Monday, October 22, 2012

ACTION ALERT! Dow (Monsanto) Seeks Approval of Agent Orange Component 2,4-D

Bad news for anyone who eats corn in the United States of America, as we, the poisoned and dying can attest!

Monsanto and Dow have joined forces to create the mother of all herbicide resistant corn seeds, and the chemical they will be using is 2,4-D which is approximately half of our favorite chemical, Agent Orange. As a veteran seeking compensation for PCB-related disability, I have already been warned not to use the words Agent or Orange in my application/appeal process because apparently Monsanto has already done all the compensating they plan to do on that front, and it all went to the MEN who were exposed in Vietnam.

We who were exposed near the plant where they actually MANUFACTURED the stuff and spilled it willy-nilly into the water system (sometimes those spills were, by some miracle, caught; other times, I am QUITE POSITIVE they were not.) 

Either way, as you all know, the civilian population of Anniston, Alabama, was generously compensated for said spills. Fort McClellan, which is widely considered the most toxic place on the map of the United States of America, and which not only used Monsanto's magical herbicide during and no doubt after the Vietnam era (directly after which yours truly served there) but stored barrels of all kinds of lovely toxic matter in nice leaky barrels...most of which was eventually incinerated. Parts of the grounds of Fort McClellan were simply paved over because it was impossible to get rid of all the toxic ground and ground water beneath the base. 

The Women's Army Corps trained there, and inhaled PCB contaminated steam into their (our) lungs several times a day, which is why so many of us are so much sicker than many of the men there. Inhaling is the next best thing to shooting a substance right into a vein and in some cases it's worse, because the toxin remains IN THE LUNGS and continues to be exposed directly to the blood of the victim with every breath they take for whatever the life of the substance may be. With PCB I believe that is somewhere near forever. 

You may be certain that this body of mine WILL be well studied upon my death, unless Uncle Sam arranges some kind of "accident" for me involving fire, which would not surprise me, given the resistance we have faced so far, and the utter ruthlessness with which our requests for information and assistance have been stonewalled. The Army and VA KNEW what was going on at Fort McClellan for YEARS, yet not only are they doing nothing to help us (the most recent bill to start the process of informing and tracking us...those first baby steps...languishes in congress) but now we hear they are actually considering RE-APPROVING substance previously BANNED as a KNOWN TOXIN!

Worst of all this BANNED TOXIN is going to implanted into corn seeds. CORN--a major source of our FOOD!

This is just such an obvious case of how money (lobbyists) talk and the rest of us can walk...to our deaths. The whole process just REEKS of bribery and malfeasance. Agent Orange is a KNOWN KILLER. How in the world can they be considering implanting half of what makes it what it is into a FOOD CROP?

My suggested action is to contact EVERYONE you can think of. Here is a list of possibilities, but please don't limit your own list to the few ideas I can think of and please get back to me with more ideas as you think of them!

Your member of congress--don't just email, CALL! Tell them you're a sick veteran and HOW you got sick...that you're wise to what's going on and that you are NOT going to shut up about it. 

Same with your senator.

Local media, print and television.

Talk to all your friends.

Tell your doctor(s) and any support groups you may be involved with, and ask them to keep the word going!
THIS EXPLAINS WHY OUR ISSUE IS FALLING ON DEAF EARS! IT IS ALL ABOUT MONEY (as we probably suspect, but it's even worse than we realized.)

If you're brave, contact Dow Chemical directly. Be warned though. I have read of several instances in my research in which they have used pretty harsh intimidation tactics against anti 2,4-D activists. This is mostly involved with Prop. 37 in California, which would simply require labeling (and the fact that they are SO upset about it proves that they KNOW they are POISONING PEOPLE).

Put something up on YouTube. Tell about yourself and a little bit about your experience (don't get too weird like that right wing whack-job with the beard who thinks there are black helicopters hovering over his house and that Obama has the military on high alert to storm his house to take away all his guns....or whatever his fantasy issues are...) There are pages and pages of references to this issue all over the internet from reputable sources, so you'll be able to direct people to the search engine of their choice to look up "2,4-D and Agent Orange"...and whatever else you want to add.

I have had to change the name of my blog because I've been told what we have isn't really Stateside Agent Orange Disease. Of course it is...it's just a matter of legalities...you know how that all works. We are PCB-poisoned, and passing genetic damage on to our children, and it is ABSOLUTELY service-related. There's no maybes about THAT, just like there was no maybe about the fact that the people of Anniston who all those millions of dollars suffered from the same thing. They just didn't have the extra "frosting on the cake" of the Chemical Warfare Command "goodies" to deal with as well.

My best to you all. 


PS.  My email to Speaker Boehner--I was a tad animated. If you don't hear from me again you'll know why...

I know why Paul Tonko's HR 2052 Fort McClellan Health Registry Act isn't being brought out of Committee for vote. 

Dow wants 2,4-D approved, so their lobbyists are busy lining republican (majority party) pockets while we the sick, suffering and dying veterans, wait and hope for HR 2052 to come out of committee for a vote--a vote which will never come if you don't act. Of course you won't act, because it would look pretty funny if you admitted that thousands and thousands of people were poisoned by something you now want to put in CORN SEEDS.

Ohio congressmen can play coy, and ask for proofs of ranges affected, and play all kinds of cute little games, but the fact of it is...the truth is out now. We know, Bill Maher knows and had it on his show, and pretty soon a WHOLE LOT MORE people are going to be talking to their local press, making YouTube videos, writing letters to everyone they can think of, and basically sending a growing snowball your way just in time for the election.

So the way I see it, you can be a hero or a zero here.


It's a shame none of your contractor buddies gets any business or kickbacks for taking care of veterans. That's why when the first injured Iraq and Afghanistan vets came back during the Bush administration they waited in moldy halls in dilapidated buildings and weren't even SEEN by a medical professional--sometimes for MONTHS after they got home. Yeah...you guys are REALLY all about taking care of the military. How can you people even look at yourselves in the mirror? 

I've taken care of people like you when they're dying, and I'll tell you something. I have never seen such abject PANIC in my life. They know what they have to answer for. I wonder how it will be for you when your time comes. How will your good deeds measure up against the suffering you have knowingly caused? What good will all that money do you then? You're not so young any more. I'd be giving that some thought if I were you. You have a chance to do the right thing here, for people who volunteered to serve their country, many of us at a time when it was a highly UNpopular thing to do (post-Vietnam).

My guess is you are going to stand by and let people continue in complete ignorance of what's really wrong with them even though the Army and VA have known for DECADES and covered it up. And yes, I'm going to continue to suffer and die. My guess is that you don't care about that because I'm just a woman and so are a lot of the people poisoned at Fort McClellan, but a lot weren't. They were MPs and they also worked other jobs. 

Either way, I promise you this. Before my time comes, I and thousands of people like me are going to make sure the world knows that YOU are the one who stood by and let us all die without the compensation and care we and our children deserve!

With all DUE respect...

cc Reid Ribble

Thursday, September 20, 2012

Triple Back Treachery on Jobs Bill for Veterans

There they go again...


Wednesday the Senate, usually the more adult of our two legislative houses, failed to pass actual bipartisan ***gasp*** legislation that would have granted an already funded Job Corps to our 220 thousand unemployed veterans during a time when a veteran is committing suicide every 80 minutes in the United States. I do not know how they could ignore that statistic and leave our veterans hanging, too many of them quite literally. As a family member of someone who committed suicide this statistic saddens me. As a veteran who has contemplated suicide, this dismissal of veterans, as usual, by republicans in congress, frightens and angers me. 



Democrats were so committed to passing this bill that they offered to allow republicans to add literally anything they wanted to this precious, life-saving legislation to make it "passable" for them, and boy-howdy, did they! The republicans had a big old PORK-FEST with what started out as good, clean, lean legislation, but the Dems ground their teeth and bore it for the sake of our vets. 



Then in what may be the most treacherous move since the U.S. lost our AAA credit rating for the first time in history over GOP intransigence (and in my opinion an even larger one because of the service of the human beings attached to it) the same "champions" of the bill who initially worked for its passage not only voted against it, but abused the power of the filibuster to defeat it, for nothing more important than party politics. 



Four men's actions were particularly craven regarding the Job Corps for Veterans bill, for which there is no "do over. It's dead. No second chances. Someone else will have to start the whole lengthy process all over again in the new (hopefully more SANE) congress. 



These are the four men who spat on our current vets in a way far more damaging than any Vietnam-era stories:






Pat Toomey, [R] Pennsylvania  http://www.toomey.senate.gov/?p=contact





This is one of the dirtiest of all the ugly tricks from the republican tea bag collection. It goes like this. Write and/or co-sponsor legislation (in order to take credit for it while on the campaign trail) then double back and vote against that same legislation, and in the case of the current job bill for vets, take it one sinister twisted step farther and use the filibuster to triple back and block it.

I think...at least I hope this time it's going to go against them. Even our ridiculous excuse for news has made it pretty clear to anyone paying attention that for President Obama's entire administration the laser-assisted aim of the theocratic tea party has been to make the president look bad at any and all costs. 

This time, on this particular bill, a lot of people on both sides are extremely angry, because even though approximately 1% of us serve at any one time, most of us have family, and families for the most part pay attention to these things. I don't think they're going to get away with "crop dusting" this one and pointing the finger the other way. The blame here is very clear. It wasn't Democrats filibustering or adding pork. 

It is 100% apparent to any thinking human that just over six weeks prior to the election the republicans in the Senate have followed form and thrown our veterans under the bus because they dare not do anything this close to the election that might make President Obama look good...especially not something that was HIS idea. For the GOP tea-baggers it's just politics as usual. 

They are so "pro-life" when it comes to a raped woman that they fully expect her to give up her life for having "sex" even without consent (because make no mistake, it's all about punishing female sexuality) and give birth even if it's sure to cause her DEATH but when it comes to caring for anyone from any point after they have taken their first independent breath it's all over, even if they have lost a limb or the use of a good part of their brain for their country! There is nothing pro-life in that!

If you support using and abusing our veterans this way, by all means vote for republicans this coming election. Reward them for playing with the lives of our finest men and women who have already given so much for our country. Be just like Mitt Romney and write them off and turn your back on them and let them fend for themselves. They're just the "little people" right? Some of them even get food stamps for their children. They need to take some personal responsibility, for Jesus Christ of Later Days Saints sakes! Right? WRONG!

Sure, according to Mitt, vets just need to pull themselves up by however many bootstraps they have left (if any) with whatever digits remain on whatever arms remain on their bodies (if any) with whatever coordination their possibly damaged brains may be able to muster (if any) and get a job! Oh wait...there AREN'T ANY because employers often don't quite "get" former military skill sets and job descriptions and bosses may even be a little afraid, given our wonderful sensation-seeking media have made all veterans sound like ticking time bombs rather than the ultra-responsible, hard working, forward thinking, motivated men and women most of us are. 

You know, if Mitt and his one percent club could have carried their own damned water in this campaign the unethical slugs that inhabit seats in our congress might have been able to vote YES on that Veterans Job Corps Bill that would have introduced employers to VETERANS WHO DESERVE TO HAVE WHAT JOBS "THOSE PEOPLE" HAVEN'T YET MOVED TO CHINA!

Good ol' Thurston Howell Romney gets a real chuckle out of that one, especially when he talks about the women he saw locked in, twelve to a room, at gunpoint, when he visited over there while officially still working for Bain. 

America's veterans have voluntarily taken on a tremendous burden in war time. They are risking life and limb in two wars of choice, started and maintained in large part for the purpose of profiteering by the military-industrial complex...wars which have destabilized the entire middle east to the point of literal explosion. Now to add insult to injury they have dangled the promise of a jobs bill, HOPE OF WORK, something as simple as that, in front of these men and women, then snatched it away for something as craven as political expediency. If you let them get away with it, or heaven forbid, vote more like them in to the House OR Senate...well, that is between you, your mirror and your Maker.

Meanwhile, another three veterans have killed themselves while I labored past my own military-related disability to piece this blog post together. The four men above don't care about those dead veterans or any other. 

Do you?




Thursday, August 2, 2012

Update on Fort McClellan Health Registry Act




UNLESS YOU WERE EXPOSED AT FORT McCLELLAN !



Here's the update on HR 2052 (Actually now HR 411 for the year 2013--just to avoid confusion for any reading back) the Fort McClellan Health Registry Act, which would require the VA to inform and track the medical condition of veterans who have been exposed to various sundry and assorted toxins, including Agent Orange, PCB, Nerve Gas, mercury, lead and other heavy metal contaminants and chemical warfare agents during their time of military service at Fort McClellan, Alabama. This is the all-important first step in recognizing, officially, that we EXIST, in thousands upon thousands, and that our health has indeed been compromised by our "good friends" at Monsanto, who brought us Agent Orange, and other corporations too....there's plenty of  "thanks" to go around. Of course we must also "thank" the Army, which was so incredibly negligent in handling these toxins and OUR LIVES!

This piece of legislature may be the ONLY HOPE any of us has, because most of us are dying prematurely of gruesome and painful cancers and other auto-immune disorders. The fact that we are female and were never even INFORMED so that we could obtain proper care at our own expense, while those who receive treatment from the VA are almost exclusively male is not lost on us. As in the case of rampant sexual predation, female victims are of no consequence to the military. To be blunt, they just don't give a rat's ass and that lack of care, literally and figuratively, is carried forward in the practices of the VA.

It is heartening to see that since the beginning of this blog the number of co-sponsors has SKY-ROCKETED from 3 to 11. Yes, that is sardonic humor, which is my coping mechanism of choice, but it does not in any way reduce the sincere gratitude I feel toward those who have stepped forward to co-sponsor this important legislation. Now if we could just get some media attention during this election season, we'd be all set...

If I were just a bit sicker I could light myself on fire and leave a nice manifesto, but I'm not quite that desperate...yet.


 H.R.2052 : Fort McClellan Health Registry Act
Sponsor: Rep Tonko, Paul [NY-21] (introduced 5/26/2011)      Cosponsors (11) 
Committees: House Veterans' Affairs; House Armed Services 
Latest Major Action: 6/24/2011 Referred to House subcommittee. Status: Referred to the Subcommittee on Health.


Here's the Library of Congress link:

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/R?d112:FLD003:@1%28Rep+Tonko+Paul%29:

Sunday, February 12, 2012

"I'm Sorry, Yours Was Not the Ambulance I Was Looking For"

A quick note from the land of Absurdia,


While perusing one of several sites dedicated to Fort McClellan vets, I happened to notice a Law Firm trolling for business and thought, what the heck. So I put forth the Herculean effort of trying to put into words that sounded at least somewhat sane and not totally paranoid, what the U.S. Army and VA have done to us. The effort took several hours. As you also know, I PAID for several days for that output of mental and physical energy.  Ohhh how I paid. In closing, I politely asked the "nice" attorney if he could please offer some advice for someone like me even if his firm was unable to take on a case like mine.


After all that effort, and all the suffering, and worst of all, the FALSE HOPE so cruelly held out by his "ambulance chase", I got the usual, trite, impersonal, boilerplate, "sorry, we can't comment as to the merits of your case, but our firm is not choosing to assist you at this time. No "I was saddened to hear of your suffering" or "thank you for your service" or any hint that the guy had even done so much as even SKIM OVER the hundreds of words I had sent, because they asked for "as much detail as possible." 


Of course I fired off a not very friendly response, to which he replied that he has vets in his family and prays for veterans all the time. (I'm sure he meant "real" vets, not ones like us...you know...gah...women.) It made me feel LOTS better though, and I'm sure it does you too! He also added a completely gratuitous and disingenuous comment that not only does he not own a $3,000 pair of shoes, but never has he ever even heard of such a thing! 


Yeahhhhh....right, and pretty pink and purple butterflies are flying out my ....ears as I write this!  


And then he added the comment that always makes me feel better than any other. "I truly hope you get the help you need." I could just hear the condescension dribbling thickly from each of the words as I read them. Of course he really meant "I hope someone commits you, because I think you're a raving nut case," but given he's just a F.I.B. anyway (regional colloquialism--I was born in Door County, Wisconsin, a once beautiful place now turned into a FAR northern "quaint" suburb of Chicago) I won't be losing any sleep over it one way or the other.


It's just all so ironic really. First we hear the "it's all in your imagination" thing from the doctors, then when a medical cause is finally found for our illnesses and they can no longer throw us in the "loony bin" (figuratively speaking) the LEGAL PROFESSION steps right in after them and takes over, with absolutely NO thought to the fact that we have perfectly valid grounds and reams of medical evidence to back our claims. But, since lawyers can't make money off us, meh...who cares. Send out the boilerplate and if we're unhappy with that, treat us like WE are the ones with "issues."


I am beginning to hate lawyers almost as much as doctors....except my pain doctor.  And no, he doesn't prescribe me "fun" drugs. Quite the opposite in fact, but he treats me like a HUMAN, unlike nearly everyone else I've run into since I was 19 years old and in basic training at Fort McClellan, Alabama!


As for most doctors and lawyers, a pox on both their houses. In fact if THEY had to deal with some of these symptoms maybe they'd be a bit more understanding! But no, I wouldn't wish this even on them.