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Paul Street's new book.

“The changes that are needed are not just a matter of tinkering around the edges, and they will not come if politicians simply tell us what we want to hear.” - Barack Obama; January 2008

“Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.” - John Adams; December 1770.

Happy holidays to all of our readers!

In October 2007, the Declaration of the Second North American Secessionist Convention began by asserting “The deepest questions of human liberty and government facing our time go beyond right and left, and in fact have made the old left-right split meaningless and dead.”

During this time of financial and economic crisis, it is worth recalling that credible alternatives to our current financial system exist, if largely unrecognized, and deserve serious consideration. There is a vast, diverse, and largely unread body of literature on monetary questions. Some of this is an underground literature caught up with dubious conspiracy theories, eccentrics and cranks, and unlikely utopian proposals, but some of it is the work of serious, evidence-based, pragmatic thinkers offering plausible alternatives. 
   

Imagining Vermont?

Editor, Vermont Commons:

Several  months ago the Council on the Future of Vermont released its report, “Imagining Vermont: Values and Vision for the Future.”
    
The report culminated an 18-month, $400,000 process, during which some 4,000 Vermonters attended over 100 meetings. Ably written and attractively produced, the report collected and transmitted the ideas and dreams of its participants of the possible Vermont of the future.
    

Editor, Vermont Commons:

In [the Fall 2009 issue of Vermont Commons] Harold Thomas and Kirkpatrick Sale reported on the efforts of several states to nullify federal mandates by legal challenges to the broad grant of powers that the federal government pretends to perceive in the ambiguous “general Welfare” and “Commerce “ clauses of the U.S. Constitution (Article I. Section 8)
   

Vermont’s democracy and socio-economic welfare over the long run will depend substantially on whether energy supplies are local, diverse, and equitably distributed.  Along with complementary measures – energy conservation, efficiency improvements, wind power, solar and geothermal energy – appropriate development of Vermont’s bioenergy capacity (biomass, biogas, and liquid biofuels) is absolutely central for achieving this.  There are indeed many bright spots across the state – reasons for hope – but hurdles remain, and it is going to take great political will, legislative success

Charlotte Dennett, an attorney and former investigative journalist who lives in Cambridge, Vermont, was the Vermont Progressive Party’s candidate State Attorney General in 2008. In that race she gained national attention for her campaign pledge to bring murder charges against then-President George Bush if elected. She is an activist in labor, women’s, and environmental causes, and has served on the board of the Vermont AFL-CIO.  Since the election, she has completed a book titled The People v. Bush.