Editorial

ANN ARBOR SUN Rainbow Community News Service Editorial

1520 Hill Street, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48104  Published by Rainbow People's Party

The SUN Editorial Board: John Collins, Kathy Kelley, Walden Simper, Mike Minnich, Linda Ross, Ann Hoover.   

This coming February 19th primary elections will be held to determine which of the multitude of candidates who have filed for positions on city council and for mayor will go on to run in the general city election in April.  

Once again the people of Ann Arbor will have the duty of going to the polls and participating in the electoral process that will eliminate those candidates that are found to be unacceptable.

In this election, as in all past elections, most candidates, particularly those in the Democratic and Republican parties, do not serve the basic needs of the community as a whole.  Instead, they concentrate on those programs and ideals that further the moneyed and propertied interests that have long effectively held back the growth of the majority of the community and denied us our most basic human rights-those of adequate, clean, low-cost housing, food within reach of our incomes and homes, medical and health care when we need it, not when we can afford it, public transportation, warm clothing, and education that relates to our lives as we live them.

The inception of the Human Rights Party on the other hand was based on the principle that control of the government should belong in the hands of the people.  The HRP was set-up as a vehicle wherein the community, through the electoral process, could institute concrete, practical programs that would begin to solve some of the basic contradictions of our lives and put the community in the position to move quickly toward controlling our own lives and filling our needs as only we, as a whole, can determine.

But since its initial institution the HRP, because of its narrow leadership, has deviated from this primary principle with increasing rapidity; has removed itself from the community in practical terms to, in effect, become a debate society for the development of abstract political ideologies that in no way relate concretely to the everyday problems of the majority of the young, black, poor, oppressed and powerless people in Ann Arbor and Washtenaw County.

However, even though the past leadership of the HRP hasn't adhered to those founding principles the SUN can only reiterate that, if the people are to rightfully gain any control through the electoral process of the government which sets the policies that affect our lives we must unite around the principles of the HRP platform to facilitate the growth of the organization as a viable third electoral party and reverse its present disintegration.

To set the forum for this reunification with the community the factional intrigues and personal disputes within the HRP that continue to waste the time and energy of the community, opaque concrete political issues, and nullify any attempts by the community to hook up with the organization must end.  In the absence of unified political tactics, the primary principle upon which the party was founded-of serving the needs of the people-must be strengthened and embraced by the party as a whole.

It is in solidarity with these principles that the SUN makes the following endorsements:  Bee Kamiowitz for mayor; Andrei Joseph, first ward; David Sinclair, second ward; Sue Steigerwalt, third ward; Phil Carrol, fourth ward; and John Minock, fifth ward.

These candidates represent different segments of the community and of the new HRP steering committee; and given the present conditions in the community are the best candidates to represent the various areas.

If the HRP is to survive and win any Council seats at all in this coming election, it must succeed in re-uniting with its constituency by beginning concretely to present programs and party that will deal directly with the problems of the people.  SOLIDARITY WITH EACH OTHER!!

Community Staff: Bill Maynard, Shaun McShaun, Hiawatha Bailey, Mike Brady, Greg Sobran, David Fenton, Alice Robertson, Marcy Silverman, Freddie Brooks, Genie Plamondon, Skip Taube, Carol Shackson, Pun Plamondon, Gary Grimshaw, Dale Phillips, Ed Cleveland. The SUN is a member of the Underground Press Syndicate and subscribes to Zodiac News Service (ZNS)