Peace Activist, Marcy Winograd, to Run for Congress
by A • Tuesday, Mar. 14, 2006 at 4:39 PM

LOS ANGELES - March 14, 2006 - About 100 people gathered on the front lawn of a home in Mar Vista today to hear Marcy Winograd announce the start of her campaign to unseat the pro-war, pro-Bush, Congresswoman Jane Harman. Other speakers voicing their support for Marcy Winograd included Gore Vidal and Tom Hayden. The event was hosted by the Mar Vista Neighbors for Peace and Justice and was well attended by progressives and left of center Democrats from the Los Angeles area.

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From the Campaign Press Release:

Marcy Winograd, longtime Democratic Party activist, announced today she will challenge incumbent Jane Harman for the 36th Congressional district seat in California’s June 6 primary.
“My campaign is building on a groundswell of dissatisfaction with the Iraq war and the Bush administration’s policies, which continue to remove the civil liberties of American citizens,” Winograd said. “In just the few weeks since I decided to run, I’ve received an outpouring of public support and political endorsements.”
Since 1993, Winograd has been an educator, currently serving as an independent training consultant to educational organizations, including the Sacramento County Office of Education. Before that she worked as a teacher and instructional coach.
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Text of Marcy Winograd Speech
March 14, 2006
I never expected to be standing before you today, to be asking you to vote for Winograd for Congress in the Democratic primary on June 6th. I am not a career politician. I am a teacher. I am not a Party insider. I am a progressive, grassroots activist with a sense of urgency about saving our democracy.

I am running as a patriot – to rekindle the wonderful spirit that is America and to recapture the soul of the Democratic Party, the party of Robert Kennedy and Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt … the Party of the Civil Rights Movement and the New Deal.

My campaign – Winograd vs. Harman, Bush & Cheney - is a campaign about ending the war in Iraq and bringing the troops home now. I say to those who promote the war, to those who would suspend due process and abdicate our civil liberties, to those who would vote to develop space-based weapons thus escalating the arms race and putting us on hair-trigger alert, to those who supported the new bankruptcy law, I say to you:

“The time has come for new leadership in the 36th congressional district and, in fact, across the United States of America. Ours is a country where congress members serve not just those who live in their district, but ALL Americans who seek peace and security through the rule of law.”

We hear a lot these days about security. Well, now is the time to ask what “secure” really means. How secure do our mothers and fathers feel waiting for their children to return from Iraq, where every day the violence worsens?
How secure do our parents feel when their children come home with missing limbs and broken hearts—or in a flag draped coffin?
How secure do Americans feel wondering if Bush and Cheney are wiretapping their phones in violation of the law?
How secure do our citizens feel when congress members such as my opponent, Jane Harman, who serves on the House Intelligence Committee, remain silent in the face of government abuse?
How secure do our seniors feel when they have to choose between food and their prescription drugs?

When we talk about security, we must talk about jobs for all, health care for all, and a foreign policy that embraces diplomacy and builds trust among nations, a foreign policy that chooses war as a very last resort – if ever – and a foreign policy that forever renounces the use of nuclear weapons— because to use those weapons is to ensure our own annihilation.

We must say “No” to Kafka-esque secret prisons where men sit in darkness wondering for what crime they are charged. We must say “No” to the Patriot Act with its sneak-and-peek searches that fly in the face of our constitutional protections. And we must say “NO” to the continued funding of the American occupation of Iraq, which undermines our security by providing terrorists a fertile training ground.

Instead, I propose that we redirect the billions that are enriching military contractors, such as Vice President Cheney’s former employer, Halliburton. Let us redirect a portion of those billions that line the pockets of war profiteers into education.
Let us launch a new education initiative to strategically fund early childhood education programs focused on ending the achievement gap between the privileged and the poor and on building a smarter, better-trained generation, able to deal with the challenges of the 21st Century.

As a teacher—in fact, as a teacher’s teacher—I vow … when elected … to focus on improving education because an educated America is a more secure America. An educated America is an America that is able to find solutions to the problems of globalization, poverty, and degradation of the environment. .
Let us launch a new education initiative to create schools that are not silos – separate and apart from the community – but schools that are the pulse of the community, offering health care services, recreation, and job training.

Yes, let us launch a new initiative that funds strategic early childhood education to promote rigor and critical thinking.

This is what I stand for. If you believe this, join me. If, however, you believe Bush’s lies about Iraq, then you should vote for our current representative. If you believe that we should curtail civil liberties, if you believe that we need new types of nuclear weapons, if you side with the credit card companies and the new bankruptcy law—then you should vote for our current representative.
I don’t think you do, which is why on June 6th you should cast your vote for me. I have laid out what I believe and now I challenge my opponent to a public debate on our differing visions of America and our differing opinions of what it means to be a real Democrat. I am willing to debate her on this- any place, any time.
In the coming weeks I will set out my agenda on all the issues which confront this district and our nation. But here you have the reasons that I have changed my life and chosen to run for office. My path, my cause, is to bring true Democratic representation to this region of California and to all Americans who expect our Congressmembers to adhere to the Constitution and to the principals that they have sworn to uphold.
With the Bush administration chipping away at our civil liberties and, indeed, every aspect of our nation’s institutions and resources, I know that we have no time to lose. It’s time to stand up in defense of our rights, and since Jane Harman won’t do it, I will.
If you agree with me, then I ask you to stand with me, support me, bring others to me. Together, we will send a signal to the country that the people have begun to lead. Thank you.
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Endorsements for Marcy Winograd:

United Auto Workers International, Region 5
Daniel Ellsberg, Pentagon Papers
Tom Hayden, Former California Assemblyman/Peace Diplomat
Ed and Cindy Asner, Actor
Gore Vidal, National Book Award-winning Author and Political Commentator
Jodie Evans, Code Pink: Women for Peace
Helen Caldicott, Founder, Physicians for Social Responsibity
Stanley Sheinbaum, Citizen Diplomat
Robert Greenwald, “Wal Mart: The High Price of Low Cost.”
Ron Kovic, Founder of Vietnam Veterans Against the War
Tim Goodrich, Co-Founder of Iraq Veterans Against the War
Julia Brownley, Candidate for CA State Assembly, 41st District
Mimi Kennedy, National Chair, Progressive Democrats of America
Tim Carpenter, National Director, Progressive Democrats of America
Blase and Teresa Bonpane, Author and Radio Host
Don White, Committee In Solidarity With The People Of El Salvador
Progressive Democrats/Los Angeles
Progressive Democrats/Wilmington

www. winogradforcongress. com/

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