Vermont Commons

Skip to content

Vermont Commons

Voices of Independence


Commerce

PARSING THE EMPIRE: The Business of Water - Privatizing An Essential Resource (Stephen Lendman)

Editor's Note: Lendman's article is particularly timely, in light of UVM researcher Gary Flomenhoft's "Message In A Bottle" COMMONS feature on the current status of Vermont's groundwater, found in the current MUD SEASON issue of the news journal. 

Vermont's Groundwater: Pure'ly Private?Vermont's Groundwater: Pure'ly Private?

» Read more | Login or register to post comments

RELOCALIZING VERMONT Leaky Nuclear Plants Versus States' Rights

With the help of Glenn Scherer at Blue Ridge Press, I turned the state Senate vote on Vermont Yankee into an op-ed on states' rights to regulate nuclear power plant. Blue Ridge Press sends out op-eds to newspapers around the country, and Glenn hoped the states' rights slant would appeal to newspapers in some conservative states.

We'll see how that strategy works. So far, it's been picked up by The Epoch Times in New York City.

Login or register to post comments

MOST LIKE TO SECEDE: Beyond Facebook - Yankee magazine features Front Porch Forum

Editor's Note: We profiled our favorite Vermont-based social network - Michael Wood Lewis' Front Porch Forum out of Burlington in a recent issue of Vermont Commons - looks like they just got a big plug in Yankee magazine by Ripton writer Bill McKibben. Check it out.

» Read more | Login or register to post comments

BANKING ON FREEDOM: The Campaign for State-Owned Banks

While bank bailouts fatten Wall Street, states continue to battle the credit crisis. In the search for innovative solutions, some political candidates are proposing that states generate their own credit by setting up their own banks.

» Read more | Login or register to post comments

THE DAILY MAUL: Struggling U.S. Towns Begin Printing Their Own Cash

We've written quite extensively about local currencies here over the past five years, and will continued to do so in the weeks ahead. As the U.S. Empire's imminent bankruptcy begins to catch up to us all, forward-thinking towns are taking financial matters into their own hands.

More below the fold.

Most interesting, perhaps, is this line:

» Read more | Login or register to post comments

Gary Flomenhoft: Vermont’s Message in a Bottle - Bottling Groundwater Rent for Public Revenue (FEATURE)

In evaluating the resources comprising the “Commonwealth” of Vermont,
we made a disturbing discovery: Most of the valuable resources in
Vermont, including minerals, groundwater, surface water, hydro sites,
airwaves, etc., are owned by out-of state corporations.  Vermont is a
banana republic without the bananas.
..Gary Flomenhoft teaches energy technology and policy at the University of Vermont.

» Read more | Login or register to post comments

Sucosh Norton: ENVY’able Alternatives - Electrifying A 21st Century Vermont Without Re-licensing Yankee (FEATURE)

It is realistic to think that the generating capacity
of Entergy Nuclear Vermont Yankee (ENVY) can be economically,
environmentally and cost-effectively replaced in the near term by a
diversified strategy of conservation, market purchases, and local
renewable resources here...
John (Sucosh) Norton is the Chief Operating Officer
for NRG Systems, a global leader in the manufacture of wind-
measurement equipment, based in Hinesburg.  John serves on the Climate
Change Oversight Committee for the State of Vermont and has worked in

» Read more | Login or register to post comments

Anne Galloway (Vt.Digger): Behind Bars, For Profit - Should Vermont Continue To Privatize Our Prisons?

The question remaining is whether it will be any different if the
physicians and mental health experts are paid, instead, by a
profit-taking corporation...
Anne Galloway is the editor of vtDigger.org, a nonprofit web-based news journal reporting in-depth on Vermont issues and events.

» Read more | Login or register to post comments

Ben Falk: HOMESTEAD SECURITY - Adaptive Design for Climate (and other) Changes

Good design is design for change. Good design is structurally diverse
and not dependent on any single element for its overall success...
Ben Falk grows food and fuel in the lower Mad River Valley, and develops post-petroleum human habitats with Whole Systems Design, LLC.

» Read more | Login or register to post comments

SECESSION, NOT AGGRESSION: Secession and the Power of the Purse (DumpDC)

Editor's Note: RSS up to Russell Longcore's DumpDC blog for more.

You may have seen Edwin Vieira’s three-part series at DumpDC.com,
which was a dissenting opinion about secession. I think that his
analysis is wrong in all but one point. After all he is a Yankee and
educated at Harvard (Just kidding, Ed…kind of…mostly). But there is one
point he makes that is unarguable. That is the absolute requirement of
a seceding state to wield the Power Of The Purse.



ADVERTISEMENT



All content on this site & copy (2006-2010) by each individual author. CREATIVE COMMONS license applies for republishing - please contact publisher Rob Williams for details.