The time has come for a public-private community partnership to fix this country and put it back to work.

Nobody wants a nanny state, where the government is stamping out initiative and telling us what to do, but the idea that the only alternative to that is to throw the American people overboard into a global economy with no protections to cushion us from some of these blows is absurd on its face. That's why I think there's been a concerted effort to distort my message. When you hear me speak beyond the sound bites taken out of context, I think I make a lot of sense to people, even those in Red States like the one where I grew up.

We actually need conservatives to be better conservatives and we need liberals to be better and stronger liberals.

Back in 2007, I met this white guy [director Peter Byck] with a lot of hair and a video camera, at a conference that I happened to be attending for the launch of an organization called Blacks in Green. I had never heard of him and Peter had never heard of me. We just started talking; he liked what I had to say, so he asked me if I'd be willing to be in this documentary he was doing about carbon pollution. I said, "Sure!" It was kind of a no-brainer.

In addition, black folks need to attend green conferences, too. We just self-segregate and don't go. They might even waive your fee if you apply on a diversity basis, because they'd be so shocked to see somebody from a different background wanting to be a part of the green movement.

Now, we can live in this little, liberal bubble bath where everybody's supposed to like everybody and do all this stuff and understand our pain and know our history. But that, maybe, works in your dorm, that doesn't work in the real world, and people need to get out of all that.

I've never launched any initiative or campaign that people thought was a slam dunk.