Letters to the Editor

An ethical cause

Editor, Vermont Commons:

I am a former resident of Maine (or, as I prefer, a Mainer in exile) who is very supportive of the noble independence campaign to liberate Vermont from the soulless corporate wasteland that has conquered America. I hope that such a movement will take hold in my beloved home state.
It is also pleasing to hear that a varying double-digit percent of Vermonters now favor reclaiming the original intent of the founding constitutional patriots of Vermont – a Republic that has more control over its own destiny than a faceless federal bureaucracy. I believe it is important to approach all members of society on your venerable proposal, religious and secular. In general, both sides tend to agree on one neutral philosophy: ethics.
I recently attended a conference at a Tennessee university on the deadly aspects of Depleted Uranium. Various experts (including a military veteran who tested D.U. effects on military vehicles, Major Doug Rokke) explained the hazards and consequences of exposure to D.U. An Afghani citizen and journalist, who is also the son of a general in that nation, produced a heartening photographic journal/book called Afghanistan After “Democracy” (quotations for very germane reasons); the most horrific pictures showed newborn babies whose DNA were so viciously maligned by the D.U. infestation that some had their internal organs on the exterior of their lifeless bodies, some had three eyes, some had massive craniums, and other pictures that made me cry for the first time in quite a while. A vast majority of those children never make it.
The point is – and I fully endorse your efforts here – use such materials and vital information for your advantage. Show the photos, because people must see the crimes committed by this government! Our taxes are utilized by the Military/Industrial Complex to support the manufacture of these biological weapons of mass destruction. Our government's sinister production and deployment of these chemical terrors have inflicted not only genetic mutilation in numerous children of Bosnia and Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq, but in our own United States military personnel! We have poisoned our fellow citizens, and I bet that some fine members of Vermont society have been affected. I would suggest that you tie the secession of Vermont to the taxes that even avowed peace and anti-war activists pay to the disgraceful foreign and domestic policies of the Military/Industrial Complex. No matter how opposed to war they are, they are just as liable for the slaughter of innocent civilians because they still belong to this corrupt system.
Please Vermont, take the initiative. The current empire is going to crumble, and I pray God that you evade this forthcoming but just downfall. We are in a post-unity stage, and it is time to revive the heritage of the American Revolution and Constitutional liberty under peaceful means.

Benjamin R. Holmes
Mocksville, North Carolina (formerly Portland, Maine)

Taking back our money

Editor, Vermont Commons:
Those of us involved in barter, local currency, time banks (service trading) or any alternatives to U.S. dollars are money activists, whether acknowledged or not.
Activists at the national level would say that the fractional reserve system of our private banking system is what put us in this endless spiral of debt/inflation, leading to greater divisions of wealth, and ultimately, an unsustainable world situation.
One solution offered by the American Monetary Institute is to have the government be the sole issuer of (debt-free) money. In other words, put the power to issue money back in the hands of the people themselves.
Imagine here in Vermont, local economic agitation growing thus: Time banks, already used in numerous communities across the U.S., take the lead from Burlington's Old North End and sprout other time banks across Vermont. Trading services in this way, people have more disposable income and save on taxes. They can better support small businesses rather than having to buy on the cheap, supporting corporate stores.
Meanwhile, Burlington Currency Project, in conjunction with a statewide electronic currency/barter network, begins facilitating non-dollar exchanges at the state level. With interest-free Vermont-wide currency, people and businesses have more access to loans. Farming and local food production thrive due to increased access to capital. Small businesses thrive due to increased bartering between them and people making more purchases locally.
Vermonters then extend our earning power and can better afford what we need. In this mutually supportive economy, everyone thrives and less wealth seeps away via corporate stores. Other states see the favorable effects and initiate their own statewide currencies.
With money serving its original purpose, as a means of exchange, it could once again be used to purchase what people and their communities need most: supporting alternative forms of energy to confront global warming; building infrastructure of our towns and cities to prevent more Katrinas; advancing universal healthcare. The list goes on and on.
Ultimately, money would be utilized to serve human needs, as opposed to special interests like the oil, insurance, and military industries.
With private banking interests controlling the world's money we'll simply get more of the same: Big Oil, Big Military, Big War, and Bigger taxes to support it all.
Sooner or later, Americans must realize that with private banks controlling the money supply, things need to stay the same to keep the machine going!
In the new paradigm of people/communities accessing the money controls, perhaps we could create a world fit for future generations.
After all, isn't that humanity's mission?

Laura Markowitz
Jericho

Higher calling

Editor, Vermont Commons:
I've sent this note to ask you, your writers, and your readers to redouble efforts to secure Vermont's liberties. Yet in doing so, I also warn that a just Green Mountain republic will never be founded by disgruntled subjects of the Empire of the United States. Suppose the political duplicities and global transgressions of the United States would by some miracle be solved overnight. Where then would their allegiance be?
The Vermont independence movement must ignore dubious 9/11 issues and concerns over the theory of “Peak Oil.” Let us allow the bloated United States, its militarists and rapacious dedication to outmoded technologies collapse of their own weight. We must turn our backs on the Empire to serve as the vanguard of a better society. Do not try to reform it – let us rise above it! I am deeply saddened that some secessionists appear motivated by little more than paranoia and the hatred of George Bush.
The Second Vermont Republic will only be fashioned by hopeful hands.
Our faith that a Vermont Republic, steeped in social harmony and environmental sustainability based on a humanistic scale, will thrive within our natural borders must not be subverted by personal agendas. Our struggle may last 100 years; let it not be buffeted by the passions of this hour. Let us have no greater cause than the seizure of our destiny. Let us have no better calling than to rewrite Vermont's place in history.

Marc Awodey
Burlington

Secession needs broader outreach

Editor, Vermont Commons,
I've been following the Vermont independence effort for a couple years now and have been very excited about the prospect about Vermont as an independent country. Yet I feel that there has been a very large portion of the Vermont population that has been left out of this conversation.
I see more Vermonters who are in my boat, who have a hard time getting by and don't want to leave the state, rather than who live in quaint farm houses, log cabins made out of sustainably harvested logs hand hewn from Palestinian women, or gentrified farms in Charlotte or the Mad River Valley.
The people I am talking about are the majority in Vermont: the alcoholic guy who lives in a hole in the wall in Newport, driving two-plus hours every day in order to get to his construction job in Burlington; the family in Alburg struggling to live off of the job at the Williston Wal-Mart; the underemployed single mother in Rockingham living off government help and her part-time job at the Brooks Pharmacy in Bellows Falls; the family from Ira whose favorite thing every year is that weekend in May when they go to Lake George.
These people are the majority in the state of Vermont, and I don't see them represented in the secession movement. And guess what? They probably love the idea of the United States, and will not hear anything about leaving it.
This part of the population had better be with us. In fact, they had better be the ones to personally hand-deliver the White House our letters of secession.
If we are to go further with the idea of secession, we'd better start reaching out to these people and get them on board along with everyone else.

Andrew Bouchard
Burlington