Via email:

There is much that I support in this bill — including assistance for Afghanistan and funding we added to help the National Guard address equipment shortages — but it contains a serious flaw that I simply cannot vote for:  It does not begin the withdrawal of our troops from Iraq.

The original supplemental bill that passed the Senate and was sent to President Bush’s desk last month paralleled the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group, recommendations that would have fundamentally changed the course of our military mission in Iraq.

Unfortunately, the President vetoed the original supplemental bill and has refused any meaningful compromise that would give us a clear path toward ending of our military involvement in Iraq.

This brings us to the current version of the supplemental bill.  In short, the Iraq War funding provisions in this bill represent little more than a continuation of the failed status quo — a continuation that I find unacceptable. The current bill will not begin to redeploy our troops from Iraq, it does not put adequate pressure on the Iraqis to stand up both politically and militarily, and it does not put a stop to President Bush’s escalation plan.

I’m not on Bernie’s list (not sure why not, actually). If anybody gets something from him on the matter, I encourage you to post it.

( – promoted by odum)

Heard a report today from someone in Burlington whom I have nothing but the deepest of respect for that the police are once again hassling people who are living homeless in encampments in the area, forcing them to move on (to where they are supposed to live, I have not a clue), something I find very disheartening.

Thus it came to mind to post up the following item [cross-posted from the recently reactivated and revamped North American Homeless News Network (NAHNN) blog, here].

During an online search within the archives of the Homeless People’s Network discussion listserv for items from around this time of year back in 2002 concerning people living in homeless encampments within Burlington, Vermont, I managed to stumble upon an old op-ed of mine posted there, one which I had completely forgotten about.

Since I was not blogging until later that same year, I have decided to reprint this particular version of my original The Many Hats of Homelessness essay here:

Sunday, July 14, 2002
Burlington Free Press
[Burlington, Vermont]
Editorial/Opinion section
“It’s My Turn”/Op-Ed segment
Homelessness is having no place to hang your hat

By Morgan W. Brown

If “home is where one hangs one’s hat,” where does a person who is living homeless hang their hat?

When a person hangs their hat someplace temporarily, are they no longer considered truly homeless even if, in fact, it is not really their home?

Being homeless myself, I know well how the smallest items of hope are always held onto very tightly.

Just like one’s own sense of dignity, self-respect, pride — which are equally cherished and held close, such hope can often prove extremely useful and even vital in the long journey being undertaken just in managing to survive as well as living independently.

These core parts of one’s self can also be key to what is needed to help find, obtain and then move into some form of safe, decent and affordable housing of one’s own; which is an essential part of what is needed to end homelessness.

As near as it may be to my becoming housed once again, after being homeless in its various forms for nearly five years this time around, one would think nothing could easily stand in my way.

Yet, there are many moments when it seems too daunting and so very far away to ever be accomplished on one’s own.

There are those days, and even weeks, which do not seem to pass by without a severe and persistent need to find and renew hope, inner strength as well as faith in everything.

Almost constantly, in many different ways, I remind myself that whatever the circumstances or, how they are experienced and felt, there are always other ways of thinking about them and other methods of accomplishing something when it is waited for a little while longer and, what is sought is looked for even deeper than we may believe is possible and, the support needed to do so is received.

Just as crucial though, the value of the smallest or seemingly least important thing to provide inspiration should never be underestimated; often found in what we may perceive to be the most unlikely of places or persons, especially when it is needed the most.

These are among the things which often help me to never, ever, give up on anything or anybody — and, most importantly, never on myself.

When I do find and move into a place of my own, my hat will be hung where it can be grabbed at ease when needed. Then whenever it is off of my head and in its usual resting place, I will know I am home.

Morgan W. Brown is living homeless in Montpelier.

[via HPN archives, here (2nd item posted; Sunday, July 14, 2002)]

The original version of my The Many Hats of Homelessness three-part essay was archived on HPN:

• Part One: The Many Hats of Homelessness (Monday, April 29, 2002)
• Part Two: Just How Bad Is It?
• Part Three: Opportunity Knocks

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The other day I wrote a diary entitled “fear”, describing how (IMHO), the Democratic Leadership in Washington (and to an extent in the states) is primarily motivated by fear in much of what they do. I discussed how that fear translates into weakness and capitulation.

It also can translate into sleaze. In a diary at dKos, David Sirota (who has done a great job researching and birddogging some of the creepy, behind-the-scenes stuff that some of the newly empowered Democratic Committee Chairs are trying to get away with) lays out the proposal to turn today’s expected capitualtion vote on Iraq into a craven capitulation vote on Iraq:

Here’s how it is expected to work today in a process only Dick Cheney could love (though you never know – it could change at the last minute). Every bill comes to the House floor with what is known as a “rule” that sets the terms of the debate over the legislation in question. House members first vote to approve this parliamentary rule, and then vote on the legislation. Today, however, Democrats are planning to essentially include the Iraq blank check bill IN the rule itself, by making sure the underlying bill the rule brings to the floor includes no timelines for withdrawal, and that the rule only allows amendments that fund the war with no restrictions – blank check amendments that House Democratic leaders know Republicans will have the votes to pass.

This means that when the public goes to look for the real vote on the Iraq supplemental bill, the public won’t find that. All we will find is a complex parliamentary procedure vote, which was the real vote.

With our lone Representative, Peter Welch, already on the right side on this, there’s little we in Vermont can do about it.

But it’s worth noting that such an action will be seen as the crudest sort of condescension and insult to the netroots across the country. An insult that could (and should) have consequences.