Why You Should Donate To The Howie Hawkins Campaign Dear Friends, I am running on three leading policies:
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: Volunteers should contact Sally Kim at (518) 364-2968. The Greens Need at Least 50,000 Votes for Governor to be an Offical Party 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. Howie Hawkins - A Peace and Justice Candidate 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 Greens ARE The Peace Party 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. Health Care for All 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. Halt Climate Change with a Clean Energy Transition 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...
Howie Hawkins – On The Issues 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. Help Support Howie Hawkins and the Green Party 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, P.S. Contributions should be made to Hawkins for Senate 2006 and returned
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