03-07-10 Democratic candidate gubernatorial forum and debate

Listen for yourself. When the moderator goes to the floor for questions, Dennis stood up immediately and was able to confront the candidates about bringing home the Vermont National Guard.

One candidate cited the official Tax Foundation statistic... of $1.08 in federal money returned to Vermont for every tax dollar remitted to Washington as the reason not to pursue Vermont Independence. (Debunked here, it's interesting how Dem/Rep candidates never figure Vermont's share of the ballooning US debt into this phony assertion)

Another candidate fell back on patriotic jingo, saying that only America affords great opportunities. Unlike, I suppose terrible countries such as Canada, New Zealand or Switzerland.

Another expressed disapproval of the illegal war in Afghanistan, but also said that when called... one goes. But as an illegal war, the call-up is illegal. So he's falling back on the Nuremberg Defence. However, the London Charter of the International Military Tribunal (IMT), specifically stated that following an unlawful order is not a valid defence against charges of war crimes. And war crimes in Afganistan and Iraq continue on a daily basis. Torture, in particular!

Date: Saturday, 10 April 2010
Time: 5:00 – 9:00 PM
Location: Ripton Community House
Route 125, Ripton, Vermont
Bayley-Hazen Boys

Just came from the Ripton Town Meeting. Folks are uneasy. We have excellent management, excellent intentions, great visions... but we're having the life sucked out of us by the US Empire: its wars, racism, cruelty and waste of human potential.

And there's the rub. How can we achieve a green, peaceful Vermont, within such an Empire?

Our State representative gave us some unfortunate numbers from the State budget. I confronted him with the actual numbers, already presented to the Legislature, which show a $1.2 billion a year give-away to huge corporations. This puts the entire tax burden squarely on people who work for a living, and small-to-medium size business. Of course there's a crisis, but the crisis is entirely unnecessary. His reply was to plead ignorance of the situation.

A very brave lady then spoke up, declared that 'it is not about numbers, it is about real people'. I bow to her on this essential fact.

Our management are excellent, yet they have failed us. They need to decide whether their loyalty is to the Empire, or to their people in Vermont. Choose the Empire, and they must be confronted and voted out. Most are Democrats, whose opposition to the Bush wars fell silent the moment the Bush wars became Obama's even bigger wars, and our Guard were federalised and sent off to Afghanistan.

How much sacrifice can we endure? How long will our representatives ask us to turn our backs on the needy, cutting programs and care to those who can least afford to lose it, before we say 'Enough is Enough'?

Vermont Yankee Radioactive Plume

This week, Peter Shumlin, President Pro Tem of the Vermont State Senate, announced that the Senate will vote on whether Vermont Yankee should be closed on schedule.

The first vote will be this week and the final vote will be next week! After years of work by thousands of Vermonters, this is it!

Click here to send a message to your Senator.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Ripton, Vermont - February 14, 2010 - Vermont State Senate independent candidate Robert Wagner has exposed the deep links between the offices of Bernie Sanders, Monsanto and the USDA.  A Monsanto insider, lobbyist & litigator, Tom Vilsack is the US Secretary of Agriculture and gave the keynote speech at the Northeast Organic Farming Association of Vermont (NOFA-VT) convention yesterday.

Do you know who will deliver the keynote speech at NOFA, the Northeast Organic Farming Association of Vermont this weekend? A Monsanto man who was put in charge of the USDA. Yet another case of the fox entrusted to guard the hen house. Remember James Watt?

This is a slap-in-the-face to every small farmer in Vermont.

Today I learned that I have been censored from asking any questions in the staged Q&A session after the Monsanto keynote speech.

You have been saying this is the Eleventh Hour. Now you must go back and tell
the people that this is The Hour.

Here are the things that must be considered:

Where are you living?
What are you doing?
What are your relationships?
Are you in right relation?
Where is your water?
Know our garden.
It is time to speak your Truth.
Create your community.
Be good to each other.

And do not look outside yourself for the leader.

This could be a good time!

There is a river flowing now very fast.
It is so great and swift that there are those who will be afraid.
They will try to hold on to the shore.
They will feel like they are being torn apart, and they will suffer greatly.

Know the river has its destination.

The elders say we must let go of the shore, push off toward the middle of the river, keep our eyes open, and our heads above the water.

See who is there with you and celebrate.

At this time in history, we are to take nothing personally, least of all ourselves ! For the moment we do, our spiritual growth and journey comes to a halt.

The time of the lonely wolf is over.
Gather yourselves!

Banish the word struggle from your attitude and vocabulary.

All that we do now must be done in a sacred manner and in celebration.

We are the ones we have been waiting for.

The Elders
Oraibi, Arizona
Hopi Nation

Gotcha.  That's some of what I've been hearing out there, when talking to people about their concerns... if they're well off, folks are as yet unwilling to even discuss the subject of secession. They haven't been hurt yet by the general decline.  They'll even agree with my first three Senate campaign points, but are afraid of No. 4:

1. NO further Vermont support for War, Torture…or deployment of VT National
   Guard. Order the Guard home now.
2. NOT a dime more for Wall Street…Invest VT funds in VT small banks and
   credit unions for lending here at home.
3. Build a Green Vermont via serious investments in alternative energy,
   human-food-agriculture, and all local community efforts towards self reliance
   and town/village life. Clean, green, decent, peaceful & fun. 
4. Start the discussion with all Vermonters re returning our state to the
   status of a free Independent Republic [as we once were], maintaining free trade
   & good relations with all other nations of the world. 

...and there's the rub.  Nos. 1 through 3, everything that we hope to achieve in Vermont, can happily be blocked or perverted by a federal government pushing its 'standards' and increasingly desperate economic measures and civil repression onto Vermonters.

If you've still got lots of money, the last paragraph may make me sound like a nutjob, a Jeremiah. If you're like most Vermonters, trying like hell to make ends meet as Montpelier cuts essential services; if your kids, parent, spouse (in one case both spouses, leaving the children behind) have been grabbed for Afghanistan, No. 4 begins to make sense!

Ripton, Vermont – January 28, 2010 – Vermont State Senate
independent candidate Robert Wagner has come out in favour of
decommissioning the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Reactor.

Possible future for Vermont. Unless.“Relicencing a nuclear reactor is not a decision to be made in the margin”, Wagner said, referring to the Legislature’s recent examination of whether the billable cost per kWh would be competitive with other energy sources. “You don’t play with the public health and our future, on cost alone. This is a decision to make with the heart.”

This is an excellent analysis that just appeared on Earthsharing Canada. It says that—even though small business and labour take home a decreasing share of total wealth—wealth (until 2008) kept expanding in proportion to energy input, so that a shrinking slice of the pie actually appeared to be larger. Appearances trump reality.

The Wealth Pie: All wealth can be divided into three distinct parts, according to the functions of the three factors of production: Land, Labour & Capital

The article doesn't go far into Peak Oil/Collapse (my learned Georgist colleagues rarely do), but Peak Oil sez that the entire pie is contracting now. This means... what.

• The appearances can disappear overnight, once the oil trough isn't filled on a regular basis. No wonder the Empire is building permanent bases in Iraq, right on top of the most interesting oilfields.
• Civil unrest can come at a time, not when folks have nothing, but when they are led to steadily higher standards of living—and then have to make do with less.
• The hopes of the Vermont Left have been betrayed by the pseudo-intellectual 350.org, determined to stonewall their own agenda by entrusting action to the very Empire whose economic life depends on ever-increasing consumption & growth.
• The hopes of the Vermont Left have been betrayed by the Left itself.  How long will they cling to fairy tales about 'change', dropping all opposition to the illegal, immoral and brutal wars escalated by not only Bush's Democrat successor but by Bernie Sanders himself, who votes for the war funding while bringing in the boondoggle spending.