West Michigan News Company

About

 

Purpose

       The West Michigan News Company was formed to bring non partisan local news to the citizens of Western Michigan. News is obtained by local citizens reporting on events that affects their lives and their homes. It tries to be as objective as possible by presenting the details that make up events through videos, audio's, and written, verifiable data so the readers can make up their own minds about the actions of their government and their neighbors on their lives. The WMNC recognizes that the large portion of news presented in the area is from wholly owned subsidiaries of multi national corporations that presents their own view of the news, which often conflicts with the tools of investigative reporting.

         When we realize that we all want many of the same things out of life and that our lives are inter connected, then what affects you, should also affect your neighbor. When we work together to solve problems, we will then be on the road to a better life for all of us.

Editor

       

       My roots are deep in northern Michigan. My grandfather was Chair of the Democratic Party of Northern Michigan, which at the time included everything north of Traverse City. He had five boys and a girl who died in an auto accident before WWII at age 16. He got word that my father had been killed in a B-17 in Italy toward the end of the war. He and my grandmother were shocked by this notice, because two weeks earlier he received another telegram telling him that his oldest boy, Bill, a first-

 

 

 

 

lieutenant in the Marine Corps was blown to bits at Guam and there was nothing left to send home.

       My grandfather helped raise me and I can remember listening to the Truman convention on the radio with him as a small boy. He gave me the basic elements of the political party system in our country. Democrats were for the little guy, while Republicans were for the wealthy people. I don't believe he would recognize his beloved Democratic Party today that is largely controlled by the rich and powerful heads of labor unions who don't particularly care about the little guy and I doubt very much that they care about their own rank and file. Money and power are the only things that matter in our modern political environment. I still believe that the government is there to serve the interests of the people and the environment, not the other way around.

        I come from a family that knows the horrors of war, and I had volunteered for Viet Nam even though I was listed as 4A by the draft board for being a sole-surviving son. My mother needed to sign for me to go, and I volunteered as a pilot for Army Air with close to 2,000 hours of flying experience. I was rejected because my vision was not 20/20 in both eyes. Subsequent to Viet Nam, I spent most of my life as a Certified Public Accountant running my own tax firm in Chicago and now here in Michigan. My anti-war position started in March, 2003 on the eve of going into Iraq, when I took a bus from Ann Arbor to Washington to protest the war. So far, I have done five protests in Washington, two in the last year.

       I ran for county commissioner as a democrat in the 2006 General Election, and found that many of my fellow democrats were working closer with the Republicans suppressing minorities and tampering with elections than they were in helping to get Democrats elected. After that, I heard the term Blue Dog Democrats, who are Democrats working against Democratic interests. This publication first started as a newsletter for the Democratic Club of West Michigan, and is now completely independent of any partisan connections. My primary interest is to reinstate the democracy my father and my uncle gave up their lives defending. I am semi-retired and financially secure. As an accountant, I lived by the Latin word "equity" meaning "fair". I want to see my fellow citizens treated fairly.