There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly.

Henry David Thoreau

“Civil Disobedience”

Henry David Thoreau, the iconoclastic, nineteenth century New England writer, has long been associated with simple living, solitude, independent thinking, environmental integrity, civil disobedience, nonviolence, and passive resistance.  But few seem to have noticed that he was also a card-carrying secessionist.

Best known for its influence on Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., the South African anti-apartheid movement, and the Eastern European anti-communist movement in the 80s, Thoreau’s famous 1849 essay “Civil Disobedience” reads like a secessionist’s manifesto.

His two-year stay at Walden Pond near Cambridge, Massachusetts between 1845 and 1847, on which his 1854 book Walden was based, was little short of a personal secession from his village, his state, and his country.  About personal secession Thoreau once said, “Some are petitioning the State to dissolve the Union.  Why do they not dissolve it themselves—the union between themselves and the State?”

In 1854, when the population of the United States was around 20 million, Thoreau thought the country was already too large.  “The nation itself is an unwieldly and overgrown establishment, cluttered with furniture and tripped up by its own traps, ruined by luxury and heedless expense.”  He called for a ““rigid economy” and “Spartan simplicity of life.”  “Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity!” he said.

Thoreau’s principal grievances with the federal government were over its de facto support of slavery and its participation in the Mexican-American War, both of which he considered to be immoral.

When a sixth of the population of a nation which has undertaken to be the refuge of liberty are slaves, and a whole country (Mexico) is unjustly overrun and conquered by a foreign army (the U.S. Army), and subjected to military law, I think it is not too soon for honest men to rebel and revolutionize.

During the first half of the nineteenth century before the Civil War, New England was a political hotbed for secessionists, most of whom were abolitionists.  Massachusetts Senator Timothy Pickering, a former high-ranking general in the Revolutionary War, was one of the most important leaders of the New England secession movement.

New England Federalists, who believed that the policies of the Jefferson and Madison administrations were proportionately more harmful to New England than to other parts of the country, thrice led independence movements aimed respectively at the 1803 Louisiana Purchase, the national embargo of 1807, and the War of 1812.  In 1814 New England secessionists expressed their opposition to the War of 1812 and the military draft of the Hartford Convention.

Thoreau, who was vehemently opposed to slavery, called for abolitionists to “effectively withdraw their support, both in person and property, from the government of Massachusetts.”  He told them that, “if they had God on their side, even though they did not constitute a majority, that was enough.”

In response to the question, “How does it become a man to behave toward this American government today?”  Thoreau presciently responded, “He cannot without disgrace be associated with it.”  Clearly a man ahead of his time!

As for civil disobedience, of which secession is a special case, Thoreau said, “If an injustice requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law.  Let your life be a counter-friction to stop the government machine.”  Thoreau actually spent a night in jail for not paying his poll-tax.

No doubt many anarchists have taken note of the following two statements by Thoreau in “Civil Disobedience”. “That government is best which governs not at all,” and “I simply wish to refuse allegiance to the State, to withdraw and stand aloof from it effectually.”

If Thoreau were alive today, it seems unlikely that he would have an e-mail address.  He was not convinced that we all had to be connected.

We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas, but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate…We are eager to tunnel under the Atlantic and bring the Old World some weeks nearer to the New, but perchance the first news that will leak through into the broad, flapping American ear will be that the Princess Adelaide has the whooping cough.

Perhaps the reason given by Thoreau as to why he escaped to Walden Pond says it all:

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.

I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartanlike as to put to rout all that was not life.

Thoreau’s philosophy of secession was based on the premise that an individual’s moral principles have the first claim on his or her actions, and that any government which requires violation of these principles has no legitimate authority whatsoever.

One can only imagine what Thoreau would think of the United States today – a nation which has lost its moral authority and is unsustainable, ungovernable, and unfixable.  What would he think of a government owned, operated, and controlled by corporate America and Wall Street?  How would he feel about the illegal wars with Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya?  What about our unconditional support for the bellicose state of Israel?  Would he condone the torture of military combatant prisoners?  And, alas, the war on terror?

Henry David Thoreau was arguably the most thoughtful, nonviolent secessionist of the nineteenth century.  Unlike well known southern secessionists such as John C. Calhoun, Jefferson Davis, and Robert E. Lee, Thoreau’s message was not tainted by the scourge of slavery.

Modern day New England liberals who summarily reject secession as a kind of racist conspiracy, should re-visit Thoreau.  They just might be surprised at what they find.

Thomas H. Naylor

April 11, 2011

Founder of the Second Vermont Republic and Professor Emeritus of Economics at Duke University; co-author of Affluenza, Downsizing the USA, and The Search for Meaning.

Objective: To encourage (1) the nonviolent breakup of meganations such as the United States, China, Russia, and India; (2) the peaceful coexistence of a community of small, sustainable, cooperative, democratic, socially responsible, egalitarian, nonviolent, ecofriendly nations; and (3) the independence of small breakaway states such as Quebec, Tibet, and Vermont.

Possible Initial Members:

1. Bhutan (Gross National Happiness)
2. Bolivia
3. Costa Rica (no military)
4. Denmark
5. Finland
6. Norway
7. Quebec
8. Senegal
9. Sweden
10. Switzerland
11. Tibet
12. Vermont

Other Possible Members:

1. Catalonia
2. Cuba  (if it cleans up its human rights act)
3. Ecuador
4. Iceland  (if it becomes more financially responsible)
5. Palestine
6. Scotland
7. Sikkim
8. Spain
9. Sri Lanka
10. Venezuela  (if it becomes more democratic)

Downsizing Candidates:

1. Bangladesh
2. Brazil
3. China
4. India
5. Indonesia
6. Japan
7. Mexico
8. Nigeria
9. Pakistan
10. Russia
11. United States

There seems only one cause behind all forms of social misery:  bigness.  Whenever something is wrong, something is too big.

Leopold Kohr

The Breakdown of Nations

Neither its $5.4 trillion economy, its state-of-the-art technology, nor its military-like efficiency could protect Japan from the catastrophic consequences of the March 11, 2011 earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disaster.  To be quite blunt, when you cram 127 million people into one large island and a group of smaller ones, all prone to earthquakes, you have few degrees of freedom when disaster strikes.  It’s all about human scale.

Japan is but one of eleven meganations with a population of over one hundred million people.  Although none of them are as wealthy, materialistic, racist, militaristic, violent, or imperialistic as the United States, all eleven of them are too big, too powerful, too undemocratic, too environmentally irresponsible, too intrusive, too insular, and too unresponsive to the needs of individual citizens and small local communities.

Thus it is hardly surprising that the 192-member United Nations, which is dominated by the United States, Russia, and China, each of which has veto power in the Security Council, has been so ineffective since its inception in 1945.  Nothing illustrates this better than the U.N. sponsored conferences on climate change in Kyoto in 1997 and Copenhagen in 2009.  Trying to come up with solutions to a problem as complex as climate change by assembling 178 heads of state, as was the case in Kyoto, or 193 in Copenhagen, is truly an exercise in futility.  The product of the 12-day Copenhagen conference was a nonbinding agreement in which no one was committed to anything.  The so-called Copenhagen agreement was a complete sham.  The process was replicated in Cancun, Mexico in 2010 with similar results.

The track record of big international governing organizations, such as the League of Nations or the United Nations is singularly unimpressive.  How many wars has the U.N. prevented?  Certainly none in Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Iraq, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Palestine, or Africa.  Global political problems are too complex for an assembly of two hundred international political leaders to sort out in a public forum. This is even more true if China and the United States refuse to budge from their positions of national self-interest.  Some have cynically suggested that the U.N. is little more than an extension of the U.S. State Department.

I believe it is high time for the smaller nations of the world to begin withdrawing from the United Nations.  The U.N. is morally, intellectually, and politically bankrupt. It is time for these smaller nations to confront the meganations of the world and say, “Enough is enough.  We refuse to continue condoning your plundering the planet in pursuit of resources and markets to quench your insatiable appetite for consumer goods and services.”  These small nations should call for the nonviolent breakup of the United States, China, Russia, India, Japan, and the other meganations of the world.

A small group of peaceful, sustainable, cooperative, democratic, egalitarian, Ecofriendly nations might lead the way.  Such a group might include Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden, and Switzerland.

What these five European nations have in common is that they are tiny, very affluent, nonviolent, democratic, and socially responsible.  They also have a high degree of environmental integrity and a strong sense of community.  Although Denmark and Norway are members of NATO, Finland, Sweden, and Switzerland are neutral.  Once considered classical European democratic socialist states, the four Nordic states in the group have become much more market-oriented in recent years.  Not only is Switzerland the wealthiest of the lot, but it is the most market-oriented country in the world, with the weakest central government, the most decentralized social welfare system, and a long tradition of direct democracy.  What’s more, all of these countries work, and they work very well.  Compared to the United States they have fewer big cities, less traffic congestion, less pollution, less poverty, less crime, less drug abuse, and fewer social welfare problems.

Three other small countries which might also join the party are environmentally friendly Costa Rica, which has no army, ecovillage pioneer Senegal, and the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan.  Since 1972 the king of Bhutan has been trying to make Gross National Happiness the national priority rather than Gross National Product.  Although still a work-in-progress, policies instituted by the king are aimed at ensuring that prosperity is shared across society and that it is balanced against preserving cultural traditions, protecting the environment, and maintaining a responsive government.

This group of small, nonviolent, sustainable countries could evolve into the Small Nations’ Alliance.  Such an alliance might encourage the nonviolent breakup of meganations, the peaceful coexistence of a community of like-minded, small nations, and the independence of small breakaway states such as Quebec, Tibet, and Vermont from larger nations.  The Small Nations’ Alliance could become a sort of international cheerleader supporting breakaway nations.

We do not envision the SNA as an international governing body with the power to impose its collective will on others.  Rather we see it as a role model encouraging others to decentralize, downsize, localize, demilitarize, simplify, and humanize their lives.  Membership in the SNA will be open to those nations who subscribe to the principles of the SNA and are approved for membership by a consensus of SNA members.  The only mechanism available for enforcing policies endorsed by the SNA would be expulsion from the organization for noncompliance.

Membership would be open to both free-market oriented countries as well as democratic socialist countries.  For example, Cuba and Venezuela might both be possible candidates for membership provided they become more democratic.  Cuba would also need to clean up its human rights act.

The point of all of this was succinctly summarized back in 1957 by Leopold Kohr in his prescient book The Breakdown of Nations.  “A small-state world would not only solve the problems of social brutality and war; it would solve the problems of oppression and tyranny.  It would solve all problems arising from power.”

Thomas H. Naylor

March 18, 2011

Founder of the Second Vermont Republic and Professor Emeritus of Economics at Duke University; co-author of Affluenza, Downsizing the USA, and The Search for Meaning.

As evidence of Vermont’s strong anti-war stance, back in 2003 the entire Vermont Congressional Delegation voted against the resolution authorizing the war in Iraq.  Nearly eight years later, it’s hard to believe that Senator Bernie Sanders, the darling of the Left, Senator Patrick Leahy, Congressman Peter Welch, and Progressive Party Burlington Mayor Bob Kiss are all palling around with Lockheed Martin, the world’s largest defense contractor.

Sanders, Kiss, and University of Vermont President Daniel Fogel are actively encouraging the U.S. government-owned Sandia National Laboratories to open a satellite laboratory in Vermont.  Sandia, whose historical origins can be traced back to the Manhattan Project in World War II, designs, builds, and tests weapons of mass destruction.  The Vermont laboratory envisaged by Sanders and Fogel would not be involved with nuclear weapons but rather would be engaged in projects related to energy efficiency, renewable energy, and electric grids.  Sandia, interestingly enough, is operated under contract by Lockheed Martin.  UVM has already been awarded a $1 million contract by the U.S. Energy Department as a down payment towards the “research partnership” between the University and Sandia.

Without any sense of irony whatsoever, Sanders now refers to himself as “the most progressive member of the U.S. Senate.”  If that is actually true, then we are all in dire straits.  Sanders’s Vermont constituents have shown little or no concern for the hypocrisy underlying his support for the Sandia project.  It’s all about jobs.

Although Sanders, Leahy, and Welch pretend to be political liberals, they are, in fact, mindless pawns of the military-industrial-Congressional complex marching to the beat of the war drums of Wall Street, Corporate America, the Pentagon, and the Israeli military machine.  They support: (1) all funding for the illegal wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, (2) the highly racist war on terror, (3) military aid for Israeli genocide against the Palestinians, (4) the deployment of Vermont National Guard troops abroad, and (5) the replacement of the Vermont Air National Guard’s F-16 fighter jets with Lockheed Martin F-35s which cost $115 million a pop.

The local news media has tried to cast the debate over the F-35s as an environmental issue stemming from the expectation that the F-35s are likely to produce higher noise levels than the F-16s. But the real issue surrounding the F-35s is neither an environmental issue nor an economic issue but rather a moral issue.  On a moment’s notice Vermont trained killers, euphemistically referred to as pilots, can be deployed to Iran, North Korea, Syria, Libya, Russia, Venezuela, or any other country Uncle Sam has decided to demonize and begin annihilating innocent citizens including women and children.  Do peace loving Vermonters want to be a part of something this grotesque?

Every new military contract awarded to a Vermont firm is announced by Senator Patrick Leahy.  With each such announcement Leahy always hypes the number of new jobs which will be created.  No mention is ever made of the number of people who will be killed by Vermont made instruments of death.

Vermont Adjutant General Michael Dubie has expressed the hope that the Vermont National Guard might evolve into a center for unmanned aircraft, otherwise known as drones.  This would mean that Vermonters could become directly involved in killing civilians in Afghanistan, Pakistan, or Iran through the use of pilotless drones controlled by well-trained, high-tech, gutless assassins seated in air conditioned comfort in front of sophisticated instrument panels at the Burlington International Airport.  This form of neat, clean, precise, risk-free, sanitized, bloodless, desktop warfare could be waged by Vermonters who have never set foot on a battlefield or smelled the stench of death.  Lockheed Martin is a major player in the drone aircraft market.   Neither Senator Sanders nor any of the other leaders of the Vermont Progressive Party have ever expressed any objections whatsoever to Vermont becoming a drone aircraft center.

One of the most puzzling aspects of Vermont’s willingness to play along with the Pentagon’s insidious game has been the behavior of Mayor Bob Kiss.  Kiss is a longstanding, anti-war liberal.  Yet he recently signed a letter of agreement with Lockheed Martin calling for the development of a so-called “Carbon War Room” in Burlington to create market based solutions for climate change problems.  Why would Kiss get in bed with such a notorious war monger?  Was it to pave the way for the proposed Sandia Laboratory?  Or was it something else?  Was it possibly to save Burlington’s embattled telecommunications company, Burlington Telecom, from bankruptcy?

And in the midst of all of this the University of Vermont has seen fit to confer an honorary doctorate upon Major General Michael Dubie, an enthusiastic supporter of the F-35s as well as drone aircraft.

What’s really going on in the Green Mountain State?  Why is so much attention being directed towards tiny Vermont by Lockheed Martin?  Clues as to the answer to this question may lie in Chicago and Ottawa.

Several years ago the giant aircraft manufacturer Boeing moved its corporate headquarters from Seattle to Chicago.  It soon developed close ties to then U.S. Senator Barack Obama and Congressman Rahm Emanuel.  When Obama was elected President, Emanuel was named White House Chief of Staff.  Emanuel recently left the White House to become Mayor of Chicago.  He was replaced by William Daley, brother of outgoing Chicago Mayor Richard Daley.  Most importantly of all, William Daley was a member of the board of directors of Boeing.

To the surprise of many insiders, a few weeks after Daley became Chief of Staff, the Pentagon awarded Boeing a $35 billion contract to produce 179 aerial refueling tankers.  Most pundits had expected the contract to be awarded to the European Aeronautic Defense and Space Company, the maker of Airbus commercial jets, which was thought to have the superior proposal.  Few would question the assertion that by moving to Chicago, Boeing bought itself a lot of political influence both on the local and national scene.  Could this be what Lockheed Martin has in mind for Vermont?  If Vermont is willing to sell its soul to the Empire, maybe other liberal states will follow suit.

Now let’s turn the clock back to the 1995 referendum in Canada where the issue of Quebec separatism was narrowly defeated.  Since that time Ottawa has poured countless millions of loonies into Quebec effectively buying off Quebec separatists.

Although its political impact within Vermont has been marginal, the Vermont independence movement is arguably the most high-profile secessionist movement in America.  Its influence outside of Vermont has been much greater than has been the case within the state.  For reasons which are still unclear to me, Second Vermont Republic candidates were subject to vicious CIA-like attacks by no less than four websites during the final six weeks of the 2010 political campaign.  Small though it might be, someone apparently perceived the Vermont independence movement to be a threat.

Is it possible that what the Lockheed Martin strategy is all about is little short of an attempt to buy off a state which was once considered to be the most left-wing state in the Union, a state unconditionally committed to peace?  By pouring millions of dollars into Vermont for defense related projects, do the Pentagon and Lockheed Martin hope to put the quietus to the Vermont peace movement?  If so, there is considerable evidence to suggest they have been successful.

The peace movement in Vermont is dead in the water.  The Progressive Party is morally, intellectually, and spiritually bankrupt.  It has not uttered a peep in response to the Lockheed Martin affair.

It’s as though the Progressive Party in Vermont has morphed into the Vermont Prowar Party, a party which welcomes both Democrats and Republicans who are sold on war.

Rebél

Thomas H. Naylor

March 15, 2011

Founder of the Second Vermont Republic and Professor Emeritus of Economics at Duke University; co-author of Affluenza, Downsizing the USA, and The Search for Meaning.

When my family moved to Vermont in 1993, it was due in no small part to the fact that we thought the Green Mountain state was different from most states, very different.  We perceived Vermont to be smaller, more rural, more democratic, less violent, less commercial, more egalitarian, more humane, more independent, and more radical than most other states.  It seemed as though Vermont might provide a communitarian alternative to the dehumanized, mass-production, mass-consumption, narcissistic lifestyle which pervades most of America – an alternative to a nation obsessed with money, power, size, speed, greed and fear of terrorism.

Unfortunately, we were mistaken.  Vermont has lost its soul.  Not unlike every other state, Vermont has succumbed to all of the tenets of technofascism including affluenza, technomania, e-mania, megalomania, robotism, globalization, and imperialism.  All too many Vermonters have embraced an empire which is too big, too intrusive, too materialistic, too environmentally irresponsible, too militarized, too imperialistic, too violent, too greedy, too undemocratic, and too unresponsive to the needs of individual citizens and local communities.  Notwithstanding overwhelming evidence to the contrary, most Vermonters still believe that only the federal government can solve all of our problems all of the time.

This myth has its historical origins in the fact that throughout the twentieth century four threats provided the glue which held our nation together – World War I, the Great Depression, World War II, and the Cold War.  Ten years after the Soviet Union imploded President George W. Bush introduced us to a new threat, one of our own making, Islamic terrorism.  The Vermont Congressional delegation has done everything within its power to keep the myth of terrorism alive.  Its members support the illegal wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Israeli genocide, the deployment of Vermont National Guard troops abroad, F-35 fighter jets at $115 million a pop, a Vermont based drone aircraft center, and recruitment to Vermont of a firm which designs, manufactures, and tests weapons of mass destruction – all to prevent Vermont from being attacked by Islamic terrorists.

The inescapable conclusion from all of this is that Vermont has been palling around with the wrong crowd.  Some of the people who hang out at the White House, the Congress, the Pentagon, Corporate America, Wall Street, and the Israeli government are not good folks.  Vermonters have little in common with those who control the Empire.  They are into nihilism.  Vermont needs to find some new friends with whom to hang out.

Maybe it’s high time Vermont began to distance itself from the money, power, greed, and violence of the Empire and seek out friends who share some of the values for which Vermont was once known such as human scale, democracy, sustainability, economic solidarity, power sharing, egalitarianism, and community.  Five small countries which might be receptive to overtures of friendship from Vermont include Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden, and Switzerland.

What these five European nations have in common is that they are tiny, very affluent, nonviolent, democratic, and socially responsible.  They also have a high degree of environmental integrity and a strong sense of community.  Although Denmark and Norway are members of NATO, Finland, Sweden, and Switzerland are neutral.  Once considered classical European democratic socialist states, the four Nordic states in the group have become much more market-oriented in recent years.  Not only is Switzerland the wealthiest of the lot, but it is the most market-oriented country in the world, with the weakest central government, and the most decentralized social welfare system.  Not unlike Vermont, Switzerland has a long tradition of direct democracy.  What’s more, all of these countries work, and they work very well.  Compared to the United States they have fewer big cities, less traffic congestion, less pollution, less poverty, less crime, less drug abuse, and fewer social welfare problems.

Two other small countries with whom Vermont might try to develop a relationship are environmentally friendly Costa Rica, which has no army, and the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan.  Since 1972 the king of Bhutan has been trying to make gross national happiness the national priority rather than gross national product.  Although still a work-in-progress, policies instituted by the king are aimed at ensuring that prosperity is shared across society and that it is balanced against preserving cultural traditions, protecting the environment, and maintaining a responsive government.

How might Vermont go about reaching out to some of these countries so as to learn from their rich experiences?  First, Vermont, particularly Burlington, has a long history of sister city relationships with a number of countries throughout the world.  This list might be expanded to include relationships with some of the aforementioned nations.  Second, the University of Vermont might set aside a few scholarships each year for students from some of these countries.  Vermont college students who study abroad might be encouraged to study in these countries as well.  Third, both state government and civic organizations might sponsor exchange programs with these potential Vermont role models.  These are inexpensive ways in which Vermonters might broaden their horizons and connect with others who share many of their core values.

This is a call for Vermont to reclaim its soul by extending the hand of friendship to a handful of small countries from whom we can learn how to decentralize, downsize, localize, demilitarize, simplify, and humanize our lives, so that one day we might live without the Empire.

Rebél

Thomas H. Naylor

March 15, 2011

Founder of the Second Vermont Republic and Professor Emeritus of Economics at Duke University; co-author of Affluenza, Downsizing the USA, and The Search for Meaning.

Life is absurd said French existentialist writers Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre back in the 1950s.  But surely there is no more appropriate description of life in the American Empire sixty years later.  Our lives are meaningless.  As psychiatrist M. Scott Peck presciently observed, we are ruled by “people of the lie.”  We are completely subsumed by the politics of nihilism.

What could be more absurd than:

1. Barack Obama running for president in 2008 on a platform of “hope and change.”
2. Liberal Democrats claiming that he represents a sea change in political philosophy from that of President George W. Bush, when, in fact, he is merely a smirk-free Bush.
3. President Obama pretending that he is not a pawn of Wall Street, Corporate America, the Pentagon, and the Israeli Lobby.
4. Norway naming him the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate while promoting illegal wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
5. Obama’s claim that he can fix the nation’s health care system even though it is driven by fear of death on the demand side and greed on the supply side rendering it completely unfixable.
6. His disingenuous opposition to the war with Iraq when he ran for president.
7. The White House charade that it supports the so-called Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
8. Obama’s refusal to close the Guantanamo prison or block passage of the renewal of the Patriot Act in clear violation of his campaign pledge to the contrary.
9. The White House’s hypocritical campaign of harassment against Chinese President Hu Jintao on the issue of human rights.

10.  The Obama administration’s decision to limit its serious support of anti-government demonstrators exclusively to those in Iran while giving only lip service support to protestors in other authoritarian regimes in the region.

11.  Allowing the right-wing, racist Likud government of Israel to dictate our foreign policy in the Middle East.

12.  The realization that neither tax cuts, government spending, nor printing money have much impact on either the housing market or employment growth.

13.  Our President creating the illusion that he and his administration know how to fix the ailing economy and that everything will soon be just fine.

14.  His pretending to be a political liberal, which he is not, or more ridiculously, conservatives accusing him of being a socialist, when, in fact, he is a technofascist.

15.  The notion that it is possible to control 310 million people from one central bureau in Washington, D.C.

And what can we do about all of this?  We can rebél said Albert Camus.  We can peacefully rebél against the nihilism of the American Empire – the separation, the meaninglessness, the powerlessness, and death.  The time is now.

Rebél

Thomas H. Naylor

February 23, 2011

Founder of the Second Vermont Republic and Professor Emeritus of Economics at Duke University; co-author of Affluenza, Downsizing the USA, and The Search for Meaning.

“You can say you want a revolution,” sang John Lennon and Paul McCartney, “Well, you know we all want to change the world.”

What America needs is neither a tea party movement, a tenth amendment movement, a nullification movement, nor a secession movement but rather a peaceful revolution.

Unfortunately, the premise underlying the tea party, tenth amendment, and nullification movements is that the U.S. government is indeed fixable.  All one need do is return to the Constitution and everything will be just fine.  Nothing could be farther from the truth.  The U.S. government is owned, operated, and controlled by Wall Street, Corporate America, the Pentagon, and the bellicose Israeli government, who like things just the way they are, and are prepared to make sure they stay that way.

Secession, on the other hand, is viewed by most Americans, particularly those on the political left, as a complete anathema to be avoided like the plague.  The mere mention of the word conjures up images of slavery, the Civil War, violence, and racism.  So ignorant are most Americans of the moral, philosophical, and legal principles underlying secession that anyone displaying secessionist tendencies is labeled a “racist.”  Those opposed to secession often embark on well organized smear campaigns employing the racist tag to discredit secessionists.  As someone who has spent twenty years promoting the idea of peaceful secession in America, it is extremely painful for me to admit that the modern day secession movement in America was probably dead on arrival.

But what about the American Empire—the largest, wealthiest, most powerful, most materialistic, most environmentally destructive, most racist, most militaristic, most violent empire of all-time?  What can be done about an empire which condones the annihilation of Afghanistan and Iraq, a convoluted war on terrorism which it helped create, the illegal rendition of terrorist suspects, prisoner abuse and torture, citizen surveillance, the Patriot Act, the Military Commissions Act, staggering deficits, corporate greed, Wall Street bailouts, pandering to the rich and powerful, a culture of deceit, and a foreign policy based on full spectrum dominance, imperial overstretch, and unconditional support for the apartheid state of Israel?

For some of the reasons outlined above, there may be no escape from the Empire.  The fantasy of an individual state seceding from the United States is most likely an impossible dream.  The Empire simply will not tolerate such an action, and the political will does not exist to make it happen.

The United States has lost its moral authority.  When all is said and done, there is but one morally defensible alternative to the Empire—peaceful dissolution, just like back in the USSR.

Twenty years ago the Soviet Union unexpectedly, peacefully imploded. Could that happen to the United States?  How sure are we that American exceptionalism will save us from the adverse effects of a crash of the dollar, financial meltdown, a collapse of the economy, or some major environmental catastrophe?

This is a call for rebellion against the Empire, a Second American Revolution.  The objective is not the overthrow of the government, but rather the peaceful break up of the Union.  In the poignant words of Albert Camus, “It is those who know how to rebél, at the appropriate moment, against history who really advance its interest.”

Rebél

Thomas H. Naylor

February 21, 2011

Founder of the Second Vermont Republic and Professor Emeritus of Economics at Duke University; co-author of Affluenza, Downsizing the USA, and The Search for Meaning.

Ladies and gentlemen, it is my solemn duty to inform you that on 4 March 1791 the First Vermont Republic, the only American republic which truly invented itself, entered immortality and became the fourteenth state of the American empire.  Fourteen years after declaring its independence, Vermont was seduced into the union by the promise of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.  Two hundred twenty years later the Green Mountain state finds itself in a nation whose government condones the annihilation of Afghanistan and Iraq , a convoluted war on terrorism which it helped create, the illegal rendition of terrorist suspects, prisoner abuse and torture, citizen surveillance, the Patriot Act, the Military Commissions Act, staggering deficits,  corporate greed, Wall Street bailouts, pandering to the rich and powerful, a culture of deceit, and a foreign policy based on full spectrum dominance, imperial overstretch, and unconditional support for Israel.

A state convention convened by the Vermont Assembly on 10 January 1791 petitioned the United States Congress for admission into the Union.  By a vote of 105 to 4 the delegates of the convention opted to sell the soul of the independent Republic of Vermont to the Empire.  Vermont’s statehood petition was ratified by the U.S. Congress on 4 March, a day that will go down in history as a day of infamy.

America was supposed to have been immortal, but in the end it could not deliver.  Its government has lost its moral authority.  It has no soul.  As a nation it has become unsustainable and unfixable because it is effectively ungovernable.

Is it possible that out of the ashes of the First Vermont Republic a Second Vermont Republic might emerge?  Might not Vermont experience a kind of resurrection from the dead, or at least from its two-century long slumber, resulting in a new state of consciousness opposed to the tyranny of Corporate America and the U.S. government and committed to once again becoming an independent republic?  Might such a republic embrace these principles:  political independence, human scale, sustainability, economic solidarity, power sharing, equal opportunity, tension reduction, and community?

What if tiny Vermont, the second smallest state in the Union, were to become an example for other states to follow leading to the peaceful dissolution of the largest, most powerful empire of all time—the United States of America?  Literally every reason why Vermont might want to opt out of the Union is equally applicable to every other state.  Vermont’s paradigm for secession could easily be adapted to any other state.

Is it possible that the Green Mountain state might actually help save America from itself and help save the rest of the world from America by seceding from the Union and leading the nation into peaceful disunion?

In the words of Reverend Ben T. Matchstick, we pray for Vermont independence “in the name of the flounder, the sunfish, and the holy mackerel.”

Amen

Thomas H. Naylor

Most Vermonters were shocked to learn a few weeks ago that Progressive Burlington Mayor Bob Kiss had signed a letter of agreement with mega military contractor Lockheed Martin calling for the development of a so-called “Carbon War Room” in Burlington to create market based solutions to climate change problems.  What they did not realize was that this was just the first visible shot across the bow aimed at tiny Vermont by the world’s largest defense contractor.  The worst was yet to come.

The real purpose of the proposed collaboration between the City of Burlington and Lockheed Martin was to pave the way for a much larger project being spearheaded by Senator Bernie Sanders and University of Vermont President Daniel Fogel.  Sanders and Fogel want the U.S. government-owned Sandia National Laboratories to open a satellite laboratory in Vermont.  Sandia, whose historical origins can be traced back to the Manhattan Project in World War II, designs, builds, and tests weapons of mass destruction.  The Vermont laboratory envisaged by Sanders and Fogel would not be involved with nuclear weapons but rather would be engaged in projects related to energy efficiency, renewable energy, and electric grids.  Sandia, interestingly enough, is operated under contract by Lockheed Martin.

An unexpected third piece of the Vermont Lockheed Martin puzzle fell into place last week with the surprise announcement by the UVM Board of Trustees that it planned to confer an honorary doctorate on Adjutant General Michael Dubie at the University’s May commencement ceremony.  Major General Dubie heads up the Vermont National Guard.  In that position his primary responsibility is to recruit and train young Vermont men and women for deployment to Afghanistan and Iraq where Uncle Sam is currently engaged in illegal wars.

Not unlike Mayor Kiss, Senator Sanders, and President Fogel, General Dubie also has his own Lockheed Martin connection.  Dubie is a staunch supporter of replacing the Vermont Air National Guard’s aging fleet of F-16 fighter jets with new, state-of-the-art F-35 jets which cost a cool $115 million a pop.  F-35s are manufactured by Lockheed Martin.

Last April General Dubie expressed the hope that the Vermont National Guard might be morphed into a center for unmanned aircraft, otherwise known as drones.  This would mean that Vermonters could become directly involved in killing civilians in Afghanistan, Pakistan, or Iran through the use of pilotless drones controlled by well-trained, high-tech, gutless assassins seated in air conditioned comfort in front of sophisticated instrument panels at the Burlington International Airport.  This form of neat, clean, precise, risk-free, sanitized, bloodless, desktop warfare could be waged by those who have never set foot on a battlefield or smelled the stench of death.  Lockheed Martin is a major player in the drone aircraft market.

General Dubie’s qualifications as a candidate to receive an honorary doctorate at UVM are not immediately obvious.  He is primarily a Pentagon apparatchik who is responsible for teaching young Vermonters how to wage war and then sending them to faraway places to do so.

Does the decision by the UVM Board to honor General Dubie imply that its members endorse the two illegal wars in Afghanistan and Iraq in which he is currently involved?  Alternatively, are they signaling their approval of the F-35 or possibly sending Burlington based unmanned aircraft half way around the world to kill innocent women and children?  Is that what a UVM honorary degree is all about?  Or is it something else?  What role does Lockheed Martin play in all of this, if any?

Thomas H. Naylor

February 1, 2011

Founder of the Second Vermont Republic and Professor Emeritus of Economics at Duke University; co-author of Affluenza, Downsizing the USA, and The Search for Meaning.

Although I am no fan of either Sarah Palin or the Tea Party crowd, blaming them for the tragic shooting of Representative Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson is patently absurd.  Equally problematic is the idea that the Tucson massacre was caused by the uncivil nature of public discourse in the United States.  The attack on Congresswoman Giffords was grounded not in political rhetoric but in an all consuming culture of violence – the same culture which brought down John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King, Jr. in the 1960s.  Americans are obsessed with violence and have been since the inception of our nation.  We have always turned to violence when provoked by either domestic or foreign enemies.  Our penchant for intergroup violence – geopolitical, ethnic, racial, agrarian, frontier, religious, and industrial – is without equal.

From the very outset, early European settlers who came to America brought with them a regimen for relating to Native Americans that was based on demonization, dominance, destruction, and death – a regimen which still provides the rationale underlying American foreign policy five hundred years later.  Even though we are a predominantly Christian nation, our love affair with the death penalty and our entire criminal justice system are driven by revenge, not forgiveness.

Although our nation was founded on the principles of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, the story of how Native Americans were relentlessly forced to abandon their homes and lands and move into Indian territories to make room for American states is one of arrogance, greed, and raw military power.  Our barbaric conquest of the Native Americans continued for several hundred years and involved many of our most cherished national heroes, including George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe, and Andrew Jackson, to mention only a few.  To add insult to injury, we have violated three hundred treaties which we signed to protect the rights of American Indians.

In over two hundred years, the North American continent has never been attacked – nor even seriously threatened with invasion by Japan, Germany, the Soviet Union, or anyone else.  Despite this fact, over a million Americans have been killed in wars and trillions of dollars have been spent by the military — $13 trillion on the Cold War alone.

Far from defending our population, our government has drafted Americans and sent them to die in the battle fields of Europe (twice), on tropical Pacific islands, and in the jungles of Southeast Asia.  On dozens of occasions our political leaders have used minor incidents as provocation to justify sending troops to such far-flung places as China, Russia, Egypt, Greenland, Uruguay, the Samoa Islands, Cuba, Mexico, Haiti, Nicaragua, Panama, Grenada, Lebanon, and Iraq.  Today the United States has over 1,000 military bases in 153 countries.

While accusing the Soviet Union of excessive military aggression, the Reagan administration was participating in nine known wars – in Afghanistan, Angola, Cambodia, Chad, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Lebanon, Morocco, and Nicaragua – not to mention our bombing of Libya, invasion of Grenada, and repeated attempts to bring down Panamanian dictator Manual Antonio Noriega.  President Bush I deployed over a half million American troops, fifty warships, and over one thousand warplanes to the Persian Gulf in 1991 at the “invitation of King Fahd of Saudi Arabia to teach Saddam Hussein a lesson.”  Most Americans were beside themselves over this little war.  President Clinton’s repeated bombing of Iraq invoked a similar response, even though the Iraqi people had never inflicted any harm on the United States.  It matters not whether we send troops to Haiti, Somalia, Bosnia, or Kosovo or bomb Afghanistan or Sudan; few Americans raise any objections whatsoever.  Indeed, they seem to like it.

Why does it come as no surprise to learn that bullying is on the rise in public schools in America?  America is the world’s global bully.  Our foreign policy of full spectrum dominance is based entirely on the premise that might makes right.  Either get out of our way, or be prepared to die!

Barack Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech was nothing short of a call to arms.  His hypocrisy in lecturing Chinese President Hu Jintao on human rights is almost beyond belief.  Does Obama think that the annihilation of innocent Afghan and Iraqi civilians by the Pentagon constitutes a laudatory human rights posture on the part of the United States?  What about the way the Israelis, with our full support, treat the Palestinians?  Human rights, surely the White House has to be kidding!

To illustrate how absurd the politics of violence is consider the case of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, who now refers to himself as “the most progressive member of the United States Senate.”  So progressive is Sanders that he currently supports: (1) all funding for the illegal wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, (2) the deployment of Vermont National Guard troops abroad, (3) military aid for the apartheid state of Israel, (4) the replacement of the Vermont Air National Guard’s F-16 fighter jets with F-35s, and (5) the highly racist war on terror.  He is also promoting a Vermont-based satellite station to be designed and built by the U.S. government-owned Sandia National Laboratories.  Sandia designs, builds, and tests weapons of mass destruction.

Unfortunately, Sanders, who claims to be a socialist, does not stand alone in the hypocrisy which he brings to the culture of violence.  Like many of his other left-wing Democratic colleagues in the Congress, Sanders is an unconditional apologist for the Pentagon and the right-wing Likud government of Israel.

Whenever there is a mass shooting such as the one which took place recently in Tucson, liberals call for tougher gun control laws and conservatives demand revenge – the death penalty.  Yet Vermont, which is arguably the least violent state in the Union, has no death penalty and virtually no state imposed restrictions on the use of guns.

So long as violence remains official U.S. Government policy at home and abroad, neither tougher gun control laws nor the increased use of the death penalty will prevent another Tucson, Virginia Tech, Fort Hood, or Columbine mass murder.

Since violence is inextricably linked to the Empire, there may be no escape from violence in America – no escape from the Temple of Doom.

Thomas H. Naylor

January 24, 2011

Founder of the Second Vermont Republic and Professor Emeritus of Economics at Duke University; co-author of Affluenza, Downsizing the USA, and The Search for Meaning.