Van Jones
Van Jones
Anthony Kapel "Van" Jonesis an American political activist, commentator, author and attorney. He is a cofounder of several nonprofit organizations including the Dream Corps, a “social justice accelerator” which presently operates three advocacy initiatives: #cut50, #YesWeCode and Green for All. He is the author of two New York Times bestselling books, The Green Collar Economy and Rebuild The Dream. He has served as President Barack Obama’s Special Advisor for Green Jobs, as a distinguished visiting fellow at Princeton University, and...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth20 September 1968
CityJackson, TN
CountryUnited States of America
Little kids sing a song called "America the Beautiful." They sing a song called "This Land Is Your Land, This Land Is My Land." To me, those songs are not just nice little ditties. They are marching orders. They are commandments that we must protect America's beauty from the clear-cutters, the strip-miners, the oil spillers. They are pledges we have made. They are promises to keep.
A green economy begins to replace some of the clunking and chugging of ugly machines with the wise effort of beautiful, skilled people. That means more jobs.
Deep patriots don't just sing the song, 'America the Beautiful' and then go home. We actually stick around to defend America’s beauty -- from the oil spillers, the clear-cutters and the mountaintop removers. Deep patriots don't just visit the Statue of Liberty and send a postcard home to grandma. We defend the principles upon which that great monument was founded -- 'give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.'
You've never seen a Columbine done by a black child. Never. They always say, 'We can't believe it happened here. We can't believe it's these suburban white kids.' It's only them!
Let me say what I actually believe. I believe that 9/11 was a conspiracy, by Al Qaeda, and Osama Bin Laden, and no one else trying to hurt America.
Back in 2007, I met this white guy [director Peter Byck] with a lot of hair and a video camera, at a conference that I happened to be attending for the launch of an organization called Blacks in Green. I had never heard of him and Peter had never heard of me. We just started talking; he liked what I had to say, so he asked me if I'd be willing to be in this documentary he was doing about carbon pollution. I said, "Sure!" It was kind of a no-brainer.
Nobody wants a nanny state, where the government is stamping out initiative and telling us what to do, but the idea that the only alternative to that is to throw the American people overboard into a global economy with no protections to cushion us from some of these blows is absurd on its face. That's why I think there's been a concerted effort to distort my message. When you hear me speak beyond the sound bites taken out of context, I think I make a lot of sense to people, even those in Red States like the one where I grew up.
I'm the guy that's trying to break up that monopoly to introduce free enterprise and competition to the energy sector.
Right now, when you go and hit the light switch in your house, you're participating in a state-protected monopoly. You're being forced to accept dirty power from a single producer.
I'm not calling for redistributing wealth; I'm calling for reinvigorating our stuck energy sector, so some new entrepreneurs can create some new wealth.
I'm not asking for more entitlement programs; I'm asking for more enterprise.
As champions of green jobs, we're asking questions that progressives should like, like "How are we going to avoid baking the planet," and "How are we going to create jobs for ordinary Americans?" Meanwhile, we're offering solutions that conservative should like. I'm not calling for more welfare; I'm calling for more work.
I used to be called the "Green Jack Kemp" because of my promotion of entrepreneurial and work-based solutions for poor people.
The prospects of green economic opportunity is going to be determined to a great extent by politicians arriving at some sort of bi-partisan resolution.