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.

Van Jones

Categorized in : People Country Creativity

We seem to forget that everything that is good for the environment is a job. Solar panels don't put themselves up. Wind turbines don't manufacture themselves. Houses don't retrofit themselves and put in their own new boilers and furnaces and better-fitting windows and doors. Advanced biofuel crops don't plant themselves. Community gardens don't tend themselves. Farmers' markets don't run themselves. Every single thing that is good for the environment is actually a job, a contract, or an entrepreneurial opportunity.

business running jobs

Now is not the time to shrink from the challenge of saving our only home in the universe. Now is not the time to pull into ourselves, retreating into either survivalist or escapist mode. To the contrary, this is the time for titans, not turtles. Now is the time to open our arms, expand our horizons, and dream big. Big problems require big solutions.

turtles dream home

The message is going to be the same. It's very simple. We're either going to turn to each other or on each other.

turns simple messages

I'm only 42, and I've got a lot more tricks up my sleeve. by Van Jones

I'm only 42, and I've got a lot more tricks up my sleeve.

sleeves tricks

Well, we in America are about to break up with oil. Why not break up with poverty and discrimination too?

oil climate america

In a democracy, you won't always get to have your way. But you sh... by Van Jones

In a democracy, you won't always get to have your way. But you should always get to have your say.

democracy should way

It's in that convergence of spiritual people becoming active and active people becoming spiritual that the hope of humanity now rests.

humanity spiritual people

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.

media crazy reality

All humans have fear, and those of us who are fortunate have fait... by Van Jones

All humans have fear, and those of us who are fortunate have faith.

fortunate humans have-faith

You know it's not "you have to see it to believe it" - sometimes you have to believe it to see it. You have to know what you're looking for when you're seeing signs of an authoritarian takeover of your country.

sometimes believe country

If I didn't have that deep grounding, it would be very easy for me to just be someone who is consumed with anger and hatred. And that would be Trump's great victory: to turn us into replicas of him, just on the other side of a wall screen. I refuse to let me or my family or my movement or my friends be turned into the opposite of Trump. I want to be the antidote for Trump.

wall hatred opposites

Rich countries do civil wars with tweets and votes. by Van Jones

Rich countries do civil wars with tweets and votes.

rich-countries war country

If the road to social transformation can be paved only by saints who never make mistakes, the road will NEVER be built.

social-transformation saint mistake

Ordinary Americans can't pollute for free. You can't dump your trash on the sidewalk or throw all your refuse into your neighbor's yard. I don't understand why corporate polluters should be allowed to dump megatons of carbon, the most dangerous pollution in the history of the world, into our thin shell of an atmosphere, and not pay a penny to do it.

atmosphere yards ordinary

If we stand for change, we can spark a popular movement with powe... by Van Jones

If we stand for change, we can spark a popular movement with power, influence, magic and genius.

climate magic genius

In countries where there are real civil wars, people go through a lot, and we should be willing to go through a lot to help them.

real war country

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.

trump jobs people

The usual pattern of demagogues is to promise the moon, fail to deliver, and then blame vulnerable others for those failures.

usual moon promise

Each and every one of us should stop playing small and license ourselves to become one of the giants of the new century. We will need champions by the truckload.

champion climate giants

A lot of liberals think all the Trump voters are a part of the alt right, neo Nazi camp, which is not true. That's a tiny, tiny slice.

tiny voters thinking