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The surest path to safe streets and peaceful communities is not more police and prisons, but ecologically sounds economic development. And that same path can lift us to a new, green economy - one with the power to lift people out of poverty while respecting and repairing the environment.
Van Jones -
If you just say that, look at all the good stuff and you don't acknowledge the toxic stuff, you're wrong. If you're only looking at toxic stuff and don't recognize there's going to be some good stuff if you're for infrastructure or whatever, you're wrong.
Van Jones
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We're just trying to end illegitimate government support for a single technology, which is un-American. We should be leading the world in the next generation of technological innovation. But we can't unleash private capital because of what the government is doing to stifle innovation and to choke competition.
Van Jones -
What I saw during the Hillary Clinton campaign [2016] with data dummies who were more concerned with polls than people, they were more concerned with donors than voters. And it wasn't a lot of heart felt on that campaign and I think it left us vulnerable.
Van Jones -
Everybody should be mad but anger only takes you so far. At some point, you'll have outrage fatigue and burn out.
Van Jones -
We thought Donald Trump was leaving that world of entertainment and climbing over the wall into politics. In fact, what he did was he pulled the world of politics into the world of reality television.
Van Jones -
We've have to heed our Biblical obligation to be good stewards of the Earth after leaving the Garden of Eden.
Van Jones -
Government-mandated and -subsidized ethanol from corn will go down in history as the "Iraq War" of environmental solutions: ill-considered, costly, and disastrous.
Van Jones
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I think there's going to be a tug of war in this country over who are the real patriots because at a time of national crisis, economic collapse and calamity, ecological peril and social dislocation, the American people deserve to be a partner to the American government.
Van Jones -
With the Democrats, they see themselves, we see ourselves as the party of the working folks, the striving, you know, the good. But, without anybody acknowledging it, there is now this little camp of folks who come across as very elitist, that look down on red state voters, who think that Republicans are dumb people.
Van Jones -
I'm saying you should have the right not only to be an energy consumer but an energy producer. Follow the money to understand why my message keeps getting drowned out. Big oil and big coal are terrified by the green jobs message.
Van Jones -
The human family has invaluable friends and irreplaceable allies in the plant and animal worlds. We cannot continue to tug at the web of life without tearing a hole in the very fabric of our earthly existence - and eventually falling through that hole ourselves.
Van Jones -
Come, then, let us go forward together with our united strength - and win a better future for generations to come.
Van Jones -
I have many sources of inspiration. I'd have to point to Dr. Martin Luther King, first and foremost. But my parents were good, hardworking folks who kept us in the church and the public schools, and out of trouble, for the most part.
Van Jones
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Black politics is redemption and transformation. It's not always pretty, but it's not always ugly either. I'll put India.Arie up against Donald Trump any day and let the people choose.
Van Jones -
Steve Bannon is the biggest threat to democracy that we've faced since the Civil War, but in the Civil War the champion of democracy was in the White House. So, even then, we were probably in less danger as a country than we are right now.
Van Jones -
To green our country, regular people will have to put on hard hats and work boots, roll up their sleeves - and get to work.
Van Jones -
Steve Bannon is the architect of the entire blitzkrieg that we're seeing against American values and the American people.
Van Jones -
Now, here's a good question: should serious people focus on global political instability - terrorism, failing states, nuclear weapons - or should we focus on global climate instability - droughts, floods, extreme weather? Here's the correct answer: yes, both, because climate disruption will make every other national security problem worse.
Van Jones -
We need a national renewable energy goal. Such a goal, sometimes called a renewable energy standard (RES), would spell out what percentage of our power America plans to get from renewable sources.
Van Jones
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In other words: we can fight pollution and poverty at the same time, with the same method. We can beat global warming and the global recession at the same time, with the same method. We can do this by putting people to work re-powering America with clean energy.
Van Jones -
The problem isn't that the green jobs aren't sexy enough. It's that they're not plentiful enough. A young person looking for a job isn't looking just for a sexy job, they're looking for any job.
Van Jones -
Sometimes we overemphasize the political system. There are other ways to make a difference. There's technology, there's media, there's business.
Van Jones -
That we could live in a country with no rules for the rich, no rights for the poor, and no middle class to speak of, is wrong; it's a crime against the next generation and we've got to do something about it.
Van Jones