February 26, 2008 archive

Many are aware of the decision handed down on Friday by a Federal Appeals Court in New York. The court ruled that the Vietnamese plaintiffs could not pursue claims against Dow Chemical Company, Monsanto and nearly 30 other companies for ailments caused by the use of herbicides which

the plaintiffs appealed a lower court decision that dismissed a civil suit seeking class-action status on behalf of more than 3 million Vietnamese people against the chemical companies.

The lawsuit contended that agent orange caused ailments, including birth defects and cancer.

The United States has maintained there is no scientifically proved link between the wartime spraying of herbicides and the claims of dioxin poisoning by more than 3 million people in Vietnam.

By 1983, 9170 veterans had filed claims for disabilities that they said were caused by Agent Orange. The VA denied compensation to 7709, saying that a facial rash was the only disease associated with exposure.

Wars within wars, layers like an onion. My grandmother’s sayings rising to the top of my consciousness “My heart is like an onion. You may peel if you will but under every layer is another layer still”, all rush through my mind. The stew that is my being is called into action here and now. The collective knowledge or brainwashing, the personal, the so called rational, it’s all churning and in overdrive.

No relief in sight, calls for rationality offer nothing even close to rational. WTF is rational when nothing is clear, nothing is resolved everything is in flux. I hold on to what I can of my flawed and biased assessment of what’s going on. Is this wrong? Am I a bad Democrat, a hater, a lover, a cultist, a betrayer of the best outcome? Chastised by people I respect as a possible weak link in this battle over no difference other then mandated heath care vs. 15,000,000 left out. Heh? My feeble mind can not compute nor should it have to. I go screw you, political machines. My instincts are my friend, I think, I hope. Deliver me from the only answer? Then again perhaps this is the best bet. Roll those dice!

Take a stance and fear not I say. Then again trust experience. Who, in times like these, offers relief or even a reality that makes sense? “No one” I say, deep inside. My head spins, nausea ensues yet still I cannot let go of the hope. The layers within the Democratic party freak me out. Where does politics end and any answer to the madness begin? Not in the electronic vibrations shot out into my brain from my computer, not in the TV. Where is the answer? Nowhere. Still I cannot let go of hope, the antidote to cynicism, the only raft I have in this sea of inevitability.      

Cross-posted at dKos.

“We are a nation of laws and a nation of immigrants,” Barack Obama has frequently said on the campaign trail and in debates. I could not agree more.  However, listening to the debate in Austin the other night through my ex-pat lenses, I found myself mildly frustrated with the discussion of the immigration issue. Solving the legal and security issues is important, but what about the larger issue of why the United States continues to have such a serious illegal immigration problem in the first place?

After 10 years of increases in border patrols, partial walls, higher budgets, and more advanced sensor technology, shouldn’t we have seen some better results? Maybe we would have, if the security measures were actually the answer to the root cause of immigration. But they aren’t.

Two votes on bringing our troops home from Iraq are scheduled for Tuesday, and MoveOn wants me to call my U.S. Senator to urge him to vote for them.

I may do that, but both votes seem pre-destined to fail.  The one that really matters is guaranteed to lose.

Both are described as “test votes,” meaning they are intended to get a reading on whether there are 60 votes, enough to prevent a filibuster.  If not, the bills go back into the drawer in some committee.

CQ Today describes the situation this way:

Democrats are not likely to muster the 60 votes needed to call up the tougher of the two, which would bar funding for Iraq deployments 120 days after enactment, with some exceptions for anti-terrorism missions, training Iraqi security forces and protecting American forces.

Four similar measures failed last year. The most recent, a Feingold amendment to an omnibus spending measure, fell by a 24-71 vote Dec. 18.

According to a Senate Democratic aide, Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., “had made a prior commitment to Sen. Feingold to bring these bills up,” and agreed to do so now so Feingold would not block Senate consideration of several other measures.

A memo circulated by a Senate Republican leadership aide said the Feingold bill would mean “U.S. troops can no longer perform most of the missions that have made the surge so successful, and allowed for the political progress Iraqis have made in recent months.”

A second test vote is scheduled on the motion to proceed to another Feingold bill that would require a report within 60 days “setting forth the global strategy of the United States to combat and defeat al Qaeda and its affiliates.”

While the GOP leadership aide called that bill a politically motivated “messaging” measure, Republicans have not publicly indicated how they will vote.  

One provision in the bill would require the report to include recommendations to ensure the global deployment of U.S. troops is aimed at defeating al Qaeda and does not undermine homeland security or require frequent redeployments or extensions of deployments.

Wanna bet how those Republicans will vote?

This brings me to a strategic question that is often asked but goes unanswered:

Instead of test votes, why not schedule bills and force the Republicans to filibuster if they want to prevent them from passing?

Let the country see who’s blocking the efforts to bring our troops home and extricate this country from the bloody mess in Iraq.

Let them tie up the Senate’s business for a week, or two weeks, or however long, telling us why we need to stay in Iraq.

The present strategy allows both parties to share the blame for inaction on Iraq, while two-thirds of the voters want action.

That’s why “Congress” gets an dismal, unfavorable rating — because it’s not doing anything.  And the Democrats, by being afraid to take a strong stand, have been complicit in allowing the war and occupation to grind on.

Harry Reid, the majority “leader,” even made Feingold agree not to hold up or filibuster some other unspecified bills in return for getting a couple of “test votes.”

Meanwhile, there are reports that House Democrats don’t plan to take any action to try to end the war this year, because it “makes them look weak” when they fail.

There’s a reason for that:  They are weak.  And they are weak in the worst possible place — their backbone.