MICHIGAN
‘Stop the War’ slate picks up steam
By
Kris Hamel
Detroit
Published Nov 4, 2006 11:06 PM
The
David Sole for U.S. Senate campaign in Michigan continues to gain momentum as it
enters the final days leading to the Nov. 7 election. Sole, a member of Workers
World Party, is running on the Green Party ticket as the lead candidate on the
Stop the War Slate. He has brought his anti-war message to cities and towns
throughout the state.
Due to the
persistent media work by his campaign, Sole has done several interviews around
Michigan. A 12-minute interview was recently aired on WDET public radio in
Detroit. The Metro Times, a free weekly, featured Sole in a full-page article on
the Green Party campaign. The candidate also taped a 15-minute interview on
public television and radio in the mid-Michigan city of Mt. Pleasant. The
broadcast area covers half of the northern Lower Peninsula. Sole did a live
interview at a Kalamazoo radio station as well as a taped interview on Kalamazoo
public radio, and with the student newspaper at Western Michigan University in
that city.
While in Mt. Pleasant, Sole
campaigned with Lauren Spencer on the campus of Central Michigan University.
Spencer is the Green Party candidate for Michigan State University Board of
Trustees. Sole learned from an African American student there that the Nazis
held a rally on campus earlier this year. Sole is writing a letter to the
university’s president demanding immediate measures to combat racism on
campus.
Both Spencer and Sole received
the endorsement of the Lansing Association for Human Rights, a lesbian, gay,
bisexual and trans (LGBT) advocacy group. Spencer has been actively campaigning
in the Lansing area and recently spoke to a political science class about her
campaign.
Michael Merriweather, Stop
the War Slate candidate for Wayne State University Board of Governors, traveled
with Sole to Kalamazoo and did campaigning en route at the community college in
Jackson, Mich. The candidates were introduced by Leslie Feinberg, author and
LGBT leader, at a standing-room-only meeting at Kalamazoo College. Merriweather
took part in a “meet the candidates” event at WSU on Oct.
23.
Sole distributed 500 leaflets to
faculty and staff of Wayne County Community College at a daylong program at Cobo
Hall. That same evening, he took part in a successful house meeting and
fundraiser at the home of immigrant rights leader Elena Herrada.
On Oct. 28 Sole took his campaign to
the Latin@ community in southwest Detroit. A sound car and leafleting got his
pro-immigrant, anti-racist message to hundreds in the community. Ignacio
Meneses, leader of the Justice for Cuba Coalition and U.S./Cuba Labor Exchange,
assisted with Spanish translation of Sole’s program.
Donations from supporters have enabled
the campaign to place advertisements in several newspapers. El Central, a free
Spanish-language weekly, published a multi-color full-page ad, prominently
featured on its second page. Quarter-page ads have also been placed in the Arab
American News and the Michigan Citizen. Small ads are being run in dozens of
newspapers throughout the state.
On the campaign
trail
Leslie Feinberg did a
five-event speaking tour in Michigan in late October. As in Kalamazoo and at
Michigan State University, Feinberg urged her audiences at the University of
Michigan in Ann Arbor and WSU in Detroit to support the Stop the War Slate on
the Green Party ticket. Lauren Spencer took the stage with Feinberg at MSU and
WSU and spoke briefly on her campaign for MSU trustee. Spencer’s platform
pays particular attention to issues facing LGBT students and campus
workers.
Kevin Carey, Stop the War Slate
candidate for State Board of Education, participated in a candidates’
forum at Grace Fellowship Chapel, one of the largest African-American churches
in Detroit, where he blasted the distribution of state educational funding as
“an apartheid system that perpetuates racism and
poverty.”
Fred Vitale, candidate
for District 3 State Representative, recently placed more than two dozen
billboards in high visibility areas in Detroit’s east side. His
“Money for Detroit, not for war!” message is read by hundreds of
motorists daily. Every day during the last full week of October, cable
television in the Grosse Pointes and Harper Woods aired the recent
candidates’ forum.
The Sole for
U.S. Senate campaign issued an Oct. 29 media release that charged: “The
last couple of weeks have made clear that the war in Iraq is the critical issue
in the elections nationwide. With 65 percent of the population opposed to the
war, the Democrats are demagogically trying to divert this opposition to the war
into support for their candidates.
...
“The Democrats have
consistently supported Bush’s war in Iraq. The last Senate vote on the
military budget and appropriations for the war was 100-0. To this date, the
Democrats stand opposed to the only real solution to the war—to end it now
by withdrawing all U.S. troops from Iraq immediately.
“Debbie Stabenow, incumbent
Democrat for Senate, has voted for every appropriation for the
war.
“The bulk of the media has
shown its subservience to big business and the Pentagon by refusing to cover the
David Sole for U.S. Senate campaign, the only anti-war voice in the Michigan
Senate race. In contrast, last week the Michigan Citizen, Detroit’s
largest and most progressive African American weekly newspaper, endorsed David
Sole for U.S. Senate.”
Sole
concludes, “I call for the immediate withdrawal of all U.S. troops from
Iraq and Afghanistan. I call for using the billions wasted on the
Pentagon’s wars to fund health care, housing, jobs at living wages and to
rebuild our cities. I am for amnesty and legalization for undocumented workers,
not the racist fence to keep out immigrants supported by Stabenow and
[Republican Senate candidate Mike] Bouchard. I am for protecting civil liberties
and for repeal of the Patriot Act and Military Commission Bill, in contrast to
Stabenow and Bouchard’s support for torture and detention without due
process. And I am for genuinely protecting workers’ pensions by not
allowing corporations to use the bankruptcy process to eliminate the pensions
and benefits of the workers, unlike Stabenow and Bouchard who both supported
last year’s anti-worker bankruptcy
act.”
David Sole is available for
media interviews in Michigan and challenges media to cover the only anti-war
platform in the campaign. Supporters are invited to a Green Party election rally
on Nov. 4, at 6:00 p.m., Central Methodist Church, Woodward at Adams at Grand
Circus Park in downtown Detroit.
For
more information on the Sole for U.S. Senate campaign and all Stop the War Slate
and Green Party candidates, visit www.stopthewarslate.org and www.migreens.org, or e-mail [email protected].
Much-needed donations can be made payable to: Sole for Senate Campaign, 5922
Second Ave., Detroit, Mich.
48202.
Kristen Hamel is the Stop the
War Slate candidate for District 1 State Representative on Detroit’s east
side.
Articles copyright 1995-2012 Workers World.
Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.
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