Sep 29, 2007
Even activists can stun themselves by speaking up. For a decade, Van Jones, a Yale-trained attorney and cofounder of Oakland's Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, was mostly known in the Bay Area for fighting to reform police and youth prisons.
In recent years he and other activists have pushed for inner-city job training in the solar, wind, and other energy-saving industries. In June, Oakland became the first city in the nation to create a "Green Jobs Corps" program. A green coalition in nearby Richmond recently installed solar panels on a home, employing at-risk trainees.
That pioneering landed him an invitation last February to a climate change round table in San Francisco hosted by the city's representative in Congress, Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Jones was in the room with Silicon Valley venture capitalists and Sierra Club executive director Carl Pope. But the round table did not go as Jones hoped.
Jones introduced himself briefly, as he thought he was supposed to do. Everyone else gave speeches. The session nearly ended with Jones saying nothing.
"I was feeling terrible," he said over dinner in August. "I was nearly in tears. I thought I had blown it. I'm here with the third most powerful person in the United States, someone who can help our cause . . . and I didn't take advantage of it."
Just before Pelosi adjourned the round table for a press conference, she asked for last questions.
Jones threw up his hand and said, "My question is, at the press conference, will you say four words?" He said he asked her to say, "Green Energy Jobs Bill."
Jones said Pelosi let him continue. "Everybody comes to the neighborhood and tells these kids don't shoot anybody, don't do drugs, don't get pregnant, then they drive away. . . . You tell them you can help fix this country, you're not going to solve just global warming, you are going to solve a bunch of problems in this community."
At the press conference, Pelosi said there was something said at the round table everyone agreed with. In a video clip on the Ella Baker website, Pelosi said, "Where is Van? OK, you say it for yourself. We'll say it together. 'Green Energy Jobs Bill.' "
"I was totally floored," Jones said. "After it was over, her chief of staff says it looks like we'll be working together. I was blown away. Does this really happen to people?"
By May, Jones was telling a House committee, "We imagine formerly incarcerated people moving from jail cells to solar cells." In the summer, the energy bill passed by the House included the Green Jobs Act, authorizing up to $125 million to train up to 30,000 people in "green industries."
One of the bill's sponsors, Representative John Tierney of Salem said in a press release that Jones's "personal 'energy' greatly advanced this idea."
Over the phone this week, the Massachusetts Democrat added, "When I originally thought about job training, I was going in the direction of families who used to work at Sylvania and GE and retool them. Van convinced us there has to a significant carve-out to other people. . . . There is a justice and equity side to this."
Just as the larger energy bill is being bitterly debated over fuel economy, tax breaks, and renewable energy, there is some resistance to green jobs training that might involve nonviolent offenders.
A recent editorial in Investor's Business Daily called it "foolishness" and "waste." Tierney said some Republicans questioned, "Why should we be doing anything for them?"
Jones knows why he is doing something for "them." Several years ago, burned out from police and juvenile justice issues, he attended a retreat. He met Julia "Butterfly" Hill, the woman who lived for two years in a redwood to save if from logging.
In their discussions, Jones said, "I agree with you that there aren't any throwaway species or resources, but you agree with me there aren't any throwaway children or neighborhoods, right? So we need to get these movements working together."
The need is as clear as a drive across the Bay.
"In Marin County, they got organic this and hybrid cars and solar panels and organic denim jeans and 20 minutes later in a car here in Oakland, 1 in 5 kids have asthma because the air quality's so bad from the ports and people are struggling to get the last entry-level pollution-based jobs," Jones said. "We've already seen this one time before. We've already seen a big growth in the dot-com thing and no one benefits in the neighborhood."
Derrick Z. Jackson's e-mail address is jackson@globe.com.
(c) 2007 The Boston Globe
An Urgent Message From Our Co-Founder
Dear Common Dreams reader, The U.S. is on a fast track to authoritarianism like nothing I've ever seen. Meanwhile, corporate news outlets are utterly capitulating to Trump, twisting their coverage to avoid drawing his ire while lining up to stuff cash in his pockets. That's why I believe that Common Dreams is doing the best and most consequential reporting that we've ever done. Our small but mighty team is a progressive reporting powerhouse, covering the news every day that the corporate media never will. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. And to ignite change for the common good. Now here's the key piece that I want all our readers to understand: None of this would be possible without your financial support. That's not just some fundraising cliche. It's the absolute and literal truth. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. The final deadline for our crucial Summer Campaign fundraising drive is just days away, and we’re falling short of our must-hit goal. Will you donate now to help power the nonprofit, independent reporting of Common Dreams? Thank you for being a vital member of our community. Together, we can keep independent journalism alive when it’s needed most. - Craig Brown, Co-founder |
© 2023 Boston Globe
Derrick Z. Jackson
Derrick Z. Jackson is a Pulitzer Prize finalist; a National Headliner and Scripps Howard winner; a 14-time winner from the National Association of Black Journalists; and co-author of The Puffin Plan (2020, Tumblehome), the 2021 winner in Teen Nonfiction from the Independent Book Publishers Association.
Even activists can stun themselves by speaking up. For a decade, Van Jones, a Yale-trained attorney and cofounder of Oakland's Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, was mostly known in the Bay Area for fighting to reform police and youth prisons.
In recent years he and other activists have pushed for inner-city job training in the solar, wind, and other energy-saving industries. In June, Oakland became the first city in the nation to create a "Green Jobs Corps" program. A green coalition in nearby Richmond recently installed solar panels on a home, employing at-risk trainees.
That pioneering landed him an invitation last February to a climate change round table in San Francisco hosted by the city's representative in Congress, Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Jones was in the room with Silicon Valley venture capitalists and Sierra Club executive director Carl Pope. But the round table did not go as Jones hoped.
Jones introduced himself briefly, as he thought he was supposed to do. Everyone else gave speeches. The session nearly ended with Jones saying nothing.
"I was feeling terrible," he said over dinner in August. "I was nearly in tears. I thought I had blown it. I'm here with the third most powerful person in the United States, someone who can help our cause . . . and I didn't take advantage of it."
Just before Pelosi adjourned the round table for a press conference, she asked for last questions.
Jones threw up his hand and said, "My question is, at the press conference, will you say four words?" He said he asked her to say, "Green Energy Jobs Bill."
Jones said Pelosi let him continue. "Everybody comes to the neighborhood and tells these kids don't shoot anybody, don't do drugs, don't get pregnant, then they drive away. . . . You tell them you can help fix this country, you're not going to solve just global warming, you are going to solve a bunch of problems in this community."
At the press conference, Pelosi said there was something said at the round table everyone agreed with. In a video clip on the Ella Baker website, Pelosi said, "Where is Van? OK, you say it for yourself. We'll say it together. 'Green Energy Jobs Bill.' "
"I was totally floored," Jones said. "After it was over, her chief of staff says it looks like we'll be working together. I was blown away. Does this really happen to people?"
By May, Jones was telling a House committee, "We imagine formerly incarcerated people moving from jail cells to solar cells." In the summer, the energy bill passed by the House included the Green Jobs Act, authorizing up to $125 million to train up to 30,000 people in "green industries."
One of the bill's sponsors, Representative John Tierney of Salem said in a press release that Jones's "personal 'energy' greatly advanced this idea."
Over the phone this week, the Massachusetts Democrat added, "When I originally thought about job training, I was going in the direction of families who used to work at Sylvania and GE and retool them. Van convinced us there has to a significant carve-out to other people. . . . There is a justice and equity side to this."
Just as the larger energy bill is being bitterly debated over fuel economy, tax breaks, and renewable energy, there is some resistance to green jobs training that might involve nonviolent offenders.
A recent editorial in Investor's Business Daily called it "foolishness" and "waste." Tierney said some Republicans questioned, "Why should we be doing anything for them?"
Jones knows why he is doing something for "them." Several years ago, burned out from police and juvenile justice issues, he attended a retreat. He met Julia "Butterfly" Hill, the woman who lived for two years in a redwood to save if from logging.
In their discussions, Jones said, "I agree with you that there aren't any throwaway species or resources, but you agree with me there aren't any throwaway children or neighborhoods, right? So we need to get these movements working together."
The need is as clear as a drive across the Bay.
"In Marin County, they got organic this and hybrid cars and solar panels and organic denim jeans and 20 minutes later in a car here in Oakland, 1 in 5 kids have asthma because the air quality's so bad from the ports and people are struggling to get the last entry-level pollution-based jobs," Jones said. "We've already seen this one time before. We've already seen a big growth in the dot-com thing and no one benefits in the neighborhood."
Derrick Z. Jackson's e-mail address is jackson@globe.com.
(c) 2007 The Boston Globe
Derrick Z. Jackson
Derrick Z. Jackson is a Pulitzer Prize finalist; a National Headliner and Scripps Howard winner; a 14-time winner from the National Association of Black Journalists; and co-author of The Puffin Plan (2020, Tumblehome), the 2021 winner in Teen Nonfiction from the Independent Book Publishers Association.
Even activists can stun themselves by speaking up. For a decade, Van Jones, a Yale-trained attorney and cofounder of Oakland's Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, was mostly known in the Bay Area for fighting to reform police and youth prisons.
In recent years he and other activists have pushed for inner-city job training in the solar, wind, and other energy-saving industries. In June, Oakland became the first city in the nation to create a "Green Jobs Corps" program. A green coalition in nearby Richmond recently installed solar panels on a home, employing at-risk trainees.
That pioneering landed him an invitation last February to a climate change round table in San Francisco hosted by the city's representative in Congress, Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Jones was in the room with Silicon Valley venture capitalists and Sierra Club executive director Carl Pope. But the round table did not go as Jones hoped.
Jones introduced himself briefly, as he thought he was supposed to do. Everyone else gave speeches. The session nearly ended with Jones saying nothing.
"I was feeling terrible," he said over dinner in August. "I was nearly in tears. I thought I had blown it. I'm here with the third most powerful person in the United States, someone who can help our cause . . . and I didn't take advantage of it."
Just before Pelosi adjourned the round table for a press conference, she asked for last questions.
Jones threw up his hand and said, "My question is, at the press conference, will you say four words?" He said he asked her to say, "Green Energy Jobs Bill."
Jones said Pelosi let him continue. "Everybody comes to the neighborhood and tells these kids don't shoot anybody, don't do drugs, don't get pregnant, then they drive away. . . . You tell them you can help fix this country, you're not going to solve just global warming, you are going to solve a bunch of problems in this community."
At the press conference, Pelosi said there was something said at the round table everyone agreed with. In a video clip on the Ella Baker website, Pelosi said, "Where is Van? OK, you say it for yourself. We'll say it together. 'Green Energy Jobs Bill.' "
"I was totally floored," Jones said. "After it was over, her chief of staff says it looks like we'll be working together. I was blown away. Does this really happen to people?"
By May, Jones was telling a House committee, "We imagine formerly incarcerated people moving from jail cells to solar cells." In the summer, the energy bill passed by the House included the Green Jobs Act, authorizing up to $125 million to train up to 30,000 people in "green industries."
One of the bill's sponsors, Representative John Tierney of Salem said in a press release that Jones's "personal 'energy' greatly advanced this idea."
Over the phone this week, the Massachusetts Democrat added, "When I originally thought about job training, I was going in the direction of families who used to work at Sylvania and GE and retool them. Van convinced us there has to a significant carve-out to other people. . . . There is a justice and equity side to this."
Just as the larger energy bill is being bitterly debated over fuel economy, tax breaks, and renewable energy, there is some resistance to green jobs training that might involve nonviolent offenders.
A recent editorial in Investor's Business Daily called it "foolishness" and "waste." Tierney said some Republicans questioned, "Why should we be doing anything for them?"
Jones knows why he is doing something for "them." Several years ago, burned out from police and juvenile justice issues, he attended a retreat. He met Julia "Butterfly" Hill, the woman who lived for two years in a redwood to save if from logging.
In their discussions, Jones said, "I agree with you that there aren't any throwaway species or resources, but you agree with me there aren't any throwaway children or neighborhoods, right? So we need to get these movements working together."
The need is as clear as a drive across the Bay.
"In Marin County, they got organic this and hybrid cars and solar panels and organic denim jeans and 20 minutes later in a car here in Oakland, 1 in 5 kids have asthma because the air quality's so bad from the ports and people are struggling to get the last entry-level pollution-based jobs," Jones said. "We've already seen this one time before. We've already seen a big growth in the dot-com thing and no one benefits in the neighborhood."
Derrick Z. Jackson's e-mail address is jackson@globe.com.
(c) 2007 The Boston Globe
We've had enough. The 1% own and operate the corporate media. They are doing everything they can to defend the status quo, squash dissent and protect the wealthy and the powerful. The Common Dreams media model is different. We cover the news that matters to the 99%. Our mission? To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. How? Nonprofit. Independent. Reader-supported. Free to read. Free to republish. Free to share. With no advertising. No paywalls. No selling of your data. Thousands of small donations fund our newsroom and allow us to continue publishing. Can you chip in? We can't do it without you. Thank you.
LATEST NEWS
'Brazenly Anti-Worker': Labor Day Reports Highlight Trump Attacks on Unions
"This is a government that is by, and for, the CEOs and billionaires," said AFL-CIO president Liz Shuler.
Sep 01, 2025
Although US President Donald Trump's administration likes to boast that he puts "American workers first," several news reports published on Monday document the president's attacks on the rights of working people and labor unions.
As longtime labor reporter Steven Greenhouse explained in The Guardian, Trump throughout his second term has "taken dozens of actions that hurt workers, often by cutting their pay or making their jobs more dangerous."
Among other things, Greenhouse cited Trump's decision to halt a regulation intended to protect coal miners from lung disease, as well as his decision to strip a million federal workers of their collective bargaining rights.
Liz Shuler, president of the AFL-CIO, told Greenhouse that Trump's actions amount to a "big betrayal" of his promises to look out for US workers during the 2024 presidential campaign.
"His attacks on unions are coming fast and furious," she said. "He talks a good game of being for working people, but he's doing the absolute opposite. This is a government that is by, and for, the CEOs and billionaires."
Heidi Shierholz, president of the Economic Policy Institute, similarly told Greenhouse that Trump has been "absolutely, brazenly anti-worker," and she cited him ripping away an increase in the minimum wage for federal contractors that had been enacted by former President Joe Biden as a prime example.
"The minimum wage is incredibly popular," she said. "He just took away the minimum wage from hundreds of thousands of workers. That blew my mind."
NPR published its own Labor Day report that zeroed in on how the president is "decimating" federal employee unions by issuing March and August executive orders stripping them of the power to collectively bargain for better working conditions.
So far, nine federal agencies have canceled their union contracts as a result of the orders, which are based on a provision in federal law that gives the president the power to terminate collective bargaining at agencies that are primarily involved with national security.
The Trump administration has embraced a maximalist interpretation of this power and has demanded the end of collective bargaining at departments that aren't primarily known as national security agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Weather Service.
However, Trump's attacks on organized labor haven't completely intimidated government workers from joining unions. As the Los Angeles Times reported, the Trump administration's cuts to the National Park Service earlier this year inspired hundreds of workers at the California-based Yosemite, Sequoia, and Kings Canyon national parks to unionize.
Although labor organizers had been trying unsuccessfully for years to get park workers to sign on, that changed when the Trump administration took a hatchet to parks' budgets and enacted mass layoffs.
"More than 97% of employees at Yosemite and Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks who cast ballots voted to unionize, with results certified last week," wrote the Los Angeles Times. "More than 600 staffers—including interpretive park rangers, biologists, firefighters, and fee collectors—are now represented by the National Federation of Federal Employees."
Even so, many workers who succeed in forming unions may no longer get their grievances heard given the state of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).
As documented by Timothy Noah in The New Republic, the NLRB is now "hanging by a thread" in the wake of a court ruling that declared the board's structure to be unconstitutional because it barred the president from being able to fire NLRB administrative judges at will.
"The ruling doesn't shut down the NLRB entirely because it applies only to cases in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas, where the 5th Circuit has jurisdiction," Noah explained. "But Jennifer Abruzzo, who was President Joe Biden's NLRB general counsel, told me that the decision will 'open the floodgates for employers to forum-shop and seek to get injunctions' in those three states."
Noah noted that this lawsuit was brought in part by SpaceX owner and one-time Trump ally Elon Musk, and he accused the Trump NLRB of waging a "half-hearted" fight against Musk's attack on workers' rights.
Thanks to Trump and Musk's actions, Noah concluded, American oligarchs "can toast the NLRB's imminent destruction."
Trump Voter ID Threat Condemned as 'Unconstitutional'
"The Constitution gives this authority to the states and Congress, not you!" said the head of Democracy Defenders Fund, threatening a lawsuit.
Sep 01, 2025
US President Donald Trump continued his "authoritarian takeover of our election system" over the weekend, threatening an executive order requiring every voter to present identification, which experts swiftly denounced as clearly "unconstitutional."
"Voter I.D. Must Be Part of Every Single Vote. NO EXCEPTIONS!" Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform late Saturday. "I Will Be Doing An Executive Order To That End!!! Also, No Mail-In Voting, Except For Those That Are Very Ill, And The Far Away Military. USE PAPER BALLOTS ONLY!!!"
Less than two weeks ago, Trump declared on the platform that "I am going to lead a movement to get rid of MAIL-IN BALLOTS, and also, while we're at it, Highly 'Inaccurate,' Very Expensive, and Seriously Controversial VOTING MACHINES." He claimed, without evidence, that voting by mail leads to "MASSIVE VOTER FRAUD," and promised to take executive action ahead of the 2026 midterms.
Those posts came as battles over his March executive order (EO), "Preserving and Protecting the Integrity of American Elections," are playing out in federal court. The measure was largely blocked by multiple district judges, but the president is appealing.
Trump's voter ID post provoked a new threat of legal action to stop his unconstitutional attacks on the nation's election system.
"Go ahead, make my day Mr. Trump," said Norm Eisen, who co-founded Democracy Defenders Fund and served as White House special counsel for ethics and government reform during the Obama administration.
"We at Democracy Defenders Fund immediately sued you and got an injunction on your first voting EO," he noted. "We will do the same here if you try it again. The Constitution gives this authority to the states and Congress, not you!"
In addition to pointing out that Trump is "an absentee voter himself," Democracy Docket explained Sunday that "the US Constitution gives the states the primary authority to regulate elections, while empowering Congress to 'at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations.' The Framers never considered authorizing the president to oversee elections."
According to the National Conference of State Legislatures: "Thirty-six states have laws requesting or requiring voters to show some form of identification at the polls. The remaining 14 states and Washington, DC use other methods to verify the identity of voters."
Those laws already prevent Americans from participating in elections, according to the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law.
"Overly burdensome photo ID requirements block millions of eligible American citizens from voting," the center's voter ID webpage says. "As many as 11% of eligible voters do not have the kind of ID that is required by states with strict ID requirements, and that percentage is even higher among seniors, minorities, people with disabilities, low-income voters, and students."
Israel's Actions in Gaza 'Meet the Legal Definition of Genocide,' Say Leading Scholars
The resolution is "a definitive statement from experts in the field of genocide studies that what is going on on the ground in Gaza is genocide," said the president of the International Association of Genocide Scholars.
Sep 01, 2025
Israel's actions in Gaza "meet the legal definition of genocide," an overwhelming majority of the world's leading scholars on the subject said on Monday.
The International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS) has passed a three-page resolution that outlines a wide range of Israeli actions that it says constitute genocide, including deliberate attacks against civilians, starvation, deprivation of humanitarian aid, sexual violence, and forced displacement of the population.
In addition to the actions of the Israeli military, the resolution also references statements by high-level Israeli government officials as proof of genocidal intent.
Specifically, the resolution cites "Israeli governmental leaders, war cabinet ministers, and senior army officers" who "have made explicit statements of 'intent to destroy,' characterizing Palestinians in Gaza as a whole as enemies and 'human animals' and stating the intention of inflicting 'maximum damage' on Gaza, 'flattening Gaza,' and turning Gaza into 'hell.'"
The scholars also note Israeli officials' support for a plan floated by US President Donald Trump to expel all Palestinians from Gaza, which they contend "amounts to ethnic cleansing."
The resolution, which passed with the support of 86% of IAGS members who voted on it, concludes by calling on the Israeli government to stop all genocidal actions in Gaza; comply with the provisional measures orders issued earlier this year by the International Court of Justice; and "support a process of repair and transitional justice that will afford democracy, freedom, dignity, and security for all people of Gaza."
Melanie O'Brien, president of IAGS and professor of international law at the University of Western Australia, told The Guardian that the scholars' resolution is "a definitive statement from experts in the field of genocide studies that what is going on on the ground in Gaza is genocide."
The IAGS resolution comes just a little more than a week after the United Nations-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification Initiative (IPC) declared a famine in Gaza that it warned was projected to get even worse in the coming weeks.
"Between mid-August and the end of September 2025, conditions are expected to further worsen with famine projected to expand to Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis," the IPC stated. "Nearly a third of the population (641,000 people) are expected to face catastrophic conditions (IPC Phase 5), while those in emergency (IPC Phase 4) will likely rise to 1.14 million (58%). Acute malnutrition is projected to continue worsening rapidly."
The Gaza Health Ministry currently estimates that more than 330 people in Gaza, including over 120 children, have so far died from severe hunger as a result of the Israeli blockade that has for months prevented the delivery of humanitarian aid.
Most Popular
Together, we can defend the truth when it’s under siege.
Your support powers the fearless, independent reporting that democracy depends on.