What
You're Missing in Our Subscriber-only CounterPunch Newsletter
How to Spot a Police
Spy
Is it the
guy who asks you after the meeting about how the antiwar movement
needs to get "serious" and asks you lots of questions
about terrorism and "fighting back"? Jennifer Van Bergen
reports, first-hand. Part
2 of our series on what really happened on 9/11/2001: the physics
of collapse, and how not to make a "pancake" by Manuel
Garcia, PLUS Engineer Pierre Sprey on why "controlled demolition"
theories are off target.What
you just missed, but can still get, in our last newsletter: Paul
Craig Roberts on the Collapse of America. CounterPunch
Online is read by millions of viewers each month! But remember, we are
funded solely by the subscribers to the print edition
of CounterPunch.
Please support this website by buying a subscription to our newsletter,
which contains fresh material you won't find anywhere else, or
by making a donation towards the cost of this online edition. Remember contributions
are tax-deductible.Click
here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please:Subscribe
Now!
In the early 1960's, when the
government was ignoring the civil rights of Black people, Aaron
Dixon helped organize the first Black Student Union at the University
of Washington. When the government failed to meet its promises
to Black Americans in the late 1960's, Dixon organized the Black
Panther Party in Seattle.
When our nation's elected officials
ignored hungry children, he organized the Free Breakfast Programs
in low-income neighborhoods. When they ignored the life-and-death
healthcare concerns of African Americans, he organized the first
free medical clinic in Seattle.
Now Aaron is the Green Party's
candidate here for United States Senate. When he rolled out of
bed on Tuesday and spread the morning paper across the breakfast
table, that all-too-familiar feeling overtook him: He was being
ignored again. As he read the quarter page advertisement touting
that evening's televised debate for United States Senate, he
realized it was time to take yet another stand--not only for
himself but for the 60 percent of Washingtonians who oppose the
war in Iraq, who would rather spend military money on social
programs, and who were once again unrepresented in the mainstream
debate.
So if being the champion for
this overwhelming antiwar sentiment is not enough to get in the
debate, what is? KING-5 wasn't shy about revealing that the
main criterion for getting into the debates was that the candidate
must be rich. As co-sponsor of the debate, the Seattle Times
wrote on its web page, "Dixon wasn't invited to participate
because he couldn't show the minimum financial support to qualify
under criteria set up by the Debate Advisory Standards Project,
a nationally recognized group."
Democrat Maria Cantwell and
Republican Mike McGavick were automatic invitees to the debate
because both major party candidates have accepted corporate baksheesh
totaling many millions of dollars. However, in a surprise gambit,
Libertarian candidate Bruce Guthrie mortgaged his home and then
loaned his own campaign $1.2 million. As if to prove that money,
indeed, talks, the producers of KING-5's debate bowed and invited
Guthrie to share the stage and perhaps a hundred thousand television
screens. Even though he bought his way into the televised event,
Guthrie had the presence to turn toward the camera and quip,
"I'm the poorest millionaire up here."
Dixon's $61,000 campaign chest
has surpassed every Green Party campaign in the history of Washington
State. This money has come from a multitude of supporters--many
of whom are turning their pockets inside out to make contributions
because they know a real debate is needed in a country where
the Senate recently voted unanimously to approve an additional
$70 billion for the war in Iraq.
Dixon is polling six times
Guthrie's vote total (3 percent to the Libertarian's .5 percent)
and yet because he hasn't run a big company like the other three
candidates, his voice wasn't included. Dixon's life work has
been in community organizing and non-profits.
So at breakfast, between bites
of cereal and glimpses at The Seattle Times, his exclusion from
the debate took on metaphorical significance. Indeed, he thought,
the same emphasis on money that perverts our political system
in general has corrupted this debate in a very specific way.
Making money the key to politics guarantees that millions will
forever be excluded from democracy and decision-making.
It proved too much for Dixon.
He refused to be shut out of the debate, at least without a
fight, and so, just before the mid-afternoon taping, Aaron entered
the KING-5 news center's lobby and announced, "I am running
for Senate, and I am ready to take the stage." When he refused
to leave the police were called. They handcuffed Dixon, escorted
him out of the building and into a waiting squad car. He was
greeted by dozens of supporters who packed the sidewalk in front
of the building chanting, "U.S. out of Iraq, Dixon in the
debate," and "Free Aaron Dixon."
Some hours later, when he was
released from central booking, Dixon said, "I have been
resting for the last 25 years, since the end of the Panthers,
but today I am wide awake."
Dixon's idea of "resting"
between the end of the Black Panther Party and his current U.S.
Senate bid meant founding a transitional living shelter for at-risk
youth, the Central House, serving on the board of an assisted
living home for elders, the Cannon House, while organizing student
delegations to the World Social Forum.
"It's being done around
the world--from Argentina to Bolivia, from Lebanon to Palestine:
The people have had enough and are fighting back against injustice,"
Dixon continued. Rubbing his inflamed wrist, where the handcuffs
had been cinched unnecessarily tight, he concluded, "It
is time to bring that same struggle right here to the United
States."
They can try to ignore Aaron,
but if his history shows us anything, it's that, ultimately,
they won't succeed.
Jesse Hagopian is the campaign manager for Aaron
Dixon for U.S. Senate. Jesse can be reached at: jesse@dixon4senate.com.
For additional information
on the Aaron Dixon for U.S. Senate campaign, or for details Aaron
Dixon's "Out of War...and Into Our Communities" tour
visit our website.
Now
Available
from CounterPunch Books!
The Case
Against Israel
By Michael Neumann
CounterPunch
Speakers Bureau Sick of sit-on-the-Fence speakers, tongue-tied and timid?
CounterPunch Editors Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St Clair
are available to speak forcefully on ALL the burning issues,
as are other CounterPunchers seasoned in stump oratory. Call
CounterPunch Speakers Bureau, 1-800-840-3683. Or email beckyg@counterpunch.org.