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After all, we are not promoting welfare. We are promoting work. We are not pushing for more entitlement programs. We are pushing for more enterprise. We are not trying re-distribute existing wealth.

Van Jones

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Van Jones
Age: 56
Born: 1968
Born: September 20
Civil Rights Advocate
Environmentalist
Human Rights Activist
Lawyer
Motivational Speaker
Pundit
Jackson
Tennessee
Anthony Kapel Jones
Enterprise
Pushing
Welfare
Program
Distribute
Wealth
Entitlement
Trying
Promoting
Work
Existing
Programs

More quotes by 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.
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Well, we in America are about to break up with oil. Why not break up with poverty and discrimination too?
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Keith Ellison is an organizer's organizer.He's one of the only Muslims in Congress, so you have a big statement there.
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Though the rampant racial injustices throughout the criminal justice system were offensive to me and to millions of other people, I've never drawn a tight circle around the black community to define the limits of my moral concern. But that narrative tends to get imposed on you, if you're an African-American activist.
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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.
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The thing about this [Donald] Trump phenomenon is that there's a lot of good stuff in it the anti-elitism, the concern for working class jobs.
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People can tell if you don't like 'em. African Americans can tell we're not welcome in the Republican Party no matter how many times they say we are. All the signals that it's a party that tolerates anti-black racism is very clear.
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The Trump phenomenon has a lot of really good stuff in it, the anti-elitism, the concern for America's economy in the Rust Belt, the desire to see better days for the country. That's all great stuff. Some of that stuff is Bernie Sanders stuff. The problem is that it's marbled through with xenophobia and misogyny and bigotry.
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The usual pattern of demagogues is to promise the moon, fail to deliver, and then blame vulnerable others for those failures.
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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.
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You can't lead anybody you don't love. You can't do it. It's not possible.
Van Jones
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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.
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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
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Unfortunately, we have a 50% unemployment rate among our urban youth of color. It's not about making green jobs more attractive. It's about making them more available. And that requires Congress passing legislation that will give a real break to the people who want to introduce new technologies to the American marketplace.
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...we're going to be in an economic slowdown for a couple of years. So to take three months, four months, six months to spend this money the right way-we're not going to get a chance to spend a trillion dollars again! Ever. So let's do it the right way.
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Donald Trump never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity. Here's an issue where his concern is this line with public opinion, but the way he deals with it is actually puts him in a super minority in terms of people who are able to somehow bring himself to support his language and demeanor.
Van Jones
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All the signals that the Democratic Party is a party that tolerates snobbery and bigotry against, frankly, a lot of traditional Christians, a lot of white guys who work hard every day and who don't feel that they are on top of the world, those signals are clear and it's a turn off.
Van Jones
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Progressives are overreacting .Underreacting, though, to the - what the real threats are, and the real opportunities.
Van Jones
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I want to be remembered as one of the great innovators among social justice advocates of the 21st Century.
Van Jones
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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.
Van Jones