivism into regimes that finally dispense with their opponents through wholesale slaughter programs like the ‘Kulak liquidation’, ‘Final Solution’, ‘Re-education Camps’, ‘Great Leap Forward’, ‘Cultural Revolution’, or simply the ‘Killing Fields’.  The Rightwing efforts that promote values based on preserving the Bastiat Triangle of rights are co-opted by movements that trade individual liberty for promises of economic security, or the Right just fades away because its people are busy minding their own business.  Collectivists march, conservatives mumble.

So in the coming months we can look forward to that handsome, energetic, and loquacious Van Jones, organizing and leading those upturned faces with fuzzy minds not able to formulate the crisp thoughts and obvious conclusions with which he will provide them.  And then they will seek to be the next generation that is again dissatisfied with the pace and direction of human progress, and in the process militating for a change that they will make their own.

Yesterday they started with a nationwide series of coordinated strikes and demonstrations.  They are on their way, it would be foolish to dismiss him.

[update]  Communism (11%) is more popular than Congress (9%) in America.  These CBS poll results were highlighted this morning on NPR, not once, but from two journalists’ reports in a single segment.  The fringe of communism always becomes more prominent when socialism establishes itself.  The duty of progressives high and low is to turn up the volume of denial when this happens – ‘No, no, no, don’t look behind the curtain!’.  Desperation and ignorance join to make this evil extreme of collectivism again look good.  One out of nine people believing anything is a significant faction in a society.