A email from green jobs advocate Van Jones, who resigned this month from the White House, to his friends and supporters.

Van Jones has been a leading advocate for green-collar jobs. In recent years, he founded the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights and Green for All, and he is the author of The Green Collar Economy. Much of his work has focused on bringing the benefits of the green economy to the inner city.

In March 2009 he was appointed by President Obama to the White House Council on Environmental Quality as Special Advisor for Green Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation. He resigned from this position in early September, after a smear campaign waged by Fox News’ Glenn Beck portrayed him as a “radical communist.” The following is an email he sent out this week:

Dear Friends:

My family and I want to thank everyone for the outpouring of love and support that we have received over the past week or so. I resigned from the White House on Sept. 6, and I have remained silent since then–in keeping with my promise not to be a distraction during a key moment in the Obama Presidency.

Over the past several days, however, many people have been asking how they can help and what they can do.

The main thing is this: please do everything you can to support both President Obama and the green jobs movement. Winning real change is ultimately the best response to these kinds of smear campaigns.

I ask everyone to:

1. Support President Obama’s efforts to fix our nation’s health care, energy and education systems. His victory last fall did not represent the “finish line” in the fight to renew America; his election was just the “starting line.” This autumn, it is time to make history again–with victories on health care and clean energy.

2. Sign up to support groups that are working for green jobs.

As others seek to vilify or marginalize the movement for a clean energy economy, the leading groups deserve increased support. This is the year to ensure that the clean energy transformation creates good job opportunities for everyone in America.

3. Spread the green jobs gospel. The ideas and ideals of the green jobs movement are grounded in fundamental American values–innovation, entrepreneurship, and equal opportunity. My true thoughts can be found in my book: The Green Collar Economy. Check it out from the library–or order a copy and share it with a friend. See for yourself why clean energy and green jobs are good for our country.

4. Stay connected and speak up for me via your favorite blogs (e.g., Huffington Post, Grist, Jack & Jill, etc.), on message boards and all of your favorite social networking platforms (Twitter, Facebook, etc.). Supporters have set up a couple of them, to help you stay engaged, including: I Stand With Van Jones and I Love Van Jones.

In due course, I will be offering my perspective on what has happened–including correcting the record about false charges. In the meantime, I must get my family affairs in order and sort through numerous offers and options.

I want to be clear that I have nothing but love and admiration for President Obama and the entire administration. White House staffers are there to serve and support the President, not the other way around. At this critical moment in history, I could not in good conscience ask my colleagues to expend precious time and energy defending or explaining my past. The White House needs all its hands on deck, fighting for the future.

Of course, some supporters actually think I will be more effective on the “outside.” Maybe so. But those ideas always remind me of that old canard about Winston Churchill. After he lost a hard-fought election, a friend told him: “Winston, this really is just a blessing in disguise.” Churchill quipped: “Damned good disguise.” I can certainly relate to that sentiment right now.

Nonetheless, we must keep moving forward. Let’s continue our work to make an America as good as its promise. These are historic times. And we have a lot more history to make.

Sincerely,

Van Jones

Via The Huffington Post. Read reactions to Van Jones’ resignation: here and here in The Nation, and here in The Huffington Post.

Finally, a plan to build fast trains in America.

After a sending out a series of signals regarding its intentions, the Obama Administration has released its vision for a national network of high-speed train routes in America. The network would consist of 10 regional corridors around major cities, connected by long-distance passenger routes.

Said Obama:

What we’re talking about is a vision for high-speed rail in America.  Imagine boarding a train in the center of a city… whisking through towns at speeds over 100 miles an hour, walking only a few steps to public transportation, and ending up just blocks from your destination.  Imagine what a great project that would be to rebuild America…

Building a new system of high-speed rail in America will be faster, cheaper and easier than building more freeways or adding to an already overburdened aviation system –- and everybody stands to benefit.

Currently, there is only one high-speed rail corridor in the US, which operates in the northeast of the country. Last year, a new plan was approved in California for a high-speed rail system that would link up the state’s major cities (the California High Speed Rail Blog is a good source of updates on its progress).

American was once a rail superpower. As Obama noted on Thursday, railroads were built to tie the country together way back in Lincoln’s time. However, with the construction of the Interstate Highway System in the post-WWII years, America committed itself to a car-based transportation system, and its railways began to stagnate.

In recent decades, Europe and Asia have energetically pursued high-speed rail networks. As University of Pennsylvania Professor Vukan Vuchic told the LA Times: “We are, frankly, several decades behind if we compare ourselves with our peer countries. The country badly needs high-speed rail in all these regions.”

Obama clearly understands this:

“In France, high-speed rail has pulled regions from isolation, ignited growth, remade quiet towns into thriving tourist destinations.  In Spain, a high-speed line between Madrid and Seville is so successful that more people travel between those cities by rail than by car and airplane combined.  China, where service began just two years ago, may have more miles of high-speed rail service than any other country just five years from now.  And Japan, the nation that unveiled the first high-speed rail system, is already at work building the next:  a line that will connect Tokyo with Osaka at speeds of over 300 miles per hour.

So it’s being done; it’s just not being done here.”

Obama has already allocated $8 billion to developing high-speed rail in his Reinvestment and Recovery Act, and has committed to budgeting an additional $5 billion over the coming years. He noted, however, that these sums are just the beginning of a long-term project. Stay tuned for a more detailed National Rail Plan, to be released in October.

For the full text of Obama’s speech: whitehouse.gov.