Dixon runs on platform of peace

Published 10:00 am Wednesday, October 25, 2006

The former Black Panther leader touts an alternative to the major party offerings.

Lincoln Bode registered to vote some 20 years ago. Now he’s finally found a candidate worthy of his first ballot.

“You’ve got my vote,” Bode told Aaron Dixon, Green Party nominee for U.S. Senate, during a campaign event at the Bainbridge Library on Friday. “You give voice to a tremendous amount of people.”

Bode and about 30 others listened to the former Seattle Black Panther leader discuss why voters should hop off the two-party bandwagon and abandon the political pathways led by Democratic Sen. Maria Cantwell and her Republican challenger Mike McGavick.

“I’ve never felt this was a representative democracy for me,” Bode said after the event. “But finally, here’s somebody with a completely humanist platform. It’s a platform that doesn’t sway around. Human values – taking care of each other and making life as enriching as we can – those don’t change. They are not blown by the wind.”

Dixon’s politics have remained firmly rooted in the civil rights and anti-war movements of the 1960s.

In 1968, Dixon was chosen, at age 19, to lead the Seattle chapter of the Black Panther Party. As a Panther, Dixon helped start a free health clinic, a breakfast program for school children, a food bank and Seattle’s first urban summer camp.

Bode, a Mason County produce farmer, remembers Dixon serving up breakfasts at his elementary school in an impoverished Seattle neighborhood.

“That had a huge impact on me and my friends,” he said.

Inspired by the Panthers’ generosity, Bode now donates 50 percent of his produce to non-profits, such as the Kitsap County AIDS Foundation and area tribal nutrition programs.

Dixon now runs a Seattle nonprofit that provides housing for homeless youth and leadership training for high school students.

He’s never run for public office, but his opposition to the Iraq War drew him into the political fray.

“We’ve been given a steady diet of fear,” Dixon told his audience. “But we cannot vote our of fear.”

Those like Bode, who subscribe to the Green Party’s pro-environment, social justice platform, shouldn’t vote for Cantwell to stop a Republican from gaining a Senate seat.

“If you vote out of fear, you’ll be going with a war candidate,” Dixon said. “We deserve more choices than these cookie-cutter politicians we get.”

Dixon pointed to Cantwell’s support for the Iraq War, which he said sets her views closer to George W. Bush and the Republican Party than most Americans.

“We have to send a message to the Democrat and Republican parties,” he said. “We have to vote for what we believe in.”

Some in the audience expressed some hesitance about casting another Green vote.

“In 2000, I voted for (Green Party presidential candidate) Ralph Nader,” said one woman. “Of course, he was blamed for the failure of the Democratic Party.”

Still, the Democrats had won the popular vote, retorted another.

“When (Al) Gore won, they still blamed Nader,” a man said to a round of laughter.

Another attendee saw little difference between Cantwell and McGavick, especially on issues of foreign policy.

“It’s like comparing Coke and Pepsi,” he said.

After his stump speech, Dixon allowed his visit to turn into a discussion on how to increase the vitality of third-parties.

Many attendees were incensed that Dixon was barred from a recent televised debate with Cantwell and McGavick. Dixon was arrested by Seattle police when he refused to leave the studio where the debate was broadcast. The Libertarian Party nominee for U.S. Senate, Bruce Guthrie, was allowed to participate in the debate after he mortgaged his house and loaned his campaign over $1 million to his campaign, which met one of the debate requirements.

“That right there illustrates what’s wrong with our electoral process,” Dixon said. “It really is all about money. It’s a class issue. We need to demand they change it.”

Third party candidates like himself can add vigor to stale debates, injecting new ideas and raising questions major party politicians tend to avoid, said Dixon.

“We’re spending trillions on this illegal war in Iraq, as well as the war in Afghanistan and the war on drugs,” Dixon said. “That’s a tremendous amount of waste.”

Dixon proposes diverting much of the country’s military budget toward social and environmental programs.

“We could pay teachers what they deserve,” he said, putting his ideal teachers’ salary at about $70,000 a year.

While Dixon may “give voice” to ideas such as these, no one will hear them under the “roar of those in power,” according to one attendee.

But even those that roar have to pause every so often to listen to voters, said Dixon.

“They’ll hear you if you vote with your convictions,” he said.

For more information on U.S. Senate candidate Aaron Dixon, visit www.dixon4senate.com