For immediate release: May 15, 2018

Howie Hawkins, the Green Party candidate for Governor, called on Governor Andrew Cuomo to cancel what the governor announced last Friday as a “security and solidarity” trip to Israel.

“The live ammo shooting of unarmed Palestinian demonstrators by Israeli soldiers, killing scores and wounding hundreds, should be condemned by all. Cuomo should cancel his trip to Israel to demonstrate his rejection of this unjustifiable massacre,” Hawkins said.

For immediate release: May 14, 2018

Howie Hawkins, who is seeking the Green Party nomination for Governor, will participate in two anti-poverty demonstrations in Albany on Monday, May 14.

The first will begin in Academy Park at 11 am to support the Driver's License Access and Privacy Act (A10273). Enacting the bill would enable undocumented immigrants to obtain drivers licenses in the interests of public safety, the economy, and community integration.

The second demonstration will be the first New York action of the national 40-day Poor People’s Campaign. It will begin at 2 pm in West Capital Park. The first week's theme is "Somebody's Hurting Our People: Child Poverty, Women, and People with Disabilities."

Hawkins will be available for media interviews.

“Access to drivers licenses for undocumented workers and raising the welfare grant above the poverty line are policies that all working people should support because most of us will need public support at some point in our lives,” said Hawkins.

He noted a 2013 survey conducted by the Associated Press that found that “4 out of 5 U.S. adults struggle with joblessness, near-poverty, or reliance on welfare for at least parts of their lives.”

“This common experience of the immense majority of Americans ought to be the basis for a winning majoritarian working-class politics. We can win the Economic Bill of Rights that the Martin Luther King’s 1968 Poor People’s Campaign, like today’s campaign, was seeking, including a job guarantee, a guaranteed income above poverty, universal public healthcare, and affordable housing and quality education for all,” said Hawkins.

NY Post, May 11, 2018

One month ago, notes the New York Green Party’s Howie Hawkins at Gotham Gazette, the Working Families Party endorsed Cynthia Nixon for governor. Three days later, the WFP “said they didn’t really mean it” when political director Bill Lipton suggested the party would take her off its November ballot line if she loses the Democratic primary to Gov. Cuomo so as not to play the “spoiler.” Hawkins says he feels for the WFP’s rank-and-file: “They got double-crossed by Cuomo in 2014 when they endorsed him. This year they got strong-armed by Cuomo when they didn’t.” But that’s the problem with New York’s cross-endorsement “fusion” system: All the minor parties (except the Greens, who always field their own separate slate of candidates) “function like political clubs inside the major parties,” instead of like “independent parties.”

Socialist Worker, May 11, 2018

Now that the WFP has endorsed Cynthia Nixon, she has a potential ballot line to run against Cuomo in November in the likely event that she loses the Democratic primary. But the WFP's Lipton has already declared that that's not going to happen. "We will not be a spoiler," the state director told reporters. "In 20 years, we have never been a spoiler."

In other words, don't count on Lipton to break the abusive cycle in which Cuomo kicks down at the unions, who kick down at the WFP, who then kick down at grassroots activists backing the Green Party campaign of Howie Hawkins and Jia Lee, the latter a New York City teacher and opt-out activist.

How unrealistic to back a third party campaign, the argument will go, at a time when Cuomo and the unions won't even tolerate a primary challenge inside the Democrats.

THERE ARE many teachers like Jia Lee, a member of the Movement of Rank and File Educators caucus inside the UFT, who disagree with the concessionary strategy of their union's leadership. They face the challenge of organizing to bring the spirit of the red-state rebellion into the bluest of cities.

Black Agenda Report, May 10, 2018

Original: International Socialist Review, Winter 2017-18

If the 13 million votes received by self-styled “democratic socialist” Bernie Sanders in the 2016 Democratic presidential primaries accomplished nothing else positive, it put the questions of socialism and independent working-class politics up for public discussion. I have been critical of Sanders’s socialism because his policy platform was New Deal liberalism, not socialism. More importantly, by entering the Democratic Party, Sanders broke with the socialist principle of independent working-class political action.¹ He became the “sheepdog” herding progressives, who had the option of voting for the Green ticket of Jill Stein and Ajamu Baraka in the general election, back into a party run by the billionaire class he professes to oppose.² Nevertheless, the broad liberal to radical American left is now discussing what socialism is and debating whether the Left should be inside or outside the Democratic Party—or both inside and outside. These are good discussions to have.

As we enter the run-up to the 2018 midterm elections, Trumpism is weakening under its own self-inflicted wounds, the ambivalent legitimacy of Trump’s election by a popular minority due to the eccentricities of the Electoral College, and a spreading realization that behind the economic populism of his campaign rhetoric is the most reactionary Republican economic and social policy agenda since the late nineteenth-century era of Social Darwinism and Jim Crow. A massive resistance against Trump and his administration has emerged, and it is in the main counting on a Democratic restoration to save us. The Democrats may replace the irrationalities and racist revanchism of Trump, but they won’t replace the austerity capitalism and militaristic imperialism to which the Democratic Party is committed. It is a key institution upholding the broad policy consensus of America’s ruling class and its political representatives in the two-party system of corporate rule.

Gotham Gazette, May 10, 2018

Independent Political Report, May 10, 2018

That didn’t take long. On Saturday, April 13 the Working Families Party endorsed Democrat Cynthia Nixon for New York Governor. By the following Tuesday, the WFP said they didn’t really mean it.

“We will not be a spoiler,” said Bill Lipton, the WFP’s political director, indicating that the WFP will take Nixon off its ballot line if she loses the Democratic primary against Governor Andrew Cuomo. Perhaps the WFP will offer Cuomo their ballot line for a third time if he wins the Democratic primary – if he will take it.

I feel for rank-and-file WFP progressives. It’s an abusive relationship. They got double-crossed by Cuomo in 2014 when they endorsed him. This year they got strong-armed by Cuomo when they didn’t.

I would like to reassure WFP progressives that, whatever happens in the Democratic primary, the Green Party gubernatorial ticket will offer a progressive alternative in the November 6 general election.

(photo via Facebook: @HowieHawkinsForGovernorPolitician)

Independent Political Report, May 10, 2018

Videos of speeches

Rewire.News, May 9, 2018

All of this left a bad taste in the mouths of people who had endorsed Cuomo as well as many voters who chose someone else. Come general election time, the Green Party’s Howie Hawkins and Brian Jones got more votes than Cuomo did on the Working Families Party line, pushing the WFP down a spot on the ballot.

Urban CNY, May 8, 2018

Albany–Green Party gubernatorial candidate Howie Hawkins is lobbying state legislators today in support of the New York Off Fossil Fuels Act (NY OFF, A.5105/S.5908A ). The bill would amend the state’s energy master plan to require a transition to 100% clean energy by 2030. It would halt the building of any new infrastructure for natural gas or other fossil fuels.

The lobby day in Albany is organized by Food & Water Watch and the Green Education and Legal Fund. Over 100 organizations in the state have endorsed the NY OFF Act.

“I support NY OFF because it’s the only climate bill before the legislature that actually does what the climate science says we must do. The science says that industrial states like New York must get to 100% clean energy and zero net greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 if the planet is to avert runaway global warming and climate catastrophe,” Hawkins said.

Livingston County News, May 8, 2018

At the Genesee County Libertarian Party-hosted event, Sharpe’s message was about winning, not just doing well enough to secure official party status. He believes the fractured gubernatorial field — with Cuomo, Cynthia Nixon, Marc Molinaro and Howie Hawkins — means that it will only take 1 million votes to win.