By Gary Howard<\/p>\n
This is an interesting piece in Time Magazine online on the Vermont secession movement:<\/p>\n
The Secessionist Campaign for the Republic of Vermont<\/a><\/p>\n The President on Wednesday may have reassured Americans that the state of the Union is “strong,” but, just the week before, a group of Vermont secessionists declared their intention to seek political power in a quest to get their state to quit the Union altogether. On Jan. 15, in the state capital of Montpelier, nine candidates for statewide office gathered in a tiny room at the Capitol Plaza Hotel, to announce they wanted a divorce from the United States of America. “For the first time in over 150 years, secession and political independence from the U.S. will be front and center in a statewide New England political campaign,” said Thomas Naylor, 73, one of the leaders of the campaign.<\/p>\n A former Duke University economics professor, Naylor heads up the Second Vermont Republic, which he describes as “left-libertarian, anti-big government, anti-empire, antiwar, with small is beautiful as our guiding philosophy.” The group not only advocates the peaceful secession of Vermont but has minted its own silver “token” – valued at $25 – and, as part of a publishing venture with another secessionist group, runs a monthly newspaper called Vermont Commons, with a circulation of 10,000. According to a 2007 poll, they have support from at least 13% of state voters. The campaign slogan, Naylor told me, is “Imagine Free Vermont.” In his fondest imaginings, Naylor said, Vermonters would not be “forced to participate in killing women and children in the Middle East.” Read more…<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n These days folks seem to be talking about secession for all the right reasons. Let’s hope the principles behind this movement catch on, and it grows into something serious and worthwhile.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Gary Howard This is an interesting piece in Time Magazine online on the Vermont secession movement: The Secessionist Campaign for the Republic of Vermont The President on Wednesday may have reassured Americans that the state of the Union is “strong,” but, just the week before, a group of Vermont secessionists declared their intention to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3999,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-267559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3999"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=267559"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267559\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=267559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=267559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=267559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n