by Jane Dwinell and Dana Dwinell-Yardley

Well, with holiday baking slipping quickly behind us and 2008 approaching in a matter of hours, we decided to hold on to our local recipes for later and start thinking about New Year's resolutions. Forget the dieting and exercise — here are three resolutions for 2008 that will really make a difference for us and Vermont (and may be easier, too!).

One: Stop shopping at corporate/chain stores

by Jane Dwinell and Dana Dwinell-Yardley

The December holiday season is upon us. Shopping, parties, family get-togethers, office bashes, religious services. Too much food, too much debt, too much stress—not enough time and energy to enjoy the true meaning of the season. No matter our faith, December can be tough, instead of miraculous. Here are some Green-Mountain-based things our family does during the holidays to help break the American mold of spend-eat-rush.

Thanksgiving Day is a special day for those following the peak oil news. Geologist Kenneth Deffeyes, author of Hubbert's Peak, predicted that Thanksgiving Day 2005 would mark the peak in world oil production. When he made the prediction, in January the year before, his tongue was only slightly in his cheek. Deffeyes was not quite right, but he was close. Current data put the peak (so far, at least) 6 months earlier or 8 months later, depending on how you measure it.

So while Thanksgiving Day is not, in fact, the anniversary of peak oil, we can still give thanks in the way that Deffeyes encouraged us to do so that year: Thanks for the services of the first half of recoverable world oil. "Thanks for the services of the first half of recoverable world oil. Thanks for the automobile, the airplane, diesel trains and ships, two-lane blacktop, warm houses, plastics, [nylon and polyster,] and a huge range of petrochemicals. [The Thanksgiving dinner itself] was produced with fertilizers, tractor fuel, pesticides, and transportation provided by oil and natural gas." And 38 million of us in the US will use oil to travel 50 miles or more to eat that Thanksgiving dinner.

Of course, oil has been a mixed blessing. The age of oil has also brought the age of World Wars, poisonings from pollution on an unprecedented scale, destruction of cities for parking lots and ugly suburbs, and habitat destruction, climate change, and other pressures that threaten most species on the planet, including ours.

As we give thanks for the blessings of oil, let us us keep in mind the curses of oil, and let us ask for the wisdom to use the remaining half of the world's oil reserves more for useful, durable products than throw-away plastic cutlery, more for insulating homes and constructing wind turbines than for heating drafty homes and generating electricity, and more for medicines and food production than for guns and warplanes.

Happy Thanksgiving!

People must first be made to give up on the existing system before they will become receptive to fundamental change.

Michael Byron, Ph.D.

Author of Infinity's Rainbow: The Politics of Energy, Climate and Globalization

Last week a review of the documentary "What A Way To Go: Life At The End Of Empire" was posted on Energy Bulletin and sub-titled "a review of a new doomer cult classic." While the review was favorable, I must state that as someone who has seen the documentary dozens of times, who consistently shows it to my history classes, and who is a personal friend of the film makers, I was appalled at the use of the word "doomer" to describe the film. The reviewer's use of the term was the culmination for me of the inappropriate use of "doomer" to label individuals who have rejected the soporific of "hope" with respect to the terminal state of planet earth. I am equally unnerved by those who consistently describe me as "negative" and obsessively attempt-almost beg me-to offer them "something positive." Hence, the inspiration to write this article.

In my recent article "The End Of America: The Police State Is Right Here, Right Now" I included experiences of escalating intimidation on the part of law enforcement in the United States within recent months. I must confess that when I cite such incidents, I fear that in a few days or weeks, it will all go away, and everyone else, myself included, will begin to question the validity of the examples, breathing a heavy sigh of relief and rejoicing that the situation isn't nearly as dire as I'm asserting it is.

This time, however, I have nothing to fear because since that article was posted, the ante of out-of-control law enforcement in America appears to have been upped with a rapidity that I could not have imagined just a few weeks ago.

A friend for whom I have a great deal of respect and admiration recently challenged me on my incessant hope-bashing stance and gave me some food for thought which has caused me to reframe the concept of "hope" in my own mind in a way that I can live with. What I cannot live with is a definition of "hope" that externalizes it-that fosters denial and a false and naïve anticipation that government, religion, or to quote Lincoln, "the better angels of our nature" will somehow save humanity from slamming with lethal velocity into the brick walls of our own making-climate chaos, global energy catastrophe, planetary economic meltdown, population overshoot, species extinction and die-off--or nuclear holocaust.

A review of The True Story Of The Bilderberg Group, By Daniel Estulin

It is difficult to re-educate people who have been brought up on nationalism to the idea of relinquishing part of their sovereignty to a supra-national body.

~Bilderberg Group founder, Prince Bernhard~

As a rhetorical question, can someone please explain to me how it is that progressive liberals such as John Edwards and Hillary Clinton, as well as do-gooder humanitarians with multiple social projects ongoing such as the Rockefellers and every Royal House in Europe, can perennially attend Bilderberg meetings apparently knowing that the final objective of this despicable group of hoodlums is a fascist One World Empire?

I recently caught up with Rob Williams, volunteer editor of VERMONT COMMONS which is the online voice of Vermont Independence. The organization has been working for some time to establish The Second Vermont Republic which is a peaceful, democratic, grassroots, libertarian populist movement opposed to the tyranny of the U.S. Government, corporate America, and globalization and committed to the return of Vermont to its rightful status as an independent republic, as it was between 1777 and 1791. More of the history of Vermont and the Independence movement can be read at the VT Commons website.

As nightfall does not come all at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there is a twilight when everything remains seemingly unchanged. And it is in such a twilight that we all must be aware of change in the air—however slight—lest we become unwilling victims of the darkness.

~Justice William O. Douglas~

In April, 2007 I was pleasantly surprised to find Naomi Wolf's article, “Fascist America, In 10 Easy Steps” posted in several places online. I have been a fan of Wolf for many years, greatly appreciating her works and especially her 1991 book, The Beauty Myth. I had been looking for a list—or more specifically, an encyclopedia of the losses of civil liberties in the United States that might clarify for my history students the extent to which America has become a fascist empire. Wolf's “10 Easy Steps” was perfect, but her just-published book, The End Of America: Letter Of Warning To A Young Patriot, from which the 10 easy steps was compiled, offers an even fuller picture—a succinct and engaging explanation of how our civil liberties have been hijacked in the past decade. It is the most poignant, powerful, genuinely patriotic piece of literature I have encountered since Thomas Paine's Common Sense. No wonder then, that the book's cover greatly resembles that 46-page tract by Paine written in 1775—as well it should. [Author's note: The End Of America was published by Chelsea Green Publishing, White River Junction, Vermont.]

From Bill Brueckner: The rule of law, or else.
Time to get over your "ambivalence" folks. (JH)

These are clear violations of our rights to be secure in "the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity" that is personal authority to act without control by any other authority; "the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects.... that shall not be violated" and the destruction of the United States of America. This is an illegal, unconstitutional, unjustified attack on the Amercian people. This is not simply applying the writ of habeas corpus for a limited time period, this is a conspiracy across the entire spectrum of government to implement a form of martial law and control of the American people.