Campaign Updates:
Michelle Shocked at Last & Environmental Positions Announced
Preparing for the new weekend. Traveling wife Beth and
Perry. She is going to do committee work with AEA in preparation for the
upcoming delegate assembly in a couple of weeks. Perry and I are going to check
in with Virginia from PDA, try to catch Carmona in Glendale and support the
Manny for Mayor campaign, then onto the 99% Spring Training, PHX edition. These
events are taking place all over the country this weekend, even in Bullhead
City. Learning how to better organize events and activism seems right for me at
this stage and the connections that come from training like this remain
invaluable. Especially since the following day, tax day, Sunday April 15th
we are doing our big push in Bullhead City and having the Michelle Shocked
concert (tickets still available by phone or at the door). This will be our
first full scale event.
Anecdote that Might Be
too Ribald:
I spent the sunset walking So-Hi again this afternoon. My house is on the front row of the sub-division.I
remember when Beth were dating and she first pointed out the neighborhood one Sunday
as we drove by while out touristing. I
met one couple who had me unroll a three foot wide county map to show them their
precinct, a guy who blew up in a rant when he heard I was there for politics
and burst out of his house yelling, “Trent Franks is a lying _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
and has lied to me straight to my face!” So I yelled back, “That’s right, Trent
Franks is a lying _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ and has lied to me straight to my
face too!--Which is just one of the reasons I’m running with the Democrats!”
He stopped in mid-stride, “Democrats? Well, that’s different.”
and he smiled. The man then went onto
explain his interest in a oil production method called thermal depolymerization,
which creates water, gas and other oil products from waste. Franks had blown
him off when he expressed interest in this technology a couple of years back,
now the guy says he’s heard of the military developing mobile prototypes that
use the same technology to make gas while on the go. While this technology in
and of itself isn’t the silver bullet to wean us off of oil dependency it is
clearly a tool we can use to attack the problem.
Environmental
Positions Announced
After having more than a month to work on them and only six
months of work to get done before I could get to work on them, I completed and
submitted my Sierra Club questionnaire with a full 52 minutes to spare and
wanted to share some of these positions with you.
About my record on environmental leadership:
Growing up during the
60s & 70s I was exposed to many progressive ideas and the environmental
ones stood out for me. While my personal commitment to working on environmental
issues was vague and insubstantial in my 20s, I moved to Springfield, IL at 28
and soon found myself as the leader of the local activist food co-op and our non-profit
earned money through food sales to do environmental and social justice
activism. Besides supporting the Nature Conservancy and Sierra Club through
literature disbursement and occasional guest speakers, we also helped create
The Friends of the Sangamon River Valley, an organization still active in
wildlife restoration and conservation. We were also key players in the
municipal support of the 20th Anniversary Earth Day celebration, the
anniversary that revitalized America’s now annual celebration of environmental
issues.
Our main
accomplishments however were recycling related. At the request of the
membership I created an at-first member-based, later community-wide recycling
center and later we were leading advocates for the establishment of a municipally
managed city-wide recycling program. One of our former board members went on to
become Springfield’s solid waste coordinator. Since then I have continued to be
heavily involved in community recycling efforts. In addition to working with
the “Cans for Schools” program in Bullhead City until it was disbanded in 2007,
I have been the organizer the paper and plastics recycling programs at the
schools where I have worked for the past 12 years, teaching young people to
respect their planet and embrace the idea of community service.
In addition to this,
for much of the past twenty-three years I have been a political writer, a
liberal humorist of sorts. I started writing for underground and college
newspapers in Springfield, IL in 1989 and have repeatedly returned to
environmental issues such as writing about both the Exxon-Valdez and the BP Oil
Rig spills, acidification of polar oceans, ice floe melt, deforestation and
Bush’s environmental record over the years. The more recent stuff is primarily
available with Op-Ed News:
As you might expect I am opposed to gutting environmental protections,
mountain-top removal, Keystone XL, drilling in ANSWR, the Resolution Mine, and my
opponent Paul Gosar’s favorite: Uranium mining in the Grand Canyon. My favorite
question came from their concerns about the environmental impact of border
issues. I said:
Immigration is at the heart of my campaign. I grew up near the border of
Texas, in Raymondville, Texas, just south of the interior checkpoint, and I am shamed
by our country’s record of tolerating the exploitation and harassment of immigrants
and then excusing their demonization by the right for political goals. In addition
to being an outspoken critic and activist against the more recent SB1070 disaster,
in 2007, I wrote one of my more successful articles, “Make Immigration Legal”--
--Which argued for the sensible immigration reform designed to work with
the reality of living in an age of economic refugees. I believe the idea of attempting
to create an impenetrable fortress around our country is as wrongheaded and immense
a boondoggle as Vietnam and likely to have as profoundly regretful of consequences.
While I am not a member of any immigrants rights groups, in that culture
there is a symbol for the migrant: “la mariposa,” the butterfly, a creature of
great beauty destined by life to roam, to migrate and share their gifts in many
lands. This life of migration is a natural and beautiful thing and is representative
of the numerous migratory species that travel the Americas. I want an immigration
policy that does not believe America has to hide behind a fence, that does not need
to chain the butterflies, or box in ocelots to feel safe. Though I approach this
question as a social justice issue, this is a case where social justice could create
environmental protection: if economic refugee immigrants could pass through established
checkpoints, we could do a better job of taking care of our shared desert habitat,
instead turning our country into a prison.
For more information about my stances on specific environmental
issues or other matters, pressing or no, consider the wealth of contact and
background information below:
Mikel Weisser for
US Congress
mikel weisser
4490 Sundown Drive
So-Hi, AZ 86413
928-234-5633
Personal: yzurthemepark@gmail.com
Campaign: mikelweisser@gmail.com
Website: http://www.mikelweisser.org/
Act Blue:
Democracy for America:
Interview:
Video:
On My Opponent, Paul Gosar:
Positions:
Rebuttals:
LGBT Issues:
Immigration:
Tea Party Rebuttal:
Spoken Word:
Coverage:
