Whether or not Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack should resign or be fired, I am mystified by the relative lack of anyone angrily insisting that someone's head should roll for the Shirley Sherrod situation.
(In this recurring feature, with a click of her mouse EatingLiberally's kat corners Dr. Marion Nestle, NYU professor of nutrition and author ofPet Food Politics, What to Eat and Food Politics:)
Kat: A near-collective cheer rose up from the progressive foodie blogosphere
on Monday (here, here, here, here, and here) at the news that President Obama has nominated Kathleen Merrigan, one of Food Democracy Now's "Sustainable Dozen," to serve as Deputy Secretary at the USDA. Obama Foodorama weighed in with a somewhat more cautiously optimistic post expressing the hope that Merrigan's appointment might mark the dawn of an enlightened, post-racial, post-gender USDA. Change we can believe in?
Dr. Nestle: Let's score this as a win for Food Democracy Now, which worked hard to collect over 87,000 signatures from people who want the USDA to start paying attention to sustainable agriculture. Let's also give points to USDA Secretary Vilsack for listening to Food Democracy Now on this issue. Kathleen Merrigan has a long track record of promoting organics and plenty of experience in making things work in government. I'm keeping fingers crossed that she will be able to make some progress on issues that matter so much to so many of us.
Obama's selection of GMO-lovin', bio-fuelish, feedlot-friendly Tom Vilsack for Secretary of Agriculture drew a resounding "Bleech!" from the blogosphere this week. Vilsack has a long history of Agribiz alliances that's giving progressive foodies a bad case of heartland heartburn.
Between the Markos/Harold Ford Meet the Press thing (hard to call it a debate when Ford was trying so hard to not debate about anything) and Glenn Smith's great post here, it's been hard not to think about the DLC this weekend. So I decided to finally write something about them.
I've been slow to do that for a number of different reasons, most of which relate to my insider-y-ness. I've always preferred focusing on positive ways we can build the progressive movement, rather than worrying about what the DLC is doing. And I much prefer beating up on Republicans than on Democrats, even Democrats I don't agree with. Although I line up on the opposite side of them on a great many issues, I have a more nuanced view of them than most netroots members. But Glenn's post and Ford's attack of anti-war Democrats and the anti-Semitic attack on Meet the Press stirred me to write something.
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