Lamont gets spot on primary ballot to challenge Lieberman

This article comes from the Conneticut Post online site. Primaries are a great way to challenge the Powers that Be within a political party. It forces people to take sides and forces decisions to be made about the party, what it stands for and who its going to represent. We saw this with the Toomey campaign against Arlen Specter two years ago. Two years later 15 incumbent GOP state legislators lost primaries in Pennnsylvania thanks to the Toomey-led Club for Growth. 33% of the delegates was far more than Lamont needed to get a slot on the Connecticut Primary ballot. Now his campaign has credibility and standing which makes him more of a threat to Lieberman. We'll see what happens between now and August but if Lamont wins, it send shockwaves through American politics that will shake the Powers that Be to their cores.

--Sean Scallon


Primary awaits Lieberman
Lamont easily clears threshold to force vote
KEN DIXON dixon.connpost@snet.net

HARTFORD — The Democratic State Convention on Friday night nominated U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman to a fourth six-year term, but he won't avoid a primary with Ned Lamont, the upstart Greenwich millionaire.
In a mid-evening vote, alphabetically by Congressional district, Lieberman collected 1,004 votes and Lamont won more than twice the number he needed to avoid a petition drive, taking 505 votes, or 33 percent of the votes cast.

Delegates from Bridgeport exemplified the intramural party split over the Iraq war that has given Lamont a shot at unseating Lieberman.

Two prominent city politicians — Mayor John M. Fabrizi and Board of Education member Maximino Medina Jr. — were spotlighted with major nominating speeches for their respective candidates.

Lieberman and Lamont seemed resigned to a long spring and summer primary campaign, to be capped by an Aug. 8 primary ballot. While Lieberman said he hoped Lamont would drop the challenge, Lamont said he's already worked too hard to give up.

U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd, sometimes shouting over the chants of Lamont delegates, told the convention that Lieberman has built an impressive record over 18 years, working for the environment, health care and many other issues that affect Connecticut above and beyond its involvement in Iraq.

"We need Joe Lieberman fighting for those values that we stand for as Democrats," Dodd implored over several dozen Lamont supporters who shouted, "Bring them home," referring to the troops in Iraq.

Fabrizi, in a prime spot on the night's agenda, followed Dodd with the seconding speech before a restless crowd on the first day of the two-day quadrennial convention. "One of the many reasons I am a Democrat is that there is always room for disagreement in our party," Fabrizi told the convention, which has 1,607 delegates and nearly as many operatives working the floor. "And while some may disagree with Joe Lieberman's views on the war, no one can disagree with his commitment to Connecticut's future."

Fabrizi said he was grateful for Lieberman's role in gaining tens of millions of dollars for the city.

"Folks, this election is about Connecticut, not about Iraq," Fabrizi said. "And Joe Lieberman has consistently delivered for Connecticut."

Lamont, an anti-war candidate who is trying to become more than a one-issue wannabe, was nominated to the Senate by Medina, a Bridgeport lawyer who serves on the local Board of Education.

"By casting our votes for Ned Lamont for U.S. Senate, we can show America that Connecticut Democrats will lead the way and demand real change," Medina said. "Connecticut Democrats should not be in the business of impersonating Republicans. Support for a dishonest administration and misguided war cannot be glossed over."

Bridgeport cast 55 votes for Lieberman and six for Lamont, while Fairfield Democrats cast 18 for Lamont and six for Lieberman. Milford delegates cast 15 votes for Lieberman and six for Lamont, while Stratford cast 15 for the incumbent and three for Lamont. Shelton went 37-13 in Lieberman's favor.

I just found about this group from Mike Tuggle at Dixienet.org. Apparently they want to set up petition drives to have state governor's not allow their National Guards to be used as toy soldiers for the neocons war games.

Good luck to them, they're going to start in Massachusetts and expand nationwide. Their website is homefromiraqnow.org/. Below is their mission statement.

---Sean Scallon

HomeFromIraqNow.org is a national campaign to end the war in Iraq by using binding statewide ballot initiatives around the country to pressure the administration to bring our troops home now.

We are currently in the process of placing a binding initiative on the November 2006 ballot in Massachusetts to allow the voters to decide if the Massachusetts National Guard should be in Iraq. The initiative has two provisions.

The governor is required to prevent any further deployment of Massachusetts National Guard troops to Iraq, and to use all legal means available under state and federal law to fight for the recall of all Massachusetts National Guard troops currently in Iraq.

The governor may not deploy the National Guard to any foreign destination without approval of the state legislature.

(To read the exact language of the ballot initiative, click here.)

Is this initiative legal?
Absolutely. The initiative was crafted by constitutional law experts who have litigated past National Guard cases on behalf of the state of Massachusetts and was certified as constitutional by the Attorney General of Massachusetts. Federal law is clear on this point. The US Supreme Court has ruled [Perpich, 496 U.S. at 351, n. 24] that if a proposed foreign deployment of the National Guard were to impair the Guard's ability to respond to domestic public safety or security emergencies - conditions that clearly prevail today - then the US constitution authorizes a governor to refuse a presidential request to deploy the Guard abroad.

The HomeFromIraqNow.org binding initiative requires governors to exercise that authority. Should the governor of a state that passes the initiative continue to allow National Guard troops to be sent to Iraq, residents of those states will be able to go to court to force those deployments to stop.

What about recalling the National Guard troops already in Iraq?
The National Guard troops in Iraq are under the sole authority of the president, and only the president may recall them. What the initiative does require is for the governor to use all legal means available under federal and state law to bring about a recall of all Massachusetts National Guard troops in Iraq. In other words, once the initiative passes, the governor will have a clear mandate from the voters to fight to bring the National Guard home.

What about military personnel who are not in the National Guard?
The governor only has authority over the National Guard, and a ballot initiative can only address an issue that lies within the authority of Massachusetts law.

A yes vote on this initiative will not only prevent more National Guard troops from being deployed to Iraq, but will also send a very strong message to our elected leaders that we want them to end the war and bring all of our troops home immediately.

In effect, the HomeFromIraqNow.org ballot initiative tells our political leaders "If you don't end this war now, we will end it ourselves at the ballot box on Election Day."

What about other states?
Including Massachusetts, 24 states have a voter-sponsored ballot initiative process. They are Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, Washington, Wyoming. If you're interested in getting an initiative on the ballot in one of these states, email campaign@HomeFromIraqNow.org.

Nall fights the Powers that Be in Alabama

If Roy Moore goes down in the GOP Primary in Alabama's Primary Election in June, non-major party voters can always check out Loretta Nall who is courageously taking on the powers that be in her state and its draconian ballot-access laws. Her campaign has attrached plenty of attention, both in looks and position papers as well. I think Belinda Stronach has competition when it comes to being the most beautiful female politician in North America.

This article on Nall comes from Old Right Pundits.com

---Sean Scallon

Boobs, Panties, and Courage: How honest elections could change Alabama


A woman's voice for freedom in the birthplace of Rosa Parks and Helen Keller.

by Melinda Pillsbury-Foster

As Americans deal with the issue of honest elections, feeling for good reason, that an honest election may well be an impossibility today, the citizens of Alabama are confronting the most interesting and provocative choice that has faced them for a good long time.

It is happening in the race for governor of the Camellia State.

The Civil Rights Movement started in Alabama, where Rosa Parks made her stand. So conflict over the issues of individual rights hold place in the minds of its people. A generation ago the issue was the vote for Black Americans. Today the issue is still elections and the individual rights that either die from the steady encroachment of government or are sustained and renewed through the action of courageous individuals.

As with Rosa Parks, Loretta Nall got a wake up call on the nature of government and took action. Rosa Parks refused to move to the back of the bus, Loretta Nall defied the powers and then had the audacity to refuse to back down. After writing a letter on the issue of drug legalization Nall's house was raided. Nall, refusing to be intimidated, came outside to photograph the black helicopter hovering overhead. Standing trial before a judge she was convicted of simple possession of a tiny amount of pot and paraphernalia; she has appealed, the only way she could have a trial by jury. She and her supporters expect that she will be exonerated.

But that did not end her physical confrontations with despotism in Alabama. While visiting her brother at the State Correctional Facility both she and her mother were forced to have their underclothing checked by the Commissar the Panties Believe it or not, Alabama has determined that not wearing panties under your pants is cause to deny visiting privileges to the mothers and sisters of those they incarcerate. Loretta came away determined that bureaucrats would learn that they are hired hands, working for the people. After that, the twin issues of the panties she does not wear and the plenitude with which God endowed her, became campaign issues and fundraising opportunities to this plucky activist. As America's original revolutionaries learned, you use what you have to do the job.

Loretta Nall is not your typical gubernatorial candidate in any way. Along with being well endowed she is articulate, focused, dedicated, and honest. George W. Bush is not what the Founders had in mind when they created the office of President of the United States. Loretta Nall,is the mother of two; her husband stays home and she works to support them. Her formal education ended with a GED; she married when she was 16. She is a long time activist for individual rights. She is as different from the power elite now infesting government, especially Washington D. C., as is possible and nothing about her is as different from the D. C. Elite as her values.

She describes herself as 'dirt poor.' Certainly she is far from wealthy; she did not come from a family that could routinely buy of judges and viewed the public coffers as her own personal piggy bank. She has never owned a football team.

Loretta has always worked for a living, something George W. Bush doesn't really understand. His core constituency is Mega Corporations; Nall's is, well, Alabamans. The economy of Alabama lags behind that of most of states. Alabama's people are, according to Ms. Nall, characterized by their wish that government, particularly the Feds who inflicted Reconstruction on them and theirs, should jump in a hold and pull the top in after them. Running as a Libertarian, Ms. Nall sees her fellow Alabamans are people who really want to do the right thing – when government does not make that impossible. The values of most Alabamans, good Christians, are very different than the values asserted through their government.

In a recent interview Loretta Nall commented, 'If what Jesus wanted was for us to live our beliefs, and if you live by what He did and said, you have to stop using government to push people around. Thomas Jefferson said in the Declaration of Independence that our rights are there before government. Therefore how can government tell us what to do in every part, or any part, of our lives, as long as we do the right thing towards others?” A novel idea. Ms. Nall, an atheist herself, firmly believes that the original message of Jesus, to use only persuasion to get your way; offer loving support to everyone, remains true today.

Nall's activism has been in the area of drug legalization and she has been all across the country speaking out on the right of the people to use marijuana as a medicinal aid – and to smoke it if they choose.

Americans have more questions about government every day.

Americans all over the country are beginning to question both the two party system that has delivered them choosing the lesser of evils and to a government that has converted them from individuals possessing there inherent rights enunciated by Jefferson to 'economic units' dependent on the will of an all powerful government.

If the electoral system in Alabama is as honest as it should be, and the people speak, then the people may well choose a very different exemplar of American values to lead them. Loretta could be Governor of Alabama. Loretta understands the problems that the people of Alabama face today as no other candidate could.

Such an election would be revolutionary. But for the people to make their will known the vote must be honest. All Americans are now asking themselves, in the face of the many assaults on the electoral system, if an honest election is even possible. But while the people of Alabama admire courage the political establishment there is grouped among those who want to win at any price.

Until the 1970s all you had to do to become a political party in Alabama was to call the Secretary of State's office and ask to have the name of your party placed on the ballot. That remains true today. In Alabama you can still have a party but you can't run candidates; they are happy to list your selection. But unless you fulfill the ballot access requirements that have become increasingly onerous since the first time someone but a Republican of Democrat actually won you must petition for every candidate for every election.

Alabama's political establishment is like that. This is the state that also shaved a few numbers off Pi to make it come out even.

Asked to comment on ballot access for the gubernatorial race in Alabama Richard Winger, the most prominent expert on the subject said, “Alabama is the worst state in the country for all state wide races for third party candidates.”

Alabama changes the rules every time a different political party looks like it is again going to crack into the Good 'Ol Boys Club. The changes are rammed through the legislature with no debate and with no consideration of 'fairness' or the access guaranteed by the Constitution. Since the 70s the percentage of signatures to place a new party on the ballot has risen from 1% to 3% of the voting population with the time requirement shortening until it is nearly impossible. This is a foot ball game played in Alabama with the goal post for the opposition to be located in California.

Ms. Nall and her supporters are determined, however. Her campaign headquarters receive more calls than can be returned from Alabamans registered in the major parties who hope they will have the opportunity to vote for her instead. Alabamans, like all Americans, are searching for honesty and for the hope of freedom in a world gone mad.

Now we are awaiting word that Alabama has dispensed with voting machines and, in an attempt to save money, will instead call the White House to find out what outcome they would like to see declared.

Isolationism is as American as Apple Pie - There's reason why U.S. citizens flunk geography

It's been often said that war is a way to teach geography to Americans. Certainly if young American men didn't know where Korea or Vietnam were or couldn't find such places on a map, they found out the hard way, or their buddies did at least.

It's sad to think of war as teaching tool to try and get those provincial Americans to think of the world around them, but unfortunately that's been a design of policy makers from Theodore Roosevelt on down, either consciously or sub-consciously. After all, one cannot run a vast empire if its own citizens can't even spot it on a globe.

Those opposed to American hegemony had to snicker at the results of the latest geography test issued online by National Geographic which show, among other things, that a good chunk of U.S. citizens cannot find Iraq on a map or even know that it is in the Middle East. It seems this war has a long way to go to teach Americans its latest geography lesson.

This is not the first news story about U.S. ignorance of the world around them nor will it be the last. The usual wailing and gnashing of teeth has followed from academics about the lack of geography teaching in school. But if I may be bold, I don't think the lack of geography teaching has anything to do with such ignorance. There is a purpose to it and a reasoning to explain it that has a lot to do with the American character and one of the founding principles of the nation.

I don't know about you, but I think I got plenty of geography teaching in school from kindergarten to college. Geography can be taught as single subject or as part of several subjects like history, civics, English or foreign language studies. Most classrooms at least have a globe or maps in them for the curious. No one can say the study of geography is deliberately kept from U.S. students.

But then you ask why do so many can't even find where they live on a map, let alone where Iraq is? The answer is that knowledge in the U.S. is based on and has always been based on a need to know basis. In other words, what people care about is what they know.

For myself, in my chosen profession, geography is important. If I couldn't find Iraq on a map, I would have no business writing columns on the situation there. However, when it comes to engine repair on my automobile, I would be completely lost. I wouldn't have a clue as what to do or where things go or how things work. That's why I take it to people who make it their business to know all these things, because they are paid to know. That's why such knowledge is important to them and less so to myself. That's why some Americans are journalists or State Department employees or CIA agents and other are mechanics, miners or accountants.

To each his own.

But lack of knowledge of the outside world fits a part of the American character and psyche as well. From George Washington's Farewell Address that warned against foreign entanglements, to pioneers
and settlers moving deeper into the interior of the country away from the coasts and into naturally isolating places, to immigrants using the great oceans to separate themselves from the Old World, isolationism developed naturally among U.S. citizens and that led to its influence among the political and governmental class that shaped U.S. foreign policy for many years. For those trying to escape the wars, oppression and poverty of the past, isolationism was a welcome respite.
That's why the U.S' wars of the last century and today (outside of a sneak attack on Pearl Harbor) led to a cognitive dissonance which led to questioning as to whether such wars were in the national interest. Even a shrinking world, with the internet and international flights and cross-border traffic and trade, still has not affected the isolationist character of the American people as polls have recently shown. This has to scare the living daylights out of the neocons and other globalists. One cannot make an empire nor build a one-world government over a people so wrapped up in their own homes and native soils. It just doesn't work that way.

And what we mean by isolationism does not mean the kind of hermetically sealed place like North Korea. One can still defend one's border and avoid foreign entanglements and still be engaged in the world, or at least those who wish to be. Those who do not wish to be, can left alone in peace and not be yanked all over the globe doing mercy missions in the name of "democracy" or act the role as global traffic cop. An isolationist America still traded with the rest of the world, still watched it citizens travel to far away places and still received foreign ambassadors. Only those who wish to use isolationism as a pejorative would give it a negative meaning, especially those who wish to see the U.S. up to its neck in the world's problems.

Not only is isolationism as American as apple pie, it is a defense mechanism as well. We've seen the movies and the cartoons of the dictators and the would-be conquerors pouring over maps, their gaze fixed greedily on their next conquest. That's why a true-blue, red-blooded and white hearted American not knowing where Iraq is on a map is very comforting. It means that such a person is not planning a trip there anytime soon nor would really care what goes on there. The more such people that are out there, the harder it will be for the empire-builders and the one-worlders to carry out their plans with U.S. treasure and lives.

So the next time you hear of a good chunk of U.S. citizens flunking geography quiz smile and say to yourself "Despite everything they haven't changed who we truly are. Thank the Lord they've forgotten their geography lessons."

---Sean Scallon

The Handout Party - Don't be surprised that the GOP has become a year-round Santa Claus

In the first 100 days of Jimmy Carter's administration, one of the first proposals it made was a rebate plan of $50 to be given to each taxpayer.

The plan went nowhere, largely because members of the administration could not agree amongst themselves on whether they should go forward with the plan and because Congress loaded it up with so much pork barrel spending and handout money that it became an embarrassment. It was finally dropped.

You may think to yourself that such a plan would be typical of a Democrat Party used to giving handouts in return for votes and you would be right. Certainly you wouldn't find such ridiculous fiscal policy from Republicans.

Right?

Well, over 30 years later, the GOP, in an effort to alleviate high gas prices (although by rate of inflation they nowhere near match the levels of the 1970s) has come up with a proposal to give a $100 rebate to each taxpayer.

That's the rate of inflation for you.

It seems incomprehensible that a party that set itself up as an opponent of the New Deal, the Great Society and the Welfare State would even cook up such a transparent scheme. Isn't this the party of Taft, Goldwater and Reagan? Isn't this the party of people like my grandfather, who owned a small furniture-making company in Chicago and hated the taxes the government took from his profits, hated the rules they made him follow and the unions he was forced to recognize.

Yes, but that's only one facet of it. The GOP has actually been giving handouts since its founding in 1854 and only those who are its shills writing internet columns screeching against the Democrats (which only shows that they vote Republican only to be against something rather than for something) would fail to recognize it. It's just that now, what was once handouts to business have now become outright pandering to voters.

University of South Carolina history professor and editor of the John C. Calhoun papers Clyde Wilson has stated that the Republican Party is the party of state capitalism. He cites its founding by powerful Northeastern business interests, especially the growing industrial class as the Whigs faded away, to be the one to best advance its economic interests, which back then were high tariffs, an intercontinental railroad, centralized banking and currency trading. Much of the old Whig belief of government-financed internal improvements like canals for example, part of Henry Clay "American System," (which grew out of the Federalist-favored commercial and moneyed classes) stayed a part of the Republican ideology. But they also added handouts too, like those to farmers who settled the Plains with the Homestead Act, or to colleges and universities with Morrill Land Grant Act. And of course the party was synonymous with railroad growth. In Wisconsin for example, a heavily Republican state after the War Between the States, its U.S. Senators at one time were a railroad developer named John C. Spooner and a lumber baron named Philetus Sawyer. The state party maintained a slush fun of $300,000 of monies gained off the interests from government deposits in state banks to make sure the powers that be were taken care of. The GOP was not the party of laissez-faire capitalism because Republican politicians would often interfere in the business world to make sure it got what it wanted, whether by bribe or for honest reason of economic development.

What always tempered or balanced off the GOP's business relationship was its moralistic wing. Both were present at the creation which back in 1854 meant anti-slavery activists. Over time the moralist wing would mean progressives, women suffragists, prohibitionists, the China Lobby, anti-communists, libertarians, Christian moralists and now democracy freaks. They always gave the GOP a higher purpose than just making money or the Democrats machine-desire for votes and public graft and that's what made the GOP a viable party. Throughout the age of the New Deal, the New Frontier and the Great Society, the business and moralist wings could be united against big government's taxes and regulations and its cozy relations with labor unions along with being against big government on matters of principal. It all fit rather neatly.

Sadly, by this day and age, the GOP's naked desire to save itself from potential disaster this coming November in the face of high gas prices now has them at Democrat-level promising money for votes on top of the traditional giving tax-breaks and other financial goodies to favored interests like farmers and energy producers. How did this happen? Well, given the fact that many of the Christian moralists happen to be Democrats at one time or another, whether Catholic or Baptist driven from their ancestral party because of its unqualified support of abortion, means that it’s a lot easier philosophically to propose such measures as a $100 handout. The democracy freaks (or neoconservatives by any other name) used to be Dems too (and socialists and communists before that) and now that they are in the GOP as well, they're not going to care if a gimmick like a $100 rebate is being proposed. There's a war going on, a war of their creation and if $100 bribe for every voter in the nation means the GOP stays in power so they can conduct their little war, so be it. It's the price of doing business.

The old Taftian, Goldwater and Reaganite religion in the GOP has long since been abandoned. Some still sing from its hymnbooks but it's mere window dressing for most, rhetoric to cover what they're really all about. Conservatism and libertarianism were ideologies foisted upon the GOP by a faction of its membership. But the party is what is enduring, not the ideology. Keeping the party in power, winning elections, keeping its constituent groups happy, that's what is important. Ideology just gives the politicians something to say while on the campaign trail or in front of the cameras or on the floor of a legislative body. But what goes on behind close doors in the halls of government and what goes on in matters of policy is where a party really stands and the GOP, as it always has, stands for state capitalism pure and simple. Always has, always will.

Look at the immigration issue for example. The moralist wing of the party hates illegal immigration because it violates the law, threatens the integrity of the nation and creates an almost slave-labor class of workers whose families are taken care of by the taxpayer. But the business wings benefits from it. The immigration bill before the House is a reflection of the former and the one before the Senate a reflection of the latter. The business wing thinks putting up a fence and hiring more border patrol agents will satisfy the moralists, just so long as they get their access to cheap labor with the government handout of a "guest worker program." But moralists may very well say no, that the business wing asks for too much this time and hopefully once again provide the balance that seems to be lost within today's GOP. They should be willing to punish the business wing at the polls if necessary. One hopes. If not, then business truly is running the show in the Republican Party and more handouts from the government will be on the way, true to form.

-- Sean Scallon

POLL SHOWS VERMONT INDEPENDENCE MOVEMENT LEADS THE NATION

This article comes from the Second Vermont Republic's website www.vermontrepublic.com. What it states is that from a starting point, about eight pewrcent of Vermonter's favor secession which makes the Second Vermont Republic the most popular secession movement in the country right. Not even Alaskan secession ever got those number although they did take political power in 1990 with the election of Walter Hickel. The SVR isn't about winning elections, its about creating a culture of secession so the politicians will eventually follow. The fact the SVR were able to recently meet with state legislatures shows they've made a lot of progress since its formation. They'll be hosting a world-wide symposium on secession this coming November.

POLL SHOWS VERMONT INDEPENDENCE MOVEMENT LEADS THE NATION

The 2006 Vermonter Poll recently conducted by the Center for Rural Studies of the University of Vermont indicates that the percentage of eligible Vermont voters who favor secession from the United States of America could very well be the highest in the nation.



Secession is nothing new to Vermonters. On January 15, 1815, less than twenty-five years after Vermont became the fourteenth state, it joined other New England states in signing the report of the Hartford Convention in opposition to the proposal of the Secretary of War to implement a military draft for continuing the badly mismanaged War of 1812 with England. This report was nothing less than a declaration of the right to secede.



In 1928 and 1929 a quirky little Vermont literary magazine known as The Drift-Wind published a series of tongue-in-cheek articles by Arthur Patton Wallace and Vermont Country Store founder Vrest Orton calling for Vermont independence. According to Orton, the purpose of such a movement would be "to constitute an Arcadia for persons of free thought, active mind, high standards, and aspirations and cultural imagination." Orton even drafted "A Declaration of Independence for Vermont." Chicago-based economist David Hale, who grew up in St. Johnsbury, also called for Vermont independence in a 1973 piece in The Stowe Reporter, which won the New England Press Association Award.



UVM Professor Frank Bryan and Vermont Representative Bill Mares published The Vermont Secession Book in 1987. Three years later, seven of seven independent-minded Vermont towns, including Montpelier and St. Johnsbury, voted overwhelmingly to secede from the Union following a series of debates between Professor Bryan and Vermont Supreme Court Justice John Dooley. Then on October 11, 2003, the Second Vermont Republic, Vermont's proactive independence movement, was launched in Glover. Two years later it sponsored the first statewide convention on secession since North Carolina voted to secede in 1861. The convention, attended by over 300 people, was held in the House Chamber of the Vermont State House. Currently the town of Killington is trying to secede from Vermont and join New Hampshire.



About Vermont's independence streak, Frank Bryan once said, "Vermont is just obstinate. We'll do anything to be on the wrong side." But is Vermont or America on the wrong side?



Vermont's idiosyncratic nature came through loud and clear in the 2006 Vermonter Poll. In a statewide random sample of over 600 eligible voters, two-thirds of the respondents expressed the view that the U.S. government has become unresponsive to the needs of individual Vermonters. Nearly twenty percent of those sampled believe that it would be useful for the Vermont legislature to commission a study to evaluate the economic impact of Vermont becoming an independent republic as it was between 1777 and 1791.



How many eligible voters in Vermont actually favor secession from the Union? According to the survey more than eight percent of the eligible voters would opt for secession. If one extrapolates from the survey to the population of the entire state of Vermont, there could be as many as 37,000 voters who are favorably inclined towards secession.



To put this eight percent figure in historical perspective, it is important to realize that when the thirteen English Colonies successfully seceded from the British Empire, only twenty-five percent of the population actually supported secession. Furthermore, eight percent may arguably represent the highest percentage favoring secession of any state in the Union. Alaska and Hawaii, for example, have the oldest and best known independence movements in America. Yet in both of these states the percentage supporting secession is known to be less than six percent. The Alaskan Independence Party was organized by Joe Vogler in 1973. Although he ran for governor in 1974, 1982, and 1986, he never got more than 5.8 percent of the vote. The Alaskan movement has been dormant since Vogler's death in 1993. In most states the percentage favoring secession is probably less than one percent. Few third party movements ever come close to achieving an eight percent support level.



Two and a half more years of the so-called war on terrorism, a foreign policy based on full spectrum dominance, the suppression of civil liberties, and a culture of deceit combined with skyrocketing gasoline prices and a precipitous decline in the dollar could easily double the percentage of Vermont voters favoring secession. The election of either Hillary Clinton or Condoleezza Rice to the presidency in 2008 could send the percentage through the roof.



Thomas H. Naylor

April 1, 2006