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Senate hopeful comes to campus
http://www.bupipedream.com/pipeline_web/display_article.php?id=3257 |
October 31st, 2006
By Erika Neddenien, News Writer
Stephanie Munoz / Contributing Photographer
Thursday night a crowd of approximately 50 gathered to hear Green Party U.S. Senate candidate Howie Hawkins detail his campaign platform.
Hawkins, a co-founder of the Green Party, focused his speech on three major issues: ending the war in Iraq, health care and the implementation of renewable energy sources in New York.
“It can’t get any worse over there,” said Hawkins of the situation in Iraq. “The violence is aimed at U.S. troops, and they’re directing it back at those people. If you withdraw the troops, the extremists will hopefully be isolated in their communities.”
Hawkins is also calling for a complete overhaul of the current health care system in America.
According to his Web site, Hawkins encourages “a democratic universal health care program, funded by a single public payer out of progressive taxes and democratically controlled by elected local health boards.”
Thursday night Hawkins added, “Every other industrial country has this — even Iraq did before we went in and overthrew them.”
Hawkins has long been an advocate of employing renewable energy sources in New York, as he helped to found the Clamshell Alliance, an anti-nuclear group that opposed nuclear construction in New England in 1976.
Hawkins’ current plan would involve a $300 billion a year investment to “rewire the planet for renewable energy” over the next 10 years, creating new jobs and boosting the economy.
“We’re facing now an ecological Armageddon,” he said. “We need to start investing now so that we have a safe and reliable form of energy in the future.”
Hawkins believes investing in this new technology would not only help the environment, but would also improve foreign relations.
“Instead of fighting wars for oil, let’s share this technology and make friends,” he said. “We can be the world’s humanitarian super power rather than being the world’s bully.”
In addition to these three main issues, he also spoke of “pro-democracy reforms” he would like to see take place. These reforms would include abolishing the Electoral College and developing more publicly verifiable forms of voting. Hawkins, who has been excluded from public debates with competitor Hillary Clinton, complained that his exclusion has caused important issues to be overlooked.
“Everyone is getting worked up over guns, God, gays and abortion — which are all important issues,” he said. “But domestic and foreign policy is hardly debated.”
While Hawkins stated that he did not believe he was likely to win the election, he hopes that will not affect voters’ willingness to vote for the third party candidate. He believes that obtaining even a marginal portion of the vote will help to bring attention to the major issues of his campaign.
“You can all make a difference,” he said. “Everyone can do something and that’s how movements succeed.” |
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 *Website by David Doonan, Labor Donated to Hawkins for Senate Campaign* |
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