Mr. Jones Goes to Washington

For readers of this blog who share this blogger's obsession with whether Dr. Obama will move us from a culture of fear based on "stranger danger" to a culture of hope based on collective action to overcome infrastructure danger, this morning's papers bring very good news indeed. Van Jones, lawyer, community organizer, and author of a best selling book on green jobs is doing to DC to serve as a special green jobs adviser to President Obama. (Read the NYT story). As a community organizer here in the East Bay, Jones has struggled against mass incarceration and its reconstruction of minority communities. His vision of greening the ghetto is a direct challenge to the carceral ghetto that the war on crime has produced. This means at least one voice in the administration who can help the President identify ways to help dismantle the culture of fear that past White Houses have helped to construct.