Van Jones on rioting

The right-wing politicos have been having strokes over this Obama appointed 'green jobs' adviser for his alleged participation in Rodney King protests and riots in San Francisco. A Fox news smear piece on Jones quotes him on the riots:

"Our moment had finally come! We were righteous, fired up, weren't takin' no more!" Jones wrote. "We were one thousand strong on Market Street, with the Bay Bridge shut down in rush hour traffic and the grounds around the state building swarming with angry mobs! Our rallying cry was for justice; our demand was that the System be changed!"

Jones continued, "Yes, the Great Revolutionary Moment had at long last come. And the time, clearly, was ours! So we stole stuff. Y'know, stole stuff. Radios, tennis shoes. Well, not everybody, of course."

Jones go on to make some valid points on the place of riots, that is, amongst a larger organized movement for social justice.

In his 2007 reflection on the aftermath of King's beating, Jones said he was among those who chanted "no justice, no peace" during the "understandable, unavoidable, even necessary" riots.

"These riots were not revolution; without revolutionary values and revolutionary organization, they were merely sharp outcroppings of the systemic chaos that social injustice breeds," Jones wrote. "But flashpoints of rage can never substitute for radical social vision or grassroots coordination."

I am happy to see a man like this in our government, let there be a 1000 more like him.