Anti-war slate holds rallies across Michigan

The campaign of David Sole for U.S. Senate on the Stop the War Slate of the Green Party of Michigan has moved into high gear. Meetings are being held throughout the state. The media are slowly beginning to pay attention to the campaign.

David Sole passes out leaflet urging a "Vote Against the War."

Demonstrations are scheduled at two Senate candidate debates to protest Sole’s exclusion, which is really the exclusion of the anti-war movement.

Propelling the campaign are Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow’s recent actions. Just recently, Stabenow joined her fellow Democratic and Republican senators in voting to build an apartheid-style 700-mile-long fence on the border with Mexico. She voted to continue funding the illegal wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and to provide a legal basis for the Bush administration’s continuing torture of detainees barred from legal recourse.

More and more progressive activists are expressing their disgust with Stabenow on the Internet, and an increasing number are coming out in support of David Sole as the anti-war Senate candidate.

For example, Elena Herrada, a leader in the immigrants’ rights struggle in Detroit, posted a letter online that read in part: “I am not able to find it within myself to support Stabenow for anything. She voted to build the wall across the border, to support the bankruptcy bill, which penalizes poor people, she started the wheels in motion to dismantle public school funding before she became a Senator, and is a supporter of the war. ... David Sole is running on the anti-war slate of the Green Party ticket. He has been on every picket line with us for as long as I can recall. He is unafraid to speak truth to power.”

And in a widely circulated e-mail denouncing Stabenow’s vote for the Military Commissions Act—widely known as the “torture bill”—Cynthia Heenan, a leader of the Detroit chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, also expressed her support for Sole.

Campaign reaches cities all over state

Early in October the Sole campaign traveled to northern Michigan. The economic devastation in this part of the state is as real as in Detroit, but less widely publicized. Organizers set up an outreach table at the Harvest Festival in Boyne City. They reported a favorable response to their anti-war message. One senior citizen took a stack of leaflets to her housing project. A teacher grabbed a stack to bring back to her class.

On Oct. 8, in Sault Ste. Marie, an evening meeting featuring Sole drew a crowd at an area restaurant. One participant said he had put an announcement about Sole’s appearance onto the Democratic Party e-mail list serve in the “Soo.” Another described going “undercover” at a recent Tommy Dorsey concert. Inside the concert venue, he said, he passed out Sole for Senate fliers while dressed in a suit and tie and posing as an usher.

The meeting, and whole northern tour, focused particular attention on an issue that will be the subject of a public hearing on Nov. 3 in Charlevoix, Mich.: a measure that would classify 25 percent of the Great Lakes as a Department of Homeland Security zone for munitions testing. Officials have admitted this would cause “collateral damage” to surrounding areas.

Campaign meetings were also held in Ann Arbor and Flint, where the Green Party candidate for U.S. Congress is a retired UAW Delphi worker. And in East Lansing, the campaign has been invited to join a lesbian/gay/bi/trans speak-out at Michigan State University; Sole and Michigan State Board of Trustees candidate Lauren Spencer will participate.

A news conference is scheduled for Oct. 11 at the State Capitol in Lansing. Leaflets for the Sole for Senate, Kevin Carey for State Board of Education and Derek Grigsby for State Representative campaigns were handed out at the Focus Hope march in Detroit.

The campaign also received a tremendous boost from the appearance in Michigan of Leslie Feinberg, a leading trans lesbian activist, author and Workers World editor.

Stabenow and her Republican opponent, Sheriff Michael Bouchard, have announced plans for two candidate debates. Fittingly, the first debate, on Oct. 18, will be hosted by the Detroit Economic Club, an organization composed of Michigan’s corporate elite. In a letter demanding that he participate in that debate, Sole wrote, “My campaign reflects the majority position of the people on this critical issue, a position that should be heard and reflected in any true campaign debate.”

When the Economic Club failed to respond to Sole’s demand for inclusion in the debate, the anti-war candidate filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission. Sole’s complaint cited violations of 11 CFR 110.13(c), which provides that organizations staging debates cannot use belonging to the Democrats and Republicans as the criterion for who gets invited, and must use pre-established objective criteria to determine which candidates may participate. The complaint also cited 11 CFR 110.13(a), which provides that staging organizations cannot support or oppose political candidates or political parties.

Sole told Workers World, “A look at the corporate sponsorship for the Detroit Economic Club, which is an avowedly big-business organization, demonstrates that they clearly oppose my candidacy because I am a socialist who is against big business and their policies of profits before people, as well as their support for imperialist wars abroad.”

Sole’s supporters plan to demonstrate at the debates if the exclusion persists. The fundamental issue of ending the illegal U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will be addressed, as will the demand that the hundreds of billions of dollars being wasted in these wars be used instead to guarantee jobs, housing and health care for all.

The demonstrations are scheduled for Oct. 15 at Grand Valley State University near Grand Rapids, and Oct. 18 at 11 a.m. at the Marriott Hotel in the Renaissance Center in downtown Detroit.

Also on Oct. 18, Lauren Spencer will participate in a candidate forum at MSU in East Lansing, and Kristen Hamel will take on her Republican and Democratic challengers for first district state representative at a candidate forum sponsored by the Grosse Pointe League of Women Voters.

For more information on the Sole for U.S. Senate campaign and all the Stop the War Slate and Green Party candidates, visit www.stopthewarslate.org, www.migreens.org, or email [email protected]. Donations can be made payable to Sole for Senate Campaign and sent to 5922 Second Ave., Detroit, MI 48202.