 Hello everyone, I am here with Howie Hawkins He is the co-founder of the National Green Party in the United States and he's currently seeking the nomination of the Green Party He just announced that his running mate will be Angela Walker and there's a lot happening with his campaign Howie Thank you so much for coming on the program Well, thanks for having me. Is it okay if I call you Howie? Everybody does. Okay. Okay. That's easy. It's uh, the only primary I lost in the Green Party primary is somebody put Howard on the ballot Never mind it. I got only time I got kind of Howard is when I was inch when I was a kid So everybody calls me Howie. That's fine. Yeah, see I same is kind of true for me I go by Mike and when people call me Michael like online and what not like my family calls me Michael But when I see someone online call me Michael, it feels really weird So it's like don't don't do that. So I thought I'd ask beforehand Um, so thank you so much for coming on the program It's not often that we get a presidential contender on but I just kind of wanted you to be able to Explain what your campaign is about because my audience if if you're not aware or familiar with them They are largely supportive of Bernie Sanders or were and judging from the response that I've seen There's a lot of people that feel very disappointed very demoralized And I've seen you know a sentiment that you know, many of them want to check out of electoral politics altogether So what is your message to these individuals who feel like all hope is lost? There's nothing we can do. What do you say to these types of people? Well, I think Bernie showed there's a lot of support for the progressive reforms he talked about And some people say he created that I think he just gave voice to a lot of sentiment that was already there Like Medicare for all you can check the polling They used to call it national health insurance going back to Truman And it's always pulled more favorably than those opposed usually in a substantial majority Occasionally a plurality So he gave voice and particularly at a time when you know healthcare is becoming harder and harder to access And the same thing with inequality. We've had 45 years of stagnant wages housing and healthcare And college for the kids have gone through the roof And so people are retiring with no savings Some of them are still paying student loans I know a woman who comes out of the civil rights movement. Name's coli clark. She was Medgar ever's assistant active in the student nonviolent coordinating committee went north with king to chicago She finally got into college in the 80s She's also security now and they're garnishing her social security checks to pay student loans It's ridiculous. So bernie Expressed what people are feeling Now for people to say it's hopeless It's exactly what the corporate power structure wants Because they don't want to have to pay attention to you They want to you know Ignore you if you don't vote And I would say if you settle for biden They can take you for granted You get lost in the sauce you vote for biden. He's against Medicare for all he said he vetoed if he crossed his desk as president So what I'm saying is the green party is where you can continue to fight for those things Through november and beyond And so don't waste your vote You know make your vote count make people hear what you want And then make the politicians come to you Yeah, so to the sanis people I think we're the logical place where they should go to keep fighting for the things they were fighting for Yeah, and I think it's so important because when you consider the fact that 100 million americans basically don't vote That's really scary. Like that doesn't bode well for the health and longevity frankly frankly of our democracy so Not participating even though, you know admittedly myself I kind of felt like I just want to disengage from electoral politics That is exactly what the corporate power structure, you know the capitalist system wants And so long as you are active and still voting and making your voice heard I do think that there's hope but it's when all of us check out. That's when I really feel like You know, um, then all hope is lost. So I appreciate you saying that now one thing that I have always admired about the green party is that They are the closest ideologically to me So when it comes to you and bernie sanders There is actually some really substantive differences that I appreciate So first and foremost one of the major differences is that you are explicitly pro bts On top of that you support reparations for american descendants of slavery So talk through a little bit of your policy platform and also as I understand it You were the main founder of the green new deal So a lot of the green party policies and their platform has been popularized by the progressive left That's fighting within the democratic party to an extent, but tell us about your platform and what you're choosing to run on currently Okay, well At the broad scale, you know, bernie calls himself a democratic socialist and I think he's missing Two of the fundamentals of democratic socialism And this goes back to marx and angles Summing up the failure of the 1848 revolutions to try to get the franchise for working people And they were in alliance. These are revolutions spread across europe and in the in the latin america And it was the working people in the new middle classes the professionals In the new rising business class fighting the land of delete to be included in the government The land and delete made a compromise let the middle class in told the working class you don't get to vote So marx and angles, you know told the movement. We got to have our own party We can't rely on the professionals and the business people as reliable allies So that's one independent working class political action. The other is Bernie wants to tax a billionaire class In order to fund social programs Social programs we should have the problem is the billionaire class still has concentrated economic power And that translates into concentrated political power So they can resist and roll back to social programs So what we got to do is have a socialist economic democracy Based on social ownership and democratic administration of the major means of production So that the people not a capitalist elite makes the investment decisions and You know has control of the economy And they have political equality Democracy needs socialism political democracy You really can't get until you have economic democracy So that was you know the foundation of the socialist program a socialist economy In bernie Why he makes gestures to it like he wanted to promote worker co-ops He talked about public energy In his green new deal But he also said when he gave his speeches on socialism, I'm not about he called it government ownership You know government can be your municipality. I think you want to decentralize as much as possible Social ownership can also mean cooperants. So But that aside, you know, he wasn't about changing who owns the major means of production Which is central to the socialist platform So that's on the broad scale in terms of the issues i'm raising I'm leading with what I consider three life-or-death issues the climate crisis, which is where the green new deal comes in the inequality crisis inequality kills working-class life expectancies are declining So we call for an economic bill of rights and we can talk about how these different programs would work But the right to a job and income above poverty affordable housing comprehensive health care public education from pre kindergarten child care through post secondary colleges universities technical and trade schools Continuing adult education and finally a secure retirement And I want to double social security benefits to do that So that's a life-or-death issue because For basically the bottom half of the income spectrum every month. It's like If you have to go to the doctor, it's a crisis You have to skip rent or utility payments and put you in trouble Or you skip the doctor's appointment and you might die A man the man that lived downstairs for me last year He had to get kidney medicine. He's on medicaid The medicaid didn't pay for the kidney medicine And when it came to the end of winter march, he decided to pay his utility bill and skip the medicine that month His kidneys failed by mid april That kind of thing happens too often So that's the second life-or-death issue the third is this new nuclear arms race We're modernizing our nuclear forces the strategic nukes are six times faster Launch on warning isn't the issue anymore. You launch when you think the other side might launch So the hair triggers closer than ever. We got tactical nukes in convention in conventional forces With the military doctrine that We can escalate the de-escalate So if you're losing a conventional war you use tactical nukes and then you say well de-escalate russians have the same doctrine That's insanity. I mean daniel elsberg's last book was the doom state machine And the point was that and he used to be a nuclear war planner before he was a vietnam war planner He said once the nukes start flying. It's basically automated. They're all going and we're dead so We need to and this is a you know major part of my program Deep cuts in military spending i'm saying 75 percent get out of these seven official wars we're involved in Get out of special operations in over a hundred countries start bringing our troops home And then take some nuclear disarmament initiatives pledge no first use disarm to a minimum credible deterrent And on the basis of all those tension reducing initiatives go to the nuclear powers And say we want complete a mutual nuclear disarmament According to a treaty that was agreed to by 122 nations in july 2017 the treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons The international campaign for the abolition nuclear weapons got the Nobel peace prize for that And hardly anybody in this country knows about it because none of the presidential candidates in any party are really talking about this issue Let alone having putting forward proposals for disarmament So those are my three Leading issues their life or death issues and in the fourth one that always comes up is well, you're going to spoil the election for biden You know no the Democrats are spoiling the election because since nator ran We've been promoting a proven non-partisan solution Which is get rid of the electoral college and go to a ranked choice national popular vote Then you can vote for what you want without helping your worst enemy And the democrats have never picked that up instead. They blame the russians and the green party And that's not dealing with reality So these are things that we're trying to raise and then you you mentioned a couple issues reparations in bds We'll start with bds. I'm generally against economic sanctions They hurt the people more than they hurt the people you're trying to target And right now in this coronavirus thing A lot of these countries were sanctioning need aid and trade to deal with the coronavirus crisis And they were having problems before this um The exception is when an oppressed people asks for that kind of support And I was very involved in the anti-apartheid movement seeking divestment and u.s. Sanctions against South Africa Which we finally got in 86. I was very involved from the suede uprising in 76 until Congress Overrode Reagan's veto of sanctions And it very quickly got the South African elite to say, you know, we can continue to exploit and oppress Africans here or we can do business with the rest of the world and they chose business And although South Africa is still a very unequal society. They don't have the formal racial barriers So that worked and we got the same kind of situation in Israel, Palestine And the Palestinian movement's very united around Boycott divestment sanctions So I support them And the way I would apply it is in steps So you don't just shoot all your bullets in one blast And the first thing which the movement there is calling for the national bds committee Omar Omar Bargoudi is the prominent leader there Is is military sanctions. We should start cutting military aid to israel Until they start respecting Palestinian human rights and negotiating good faith For a resolution Instead, we got the Trump administration about to approve, you know, give their, you know, house of what he called stamp of approval on Netanyahu annexing the settlements in the west bank Which is exactly the opposite of where we go. The u.s. Cannot, you know, basically have a position israel right or wrong It should be neutral They should be for the human rights of everybody living there And bds I think can contribute to that as far as reparations goes Absolutely the next step is a commission to study reparations for african-americans I think we need to study it and have this commission because African-american community needs to be heard from in terms of what they need From reparations There's always been a debate how much it should be individual and how much should be collective in other words African-american families have on average one-tenth the wealth of white families They need, you know, some money To make, you know, repair the damage that's been done by slavery Jim crow ongoing discrimination And, you know, people say well, that's a long time ago But what about during the obama administration black america lost half its wealth Because the corporate criminals that did predatory lending and foreclosers and then the the robo signing Which was just basically computerized fraud to steal people's homes They were not prosecuted In fact, two of them are in the trump administration now steve minouche and wilber ross And they were right in the middle of the robo signing minouche and one west was notorious predatory lender and forecloser so That happened in the last decade So this is, you know, something that needs to be repaired right now But these are the things that need to be studied the collective side is If you give people cash In the economy that still has institutionalized racism and capitalist exploitation The capitalist is going to end up with that money when people spend it So how do we change the system? When the modern reparations movement started james foreman who came out of snick And they had a black economic development congress in detroit and it came up with a black manifesto And he took it to the riverside church in the manner that the churches and synagogues fund Black newspapers tv stations and radio stations and a black research institute As institutions that would help the black community Come to grasp with their situation and advance You know educate people through the media and advance policy solutions so those are the kinds of things that commission would study And uh, I would add that there are other groups that need reparations There are mexican americans in new mexico whose land Has been lost against the treaty of the dog. What about lupe which was What settled the war of 1848 when the u.s. Basically took afra mexico And those people had land rights that have been violated and of course Uh, indian treaty rights. There's 370 treaties with indigenous people Lands has been stolen against those treaties and services that the federal government supposed to provide have not been So there needs to be An honoring of those indian treaty rights and bringing those services and that land back into their possession so And then the other people are in this overlaps with the black community and the brown community is The war on drugs the devastation it did to communities. We need to trust truth justice and reconciliation commission So people can talk about what happened to their communities and what needs to be done to repair them because You know, all the people put in prison for possessing drugs That's most of what the people that went to prison Uh, you know destroyed families evacuated large portions of communities of young males And it was devastating. So that's another area where we need reparations Yeah, and everything that you say I agree with 100 percent Which is really, you know, it's nice because when we we talk about politicians in any of the two major parties Even if you find Agreement you're going to find vigorous like disagreement in other areas whereas with the green party your policies mostly line up With myself ideologically But one of the most important things that I really respect the green party for is your relentless advocacy for rank choice voting because This isn't to me just about voting, you know For who is someone I agree with like I genuinely want Power structures to be infiltrated by outsiders like the green party and whatnot So can you talk through about what rank choice voting nationally would look like and how we would get that because we know that in the state of Maine Uh, this was approved via ballot initiative and now we see a relatively competitive race with a third party candidate, a green party candidate Lisa Savage So if we got rank choice voting, um, we're not necessarily just talking about a third party in terms of the green party We're talking about a huge step forward in terms of a multi-party system One why do you think democrats refuse to adopt this and I think we both know the answer But I you know, I think it's cathartic to hear, you know, why from you and also to how do you think? As you know, a collective left greens socialists independence. We can make rank choice voting a reality Well, I think the dims are worried that a third party will get established their instinct with the greens Is to keep us off the ballot You know, I'll just talk about our experience in new york We have to get a substantial petition done before we had a ballot line And they always challenged us And even when we did have a ballot line like this year The dnc with that, uh, national firm law firm that worked for clinton and the dnc One of the partners is named coey Forget the other name prominent law Washington law firm Went to court and said as the coronavirus lockdown started We're challenging the green signatures and the green signatures are good You know, we went to enroll greens and they were good petitions And said we're challenging them But we don't want the board of election to review them because of the coronavirus crisis For public health reasons therefore knocked the greens off the ballot And we defeated them on that but that was their instinct And then under the cover of the coronavirus crisis the state budget attached to it Tripling the ballot access requirements for the green party to keep our ballot in terms of votes in this election And if we don't get it Tripling the number of signatures we got to get from 15,000 to 45,000 In a six-week window and when you're Petitioning you really need to double so 90,000 signatures in a six-week window You know, we do it with volunteers Um, the democrats they got a lot of money. They could pay people to do that But that's a real barrier So the new york times when they heard about this plan they called it the democrat secret plan to kill third parties so That's why the democrats They don't want a democracy. They want to take their left for granted And so I think that's what motivates them But there are progressive democrats who've got behind it. We have rank choice voting about 20 cities They passed it in main the democrats progressive democrats up there as well as Libertarians and you know, just sort of those practical democrats and republicans you have up there in new england town meeting country where You know, those elected officials and state legislatures They they sort of have to be accountable those town meetings because those town meetings can you know, call them the task too So different kind of political culture in most of the country. So I think that helped So, yeah rank choice voting, you know, people should understand it. You rank your choices one two three take the nadir florida thing Just to so there were a lot of candidates, but just have nadir bush and gore More of nadir's supporters Any choice would have been gore or bush So what happens the rank choice voting if nobody gets the majority in the first round The last place candidates eliminated and their ballots switched to their second choice So in that election nadir's vote would have switched to gore and he wouldn't want to handle it So that eliminates The spoiler problem the incentive to vote for the lesser evil to stop your worst enemy The other thing rank choice voting can do is get proportional registration proportional representation in legislatures It's called the single transferable vote. So the counting is a little more complicated. It's the same principle but And there builds in congress for this you have multi member districts And you rank your choices in order of preference And the end result is each party gets representation and it's proportion to the support they got So that's in contrast to the plurality winner system we have right now So I I ran in this district where I'm sitting right now about Nine years ago now and I got 48 of the vote And the person that got 52 got all the power My vote didn't get any representation And that leads to tyrannies of majorities or sometimes tyrannies of minorities because the plurality wins And that's that's not right. This is a system Of voting plurality winner that was invented in the late middle ages In england in 1430 They made the sheriff instead of taking what he thought was the consensus of all the property owners and his shire He had to go out and actually count them and the plurality Candidate would then go to the house of commons You know, we're what are we now six almost 600 years later? It's time for an update Yeah, this is the system is antiquated and to kind of put this into context for people when we talk about multi member districts The districts that we're all in we get one representative, right? So the person with the plurality if they get 45 of the vote That they win right the 65 gets no representation So if we just increased the district magnitude to two in that instance in your race You as well as your opponent would have gone to congress and let's say hypothetically speaking, you know We had someone with 45 percent someone with 30 percent and someone with 10 percent The people like the majority of people would have someone Representing them representing their voice Whereas the 10 percent would be left out if the district magnitude were to for example But it just it makes things more representative. It's more proportional and it's more democratic And so I totally agree and this is why I've really been trying to push rank choice voting for so long because it helps to make marginalized voices electorally actually Take positions of power which is important now speaking of you know being disenfranchised as a non mainstream candidate You were recently suspended from twitter. You got your account back and this isn't necessarily a new phenomenon You know third party candidates, uh, you know activists social media does tend to marginalize them to a degree indie media on youtube Kind of is doing the same thing to us currently. So can you talk a little bit about what was that all about because I heard that You were banned from twitter. I thought it was outrageous. Um, but you're back. But what what happened? Well, they said I was impersonating myself I you know, how do you do that? and you know, it was just a two or three sentence Message they didn't talk to me Didn't I think what happened is somebody You know, there's a complaint for them. They said somebody complained Saying they were me that somebody that my page was impersonating them and without investigating. They just took me off So we got some media and there was a petition and So then we got a two sentence, uh, you know a letter about maybe a week or 10 days later and they said, uh Your, uh pages or what do they call it restored? It'll be up in an hour And then it just said thanks twitter. They always sign off. Thanks twitter They never talked to me So it's still kind of a mystery what happened. Um, but my guess is somebody, you know Played a dirty trick on me and then twitter just didn't investigate And just took that complaint form At its face value And even if it wasn't necessarily someone reporting you it could have been automated But just to kind of compare contrast could you imagine this happening to any sitting member of uh congress a democrat or republican it only happens to the outside voices who conveniently Kind of, you know, uh need to be suppressed for the powers that be So, you know, uh, we can put on our tin foil hats and speculate about this But I thought that it was it was absurd to have, you know A presidential candidate be suspended from twitter for an arbitrary reason Nonetheless, I had to ask you about that since I had you on Another thing that I'd be remiss if I didn't ask you about Is we've been hearing a lot about the prospect of jesse ventura jumping in the race Possibly seeking the green party's nomination I wanted to ask you because the green party's nomination is still taking place. There's other candidates running. There's dario hunter. There's others Um, how would this work? I mean assuming he wants to run for green assuming he's going to run for president Is there any way that you and him could collaborate would he have to run as a separate candidate? What are your thoughts on this? Well, he has said he's supporting the green party this year. He joined the green party Uh, it remains to be seen if he's actually going to run You know, I think jesse's a guy who likes to win. He's getting in late You know, the numbers just aren't there um, and you know, he has a A mixed history on policy that you know, the greens are going to scrutinize. So he'd have a tough time. I believe And you know, it remains to be seen if he actually gets in um, but I welcome him getting involved and uh You know, if he if he's not running, I'll you know, ask for his support He said he'd support the green party and you know politics is about addition not subtraction. So He brings in people. That's good Sure, sure. Um, I this was before we got news that you announced your vp Um, but in the event you hadn't selected a vp Would that be a possibility of selecting jesse ventura? Um, do you know if any of your opponents would have considered that just because I think that name recognition is a Real struggle for third party candidates. So I could see value there But I mean you would want ideological consistency, of course something to consider But is that something that you would have considered if he had made this, you know, um, not announcement But you know a floating of a candidacy sooner Well, I chose angela walker because I know her I have a rapport with her, you know, that personal chemistry is so important when you're running as a team She knows the issues She speaks in a way that people understand and believe her conviction She moves people um, she's a younger african-american Worker, she's a truck driver With a long history. She ran against david clark that crazy sheriff in milwaukee county. Where's the cowboy hat? He was a trumpy. I mean he was After angela ran against him. She got 20% of the vote. She ran as an independent socialist back in 2014 People started dying in his jails. He was telling people to get a gun. Don't call 9 11 I mean it was really somebody who had to be challenged and you know, angela is that kind of person She stepped up And uh, she's been involved. She was involved in the wisconsin uprising as the legislative director of her Amalgamated transit workers union local. She was a bus driver at the time in milwaukee So, you know When we talked in my campaign team, she was always at the top of the list as far as I was concerned So I was just happy that she agreed Um, I've never met jesse venture. I mean it would take time to develop a relationship Um, I think she balances the ticket in so many ways that I I don't think I could have a better choice uh, but if you know Jesse doesn't run But supports us You know, there's a role for surrogates. He can speak to his people and urging the vote for us Uh, and you know, I I would welcome that and I respect that. Um, because you know, I don't I was a little bit torn on this, right because I think that name recognition is really important But at the same time I I like Angela walker. I like her, uh, the fact that she's a working american. I like that. She's an activist So I do think you have to find that balance and I thought that you made a fantastic choice So, you know, I just kind of wanted to get your take on this because I wasn't necessarily sure What was going to happen if anything would come of that because I knew the back in 2016 I think earlier on you and jill stein had kind of been open to working with bernie sanders So I wasn't necessarily sure if that was something that would have been possible. Um, so yeah Thank you for speaking on that. You know, I don't know that he will run, but if he is trying to, you know, um Spread policies that are positive for working americans, then you know, I'll I'll support that but yeah I respect your decision. I think that you know, the logic makes a lot of sense You want people who are organizers who are activists and who are working americans because I you know The when I think of idealism in america and the american dream There's nothing more american than a truck driver You know running for president to be on a ticket. I think that's great. Um, so yeah Okay, so moving on I do want to ask you a question. This is a little bit of a controversy So in an interview with primo nutmeg you had misgendered and dead named chelsea manning and just for context I want to read the quote to you says you say this about julien assange julien assange should not be prosecuted for publishing leaks from bradley manning or What what's he called himself chelsea? So I just want to get your take on that. I don't believe that this is something that you did intentionally But dead naming is something that's really harmful to the trans community And I just wanted to give you the opportunity to kind of respond to that Yeah, I put my foot in my mouth. Um, this was like 70 minutes into a long interview When I got up and three at three in the morning to drive over to massachusetts to give a speech and then did this interview And I was worried about lunch. I was afraid I was gonna miss it and so You know, I've worked on the uh manning case before she transitioned so That name popped into my head first and I realized whoops And then I used the wrong pronoun. It was just An innocent mistake and I've apologized about it, you know many times And uh, it's just one of those things that You know, I made a gaff and I you know, I apologize for it. It was a mistake. Sure Thank you for saying that. I I appreciate that. I just wanted to get your input on that. This is something that My viewers had brought to my attention that I wasn't aware of previously Um, but thank you. I I appreciate that. Um, it yeah, I could also add that that was Over a year ago than it that I think well, no, I may was made it was a year ago But people keep putting it on the internet, you know, it is That people that oppose me, you know, it's kind of the smear thing And uh, you know, please accept my apology. It's sincere. I appreciate that. I appreciate that. Um, Another thing that I wanted to ask you about another controversy So you had previously suggested that you believe that the 2016 democratic party primary was rigged I would agree with that sentiment and now there are other individuals running for the green party nomination that are saying that the same thing Is virtually happening in the green party in 2020 So I want to bring up ian schlackman This is someone who was running for the green party nomination But had previously suspended his campaign and he announced that he'd be boycotting The nomination for the green party altogether because he believes that the process was unfair It was tilted in your favor and he puts forward a number of examples He says that the individuals who were working for the green party apparatus as national cold chairs They didn't step down when they started working for your campaign. So there was a conflict of interest He also said in an interview with primo nut mag that Your campaign the language and verbiage in particular that you put out ended up being adopted by the pcsc the presidential campaign support committee And these rules ultimately ended up disenfranchising other candidates. For example This led to a vote in north carolina Where although there were seven other candidates, you were the only one on the ballot They say that this tried to force a two-way race between you and dario hunter Can you just talk a little bit through this and your response to this Because I think that one of the turnoffs for democratic party voters And I speak only for myself Is the way that the party apparatus uses these types of institutional advantages that they have as leaders of the party To disenfranchise kind of the challengers. So what is your response to this? What is your response to ian schlackman and others who are worried about the process itself Who agree with you politically and on the policy but think that the process wasn't necessarily fair and transparent? Ian is full of it every in every respect. First of all, I'm not part of the national party apparatus I've been grinding away here in syracuse and in new york state I haven't been involved in the national green party really since We you know got the current version green party of the united states Uh, you know, it's fec recognition and so forth and the rules Soon after the nadir campaign in 2000 And it actually I lost a whole lot of the things I thought about the way it should be structured And I think it's ineffective as a structure now. So I've been focused locally So to say, you know, I'm pulling strings there. That's just nonsense. Now the people that work for my campaign They resigned from the committees It said my campaign manager she finished out her term Which was about a month after I announced Um, now there are members of the steering committee or the co-chairs Uh, two of them who publicly support me other members publicly support other candidates one of them Excuse me supports a candidate But doesn't say so publicly. It's kind of you talk about rigging There's a lot of stuff games being played But my campaign is not playing them as far as the rules of the presidential campaign support committee I had nothing to do with that. I just went by the rules. The rules are if you want to be recognized by the party You got to file with the fec have a website fill out a questionnaire um raise At least a thousand dollars from at least a hundred people And uh, there's a fifth criterion Oh, I think you have to write a letter to the csc. I mean, it's really simple stuff That if you can't raise a thousand dollars, you shouldn't be running for city council let alone president So that was you know, the thinking was We get these marginal candidates now they're running around saying they're excluded and it's rigged They don't have campaigns. They just are lying And so, you know, it's disappointing, you know that people do that and it's not constructive And you know, I've basically ignored it. I haven't spoken out, but you brought up This guy and you know what he's writing is just not true One more thing to follow up him as well as four other green party presidential candidates They did pen an open letter Asking for the rules to be revised to make it more fair For more transparency and accountability Going forward like I don't necessarily Know what can be done so far in terms of like 2020 going forward. How do you think constructively? The green party can improve the process because even if you don't necessarily believe that what ian schlackman is saying is correct The perception for individuals such as myself It's difficult because for me, I don't necessarily follow the internal politics and factionalization within the green party I'm kind of just an outsider who I support green party candidates here. Democrats here Um, so I mean I agree with you on the policy But I think that transparency and fairness is something that I do care about so in terms of like just people Like me. How do you improve this? How do you make the optics better? Well, I think what the pcs try to see try to do is say we're only going to recognize serious candidates And the criteria are very low, but that didn't stop some people from stepping up Um, and you know in today you can get online and say anything So i'm not sure I do that the process is transparent. You mentioned north carolina Look each state party determines who's going to be on their ballot Some of them go with the recognized candidates Some of them let all comers on Uh, california party wanted the three recognized but the secretary of state put two others on In north carolina, they had a criteria and they wanted the candidates to ask the question How are you going to get on the ballot and at least they had 37? I don't know why they had 37 states, but that was their number and none of the other candidates Answered that question. You know, we have a ballot access plan to get on all 51 states And that was the criteria they decided on so, you know, you got to step up and meet that I you know, that's a That's a reasonable question You want to run nationally? How are you going to build a green party? Because getting ballot lines is one of the concrete things we can get out of this campaign In about 40 of the states the vote we get for president determines Whether that state green party has a ballot line for the next election cycle And that makes it a lot easier to run our candidates for local state and congress And in most states, it's A half a percent in new mexico one two or three percent a few states is five percent Alabama's 20 percent. That's the toughest one But you know, we can get on the ballot in a lot of states and you know, that's how we're going to build this, you know You talk about name recognition earlier and celebrity You know, you can't build a party out of that You mentioned that the people that don't vote that's working class people people of color young people And even our campaign we may appeal to them, but that's got to be followed up with organizing Not just mobilizing get out to vote Organizing is the kind of thing union and community organizers do They don't go out and preach to these people they go out and listen and Find out what's going on how it can help build relationships friendships and trust And the way we're going to build this party is we got to have green party locals In these communities where the people in the community know Who the activists are that they can trust them that they know what's going on that they can come to them with issues and You know here in new york We ran grandpa aluas old grandpa monster and got the ballot line in 98 and then we ran celebrities in 2002 and 2006 And we failed to get the 50 000 votes we needed So in 2010 we couldn't even get any celebrities to step up So the people turned to me and i'm a nobody i was a teamster unloading trucks at ups during the campaign at night So, you know, but what we had was a good message And we had organized it on the ground and we got our 55. What do we got 60 000 votes at election Next election almost 200 000 votes That's when i got five percent and and governor quomo Did i go over that i've been talking all day to people But we're that five percent You know quomo had wanted to run up the vote get more in his father mary opomo god Get more than he got in 2010 to get ready to run for president And he got less He couldn't take us for granted that five percent 200 000 votes He had to then say well, what can I do to compete for those votes? And he adopted demands that we were raising never supported like a ban on fracking A 15 dollar minimum wage paid family leave and gestures toward tuition free higher education Which were kind of phony as they panned out, but you know, he made the move And that's the kind of influence we can have Even without winning the office So that's why I tell people, you know Well for what you want to make the politicians come to you don't waste your vote on somebody who Doesn't believe what you do Yeah, I wanted to kind of get into that a little bit more as you talk through organizing because I think that there's this misconception about the green party and that they don't exist Until once every four years they kind of materialize and then dematerialize once the presidential election is over But that's not actually true. I mean the green party has been consistently fielding candidates at local offices And doing organizing. Uh, for example, I've covered in my program You know the activism in the early net neutrality days when obama was still president of margaret flowers I thought that you know her protesting tom wheeler was really admirable So I'm curious in terms of Putting aside electoral politics, um for a moment What do you think is the best way to affect change in terms of organizing and How big of a role does electoral politics play In emboldening the left because I think that that's just one piece of that I think a lot of people are kind of reevaluating the role of electoral politics How big of a role does that play and is organizing itself actually putting pressure on these existing institutions? Um as important or possibly uh more important is actually, you know running for office What is your take on this because I know that the green party has been incredibly active on non-election years around issues So like can you just talk through? I know this is kind of a loaded question But for me, I'm kind of thinking through what do we do as a collective left? And I include everyone in this category green socialists anyone who agrees with the policies that I want. How do we Uh at least get the policies we want if we're not able to gain power. Does that kind of make sense? I know it's a little bit broad Yeah, it's it's a combination of movement and party Without the social movements the party doesn't have the energy behind it But without the independent party social movements get taken for granted by the power structure Take the iraq war I mean we had such big demonstrations in the us and around the world That the new york times called us the world's second superpower But then that movement unlike the anti vietnam war movement where we were saying out now To mccarthy and kennedy who were calling for negotiations to humphrey and nixon And what we found out was we had such massive demonstrations a year after the election 69 The vietnam moratorium in october and the massive demonstrations a month later That nixon and kissinger realized if he went through it his secret plan to end the war which was to nuke north vietnam He wouldn't win reelection. In fact it might revoke a revolution They were worried about that because we had so many people in the streets And we weren't saying we're supporting the lesser evil You know gives the iraq war the broadest coalition united for peace and justice said Their their slogan was against the bush agenda which is saying vote for carrey who was pro-war Carrey was saying I can fight the war better than bush. I got a military background. I'm reporting for duty That's what he said at the convention and he wanted a bigger surge than bush eventually got And that you know, that really hurt the peace movement and then when Because the message was the democrats or the peace party when obama got in there And is you know having his torture tuesdays where he's selecting who to kill by drones escalates in afghanistan Uh removes quote-unquote combat troops while leaving special operations Going on In iraq and so forth the peace movement was you know, largely absent so Now that's why the movement is so important and it's going to be important no matter who wins the presidency in this election on the other hand What a party can do for the movements I mean our problem in the social movements now is we got this nonprofit industrial complex where If you trace it back, they're billionaires on the right. It's the coke brothers on the left. Soros gets a lot of attention but there are others, you know stire and luis and these other very wealthy people and So what happens is you get Groups funded the higher staff staff sit around a table and decide what the tactics are And then we get a message on the internet move on tells you what the next thing to do is or wherever it is And that's very undemocratic. It's very much like an electoral campaign top-down mobilization So people are atomized And easily manipulated because they're not talking to each other and they can't critically evaluate The situation which happens when you're talking to each other at the grass roots now what a party can do is bring people together and In a multi-issue platform So you relate the issues And you make allies of people fighting over different issues who may be competing for media attention supporters and money And a party can do that. I mean in the labor movement I'm part of I've gone to these labor notes conferences which promote union democracy I've been a member of teams just for a democratic union and aiming on since the you know 70s But I don't think it's really going to happen till you have a party With a position on union democracy that it goes in an organized way And you know fights for democracy in the unions And uh, you know all the movements there are positions that a party could could bring in there Because the movements tend to get you know patriotic and chauvinistic about their own movement versus the others Our issues are we're more oppressed than you are our issues more You know, we got to save the climate everything else got to wait No, we got to find a way to bring it all together And I think that's what a party on the left can do And uh, so that's why I think that's the missing ingredient for the left particularly in this country Because we haven't had a party of the working class since the socialist party which came close to becoming a major party And you know, we can go into why that didn't happen around world war one, but I think it shows as possible But what we got to do is organize not just mobilize like I was talking about earlier That I think you know all the left the movements need to do You know, we tend to mobilize we we preach we go out with our leaflets and our facebook messages and everything and We don't take the time to build relationships And get rooted in communities where people trust us and that's You know union organizers know that when they're trying to get recognition or organize a strike or a collective bargaining fight And community organizers know that you know, that's how you build a base for your community organization And it's something that we need to pick up in the other social movements and With the green party. Yeah, that's a really thoughtful response. Um, and it kind of puts everything into perspective Given the position of I think a lot of Bernie Sanders supporters because myself, you know I've been politically active since, you know, my college days But now I kind of feel myself rethinking I've been introspective lately wondering what like how do I get The policies that we need implemented into law. What do I do to affect change? So I mean you you've been in the trenches for decades You've been doing this for a long time So what's the one thing like the one piece of advice that you could give to a young activist who's just kind of getting involved in politics You know is being politically awakened. They just read marx chomsky What would you say to that person? That's the best thing that they can do to affect change You know, they're maybe thinking do I run for congress? Do I organize? Do I join dsa? Do I join green party? What would you say to that person because I feel like there's so many options that It's difficult and we're all kind of we're experiencing tunnel vision I think we all just want to get through covet 19 But we want solutions and we want to we want to have some sense of direction So what do you say to that kind of um aimless person currently if you will? Well, michael herrington who had disagreements with I mean he's the The the grandfather of today's dsa democratic socialist america used to say there's no such thing as an unorganized socialist You got to be part of a group Because that sharpens your thinking and it develops you because you got to learn how to speak And you know represents your thinking and other people challenge you and you know, that's one of the reasons of You know green party locals should be places where we develop people their education their ability to speak right You know do the kind of graphics all the things we need to learn how to do So you got to be part of a group And that would be my first piece of advice second thing I would say study history You want to see how social change happens? See how it has happened? and you'll also learn that most of our movements for progressive change We lost and we lost then we lost and we lost until we won And I've been involved in movements where we were a small minority vilified, you know anti-vietnam war In 65 66 67, you know, we were like, you know a fifth column for the commies And then in 68 after 10 it just flipped and and I think in the back of people's minds particularly those people whose sons and daughters were going off Well, mostly sons to Vietnam because the draft and coming back If not, you know in a body bag or the wound With mental issues, you know really scarred They began the question, you know, why are we fighting in Vietnam anyway? And you know, they began to realize that There was supposed to be an election in 56 to reunify the country Or was it yeah 56 And the u.s didn't want it because they knew Ho Chi Minh would win who had led the fight against the Japanese occupation And then the french trying to recolonize it and then the americans And any you know his declaration or proclamation of independence was modeled after our declaration independence, you know But any anti-nuclear movement when we started occupying the seabrook nuclear power plant Uh eight percent of the people in new hampshire agreed with us that nuke shouldn't be built And we got everybody's attention by that mass occupation 1414 of us arrested put a national guard march for 10 days On the cover of the newsweek this time newsweek new york times la times washington post it went national Uh, but what we did in new hampshire is then That was in the spring by the next year. We brought town meeting resolutions Saying stop construction works in progress. That's where we had to pay for it before it was up and running Which wasn't a tradition plants weren't put in a rate base to establish rates until after they were up and running And we went to rock rib in new hampshire It was you know Goddess news from the manchester union leader very right wing newspaper And they said yeah, you're right. We shouldn't pay for this thing if it isn't working We shouldn't pay for you know, why does this get special treatment? And they realized the public service company in new hampshire This nuke was like I forget what the ratio was like a hundred times bigger than all the assets they had It was more a wall street project and you know that so We won that up and down the state We won those town meeting resolutions and then they pulled again 80 percent of the people in new hampshire were with us so You start out as a minority same thing with any apartheid movement that was a case where people said Yeah, South african apartheid is terrible But you're not going to get your college to divest your union to divest your city to divest You're not going to get under reagan. You're going to get sanctions against south africa But we did because 85 86 suddenly we got the movement got game momentum We put up shannies the darman's college where I had gone We prefabred them brought them in our flatbed truck playing them right in the center of the green where They do the bonfires for the football game was like sacred territory And all the liberals who had sort of been intimidated by the right wing darman's review Funded by some national right wingers They came out of the woodwork. We had 400 people out there within 20 minutes It just slowly changed the climate and then the other campuses started doing it and then the trans africa did the Civil disobedience outside the white house congress passed a bill that had been in there since the late 60s Reagan v told it congress overwrote it So these are cases where we were or fracking in new in new york You know, it was the people most affected that were against it, but then people understood what it was And you know, we got five percent in 2014 and then almost said, okay That's what the people wanted So these are all examples I've lived through where you started out as a minority But you know, if you think you're right and you can persuade people even if it's one on one for a while You know, keep at it because if you study history, you'll find out that you can win So that's so people don't get discouraged. They should have a historical perspective and realize these things It's like In leaps, you know, it's like you're pushing against the door and suddenly busts open and you're through And all the people that were watching you saying now you're wasting your time They come running through to saying we were with you all the time So that's how it works. And I you know, that's what I tell young people get in the organization And get in some historical perspective. So when the When it's tough going realized that, you know, you never know when that spark's gonna light the prairie fire and things will move Yeah, and I think that that's a really great advice because after speaking to dr. Harvey jk You know about how radical our history is, you know on the left and what we've managed to accomplish You know, we're not necessarily doing anything new today You know, it's the previous generations people who have been in the fight like yourself Who have kind of like given us a little bit of guidance in terms of what we do And I think that part of the problem is that all of us, especially myself We've been hyper focused on electoral politics and there's this, you know, I think underlying belief maybe that We can't really affect change unless we get a progressive president But when you talk about, you know Sanctions on apartheid south africa with reagan as president It shows people that we have to rethink what we previously thought Was possible and you know for me my my number one goal Is to make sure that regardless of what happens in these elections people are mobilized and they stay engaged And so I wanted to kind of push this off to you now So speaking to the person again going back to the beginning of this interview Where you know, there's people considering checking out of electoral politics not voting altogether Can you make your pitch to those people as to why you think they should stay involved? And what we can do to support your campaign Well, people should stay involved because you know our lives depend on it, you know the climate crisis is not just You know more heat waves and some stronger storms It is mass species extinction The collapse of ecosystems the collapse of agriculture They're climate scientists who've calculated what might happen in our business as usual scenario And they come out with around 90 percent of current humanity not being able to be supported By the agriculture we could reduce in the year 2100 So this is a real calamity We've talked about the nuclear arms race and then for You know at least the bottom half of the income spectrum with whose average income is $18,000 500 That's the working poor You know, it's a life of death issue, you know if they can sustain a standard living that's healthy Where they can go to the doctor So, you know, we got to be engaged just for our own lives And so, you know, ours people to be engaged and you know, uh I think they call it Hubert Humphrey the happy warrior You know, I try to think about that when you know Things are not going well. It's like well, you know, that comes with the territory and uh, you know You should if you have if you believe in what you're doing then, you know, that should be enough No matter what people say and in the long run, you know, you'll Persuade people and and these movements can can advance um So that's what I would say to you know people thinking about, you know, maybe I can't make a difference Man, you can You know a small group of people I mean Ralph Nader says if we just had like forget the numbers like a hundred people in each congressional district Pester and their member of congress we could Transform the country because congress doesn't hear from that many people You know organized people can be organized money And you know while these politicians cater to the money But when the people they got to get the votes in the end if they're worried about that That's more important because they want to keep their jobs And we got power and we have more power than we know You know during uh, Vietnam, you know, I mentioned how to You know the tactical nuke plan of kiss the Kissinger Nixon cancelled We didn't know it at the time You know, it came out, you know, maybe four or five years later In fact, Dave Dellinger, one of the leaders of the anti-war movement in that period wrote a book called more power than we know Because we were winning and some of us didn't realize that we were discouraged so That's what I would say now to get involved in my campaign, you know, we have a website howie hawkins dot us You can get to all the social media facebook twitter and those other things there You can Read a lot of statements. We put out news releases op-eds policy papers And just statements about what's going on You can sign up to volunteer or just get our bulletins about what we're doing You can donate We're the only campaign in the country that is seriously going for federal camp primary matching funds And we're basically at a point now where we expect before the end of this month to qualify We need $5,000 from 20 states and individual contributions of $250 or less And we got a chart up there how we're doing on ballot access. Look at your state If your state is over the finish line with a hundred percent Realize that your donation will be double when we qualify up to $250 And you know, we need that we need people working on this campaign. I can't do this all myself We got to get on a ballot We just committed $10,000 to the petition in alaska and other states were going to court and this coronavirus social distancing environment, which makes petitioning unreasonable And saying hey, you know, the green party's been on the ballot several election cycles Just put us on And vermont did that illinois said no we took him to court and we wanted court And we're you know, we're doing that we got 24 ballots Which is equal to 305 electoral votes, which would be enough to win the electoral college But we're going for all 51 ballots all 50 states in the district of columbia So, you know people can help and that's what we need We need a little army out there, you know magnifying our voices If even if it's only in this lockdown, you know, you can't go knocking on doors at this point Although maybe that'll change there's we've been thinking about how to do that with proper social distancing And uh, maybe as things open up here Uh, that'll become an opportunity, but you can always You know use your social media networks friends family neighbors And talk up the campaign All right. Well, thank you so much. Howie hawkins running for the 2020 green party nomination We're absolutely thrilled to have you on the program. Hopefully you'll be back to talk about your campaign again when we have an update I'd be happy to thanks for having me. Thank you