Activism
This is a guest post from Thomas Naylor, founder of The Second Vermont Republic. Their mission statement can be found here.
From the very outset I was an enthusiastic supporter of Occupy Wall Street. To me it represented the reawakening of the political left after four decades of uninterrupted slumber. Maybe the radicalization of America had finally begun. Americans might soon opt for jobs, health insurance, social security, better education, and a cleaner environment rather than drones, Navy Seals, and Delta Force death squads.
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I’m continually stunned by how many seemingly sane people believe you can have infinite economic growth on a finite planet. Perpetual economic growth and its cousin, limitless technological expansion, are beliefs so deeply held by so many in this culture that they often go entirely unquestioned. Even more disturbing is the fact that these beliefs are somehow seen as the ultimate definition of what it is to be human: perpetual economic growth and limitless technological expansion are what we do.
Some of those who believe in perpetual growth are out-and-out nut jobs, like the economist and former...
Recently I was taking off from Rutland Airport. As you know, Vermont's taxes against the middle class force many middle class Vermonters to seek work elsewhere, or just plain leave. It had been foggy before dawn, but the day dawned clear and bright. About to take off, clearance from Air Traffic Control was abruptly revoked... they said that Rutland Airport was fogged in! So, for an hour, I just sat there with engines wasting fuel, polluting, polluting... because of some incompetent weather broadcast.
In the old days we had Flight...
As the profit margins sink for the Military Industrial Complex a new profit center is developing in Asia. On the tiny Korean Island of Jeju a missile base is being constructed to guard against the Chinese threat. Will China be obliged to aim some missiles at the U.S.? The prospect makes the war mongers on Wall Street giddy. A new threat more ominous than the Soviet Union will emerge. By God there are billions of those yellow bastards and they control our economy. (Racist military speak)
Jeju is a jewel in the China Sea. I have been there. Although it is a tourism spot it does not appear like...
Plato, author of The Republic, asserted that leaders create crises. Which in turn lets them do whatever they want. If ever there were a manufactured crisis in Vermont, it's the 'Vaccine Crisis'.
Rutland, Vermont Sen. Kevin Mullin's $20 thousand dollars in campaign contributions from outside Vermont made Rutland a 'safe seat', Mullin made multiple trips to DC with Governor Shumlin, according to a...
If we don't stop Climate Change, we'll break the sky and humans will go extinct. That is what the science says. Runaway Climate Change means planet death. If one hasn't had a terrifying vision of human extinction from runaway Climate Change, one doesn't understand the science.
Climate activists have been reluctant to motivate people with grim visions of planet death, lest they get too depressed to get involved. Climate scientists tend to talk in sleep-inducing language that doesn't convey the emergency. We've been under-scaring the children. I understand not wanting to...
What can happen in 2012 to further the objective of uniting the 99%? Or, as I wrote in my first “Uniting the 99%” column, how do we bring together the 70-75% that “potentially, could come together in support of a broadly-based, independent, progressive popular movement?”
Let’s start with how we will NOT, absolutely not, further that objective:
-Cutting back on independent, non-electoral organizing and independent, visible, demonstrative actions. I might argue differently if there was a powerful, multi-racial, multi-issue, “third force” mass movement that had come together and was running strong progressive...
Picture an activist, or maybe just a human being. Pretend this person is disturbed by the close cooperation of government and industry, and recognizes the harm this cooperation does to the possibilities of democracy, unions, human rights, and a healthy natural world. Perhaps this person is deeply outraged by the atrocities—against both humans and nonhumans—committed by government and industry. How might this person respond to these atrocities?
Well, literally several times a week I receive emails from people telling me things like, “After all these years, it’s time for a change: I’ve left...
I am pretty sure that it was history in the making, local history anyway. And who knows? Maybe Mount Shasta, California’s example will encourage other towns around the Country to take similar action.
Last week, concurrent with the first snow of the season, a meeting took place between Shasta Commons, the area’s Transition Town movement, and the South Siskiyou Tea Party. While sleet and ice pounded the windows outside the building, warmth and understanding predominated in the meeting room inside.
Over the years, there have been some misunderstandings between these two groups. Actually, that is an...
Saturday February 18, 2012
House Chamber of The Vermont State House
Montpelier, VT
12 noon-3pm
Peace – Love – Liberty
Join us as we fire up the Ron Paul 
in Vermont and respond to the status quo, party line rhetoric with REAL CHANGE: the message of liberty, freedom and a return to the Constitution...
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