By Al Giordano

Just a quick note - as I prepare additional reports from my notes of seven days and nights on the road in Honduras - to say that we're back online from the Narco Newsroom, somewhere in a country called América. Shortly after I arrived back home last night we experienced a short circuit and lost power - and thus Internet access - and it took most of today to fix it. A reminder that nothing happens fast in this part of the world. If there's one thing these twelve years in Latin America have taught me, it is patience.

I expect to return to Honduras real soon. When you read my next couple of reports you'll understand why that's so necessary. The short version: the coup opponents are going to win, and they're going to topple the regime no matter what Washington with its increasingly erratic and ham-handed handling of the situation does or does not do.

The hour has come to re-school my fellow community organizer, the one at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, as to what organizing on the ground can do, including by going around and against the Peter Principle poster children surrounding him (yes, I'm lookin' at you Secretary Clinton and White House advisor Dan Restrepo) where some not-ready-for-prime-time players are rapidly destroying all the goodwill Obama earned at the April Summit of the Americas.

The Peter Principle says that “in a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence." That's the story from above.

But we're not going to whine or gnash teeth over it. We're not going to run around in circles and screech that the sky is falling. We're not going to get on our knees and pray to mere mortals that occupy those positions in power. Fuck 'em if they can't take the joke: We're going to do the only three things that have ever universally worked to correct any injustice: Organize, organize and organize. And that obviously includes the work of Authentic Journalism to make sure that organizing is seen and heard far and wide.

Coming up next, a recap - with some additional information we learned on the ground in Honduras - by way of setting up the explanation of exactly how the coup regime is going to be toppled from below. An international teach-in on Civil Resistance and how it is done is being offered by the Honduran people.

And that includes the ultimate goal we heard from every corner of the country: a new Honduran Constitution determined democratically not by its oligarchs and their tricks of faux-democracy, but by the people.

I'd also like to thank Paul Findley, known to Field Hands in California, Colorado, Wisconsin, Massachusetts, and now Honduras, as Palo, who answered my call for a cameraperson last week and, on his nickel, flew to Tegucigalpa to document moments that you'll want to see once we get them produced for viral video dissemination.

And since Palo demonstrated that sometimes all one needs to do is ask aloud to find the necessary talent for a job that needs done, let me today put it out there that the workload has grown so large here that I could use a kind of executive assistant, reasonably bilingual in Spanish and English, to work with this project somewhere in América for a very small stipend.

The good news is that in an era where many news organizations go through "internship brokers" who "place" people who want more experience in a workplace of their chosen fields in exchange for extortionist payments from the intern or his or her parents, to get a gig as go-fors for no pay at all, we won't charge anything for the opportunity and we can probably pay something. Send inquiries directly to me at narconews@gmail.com

Let me also mention that during our travels I encountered various strong candidates - Hondurans and internationalists both - for the February 2010 School of Authentic Journalism in Mexico.

The struggle against the coup d'etat in Honduras - and the oligarchy that brought it - has gone into overtime. Nothing happens overnight in this neck of the woods. But when it happens, it does so with history-making power and glory. Stay tuned...

Update: With more evidence of the Peter Principle at work, here's State Department spokesman Robert Wood at today's daily press briefing. He gets a tough line of questioning on the US position regarding Honduras, and he can't give a straight answer to any substantive question because his boss, Secretary Clinton, and the White House guy whose job is to "handle" the State Department in Latin America, Dan Restrepo, are still trying to have it both ways, leaving their spokesman with nothing to do but stammer:

QUESTION: There’s a similar report on Honduras, actually, about it this morning that a assistant secretary has written Senator Lugar to say that the U.S. is softening its stance on the Honduras coup and does not want to place any sort of lasting penalties on the Honduran Government – the interim government. Is that true? Or how would you best characterize the position --

MR. WOOD: The best way I can characterize this, Kirit, is that we are not softening on our position with regard to Zelaya. We have been – as you know, we have been working hard to try to get both parties to take up seriously the San Jose Accords. We think it’s the best way forward for resolving the political situation, political crisis in Honduras. We believe this is the best mechanism for it. And we’re going to continue to try to convince both parties and go from there. But a coup took place in the country, and –

QUESTION: Well, you haven’t officially legally declared it a coup yet.

MR. WOOD: We have called it a coup. What we have said is that we legally can’t determine it to be a military coup. That review is still ongoing.

QUESTION: Why does it take so long to review whether there’s a military coup or not?

MR. WOOD: Well, look, there are a lot of legal issues here that have to be carefully examined before we can make that determination, and it requires information being shared amongst a number of parties. We need to be able to take a look at that information and make our best legal judgment as to whether or not –

QUESTION: It seems to be taking a very long time.

MR. WOOD: Well, things take time when you’re dealing with these kinds of very sensitive legal issues. So we want to make sure that –

QUESTION: Have you made a decision on whether to impose additional sanctions on the de facto government?

MR. WOOD: No decision has been made to do anything right now, other than support the San Jose Accords and the mediation process.

QUESTION: No, I understand. But have you made a determination whether – whether – not to impose sanctions? I mean, this report and this letter to Senator Lugar suggests that you’ve made the decision not to impose sanctions.

MR. WOOD: Look, I’m certainly not going to talk about the details of the correspondence that we have had with a congressperson or senator. I’m not going to do that from here. I can – what I can tell you is that the United States is doing everything it can to try to support the return to constitutional democratic order in the country. And we’re going to do what we think is best to try to move that process forward.

QUESTION: But my question wasn’t about the letter. My question was whether you’ve made the decision not to impose new sanctions on Honduras?

MR. WOOD: And what I’m saying to you is that where we’re focused right now is on supporting that process and trying to get the two parties to come to some sort of a political settlement. But beyond that, I don’t have anything to add on that question.

There's a good answer ("yes, new sanctions are coming"), an evil answer ("no, there will not be tougher sanctions," which is what a State Department lawyer wrote in the letter to the Republican Senator), and an incompetent answer ("After more than a month, we don't have an answer") to every question. The State Department is wallowing in incompetence in a way that makes US citizens on both sides of the Honduras question feel ashamed of their country. Sit on that picket fence long enough and you end up with nothing but splinters where the sun don't shine.