Nothing like CNN allowing a highly polarizing guy like Van Jones to yammer about unity, eh?
The surprising ways we could unify America
Since his first speech as President-elect, Joe Biden has maintained a consistent message: He is committed to unifying the growing divides in America. For the Americans exhausted by the chaotic rhetoric of the Donald Trump era, the sentiment comes as a welcome reprieve. But, in a time when the lack of consensus seems to be the only thing there’s consensus about, is healing even possible? And, if so, how do we get from here to there?
Before we can find the right solutions to our present pain, we must properly define the problem. Across our country, the accents might change and the skin colors may differ, but the major problems we’re seeing are the same: soaring Covid-19 rates, an ongoing opioid crisis, high rates of poverty and a broken criminal justice system.
Well, hey, we can all agree on defunding the police, releasing stone cold criminals from jail, and giving illegal aliens unfettered access to the U.S. to fix the broken justice system, right? I’m sure Liberals will agree that we need to fix the 2 tiered justice system, the one which gave Hillary and her cohorts a free pass when you or I would have been in jail, right?
If we are going to mend these ideological fissures, we cannot continue to play into the current “us vs. them” dynamic. We need to invest in an alternative. That alternative will arise from a solution-oriented, positive kind of populism — one that puts truth above tribalism, results over rhetoric, and people over partisanship.
Which is funny, since Democrats, and CNN, are all about putting people in neat little identity boxes and playing them off against those who believe differently.
We need a “bipartisanship from below” approach. We need the kind of alliances that ordinary people discover when they reach out to solve the deadly serious problems that land on their doorsteps. That kind of solidarity emerges — however conditionally — when good people help one another as neighbors, as Americans, as human beings.
Kinda hard to do this when Democrats believe in Government telling us what to do. In the primacy of Government. Except when government conflicts with their Progressive (nice Fascist), Statist beliefs, then they run riot in the streets and create “autonomous zones”, which have dictatorial leaders.
Bipartisanship today is different from the top-down bipartisanship of the 1990s and early 2000s, which, for many, left a bad taste. Both parties were overly influenced by moderates and centrists, some of whom had no strong ideological commitment — except to do the bidding of their private and/or corporate donors, which contributed to the signing of NAFTA, prisons everywhere and endless wars.
Interesting, since Trump was all for doing away with things like NAFTA and renegotiating deals for the betterment of America, he did a big justice system reform, and, last I checked, he didn’t start a war, even a small one, and was working hard to pull us out of wars and create actual peace in the Middle East.
As a result, many people of strong political conviction on both the right and the left came to distrust anyone who talked about “compromise” and “reaching across the aisle.” And the grassroots movements — from Black Lives Matter to the Tea Party, from Bernie Sandernistas to the MAGA-hat crowd — revolted against the traditional dealmakers in both parties. The resulting partisan division has convinced much of the public that the parties can never cooperate on anything.
Van doesn’t offer any sort of specific policies below that paragraph on what we can agree on, and, let’s face it, the beliefs sets between the parties are very, very different. Even in cases where we might agree on the end goals, the ways to get there are far, far different. Conservatives have zero problem with cleaner energy, but, we want market forces to drive it, and a heavy reliance on next generation nuclear power. Democrats want government to force Everyone Else to comply, slap up tons of barely useable wind turbines and solar plants, and restrict people’s lives, which saying “nyet” to nuclear.
I’m sure you can think of 10 things we disagree on in just a couple of minutes. And, remember, these same Democrats were calling for #Resist from the moment Trump was elected in 2016. They didn’t want to unify and work together and do bipartisan things and reach across the aisle. So, screw them.
Teach is quite upset by #resist
Teach how fo you feel about the conservatives who are openly calling for gun violence and even secession?
What about violence to stop babies from being murdered? Are you ok with that ?
Teach repeats the stupidity that got us here… e can all agree on defunding the police, releasing stone cold criminals from jail, and giving illegal aliens unfettered access to the U.S. to fix the broken justice system, right? I’m sure Liberals will agree that we need to fix the 2 tiered justice system, the one which gave Hillary and her cohorts a free pass when you or I would have been in jail, right?
Still whining that “Hillary and her cohorts” need to be locked up? (For what?)
“Defund the police” was a stupid saying, and won’t and shouldn’t happen. It’s the kind of thing extremists chant, not unlike “Jews won’t replace us!” and “Lock her up!” and “Trump should declare martial law!”. Mr Jones recommends, “Respect that whoever you are working with on the other side has noble ideals and values. Don’t make them bear the cross for the misdeeds of the worst elements in their own party.”
I used to naively believe that partisans had the same ideals, health, equal opportunities, pursuit of happiness, fairness – but with different ideas of how to get there. Since, I’ve come to view the far-right as supporting white nationalism, white supremacy and authoritarianism. Am I wrong? I hope so.
Jones thinks the success of the Covid vaccine program well help reassure Americans that gov’t can work, and for all Americans. Time will tell.
He believes Americans can work together in combating the drug scourge that is devastating rural America.
He said that intergenerational poverty affecting poor blacks and poor whites needs to be addressed. Agreed?
He said: “We need each other. To uplift those whom Jesus called “the least of these,” we don’t have to convert or annihilate each other. Liberals can stay liberal; conservatives can stay conservative. Liberals fight for social justice, while conservatives fight for liberty. Both traditions are necessary for America to have liberty and justice for all.”
The only thing broken about our criminal justice system is that not enough criminals are convicted, and not enough sentenced harshly when convicted, and too many released early when imprisoned.
We do not have a mass incarceration problem; we have a problem that not enough are incarcerated, for too short a time.
A case I have been following is that of Cody Alan Arnett. On August 7, 2015, he was convicted for two armed bank robberies. He pleaded guilty, and got two five year sentences, to run concurrently rater than consecutively. Several other charges were dropped.
On June 26, 2018, the state Parole Board recommended his release on probation, which was done on August 1, 2018.
On September 23, 2018, Mr Arnett (allegedly) broke into the apartment of a Georgetown College coed and raped her at knifepoint. After a couple of hours, he got sloppy, and the victim seized the knife and stabbed him. Good for her, but if he had been in prison all along, he could never have raped his victim.
The victim’s injuries, her trauma, and whatever lasting effects she has suffered are on Mr Arnett’s hands, but they are also on the hands of the Kentucky state Parole Board, who released a criminal who had not completed his already-too-short sentence, but who had a criminal history of five previous violent offenses. The victim’s injuries and trauma and lasting effects are on the hands of the prosecutors in Fayette County who agreed to such a lenient sentence in the plea bargain arrangement.
Mr Arnett has not yet been tried for the rape. He was supposed to go to trial last March, but the COVID-19 shutdowns pushed that off. He is back in prison now, on the parole violation from his previous sentence, with the earliest next parole hearing in November of 2022, minimum expiration of sentence in 2023.
If he committed the crime of which he has been accused, he should rot in prison until 2120.