Why You Should
Donate To The Howie Hawkins Campaign
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I am writing to ask for your support in my campaign for US
Senate as the Green Party candidate challenging incumbent
Hillary Clinton and her pro-war, pro-corporate policies.
I am running on three leading policies:
- Out Now – End the War – Bring the Troops Home
- Universal Medicare – National Health Insurance
- A Clean Energy Transition for Jobs, Security, and Sustainability — A
Global Public Works Program to Rewire the Planet with Renewable
Energy in 10 Years and Slow Down Global Warming
This race against
Clinton is a high-profile race nationally given her front-runner
status for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008.
The national media is watching. This race gives the Greens
both statewide and nationally a strong anti-war, pro-justice,
pro-sustainability message as an alternative to the Democrat
Party.
Clinton has strongly supported the invasion of Iraq and has
said that Bush is not belligerent enough in confronting Iran.
She has not pursued peace in the Middle East, ignoring the
plight of Palestinians in the occupied territories. Her opposition
to a national single payer health care system led to the collapse
of the universal health care movement, as she instead promoted
HMO insurance companies. With her husband, she aggressively
competes to attract campaign donations from corporate America.
Donations can be sent to:
Hawkins for Senate 2006
PO Box
562
Syracuse NY 13205
Volunteers should contact Sally
Kim at (518) 364-2968.
To qualify as an "official party" under New York
State election law, the Greens must receive at least 50,000
votes for Governor this fall. This would make it easier for
the Greens to field candidates in future elections to challenge
the agenda of the two pro-corporate, pro-war parties.
An independent opposition party like the Greens is the most
effective way to advance peace, justice, and a sustainable
society. It is not just the peace vote that is open to alternatives.
So are the millions without health insurance, work ers losing
wages, benefits and their very jobs, the environmentalists
who see no program to address global warming, the immigrant
and LGBTQ communities fighting against dehumanization, women
and people of color losing their recently won rights. All have
reason to be dissatisfied with Clinton, who takes them for
granted as she rebrands herself as a "moderate" for
her presidential run.
It is not just the peace vote that is open to alternatives.
Health care activists, labor, environmentalists, women, and
people of color all have reason to be dissatisfied with Clinton,
who is taking them for granted as she rebrands herself as a "moderate" for
the presidential run.
I helped found the national Green Party and movement in the
early 1980s. I was the Green Party's state comptroller candidate
in New York in 1998 when the candidacies of Al Lewis and Alice
Green gave the Green Party the 50,000 votes needed to become
an official party. I received just less than 50,000 votes in
my 2002 run for state Comptroller. I recently pulled 5% of
the Mayoral vote in Syracuse.
I have been active in movements for peace, justice, the environment,
and independent politics since the late 1960s. My first electoral
political experience was at age 14 urging adults to register
into the Peace and Freedom Party in California in late 1967.
Even though I couldn't vote for seven more years (the voting
age was 21 back then), I was disgusted with both corporate
parties' support for the war in Vietnam and their foot-dragging
and hypocrisy on civil rights. I was worried about the draft – with
good reason because I did get drafted. I then enlisted in the
Marines but my anti-war organizing quickly led them to place
me in the inactive reserves after basic training for the rest
of my 6year enlistment period. Meanwhile, I was active in the
People's Party (1970-1976) that grew out of the Peace and Freedom
and other anti-war campaigns of 1968.
I was also active in the next effort at an independent progressive
party, the Citizens Party (1980-1984). Then in 1984, I helped
initiate the Green Party movement at the first national organizing
meeting in St. Paul that August.
I have also been active in social movements and direct action,
from the Seabrook nuclear plant occupations in the 1970s to
the Battle in Seattle over the WTO in 1999. I was one of the
founders of the anti-nuclear Clamshell Alliance in 1976 and
have remained active in the safe energy movement, most recently
in a so-far successful effort to get the City of Syracuse to
fund a feasibility study of municipalizing our electric utility.
I didn't win the mayor's race, but the city council is following
the Greens' lead, not the Democratic mayor's, on this issue.
I work unloading trucks and rail cars at UPS, where I am a
Teamster and active in Teamsters for a Democratic Union and
US Labor Against the War. I have published articles on politics,
economics, and ecological issues in many publications, from
Against the Current to Z Magazine. I am the editor of Independent
Politics: The Green Party Strat egy Debate (Chicago: Haymarket
Books, 2006).
The Green Party has led the electoral opposition to the biparti
san drive for empire by the Bush administration and Congress.
On the tragic day of 9/11, the Greens in New York issued a
Howie Hawkins (l) with Green Gubernatorial candidate statement
warning against using this terrorist act as an excuse Malachy
McCourt and Lt. Gov. nominee Alison Duncan to launch another
war for oil in the Middle East. We are still calling for an
independent investigation of why the Bush administration failed
to take action after receiving many warnings from foreign governments
about a pending terrorist attack. The neo-cons, with VP Cheney
and Defense Secretary Rumsfeld at the helm, had openly called
called for a "new Pearl Harbor" to provide a pretext
to invade Iraq and secure the Middle East oil supplies.
I support stopping illegal US-led wars to overthrow and occupy
other countries (Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Venezuela,
Haiti, etc.). Terrorism must be fought politically, ending
US policies that oppress Arab and Muslim peoples while bringing
terrorists to justice under international law. Rather than
curtailing civil liberties at home, we must end US support
for terrorists when they fight on the US side (like Saddam
Hussein and Osama Bin Laden in the 80's). I support deep cuts
in the military budget to fund a peace dividend to be invested
in rebuilding the US econony, protecting the environment, and
increasing funding for education, affordable housing and human
services. It is time for the US to end the threat of nuclear
war by eliminating its massive stockpile of nuclear weapons.
In 1993, Hillary Clinton derailed a thirty-year movement for
national health care by refusing to even consider a single
payer system despite its record of success in the rest of the
world. Instead she crafted a proposal whose principal feature
was to throw even more money at every special interest. The
bloated misguided proposal was easy for the drug and insurance
companies to defeat, and we ended up instead with our health
care controlled by HMOs.
We don't need more money for health care – the US already
spends one out of six dollars in our economy for an ineffective
sick care industry that is ranked only 37th in overall performance
by the World Health Organization. Other countries have more
doctors' visits, live longer, spend far less money and have
much better health care outcomes. We need better health care
for the money we are already spending. The amount of public
funds spent just on Medicaid and Medicare is already bigger
than the per capita health care bill of any country – and
all the other industrial countries provide universal health
care.
We need a system focused on health care services, freedom
of choice and preventive care – not on maximizing profit.
As a first step, we need a Medicare-for-All type system that
would save the 30 cents out of every health care dollar that
is wasted on the paperwork, bureaucracy, profits and excessive
CEO salaries of private health insurance. Physicians for a
National Health Program estimates that a national single payer
system – one program pays all bills but you choose your
health care provider – would save more than $200 billion
a year.
The polar ice caps and glaciers are melting. The tundra is
thawing. The oceans are rising. Infectious diseases are migrating.
Deserts are expanding. Arable land is shrinking. Hurricanes,
powered by the increased energy of warmer seas, are more destructive.
The Boston Globe blasted Hillary Clinton in an April 17 editorial
as a "climate change no-show." She was part of the
inner circle of the Bill Clinton's administration that bullied
the world with arm-twisting and horse-trading to water down
the Kyoto Accords, which it then failed to submit to the US
Senate for ratification. Just last month, she refused to sign
a letter from all the Democratic US Senators, except her and
John Kerry, asking the EPA for a waiver to allow California,
New York, Massachusetts, and several other states to set carbon
reduction goals higher than the federal goals through higher
fuel efficiency standards.
We need to reduce carbon emission by 70% in the next decade
according to the leading global climate change scientists.
Instead, US carbon emissions continue to grow.
US military spending is about $660 billion this year — more
than the rest of the world combined. Converting about half
of US military spending to a Clean Energy Transition would...
- ignite a global engine of job creation and sustainable
economic development.
- enhance US national security and world
peace by spreading good will toward the United States instead
of
resentment toward us caused by US resource wars for oil.
- reduce
US trade deficits by reducing oil imports.
- stabilize energy
costs at affordable levels.
- reduce greenhouse gas emissions
that contribute to global warming.
- create hundreds of thousands
of new jobs in New York retrofitting our buildings, industries,
and infrastructure for the efficient use of renewable energy
Fair Taxes: Cut federal deficits by making the
super rich and the giant corporations pay their fair share
of taxes.
End Poverty—Jobs or Income Now: Guarantee the
right to a living wage job or a minimum livable income. Universal
child care. More access to education and training.
Pro-Democracy
Reforms: Proportional Representation in Congress; Abolition
of the Electoral College; Publicly Verifiable Voting; DC Statehood.
Abolish the Death Penalty
End the "War on Drugs": Drug treatment on demand, not mass incarceration. End drug
prohibition: legalize, regulate, and tax recreational drugs,
starting with marijuana.
Corporate Crime: Little has been done
after the Enron, Arthur Anderson, Cendant, and Adelphia scandals.
Scandals that stole the retirement savings of many middle-income
Americans. The corporate criminals fund Clinton's campaigns;
they don't fund mine.
Media Democracy: Democracy cannot exist
when a few right-wing corporations own most of the media outlets.
The Clinton administration's Telecommunications Act of 1996
has paid off handsomely for the Clintons. In return for deregulation
leading to a few oligopolies in telecommunications, Clinton's
campaign coffers are full. Will she stand up for Net Neutrality
now under legislative assault in Washington?
Financial Deregulation: The Clinton administration's 1999 Financial Services Modernization
Act repealed the Glass-Steagall barrier between commercial
and investment banking, enabling financial capital to put people's
savings at risk in speculative investments by huge financial
conglomerates. That paid off for Clinton, too. Wall Street
firms like Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley
gave more to the Democrats than Republicans last year, with
Clinton, Schumer, Kerry, and Lieberman leading the way.
A common
theme emerges here: Hillary Clinton, the Senator from Wall
Street, bought and paid for by the corporate elite.
A Zogby Poll released on May 30 showed an "unnamed antiwar
candidate" trailing Clinton by only 38% to 32%, with 31%
either undecided or supporting another candidate (Republican
in most cases).
We need a donation of your time and money
so that New Yorkers know that Howie Hawkins is that antiwar
candidate. We need
help in July and August collecting 15,000 signatures for a
statewide slate of candidates so we can get on the ballot.
We need you to pledge to vote for the Green Party's peace candidates
this November. .
In peace and hope,
Howie Hawkins
P.S. Contributions should be made to Hawkins
for Senate 2006 and returned to:
PO Box 562
Syracuse NY
13205
*Website by David Doonan, Labor Donated to Hawkins for Senate Campaign* |
