BirdInTheHand

Folks,

As of Friday morning, I am officially on the ballot for Vermont Senator for Addison County!  Thanks to you all for your hard work and great ideas.  Your contributions have served to get the Independent word out there, encourage people to register to vote, even built a parade float.

But I’m not gonna do an NPR on you and beg for even more funds.  Funds’ll come, somehow.  What’s really needed is organisational help.  I’d like to set up a community forum in Addison County every month until the election.  A forum in which people from all walks of life can address the candidates directly with concerns, questions, and even vent steam together with neighbours on how broken the system is.  If you know something about community organising and publicity, please contact me directly, robert@senatorwagner.com.

Update: CollapseNet is Live ! 

http://collapsenet.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1042...

We are not ineffective, we are not few in number. You are not alone. 

TWEET: #CollapseNet #Vermont #VTGov #Montp #TransitionTown  

Folks,

This will be a way for individuals, families and communities who are building lifeboats in Vermont, to connect, share information and expertise, teach, learn and reskill.

Please pass this on. If you are on Twitter, please tweet the ablve links with the hashtag #CollapseNet.

Here’s the press release:

• http://www.collapsenet.com
• http://www.collapsenetwork.com
• http://www.collapsenet.net

May 21, 2010 – CollapseNet ™, a long-anticipated new effort from internationally-recognized author, lecturer and activist Michael C. Ruppert, will officially launch on Tuesday June 8, 2010. The site will be a first-of-its-kind effort to promote the rapid and focused sharing of information between millions around the world who are preparing for the collapse of human industrial civilization – The Lifeboat Movement.

Date: Saturday, 10 April 2010
Time: 5:00 – 9:00 PM
Location: Ripton Community House
Route 125, Ripton, Vermont
Bayley-Hazen Boys

Vermont needs to hike up her boots and cut herself loose.  We will
do this in town after town after town. Mingle and talk and take names. 
Pass the hat at the end, for $5 or $10 per, is the hope...Dennis Morrisseau is a pro-independence candidate for the Vermont Senate, from Pawlet (Rutland County), and organizer of the "Thirty for Senate" 2010 campaign. 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Ripton, Vermont - February 14, 2010 - Vermont State Senate independent candidate Robert Wagner has exposed the deep links between the offices of Bernie Sanders, Monsanto and the USDA.  A Monsanto insider, lobbyist & litigator, Tom Vilsack is the US Secretary of Agriculture and gave the keynote speech at the Northeast Organic Farming Association of Vermont (NOFA-VT) convention yesterday.

Ripton, Vermont – January 28, 2010 – Vermont State Senate
independent candidate Robert Wagner has come out in favour of
decommissioning the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Reactor.

Possible future for Vermont. Unless.“Relicencing a nuclear reactor is not a decision to be made in the margin”, Wagner said, referring to the Legislature’s recent examination of whether the billable cost per kWh would be competitive with other energy sources. “You don’t play with the public health and our future, on cost alone. This is a decision to make with the heart.”

In his 2000 book Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, author Robert Putnam ranked Vermont above all other states on his scale of “tolerance for gender, racial, and civil liberties.” At about the same time, political scientist Tom Rice ranked Vermont first among states on a “civil society” measure published in Publius, the leading professional journal of American federalism.

The police department is one of Bloomington, Indiana’s most fuel-intensive departments, according to a new report from the city’s Peak Oil Task Force. In a coming era of expected oil shortages and wild oil-price volatility, they say, crime rates are likely to rise, at the same time that it becomes more difficult to fuel the police cars.

Ever plan 24 weddings in eight weeks? According to an event-planner friend of Barbarina Heyerdahl, that’s the scope of what Heyerdahl took on in putting together the “Transition Toolkit,” an eight-week extravaganza of lectures, films, and workshops around Transition. The Toolkit is sponsored by Shelburne Farms, Burlington Permaculture, and the Transition movements in Shelburne and Charlotte. It began October 1 and runs through November 21, with most events at Shelburne Farms.
    

Let’s talk about how to get an independent Vermont.   
   
But first a small digression, to think about the practicality of the project. Philosophers have wrestled for centuries over the question of the optimum size of cities and nations, and it is a worthy enterprise, though it is safe to say that no matter how artful and accurate their solutions/projections/findings may be, the makers of cities and nations seldom pay them any heed.