Motley Moose – Archive

(This diary was posted first to Daily Kos, and I am including it here as it unfolded with updates and an addenda)

It has come to my attention, that somehow a filmmaker and blogger named Jane Hamsher, who seems to be the new leader (appointed by whom I don’t know) of a portion of “left progressives” has proposed a new political alliance with Teabaggers.  

While idly skimming comments today in a diary here on DKos, this factoid happened to catch my eye.  The reference was to recent statements she has made on the Huffington Post, a place I rarely visit, unless it is to follow a link posted here.

I realize that this person has her own blog.  Found that out during the health care debates around here. Never been there.

The votes in the Senate came down 60-40, as expected. Not one, not a single Republican voted for health care reform, not even GOP “turncoat” Snowe. Despite all the concessions — all the revisions — not one Republican cast a vote in favor of the American people early this morning. That is why I will stand beside Barack Obama and his allies on this bill. Not because I like the bill personally. Certain aspects of it already horrify me, and I haven’t even read the thing yet. But I will stand beside it because it is, at this time, the best we can do — and because it is likely better than we will be able to do in a year’s time. The people hollering “Kill the bill!” are as unrealistic as the ones who thought Ron Paul had a shot at the White House. The last time health care reform died in Congress, we didn’t get another shot at it for over a decade. What makes anyone think it will be any different next time around?

And the only reason we’ve gotten so far this time?

This is the first in a four-part series on our visits to farmers working with Heifer International in Gicumbi District, Rwanda. Crossposted from the Worldwatch Institute Nourishing the Planet blog.

Recovery is a word you hear a lot in Rwanda. From public service announcements on television to billboards-it’s the motto for a place that just 15 years ago was literally torn apart by genocide. More than 1 million were murdered in 1994 as ethnic strife turned neighbor against neighbor in one of the bloodiest civil wars in African history.

Recovery-and healing-are also things I heard a lot about during my visit with Heifer International Rwanda. “Heifer is helping a recovery process,” explained Dr. Dennis Karamuzi, a veterinarian and the Programs Manager for Heifer. Heifer started its projects in Rwanda in 2000 in a community in Gicumbi District, about an hour outside of Kigali, the capital. This community was especially hard hit by the genocide because it’s close to the border with Uganda. Residents who weren’t killed fled to Kigali for safety.

In the years following the genocide, Gicumbi District is making a comeback thanks, in part, to Heifer International. Heifer International works with farmers all over the world, helping them develop sustainable agriculture practices, including providing livestock and training farmers how raise them.

Heifer began working in Rwanda in 2000, but their start was a little rocky. At first the community was suspicious of the group-because they were giving farmers “very expensive cows,” says Holimdintwoli Cyprien, one of the farmers trained by Heifer to raise dairy cows; they didn’t understand how the group could just give them away. Many community members thought that it was a plot by the government to have them raise livestock and then take them away, a remnant of the ethnic rivalry between the Hutus and Tutsis that started the conflict there in the 1990s. And Heifer has certain conditions for receiving cows-including that farmers build a pen and dedicate part of their land to growing pasture-which made people skeptical, especially when they were used to letting animals roam freely to graze on grass. But as people began seeing the results of Heifer’s training, they become less suspicious and more interested in working with the group.

Heifer introduced a South African dairy breed, known for its high milk production, because, according to Dr. Karamuzi, “no stock of good [dairy cow] genes” was left in the country after the genocide. And he says that these animals help prove “that even poor farmers can take care of high producing cows.”

And these animals don’t only provide milk-which can be an important source of protein for the hungry-and income to families. They also provide manure, which provides not only fertilizer for crops, but also is now helping provide biogas for cooking to households raising cows in the country as part of a the National Biogas Program.

Stay tuned for blogs about our visits with three farmers who received cows from Heifer International.

Sometimes it really, truly sucks to be a Democrat. This week has been a fine example of this sad reality.

Snark with a grain of truth I am afraid. It is a good thing that I never drank the Kool aide, and understands that all Presidents must lead.

Damn! The Federal Government will go bankrupt? I would really appreciate greater depth of that statement. Ok, I will listen to it again.

Yep. Still want more clarification. Help?!

I have the great misfortune of dropping a bit of coal in all of our Democratic stockings. Dems attacking Dems. Sorry.

Howard Dean is angry.

Hmm. I don’t think I agree. My feeling on it at this point; pass the bill and fix it later.

Like that.

Any Brittany Murphy fans here besides me? Seems she died this morning, seemingly of… well, I’m not quite sure anymore. Rather saddened by it, personally. More pics below the fold. Consider this an open thread for whatever’s on your minds.

Photo credit: Michel Euler, Associated Press

Exhausted, actually.

It’s used against Democratic politicians by their opponents during elections, and now it’s being used against all of us in the health care debate. What’s worse, it is Democratic Senators and Representatives who are holding health care for ransom, their votes for reform contingent upon greater restrictions on my body and my rights. A few weeks ago, I watched the House vote to limit my reproductive freedom in such ways as were legally possible, and now I am watching the Senate haggle over my options as well. Why is this acceptable in our society? Why do I have to limit my choices and see my autonomy over my own body compromised because of the wishes of a bunch of stuffy old men? Why are my rights subject to their whims?

Victoria Reggie Kennedy, the wife of the late Ted Kennedy, has an op-ed in the Washington Post. It is well worth a read. I really don’t have a lot to add to it.

My late husband, Ted Kennedy, was passionate about health-care reform. It was the cause of his life. He believed that health care for all our citizens was a fundamental right, not a privilege, and that this year the stars — and competing interests — were finally aligned to allow our nation to move forward with fundamental reform. He believed that health-care reform was essential to the financial stability of our nation’s working families and of our economy as a whole.

…

As President Obama noted to Congress this fall, for Ted, health-care reform was not a matter of ideology or politics. It was not about left or right, Democrat or Republican. It was a passion born from the experience of his own life, the experience of our family and the experiences of the millions of Americans across this country who considered him their senator, too.

The bill before Congress will finally deliver on the urgent needs of all Americans. It would make their lives better and do so much good for this country. That, in the end, must be the test of reform. That was always the test for Ted Kennedy. He’s not here to urge us not to let this chance slip through our fingers. So I humbly ask his colleagues to finish the work of his life, the work of generations, to allow the vote to go forward and to pass health-care reform now. As Ted always said, when it’s finally done, the people will wonder what took so long.

As people line up to point out, opine upon, gloat or otherwise comment upon the President’s lack of success, in Copenhagen today he secured an agreement that prior to his arrival seemed out of the question.  

I know, it’s way more fun to criticize, but sometimes you just have to stand back and admire the handiwork.