Howie Hawkins Visits Glens Falls

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