Given that both Sanders and Leahy saw fit to vote against the measure to deny funding to ACORN, I was more than a little puzzled by Peter Welch’s decision to support it; so on Sept. 20, I emailed the following to his Congressional mailbox:

I just have to ask you what was your rationale in supporting the measure against funding for ACORN. I’d like to think you have a reason other than the obvious need for a Junior Congressman to follow the leader.  So I am writing to give you an opportunity to explain to me why this measure serves the long-term interests of the country and your constituents. You must realize that  your vote  has just expressed your support for political interference in the normally non-partisan review of projects seeking federal funding.

A couple of days later, I received the following reply:

Thank you for contacting me about federal funding for Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN).  I appreciate hearing your thoughts on this issue.

Recent actions by ACORN employees reveal a disturbing and intolerable pattern of abuse of taxpayer dollars.  On September 17, 2009 the House of Representatives voted 345 to 75 with my support to ban federal funding for ACORN.  In addition, the Census Bureau informed ACORN last week that it no longer wanted the group’s assistance for the 2010 census.

Thank you again for contacting me.  Although we may disagree on this issue, please continue to be in touch and I hope to see you in Vermont soon.

 Sincerely,

PETER WELCH

Member of Congress

I didn’t think that this was a very satisfactory reply; so, on September 22, I followed-up with a few specific questions.

Thank you for your response.  We are discussing your vote on Green Mountain Daily and I wished to give you an opportunity to respond.  

I will try to re-phrase my question; why do you not feel that the conventional review processes, which are in place for any federal funding, are the appropriate filters for Acorn’s projects as well as those of any other entity?  Do you now believe that the role of Congress is to second-guess the non-partisan review process?  Wouldn’t this be substituting political judgment for qualified peer-review?  

Regardless of the outcome of the ACORN investigation, doesn’t this set a dangerous precedent?  How do you respond to those who believe that the enormous scale of ACORN’s workforce, and the wide scope of their community activities make it statistically more likely that SOME individuals within the ranks will behave improperly from time to time?  Should we de-fund Congress for the same reason?  Or deny tax-exempt status to the Catholic Church because of systemic pedophilia among priests?

Green Mountain daily represents many people who have supported you over the years.  I think you can see that we are truly troubled by your vote.  

That was five days ago and I am still waiting for a reply.

I think something has to be said here regarding the ACORN vote.  Our Vermont Senators are going to take a thumping on this, come re-election time.  We need to come out strongly in support of their vote, and absolutely on-message.

The vote was not a referendum on the legitimacy of ACORN’S agenda.  It was to determine whether the conventional non-partisan review process that is applied to all applicants for federal funding could be selectively overridden in a political way.  We should be asking why the remaining Senators did not have the wisdom (or integrity?) of our two Vermont representatives in recognizing the threat such action would represent to the First Amendment rights and best interests of the American people.

It is no surprise that the target of this organized attempt at financial censure is an entity that represents the interests of the poorest and least powerful members of society.  It is perhaps beside the point that the allegations of wrong-doing by ACORN workers are largely unproven; and even if fully supported by evidence, are extremely few considering the size and scope of ACORN’s workforce and the importance of their efforts on behalf of the poor and disenfranchised.

Instead of pointing the finger at Bernie Sanders and Patrick Leahy and asking why they voted their conscience when faced with a politically inhospitable situation, we should be celebrating their courage and commitment to the value of independence that Vermont has long cherished.

As will become immediately clear, I’m afraid, I am almost completely ignorant about dairying, except from the vantage point of a consumer.  So at the risk of well-deserved ridicule I’m going to go ahead and suggest what I think may be a novel approach to improving the situation for small dairy farms.  

Unless I am very much mistaken, uniformity of product is the number one objective in the processing of milk, coast to coast That’s why you see almost nothing but Holsteins wherever you go in dairy country, whether it’s California, Wisconsin or Vermont.  I would venture a guess that even those many thousands (millions?) of head of Holsteins are all descended from just a few great producers.  The object of selective breeding was to maximize yield of milk that was uniform and had the best butterfat profile for conventional dairy purposes.   Probably a smart approach at the outset; but the very success of that model is now threatening dairy farmers ability to make ends meet.  Even the co-ops that originally promised security for dairy farmers had to observe the rule of uniformity in order to satisfy market conditions.  Finally, the small dairy farmer is nothing but a bit player in a super-giant dairy conglomerate presided over by rich guys who don’t get out much. That is problem #1

I think problem number two may be a sustainability issue that is being over-looked because of problem #1.   Anyone who is familiar with biodiversity issues in  food crops can easily extrapolate what that threat might look like with regard to dairy herds.  Hint: it’s black and white and bred all over.  

While we are considering the plight of the small dairy farmer today, perhaps we should also be looking at the plight of the future American dairy consumer.  What happens if we continue to undervalue the nutritional role dairy plays in our diet, further diminishing the ability of small farmers to sustain their herds.  Milk production becomes more and more concentrated in the hands of a very few super-herds; and when further mechanization can’t satisfy the demand for cheaper and cheaper product, perhaps outsourcing can.  Finally, we become dependent for what is a significant part of the American diet on sources hundreds and thousands of miles away.  Then let’s say a superbug, a “Holstein Hepatitis,” comes along.  The cows are confined in such large groups that the virus quickly spreads and wipes out the entire herd in the Western Hemisphere.  There aren’t any more Jerseys,  Guernseys, or Brown Swiss cows anywhere to be found because no one bothered to preserve those herds, or at least not a sufficient number to fill the dietary void left by the dying Holsteins.  It may sound far-fetched, but why not?  I’d wager that the vast majority of dairy cows are already eating exactly the same food.  Probably made by Cargill…which is a division of Monsanto…which is a division of McDonald’s.   I’m kidding, of course.

Anyway, perhaps instead of concentrating on subsidies and surplus strategies, Congress should be looking at ways to encourage smaller, more biodiverse herds. We should be focussing on local sustainable food supply as the goal, rather than corporate overkill in the marketplace.  MORE is not necessarily BETTER.  Take a page from fruit and vegetable growers who have discovered a new market for heirloom varieties and exotics.  Rather than selling the bland uniformity of milk, why couldn’t we be marketing the sensual differences in color, flavor and texture available with herd diversity?

Imagine the “value added” potential!

Why can’t we pay farmers to provide food security for their immediate communities by gradually reducing their holdings of Holsteins,  and replacing them with less individuals of other varieties?

It’s just a thought.  Now I will quietly find the exit before I am escorted from the building.

Get ready for the Right flank to reinvigorate their long-standing effort to eliminate federal funding for the arts.  I just saw this on Huf-Post and all of the alarm bells went off in my head:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…

Since the eighties, there has been steady pressure on the NEA not to fund controversial projects no matter how valid peer review found them to be. They already reduced public television to a shadow of its former self. I predict that in the anti-intellectual furor that has overtaken the Right, the next big target will be any remaining public funding for the arts.  This is just the opening salvo.

I have taken a personal interest in this because my sculptor husband was the target of censorship efforts by right-wing groups in 1970’s Toronto.  In both of those cases, the law finally came down on the side of freedom of expression, but not before it cost us all a lot of time, money and anxiety.  

We may be approaching a dangerous time for arts and artists in fully-armed America, where apparently one may now carry an assault weapon into a crowded room.  

The writing is on the wall.  All the usual suspects in Franklin County are lining-up to leave the Democratic ticket, whoever it may comprise, high and dry.  Richard Cowperthwait’s  editorial in tonight’s Messenger is a valentine to Jim Douglas, listing all of his supporters among the community of political self-servers that I am ashamed to say make us the Bluest Dog county in the state!  Of course, Frank Cioffi is abundantly quoted, as is the very slippery Mr. Fitzgerald. Not surprisingly, after his puzzling quote in the Free Press last fall that suggested Sarah Palin was qualified to be president, Mayor Marty Manahan called to thank Douglas for “everything (he’s) done for our state,” and the governor returned the compliment by naming him important to the state as a “moderate and centerist.”  You get the picture.

Turning to the question of who is likely to take Douglas’ place at the top of the Republican ticket, Cowperthwait found plenty of local enthusiasm among Cioffi, Manahan and others for Randy Brock.  His views may be odious to the majority of Vermont Democrats; but right here in Blue Dog Central, he apparently is a bit of okay!  The power base of good ol’ boys here loves to close ranks around candidates who are least likely to lift the dust-ruffles and look for the cobwebs of cronyism that cloak every function from permits to public services.  Douglas was just their kind of guy, and they couldn’t find a better successor than Brock.

This is a big day in Vermont, not just for the LGBT couples who may now enjoy their full rights under the law.  Its an affirmation for all of us that Vermont continues to reflect what is best in us by moving forward toward greater social justice.

It’s other people’s big day; so I’ll just keep my bit brief.  I’m delighted to be given the opportunity to join the team at GMD and promise to try to keep up with you all.  My familiar turf tends to be around land use issues and the environment, but I’ll pipe-up from time to time on other things to.  

Now that I’ve gotten my feet wet, I’ll let the real stars of Sept. 1, 2009 resume center stage.  Congratulations to Julie and all the other lovers on this sweet day!

A dubious distinction.  The article (which I lifted from Huff Post) points out that, in underfunding our famous environmental regulatory system, the governor is, in effect, attacking the Vermont “brand” that makes our state and its products marketable to the rest of the country.  Some recovery plan!

Here is the link:

http://abcnews.go.com/Business…

(Good stuff in here – promoted by JulieWaters)

On this Memorial Day Sunday, as “Rolling Thunder” aggressed upon the peace and quiet of my little town, my thoughts turned inevitably to a peeve I’ve nursed since September 11, 2001.

Why did the Cheney administration immediately characterize those attacks as “acts of war” rather than horrendous criminal activity?  And, of course, the rhetoric didn’t change even after it was learned that they  were masterminded not by a sovereign state, but by a syndicate of wealthy thugs operating out of Saudi Arabia.

To this day, even though most people now agree that the war in Iraq was a mistake,  few say the same of the war in Afghanistan.  But there it is, nonetheless; plain as day.  Instead of organizing an international  manhunt for Osama Bin Laden under the auspices of the FBI, the CIA and Interpol,  Cheney and company ratcheted-up the war rhetoric and called out the army.  And we, the people, bought it, hook line and sinker, as if it truly was a “holy” war.    Of course, as is always the case, we were fed a sympathetic subtext about the repression of women.  We were going to “liberate” them, as we forcibly democratized a country most of us could barely find on the map.

Somehow, we are still buying the line that the war in Afghanistan was a “just” war.  Even Obama seems to think the only problem with that war was Bush’s short-attention span.  I suppose, if I were in Obama’s position, I might be tempted to view things this way, too.  After all, there doesn’t seem to be any way to avoid escalation there, other than to simply throw up our hands, admit that (with the best of intentions) we did a VERY bad thing; and then go home and try to explain to a lot of grieving families why their sons and daughters were needlessly sacrificed.  There is no happy ending here.

And it’s no good dressing it up as an act of chivalry on behalf of the women of Afghanistan.  Look at how briefly the inroads to female empowerment lasted after the U.S. turned its attention elsewhere.  That’s because no genuine cultural change had occurred.  Those cultural changes have to happen from within; and I firmly believe that we have only succeeded by our interference in setting back the cultural evolution that would have inevitably, if slowly, led to female empowerment in Afghanistan and throughout the Middle East.  Cultural evolution is a product of sustained peace and prosperity, neither of which has been furthered by American intervention.  In a peaceful world, with advancing technologies drawing everyone closer together, women would have chosen their own time to seize the reins of self-determination.  But with our big clown shoes, we marched in and made a hash of things.

So, this Memorial Day, when CNN crows about their interactive global map of American dead in Iraq and Afghanistan, as if it’s election night in the afterlife; I can’t help wondering what would have happened if Bush had just called 9/11 a crime, without all the flag-waving and hyperbole.

Don’t even get me started on the first Gulf War!  

( – promoted by odum)

We must finally ween ourselves from the truism that “growth” is synonymous with prosperity.  This anachronistic concept must join the sacred cows like “trickle-down economics” and “free markets are fair markets” for it’s turn on the reexamination table.  Worldwide pressures on food, water, fuel and infrastructure give ample evidence that we must finally abandon “growth” in favor of “sustainability” as the model for achievement in the twenty-first century.  Every day in some new way, we are reminded that the planet is at a tipping point: too many people, too few resources.

Here at home in Vermont, the same flawed assumption that growth equals prosperity informs Governor Douglas’ campaign to neutralize Act 250.  The Governor  characterizes his goal as “streamlining” the permit process, but it amounts to a broadside aimed at  environmental restraints.  He would like to give economic considerations equal weight in the Act 250 process; and these economic considerations would no doubt be shaped by that old totem, that growth necessarily brings prosperity.  By careful manipulation of the time-frame and cherry-picking the statistics, a developer can easily represent his project as economically “beneficial” to the community, thereby relaxing or releasing him from environmental restrictions.  Exclude the long-term negative impacts on infrastructure and community resources and  many questionable projects look awfully good  to local reviewers in towns struggling with budget shortfalls.

The Governor also seeks to remove some of the review hurdles that large-scale developers must negotiate to get their projects approved. What this might mean to Vermonters is an end to their right of direct participation in the permit process for large-scale development, and a reversion to the bad old days of full-bore, developer-driven sprawl.  Act 250, and the opportunities it provides for interested parties and groups to effectively join the discussion, is the one safeguard we have against permanent damage to our most valuable community resources: the land, the environment, and local economies.  It is a citizen’s interface, unique to Vermont, that recognizes the irreversible impact of land-use decisions, and the fact that all Vermonters are trustees of our collective future.  Once our waterways go beyond a critical point of contamination, and once our farmable tracts of prime agricultural soils are all gone, no amount of public investment may reclaim them.  More valuable than gold and precious metals,  these are the resources that are necessary for human survival.

To see the vital role that Act 250 plays in holding-back the floodgates of unregulated sprawl, one need look no further than the current struggle in St. Albans over a proposed  Wal-Mart superstore,  which would involve a tract of prime agricultural soil, three-tenths of a mile from the most vibrant organic farm in the region.   There are ongoing appeals in the Environmental Court with regard to this project, not just addressing the environmental and economic implications; but also citing numerous instances where conflicts of interest contaminated the permit process.  Had those conflicts not occurred, it could be argued that the project might have been rejected or altered before it became necessary for the Court to intervene.

If Governor Douglas truly wants to “reform” the permit process, let him take the first step by advocating for specific rules governing conflict of interest; and for stiff penalties against those who violate these rules.  Eliminating conflicts of interest  would go a long way toward reducing the number of appeals in Environmental Court,  without prejudicing the citizens’ right to due process.  So long as conflicts of interest are ignored at both the local and state levels, the taint of illegitimacy will crowd the Environmental Court docket with multiple appeals.

In this morning’s BFP, buried on page 5b is a tiny half-column announcing that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has given Vermont Yankee “permission to use money set aside to dismantle the plant to pay for the storage of high-level radioactive waste.”

It goes on to say that federal regulators reported Tuesday that “a preliminary investigation by…Entergy found radioactive contamination at the plant.”  Wonderful.