Start Making Sense: Is Liberalism Dead?

Editor's Note: The following is Part III in a series of transcripts taken from a standing-room-only book panel/party in San Francisco for AlterNet's new book, Start Making Sense: Turning the Lessons of Election 2004 into Winning Progressive Politics.

The panel included Van Jones (executive director of Ella Baker Center for Human Rights), George Lakoff (linguist and best-selling author), Wes Boyd (co-founder of MoveOn.org), Adam Werbach (executive director of Common Assets Defense Fund), Lakshmi Chaudhry (senior editor of AlterNet) and moderator Holly Minch (director of the Spin Project).

Part III

Holly Minch:

Is liberalism as we know it dead? Rest in peace. Or are we in the process of a rebirth? And what will it take for us to bring about a rebirth of inspiration and hope and optimism for a new American future?

Van Jones:

Well I don’t know about whether anything is dead or not. This is what I think. I think that we need a new story. I think that we need a new myth and I want to suggest one.

I want to make an argument that we are entering the third wave of environmentalism. And that the third wave of environmentalism actually creates the possibility of a new politics in the United States.

The first wave was called conservation; Teddy Roosevelt; let’s preserve the wild areas, etc. And that had its day and it had its beauty. The second wave initiated by Rachel Carson’s book “Silent Spring” and could be considered a regulation wave. Let’s regulate the bad stuff. Let’s regulate toxics, poisons, pollution. Let’s try to keep that bad stuff away from our children, away from our drinking water, etcetera.

The third wave, which is coming is conservation, yes, plus regulation of the bad, yes, plus investment in the good: investment in solar; investment in permaculture; investment in organic; investment in high performance cars and high performance buildings; investment in the environmental technology of the future. And that new wave, that new green wave has a potential to create new jobs, to create new wealth and to deliver environmental benefit. Not just avoid environmental horror but to deliver environmental benefits to this country.

Now, there is a danger. The danger is – the question that has to be asked and answered is – will this new green wave lift all boats? Will this new green wave lift all boats or will we have eco apartheid? Will we have what we have right now where in Marin you’ve got solar this and bio that and everything is groovy and hybrids and everything and it’s all eco and fifteen minutes away in Oakland you have smoke stakes, asthma epidemic, cancer clusters, learning disabilities, birth defects and the whole nine yards, all driven by environmental pollution. Are we going to have eco apartheid or are we going to have eco equity? That question, if we stand together and say, “You know what? This new green wave will lift all boats. We are going to stand together on a single, moral principle.

And that principle is this. Those communities that were locked out of the last centuries’ pollution based economy are going to be locked in to the new clean and green economy. We make that declaration. [Applause] When you do that something quite remarkable opens up as a possibility.

First of all, the economic justice struggles and the criminal justice struggles and the racial justice struggles suddenly have something in common. Something in common with the more white, affluent, progressive struggles. You can begin to put together a united front. You can begin to say, “We have a role now for government as progressives. As progressives we say, “no, no, no, we don’t want a nanny state but we don’t want a Robo Cop state either. We refuse to go back and forth between this welfare state versus warfare state debate, which is a false and leaves our communities further and further behind. We have a role for government. [Applause]