We must be bold in our principles

What’s up fam, Long time no see I know. First let me say that I have started law school at UDC so any SuperSpade fam in the DMV, let me know what’s up. Moreover, my partner in crime Garlin got married and would you guess it, moved to DC!!! Suffice it to say that a ton of change has happened in the past couple months and our posting has been….well let’s just get back into it.

So I am really smarting over the Van Jones resignation and the implications it has on the next twenty years of political life in America. President Obama is wrong for allowing this to go through. This has nothing to do with Van’s liberal values but it is pure politics. Jones was ousted in large part to the enraged and deranged rhetoric of Glenn Beck…of all people. I get it you that can’t fight every fight but come on. I will even give you some slack if we are talking about appointments that need the consent of the Senate but this was not the case. Then, the communication’s director of the National Endowment for the Arts, Yosi Sergant is forced to resgin in part due to Glenn Beck. Obama, you can’t allow Glenn Beck to pick off your staff one at a time. This is crazy!!!!

The larger problem is what this says for the generation coming of and preparing to take the reins. What Van said about Republicans pales in comparison to what I hear Republicans have said and say about Obama. The signal being sent though is that if you are left/liberal/progressive, keep your mouth shut. We live in the information where even the most insignificant speech is recorded, and who knows what to think of what is going to happen to all the emails/facebook posts, blogs, blog comments, etc. I say that to say that anyone talking themselves out of politics (or influencing politicians) took the wrong lesson from the Jones resignation. We have to be bold in our principles. Seriously, I don’t know when this happened but “birthers” get regular play over the media airwaves. Where are we?

Let’s be honest shall we?

• Have you deleted or re-worded a comment or email because while what you said was perfectly reasonable you didn’t want to be branded as a crazy liberal? -When in conversation have you bashed a liberal idea that you really support?
• What rally did you want to go to but you didn’t want to risk being photographed?

My only point is that you are wrong if you are waiting for progressive values (that is the word I use, don’t get caught in semantics) to become mainstream, stop waiting! Politics doesn’t work when you don’t show up so don’t let this moment go to waste. Let principles guide you, not random reactions to the absurd.

Stay up fam,

Brandon Q.