Grassroots supporters of Howie Hawkins’ Green Party campaign for Governor of New York are holding an online "money bloom" today, Friday 22 October, with the goal of raising $10,000 for outreach and advertising.

We are trying to find 1000 people who will give $10 to help Howie Hawkins reach as many voters as possible with his message of a Green New Deal for New York.

Check out the Howie Hawkins Money Bloom and spread the word!

As anyone who watched Monday night’s NY gubernatorial debate knows, Howie Hawkins is the true progressive candidate in the race, with detailed plans to enact progressive taxation, single-payer health care, green public works jobs with living wages, free SUNY/CUNY tuition, a ban on hydrofracking, marriage equality, legalizing marijuana, and electoral reforms such as proportional representation, instant runoff voting and public campaign financing.

In contrast, Andrew Cuomo, the Democratic-Independence-Working Families candidate who leads Republican Carl Paladino by 23 points in the latest Marist poll, presented himself as a socially liberal corporate Democrat who will slash public services and fight unions more effectively than Paladino.

As Hawkins explained in his closing statement at the debate, his goal is to build a movement and establish the Green Party as New York’s 3rd major party. If Hawkins gets at least 50,000 votes for Governor, the Green Party will win a ballot line in New York for the next 4 years, making it much easier to run Green candidates on the local level where Greens have had their greatest success in New York. 200,000 votes would firmly establish the Green Party as New York’s 3rd major party.

On board yet? Check out the Howie Hawkins Green New Deal Money Bloom.

While Cuomo and Paladino presented harsh budget cuts and union-busting as the only solution to New York’s $9 billion deficit, Hawkins pointed out an inconvenient truth: last year NYS collected $16 billion in stock transfer tax revenues from Wall Street – then rebated it in full. Hawkins proposed to keep the stock transfer tax, impose a 50% windfall profits tax on $20 billion in taxpayer-subsidized bankers’ bonuses, and restore NY’s income tax to the more progressive structure it had in the 1970s (which would increase revenue while lowering taxes for 95% of New Yorkers).

Hawkins’ plan would allow NYS to close the budget gap and leave $25 billion left over for a state-owned Bank of New York and a green economic stimulus. Hawkins proposed "employment offices" where the unemployed could find jobs in fields such as renewable energy, weatherization, and mass transit. The Bank of New York would spur economic recovery by extending credit to small businesses, worker cooperatives, and New Yorkers who are unable to get loans from Wall Street.

On the issue of hydrofracking, the Green candidate also offered a clear alternative. Hawkins pointed out that the reliance of Cuomo’s energy plan on natural gas belied the Democrat’s "wait and see" rhetoric, while the Green Party supports a ban on hydrofracking, a natural gas mining procedure in which a toxic cocktail of chemicals are injected into groundwater.

Cuomo is virtually guaranteed to win this election. So the choice for progressives has become: do you want to give away your vote to a corporate Democrat who wants to balance the budget on the backs of working people? Are you so scared by a ranting Republican with no chance that you’ll surrender your vote to an entrenched insider who will shaft students, labor, the working poor and the middle class to protect his Wall Street funders… the ones who broke the economy in the first place?

Or do you want to use your vote to build a people-powered party that shares your values and doesn’t take corporate money, to show both establishment parties that you’re fed up with their corrupt shenanigans in Albany, and to win a ballot line for the Green Party so Greens can build independent progressive power from the grassroots up?

Head to the Howie Hawkins Money Bloom and pitch in $10 or whatever you can afford to give progressive independents in New York a voice. Then spread the word – post it to your facebook wall, invite your friends, retweet (Howie Hawkins is on twitter as @HowieHawkins), blog, send emails, make calls, and shout it from the rooftops:

Howie Hawkins for Governor of New York! It’s time for a Green New Deal!

On July 14th, Green Change announced the campaign for a Green New Deal, a 10-point program to create economic prosperity together with ecological sustainability.

Since then over 100 candidates for elected office at all levels have joined the Green New Deal Coalition.

The Green New Deal Coalition will cut military spending, create millions of green jobs, and revive the economy by protecting the planet we depend on.

Green Change is inviting all candidates, individuals and organizations that support a prosperous, sustainable future for America to endorse the Green New Deal.

Read the call for a Green New Deal and sign on today.

To date, 11 candidates for governor, 11 candidates for US Senate, and 33 candidates for US House of Representatives have joined the Green New Deal Coalition.

All agree on the need to cut military spending, fund green public works, ban corporate personhood, pass single-payer health care, restore progressive taxation, ban usury, enact a revenue-neutral carbon tax, legalize marijuana, institute tuition-free public higher education, change trade agreements to improve labor, environmental and safety standards, and pass sweeping electoral, campaign finance and anti-corruption reforms.

These candidates represent a clean break with the failed policies of the past that have led America down the road to economic and ecological disaster.

The Green New Deal promises a brighter tomorrow for America – one that combines the New Deal’s promise of freedom from economic hardship with decisive action to protect our planet.

You can help build the movement for real change by endorsing the Green New Deal today and asking candidates for elected office to join you.

In answer to our nation’s vast economic and ecological problems, Green Change has launched a campaign for a Green New Deal.

The Green New Deal is an ambitious program to create economic prosperity together with ecological sustainability.

We are building a coalition of candidates, individuals and organizations to support the Green New Deal – starting today.

Join the Green New Deal Coalition now.

Here are the ten policies you endorse by joining the Green New Deal Coalition:

• Cut military spending at least 70%;

• Create millions of green union jobs through massive public investment in renewable energy, mass transit and conservation;

• Set ambitious, science-based greenhouse gas emission reduction targets, and enact a revenue-neutral carbon tax to meet them;

• Establish single-payer “Medicare for all” health care;

• Provide tuition-free public higher education;

• Change trade agreements to improve labor, environmental, consumer, health and safety standards;

• End counterproductive prohibition policies and legalize marijuana;

• Enact tough limits on credit interest and lending rates, progressive tax reform and strict financial regulation;

• Amend the U.S. Constitution to abolish corporate personhood; and

• Pass sweeping electoral, campaign finance and anti-corruption reforms.

Will you help us turn these ideas into reality?

Sign up for the Green New Deal Coalition now.

The first step is to agree on these ten priorities. The next step is to push for specific policies to make them happen.

We need your help. Share your ideas about a Green New Deal at Green Change.

For decades, the U.S. government has spent tens of billions of dollars, sent thousands of nonviolent offenders to prison, and propped up a black market that fuels violent organized crime at home and abroad.

All this for the sake of marijuana prohibition.

It’s time for a new, more sensible approach.

Tell your Governor and state legislators: it’s time to legalize and regulate marijuana.

We know how prohibition works from history class: alcohol prohibition in the 1930s didn’t reduce alcohol abuse, but it did turn a regulated industry into an illegal black market that enriched violent gangsters like Al Capone.

The harm done by prohibition goes beyond gang violence. Thousands of Americans have been imprisoned for no other offense than carrying a small amount of marijuana.

Invasive search procedures and racial profiling have become commonplace, creating mistrust between law enforcement agents and the communities they serve.

Billions of tax dollars are wasted on an ineffective policy that solves nothing.

Legalizing marijuana will cut down on violent crime, reduce unjust imprisonment, repair civil liberties, restore trust between civilians and police, and replace wasteful government spending with new tax revenues.

It will also help American farmers, who will be able to cultivate marijuana as well as the versatile and environmentally friendly hemp crop.

It’s time for a marijuana policy that makes sense.

Tell your Governor and state legislators to sponsor legislation to legalize and regulate marijuana today.