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Green Party senate candidate stops in Wayne
Finger Lakes Times
By Jim Miller |
WILLIAMSON - Howie Hawkins figures he could be the next senator from New York if he won the votes of everyone who agrees with him about ending the war in Iraq, establishing universal health care and other issues. But the Green Party candidate for Hillary Clinton's seat also knows that may not happen. "What I'd really like to do is get double digits," he told 10 people Friday night at a meeting of Wayne County Greens. "Then it'll be hard to ignore us in the future."
He calls himself the only anti-war candidate in the race and has made ending U.S. involvement in Iraq the centerpiece of his campaign.
"Withdraw from Iraq unconditionally and immediately: Troops home now," he said, quoting a slogan that appears on his campaign signs and literature. "The so-called War on Terror was the wrong response to 9/11."
Terrorism, he said, should instead be combated through police work, special forces and addressing its root causes.
Wearing a green T-shirt, Hawkins walked into last night's meeting with a stack of books he's selling to help pay for his under-funded campaign: "Independent Politics," a collection of essays to which he contributed; and "Cruel and Unusual," a work about the Bush administration, for which he has no kind words.
Hawkins sees the war in Iraq as a land-grab designed to secure access to oil and military bases. And he calls for an independent investigation to find out "what really happened" on Sept. 11.
"I don't know if it was incompetence … if they let it happen or it was an inside job," he said, describing a "false-flag operation" designed to scare Americans into supporting the Bush administration.
A 54-year-old Teamster from Syracuse, Hawkins works the night shift at UPS and frequently runs for office. In 2000 and 2004, he ran for the House of Representatives; in 1997, for mayor of Syracuse; in 2002, for State Comptroller.
During his hour-long talk Friday, he criticized the amount of corporate money that pours into politics and called for the development of alternative energy sources and establishing a universal health care system.
He faults Clinton for the lack of the latter. Plans for universal health care, a part of Democratic platform since the Harry Truman era, were scuttled by Sen. Clinton during her husband's presidency, Hawkins said.
"What we have now is probably the most inefficient and irrational health care system in the world," he said, citing New York's 2.9 million uninsured.
To Hawkins, all the issues are interrelated. He ties his advocacy of alternative energy to ending terrorism, for example, because the use of alternative energies could end American use of foreign oil.
"That would do more for national security and peace than all the arms in the world," he said. "Terrorists are being spawned because we're occupying other countries."
He's running his campaign on $20,000, a rented car and an endorsement from Ralph Nader. But he points to polls showing that many New Yorker's share his views.
"The people are with us on these issues," Hawkins said. "Unfortunately, most of the people with us are still trying to reform the Democratic Party."
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 *Website by David Doonan, Labor Donated to Hawkins for Senate Campaign* |
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