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November
6, 2006
An Interview with Aaron Dixon
From
the Black Panthers to the Green Party
By JESSE HAGOPIAN
Aaron Dixon is the Green
Party candidate for the US senate seat in Washington state. He
is challenging Democratic Party incumbent Maria Cantwell.
YOU'VE NEVER run for any
political office before. What made you decide to run for the
Senate?
WHAT MADE me decide that this
was a good time to run for office was my experience traveling
in Latin America, and meeting with and talking to a lot of people
from Argentina, Venezuela, Ecuador, Brazil--and seeing the democratic
changes that have taken place in those countries where grassroots
leaders have been elected to office.
In effect, the poor are now
in power in places like Bolivia and Venezuela. It's the same
way in Brazil and Argentina. Also, Spain elected a socialist
president, and the Palestinian territories elected Hamas, which
is a big departure.
There is a movement going on
around the world, where the grassroots are electing representatives
from the ranks of the people. I have seen the expression of some
of those movements at the World Social Forums, both in Brazil
and Venezuela.
I marched with 300,000 people
in Brazil, demanding an end to neoliberalism and so-called "free
trade." I experienced the power of people--many of whom
were inspired by the Black Panther Party that I helped to build
years ago--at the World Social Forum in Venezuela this past year.
It's time for that movement
to take place in this country again. As a matter of fact, it's
already begun. There are a number of other campaigns across the
country that are the results of grassroots organizing efforts.
The timing was perfect for the Green Party to ask me to run,
because I knew it was time for us to start to build a movement
right here in Washington state.
WHY ARE you running against
the Democratic incumbent Maria Cantwell, and as a Green?
MY RUNNING against Maria Cantwell
is an opportunity to draw attention to the war in Iraq, NAFTA,
CAFTA and the rest of the right-wing agenda pushed by the Bush
administration that Maria Cantwell has supported. She has gone
back on many of the things she promised to deliver to voters.
My running was an opportunity to bring a lot of those issues
to the forefront.
Just as important, I wanted
to help people understand that there is really very little difference
between Republicans and Democrats.
If you look at history, the
Democratic Party started most major wars that we have been in.
So we will never escape war and poverty with this same two-party
system. We need a multi-party system--that's why I am running
as a Green.
MARIA CANTWELL says that
she wants to make 2006 a year of transition, where the U.S. begins
to redeploy troops and hand over security to the Iraqis. What
do you think of her position?
BUSH HAS said that he doesn't
want to keep the troops in Iraq forever as well, but that isn't
an antiwar position.
Everything Maria says, Bush
has already said it. She says that the U.S. can leave when Iraqi
forces can maintain security, but the truth is they will never
be able to maintain security as long as the target of U.S. troops
remains in Iraq. There is already a civil war in Iraq--a U.S.
general recently admitted that.
What is really amazing about
Cantwell's position is that for months during the campaign, she
said she had "no regrets" about voting to authorize
the war on Iraq. It wasn't until a couple of months ago, when
her Republican challenger, Mike McGavick, came out to her left
and stated that he wouldn't have authorized the war in Iraq,
that Cantwell changed her position.
She has now gone back on her
original decision to authorize the war, but just two weeks ago,
she voted for another $70 billion to be spent on the war. So
we can see her position is still for the war.
HOW DID you develop your
political understanding of the world?
A LOT of it had to do with
my family and the upbringing my parents gave me. I grew up with
my great-great-grandmother in the house. She had been a slave.
I grew up on stories of slavery at home, and you could be sure
that I wasn't going to ever let us go back to those days.
WASN'T YOUR father a radical?
YES, HE was. But it was a process.
He became a radical through his experiences in the military.
He had joined his high school
ROTC, and he went off to fight in the Second World War. At one
point, his company was stationed at a military base in Mississippi.
There came a time when he and the other Black soldiers were supposed
to be able to go on furlough, but the commanding officer ordered
the Black soldiers to stay on the base and clean the white soldier's
latrines. My father wasn't going to take this, and he led a rebellion
of the troops to demand justice.
Another time, my father and
the Black soldiers were marching around the bivouac in Mississippi,
some 10 or 15 miles, and they came upon a farm and asked the
white farmer if they could cross the field. He told them that,
"No niggers are allowed near my property," and he chased
them off with his shotgun.
My father was supposedly fighting
for democracy against Hitler's fascism, and he and his Black
platoon were called niggers right at home. Black soldiers in
Mississippi at that time had to literally fight for their lives
in their own country. My father wasn't going to stand for it,
and he and the soldiers went back to that farmer's barn with
torches that night.
After my father got out of
the military, he joined the Communist Party and Paul Robeson's
Youth Brigade. These were the stories I grew up on, and they
gave me an understanding of some of the fundamental problems
with this country.
Besides my upbringing, you
have to look at the conditions that existed when I was growing
up--being exposed to the civil rights movement and the assassination
of political leaders. This all played a part in shaping my political
consciousness.
YOU FOUNDED the Seattle
chapter of the Black Panther Party. What made you decide to be
a Panther?
MY BROTHER and the younger
people we ran with were looking for a way to organize against
racism and the other issues we felt needed to be addressed.
At first, we thought a Black
Student Union (BSU) would satisfy that, and it didn't. We did
have some successes. We were able to pressure the University
of Washington to implement a Black Studies Department, but many
people in that organization were more into academics and not
as much into action.
So then we started a Student
Non-violent Coordinating Committee chapter. But that didn't end
up satisfying us either. Remember, Martin Luther King was assassinated
in 1968, and we felt it was a time when we had to do more.
So soon after that, we had
an opportunity to go down to Oakland for a BSU conference. But
I cut out of the conference and went to go see the Black Panther
Party give a memorial service for Little Bobby Hutton, who had
just been murdered by the police.
I saw Bobby Seale deliver the
most dynamic speech I have ever heard. He had just come from
the funeral where he had to bury his comrade. He was very emotional
about what happened, and that was the first time I heard anyone
speak so directly. This was first time I experienced the brashness
of the Black Panthers--and I liked it.
We recognized immediately that
this was what we wanted to be a part of. We understood that was
what this country needed: an organization like the BPP that was
putting theory into practice--that was out in the community doing
some very important work.
WHAT WAS some of that work?
WE HAD the Free Breakfast Program,
the free medical clinics, free legal aid, food banks and more.
In fact, the campaign headquarters that we have now was the site
of our free medical clinic back in 1972.
All of the programs that we
started--we had some 60 different programs--showed that the people
had the ability to control their own destiny. They had the ability
to address their own issues by uniting and working together.
That is the legacy the Black Panther Party left to the world--the
people have the power to make the changes to improve their lives.
THE ELECTION is just days
away as we speak. What would you say you've accomplished with
this campaign?
WHETHER WE win or lose on November
7, this campaign has accomplished a lot.
We have given voice to people
all over the state who are fed up with the current two-party
system that maintains illegal wars, which are sucking out our
resources that should be used to strengthen our communities.
We brought that message to over a dozen towns across Washington
in our "Out of war and into our communities" tour.
We got thousands of people
talking about where our money would be better spent. Here in
Seattle, for example, they are proposing to close 10 schools
in neighborhoods that are predominantly people of color--and
the parents have had to file a lawsuit.
Whether we win or lose the
election, we have raised issues that would not even have entered
the mainstream debate--immediate withdrawal of troops from Iraq,
a national health care program for all Americans, a living wage,
rebuilding New Orleans.
We exposed the contradictions
in the electoral process that claims to be democratic, but is
really corrupted by obscene wealth. This point was made for thousands
of people last week when they arrested me for trying to participate
in the televised Senate debate. It's hard to even call it a debate
when they expressly stated that only millionaires could participate.
Most importantly, we've brought
together poor and working-000class whites with Latinos, African
Americans and Asians to oppose this war and the cost it is having
on our communities domestically. This campaign is just the beginning
of a new fight for justice.
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.
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