I feel compelled to share the contents of this email from the Hawkins/Walker campaign, observing the anniversary of the founding of the Black Panther Party. It contains some apt quotes from Fred Hampton, whom The Chicago PD, with help from the FBI assassinated a little more than 50 years ago. Hampton was freshly turned 21 and wise beyond his years when the cops cut him down.

This is how America has always treated its dissidents: murder, torture, incarceration on bogus charges, COINTELPRO-style infiltration of activist groups to stoke internal conflict and effectively neutralize them.

As Joe Strummer noted in "Know Your Rights":

"You have the right to free speech...
As long as you're not dumb enough
To actually try it!"

Hampton and the Panthers went beyond speech to actions that kept poor folks fed and protected. Thus the establishment decreed that they had to die.

*****
Hi David,

Thursday we celebrated the formation of the Black Panther Party 54 years ago in Oakland, California.

The Black Panther Party clearly showed the willingness of regular people to organize and take action to protect their communities.

Today, we find ourselves still calling for the changes that these brave people were fighting for in the 1960s: community control of the police, reparations paid to African Americans, and social/economic equality.

As we have continued to see the murder of African Americans by police in 2020, names such as George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery to name only a few, the conversation has to include the importance of community control of the police.

This isn’t a new idea.

The time for this idea has already come and the need for this type of action to regain control of our nation’s police forces has never left.

In fact, it’s never been more necessary.

We’re living in an age where these headlines are blasted into feeds on every social media platform.

Entire generations of minorities and their children have been seeing the news for their entire lives while also seeing the lack of action in addressing the racism and sadism in law enforcement and the criminal justice system.

It has to stop.

As Fred Hampton said, "We got to face some facts. That the masses are poor, that the masses belong to what you call the lower class, and when I talk about the masses, I'm talking about the white masses, I'm talking about the black masses, and the brown masses, and the yellow masses, too. We've got to face the fact that some people say you fight fire best with fire, but we say you put fire out best with water. We say you don't fight racism with racism. We're gonna fight racism with solidarity."

Yet neither major party is giving this matter the attention that it deserves.

Republicans, as expected, are denying the problem at best and protesting or contributing to it at worst.

Meanwhile, Democrats, as expected, have taken the slogans of organizations like Black Lives Matter to make grand gestures but, ultimately, doing nothing more to solve problem.

This is why the Green Party is so necessary.

Someone has to raise awareness of these issues.

Someone has to spell out plans for how we end the abuse, misconduct, and blatant murders being committed by police officers (who are then only given administrative leave as “punishment”).

Someone has to say plainly that the way to fight crime is to fight poverty (Angela Walker says this).

And most of all, someone has to take action.

That’s why we are asking for your support in this campaign.

It’s about coming together in solidarity to create the changes that we so desperately need in this country and in our communities.

The Black Panther Party did not sit back and spend all of their time theorizing how their communities could look.

"If you dare to struggle, you dare to win. If you dare not struggle, then damn it, you don't deserve to win." --Fred Hampton

They said “enough is enough” and took action to protect their communities from the very same problems that we are seeing today. They knew how their communities should look and took action to help make it happen.

Now it’s your time to do the same.

By clicking the link below and making a donation to this campaign, you are saying “enough is enough” and standing up against racism, abuse, and hatred.

Will you stand with us?

Choose to be a victor by making a donation (recommended $27) today as we fight back against Trump and the whole corrupt system that brought him here!

“Their [the police] real power is manifested in the organized guns and force. But we’re saying that the people in this community, the people in this country, don’t have any control over that organized guns, force, and power. We’re saying that the capitalist, the racist, and others have control over it. And we’re saying that we want to change it, that we want to revolutionize it, turn it over into the hands of the people, for a new process to occur. We’re saying we want community control.” – Bobby Seale, Chicago Community Control of the Police Conference, June 1, 1973

And remember: #NeverSettle

In solidarity,
Team Howie

This is from an email that arrived today from Hawkins/Walker:

The deadline for federal matching funds has just passed, but the campaign will not turn away your contributions of $2,800 or less just because it's not magically doubled.

Texas GOP Attempt to Knock Libertarians off the Ballot Fizzles
In related news, Texas Republicans tried some funky version of virtue signaling to show the world that they also want to uphold the law (HB 2504) by challenging Libertarian candidates who also didn't pay the new filing fees. (NOTE: The usual Houston Chronicle paywall.) But they waited until after the resolution of the Democrats' legal action to knock Greens off the ballot, by which time it was too late for the State Supreme Court to do anything. Not to spoil anything, but here are the very telling last two paragraphs:

This may look like a textbook example of GOP incompetence, but Kayleen observed (and I agree) that the GOP operatives know exactly what they're doing. As she put it, nobody has anything on the Republicans when it comes to voter suppression; it's a specialty of theirs.

And party suppression is voter suppression. Don't let anyone tell you it's not.

Plus, just about any district in which a Republican is running, including the district known as the entire state of Texas, is a safe district. Unlike the Democrats, who quake in their Luccheses at the prospect of facing opposition from the left, the GOP ain't worried about no Libertarian challengers.

I spontaneously decided to live-tweet this Presidential Nominating Convention thingy. See the link to the thread below.

Apart from the nominations, the best news of the day is that the Credentials Committee and the GPUS Steering Committee reviewed and rejected the challenges leveled against the delegations of four states and one caucus. As mentioned previously in this space, the challenges, mostly filed well after the deadline for such things, alleged that our delegates (yes, including those from Texas) were chosen using fishy math. Second-best is that, at least for delegates, this was the most stress-free Presidential Nominating Convention ever, in my view and that of several longtime Greenies of my acquaintance.

Nothing will be official until 11 July, but Howie Hawkins of New York has amassed a simple majority of the 350 delegates apportioned for the Green Party's Presidential Nominating Convention. There are fewer than 50 delegates still to be selected.

This news is hardly unexpected given how the quest for the nomination has played out. Hawkins entered the race with an actual track record of running for high offices in New York State, and he is considered a co-founder of the Party. (Second-place candidate Dario Hunter has actually been elected to a school board in Youngstown, Ohio.) The Green New Deal on which Dr. Jill Stein ran in 2012 and 2016 started with Hawkins, whether or not he actually coined the term.

In case you haven't caught the news, Teamster activist Hawkins has selected long-haul truck driver and activist Angela N. Walker as his running mate. For those of you keeping identity politics scoresheets, Walker checks off not only the African American and Woman boxes, but also the LGBT+ box. An Armed Forces veteran like Hawkins, Walker also has electoral experience, including a run for sheriff of Milwaukee County (Wisconsin) in 2014. They have also both worked with Socialist Party USA, which has endorsed their ticket; Hawkins-Walker will likely appear on the ballot lines for SPUSA and GPUS in New York, which allows fusion candidacies.

On a personal note, I have donated to the Hawkins and Hunter campaigns, and I did not have a stated preference between them. My habit is never to presume anyone's nomination until it's signed, sealed, and delivered; I'm not happy about the way he has acted in public appearances as if his nomination was in the bag, appearing on programs such as Redacted Tonight VIP without more than an indirect reference to the other Green presidential candidates. However, I will be glad to be able to answer the inevitable question from the mis- and underinformed, "Who's your (y'all's) candidate?" without saying, "Well, the nomination hasn't been determined yet, and we have about six candidates contesting for it..." by which the asker has fallen asleep.