We’ve gotten a lot of requests for a transcript of Van Jones’ presentation last Thursday. We’ve got it right here, and we’ve added some bonus features.
First, we added in citations to back up the points that he made. For example, where Van talked about how we’re not broke, we were robbed, and somebody has got our money, there are helpful links to a Wall Street Journal article on $144 billion in Wall Street bonuses during an abysmal economy, and a Congressional Research Service report on the $1.3 trillion cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
We’ve also got Van’s charts on rising income inequality in America. Even though American workers have been increasingly productive over the last few decades, incomes have remained stagnant for most Americans while they’ve more than tripled for the top 1%, a result of the conscious effort of corporations and the superrich to take control of our government at all levels.
Read this, bookmark it, and pass it on to your friends!
I AM FIRED UP AND READY TO GO!!! After watching Van Jones I have reached a new level of commitment. I am Hosting a meeting at my home in Homewood, IL on the 17th at 4:00 p.m. It is time we put truth to power reminding those NOT in Power but rather in Office that WE are the government OF, BY, and FOR THE PEOPLE! I just elected them to be our voice not our masters nor our directors.
What is the American Dream? It is embedded in The Preamble to the Constitution, “We haold these truthes to be self evident; that ALL Men are created EQUAL and they are ENDOWED my their Creator with … life, liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness”. Also in The Gettyburg Address, which I mentioned in the previous paragraph
I AM FORED UP AND READY TO GO!!! After watch Van Jones I have reached a new level of commitment. I am Hosting a meeting at my home in Homewood, IL on the 17th at 4:00 p.m. It is time we put truth to power reminding those NOT in Power but rather in Office that WE are the government OF, BY, and FOR THE PEOPLE! I just elected them to be our voice not our masters nor our directors.
Take the salt: Lessons from Ghandi
We intend a peaceful and orderly redistribution of wealth, per capita.
Establish “New Consumers Union” focused on sustainable, small business, local an regional Co’op’s to circumvent Walmart-style biz, and forming trusted relationships within global, nat’l and local e-villages (barter and trade, EDU and mentoring, project and problem-solving message boards).
Goal: Leverage middle and lower-class resources and capital investments to form specific “images of success” used to align (and leverage) efforts, i.e. think global, act local.
Social agenda:
Unite and organize; Leverage and master our resources across the people that truly matter in America – Americans – including our trusted neighbors and global partners (inherent part of step 2, Respect for all).
Power agenda: Modern revisions to Ghandi’s early agenda
Take the salt: Consumers Union must challenge and facilitate a fair redistribution of wealth:,
Step 1: Think global, act locally (organize)
Step 2: Respect for all – a peaceful transition towards “take back the salt”
Step 3: Accountability and transparency through community and “trusted relationships”
Step 4: Take back the salt: After building the union via previous steps
Ghandi’s political intentions: Revised and modernized
We intend a peaceful and orderly redistribution of wealth, per capita.
Never “something for nothing”: Organized consumer resources outweigh cash-flow
-Where’s all the gold?
Wear hand-crafted clothes:
Buy local, local, local. Support local. Support quality hand-crafted
Know your grocer and the guys who grows your veggies.
Keep it in-house (in your back yard; your local community; )
Respect: Treat the untouchables as equals
Build trusted relationships with community and service providers
Forswear corruption: Accountability and transparency through community
Partner with trusted relationships
Improve cleanliness and efficiency of our homes, neighborhoods, businesses, bartering systems, e-networks, social networks, villages and communities, and refugees
Thoughts:
Leverage existing entities and sympathetic organizations: partnering.
Frame our message from the existing “voice of the world”: We have a unique opportunity not held by Martin Luther King: The internet.
To use methodology, applied to the problem we can harness the internet: We know what services providers are working within each community; Mostly it is a matter of knowing how to use technology and connecting with the quality and trusted, local sources.
Quality organizations which have consistently held community and family together from local and grass-roots communities, social networks, civil and municipal services, forming and extending e-villages across zip codes,
Existing organizations:
Move On
Network of Spiritual Progressives: Marshal Plan, society and religion,
http://www.tikkun.org
Politics & Society
Tikkun’s vision is that we can create a caring society. What if our goal as political and social activists were both an equal society, in terms of wealth, rights, and power, and also an empathic society, where we cared about each other’s well-being? That would change the way we do politics. See Core Vision. Please note that the articles published by tikkun reflect a wider range of opinion and sometimes include ones arguing against our editorial positions
Public Television and Radio
Internet services and networking (IT and computer resources)
Health clinics and services
Barter and Trade systems: Harnessing Craigslist, AngiesList, etc
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High level goals
Growth and Management: Where do we go? What are the high level goals? What specific tools are required to ensure we’re re-capturing “the voice of the public” and communicating our “collective consciousness” on a regular basis? And repeating the cycle to ensure growth and consistency and trusted relationships within a e-village (e.g. baby-sitters, transportation services, repair services?
I’m not fully clear on what this movement really stands for. A lot of the points sound very good. The rich should contribute their share, for example. But I have questions.
What is the American Dream the movement wants to rebuild? I tend to resonate with the song that says, “The American dream has become a nightmare.” What it is referring to is the drive for success seen in materialistic terms. Is that what we need to “rebuild” or something we need to recover from? Doesn’t it lead to greed being a primary value? And isn’t that the root cause of many of our problems? Are we suffering from the greed of those who lived the “American Dream” most successfully? Aren’t there values – compassion, concern for others – that are much valuable and actually counter to those associated with the American Dream? Is the American Dream the problem or the solution?
Where does the movement stand on America’s imperialist wars? There is some rhetoric in the speech which seems to glorify the military. It does talk about “two wars for the past decade on a credit card.” It’s not clear whether their being on a credit card is seen as the only problem with them. Are military “solutions” workable or moral? Isn’t militarism and the drive for world domination in fact a major problem with our country? But they, too, seem to be associated with the “American Dream” and the speech seems to endorse that. H. Rap Brown said, “Violence is as American as apple pie.” Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “America is the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today.” And this love affair with violence dates from the very beginning of our country. Don’t we need a movement that embodies the ideals of people like King not the tired old “American Dream”? Don’t we need to change America for the better, not go back to some prior “American Dream” era?
And given the association of Van Jones and other organizers with partisan politics – that of a party that has been the greatest purveyor of war historically and increasingly represents corporatist interests – is this movement really a stalking horse for an establishment party campaign next year?
The American Dream is this. To have a decent job. A fair days pay for a fair days work. To own a home and a car. To be able to put our kids through collage. To be able to have healthcare, and afford it, and to retire with a little comfort so we can live a little after contributing to our country our whole lives. Now, we will support any organization, or party that will support those goals. We have only found one party that has historically done that. It is the Party that gave us Social Security, Medicare, Workman compensation, unemployment insurance. Food and water inspection services and since Unions are a basic human right and do balance the bloated power of corporations, we support unions.
Now as for the other party, they not only do not support those ideals, they have allowed 50, 000 factories to move out of our country causing 16 percent real unemployment, and I asked that party on a major political web sites. What has your party ever done for America? And not one person could answer. Bill Moyer asked a top political strategist that same question, and the man could not answer. So that is who we are and what we endorse.
That may change as we the party put planks down in the coming weeks and months.
This is great! Van is the Man!
President Van Jones has a nice ring to it!!
SPECTACULAR!!! You read my mind, guys! THX
this. is. awesome!
the annotations are ideal and really, we should be giving our own versions of this speech to civic groups all over the place. League of Women Voters, democratic clubs, VFW halls, union organizations, enviromental groups, churches, peace and justice organizations, everywhere! Lets build a corps of builders!
No comments!? What’s up with that?
I’ve just RSVP’d for my local (Austin, Texas) MoveOn.org House Meeting on July 17…and now checking out all the latest information…keep up the good work!