A real people’s candidate

David Sole is the Green Party of Michigan candidate running for U.S. senator on the Stop the War Slate.

Green Party candidates are Standing L to R: William J. Opalicky (State Senate, Dist. 14), Kevin Carey (State Board of Education), Margaret Guttshall (WSU Board of Governors), Fred Vitale (State Rep, Dist. 3), Lauren Spencer (MSU Board of Trustees), Kristen Hamel (State Rep, Dist. 1), Derek Grigsby for State Rep. Dist.7, Michael Merriweather (WSU Board of Governors); Seated L to R: Richard Kuszmar (State Senate, Dist. 9), David Sole (U.S. Senate), Douglas Campbell (Governor) Photo: Abayoumi Azikwe

He has been an anti-war, anti-racist activist for four decades. As a youth he protested the Vietnam War and was arrested for fighting the KKK in the streets of Pontiac, Mich. in 1972. He fought General Motors’ plant closings as co-chair of UAW Local 15’s Stop Plant Closings Committee in the 1980s. In 1998 he defied U.S. sanctions and delivered medicine to children’s hospitals in Iraq.

Sole has been in the streets defending the rights of immigrants, women, and lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans (LGBT) people. He has been outspoken against the U.S.-backed Israeli slaughter of Lebanese and Palestinian people and against the U.S. war on Iraq.

Sole is a founder of the Michigan Emergency Committee Against War & Injustice (MECAWI), president of UAW Local 2334 at the City of Detroit Water & Sewage Department, and a member of the National Committee of Workers World Party.

Sole is demanding an immediate, unconditional U.S. withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan, an end to all U.S. aid to Israel, as well as U.S. hands off Cuba, Venezuela, North Korea and Iran. Sole told Workers World, “We need to take the $317+ billion spent for the Iraq war, plus the $550 billion Pentagon budget, and use this money to fund human needs. If we also tax the corporations and the rich, and rescind interest payments to the banks on the national debt, there will be ample money throughout the U.S. for a massive jobs program at living wages, medical care, housing, schools, and other things that poor and working people here desperately need.”

With these credentials, candidate Sole is the only firm opponent to the U.S. wars and occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan. He speaks for the majority of citizens who, in poll after poll, want an end to the war in Iraq and the troops brought home.

Nevertheless, the Detroit Economic Club, a big-business fraternity located in this economically devastated and impoverished city, invited only incumbent Democratic Senator Debbie Stabenow and her Republican challenger, Michael Bouchard, to participate in the first U.S. Senate campaign debate. The televised debate is scheduled for Oct. 18 at noon at the Marriott Hotel in Detroit’s Renaissance Center (owned by General Motors Corp.).

Anti-war activists and Sole for Senate supporters have initiated an email campaign to the Detroit Economic Club ([email protected]), Stabenow’s office ([email protected] and [email protected]), and calls to Bouchard’s campaign headquarters (248-566-1125) to demand Sole’s inclusion in the debate. If the anti-war candidate is excluded, activists are planning to file a complaint with the Federal Election Commission for violations of federal campaign laws.

Campaign kicks into high gear

Sole and his supporters have been campaigning throughout the metro Detroit area, starting with a mass leafleting at Detroit’s Labor Day march on Sept. 5. Sole and campaign activists also did outreach at the Dally in the Alley, a large progressive event held yearly near Wayne State University.

Sole recently spoke at a meeting of the Arab-American Political Action Committee in Dearborn, as well as attending a house meeting in Southfield and a Democratic rally featuring his opponent Debbie Stabenow. Sole joined other protestors at this rally, held at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, and was outraged when Stabenow was fraudulently introduced as being against the Iraq war. “That’s a lie! You voted to fund the war every single time,” Sole shouted to her.

On the evening of Sept. 23, the Sole for U.S. Senate Campaign held a fundraising party at the Detroit meeting hall of the International Action Center. Green Party and Stop the War Slate candidates and friends enjoyed music, conversation, and delicious food and drink in a spirit of camaraderie and fight-back. Over $800 was raised for the campaign.

David Sole and Michael Merriweather, Stop the War Slate candidate for Wayne State University Board of Governors, will be joining other Green Party candidates on a trip to northern Michigan Oct. 6 through 9. They will take their anti-war message to Boyne City and Traverse City in the northern Lower Peninsula, as well as to Sault Ste. Marie and Marquette in the Upper Peninsula.

The Stop the War Slate received a big boost recently when internationally-known activist, leader for LGBT rights and award-winning author Leslie Feinberg announced that she will be traveling to Detroit, Ann Arbor, Kalamazoo and East Lansing for speaking engagements in October. Feinberg will be featured at a Workers World Party public meeting in Detroit on Oct. 7 and has pledged to “speak out and take the election campaign against the war” to these Michigan cities during her tour.

Sole told Workers World, “Our campaign is a protest against the U.S. military machine. It’s an opportunity for anti-war activists to be heard in an electoral process that traditionally excludes workers and the poor. Elections are used to divert attention from the real problems the working class faces. No Democrats or Republicans are raising real solutions. This is the richest country in the world and the money is there to meet people’s basic needs, but we have to struggle to take that money away from the Pentagon and from the rich. Our campaign also exposes the inherently undemocratic nature of U.S. politics and the two-party system. We say working people deserve a voice.”

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, www.mecawi.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.