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Watch the video below
with Chris Hedges
Howie Hawkins on Mar 28, 2022 Original date: Jun 1, 2019
Chris Hedges talks to Howie Hawkins, who has sought elected office through the Green Party, about the history of third parties in the US whose platforms are often coopted by the two-party system while being denied participation in televised debates.
From the archives:
We Need To Overthrow The Present Political System by Eric Schechter
Step Right Up – to the Amazing American Quadrennial Electoral Extravaganza! by Paul Street
What Price a Livable Planet? by Paul Street
Chris Hedges: American Psychosis + Hedges Says Vote for Howie Hawkins for Governor in NY
Chris Hedges: Would the American People be Better Served by a Movement for a People’s Party?
Two Poles of an Evil Duopoly by Keith Rosenthal
Voting for the Lesser of Two Evils is Still Voting for Evil
Ralph Nader Interviews Jill Stein: We Need To Cut The Military Budget By 50% + Transcript
Ralph Nader on Two-Party Tyranny, Trump Cheating, Bernie Sanders, and Corporations Kill
Ralph Nader: Dispelling the Myth of the 2000 Election (repost)
Who Stole The 2000 Election? (Hint: Not Nader) by Eric Ruder
Dandelion Salad 
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From Capitalism to Socialism? From Daddy Moneybags to Big Brother? The frying pan to the fire? How about another option, like perhaps Democracy?
There is no true democracy under capitalism. In the USA, the rich get the public policies they want, and the rest of us don’t; that was proven statistically in 2014 by professors Gilens and Page. A reading of history shows that the USA has been a plutocracy thinly disguised as a democracy ever since its “founding” in land theft, genocide, and slavery.
And there are several different kinds of socialism. Big Brother is STATE socialism, and that’s not the kind that Howie Hawkins and the Green Party want. In August 2016 the Green Party added to their platform a line opposing both capitalism and state socialism.
Admittedly, most Americans are unfamiliar with any kind of socialism other than Big Brother. That’s because of all the capitalist propaganda. In my own writings, I’ve mostly been talking about “sharing without hierarchy.” Perhaps even better is Robert Fulghum’s kindergarten terminology: “share and don’t hit.”
Howie Hawkins seems to be complaining — and Chris Hedges agreeing — that the Green Party isn’t being treated fairly. Well, I think that’s just silly. We are in a class war, and it is as much a war as (for instance) World War 2 ever was. You should expect your opponents to not treat you fairly. The real question is, what can you get away with? Where can you make progress?
I’m supporting Sanders this year. Sure, I’d rather have someone like Howie Hawkins for president, but Hawkins is not going to get elected in 2020, and Sanders might. Supporting Howie Hawkins is a way of “building the Green Party,” a process that may take 15 or 20 years — but we don’t have 15 or 20 years. I’d say we need major change within the next 3 years, or we’re going extinct (though the extinction won’t happen for maybe another 20 years). Climate change is accelerating a lot faster than most people have understood, because they haven’t understood its nonlinear processes. Here is a link to the section on nonlinearity, in my not-very-technical explanation of climate change.
https://leftymathprof.wordpress.com/runaway-warming/#nonlinear
p.s. Hawkins or Hedges (I forget which) said that if Bernie gets elected, he still won’t be able to get anything done. I don’t think that’s true. Even if Bernie has trouble getting legislation passed, as president he’ll have a much bigger soapbox, and he’ll do a great job of raising consciousness, which is a major need of ours right now. He already did quite a lot of that in 2016. Even without winning, he got Americans to realize that capitalism can’t properly manage healthcare or education. That’s more progress in one year than the Green and socialist parties have made in decades. Americans are concrete thinkers, so they need concrete examples like healthcare or education before they can begin to consider the more abstract idea that capitalism can’t properly manage anything else either.