Times Herald-Record: Letter to the editor 11/2/06

A candidate to vote for

I’m not voting for Hillary Rodham Clinton.

She was on the board of Wal-Mart for six years. She receives significant contributions from large corporations, health insurance and defense industry companies.

http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061102/OPINION/611020315

She voted for the Patriot Act. She still refuses to admit that this war has been a dreadful mistake from the beginning. She’s good on reproductive rights, but she is now inching toward the right. Is she serious about my right to control my own body?

Her refusal to debate Jonathan Tasini in the Democratic primary really ticked me off. What could be more contemptuous of Democrats and democracy?

I heard Howie Hawkins, the Green Party candidate. I found him sensible: troops out of Iraq now, health care for everyone, increased minimum wage, job growth in this country instead of our taxes subsidizing moving our jobs overseas, etc.

How nice to have a candidate I want to vote for.

Andi Weiss Bartczak

Gardiner

Hawkins Faults Clinton, Democrats for Failing to Filibuster Military Commissions Act

Howie Hawkins for US Senate
http://www.hawkinsforsenate.net/

Media Release

For immediate release: October 19, 2006
For more information: Howie Hawkins, (315) 425-1019

Howie Hawkins, the Green Party candidate for US Senate, castigated the Hillary Clinton and Senate Democrats for failing to filibuster the Military Commission Act of 2006 recently approved by Congress and signed into law Tuesday by President Bush.

“The Military Commissions Act sets us back nearly 800 years to 1214, the year before the Magna Carta, which established the right of habeas corpus, the right to challenge one’s imprisonment as illegal before a court that is independent of the executive branch of government. Now the president can label anyone, US citizen or foreign national, a so-called illegal enemy combatant and send them away in secret to military prison forever. The definition is so broad it could apply to antiwar activists engaged in nonviolent protests or humanitarian aid to the victims of US military aggression,” noted Hawkins.

“Democrats always tell progressives to support them as the lesser of two evils. But when it is time to confront the greater evil, the Democrats invariably roll over and are missing in action. The Democrats rubber-stamped this assault on human rights in the name of the so-called war on terrorism. It will further justify the growing worldwide perception of America as the evil empire,” said Hawkins.

Hawkins asked, “What is filibuster for if not to stop this kind of outrage in the heat of an election campaign? Was Robert Byrd sick the week this passed the Senate? Where was Russell Feingold? We know Clinton would never filibuster this runaway militarism. She is too busy taking in runaway campaign contributions from the PACs of military contractors like Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, and Northrop Grumman. It’s obvious that the Democrats rolled over for the Bush fearing last minute attack ads. The Democrats don’t have the backbone to fight back.”

“The Democrats are afraid of being labeled soft on terrorism. As a result, they are as stupid on terrorism as the Republicans. The question is not being hard or soft on terrorism, but being smart or stupid. The stupid approach of US foreign and military policy has created terrorists, first of all by decades of training, financing, and  encouraging the terrorism of the Islamic right throughout the Middle East against secular nationalist and leftist movements. Add US support for Israel’s expanding settlements and military operations in the occupied Palestinian territories, US military bases in over 100 other countries, US bombing of another country every 18 months on average since World War II, and now the installation of puppet regimes in Afghanistan and Iraq through US military force, and it is not surprising that some of the victims try to strike back. A smart approach would reverse these policies and make friends instead of enemies by being the world’s humanitarian superpower instead of its global military occupation force,” Hawkins said.

“This Military Commissions Act will do nothing to stop stateless terrorism and could be used to eliminate activists who oppose US state terrorism using methods that used to be protected by the Bill of Rights in the US Constitution,” Hawkins said.

Greens Protest Arbitrary and Antidemocratic Rules Used

GREEN PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES
http://www.gp.org

For Immediate Release:
Thursday, October 12, 2006

Contacts:
Scott McLarty, Media Coordinator, 202-518-5624,
mclarty@greens.org
Howie Hawkins, 315-425-1019, hhawkins@igc.org

• Exclusion of other parties’ candidates is violation of voters’ right to make informed choices, say Greens

• Short reports of Greens responding to debate exclusion in various states

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Greens across the U.S. protested aggressive efforts by Democratic and Republican politicians and their supporters to block Greens and other third party and independent candidates from participating in this year’s candidates debates.

“Voters have a right to know about all the candidate who’ll be on the ballot,” said Howie Hawkins, New York Green candidate for U.S. Senate , who has 21% support among independents in an October 10 Zogby poll but has so far been excluded from the two scheduled debates between Democratic incumbent Hillary Clinton and Republican John Spencer. “Voters have a right to make an informed choice about which candidate supports their interests and ideals. Debates should include all candidates who have qualified for the ballot. Anything less amounts to censorship and rigged elections.”

Green Party leaders criticized debate sponsors for using biased criteria to limit debates to candidates from the Democratic and Republican parties, and noted that the IRS requires that 501(c)(3) (nonprofit) forum sponsors “provide an equal opportunity to political candidates seeking the same office” .

“Debate sponsors are using arbitrary judgements based on opinion poll percentages and campaign treasuries to decide which candidates voters get to see and hear at the debates,” said Chris Lugo, Tennessee Green candidate for the U.S. Senate , who has called for open and inclusive televised debates in Tennessee (petition) . “Opinion polls and the prejudices of debate sponsors are more and more determining who gets elected.”

“Opinion polls often limit respondents’ answers to a choice of Democrat or Republican. When opinion polls become more important than the ballot box, democracy is in trouble,” added Laura Wells, California Green candidate for State Controller. “Ironically, Greens now represent majority public opinion on issues like the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, while many of the debates are limited to ‘stay the course’ warhawks from the Democratic and Republican parties.”

Reports from Green campaigns across the U.S.:

CALIFORNIA – Green gubernatorial candidate Peter Camejo called California’s only televised debate (October 7) an “insult” to voters and part of a plan by Democrats and Republicans to limit the choices Californians have at the polls, and cited a nonpartisan opinion poll showing that as many as 63% of likely voters with an opinion favor his inclusion.

CONNECTICUT – On Monday, October 9, Green gubernatorial candidate Cliff Thornton and dozens of his supporters protested outside the Garde Theatre in New London after The Day (Connecticut) excluded him from a statewide televised debate. (Pictures and a report of the protest)

ILLINOIS – Green gubernatorial candidate Rich Whitney, polling as high as 7.8%, was excluded from an October 2 debate hosted by Illinois Radio Network in Decatur. Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D) has backed out of other scheduled debates in Marion and Chicago because Whitney was invited or was about to be invited, and made it clear he would have backed out of the Decatur debate had Whitney been invited.

IOWA – After Green candidate Wendy Barth was barred from a series of gubernatorial candidates’ debates, the Iowa Green Party announced that it will provide real-time responses to the debate questions through the campaign website . Iowa Greens protested the debate sponsors’ (several Iowa TV stations and newspapers) arbitrary and high threshold of 15% support in opinion polls for inclusion in the debates.

MASSACHUSETTS – After Green gubernatorial candidate Grace Ross was barred from the first televised debate this past spring that was sponsored by The Boston Globe, WBUR, New England Cable News, Harvard Kennedy School of Government, and Mass Inc., Ms. Ross and Massachusetts Greens launched a series of protests that embarrassed the sponsors and ensured Green inclusion in most subsequent debates and community forums. Ms. Ross’s performance in a series of televised gubernatorial debates has been widely praised (“Debate rich on issues,” by Eileen McNamara, The Boston Globe, October 1.

MICHIGAN – Douglas Campbell, two-time Green candidate for governor, was turned away on Monday, October 2 by Michigan Public Broadcasting station WKAR-TV as he tried to participate in a televised debate which had been promoted for its ‘open format’. Campbell sharply criticized the station’s use of “contrived, vague and inapplicable benchmarks” to exclude himself and other parties’ candidates whom the state Bureau of Elections had qualified for the November 7 ballot. In the U.S. Senate race, Green candidate David Sole filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission over his exclusion from a debate scheduled for October 18 at the Detroit Economic Club. Mr. Sole noted that the Club, sponsored by corporate money, was violating its nonprofit status by limiting the debate to the two corporate party candidates.

NEW YORK – Green candidates Malachy McCourt for Governor, Rachel Treichler for Attorney General, and Howie Hawkins for U.S. Senate have been excluded from the debates organized by the League of Women Voters and NY1 TV news station. Debate criteria included polls that barred third-party candidates and fundraising thresholds that excluded Green Party candidates, who do not accept corporate contributions. Ms. Treichler has organized an alternative debate open to all of the ballot-qualified Attorney General candidates.

WISCONSIN – Supporters of the Rae Vogeler for U.S. Senate campaign flooded the offices of Wisconsin Public Television (WPT) with emails and phone calls protesting her exclusion from WPT’s ‘Special Joint Appearance of U.S. Senate Candidates’ on its October 6 ‘Here and Now’ program, which only featured Sen. Herb Kohl (D) and Robert Lorge (R).

MORE INFORMATION

Green Party of the United States
http://www.gp.org
1700 Connecticut Avenue NW, Suite 404
Washington, DC 20009.
202-319-7191, 866-41GREEN
Fax 202-319-7193

Green campaign listings, news, photos, and web sites
http://www.gp.org/2006elections
Database of 2006 Green candidates
http://www.greens.org/elections
Video clips of Green candidates
http://www.gp.org/2006elections/media.shtml
Green Party News Center
http://www.gp.org/newscenter.shtml

A Labor Agenda: Labor Day Leaflet

Howie Hawkins for US Senate

A Labor Agenda

Howie Hawkins is a member of Teamsters Local 317 and active in the national
Teamster rank-and-file reform caucus, Teamsters for a Democratic Union.
Howie presently works unloading trucks and rail cars at UPS.

Labor Law Reform

Increase NLRB funding and staffing so complaints against employers are
handled in a timely fashion and employers receive strong and speedy
penalties for breaking labor laws.

Enact the proposed federal Employee Free Choice Act, providing for:
· Majority card-check recognition of unions.
· Triple back pay for workers fired for union organizing.
· Mandatory contract arbitration at union request after 90 days bargaining
for first contract for newly recognized bargaining unit.

Repeal Repressive Labor Laws: Repeal the Taft-Hartley Act, the Hatch Act,
and state “Right-To-Work” Laws which have crippled labor’s ability to
organize by outlawing or severely restricting labor’s basic organizing
tools: strikes, boycotts, pickets, and political action.

The right to organize unions, bargain freely and strike when necessary is
being destroyed by employers and their representatives in government. Today,
nearly 1 out of 10 workers involved in union organizing drives is illegally
fired by employers. That is why union membership is declining. And as union
membership falls so do the wages of all working people, union and non-union
alike. (The buying power of the average worker’s wage has declined by 15
percent over the last 25 years.)

A Workers’ Bill of Rights: Enact a set of legally enforceable civil rights,
independent of collective bargaining, which (1) extend the Bill of Rights
protections of free speech, association, and assembly into all workplaces,
(2) establishes workers’ rights to living wages, portable pensions,
information about chemicals used, report labor and environmental violations,
refuse unsafe work, and participate in enterprise governance, and (3)
establishes workers’ rights to freedom from discharge at will, employer
search and seizure in the workplace, sexual harassment, and unequal pay for
work of comparable worth.

Expand Workers’ Rights to Organize and Enjoy Free Time:
· Ban striker replacements.
· Triple back pay for illegally locked-out workers.
· Unemployment compensation for striking or locked out workers.
· Binding contract arbitration at union request.
· Full rights for farmworkers, public employees, and “workfare” workers
under the Fair Labor Standards Act.
· Ban prison slave labor: End the use of US prisoners to produce goods and
services for sale to the public.Double-time pay for all overtime.
· Prohibit mandatory overtime.6 weeks paid vacation annually in addition to
federal holidays.
· 1 year paid educational leave for every 7 years worked.
· 1 year parental leave for each child born with no loss of seniority.
· Right to work shorter hours: No discrimination in pay and promotion
against workers who choose to work short hours; no two-tier wage systems
between part-timers and full-timers.

Howie Hawkins supports an increase in the minimum wage to $10 an hour;
capping excessive CEO salaries; a constitutional amendment to guarantee a
living wage job; increasing government support for employee ownership; and
ending corporate welfare.

It is time to reverse the Democratic and Republican Party tradition of
taxing the poor and middle class to pay for tax cuts and giveaways for the
wealthy and large corporations. The US leads the world’s industrial
democracies in income inequality, and the gap is greatest here in NY. We
need to end corporate welfare; we need to make the wealthy pay their fair
share of taxes; and we need to invest in sustainable, community-based,
environmentally-friendly jobs that will put New Yorkers back to work in our
inner city neighborhoods and upstate communities.

In recent decades, Corporate America has systematically destroyed millions
of decent paying jobs for working people. Politicians from both major
parties have given hundreds of billions of dollars in corporate welfare to
their corporate campaign contributors while CEO’s have awarded themselves
with obscene compensation packages as they slash jobs for Americans workers
through mergers, runaway investments, subcontracting and outsourcing to
third world countries. We just witnessed the first so-called economic
recovery that did not result in an increase of jobs – and many of the jobs
that do exist pay poverty level wages or are part-time, without benefits
such as health care.

We can create millions of living-wage jobs through public investment in
infrastructure restoration, public works and services, and conversion from
nuclear and fossil fuels to solar-based renewable energy. It’s time to stop
pretending that another tax cut for the corporate rich is a jobs program.
This decades-old trickle-down approach to job creation is a proven failure.
Private jobs are good, but public jobs are necessary to create decent jobs
for everyone willing and able to work.

Individuals who work should make enough to support their families, starting
with providing them with decent housing, food and clothing. Instead, our
politicians refuse to give the poorest workers a pay-raise while CEOs raid
their companies to pad their own pockets. We need a minimum wage of at least
$10 an hour while enacting a reasonable maximum wage as FDR proposed back in
the ’40s. Over 45 million workers – one in three – make under $10 an hour.
The minimum wage traditionally allowed a full-time worker with two
dependents to be at the federal poverty level. Today, the minimum wage falls
more than three thousand dollars short of that goal.

Hawkins supports federal legislation to cap excessive CEO salaries. He would
also empower the true owners of American companies – mainly workers through
their pension plans – to vote their shares, rather than the financial
managers of such funds. The average worker takes home takes home $517 per
week, while the average CEO of the largest companies takes home $155,769 per
week. The gap between workers and large companies is now greater than 300 to
1. In 1982 the gap was 42 to 1.

Hawkins supports Fair Trade rather than the “free trade” corporate
globalization policies of the Democrats and Republicans and calls for the
repeal of NAFTA and the World Trade Organization.

Hawkins is an advocate of public ownership of key industries and services,
such as energy and health care. We should start with the social ownership of
the energy sector, especially oil. When profit matters above all else, then
we end up with more pollution, more congestion and more death on the roads.
The environment must come before the superprofits of the oil tycoons.

Noting the 47 million Americans without health insurance, Hawkins wants to
make the pharmaceutical companies publicly owned. The research performed by
the drug companies is heavily subsidized by the taxpayer, but we have no say
in what drugs are developed or how they are marketed. Drug company profits
are driving up health care costs for everyone.

Hawkins supports Medicare for All, national health insurance through a
single public payer, so everyone is covered and everyone is free to choose
their doctors, clinics, and hospitals.

Green Party Anti-War Candidate Hawkins Stands Alone for US SenateAfter Working Families, Independence Nominations

For immediate release: June 3, 2006 For more information: Howie Hawkins, 315-425-1019, hhawkins@igc.org

Statement by Howie Hawkins

It wasn't even close at the Working Families Party convention today: 93.6% for Hillary Clinton, 6.4% for Jonathon Tasini.

No surprise here. Working Families passed an antiwar resolution, but that was merely posturing for the widespread antiwar sentiment in New York. When it came to real world consequenses, the Working Families Party backed the pro-war candidate, Hillary Clinton.

What else would one expect from a party that instead of supporting a single-payer state health insurance plan is pushing a Clinton-style compulsory private health insurance plan?

WFP's campaigning for the so-called Fair Share for Health Care Act for NY would have the state government subsidizing the rapacious private insurance companies that waste 30% of health care expenditures on bureaucracy, profits, and excessive salaries for top managment. Medicare, our national single-payer system for seniors, runs on 3% overhead.

Of course, private health insurance companies don't want to cover the older Medicare beneficiaries because they get sick more and are not profitable. So we get "socialism" for the unprofitable coverages and capitalism for profitable coverages — and leave 2.9 million New Yorkers and 49 million Americans uncovered.

And WFP — the branch of the Democratic Party designed to co-opt potential independent electoral insurgencies on the left through cross-endorsement or fusion candidacies — is campaigning to patch up the most irrational and inefficient system of health care financing in the world.

Meanwhile, the Independence Party dropped all pretenses of being an independent alternative at its convention today when it backed major party candidates for all statewide offices, including Hillary Clinton for US Senate.

But the good news is in the US Senate race there will be no confusion — the Green candidate will be the clear anti-war choice.

A Zogby poll earlier this week found that 32% of New Yorkers would vote for an "unnamed anti-war candidate" vs. 38% for Clinton and 31% for other and undecided (a percentage that is close to the hard core Republican vote).

The task now for the Green Party and the wider antiwar movement is to attach a name, Howie Hawkins, to the "unnamed anti-war candidate" who already has about one-third support and to inform New Yorkers that the anti-war candidate is within striking distance of winning.

Open Letter on Proposed Carousel Tax Deal

Open Letter to Mayor Driscoll:

Dear Mayor Driscoll,

$251 million. That is the amount that Syracuse taxpayers will lose over 30 years under the new proposed agreement on the Carousel Mall expansion. That is $8.36 million per year to subsidize the private business venture of millionaire Bob Congel.

The $251 million deficit is calculated from the numbers published in your March 2006 letter to city taxpayers and from the announced details on the proposed new agreement.

According to your letter, the city would give up $374 million in city and school property taxes ($238 million on the existing mall and $136 million for the 850,000 sq. ft. expansion). Under the new agreement, the loss of property tax revenue would be even greater if the second phase hotel and third phase 350,000 mall expansion were included.

Under the new agreement, guaranteed fees from the developer to the city decrease from $54 million to $53.4 million. On the other hand, the projected sales tax revenues increase from $10 million to between $46.6 to $69.6 million depend whether phase one or all three phases are built. This sales tax revenue is not guaranteed. But let's be optimistic.

Assuming that all three phases are built and that they meet sales projections, the city will gain $123 million in developer fees and sales tax revenue. But we give up $374 million in property tax exemptions (and that doesn't include the exemptions for phases 2 & 3).

In other words, Mayor Driscoll, you are giving away $251 million in tax revenue with no guarantee that Congel will build anything more than an 850,000 sq. ft mall expansion.

Why? To subsidize a mall that competes with locally owned neighborhood and downtown businesses, generates more sprawl and pollution, and exploits workers at low-wage, no-benefit, part-time service jobs. No thanks! This deal is a dark cloud and the only silver lining is in Bob Congel's pocket. Tax revenues for the city aside, an expansion of Carousel Mall would undermine many other policy goals of the city.

Four days before the last mayoral election, you signed the city on to the UN's Urban Environmental Accords. Carousel Expansion undercuts many of the actions prescribed in the Accords relating to renewable energy and greenhouse gas reduction, sprawl, and good jobs for low-income people.

Renewable Energy and Greenhouse Gas Reduction: Action 5 of the Accords require the city to “Adopt a citywide greenhouse gas reduction plan that reduces the jurisdiction's emissions by 25 percent by 2030, and which includes a system for accounting and auditing greenhouse gas emissions.”

If city staff are developing a greenhouse gas accounting system, surely they are aware of the researchers at SUNY-ESF who have documented that even if an expanded Carousel Mall were run completely on renewables, it would generate a net increase in fossil fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions due to all the workers, consumers, and goods that have to be transported to and from the mall. A display showing the conclusions of this research was featured at the entrance to your recent Sustainability Summit in the OnCenter.

In this regard, it is disconcerting that the proposed new agreement exempts the first phase of Carousel expansion from the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) standards.

Sprawl: Subsidizing a centralized mall like Carousel undermines the official policies of sustainable nieghborhood planning the city and county have adopted, notably the Onondaga County Settlements Plan developed by “new urbanist” planner Andres Duany in 2001 and the City Comprehensive Plan adopted by Common Council last year, as well as the UN Urban Environmental Accords.

Action 8 of the Accords captures the core of the sustainability planning in all of these policy documents when it calls for “urban planning principles and practices that advance higher density, mixed use, walkable, bikeable and disabled-accessible neighborhoods.” Action 15 calls for “Implement a policy to reduce the percentage of commute trips by single occupancy vehicles by ten percent in seven years.” Centralized malls like Carousel generate sprawl, pollution, and commuting far more than dispersing retail and entertainment businesses in local neighborhoods.

Jobs: Action 9 of the Accords says “Adopt a policy or implement a program that creates environmentally beneficial jobs in slums and/or low-income neighborhoods.”

The study commissioned by the Syracuse Industrial Development Agency in 2000 to assess Carousel expansion impacts found that the average hourly wage at the expanded mall would be $6.67. Most of the jobs would be less than full time with no benefits. This is the market rate for these kinds of retail and service jobs.

A new mall expansion deal should have included provision for expanding the city's Living Wage Ordinance so that beneficiaries of economic development subsidies like Carousel Mall are required to employ workers at a living wage with health benefits.

Furthermore, by supporting a highly subsidized competitor to retail and entertainment businesses in our neighborhoods, the expansion of Carousel Mall undercuts job creation and business development in our neighborhoods. The Pyramid partners, the projects bondholders, and the national chain stores that will occupy most of the leasable space will siphon almost all of the profits generated by a mall expansion out of the Syracuse community. It will reduce local jobs in low-income communities and undermine business development by local owners who would reinvest their profits in the community.

There are better alternatives!

For 35 years of state and federal tax policies that have shifted the tax burden from the rich to the working class. The decline of state and federal revenue sharing of relatively progressive income taxes has required municipalities to raise regressive sales and property taxes, which take a much higher proportion of middle and low income working people's income than wealthy people's income.

Yet even while the burden of financing local public services has been on to the local taxes of working people, big businesses like the Pyramid Companies are getting local tax breaks, making the tax burden on ordinary residents and small businesses even greater. The first thing the city should do is got to court to get the Centra decision overturned and put Carousel Mall on the tax rolls like the rest of us.

To stabilize the city's finances, the city should adopt a progressive local income tax, including the incomes of the 40,000 or so commuters who work in the city but do not pay taxes for the city services they rely on. Yes, that requires state legislative approval. We should go for it. And while we are at it, we should lobby for guaranteed state revenue sharing of state income taxes so we don't have to go begging for special financial help every year.

To create good jobs and community-owned businesses that build sustainable, prosperous, mixed-use neighborhoods, the city should set up a municipal bank with an entrepreneurial department that can help plan, finance, and advise new community-owned businesses.

To meet the renewable energy and greenhouse gas reduction goals of the Urban Environmental Accords, the city should establish a public power utility that would, like many public power system are doing, rewire the city for the efficient use of renewable energy. All the construction jobs that would go into building a net energy loser like the Carousel expansion could be created to retrofit city structures for energy efficiency and renewable energy generation.

For the Green Party of Onondaga County,

Howie Hawkins, Syracuse (425-1019)

Bob Kehoe, Baldwinsville (638-8530)

Steve Penn, Syracuse (383-0069)

Hawkins Urges Clinton to Join in Mother’s Day Peace Pledge on Iran

Hawkins Calls upon Hillary Clinton to Join Him in a Mother's Day Pledge to Oppose Invasion of Iran

No War on Iran

Statement of Howie Hawkins, a NY Green candidate for US Senate

Mother's Day, May 14, 2006

Mother's Day was created by Julia Ward Howe in 1870 as an antiwar holiday in response to the terrible bloodshed of the United States Civil War. She wrote:

"Arise then women of this day! Arise all women who have hearts! We women of one country will be too tender of those of another country to allow our sons to be trained to injure others. From the bosom of the devastated Earth a voice goes up with our own. It says 'Disarm, Disarm!'."

For thousands of American mothers, this Mother's Day will serve as a reminder of their grief and sorrow for their lost their sons and daughters in Iraq, Afghanistan and other countries where American soldiers are engaged in war. And many more mothers worldwide will grieve for their loved ones who have died in war this year.

In the spirit of Julia Ward Howe's original call for Mother's Day, I urge all the candidates for US Senate in New York State, starting with Hillary Clinton, to join me in opposing the initiation of a new war against Iran by the United States. So far, Clinton has gone in the other direction, criticizing the Bush administration for not being more aggressive in confronting Iran.

It was the CIA in 1953 that engineered the overthrow of the democratically elected government of Iran, initiating a disastrous half-century US policy of supporting reactionary monarchists and Islamic fundamentalists against secular nationalist pro-democracy movements throughout the Middle East. Then, as now, the prime motivation of the United States was the control of oil as the means of global domination.

War with Iran should not be an option. As deceptive, immoral, and costly as the illegal invasion of Iraq has been, an attack Iran could unleash a far more devastating wave of destruction and waste of human lives. Diplomacy is what our nation must use – not bombs and invasions.

We need to stop invading other countries because we covet their oil supplies. We need to understand that democracy means allowing people to make decisions for themselves, not installing compliant rulers that serve as junior partners to US military and corporate elites.

Oil, not the potential for the development of nuclear weapons, is the prime motivation for the pending US attack on Iran. After the misleading statements about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, we need to be wary of US government claims about Iran's nuclear capacity. Most international experts believe Iran is five to ten years away from having nuclear weapons capability. Let us not forget that the Bush administration recently agreed to further expand the nuclear weapons capability of India because the US wants them as an ally in the coming showdown with China that the US made clear it is planning in two key policy documents released this year: the White House National Security Strategy and the Pentagon's Quadrennial Defense Review.

It is the US – not Iran – that is engaged in nuclear warfare today in the form of depleted uranium shells. The radioactive dust from depleted uranium shells devastated Iraq and American veterans as a result of the 300 tons of depleted uranium used in the first Gulf War in 1991. One-third of the more than 800,000 US veterans of the first Gulf War developed Gulf War Syndrome, which many researchers believe is caused by depleted uranium radioactivity exposure. A 1998 study found as a result of exposure to depleted uranium a five-fold increase in cancers among Iraqis, including a ten-fold increase in uterine cancer, a sixteen-fold increase in ovarian cancer, and very high incidences of still births, congenital deformities, and childhood leukemia.

The US has used ten times more depleted uranium in the current Gulf War than in the first Gulf War, with over 3,000 tons used in Iraq and over 1,000 tons used in Afghanistan since 2002. With a half-life of 4.5 billion years, as long as Earth has been in existence, the use of depleted uranium by the US is nothing less than genocide and ecocide.

Instead of spreading more resentment throughout the world against the United States by starting another aggressive war against Iran, we need to spread good will toward the United States by converting $300 billion a year in US military expenditures into a global public works program to rewire the planet for clean, renewable energy systems, creating a global engine of job creation and sustainable economic development that renders nuclear power as well as oil obsolete and unneeded.

As a first step toward this realizing this Peace Dividend, I urge President Bush and Senator Clinton to use Mother's Day this year to announce that they support bringing our troops home from Iraq.

Declaration of Candidacy for Green US Senate Nomination

My full candidacy statement referred to in the letter is too long to post here. If you email me requesting a copy, I will send it right back to you.

Howie Hawkins

P.O. Box 562, Syracuse NY 13205

hhawkins@igc.org

315-425-1019

May 1, 2006

Dear State Committee Members and New York Greens,

I am now actively seeking the Green nomination for US Senator from New York.

I had hoped we could recruit a high-profile candidate like Ralph Nader or Harry Belafonte. I had hoped Gloria Mattera would run.

I had also hoped one of our declared candidates would run the kind of campaign that can put our independent anti-war, pro-justice approach before the public as a serious alternative to Hillary Clinton, the corporate-sponsored war-mongering frontrunner for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination.

None of that has happened. Many State Committee members have asked me to run. They filed the Green nomination petition on my behalf by March 1. I filled out the party's questionnaire by April 1 to keep our options open.

But I waited to commit to the race because I was hoping another Green would emerge with an effective campaign.

I was also in the midst of a campaign to secure city funding for a feasibility study of public power in Syracuse and a petition to the FCC to deny relicensing to the local Clear Channels-owned and only news/talk radio station in Syracuse. It looks like the study will be funded in the city budget to be voted on this week and the petition to the FCC is now filed.

So now it is time to make a decision. As of today, I am actively seeking the nomination.

I am asking for your vote at the State Convention, Saturday, May 20 in Albany.

In the statement that follows, I will discuss my view of the political environment of the Senate race, the policies I will advocate, who I am, how I would campaign, and why I am not satisfied with the candidates who are now actively campaigning for the Green nomination.

Please feel free to contact me at hhawkins@igc.org or 315-425-1019.

For a Green Future,

Howie Hawkins