It’s Not Easy Being Green – An Interview with Howie Hawkins

Princess Clementine, Political Correspondent for Animal Rights

Tue Sept 3, 2019

Last week I had the opportunity to meet with not one, but two of the candidates for President of the United States.  Howie Hawkins, candidate for the Green Party had a Meet and Greet at a wine shop in Highland Park on August 25^th and I thought it would be a good time to catch up with him.  I’d sent him an email earlier in the week, and he replied that he’d be happy to meet with me in the morning before the event when he went to check out the venue with his team.  Never one to let such an opportunity pass by, I replied that I’d be there.

I had a day to do my research beforehand, so I started with his campaign website.  It seems that the Green Party is an ecosocialist party, or at least as far as I can tell it is.  It opposes corporations owning certain industries, and that those should be socialized.  Among those cited was Facebook, and although I think some of the folks on Facebook need some socialization, I’m not sure how trust-busting it or making it into a public utility would make it better.  But, I’m just a cat, and don’t pretend to understand human interactions, especially when they regard the green-printed paper and round metal disks or the plastic cards that seem to be their substitute.  I do know you need a lot of round disks or some pieces of paper to buy squishy or crunchy food, but that’s about the extent of my knowledge.  I got a headache trying to read more of the information on his and the Green Party websites, so I figured I just wing it when I met the candidate. 

I arrived at the wine shop at 9:30 am, as Candidate Hawkins had requested, but there was a “Closed” sign on the door.  I wandered around the back, and found an open door through which folks were bringing in heavy boxes of wine bottles.  I slipped in and went looking for the candidate.  He’d said he’d meet me in the wine cellar, so I headed downstairs.  Well, there was plenty of cases of wine and other things down there, but no candidate, and it didn’t seem like a pleasant place to either hold an event or be interviewed.  Upstairs I found a brick walled room with shelves full of wine and an annoyed candidate talking on his cell phone. 

“She confirmed by email that she’d be here at 9:30 and it’s almost 9:40.  She’s not even who I thought she was, I was thinking of Clementine Ford.  I can’t find anything about her on the web, so who knows what I’m getting myself into here.  Do all the interviews you can, you said.  Well, as far as I can tell, when I googled Clementine and political correspondent, the only thing that came up was a fricking cat!  Maybe someone was just putting me on.  I hope someone was just putting me on.  I’ll wait another ten minutes and then we’ll meet you for an early lunch.  Later.” 

I walked into the room while he was talking and stood below the table.  Hawkins sighed loudly and rubbed his face.  I figured I’d end his suspense, and jumped up on the table, carefully avoiding the arrangement of wine glasses.  I meowed at him and looked up into his face.  He rubbed his face again and said, “Glory be, I’ve taken an interview with a cat.”  He shook his head and looked at me.  “Well,  you obviously have questions, but I unfortunately do not speak cat.  Let me just tell you a little bit about my candidacy and stance on the major issues in the election.”  I nodded, so he repeated most of the information I’d seen on his candidacy website.  He did have some information I’d failed to find on his position regarding animals.  “Clementine, I fully support the Green Party’s position on animal rights.   Our position would greatly improve the lives of you and your feline and canine friends.  We support neutering of, um, animals of no fixed address, prohibition of any procedures that would affect your ability to survive such as declawing, or devocalization as well as painful cosmetic procedures like docking tails or ears in dogs or cats.  We would support the conversion of all shelters to “No-Kill” facilities, except in cases where an animal is injured or ill and medical care would not leave them with a decent quality of life.  For your wild cousins, we want to close zoos and return animals to their normal habitats if possible, and if it isn’t possible move them to true sanctuaries with natural habitats similar to the ones in which their wild…relatives live.  The Green Party recognizes non-human animals as sentient beings who possess inherent rights to live a natural life free from human exploitation and abuse, and advocates legislation supporting these rights. As such, non-human animals should be granted the legal status of “person” not “property,” affording them the legal right to be represented in a court of law. We will also ban factory farming and routine use of antibiotics on healthy animals and will also eliminate genetic modification of animals." 

He'd been watching me carefully the whole time he was speaking, so I made sure to respond appropriately by nodding my head or cocking it when he said something that I didn’t quite understand.  When he said they would grant animals the legal status of persons I stood up, meowed and began purring as loud as I could.  After he finished he stood there with his hand slightly outstretched, so I reached my head out and rubbed my face against it and then sat back down. 

“You know, I think you understood what I said.  That position about animals being persons was pretty much just a platform statement to me before today, but talking to you about it, I felt like I was probably the first candidate to make a campaign speech to an animal and believed she took in what I said.  Honestly, you’ve been the best audience I’ve had since I started this campaign.  People don’t take the Green Party seriously.  We usually get some hecklers at events that aren’t fund-raisers, and even the guests at the fund-raising events often have quite skeptical questions.  People can be so rude, making jokes about us being the Mars Party, saying we’re little green men.  I don’t know about everyone else in the Green Party, but I for one am not little, and many of our members are not men.  To my knowledge, none of us are from Mars.  You know, Clementine, it’s not easy being green.”  As soon as he said that I wheezed out a suppressed laugh and he slapped a hand over his mouth.  “Of all the things I was not supposed to say, that was #1 with a bullet point.  And yes, we’re often asked by hecklers why Kermit the Frog isn’t running, as he’d get more votes than any of our candidates.”  He shook his head and reached out tentatively to scritch my head.  I graciously allowed it and leaned into his hand, purring loudly.  We stood there, Presidential Candidate and sentient feline political correspondent, for a few moments until an aide came in to talk to the candidate about the fund-raiser.

The candidate held up his hand for the aide to wait and said, “Clementine, I’ve enjoyed this interview very much, and look forward to your coverage of my campaign.  If you have any additional questions, please send me an email and I’ll get back to you ASAP.  I’d say, call me Howie instead of “Candidate Hawkins”, but you’re not likely to say either in a language I’d understand.  Take care of yourself, Clementine.”  He turned to his aide, who gave him a quizzical look and I jumped off the table and headed for the door.  I heard the aide say behind me, “Did you just give an interview to a cat?”  Howie replied, “Yes, she’s one of my sentient non-human supporters.  Will you open the door for her?”  And as I left he called, “Bye now, Clementine.”