Afghanistan doesn't compute

This is (so far) the only session I've attended at Netroots Nation to be filmed for possible C-span use. Watch out for the back of my thinly haired head in the second row in front of the panel, moderated by Darcy Burner (above). She ran for Congress in 2008, Washington's 8th District, and was one of the favorite candidates of the national progressive crowd. Now she's executive director of ProgressCongress.org.

The question for the panel was Afghanistan, what's it about now in the 9th year, and how to get out. About the only clear result was another question (which I've tweeted to #2010Pelosi as a proposed question to Speaker Nancy Pelosi at the post-breakfast panel today):

What's the logic of spending $100 billion a year to harass 50-100 Al Qeda in Afghanistan? Why are we in another civil war?

Darcy Burner asked that herself during the panel, and it must be rocketing around the brains of anyone in Washington at the decision-making level.

Former Congressman Tom Andrews and retired Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton were in pretty close agreement that the military-industrial complex has Congress in its pocket on this issue -- a depressing assessment. What do our Miami-Dade members of Congress say? Our candidates? I'd like to know.

Another idea that emerged from the panel was that if the Obama administration policy is reasonably successful in dialing conflict way back and helping launch development in Afghanistan, after quite a few years you'd have a country roughly as well off as Chad. Is this worth $100 billion a year when we're firing teachers?

Some of the questions were apples and oranges, to be sure.

Eaton alarmed me by saying that Washington was dysfunctional. Afterward I asked him if he meant this to refer to the president. No, was his answer, he was talking about the way Washington is a bunch of "stovepipes" with not enough cross-capability, so that the wonderfully competent Agriculture Department, for instance, is not capable of helping ag development in Afghanistan, so the job is given to the military, which is no good at ag. Only 320 US civilians are at work outside Kabul, he said -- far fewer than needed.

Andrews, who was in the US House from Maine and lost a Senate bid to Olympia Snowe, said it was essential to solve the Afghanistan issue -- "get this albatross off our necks" -- because we want Obama to succeed.

You can watch the Pelosi session by clicking on the Netroots Nation link at the top of this post and getting over to Ustream.

Do you miss Van Jones?

The last time I saw Van Jones speak was in Washington DC early on inauguration day, Jan. 20, 2009, and the world was going to be all right with him in the White House as the "Green Jobs" czar. We remember how the far right hated the very idea of the black lefty firebrand from Oakland with some authority. Glenn Beck raged, and in not too long a time Van Jones was out. It was one of my early disappointments with the Obama era. How could this happen?

So it was good on Friday to have Van Jones giving the post-breakfast keynote at Netroots Nation, the DailyKos-sponsored bloggers' convention. Bittersweet to hear him say, "In the last two years all my dreams came true, and my nightmares, too."

You can see the whole speech at this link from Netroots Nation.

Keep on watching into his interview done by Ari Melber of The Nation, who asked Van Jones whether Big Ed Schultz had been correct in his fierce speech the night before, when he insinuated there was a "sissy room" in the White House. "This is harder than it looks," Jones said of life in the White House. It's one thing to perform strongly in an election campaign, and another much more difficult thing to have won and then have to govern and legislate and face "a toxic and hostile media environment."

Jones also said that what we're dealing with now is "a ferocious backlash." Yet he tries to keep his sunny personality in good order and urges us to be more beautiful, keep the hope alive. "You have the power to do it."

He was introduced in a recorded video statement by Howard Dean. "Our job," Dean said, "is to keep their feet to the fire in Washington."

To quote Van Jones (from a different context), "This is harder than it looks."

DailyKos takes up donation drive for Joe Garcia and Annette Taddeo

George W. Bush is such a recruiter for Democratic victory. He's coming to Miami today to raise money for his rubber-stamp party, and this inspires the blogosphere to start opening their wallets for two of our superb congressional candidates, Annette Taddeo in FL-18 and Joe Garcia in FL-25.

Here's the post on DailyKos, by Kos himself, Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, with its special link to the ActBlue donation site.


These two fine candidates are no strangers to Markos, as they attended the Netroots Nation convention in Austin back in mid-July and were repeated stars of the national progressive crowd there.

If you've been waiting for an excuse to donate again -- surely you've donated repeatedly to them, right? -- this is a great moment to reply to W and help Garcia and Taddeo.

Last night I was at an Obama fundraiser on Miami Beach, where one of the guests said that Barack Obama should say at his inauguration in January that he owes his election to one man. Who. I wondered? "President Bush," was the answer.

Finally in Austin: Netroots Nation starts on Thursday

Some of the contents of the swag bag given to participants. See if you can pick out the two condoms. Condoms? There also was a fortune cookie and a bag of salsa chips among the flood of reading material.

My candidate for Congress, Annette Taddeo, is on two panels for this year’s bloggers’ extravaganza. Now called Netroots Nation, in its first two years the convention was called YearlyKos after the DailyKos blog that is one of the young fathers of this online world of analysis, news and political organization/campaigning. We used to be profane and profound. Now we’re trying to change the world, and Taddeo, the candidate in my home congressional district FL-18, is on two panels with change as the keyword.

Friday afternoon she’s on the Future Leaders panel talking about being a progressive candidate in a newly competitive district, and Saturday she is talking about the process of selecting the presidential candidate with emphasis on reforming and improving. Florida’s experience this year is no doubt a theme to be explored.

Apologies to readers for not having put up many posts while I was on the road. The old laptop refused to link up with my motel Wifi nets, and if I had something to say it didn’t ever get out of the neighborhood.

Must get better gear, or must get smarter at settings. But why did it work that one night back in the Panhandle? Could this be only a Florida-functioning laptop? The test is to come.

While we’re waiting for a call, let me recommend a new website to you: www.burntorangereport.com which is a Texas blog, credited in the current issue of The Nation with having a lot to do with the Democratic Party’s rising star in the Lone Star State. Our counterparts in Florida are flapolitics.com and the Florida Progressive Coalition blog.

This more locally focused blog will in future be asking you to cast your attention more often to these blogs with statewide focus. Yes, I’m approaching a state of solidarity. Must do more for the team!

While I’ve been on the road there has been splendid news on the fund-raising front for Raul Martinez and Joe Garcia, who are on the way to ousting the Diaz-Balart brothers from FL-21 and FL-25, respectively, as well as for Annette Taddeo, whose trembling FL-18 incumbent is Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. Here’s a link to the Miami Herald roundup on the races.

If there’s time I hope to post some observations about my travels to Austin but for the moment I’ll only mention one highlight from Cajun country in Louisiana. This was a little stop for a snack off I-49, which connects New Orleans and Shreveport. I pulled off at Exit 17 and stopped at the only business in this rural area, a gas station with what looked like just a lunch counter. Smelled good and spicy. I asked if they served breakfast. Yes, the young lady said, they could make a ham and egg sandwich, or they had tournedos with sausage and scrambled eggs. I asked for a tournedo, and along came the proprietor, a jovial man who asked me if I wanted some boudin – pronounced Boo-Dan, with a little more stress on the Dan. I don’t know what boudin is, I said. He opened a lid on the steam table and there was a deep pan of white sausage links. He told the young lady to cut me up a sample, and I ended up with a delicious plate of spicy sausage. He said he sold it far and wide, including to Florida.

So I said I’d mention his name in my blog (Blog? he replied.) He’s Lynwood Hebert (pronounced A-bair), accepting orders for boudin and cracklins at 337 942-8828.