Ecological Wisdom * Social Justice * Grassroots Democracy * Non-Violence
>> Green Party of Michigan <<
>>> ---------------- <<<
>>> News Release <<<
>>> ---------------- <<<
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 16, 2003
For More Information Contact:
----------------------------
Marc Reichardt -- Party Chair/Treasurer, GPMI
phone: 734-668-9628
e-mail: press@migreens.org
Richard Wunsch -- Candidate, 65th State House District (Special Election)
phone: 734-769-4956 or 517-437-2228
e-mail: woodenspoon@provide.net
> Green Party enters 65th District race <
> ===================================== <
Wunsch to face two challengers in special election May 20
The Green Party of Michigan is thrilled to announce and support the
candidacy of long-time Green activist Richard Wunsch for 65th District
State Representative. Wunsch is running in the Tuesday, May 20 special
election to fill the State House seat left vacant by the death of
freshman representative Jerry Kratz.
Offering a fresh perspective, Wunsch pledges to run on a platform
of peace, labor rights, equality, universal health care, and a clean
environment. A lifelong activist, Wunsch is particularly concerned
about the current attack on Iraq. "Peace is an attitude. Peace is a
process. Peace is a set of values. If we are to have a safe and
peaceful country and world, we must select leaders at ALL levels who
are committed to peace. Peace is THE overriding issue!" Wunsch said.
Wunsch is also concerned with the way corporations attempt to thwart
union organizing and renege on retirement benefits and pensions, foreign
trash being trucked into Michigan from Canada and the "intolerable"
number of Michigan citizens who do not have health care. To combat
these problems, Wunsch proposes stronger union rights and enforcement;
stronger environmental protections and the enforcement of existing laws;
and universal health care enacted on a state-by-state basis, beginning
with Michigan.
Wunsch is a retired teacher and a retired skilled tradesman. For
the last twenty years, Wunsch has sold used books at Volume I Books
in Hillsdale and Wooden Spoon Books in Ann Arbor.
Wunsch has already qualified for the Tuesday, May 20 special general
election. On that Tuesday, he will face the top vote-getters from a
special primary to be held April 22.
For more information about the campaign or to make a donation, please
contact:
Elect Wunsch
PO Box 4026
Ann Arbor, MI 48106
734-769-4956 or 517-437-2228
woodenspoon@provide.net
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Richard Wunsch
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POLITICAL PRINCIPLES
PEACE: Peace is an attitude. Peace is a process. Peace is a set of
values. If we are to have a safe and peaceful country and world,
we must select leaders at ALL levels who are committed to peace.
Peace is THE overriding issue!
RIGHTS OF LABOR: The right of workers to organize is absolute and
should be enforced by the government. Employers should not be
allowed to renege with impunity on retirement, healthcare, and
other contractual agreements.
EQUAL RIGHTS FOR ALL: For any to have full freedom and right ALL must
have them. That means the Equal Rights Amendment and all that
would bring. That means full reproductive rights for all women --
CHOICE! That means affirmative action (NOT the kind that gives 40
points to the children of Yale alums). That means equal rights to
the gay and lesbian community; from housing to the right to be a
family. That means the civil rights and freedoms the Patriot Act
and Patriot II are destroying MUST be defended!
HEALTHCARE FOR ALL: To have ANYONE in this country unable to obtain
quality healthcare is intolerable. In this country somewhere about
25% of our annual healthcare costs goes to administer the patchwork
system of maneuvering and weaseling insurance companies. And that
doesn't take into account the excess profits the pharmaceuticals are
extorting from us. No other advanced country tolerates this and
there is no reason we should.
If the Federal Government is unwilling to solve the healthcare
crisis, then we must begin the process of solving the problem on a
state-to-state basis.
A CLEAN ENVIRONMENT: If it is foreign trash coming in by the truckload
from Toronto, it is long past time to revisit the NAFTA arrangements
that allow such. If it is manure from factory farms going into our
waters, it is long past time to revisit the Right to Farm Act that
allows the GAAMPs (Generally Accepted Agricultural Management
Practices) to rule.
* ---------------------------- * ---------------------------- *
Richard Wunsch
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ISSUES
THE DRUG WARS: We can no longer spend BILLIONS of dollars per year
trying to change non-violent personal behavior. We are destroying
lives. We are destroying communities. We are destroying the
criminal-justice system, making criminal elements rich, and making
it more difficult to stop violent crime.
EDUCATION: We must take some of the money we have been wasting keeping
people in the hands of the Department of Corrections and put it into
education. It costs far less to educate than to incarcerate. We
should make it easier for public-school districts to work together,
right up to consolidation.
JOBS AND THE ECONOMY: The biggest solution to the problems of the
economy is to take the wasteful expenditures out of the war budget
and put the people's money into human services. Military expendi-
tures are capital-intensive (that's part of why the corporations
love them so much) while human services and the development of
alternative energy are both labor-intensive. That adds up to jobs.
The State of Michigan should start building wind farms. They could
be built at the same cost or less than oil- and gas-fired generation
facilities, while running them costs far less.
CAFOs (Confined Animal Feedlot Operations): Also known as "factory
farms", CAFOs have proliferated to an unbelievable extent. Dairy
CAFOs confine 700 or more cows, often several thousand cows, in
long steel barns, year-round. CAFO cows never graze. CAFOs look
like factories, and they are -- animal factories. There are now ten
farms milking 700 to 4,000 cows, each within a few miles of Hudson,
Michigan. One cow produces more than 30 times the waste a human
produces. Waste from 10,000 CAFO cows in this small area = untreated
waste of a city of 300,000 people. However, the CAFOs do NOT have to
process the waste. They flush it out of the barns, then spread it on
the fields irrespective of weather and other conditions. The Michigan
Department of Agriculture must be forced to stop these irresponsible
practices.
Other Contacts:
Green Party of Michigan
548 S Main St
Ann Arbor, MI 48104
734-663-3555
info@migreens.org
page last modified 8 May 2003