Vermont Secession: A Blog

Each week I pick-up a copy Seven Days.  A mid-January issue had an insert from a paper that I hadn't seen before called "Vermont Commons".

While I'd heard in passing about a group advocating discussion of Vermont seceding from the United States, this was my first contact with material directly from the group "dedicated to the proposition that Vermonters should peaceably secede from the United States and govern themselves as a more sustainable independent republic once again."

I did a quick search of local blogs and found something about The Vermont Convention on Independence held in 2005 at a site I often visit, Cut To The Chase.  The convention's objectives were described as:

"First, to raise the level of awareness of Vermonters of the feasibility of independence as a viable alternative to a nation which has lost its moral authority and is unsustainable.  Second, to provide an example and a process for other states and nations which may be seriously considering separatism, secession, independence, and similar devolutionary strategies."

Cut To The Chase's companion site, Vermont, Now and Zen has more on the group.

As I've read and learned more about the group at Second Vermont Republic and its publication, Vermont Commons, I've become concerned about some of what they say and even more so about things that they aren't saying.  My purpose in this blog won't be to gevaltize about the various people and their connections to organizations that promote ideas (or as they would have it, "Truths") that are inimical to generally accepted Vermont values of inclusion and respect for others.  I'd simply like for my neighbors to have additional facts not being presented by those who are proposing secession.

My fear is that Vermonters may be about to undergo a boiling frog experience as they consider this idea of secession from the United States.  The proponents of secession go to great lengths to suggest what may be gained by seceding.  But are they being less than forthright about what we may stand to lose by seceding?

Since what I've learned comes from sources other than those offered by those looking to secede from the U.S., I thought this blog might be a way to get this additional pertinent information out to my fellow Vermonters, so as to benefit the conversation that SVR proposes that we have about secession.

Recently at one blog, PoliticsVT, the bloggers there decided that it was time to "lay down their pens."  Theirs had been a blog that used the pseudonyms of dead Vermont governors.  Their use of those names had caused some controversy when they began.  They said that they had their own reasons for using pseudonyms at the time, just as do I now.  Should that be a cause for some further controversy, so be it.  It won't alter or diminish the facts that I intend to present here.

Thomas Rowley was one of the lesser known Green Mountain Boys.  As spokesman for Ethan Allen, "he had once motivated (Vermonters) to fight for their independence as a state against a feudal system that was threatened on them from New York."  I fear that the secession we are being asked to consider may not be exactly what we are being led to think that it is.  While I don't think that what I'll be saying in future posts as the long dead Thomas Rowley will necessarily "set the hills on fire," there may be some heat as I shed light on the topic of secession, where it may possibly take us and about just who may be actually guiding the secession discussion.