Van Jones Quotes - Page 4

Ninth generation American, ma'am, and I'm the first one in my family born with all my rights. I'm a ninth generation American. And so we have not escaped because I went to Yale all the problems of this country.

There is great wisdom, there's great strength and there's great beauty in all of our religion, and those should be marshaled for good.

America's government has to get the public investments right.

In the U.S., African- Americans, no matter what we do - when we sit in, when we freedom ride, when we kneel in, whatever it is, the initial response from the public tends to be overwhelmingly negative, because basically we're kind of raining on folks' parades. As time goes on, the Muhammad Ali's and all the people that raised those issues, they then become heroes later when people reflect on the courage they showed and the issues that they raised. And Donald Trump is in danger of being a more and more reviled figure as the years go on.

We tend to overlook the fact that a mature clean energy economy in fact will give an opportunity to ordinary people to earn more money as clean energy workers/entrepreneurs - and save more money, through conservation and energy efficiency.

Donald Trump's a great deal-maker with a lot of momentum and it will do a lot of damage to us. We are in grave peril and it's going to be terrible.

Even if we can solve the carbon problem for coal, it is still a non-renewable resource. At some point, coal supplies will drop.

There's a lot of things that I think you got to deal with. Hillary Clinton had to put down a rebellion in her own party, then she's going to have to put down the [Donald] Trump rebellion and then try to govern.

Reversing global warming will take a World War II level of mobilization. It is the work of tens of millions, not hundreds of thousands.

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.

Fighting for and defending the values from the pulpit is critical. You can't love the Creator, and disrespect the creation.

God chooses community sometimes to bear an unfair burden to force us to rise to the next level of consciousness and understanding.

I consider myself to be sort of a progressive Afrofuturist that is deeply committed to social justice.

It's time to start bringing the congregations down to City Hall and to ask the mayors, the city councils and the school boards, "What's the plan? What's the local government going to do for us?"

Part of what you need to understand is that we're forced to look back. You had the importation of third world or developing world conditions into the United States because of a bipartisan elite consensus for neo-liberalism. In other words, you had both political parties, the smarty-pants in both political parties said, hey, let's do these crazy trade deals.

We should not allow the fundamentalists and the bigots to take over and speak for the great faiths any more than we should let them take over and speak for the great nation.

The time has come to move beyond eco-elitism to eco-populism. Ecopopulism. To change our laws and culture, the green movement justice, political solutions and social change.

It's become fashionable to put down people who we then expect to vote for us.

I want the coal miners, who've been American heroes, who kept the lights put on for black people and white people for a hundred years, and who now are too sick to work, I want them to be able to go see a doctor. I don't care who they vote for. I don't care if they vote for a Tea Party Republican, I'm fighting for you because I voted for you to live in a country where we don't have disposable people.

Now I think liberals have gone from underreacting to Trump and saying that Trump is just a clown and a buffoon, and that Hillary Clinton's going to kick his ass, to now overreacting, and saying, "Oh my God, 60 million people consciously endorsed a white supremacist for president."

Most people walking around in a mall or on a college campus are carrying on them better technology than the entire U.S. government had when it put a man on the moon. Each one of us is a walking technological superpower.

If all we are for is black people and white people who like black people, then I have nothing to say to Trump who is only for white people and black people who like him.

I learned more in those six months [ in the White House] than in the prior six years. I don't think that anybody who has had the privilege to serve the country at that level should walk out and behave like a crybaby. And I plan to continue to serve the country in other capacities.

I do feel kind of like I have a split identity in that there's Van Jones, who has this big public role and tries to inspire millions of people to do new stuff together. And then there's just me: a pretty quiet, shy, retiring person.

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.