Vermont Commons
The arguments surrounding the secession issue in Vermont are both moral and economic. While I will address the moral issues briefly at end, the focus of this essay is the economic issues. More specifically I will address the notion that it pays to stay in the Union because Vermont gets back more in federal spending than it gives up in taxes. Vermont gets an ongoing fiscal stimulus that raises the state’s Gross Domestic Product and hence, presumably, the well-being of the people. The questions are then, “is Vermont, in fact, the beneficiary of such a fiscal stimulus, and is it sustainable” and, if so, “is the...
Notwithstanding the fact that the United States is the largest, wealthiest, most-powerful, most materialistic, most environmentally irresponsible, most racist, most militaristic, most violent empire in history and has shown little or no concern for the distribution of income, wealth, or political power among its citizens, nine years of trying to convince skeptical Vermonters of the merits of secession as an alternative to empire have proven to be quite challenging. Secession is a very tough sell in Vermont and elsewhere.
Abraham Lincoln really did a number on us 150 years ago. He convinced most...
Activism, OWS, Health, Transportation, Farming, Politics, Environment, Education, Vermont99
BURLINGTON-With each passing day, Vermonters are preparing to toe the line with industrial heavyweights such as Entergy, Monsanto, and the Medical Industrial Complex in remarkable bids on the part of the Green Mountain State to play David to corporate America’s Goliath.
Looming most ominously on the horizon is the specter of Monsanto, the infamous and transnational agri-business giant known for genetically modifying its products with “terminator genes” to prevent farmers from saving seed as well as driving resistant farmers...
BURLINGTON- Over a hundred people gathered on Friday to protest a rare visit to the Green Mountain State by President Barack Obama. Despite the thousands of fawning supporters who crammed into Patrick Gym, eager to pay hundreds of dollars for a chance to dine with or be photographed with the President; the Burlingtonians who gathered at the corner of Spear St. and Williston Rd insisted that the Chief Executive’s fundraising visit was not something Vermonters should be so quick to embrace.
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Mindful Carnivore author Tovar Cerulli will be speaking at the Waitsfield public library on Monday, April 2 at 6:30 pm. We interviewed him about his own personal food-focused journey, and his new book.
Q. You went from a practicing vegetarian to being a "mindful carnivore," which is the title of your new book. What do you mean by "mindful?"
A. People have used the phrase "mindful eating" to mean a number of things. What I mean is eating with awareness of where our food comes from and the impacts it has. I mean something similar to what Thich Nhat Hanh means when he...
Vermont Independence Convention 2008: Rob Williams
Activism, Business, Economics, Health, Governance, Farming, Politics, Environment, Energy, Common Assets
One of Dick Cheney’s final acts when in government was to change the legislation so that the companies carrying out fracking are exempt from the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act and a raft of other environmental legislation. – Rob Hopkins
It seems that every day there’s a new threat to our lives, our health, our futures. Forced vaccinations, school closings, drones, crackdowns on small farms producing local food… the corporations always seem one step ahead of us, and ready to buy off our legislators. But here’s one place we can act before they do: ban fracking in Vermont. What...
This article was orginally published at Transition Voice
Transition Voice writers Guy McPherson and Sherry Ackerman have some things in common. They both got PhDs, taught and did research at universities and then left the ivory tower, deciding, as Socrates did, to take their message to the streets. And their common concern is how to live in a way that’s not a lie in our time of climate change, peak oil and economic and cultural crisis.
McPherson’s background is in ecology and management of natural resources...
Activism, Theater, Business, Health, Media, Governance, Politics, Environment, Energy, Common Assets
BRATTLEBORO- A beautiful sunny day in Vermont has become the blue-skied witness to over a thousand Vermonters rising up in indignation and anger.
One day after the 40 year contract for the VT Yankee Nuclear Power Plant was set to expire; Vermonters from every corner of the state, of every political stripe, and of every income bracket descended upon the local headquarters of Entergy and in a united voice demanded that Entergy “shut it down”.
Beginning with a massive single file march from downtown Brattleboro and...
Time isn’t part of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, which seems like a fairly serious omission to me, since much of the social pathology developing in the Age of Affluenza has to do with people’s perceptions of, and relationship to, time.
This runs deep: people aren’t even taking the time to chew their food anymore.
David Kessler, author of The End of Overeating, notes that whereas Americans, in the past, typically chewed a mouthful of food twenty-five times before it was ready to be swallowed, the average American now chews only ten times. People are becoming more and more stuck in the stress of excess, including possession...
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