Monday, September 21, 2020

Truest statement of the week

 It is apparent that the Iraq policies of Trump and Biden don’t rest on religious belief or indeed any sort of conviction, and that both are prepared to change course as the voting breezes might blow.  Trump’s order of troop withdrawal from Iraq is nothing but a public relations ploy and Biden’s declaration on September 10 that he “supports drawing down the troops” was entirely negated by his follow-up that he would keep a “small force” in the Middle East to “prevent extremists from posing a threat to the United States.” What garbage.

Nobody knows what the long-term U.S. policy might be for the country that Washington destroyed, and neither presidential candidate has the courage, conviction or ability to produce one.

Reports by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch are depressing in their descriptions of the situation in Iraq, and it is obvious that Iraq is going further down the drain while Washington is incapable of preventing the slide that will ruin the lives of even more Iraqi citizens.  Whether it’s Trump or Biden in the White House next year, Iraq is doomed.


-- Brian Cloughley, "Be It Trump Or Biden, Iraq is Doomed" (COUNTERPUNCH).



Truest statement of the week II

 A group of aging environmentalists is out with an Open Letter telling people: Don’t vote for the Green Party. As the aging environmentalist who is the Green Party candidate for president, let me respond.

The role of the environmental movement should be to make its demands on every candidate, not make compromises to provide cover for a candidate like Biden with a feeble environmental record and platform. By settling for Biden without making any demands or getting any commitments, they have given away their power. As President, Biden will ignore them because they settled for nothing.

-- Howie Hawkins, "Are Environmentalists Too Compromised to Fight for Real Solutions?" (COUNTERPUNCH).




A note to our readers

 Hey -- 


Early Monday morning.  At last. 


Let's thank all who participated this edition which includes Dallas and the following:


The Third Estate Sunday Review's Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess and Ava,
Rebecca of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude,

Betty of Thomas Friedman Is a Great Man,
C.I. of The Common Ills and The Third Estate Sunday Review,
Kat of Kat's Korner (of The Common Ills),
Mike of Mikey Likes It!,
Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz),
Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix,
Ruth of Ruth's Report,
Wally of The Daily Jot,
Trina of Trina's Kitchen, 
Marcia of SICKOFITRDLZ,
Stan of Oh Boy It Never Ends,
Isaiah of The World Today Just Nuts,
and Ann of Ann's Mega Dub.


And what did we come up with?

 


Ava and C.I. did two pieces and Dona created a new one so we could be done before the middle of the week this edition. 


Peace,


-- Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess, Ava and C.I.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Editorial: Iraqi activists remain targeted

 Last week, ALJAZEERA aired a special on the targeting of activists in Iraq.



It's a major report and it's a needed one.  If you doubt it, this weekend has seen the kidnapping of activists Sajjad al-Iraqi.  Iraqi Observatory for Human Rights Tweeted:


The kidnapping of the activist, Sajjad Al-Iraqi, at the entrance to Dhi Qar Governorate.
Image



Another activist attacked.  The Iraqi constitution guarantees that citizens can peacefully protest.  But the government looks the other way -- for a week shy of a year now -- as militias -- who are part of the government now -- attack activists.

They kidnap them, they injure them, they kill them.  

When is the world going to pay attention to what's going on?


We'll close with this Tweet:

His Excellency the Ambassador the Iraqi youth suffers from the militia’s power over the country We are threatened with kidnapping or killing if we express our opinions The closest example of this is Sajjad al-Iraqi who was kidnapped yesterday and has not yet been liberated










 

TV: RATCHED is wretched

No one survives RATCHED -- not even Sharon Stone. 

 

3 JESS

 

RATCHED is the latest series on NETFLIX as part of the streamer's deal with producer Ryan Murphy.  A lot of The Water Cooler Set are telling you that Ryan created the show (click here for Linda Holmes getting it wrong at NPR).  Are you surprised that they're lying?  We're not.  The "created by" title card at the beginning of each of the eight episodes notes the series was created by Evan Romansky.  

 

If the title card's not good enough for you, note this description on Evan's Twitter feed, "Creator/Co-Executive Producer of RATCHED coming to NETFLIX on September 18th. Cincinnati born and raised. Ohio U and Loyola Marymount alum."

 

We don't hate Ryan Murphy and that's one reason we want to get the credit -- and the blame -- right.

 

RATCHED should never have been made.  Blame it on the laughable Academy Nicholl Fellowships presented by the Academy Awards.  It's a notoriously bad program that's the laugh of the industry.  If you can write about a pedophile who goes on a bender, you too can win the fellowship, the joke goes, provided you are a man.   It's not about quality, it's not about story telling ability, it's about who pushed the envelope.  It's a project that started with good intentions but that, as the years passed, went notoriously wrong.  

 

Evan Romansky is the latest semi-talented fool deluded into thinking he can write.  

 

Of course, a real writer wouldn't be trying to rip off the work of others.  RATCHED is a 'prequel' -- ripping off the nurse created by Ken Kesey in his 1962 novel ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST and the 1975 film that followed.  Louise Fletcher won an Academy Award for playing the character in the film.  Not one of the Academy's great choices -- and that was true long before Fletcher hit someone with her car (though injured, Officer Matthew Bennett was able to continue his career in law enforcement up until last July when he retired).  Ratched was a one-dimensional bitch.  The following year, Faye Dunaway would win the Academy Award for playing another bitch, Diana in the film NETWORK, but Faye managed to add layers to Diana.  

 

Ratched was always a bitch -- even in the novel -- and always a one dimensional bitch.  Ken Kesey didn't like women and especially didn't like women with power over men.  


There are reasons to reimagine a previous work.  Jean Rhys taking Charlotte Bronte's JANE EYRE and creating the prequel WIDE SARGOSSA SEA to develop and advance the first wife managed to both reject colonialism and deepen the story.  

 

That doesn't happen with the NETFLIX series.  Evan's 'revealed' that for his reimanging, he needed Ratched to be 'harmed by sex.'  In less enlightened times, he would have called her 'frigid.'  So she's a cold bitch.  Getting the idea that Evan Romansky needs to live a little more before he writes again?  You're are exactly right.  But if he couldn't turn out a piece of woman hatred, how would he attract Ryan and NETFLIX and noted feminist hater Michael Douglas?  He wouldn't.

 

Why did women participate in this garbage?  Sadly, that includes someone we have immense respect for: Rosanna Arquette.  No one survives, this garbage.  No one.

 

Sharon Stone certainly deserved better.  She tries to toss off the poorly written dialogue with a dry wit but no one could make it pass for wit.  With nothing to play, other than concern that her monkey might smoke her cigarette, she just comes across as forever on the verge of a snit fit and the only thing worse than her performance is her appearance.  Please tell us that's a wig because otherwise they ruined Sharon Stone's hair by bleaching it.  It looks like ugly straw.  

 

Sharon can take comfort in the fact that she's barely and rarely on camera.  Sarah Paulson is uncomfortably onscreen way too much.  This is the worst acting she's done since STUDIO YADA YADA.  It's awful acting.  There's no role there so she falls back on the same tics of past performances.  But what enhanced a strongly written role in the past, does nothing this go round.  It may wrongly make people think Louise Fletcher is a great actress.  She's a so-so actress (had either Julie Christie or Goldie Hawn been nominated as Best Actress for SHAMPOO, Louise would never have won the award -- it was the weakest choice of nominees ever in the year she won).  Sarah's a better actress than Louise and she's a better actress than this bad series deserves.

 

People go on about the look of the show -- The Water Cooler Set does.  What are they talking about?  The bad costumes?  The same era was costumed better in the HBO mini-series MILDRED PIERCE.  The look being discussed should address the look of the actors.  Why are women required to be sexy and sex objects when Ryan's again cast a series with unattractive men?  

 

Jon Jon Briones has no charisma.  Charlie Carver is a good looking man but, like Joan Crawford in A WOMAN'S FACE, his face is disfigured (from the war).  If a man's going to have a sex scene and be seen repeatedly in his underwear, how about he has a good body?  Corey Stall doesn't even have a good face.  Vincent D'Onofrio is lucky he's a man -- a woman his size wouldn't be working.  And then there's Finn Wittrock who looks like Mitt Romney.  Junior changed his first name to "Finn" so he wouldn't have to be billed as Junior (his father Peter Wittrock Senior has been an actor for decades).  It's a pity he couldn't change his face.  A lantern jaw, a forehead that never seems to end, he's got to be one of the ugliest men in a lead role on a TV show right now and yet we're supposed to find his character sexual -- when he wants Sarah's Ratchet to jerk him off, when Rachet sets him up with a gorgeous nurse, when . . .  Wittrock is so unattractive, even his ass is ugly.  (In fairness to Finn on that, it may be the period pants that make his ass look so bad.)

 

Ryan Murphy is a gay man.  He's attracted to other men.  Was he not present for casting sessions?  Did not one get footage of these men to find out how they'd appear onscreen?

 

What made it onscreen is an embarrassment.  If anyone manages to make it out of the show with almost zero embarrassment, it's Cynthia Nixon.  With better writing and better direction, her character might have emerged as more than a scowl but she commits to that and she makes Gwendolyn Briggs come to life, especially in the under-written moment when Gwendolyn learns Ratched has slept Charles Wainwright.

 

There was never a reason to make this nonsense into a series.  Evan Romansky never had an actual thought to put onscreen.  The clue of how worthless and shallow this project is should have been in the decision to advertise it with a trailer featuring the song "All That Jazz." If there's anything worse than ripping off the work of others because you can't create your own memorable character, it's ripping off a great song that has nothing to do with your hideous TV show.












#TheJimmyDoreShow Rachel Maddow Caught Doing FAKE NEWS Again!

 

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Book Talk: MAN ON THE RUN

 This will be a recurring feature and it will be a brief feature.  This one is done by me (Dona) and I may do another or even all.  But how it will work is that I'll speak with one community member a book that they have recently read.  For this feature, I'm speaking with Stan about the book MAN ON THE RUN: PAUL MCCARTNEY IN THE 1970S by Tom Doyle.  After the Beatles broke up, Paul went solo and then quickly formed a new band Wings. 

manontherun


Dona: Stan, thank you for talking about a book with me.  Back in August, you wrote about Tom Doyle's book on Paul McCartney arriving in the mail.  You've now read the book.  What did you think?


Stan: I wanted to like it more than I ended up.  It's a good book but it's not a big book and it's not a big issue book either.  It's a few pages.  222 of text.  I didn't like how -- especially when he's covering John Lennon's 'lost weekend,' Doyle writes about Yoko.  I'm not referring to the events but the verbs used on Yoko often were verbs that questioned her -- as though she's claiming a concert took place.  The word choice bothered me repeatedly.  It also took place at least once with regards to Linda McCartney.  I don't know why we question women making declarative statements about public events -- not opinion remarks, mind you.  


Dona: Interesting.  You've read a number of books about Paul -- as you noted in your blog post -- was there anything in the book that Doyle carried off especially well?


Stan: I thought he did a very strong job with Paul's arrest in Japan for pot possession.  He made that section come alive and he did a great job gathering quotes from right-after the release and long after to convey what Paul thought of it. I was expecting more on Wings, Paul's band that the book focuses on.  I didn't get a lot of that and the songwriting and recording by Paul and Wings?  I wasn't impressed.  He writes, at one point, about Paul showing up at the studio where John's recording and Stevie Wonder and others are present.  He writes more about that session -- that produced nothing -- than he does about, for example, recording the song "Band On The Run."  


Dona: Would you recommend the book?


Stan: Yes.  It wasn't everything I wanted it to be but it was a book I enjoyed reading.


Dona: And of the other Paul McCartney books you've read, is there one you'd recommend more?


Stan: Actually, two.  I'd recommend Howard Sounes' FAB: AN INTIMATE LIFE OF PAUL MCCARTNEY and Barry Miles' PAUL MCCARTNEY: MANY YEARS FROM NOW.

 

Dona: Favorite Paul song with the Beatles?

 

Stan: "Let It Be."

 

Dona: With Wings?

 

Stan:"With A Little Luck."

 

Dona: Solo?

 

Stan: Two.  "Maybe I'm Amazed" and his duet with Stevie Wonder "Ebony and Ivory."


Dona: Thank you so much, Stan.



Ruth Badger Ginsburg (Ava and C.I.)

 


Ruth Bader Ginsburg is dead and that's sad as it is when anyone dies.  The sadness is mitigated by the fact that she had a long life -- everyone doesn't make it to 87.  That's especially true of the poor.


As Senator Bernie Sanders' office has noted in the past:

For women in the United States there is a 12-year gap in life expectancy between wealthy Marin County, Calif., where the average person lives to be 85 years old, and Perry County, Ky., with an average life expectancy of 73 years. 

 American men live the longest in Fairfax County, Va. Life expectancy for men in the wealthy Washington, D.C. suburbs is 82 years compared to 64 for men in McDowell County, W. Va., just 350 miles away. 

 Nationwide, the poor have higher rates of many diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, depression, and disability, according to Dr. Steven Woolf, director of the Center on Society and Health at Virginia Commonwealth University. “The lower people’s income, the earlier they die and the sicker they live,” he said. “Neighborhoods in Boston and Baltimore have a lower life expectancy than Ethiopia and Sudan. Azerbajian has a higher life expectancy than areas of Chicago.”


Last year at THE NEW REPUBLIC, Roge Karma observed:

 

One of the most disquieting facts about life in the United States today is that the richest American men live 15 years longer than the poorest men, while for women it’s 10 years. Put a different way, the life expectancy gap between rich and poor in the U.S. is wider than the gap between the average American and the average Yemeni or Ethiopian.


OPEN SECRETS notes that Ginsburg was the wealthiest sitting justice on the Supreme Court, worth approximately $28 million.  That allowed her comfort as she battled cancer repeatedly  Pancreatic cancer led to her death and she's been battling it since 2009.  As Rebecca notes, Ruth should have retired at least four years ago.  Can you battle cancer and do a job?  Yes, you can.  (Note one of us is currently battling cancer.)  But can you battle cancer and do a good -- or even adequate job -- in a position of such importance?  We'd argue no.

 

Her death raises other issues including who will replace her.  Had she retired four years ago, then-President Barack Obama would have been in charge of selecting a nominee to replace her.

 

But Ruth gambled that her cancer wouldn't claim her life under a Republican president.  She was wrong.  Mike noted Jane Fonda's character in FUN WITH DICK AND JANE stating, "You gambled.  You lost. What about me? I gambled and I lost and I didn't even get a chance to play."  Exactly right, Ruth gambled and we lost.

 

We expect justices to exercise good judgment.  Clearly, they are not meeting that expectation   We need a mandatory retirement age for justices.  This idea of serve until you drop dead is not acceptable.  


A lot of what's going on is unacceptable.  For example?  Legal scholar's Jonathan Turley offered . . . what?  Garbage, honestly.  We love you, Jonathan, but your opinion is garbage.  It's sweet garbage -- God bless Ruth she was wonderful blah blah blah blah.  What a load of crap.

 

Ruth Bader Ginsburg is dead -- and that's a good thing.  The bad part of it is that her death didn't come much sooner.  That's the hard but honest take -- the one Jonathan refuses to make.

 

Why do we say she should have died sooner?

 

She spent her last five years destroying the Court.  You can pretend otherwise, but that's the reality.

 

Pretenders insist that Ruth was The Notorious RBG -- they do that because assholes culturally appropriate.  Stealing from a dead African-American male is what a bunch of dumb White people do.  (And, yes, this group of dumb White people is largely women.)

 

Idiots cheered Ruth on when they should have slammed her.

 

She did real damage and that damage will be recognized with future appointees to the Court.

 

Ruth injected herself into issues when she should have kept her damn mouth shut.  If something is likely to be decided by the Court, you don't comment publicly.  That's not our rule, that's the rule that's always been.

 

Maybe it was the cancer, maybe it was the adulation, maybe it was old age.  Whatever it was, Ruth repeatedly gave interviews where she weighed in on issues that were working their way up to the highest court.

 

Even worse, in 2015, she began commenting on the presidential race.  No one needed her comments.  They were foolish and they were wrong.  They never should have been made.  The fact that she eventually acknowledged that doesn't erase the comments.

 

And, in a few years, when some new, conservative justice on the Court weighs in on a presidential election and we on the left are outraged -- will we be honest enough to trace it back to where it started?  To trace it back to Sainted Ruth?

 

Ruth's dead.  That's sad and that's also good.  If she'd just done the job she was tasked with, we could mourn and mourn only.  But she violated established ethics and, as a result, covering her death requires more honesty than many are currently providing.



 

From The TESR Test Kitchen

1stove

 


Diabetes -- a national tragedy.  Lenny e-mailed that he was recently diagnosed and has to now count carbs.  "What am I supposed to eat?" he wonders.

First off, if you have insurance and it's covered, please visit a nutritionist.  They can help you with meal plans.  You should also educate yourself online via sites such as the American Diabetes Association.  And Trina's long noted The Mayo Clinic's online recipes for diabetics.

   




chinese

A serving of La Choy's Chicken Chow Mein has 16g of carbohydrates.  If you ate the full containers -- there are two cans -- the big one has vegetables, the little one the sauce -- it would be 48g of carbs.  45 to 60 grams of carbs per meal is what is recommended for diabetics.  You could eat a portion of the vegetable-sauce mixture and be fine.  In fact, you could eat the entire container's worth and still be okay.

Now if you eat it on rice, you'll need to factor in the rice.  Rice has carbs.  Even wild rice, even brown rice has carbs.  One cup of brown rice? You're looking at 44 to 52 grams of carbs.  Even wild rice, one cup, is going to give you 35 grams of carbs.

So factor that in.

The great thing about La Choy is that it tastes good.  Even without rice, all by itself, it tastes good.  The other great thing? You can do chicken or beef.  We're talking Chow Mein.  If you are considering anything else, look at the label.  We say that because the sweet & sour La Choy has over 40g of carbs per serving.  Repeating, we are covering the Chicken Chow Mein and the same is true of the Beef Chow Mein.  Otherwise, check the label.  





Tweet of the week 1

Left Eye On The News Tweeted:

Biden doesn’t want to release a list of his potential Supreme Court nominees because if he does, progressives will have one more piece of evidence of how centrist/right-wing he is and will have one fewer reason to vote for him.







Tweet of the week 2

 From Margaret Kimberley:


My thoughts on Ruth Bader Ginsburg. She should have stepped down, Obama and the democratic establishment didn’t care about losing senate and assumption of Hillary victory created a debacle. Have a listen.





How We Can get Jo Jorgensen in the Debates Plus how we can get Libertarians to Debate More?

 

Headline is the title of the video above.

Guess what?  We agree Jo Jorgensen should be in the debates.  We actually believe all the presidential candidates should be in the debates -- that's Jo, that's Howie Hawkins, that's Gloria La Riva, that's Joseph Kishore, that's . . .


Everyone.

But Jo Jorgensen, the Libertarian Party candidate, has a better than usual argument for being in the presidential debates.

Last week, her campaign made the following announcement:

As of today, the Libertarian Party (LP) has received confirmation that the campaign of Dr. Jo Jorgensen for president and Jeremy “Spike” Cohen for vice president has met all states’ ballot-access requirements, according to the LP’s chair, Joseph Bishop-Henchman. Therefore, the Libertarian ticket is now officially on the ballot in all 50 states plus the District of Columbia. American voters — regardless of where they live — will see the Jorgensen–Cohen ticket on their ballots this November. 

Dr. Jorgensen advocates free-market health care to bring costs way down, a foreign policy of non-intervention, and an end to the failed and destructive War on Drugs. Her campaign gives voters a viable alternative to Donald Trump and Joe Biden, who will be the only other presidential choices to appear on every ballot.

The year 2020 marks the fifth time the Libertarian Party has succeeded in placing its presidential ticket on the ballot in all 50 states, having done so previously in 1980, 1992, 1996, and 2016. No other alternative party in over 20 years has achieved universal ballot access in a presidential election.


She is on the ballot in all fifty states?  That means she could be elected president.  That means she needs to be on the debate stage.  People in fifty states can choose to vote for her.  Get her onstage.  Stop thwarting democracy, stop trying to stifle free speech.

Whether you plan to vote for Jo or not, you should agree that she's more than earned her place on the stage.









‘Sleepy Joe Biden’ goes missing on RBG death

 [SKY NEWS aired the following Saturday.]

The now vacant US Supreme Court seat is expected to be one of the most critical issues in the upcoming November election, but there’s been no word from “Sleepy Joe,” according to Sky News host James Morrow. Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court Ruth Bader Ginsburg died over the weekend aged 87 after a long battle with pancreatic cancer. President Donald Trump praised the progressive icon upon hearing the news of her death after a campaign rally. The vacant seat is set to become a massive political battle, as the President has already indicated he intends to nominate a replacement merely six weeks before the election. Mr Morrow said the Democrats are performing poorly on this burgeoning issue highlighted by the contrast in reactions by the two candidates. “We haven’t heard anything from Sleepy Joe,” he said. “While Trump is out their giving rallies and talking about this, the day after RBG (Ruth Bader Ginsburg) dies … Biden was having the day off. “They’ve got a candidate who can’t do a full day’s campaigning when they’ve got this huge issue that they’re about to have a big fight on.”





Libertarian presidential ticket canvasses the Dakotas

 Jo Jorgensen is the Libertarian Party's presidential candidate.  Her campaign issued the following:


Jorgensen, Cohen to promote solutions for affordable health care, criminal justice reform.

GREENVILLE, S.C.; September 20, 2020—  The Libertarian Party (LP) presidential ticket will be canvassing the Dakotas on Sunday through Wednesday at three rallies during the campaign’s third bus tour, addressing voters, meeting media, and sharing the spotlight with down-ballot Libertarian candidates. 

Dr. Jo Jorgensen, the presidential nominee, will appear in Rapid City, S.D. on Sunday. On Monday, her vice-presidential running mate, Jeremy “Spike” Cohen, will appear in Sioux Falls, S.D., and on Tuesday, he will head to Fargo, N.D.

Each will be promoting the campaign’s platform, which includes bringing home our more than 200,000 troops stationed in foreign countries and turning the U.S. into “one giant Switzerland—armed and neutral, with the military force to defend America’s shores and soil against any foreign attackers or invaders,” and free of trade embargoes; enabling a truly free market in health care—with the innovative solutions and price reductions bred by competition; and pardoning nonviolent, victimless federal drug offenders so they may return to their families.

“We are ecstatic to be hosting Mr. Cohen in Sioux Falls. He is an inspiring figure, sharing our never-ending pursuit for individual freedom, and he has delighted voters at every stop he’s made,” said Devin Saxon, the Libertarian candidate for S.D. Public Utilities Commission. “We encourage everyone weary of government intrusion and overbearing regulations to come down to Falls Park to hear a principled position to counter the two-party system.”

Emceeing the Sioux Falls rally will be Tracey Quint, the campaign’s Sioux River regional coordinator. “We are lucky to have such a dynamic pair at the top of the Libertarian ticket in 2020,” she said. “This is definitely the year to spread the word and make sure Libertarian voters make it to the polls.”

Greg Baldwin, vice chair of LP South Dakota and the Libertarian candidate for state senate, District 17, will be on the program as well. “I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Cohen in July at the Libertarian national convention in Orlando,” he said. “He is an articulate speaker and a powerful advocate for Libertarian principles. I am happy to endorse Jorgensen–Cohen this year.”

The candidates’ events feature selected officials and down-ballot candidates, include media availability, and are scheduled as follows (subject to change; times shown in local time zones):

South Dakota
Rapid City: Sun., Sept. 20: 5:45–7 P.M. at the Berlin Wall Memorial, 206 North 8th St.
Sioux Falls: Tues., Sept. 22: 5–8 P.M. at Falls Park Farmers Market, North 2nd Ave.

North Dakota
Fargo: Wed., Sept. 23: 6 P.M. at Lindenwood Park, 1905 Roger Maris Dr.

Media advisory: Rain or shine! The candidate will have media availability at most tour stops. A mult box will be available at the rallies, although no risers. Personal distancing protocols will be followed; hand sanitizer and masks will be provided. 

For questions or to schedule interviews with the candidates during their campaign stops, contact:

  • Sun., Sept. 20: Jess Mears, deputy campaign manager, via e-mailat  Jess@Jo20.com, or by phone at (727) 262-8061
  • Tues., Sept. 22: Jayne Haney, national media coordinator, via e-mailat JayneHaney@Jo20.com, or by phone at (305) 923-8937
  • Wed., Sept. 23: Jayne Haney, national media coordinator, via e-mailat JayneHaney@Jo20.com, or by phone at (305) 923-8937






RELEASE: Hawkins Says Climate Justice Requires Racial Justice

The campaign of Howie Hawkins, Green Party candidate for US president, issued the following:


September 20, 2020

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION
Robert Smith, Robert@HowieHawkins.us
Andrea Merida, Andrea@HowieHawkins.us

Hawkins Says Climate Justice Requires Racial Justice

(New York, NY) Howie Hawkins, the Green Party candidate for President, said that achieving racial justice was essential to the effort for effective climate action.

Hawkins, who participated in the march for Climate Justice Through Racial Justice in Manhattan on Sunday, outlined 7 key initiatives: Green New Deal, Economic Bill of Rights, Medicare for All, Homes for all, Democratic Community Control of the Police, Reparations for African-American rights, and Honor Indigenous Treaty Rights.

“People of color and low-income communities are the principal victims of climate change. We face this existential threat to our future since the leaders of both major parties, in exchange for campaign contributions, allow fossil fuel companies and others to pollute and exploit such communities. We can not solve climate change without system change, including ending racial injustice,” said Hawkins, the first US candidate to campaign for a Green New Deal in his 2010 race for Governor of New York.

Hawkins noted that the march included the key demands of zero emissions by 2030 and a halt to new fossil fuel infrastructure, positions opposed by Trump and Democrats, including Biden. Trump and Biden also oppose an immediate ban on fracking, a position Hawkins first campaigned for in 2010.

“We need a socialist economic democracy that empowers the racially oppressed and the economically exploited to receive the full value of their labor and provide for their own communities,” said Hawkins, a retired Teamster from Syracuse. “We need a democratic and ecological socialism, so we have the power to meet the basic needs of all within ecological limits.”

Hawkins, while supporting the Defund the Police demand to reallocate a significant portion of police budgets to needed social services, stated that “we need to go further. Reforms that do not include who controls the police, who they work for, who has the power over policing will not stop the police killings of unarmed Black people or the racism that pervades all our institutions. We need community control of the police to transform policing so that it serves and protects those who are now oppressed instead of the property and privileges of the powerful elites. We need the ability to clean house and rid police departments of racist and sadistic officers.”

Hawkins and his vice presidential running mate, Angela Walker, also want to defund the military by 75% to provide services instead of criminal charges to poor and working-class people of color, including homes for the homeless instead of vagrancy charges, drug treatment for the addicted instead of criminal charges, and counselors instead of cops for people with mental health crises.

Hawkins’ ecosocialist Green New Deal (GND) plan includes a multi-trillion investment in jobs, businesses, housing, schools, health care, and public transit in racially-oppressed communities that have been segregated, discriminated, and exploited for generations. A significant portion of GND funding will bypass governors and mayors who have misused and abused these communities and fund community- and cooperatively-owned businesses, GND factories, and housing and community-controlled schools, health care, public transit, and police.

Hawkins said today’s youth-led anti-racist and divestment demands in the climate justice movement were similar to the youth-led anti-apartheid movement’s divestment demands a generation ago. It was at Hawkins’ initiative that Dartmouth College students built a shantytown on the college green in the fall of 1985 demanding divestment of college funds from companies doing business in apartheid South Africa. That action sparked shantytown protests on campuses across the nation and a swelling of anti-apartheid actions across society over the next year until the US government imposed sanctions on South Africa in the fall of 1986. The apartheid regime responded by freeing Nelson Mandela and negotiating a transition to democracy. 1243 institutions have divested $14.38 trillion from fossil fuel companies to date.

“The anti-apartheid divestment movement aroused a new generation of activists. Zephyr Teachout has said that visiting the Dartmouth shantytown when she was in high school near the college was an inspiration for her activism. We see the same happening today with youth in the climate justice movement today. It is time for New York State to listen to these young people who are fighting for their future and divest,” Hawkins said.

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