Adirondack Progressives Host Fundraiser for Green U.S. Senate Candidate, Howie Hawkins
For Immediate Release
Contact: Matt Funiciello (518)361-6278 or mattfuniciello@earthlink.net
June 26, 2006 – Local progressive and Green Party activist Matt Funiciello announced today that candidate for U.S. Senate from New York, Howie Hawkins, will be the guest of honor at a dinner and fundraiser to be held at 6 p.m., July 22, 2006, at Rock Hill Bakehouse Cafe in Glens Falls. The event is sponsored by the Adirondack Progressives. Local musician Carrianne Skidmore will provide entertainment and a vegetarian buffet will be served. Tickets are available at Rock Hill Bakehouse Cafe and also at High Peaks Java; there is a suggested donation of $25. Hawkins faces incumbent US Senator Hillary Clinton in the fall election.“Hawkins represents the best and brightest of the Green Party,” said Funiciello, a former member of the Green Party's National Committee, himself. “We’re extremely proud to have him as our party’s candidate against the pro-Iraq, pro-Patriot Act, pro-globalization, former WalMart board member, Citizen Hillary.”“An independent opposition party like the Greens is the most effective way to advance peace, justice, and a sustainable society,” Hawkins said, “It is not just the peace vote that is open to alternatives. So are the millions without health insurance, the workers who are losing wages and benefits and their very jobs, the environmentalists who see no program to address global warming, and the women and people of color who are losing their recently won rights. All have reason to be dissatisfied with Clinton, who is taking them for granted as she rebrands herself a ‘moderate’ for her presidential run.”“Clinton has been a consistent war hawk on Iraq and, indeed, all the wars initiated by Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. She is more responsible than any other person in America for killing the single-payer national health insurance bill that had about 100 members of Congress as co-sponsors in 1993,” Hawkins added.Howie Hawkins has been active in movements for peace, justice, the environment, and independent progressive politics since the late 1960s. A former Marine, he helped organize opposition to the Vietnam War and was a co-founder of the anti-nuclear Clamshell Alliance in 1976. He was a co-founder of the Green Party in the United States in 1984 and currently serves on the Green National Committee.After attending Dartmouth College in the early 1970s, Howie worked as a carpenter in New England and helped start up a construction workers cooperative that specialized in solar and wind energy installations. Howie moved to Syracuse in 1991 to be Director of CommonWorks, a federation of cooperatives working for an economy that is cooperatively owned, democratically controlled, and ecologically sustainable. A member of Teamsters Local 317 and active in the national Teamster rank-and-file reform caucus, Teamsters for a Democratic Union, Howie presently works unloading trucks and rail cars at UPS.Howie's articles on social theory, cooperative economics, and independent politics have appeared in many publications, including Against the Current, Green Politics, International Socialist Review, New Politics, Peace and Democracy News, Peaceworks, Resist, Society and Nature, and Z Magazine . He is the editor of Independent Politics: The Green Party Strategy Debate (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2006).Adirondack Progressives is a group of local Independents, along with members of the Green, Democratic and Republican parties interested in fostering a local dialogue on today’s most important issues. They are currently also organizing a fall appearance by Green candidate for N.Y.S. Governor, Malachy McCourt. McCourt is a longtime activist, author of the NY Times bestseller A Monk Swimming, and brother of Angela's Ashes author Frank McCourt).
For more information about this and other Adirondack Progressive events, contact Matt Funiciello at (518) 361-6278.
For Campaign Information: www.hawkinsforsenate.org and www.malachyforgovernor.com
Tuesday, June 27, 2006
Tuesday, June 13, 2006
To Those Unfortunates Who Work at the Post-Star
An Open Letter To The Good Folks at The Glens Falls Post-Star,
Most of you will be glad to know that I am done. For the last four or five years, I have read your paper and have more than frequently tried to engage many of you in discussing all of the myriad of things that require improvement at our local daily. I have done so solely because I believe in democracy (I believe that a truly free press is the only way we can have one). The cynical and machine-like nature of dailies like the Post-Star ("product" merely put out to raise more ad revenue) puts our democracy at great risk. It is wrong. Its just that simple. I have spent many hours of my time asking only that you do what is right (or, at the least, that you might explain why you have knowingly done wrong). At the end of this very bumpy road, our "discussion" has devolved into a mere rant on my part. You have obviously decided to stop even pretending you feel a needto defend yourselves and your corporate, pro-war agenda.For that lack of communication, I cancel you. I already cancelled my home subscription about a year ago. I had already ceased writing letters to the editor last summer as you refuse to print them when they matter most. Quite recently, I ceased writing about your terrible behavior on my blog, as well. I am now cutting all ties and am going to stop selling your “paper” at my place of business. I vow to stop concerning myself about your existence in any way. I will continue to be a politically-active, community-oriented, citizen advocate and, as such, when I send out press releases, I will include your joke of a paper on my list of corporate, pro-war, anti-third party media (it is my feeling that you should at least have access to this type of information even though you will likely never use it). At the very least, you can all gather around the water cooler and talk about “that asshole Funiciello” and his ranting while you continue to blacklist third parties and regurgitate wire service crap. That will prove highly amusing for you, I have no doubt.You’ve had several months now to let people know that Howie Hawkins is running for U.S. Senate against Hillary. You have yet to mention it even once! Why? Is it because you're bad, evil people with a bad, evil agenda? I've given you way too many chances and you've failed at almost every turn. I am left with no alternative thought process. I know that your readership will never read that Malachy McCourt is running for Governor, either. You’re not going to tell them. That’s simply unconscionable! That is corrupt agenda-ridden bullshit and you know it. Those in management perpetrating this third-party blacklist should know one thing; You are without merit or integrity. You know exactly who you are.Good luck to those of you at "the paper" who try to do what is right on a daily basis. I feel sorry for you having to work in that environment. I know for a fact that you’re not all simple, corporate minions trying to dumb down the electorate but, obviously, most in the P-S hierarchy are. They totally negate your efforts. Here’s to the inevitable (and happy) day on which you escape from that tomb of lies and misrepresentation!
Peace to you all,
Matt Funiciello
Most of you will be glad to know that I am done. For the last four or five years, I have read your paper and have more than frequently tried to engage many of you in discussing all of the myriad of things that require improvement at our local daily. I have done so solely because I believe in democracy (I believe that a truly free press is the only way we can have one). The cynical and machine-like nature of dailies like the Post-Star ("product" merely put out to raise more ad revenue) puts our democracy at great risk. It is wrong. Its just that simple. I have spent many hours of my time asking only that you do what is right (or, at the least, that you might explain why you have knowingly done wrong). At the end of this very bumpy road, our "discussion" has devolved into a mere rant on my part. You have obviously decided to stop even pretending you feel a needto defend yourselves and your corporate, pro-war agenda.For that lack of communication, I cancel you. I already cancelled my home subscription about a year ago. I had already ceased writing letters to the editor last summer as you refuse to print them when they matter most. Quite recently, I ceased writing about your terrible behavior on my blog, as well. I am now cutting all ties and am going to stop selling your “paper” at my place of business. I vow to stop concerning myself about your existence in any way. I will continue to be a politically-active, community-oriented, citizen advocate and, as such, when I send out press releases, I will include your joke of a paper on my list of corporate, pro-war, anti-third party media (it is my feeling that you should at least have access to this type of information even though you will likely never use it). At the very least, you can all gather around the water cooler and talk about “that asshole Funiciello” and his ranting while you continue to blacklist third parties and regurgitate wire service crap. That will prove highly amusing for you, I have no doubt.You’ve had several months now to let people know that Howie Hawkins is running for U.S. Senate against Hillary. You have yet to mention it even once! Why? Is it because you're bad, evil people with a bad, evil agenda? I've given you way too many chances and you've failed at almost every turn. I am left with no alternative thought process. I know that your readership will never read that Malachy McCourt is running for Governor, either. You’re not going to tell them. That’s simply unconscionable! That is corrupt agenda-ridden bullshit and you know it. Those in management perpetrating this third-party blacklist should know one thing; You are without merit or integrity. You know exactly who you are.Good luck to those of you at "the paper" who try to do what is right on a daily basis. I feel sorry for you having to work in that environment. I know for a fact that you’re not all simple, corporate minions trying to dumb down the electorate but, obviously, most in the P-S hierarchy are. They totally negate your efforts. Here’s to the inevitable (and happy) day on which you escape from that tomb of lies and misrepresentation!
Peace to you all,
Matt Funiciello
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