[jjulius]

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.

[chroem-]

Does co-founding a Leninist organization not make one a Leninist? Why would you create an organization if you don't believe in its ideals?

[jjulius]

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! :)

[chroem-]

> Does one have to adopt every ideal of something when founding an organization?

Let's change the labels. If someone founds an organization to spread nazism, is it a reasonable inference to suggest that the founder might be a nazi? I think yes, and that it is facile to suggest that the founder of an organization whose core principle is Leninism, is not actually a Leninist. And that's to say nothing of Jones' other activities that were cleaned off of wikipedia.

[BHSPitMonkey]

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).

[chroem-]

Don't take my word for it, take theirs. Here is one of their documents. http://www.noisyroom.net/blog/STORMSummation.pdf