Free Vermont Media

By Rob Williams

Do you dream of a free Vermont? So do we, and the stories told in the media we consume can help us re-imagine what an independent Vermont might look like. Vermont Commons readers/subscribers are vociferous media hounds. We like books. We enjoy films. (And if you haven't yet seen “Syriana,” “Who Killed The Electric Car,” “An Inconvenient Truth,” or “V for Vendetta,” all four are now out on DVD. Each one, in its own way, makes a compelling case for secession and economic re-localization.) Heck, we even play video games. If someone out there wants to design us a Sim-City-like piece of software that helps us imagine how Vermont independence might play out (positively, we hope – optimists-are-us here), we're all ears. Starting with this issue, we'll be regularly serving up our favorite multimedia resources for a free Vermont. Here's what's been on my night table of late.

Isn't secession a “racist plot”? Didn't Americans already fight a “civil war” to “free the slaves” and “preserve the Union?” Only Americans who learn their history from Ken Burns PBS documentaries, the History Channel, and corporate textbook companies could believe such a thing. Which is to say – most of us accept these statements as fact without question.

The reality, of course, is that secession has been a widely practiced political tool for people throughout the centuries, and Americans, after founding the new U.S. Republic on secessionist principles (read Jefferson's 1776 “Declaration of Independence”) gave secession legs by enshrining it in both the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights. I know – we never learn any of this in school or from the T.V. Re-educating ourselves about our own history takes time and effort.

Both Northerners (New Englanders seriously considered secession from the United States no fewer than six times before 1860) and Southerners embraced secession as a viable political option during the first seventy years of this nation's history, until Republican Party co-founder, corporate railroad lawyer, and minority president Abraham Lincoln prosecuted an unconstitutional, illegal, and immoral war to keep the southern states in the Union (1961-1865). In the process, of course, Honest Abe re-invented our country as a single unitary state/empire (“The United States IS a nation,” rather than the antebellum “the United States ARE a nation), and made it a happy and prosperous place for giant multinational corporations (the railroads, for starters, the first billion dollar corporate entities in world history), consolidated private banking interests, and sponsors of massive tax-sponsored subsidies and “internal improvements.”

No one tells this story better than Loyola College economist Thomas J. DiLorenzo, first in The Real Lincoln (reviewed in our May 2005 issue – available online) and now in Lincoln Unmasked: What You're Not Suppose To Know About Honest Abe (New York: Crown Forum, 2006). While the book is lean, clocking in at under 200 pages, you'll learn more about the real Abraham Lincoln than you ever have before. Guaranteed.

Another new book worth a look is Sean Scallon's Beating the Powers that Be: Independent Political Movements and Parties of the Upper Midwest and Their Relevance for Third Parties of Today. (Baltimore: Public America, 2005). A mouthful, I know, that subtitle, but Scallon writes in clear narrative prose, explaining how successful non-major parties – the Non-Partisan League of North Dakota, the Farm-Labor Party of Minnesota, and the Progressives of Wisconsin – helped shape and re-shape regional politics in the United States. Makes me wonder if the Second Vermont Republic might not consider fielding candidates for statewide office here in Vermont, once we get a bit more organized.

To get more provocative for a moment, most folks I know who dismiss citizens advocating “9/11 Truth” as “conspiracy theorists” have rarely bothered, it turns out, to closely examine the evidence surrounding the 9/11 attacks. While there have been dozens of books written about 9/11 Truth – good, bad, and otherwise - Canadian journalist Barry Zwicker's Towers of Deception: The Media Cover-Up of 9/11 (Canada: New Society Publishers, 2006) is the most accessible 9/11 Truth work I've read to date. While Zwicker focuses on reviewing the corporate/mainstream “news” media's complicity in failing to mount a sustained systematic investigation of the evidence surrounding the 9/11 attacks, he does a fine job of summarizing the case for 9/11 Truth. He also thoughtfully lambastes Leftist intellectuals and “gatekeepers” who refuse to take a good hard look at the case for U.S. government/intelligence complicity. His chapter critiquing Noam Chomsky alone is worth the price of admission.

On the food front, I just finished Vermont author Linda Faillace's remarkable Mad Sheep: The True Story behind the USDA's War On A Family Farm (White River Junction: Chelsea Green, 2005). Reading about how the federal USDA made legal, political and economic war on the Faillace family's sheep farm, a struggle that went on for years, is incredibly sobering, though Faillace writes with optimism, personality and heart. The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History in Four Meals, Michael Pollan's latest book (New York: Penguin Press, 2006), made the rounds this past summer and fall in our central Vermont community, though I've just finished only recently. If ever there was a thoughtful, reasoned, thorough case for local eating whenever possible, this is it.

In a nod to two Vermont authors, I just recently read and can recommend two small but powerful books for their compressed thoughtfulness. Peter Forbes' What Is A Whole Community? A Letter To Those Who Care For and Restore the Land (Fayston: Center for Whole Communities, 2006) is a beautifully-rendered love letter to land and people, while Peggy Sapphire's A Possible Explanation (Virginia: Partisan Press, 2006) explores life's often-painful journey through gritty and graceful poetry. Two slim volumes you'll visit and revisit.

And finally, I just experienced the side-splittingly funny Sky Maul: Happy Crap You Can Buy From A Plane (New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2006). And it IS an experience. You know the real Sky-Mall catalogs, the ones that hawk those absurd-but-tantalizing products you suddenly think you need while flying at 30,000 feet, until your conscious and rational brain kicks in? (Hey look! Self-cleaning golf ball holders!…Wait a minute, I haven't played golf in years, but even if I did, I can clean my own damn dimples).

Well, feast your eyes on the “Reality-Canceling Headphone,” the “Crack Pipe Chess Set,” the “Adultery Detector,” the “Llamacycle,” some “Pepper Self-Spray,” and other insanely funny parodied products – complete with visuals - that will make you laugh out loud. The comedy troupe Kasper Hauser, who produced this work of genius, have made guffawing more fun than ever. And a little laughter goes a long way in these interesting times.

That's what's been on my night table, dreaming of an independent Vermont.