I can sort of understand Feinstein's position. Her well to do farmers are complaining that the crops will wither or rot if there is no one to pick them. The previous 'farmworkers' have scrambled off to be window washers, warehousemen, hotel maids, construction workers. Anything but backbreaking work under a hot, California sun. What's a senator from a state with a long, glorious agricultural tradition to do?

D--n it. These farmworkers have been tying us in a knot for the last thirty years. They sued to stop the agricultural technology programs (UFW and CA Rural Legal Assistance v UC Davis) Now US farmers must compete with one hand tied behind their backs. No, we can't pay only $5/day like in Brazil!!! And, now, we don't have so many of the really cool harvesting machines like Europe, Japan and Australia have. But even the "farmworkers" which this country has unofficially let in for thirty years are running around the country doing other things. It would take several years now for US farms to get back in the swim of high technology--and some will complain that they can't afford it and will shut down or move out of country. Darnit, anyway!

So Dianne looks at her suffering farmers and gets sneaky.

We need to keep calling her to wtihdraw her "Emergency Agricultural Worker Status" amendment from the Iraq war funding bill. Time to grow up into the adult world, Di. This farm policy--or lack of it--has been a royal disaster and turned us into laughingstocks. Our sympathies, Di, for your farm constituents---BUT THIS JUST AIN'T GONNA WORK!