Well, we finally made the mainstream media, but while 2016 was all about slandering Stein/Baraka as Russian assets, this year it’s that Howie and Angela are tools of the Republican Party that are denying people in Wisconsin their absentee ballots.

Nothing could be further from the truth. The Green Party’s track record as being the party of election integrity is clear. We are the ones regularly pressing for integrity from elections authorities around the country. We are the ones pushing to replace bad voting machines with auditable paper ballots and ending voter suppression via racist voter ID laws and party suppression.

The simple solution in Wisconsin is for the Democrats to immediately stop playing games and using delaying tactics to prevent voters from being able to support third-party candidates, get new ballots printed that include Howie and Angela as a choice, and send them out. Both major parties collude to boost their own electoral chances in a myriad of ways and deny voters’ and candidates’ major rights.

SO WHAT EXACTLY IS HAPPENING IN WISCONSIN?

Here’s a quick run-down:

• When we realized that Angela Walker’s change of address could become an issue, we took it upon ourselves to inform the Wisconsin Elections Commission.
• After three different sets of instructions over three days, the commission staff finally instructed us to include a notarized statement of candidacy with Angela’s new address when we filed the petitions…which we completed to the letter.
• The state law only accepts a maximum of 4,000 signatures to be submitted for a minimum of 2,000 signatures needed to get on the ballot. We actually collected nearly 6,000. The staff of the Board of Elections found that more than 3,000 of the signatures were valid.
• A challenge was filed against our petitions, claiming that the change of address invalidated many of them, which conveniently brought us to below 2,000 signatures.
• None of the signatures were actually ruled invalid.
• We were summoned to a hearing with the Elections Commission, during which we were restricted from offering testimony that pointed out the breakdown in process from the commission staff. Our rights of due process were severely restricted by the chair of the commission, a Democrat appointee.
• The attorney representing the Democratic challenger huddled with the chair of the commission before the hearing to agree on how to restrict our testimony.
• The commission ended up being deadlocked on the validity of the signatures, which means that they are presumed to be valid.
• The commission did uphold the challenge to Angela’s address.
• Because of these irregularities, we decided to sue. Because of the time constraints before absentee ballots were to be printed, we sued in the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
• It took time to find an attorney that would represent us, and every Democrat-aligned attorney we contacted ignored us.
• The Court ordered the Wisconsin Elections Commission to provide a list of everyone who has requested an absentee ballot, as well as a list of everyone who has actually received one. That list was due last Tuesday at 5 pm CDT.
• As of our last information, the Elections Commission was not able to provide those lists to the Court. They reported in the media that they were only able to find out information about some of the counties.
• Yesterday, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that NO county has actually mailed out an absentee ballot.

The Democrats are telling the media that they’ve mailed out thousands of ballots, when really county elections officials printed mailing labels and count these as “sent.” This is pure spin and a departure from the truth. They are waging a media battle against us to cover up their own failure to respect the democratic process and to ensure that accurate data was available on demand.

How can we trust that our elections will be fair, when the process is used as a soccer ball between the two ruling parties?

The delay is actually coming from the Democrats, not this campaign or the Green Party. If they would have allowed us to offer a proper testimony in the hearing, they would have been compelled to deny the challenge. If they would have accurate information on county elections data at their fingertips as they should have, there would be no delay.

Further, we have never had any conversations with the state GOP. They are not directing our legal actions. We are compelled by the wishes of nearly 6,000 Wisconsinites who want to see the Green Party on the ballot.

We will not back down from our position that Howie Hawkins and Angela Walker should be placed on the ballot without further delay. Our signatures are solid, the paperwork is in order, and in the interest of serving democracy, the Democrats should abandon the spin and misinformation and step aside so that absentee ballots can be sent out.

HOW CAN YOU HELP?

• Keep in mind that people who are voting against Trump but are willing to compromise on Medicare for All, a Green New Deal, etc. should campaign harder and state their case better, not attack democracy.  You can’t point your finger at Trump if you advocate for doing the same sorts of things.
• Share this post.  The mainstream media is promoting the Democrat talking points.  We need YOU to counteract that.
• Sign up to volunteer and phone bank.  You can live anywhere to phone bank into Wisconsin.
• Donate to help us counteract the Democrat spin with ads and social media.
• VOTE FOR HOWIE AND ANGELA.  The Wisconsin Green Party needs at least 1% of the statewide vote to regain ballot access and thereby put solid progressives everywhere on the ballot…including in the state legislature, so that they can fix these bad ballot access laws.
• Tell others that how you vote against Trump matters.  If you want to get rid of Trump AND vote for Medicare for All, a Green New Deal, etc., vote for Howie and Angela.

BY HOWIE HAWKINS

Nineteen years after more than 3,000 people were killed on 9/11, there remains a bipartisan commitment to fight an endless “war on terrorism,” instigate regime change coups, increase military spending, enhance US nuclear weapons, deport undocumented residents, curtail civil liberties, and militarize the police.

The September 11, 2001 attacks on the US have obscured “The Other 9/11,” the US attack on Chilean democracy in the US-backed coup on September 11, 1973. The two 9/11s are connected by what the CIA calls “blowback.” The CIA first used the term in describing the unintended negative consequences of the US and UK sponsored coup against the democratically-elected government of Mohammed Mossadegh in Iran in 1953. The September 11, 2001 attacks were blowback from decades of US intervention in the Middle East. That doesn’t justify the terrorism, but it does explain it. If we want peace and security for our nation, we should respect the peace and security of other nations.

Contrary to Trump’s lies about ending the endless wars, his administration has escalated the “Long War” in the Middle East and North Africa with increased troop deployments, drone strikes, and Special Operations.

Trump is also morphing the War on Terror abroad into a war against dissent at home. He encourages and uses law enforcement to attack nonviolent protesters, calling them “thugs” and “antifa terrorists.” He encourages white racist vigilante militias that show up armed to menace Black Lives Matter demonstrators and to intimidate local and state governments in armed protests against climate action (Oregon) and COVID-19 public health measures (Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Nevada, North Carolina, Wisconsin).

Trump encourages these actions with statements that amplify paranoid far-right fantasies that call climate change and COVID-19 hoaxes perpetrated by secret elite conspiracies. Trump has instructed the Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) and Border Patrol to violate immigration laws and subject immigrants and asylum seekers to unspeakable brutality, including separating children from their parents and internment in concentration camps where COVID-19 is running rampant. He stokes racial fears and civil strife to justify authoritarian rule. He calls the news media “fake,” the elections “rigged,” and promotes conspiracy fantasies on Twitter. Trump is sowing confusion and demoralization so people will not be able to resist repression by sections of law enforcement and the racist militias should Trump decide to resist a peaceful transfer of power. The ultimate blowback against US coups and wars abroad against democracy threatens to be a coup against democracy at home.

End the Wars on Terrorism Abroad and Dissent at Home

One of my first steps as President would be to end the wars on “terrorism” abroad and at home. Neither major party calls for ending the endless wars against “terror” abroad even though the top priority in the official National Security Strategy of the United States has changed to “Great Power Competition” with the goal of preventing the emergence of strong regional powers in Eurasia, namely China, Iran, and Russia. This New Cold War, like the War on Terrorism, is about the profits of US-based global corporations abroad, not the security of the people of the United States at home.

The nuclear modernization program initiated under Obama and continued under Trump with bipartisan support has destabilized the nuclear balance of terror and kicked off a new nuclear arms race. The nuclear threat, coupled with inaction by the great powers on the climate emergency and the proliferation of disinformation propagated by state actors on all sides that makes it difficult for publics to come to agreement on what to demand of their governments, has prompted the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists to move their Doomsday Clock the closest it has ever been to midnight.

I would end the saber rattling against Russia, China, and Iran in the Great Power Competition strategy and focus on diplomacy. We need to partner with other major powers to address our common problems, notably nuclear arms, climate, and cyberwar.

I would also end the bipartisan repression of dissent at home. With Trump’s encouragement, law enforcement is using militaristic tactics to suppress peaceful protests against police brutality and systemic racism. Both major parties are united in suppressing whistleblowers like Edward Snowden and publishers like Julian Assange, whose real crimes in the eyes of the National Security State is that they exposed its secret wrongdoings.

The US should speak out against violations of human rights and democracy wherever they occur, but that should not preclude also working with authoritarian governments to resolve life-or-death global issues like climate change and nuclear arms. War and threats of war are the most powerful destroyers of civil liberties, democracy, and human rights. Military threats, economic sanctions, and covert meddling in the politics of other countries only reinforces the nationalist rationalizations of authoritarian governments for repression at home in order to ward off threats from abroad.

The most powerful way to promote human rights is to set a good example. If the US wants its advocacy of human rights to be credible and effective, it must set the right example at home, where police killings of Black people are seen on social media around the world.  A country where there is mass incarceration in the largest prison system in the history of the world, and from where the US military is deployed in some 800 foreign military bases for its endless wars, making the US the nation that the world’s people consider the biggest threat to peace.

The Other 9/11: Chile

Thirty years before the United States’ 9/11, the CIA orchestrated the violent overthrow of the democratically-elected socialist government of Chile on September 11, 1973.

It is a tragic coincidence of the US bloody intervention history in Latin America that President Salvador Allende was overthrown and pushed to suicide on the same date that decades later would affect US soil by a terrorist attack. The same feelings that American felt of being violated by the first foreign attack since Pearl Harbor were felt in Chile that September 11 in 1973. The sin of Salvador Allende in the eyes of Nixon, Kissinger, and CIA Director Richard Helms was to advance deep socialist reforms that would create a more equal society, a just distribution of incomes, real freedom of expression, and a truly democratic framework that could allow, finally, the participation and voices of all sectors, specially the impoverished workers of Chile.

Sound familiar? These are exactly the challenges that the US faces today, problems that have riddled the US throughout its history and become worse in the Trump era – the authoritarian duopoly of Republicans and Democrats, voter suppression, third party suppression, deep inequality from coast to coast, and chronic poverty. It is the same kind of repression that Chile suffers today under the conservative millionaire Sebastián Piñera when people again advance the same reforms that Allende worked for and paid for with his life. It is the same social, economic, and political oppression that the two countries share on this anniversary of 9/11.

Aid, Not Arms – Make Friends, Not Enemies

In the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks in the United States, the Green Party of the United States warned against the danger that the two major parties and the corporate media would turn this horrific crime into a rationale for destructive wars abroad and political repression at home.

Instead of treating the 9/11 attackers as criminals to be brought to justice, the US used the attacks as a pretext for a long series of regime change wars in the Middle East and North Africa. The foreign policy leadership of the Bush administration had already written about the need for a “new Pearl Harbor” in order to provide the pretext for an invasion of Iraq to seize its oil fields. They wasted little time in getting started after 9/11.

The Authorization To Use Military Force (AUMF) against the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks passed Congress on September 18 with only one dissenting vote. The US invasion of Afghanistan started on October 1. The AUMF legislation is still the legal basis for today’s endless wars.

The Patriot Act, which gave the federal government broad new intrusive surveillance and investigatory powers that weakened civil liberties, was overwhelmingly voted through Congress by October 25.

The Bush administration, joined by the Democratic amen corner led by Senator Joe Biden, lied about weapons of mass destruction and about Iraq’s alleged role in 9/11 to start a second war in Iraq by March 2003.

After 19 years, US combat troops are now engaged in 14 wars. At least 37 million people, and as many as 59 million people, have been displaced by these wars, creating the greatest refugee crisis since World War II.

The annual observation of 9/11 has been turned by politicians into a militaristic celebration of American power that is used to garner public support for US military spending and imperial aggression abroad. Right after 9/11, the world was united in its grief for our country. It was a moment that should have been used to build peace based on mutual cooperation and respect.

Let us remember 9/11 this year by demanding that the US withdraw from its endless wars, prioritize diplomacy to resolve conflicts, end arms sales to belligerents, and provide humanitarian aid for war refugees, including reopening immigration to the US from these countries.

Let’s turn the US into the world’s humanitarian superpower instead of its global military empire. Providing aid instead of arms is the best way to promote peace and security. It is time for the US to make friends instead of enemies.

Howie Hawkins is the presidential candidate of the Green Party of the United States and the Socialist Party USA.

Link: https://dissidentvoice.org/2020/09/reject-militarism-on-the-anniversary-of-9-11/

Dissident Voice

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

August 17, 2020

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION

Kevin Zeese, Press Secretary
[email protected]

Robert Smith, Media Coordinator
[email protected]

DEMOCRATS’ EFFORTS TO DENY BALLOT LINES TO GREEN PARTY IS VOTER SUPPRESSION

Syracuse, NY: Howie Hawkins, the Green Party candidate for President, said today that Democratic Party efforts to prevent him and VP nominee Angela Walker from being on the ballot was voter suppression that rivaled the more well-known efforts of Trump and the Republicans to undermine democracy (release on Trump).

The Greens cited Democratic Party efforts seeking to block Green opposition from the ballot this year in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Montana. The Greens have sued over ballot access in several states. Five third parties have sued Governor Andrew Cuomo and New York state over recent laws seeking to eliminate them. Most states have rejected calls to reduce ballot access requirements this year despite the pandemic making it extremely dangerous and unsafe to collect petition signatures in person.

The huge amount of funding, volunteers and time spent navigating the obstacle course of ballot access diverts the limited resources the Greens have to do outreach to voters in the general election.

“The myth that the United States is a beacon of democracy is taught in American schools and reinforced by mainstream media. The reality is far different. The United States is one of only three democracies that do not use proportional representation, where legislative seats are allocated based on percentage of votes. Unlike other countries, campaigns are financed by the legalized bribery of private campaign funding by wealth special interests”, Hawkins pointed out. “Porous campaign finance laws allow undisclosed dark money into election finances and Supreme Court rulings have said that electoral spending by the wealthy and special interests is a form of protected free speech. Then the two parties write ballot access laws that are far more onerous than other democracies to prevent challenges by third parties, independents, and insurgent candidates,” noted Hawkins.

“Party suppression is a form of voter suppression. Rather than seeking to limit voters’ choices on election day to the candidates of the two corporate-financed parties, the Democrats need to join the Greens in fighting Republican efforts to prevent average Americans from voting. Trump’s open assault on the US Post Office to make it harder to vote by mail is especially outrageous,” Hawkins noted.

Both parties have suppressed voting by making it harder for low-income residents, students and tenants to register, purging voter rolls, reducing polling places and machines in communities of color and low-income neighborhoods to create long waiting lines, and blocking individuals with criminal justice records from voting. Republicans tend to do this throughout the election cycle, while Democrats are often more focused on primaries, except when Greens challenge them in the general election.

Hawkins noted that Democrats’ effort to block support for Greens can hurt the Democrats themselves. The presence of Green candidates brings out voters who would otherwise stay home. Many voters who go to polls to support Green candidates end up voting for Democratic candidates in down-ballot elections. 61% of Jill Stein voters in 2016 would have stayed home according to exit polls.  Ralph Nader’s presence in 2000 brought more voters out who also voted for Marie Cantwell, enabling her to win a close race in Washington, allowing the Democrats to take control of the US Senate.

The Democrats routinely seek to knock the Greens off the ballot due to technical problems in meeting the rules written by the two parties. In Pennsylvania, which has attempted to charge candidates tens of thousands of dollars for the fees of lawyers who challenged Green ballot petitions, Democrats are challenging the Green presidential ticket over the routine practice of listing stand-in candidates that are replaced once the national nominating convention picks the ticket. In Wisconsin, Democrats are challenging because VP candidate Angela Walker moved during the petitioning period. The campaign notified the Wisconsin election commission and followed their instructions. In Montana, the Democrats harassed 600 individuals to remove their names from petitions that had been submitted.

One purpose of Green presidential campaigns is to secure ballot lines, so the party can more readily run local, state, and federal candidates in the next election cycle. In 40 of the 50 states, the Green vote in the presidential race determines whether a party has a ballot line for the next election cycle. In most states, it takes 1%, 2%, 3%, or 5% of the popular vote for president to win ballot qualification.

US ballot access requirements are far more onerous than other electoral democracies. Without a ballot line, Greens must do independent nominating petitions. 

For the House of Representatives for example, an independent must get thousands of signatures in many states: 3,500 in New York; over 4,000 in Arizona; over 15,000 in Illinois; over 20,000 in Georgia and Ohio; over 30,000 in Alabama; and over 40,000 in Indiana. By comparison, if you want to run as an independent for the House of Commons in the UK, it takes 10 signatures. In New Zealand 2 signatures, Australia 50, Canada 100 (or 50 in rural districts), Germany 200.

“Boss Tweed in New York City used to say he was happy to allow the voters to select the winner as long as he got to select the candidates. That’s what the Democrats and Republicans still do today. The Green Party challenges the political duopoly that is bankrolled by corporate special interests. Party suppression and other forms of voter suppression are why a white supremacist con man can get elected President,” Hawkins said.