Personally, I'm too confused to be even cynical about it. I don't know anything about Van Jones other than what I see on TV, but that by itself cannot explain why Bezos felt he deserved the "award".
Previously he's been known for being openly communist (i.e. not just a regular socialist). As an aside, I still find it odd how we've rightfully shunned other totalitarian and mass murdering political ideologies, but we've completely whitewashed communism. I couldn't imagine another newscaster openly identifying as a nazi.
A core tenet of communist ideology is violent overthrow of democratic governments to implement a "dictatorship of the proletariat". Both are rooted in violence.
Aren't democracy and communism orthogonal? Admittedly, I'm not a scholar, but it seems to me that democracy is mostly concerned w/ how leaders are chosen. Whereas communism is about how resources are distributed. It sounds possible to have a democratically elected government that sets a communist economic policy.
That's not true, because the goal is to establish a dictatorship of the proletariat through violent revolution. Democracies are incompatible with dictatorship and must be overthrown in order to purge the other social classes. This is why every instance of communism has led to human rights abuses and/or mass murder: totalitarianism is part of the ideology.
It’s been a long time since I read the Communist Manifesto. Do you mean to say that Marx’s goal was violent overthrow? I thought he described more of an evolution of systems until the workers paradise was reached.
Are you sure you haven't just been taken by a talk radio conspiracy theory? The only thing I could find on this was that Glenn Beck was harping on it ten years ago. That guy is not well known for being a fountain of truth. [0]
I ctrl+f'd "Lenin" on Van Jones' Wiki page, and this is literally the only time Lenin is mentioned:
>He became affiliated with many left activists, and co-founded a socialist collective called Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement (STORM). It protested against police brutality, held study groups on the theories of Marx and Lenin, and aspired to a multi-racial socialist utopia.[13]
I'm not sure how being in a study group that discusses Lenin's theories automatically makes one an actual Leninist.
Does one have to adopt every ideal of something when founding an organization? Would that not be the point of discussing those theories? What do we like? Dislike? Want to modify/mold to fit our current system?
But given your tone, and responses to other commenters, I am 100% certain that your feet are dug in and you aren't actually open to being swayed. So, enjoy your day! :)
Are we supposed to take your word for it that it's a "Leninist organization"? Your only supporting evidence for that idea is the passage above mentioning that members of the group studied ideas from Lenin (and others), but that alone is not enough to make an organization "Leninist" (if it were, then I guess our high schools are all Marxist/Leninist/Nazi organizations too since we studied and discussed those beliefs there).
It is possible (necessary, even) to study, discuss, and debate all of history's notable policial/socio-economic ideologies and movements, regardless of which ideals you yourself hold (and which actions of those movements' prominent figures you view as justifiable).
His wikipedia page does not say that. It seems like this controversy comes from his stance 30 years ago[1]. Van Jones was protesting the Rodney King verdict and was rounded up as part of mass arrests. From there he fell into a crowd that radicalized him as a communist, but a few years later his politics changed. He became more focused on unity and results rather than revolution for the sake of revolution. He also says “One of my big heroes is Malcolm X, not because I agree with Malcolm, but because he wasn’t afraid to change in public,”. I don't see any reference to him still considering himself either a communist or a Leninist. Why don't we allow him to "change in public"?
You are suggesting that we hold him to a different standard than everyone else and give him the benefit of the doubt. Other people have had their careers ruined for far, far less, while Jones gets a television gig and $100M for his troubles.
And wikipedia does discuss his Leninist activities. See below.
>You are suggesting that we hold him to a different standard than everyone else and give him the benefit of the doubt.
The opposite. I am suggesting we allow people to evolve over time. If someone demonstrates that the person they are today is different than the person they were 30 years ago, I think we should be more willing to forgive those 30 year old beliefs. If the person shows no indication of change, I am fine with them being made to account for those old beliefs.
>Other people have had their careers ruined for far, far less, while Jones gets a television gig and $100M for his troubles.
You are insinuating that Jones can just pocket the $100m which almost certainly isn't happening and is probably illegal depending on how all the paperwork is being done on this.