If you were watching Bill Maher last night, you probably saw the bits where guests Van Jones and Seth McFarlane discussed the Occupy Wall Street protests- demonstrations that have spread to other cities across America as mostly young people express their dissatisfaction with a faltering and some say predatory economy.

Jones lent articulation to the movement many have criticized for being amorphous, or for not having a clear set of “demands” to come out of the large-scale protests occurring in many American cities right now.

In the clip, Jones and Maher talked about the group that often identify themselves as the 99%:

You know what is so impressive… you were talking about an Arab Spring. We could be on the verge of American Autumn. These young people are so impressive. They are out there. They are speaking for millions of people. These banksters are some of the worst people in the world. They’re horrible people, because they would be homeless if they were treated based on their performance. The American people stood up and bailed them out. We stood up. Taxpayers and homeowners gave them money to keep them in business.

They won’t even return the phone calls of American homeowners now trying to get their mortgages redone, students with student loans who need help. Give me a break, I can’t get a job. I got a two year unpaid internship. They won’t even return their phone calls so these people have gone to the scene of the crime against our future, Wall Street. So now you’ve got this face off between some of the most selfish people in American politics and some of the most selfless, and I think we should stand with them. I’m so proud of them. I don’t know what to do with myself.

[Video] Van Jones Appears on Bill Maher, Predicts ‘American Autumn’ Revolution is a post from: The Inquisitr

I don’t normally talk much about politics even though I spend a fair amount of time watching the American political scene. Much of that scene lately has been either direct attacks by Glenn Beck against the president by calling him a racist or to incite the latest campaign against the president’s choice to head a green jobs initiative – Van Jones.

Now I don’t proclaim to know much about Van Jones but in the current climate of news organization partisanship it is highly unlikely that any truth about the man could be found at this point. It has all boiled down to a case of they said – he said from which finding any truth is next to impossible.

What is interesting to watch is how this news organization driven partisanship is being used increasingly to create even bigger dividing lines between the American people. It seems that in the current environment people like Glenn Beck have become less the journalists they laughably claim to be and more the lightening rod for a movement that seems bent on splitting the country even further apart.

Sure organizations like FOX News can hide behind the “he’s a commentator and therefore given the freedom to express his opinions” but that doesn’t change the fact that while <cough>news</cough> organizations like FOX are getting rich from this kind of so-called commentary they are also contributing to the split of the country.

With people like Beck at the helm of carefully worded incendiary comments that are spread around the world one has to wonder if people like Abraham Lincoln or John F. Kennedy would ever have achieved all the great things that they did. After all they weren’t perfect people either and I am sure that people like Beck and the public pulpit provided by companies like FOX would have done everything they could have to tear those men down – just as they are try with Obama, and have done with Van Jones.

Rather than hide behind white hoods and a hangman’s noose people like Beck use the power of words to incite a society filled with fear to ignore their commonsense and become nothing more than attack dogs. In the process people like Beck make a shame and mockery of our news. They can couch those words all they like in terms of just being commentary in order to protect the companies that employee them with big paychecks; but in the end they are making a joke of the news and of the people who follow them like blind little sheep.

Would Lincoln or JFK have survived Beck’s America? is a post from: The Inquisitr

White House environmental adviser Van Jones resigned early Sunday after serious questions were raised about his past activism, including questioning the official story about 9/11.

Jones said in a statement that “I am resigning my post at the Council on Environmental Quality, effective today.

“On the eve of historic fights for health care and clean energy, opponents of reform have mounted a vicious smear campaign against me. They are using lies and distortions to distract and divide….

“But I came here to fight for others, not for myself. I cannot in good conscience ask my colleagues to expend precious time and energy defending or explaining my past. We need all hands on deck, fighting for the future.”

Van Jones was called out for two previous past activities: as well as signing a petition that questioned whether Bush administration officials allowed 9/11 to happen as a pretext for war, he also is reported to have used a “crude term” to describe Republicans in a past speech.

The White House said in a statement that it thanked Jones “for his valuable contributions to the Council on Environmental Quality. Over the last six months he has been a strong voice for creating 21st century jobs that improve energy efficiency and utilize renewable resources. We appreciate his hard work and wish him the best moving forward.”

White House environmental adviser Van Jones resigns is a post from: The Inquisitr