Getting it right....er, correct?

I have more than once urged readers to contact their congress critters and request some action regarding a piece of legislation, normally one that was inspired by 19th Century Republicans or Dubya himself. This time, however, I want to turn that around. It is time to contact our President and ask him to veto a bill that passed Congress, one which is making true conservatives and true progressives nauseous just to think about it. I am talking of the current Farm Bill, a pork laden attack on our pocket books and common sense.

Before you do, you should read Carolyn Lockhead's story in Sunday's San Francisco Chronicle.

It is the rarest of moments: President Bush and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi are on a collision course over a giant farm bill, but it is Bush who is broadly aligned with liberal Bay Area activists pushing for reform, while the San Francisco Democrat is protecting billions of dollars in subsidies to the richest farmers.

The rest of Lockhead's story is a text book example of how nothing gets done in Washington for the needs of the people and everything happens in the way that it happens purely for the political advantage of one party or the other. Things are packaged together is such a way as to obscure what is really happening.

Pelosi touted a ban on payments to farm couples earning more than $2 million, 10 times higher than Bush's $200,000 income limit.

At the same time, she backed a 50 percent increase in the actual amount of money each farmer could get. The Senate added a new $3.8 billion "permanent disaster" program to bail out farmers of drought-prone land, intensifying the push to plow fragile prairie.

Probably nothing is as sneaky as putting an increase in food stamp programs in this package of pork and then threatening to blast the President over his treatment of the poor if he dared to veto it. Pure Pelosi playbook.

Pelosi threatened to blast Bush for killing the food-stamp increase if he vetoes the bill, issuing a statement urging Bush to sign the legislation to "ensure that 38 million Americans - especially children - have improved access to basic nutrition."

I have never seen a better reason to vote for Cindy Sheehan, since she is running.

If you want to make your voices heard, there is some possibility through the Conference Committee that is resolving difference between House and Senate Versions. There is a full list here. California members are Dennis Cardoza, Joe Baca and George Miller. All Democrats and all from areas with a vested interest in getting their own pork. It may help to comment on Lockhead's story at the Chronicle.

If you want to send a message to Bush, then I would ask you to call and leave comments. Here are the numbers:

• Comments: 202-456-1111
• Switchboard: 202-456-1414
• FAX: 202-456-2461

Food Crisis Worsens

It seems a bit strange, but the San Francisco Chronicle is becoming the one major newspaper in this state that seems to understand what is happening to the world wide food supply and what needs to be done to fix it... starting with an overhaul of the current Farm Bill that only perpetuates the policies that got us into this mess to start with. It is their lead editorial today, headlined "A food crisis sweeps the globe."

Wheat fields get little rain in Australia. Rice in a Manila market stall jumps 20 percent due to shipping costs. Europe and the U.S. steer more acreage into biofuel-producing corn. Taken together these trends have produced the highest food prices in 30 years.

This "silent tsunami," as United Nations food expert Josette Sheeran calls it, has forced an estimated 100 million people worldwide deeper into poverty. Another 1 billion, many of them in Africa, are already skipping meals. In Haiti, people eat "mud cakes" made of dirt, sugar and food scraps.

It's a disaster that's brought misery, political strife, and few simple answers.

I don't have all of the answers myself. Some things are obvious: the end of subsidies for commodity crops, the end of corn based ethanol production, de-linking the president's proposed $700 Million request for world wide food aid from the Iraq War funding. (That is about as coldly calculated a proposal as I have see come out of Washington.).

More than anything, we need to see the Green Party admit that this is bad and getting worse. If there were ever two issues that cry for the Green Party to be talking about solutions, it is this food crisis and global climate change. Yet, for the most part the food issue is not even on a discussion agenda for anything other than "go buy at the local farmer's market".

California is one of the major agricultural producers in the nation. It is as key to our economy as as Silicon Valley. But, an urban focused Green Party is not paying attention and so, by default, the corporations win.

The House Committee on Agriculture has three members from California: Dennis Cardoza (18th CD), Jim Costa (20th CD ), and Joe Baca (43rd CD). All three are Democrats and all three, but especially Cardoza, have squandered the opportunity to make substantive improvements. Cardoza, admitting that he could not end commodity subsidies, fought long and hard to get even more subsidies for California Producers of "specialty crops".

The Chronicle knows where action is required.

Solutions come with very high price tags, both financial and political. The UN and World Bank believe aid programs costing billions are needed to jump start small-scale farming in poor countries. Biofuel projects may need to be scaled back to allow other crops to replace a major spurt in corn plantings. Then there is the politically loaded topic of home-country protections against cheaper imports, a reality that has held back African agriculture from both U.S. and European markets. Also, the present farm bill in Washington, loaded with grower subsidies, looks especially foolish in an era of high prices.

But, Cardoza is in a safe Democratic District, Costa did not have any opposition in 2006. We must all work for change and means letting our individual congress critters know that all is not right down on the farm.

We also need to be developing the expertise and knowledge to recommend Green solutions for a World Food Crisis.

Parsing the 110 Congress Part II.

The second part of what could be a series. In the first post, we had a glimpse of how our Congress exposes incompetence in other branches of government rather like a George Foreman slowly grilling whole hog and enjoying every minute of it. But it is rare that they would turn such a spotlight on themselves, as that would threaten retribution in the form of not getting their own appropriations appropriated.

Maybe we should turn a little attention on Rep. Dennis Cardoza, CA-18. Cardoza was the Chief of Staff to Gary Condit when Condit was still in the California State Assembly. If you go to Cardoza's bio on his congressional web site, you find a long and varied political career detailed for you to see, but nary a mention of Condit. It seems that forgetfulness is a Washington convenience.

What you do see is a very opportunistic politician, using Condit's support, getting appointed to a position and then winning re-election with the name recognition of an incumbent. He is always one to stay close to the center, being a blue dog Democrat, and always delivering some benefit for the special interests in his constituency.

This year, he has delivered a pork filled farm bill, one in which he understood that it was not politic to fight the special subsidies in the bill so he worked to get more, but this time for the farmers in his district, those who provided not for commodities, but rather for "specialty crops".

As Carolyn Lockhead reports in the San Francisco Chronicle...

Prominent Los Altos developer John Vidovich and various family members in the Sandridge Partnership of Sunnyvale were the nation's biggest recipients of automatic government payments to farmers last year, receiving more than $1 million, according to a new analysis of federal data by Environmental Working Group.

Known as direct payments, the subsidies go mainly to big farms growing a handful of crops. In the Sandridge case, that is mostly cotton, wheat and peanuts grown on farms controlled by the partnership in the Central Valley.

To put this in perspective, we have a member of the Congressional Portuguese Caucus (all of whose members, Cardoza, Nunes, Costa, used to be Pombo, are Central Valley agribusiness / developers) who wants to buy his continues support by larding up a Farm Bill that continues to give commodity subsides to while the prices we pay for food skyrocket.

This makes political sense when trying to buy votes but makes absolutely no economic sense.

Unfortunately, about the only journalist telling the real story these days is Lockhead and she does not work for a Central Valley newspaper.

If there is one area of this state where we all need a great Green Party presence, it is in the Central Valley. The issues of Community Based Economics, of sustainable agriculture, of urbanization and growth are all issues where the Green Party has the right answers and yet, we are not there, not making noise, not getting attention.

If Cardoza is the best that a Democratic Congress is going to deliver, we are all going to be in greater trouble after we elect an even larger Democratic majority in the fall. I hope that Green voices do not stay silent on this issue.

New boss, same as the old boss.

The great hope of The Who was that we "Won't Get Fooled Again." Well, I guess that we did.

I rarely find an editorial in any paper with which I am in complete agreement. However, today's editorial in the San Francisco Chronicle, "Bumper crop of big spending", is one where I have absolutely no disagreement.

This follows a series of well-researched, well-written articles by Carolyn Lochhead in the same paper.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's staff sees the bill as the best possible bargain that could be won. They argue that Pelosi pushed for spending reforms, but southern Democrats prevailed. Now critics should be happy with the increases in food stamps and fruit and nut subsidies Pelosi supported - as the best deal that can be won in a political world. The Environmental Working Group and other reform-minded organizations have argued that it actually would be good politics for Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to cut off Big Farm's spigot. But Pelosi and Reid are smart politicians. If spending less were good politics, the farm bill would not be a pork sandwich.

The $286 billion farm bill is good politics only because the millions of taxpayers who are paying the bill are not pushing as hard as the relatively few people who benefit. (emphasis mine)

It is interesting that the target here seems to be Pelosi's two-faced lack of courage. How many things will she bargain away in order to get "the best possible bargain"?

I wonder just how many people in San Francisco will break with Pelosi in the coming election? If people actually read the Chronicle that number might be growing.

What should Greens be doing? At the very minimum we should be speaking out, in our forums, through our candidates, directly to our legislators, that enough is enough and we need to stop subsidizing big agriculture just like we need to stop subsidizing big oil. It is all the same game of power.

One more reason that Pelosi is failing us.

I received the following this AM from the Center for Rural Affairs. I am reproducing the text of this message in it's entirety. It is my view that this is just one more reason that Pelosi is failing not only her district, but then entire country as she triangulates her way through the web of Washington political power.

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Dear Californians,

Final farm bill funding decisions are being made, and Speaker Pelosi is playing a significant role in the debate. Now is the time for Speaker Pelosi to stand up for $5 billion in new mandatory funding for conservation and environmental priorities in the farm bill.

Will you urge Speaker Pelosi to fight $5 billion in new funding for conservation programs in the farm bill?

The U.S. House and Senate each passed a version of the farm bill that includes $5 billion in new funding for conservation programs. Now conference committee members are negotiating the final bill, and conservation programs are under fire. Speaker Pelosi can step in and ensure that gains made in the House and Senate are not lost in the conference committee.

Programs being targeted for cuts include:

• Conservation Security Program
• Wetlands Reserve Program
• Farmland Protection Program

Speaker Pelosi is playing a critical role in funding decisions for the final bill. Write to her online today and urge her to protect the gains already made.

We are at the last stages of the farm bill debate. Your action today can play an important role in ensuring that the final bill makes conservation and environment a priority.

Thank you!

Speaker Pelosi needs to hear from you today -- she needs to hear that funding conservation programs in the Farm Bill is important to you.

Write Online Today

Or Act by Calling:

Dial (202) 225-4965 and leave this message with the receptionist.

I am a Californian, and I am calling to urge Speaker Pelosi to fight for $5 billion in new mandatory funding for conservation programs in the farm bill.