Dear Editor,

 Christopher Ketcham's article in Good magazine (“Most Likely to Secede,” www.Goodmagazine.com) touches on many important issues, of which secession is arguably the most important. While I strongly empathize with the complaints and analyses of the secessionists, I also believe that secession should not be the MEANS, but the END goal.   

Before secession, it is absolutely imperative to have a democratic, participatory, decentralized, and sustainable polity and economy in place. Without this, secession is simply an imposition, the first resort used out of anger and frustration.   

Secession without democracy and ecological sustainability could well be open to demagoguery. It must have legitimacy as well as the means and infrastructure (both figurative and literal) to survive on its own. Vermont possibly has the best claim to being nearest to these pre-conditions, due to the survival of the town meeting, the size of the state, and its admirable Yankee history of independent thought, self sufficiency and commitment to democracy, as well as its peripheral position to the corporate capitalist state.   

Few other states in the union come close. The historical and philosophical traditions of New England that emerged out of the original commitment to self-rule still rule strong in that region, but not anywhere else except possibly and potentially some parts of the South, incredible as this may seem (we should remember that the populist movement originated in the South).   

The bioregionalism and ecological sensibility that inform the leaders of secessionism in Vermont, articulated so well by Kirk Sale, are by no means widely shared. On the contrary, excessive consumerism, bureaucracy, centralized corporate control of politics and the economy, a meek, pliable media controlled by the latter in the interests of profits, and an educational system that is dominated by Political Correctness and shallow curricula indulging the fantasies of mass culture and consumerism, have brought this nation to its lowest ebb in history.   

Worse, the voices of dissent, reason, and alternative thought are few in number. One only need look at the presidential campaign to realize how all of the candidates reflect not change, hope or progress but the broader society that claims it wants change but consistently opposes those individuals and proposals that embody REAL change, people like Kucinich and Nader primarily.    

All will recall the vicious slanders chanted in the so-called liberal press against Nader in the last election (Michael Moore, The Nation, Eric Alterman, In These Times, etc.) despite the fact that his platform and policies consisted precisely of the same political and economic reforms that these same liberals have been pushing for years. The most egregious of all was the U.S. Green Party, which welcomed disguised Democrats into its upper echelons – like Medea Benjamin – and proceeded to squash Nader and his supporters in favor of a clay idol, David Cobb, who had been pre-selected in secret deals years before.   

This same party is now considering embracing Cynthia McKinney as its presidential candidate, despite her proven anti-Semitism, penchant for demented conspiracy theories about 9/11, her friendship with Louis Farrakhan, and her taking campaign money from a U.S. affiliate of Al Qaeda. Now she has put her cards on the table and has said she will devote her efforts in the campaign to help create a Reconstructionist Party, one controlled by blacks that spouts a clear radical socialist agenda.   

On the environmental side, we all know the utter failures as well as the saboteurs. The latter include Nordhaus & Shellenberger, hawking capitalist prosperity as the answer to the global warming crisis, and the big Washington-based enviros, Natural Resources Defense Council, Environmental Defense, and World Resources Institute, all part of the coal industry conspiracy to promote, in the face of continuing CO2 increases, more coal plants under the guise of a scam called cap and trade. The failures, of course, are most vividly illustrated by the refusal of the U.S. Green Party to shed its disease syndrome of Political Correctness and take strong principled stands and measures to address the ecological crisis here and abroad.   

Is there hope anywhere? Yes, if the dream of the Vermont secessionists can be implemented through relocalization and local democracy, within the exigencies of ecological sanity and equity. Let us support them and more important, let us emulate them by refusing to be enticed by false preachers and prophets in the major political parties.

Lorna Saltzman

Brooklyn, New York