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PROTEST Good Jobs, Clean Energy Jeff Jones responds Since mid-summer, Glenn Beck, a commentator for Fox News, and others have waged a smear campaign against the Apollo Alliance, and Van Jones, who resigned his White House post as a special advisor to the President on green jobs and clean energy. Because of my work with the New York State Apollo Alliance and my history of political activism, starting with the anti-Vietnam War movement in the 1960s, and my opposition to segregation and racism, I have also been attacked. It is now clear that those leading this campaign include people supported by big oil interests who deny the dangers of climate change and are opposed to the clean energy movement that is growing in the country. Because of the attacks on me, I am posting the following statement on my website. Losing Van Jones from the White House was a loss for the country. He is a tested and admired leader of constituencies that have been locked out of both the economy and the democratic process. His inclusion gave hope to millions of people – people of color, young people, the disenfranchised, environmentalists and working people. His appointment by President Obama was significant. His voice was powerful and distinct. We are diminished as a nation because he is no longer part of the Administration. Van Jones is working to create new jobs, forging pathways out of poverty through the emerging clean energy economy. Like so many others, he sees this as a critical part of a just and shared economic revitalization. It is no surprise that he became such a target. Glenn Beck and others charge that environmentalists and the labor movement – and especially the two in alliance – are responsible for the loss of American jobs. This ranks high in the annals of delusion. We are at a moment of tremendous opportunity and at a crossroads: the Bush Cheney administration pursued a single-minded strategy of support for the oil industry, and war for oil. They prevaricated, delayed, and misrepresented the urgency of both global and U.S. action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Now vital coalitions for a new strategy are forming, but the defenders of the petroleum-based status quo are rallying to discredit and smear those laboring to save the planet and create new, productive forms of work. Van Jones was their target; apparently so am I. Make no mistake, leading this smear campaign are climate-change deniers and oil-company shills. The problems that we face require a real and vibrant national debate about the causes of economic decline and the best solutions for an equitable recovery. Smear campaigns are no substitute for dialogue. Open-minded conversation is at the heart of truly participatory democracy; it generates our best ideas. One of those ideas motivates the Apollo Alliance, which believes we can fight climate change and create good, green jobs that put people back to work. As someone who has spent most of the past two decades working in the environmental movement, but whose family is rooted in labor, I am committed to the idea of building a partnership of workers, environmentalists, business, government, social and environmental justice advocates. I grew up in a Quaker, pacifist family. I was opposed to war, and registered with my draft board as a conscientious objector. But the promise of America for me was marred by segregation, and by a criminal war waged by my government against the people of Vietnam. So, as a teenager and young adult, I dedicated myself to supporting civil rights and opposing racism, and to ending the illegal and genocidal Vietnam War. I was personally enriched by participating in those movements and by the people I met, worked with, and loved in those years. This is what I mean when I say that I do not regret my militant opposition to racism and the Vietnam War. That said, like most people my age, I made my share of mistakes. Today, I am using the organizing skills and insights I learned from those movements in my work as a consultant for environmental and labor groups. One is the New York State Apollo Alliance, an affiliate of National Apollo. Apollo is working toward a goal that is simple and straight-forward: create good jobs for working people in the new clean-energy economy. That is a goal I support, and work I continue to do. Read the article attacking Jeff Jones Who is Phil Kerpen?
Jeff Jones went to
his first rally against the Vietnam War in 1965. Within a year, he had quit
Antioch College to become a fulltime organizer for Students for a Democratic
Society.
In 1966 he traveled to Cambodia to meet with high-level leaders of the NLF. In 1967 and 1968 he served as SDS Regional Organizer for New York City. In 1969, he was elected, along with Bill Ayers and Mark Rudd, to SDS national office. Then, in the spring of 1970, he disappeared. As a leader of the Weather Underground, Jeff evaded an intense FBI manhunt for more than a decade. In 1981, they finally got him. Twenty special agents battered down the door of the Bronx apartment where he was living with his wife and four-year-old son.
See also: Fugitive Days: A Memoir, by Bill Ayers. Stew Albert's Yippie Reading Room
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