We, national WILPF US leaders, write in support of the Michigan Welfare Rights Organization and its State Chairperson, Maureen Taylor,
to invite you, WILPF members from Michigan and nearby states, to an important event:
A Candidates Forum
Sunday, September 1
UAW FORD/LOCAL 600 Union Hall
10550 Dix Avenue
Dearborn, Michigan
3:00 to 6:00 PM
Based on years of prior work with individual WILPF leaders, Maureen has invited WILPF to help organize and support this forum, as part of a community, state, and national coalition of labor, welfare, public water service, and human rights groups, along with the Michigan Veterans Foundation and the Greater Detroit Agency for the Blind & Visually Impaired.
Each coalition member is being asked to help fill the union hall that seats about 1,000 people. Those from a group will be seated together, and we'll have a banner to identify the section where we are seated. To highlight our solidarity, we ask WILPF members, along with family members and friends, to each wear a sash and button to stand out in this group. Please order you sash and buttons now, here.
(For those ordering sashes for this event, each sash will be accompanied by a complimentary button!)
Maureen Taylor states: "We want this to be a 'grassroots-generated' gathering, coordinated and focused on the concerns of ordinary working people."
This forum, rather than being in a debate format, is designed to allow each candidate to speak about what actions they have taken or would take if elected President, to improve the lives of ordinary people, especially the poor and dispossessed.
Candidates are asked to consider three areas of concern:
- Loss of jobs and increasing poverty
- Increased assaults on women, including First Nations women, while shelters are being closed
- Lack of affordable housing, and increasing cost of public water and sanitation, education, prescription drugs, and health care
WILPF, as with each coalition member, can submit a question, and Maureen Taylor welcomes WILPF's question on the cost of war and the need to move the money from a war to a peace economy to meet human needs.
In the US today, the issues of the marginalized and the poor don't always rise to the top -- even when these voters represent the margin of victory and success for a candidate! WILPF stands in solidarity with the organizers of this forum to say that no one group can be overlooked or taken for granted! The stakes are too high, for all of us!
The plan for this event is to live-stream the forum across the state and nation to college campuses, places of worship, and work locations, where permitted. These groups make up our coalition base. The live-streaming is important, for greater public access as the Presidential debates have been accessible only to those able to pay for cable channels, excluding much of the public.
For those of you in Michigan and surrounding states, we encourage you to make plans now to attend this forum. Help WILPF fill our section of the union hall and stand in solidarity with the rest of the coalition members!
Thank you,
Laura Dewey, Coordinator, Detroit Branch
Nancy Price, Chair, Earth Democracy Committee
Mary Bricker-Jenkins, Chair, WILPF Ad Hoc Committee for the Poor People's Campaign
Darien De Lu, President
