Van Jones Quotes
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Any successful long-term strategy will require that the green wave fully and passionately embrace the principles of eco-equity.
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We have gotten to the point where we're more like [Donald] Trump than Trump. Trump is hateful. Now you have liberals hating on love. Sometimes you have to fight fire with fire. There's nothing wrong with that. But sometimes you have to fight fire with water. I'm happy to fight it either way.
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There is, unfortunately, too large a number of people who are just outright bigots in America. They're nowhere near a majority. They're a small number. But there are people who are in the Alt-Right who are just straight up bigots.
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This [2016] election was lost because a total of 70,000 people - out of 120-130 million votes - in the Rust belt, but as a result America is in the calamity.
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The boundless capacity of the African American spirit in this country to say Hallelujah anyhow, to use our joy as a weapon, to use our creativity as a weapon, to use our moral clarity and our deep experience as a weapon not just to save Black people but to save all of these people.
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Trump is much, much worse than people understand. A lot of his supporters are actually much, much better than people know. Most of his supporters are not signed up for an authoritarian coup. Most of his supporters are signing up for better jobs for themselves.
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Most green-collar jobs are middle-skill jobs. That means they require more education that a high-school diploma, but less than a four-year degree.
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I think we were naive during the first two years of the [Barack] Obama Administration because the Republicans didn't fight us on this point during the 2008 Presidential Election. Obama and McCain both ran on a clean energy platform. But now, uncontested lies have eroded hard-won public understanding. So, we have to go back and make the case again.
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The reality is if you take any three people and look at their cellphones or blackberries and facebook pages, you can get to almost everywhere in the country, because we're networked together in a way that is incredibly powerful.
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The problem that we have is that most Americans don't even study American history, let alone Pinochet, Mussolini, Hitler, Stalin and all these guys.
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I had this radical idea that the police should obey the law. My view was that any human system without adequate checks and balances will tend towards corruption and abuse. That's why you have meat inspectors. Not because you hate butchers, but because of an understanding of human nature.
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I don't like to comment on a specific local issue because there are plenty of people already working on the problem who know a lot more about it than I do.
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We just want government to be a smart, supportive, reliable partner to the forces that are working for good in this country.
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All the old rules - if you say some crazy stuff you get your show canceled or you get your campaign ended - don't apply in the world of social media. They don't apply in the world of reality TV.
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The chief moral obligation of the 21st Century is to build a green economy that is strong enough to lift people out of poverty. Those communities that were locked out of the last century's pollution-based economy must be locked into the new, clean and renewable economy. Our youth need green-collar jobs, not jails.
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In addition, black folks need to attend green conferences, too. We just self-segregate and don't go. They might even waive your fee if you apply on a diversity basis, because they'd be so shocked to see somebody from a different background wanting to be a part of the green movement.
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There are about 46,000 jobs supported by the solar industry right now. That's fewer than it should be, too. And you have a whole other set of jobs in energy-efficiency in buildings and in creating the "Smart Grid," as we call it.
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[Donald Trump] has a tremendous opportunity, you know, this week, to come out and say I don't want that.
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In a two-year period, all my dreams came true: the birth of a son... publishing a best-selling book... launching a successful organization... joining the [Barack] Obama Administration... And then all my nightmares came true.
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The disaster in the gulf shows: relying on dangerous, dirty fuels can at times impose incalculable costs. I have never heard of a wind farm collapsing and causing a massive wind-slick. I have never heard of a solar farm collapsing and leaving behind a catastrophic sun-spill.
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The problem that we have in America now is, some people only see the positive stuff and wave off the toxic stuff, and some people only see the toxic stuff and wave off the positive stuff. You can't have an honest conversation.
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I said and stand by it. I said that race was a part, and there was a part, that alt-right part, that was a part of the whitelash. And if you listened to the whole quote, you would agree with what I said.
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Asia is rising economically - and is thirsty for oil. The price pressures on oil and oil price shocks, due to Asia's economic rise, mean that all steps made now to reduce oil dependence will protect us from pain and volatility later.
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We need to invest in job training programs, especially those that include child care, transit stipends and paid apprenticeships and internships.