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Thread: Vermont Independence Convention (11/07/2008)

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    Thanks for posting this, shem. I heard about this last week but spaced it in my busy-ness. I won't be able to make the whole thing but I'm going to try to catch some of the morning and late afternoon programs.

    I love Bread & Puppet even if they are anti-capitalist.Bread & Puppet on the Reconstruction of Iraq

    One of my favorites-- B&P Who is a terrorist?
    I was at this circus and I'm so glad someone posted this to youtube.


    Vermont Independence Convention Schedule
    Body:

    The Village Green Forum, Circus, and
    Medicine Show: Alternative to Empire

    Vermont State House
    (House Chamber)

    Montpelier, Vermont

    November 7, 2008

    Sponsored By

    The Second Vermont Republic

    The Program

    8:30 a.m. Registration

    9:00 a.m. Welcome to the Village Green: The Irreverend Ben T. Matchstick, former Bread & Puppet puppeteer

    9:15 a.m. The Next Four Years: Depression, War, Social Upheaval? Gerald Celente, director, Trends Research Institute

    9:45 a.m. The Village Crier: Kirkpatrick Sale, director, The Middlebury Institute

    10:10 a.m. Lessons from Other Villages: Chellis Glendinning, author, Off the Map: An Expedition Deep into Empire and The Global Economy

    10:35 a.m. Greetings from Alaska: Lynette Clark, founding member and chair, Alaskan Independence Party, gold miner

    11:00 a.m. Village Wellness: Sharon McDonnell, associate professor, Dartmouth Medical School

    11:30 a.m. Village Theater: Bread & Puppet Theater

    Noon Lunch Break: Village Cafeteria (State House)

    1:00 p.m. Village Music: Pete Sutherland and Friends

    1:30 p.m. The Post-Oil Village: James Howard Kunstler, author, World Made By Hand and The Long Emergency

    2:30 p.m. Village Food: Amy Shollenberger, executive director, Rural Vermont

    3:00 p.m. The Village School: Ron Miller, writer, Champlain College and Susan Ohanian, education writer

    3:30 p.m. Free Vermont: Rob Williams, editor, Vermont Commons, Champlain College

    3:40 p.m. Village News: Rick Foley, professor, Keene State University

    3:50 p.m. The Vermont College Green: Tyler Wilkinson-Ray, UVM student

    4:00 p.m. Green Mountain Brigade: Dennis Steele, Kirby businessman

    4:15 p.m. The Genteel Revolution: Thomas H. Naylor, founder, Second Vermont Republic, author, Secession

    4:30 p.m. Benediction: "In the name of the flounder, the sunfish, and the holy mackerel." The Irreverend Ben T. Matchstick

    4:45 p.m. Grand Finale: Bread & Puppet Band

    A potpourri of radical music, art, theater, circus, conversation, politics, and community aimed at fomenting a Genteel Revolution against the Empire. Free and open to the public.

  4. #3
    Ok, so I was able to go for part of the day. I caught this:

    8:30 a.m. Registration

    9:00 a.m. Welcome to the Village Green: The Irreverend Ben T. Matchstick, former Bread & Puppet puppeteer

    9:15 a.m. The Next Four Years: Depression, War, Social Upheaval? Gerald Celente, director, Trends Research Institute

    This guy was an amazing speaker. Go see him if you ever get the chance. I hope they post the videos of the speakers at the website. At any rate he talked about Obama, the fallacy of change based on his selection of advisors and refusal to deal with fraudulent banking, etc. He talked about the likelihood of tax revolts.

    9:45 a.m. The Village Crier: Kirkpatrick Sale, director, The Middlebury Institute

    I had to laugh at this one, not because it was really funny but because his speech was a(n ironic???) satire of a South Carolina secession led by Mark Sanford. He acted out a conversation between Bush and Sanford that actually made quite a bit of sense in the way his Sanford responded to Bush's protests.

    10:10 a.m. Lessons from Other Villages: Chellis Glendinning, author, Off the Map: An Expedition Deep into Empire and The Global Economy
    Chellis kinda lost me. She talked about how native people have tightknit communities based on genealogy and geographic history. It was interesting to a certain degree but didn't make much sense contextually to me. I did have to leave halfway through her speech though, so she may have brought the car back around. I don't know.


    and this:

    3:30 p.m. Free Vermont: Rob Williams, editor, Vermont Commons, Champlain College

    I came in midway through this speech (with 2 of 3 kids in tow). What I caught was a rejection of centralization and a return to community control.

    3:40 p.m. Village News: Rick Foley, professor, Keene State University

    Foley started his speech by getting everyone (well, almost) to chant along with him, louder and louder, "Shut down VY!" VY being Vermont Yankee, our aging nuclear power plant. He turned me off by doing this as most people aren't really educated about the pros of nuclear power (myself included) and I just felt like he was coercing the audience into agreeing with his position. He went on to talk about independent media and I could agree with him on that.


    3:50 p.m. The Vermont College Green: Tyler Wilkinson-Ray, UVM student

    My kids weren't really cooperating with me at this point so I missed a lot of his 5 min speech, but I caught snippets about him marching with the Obamabots celebrating a victory for change, rolled my eyes and dug around in my bag for chocolate and drew pictures with my toddler. To his credit I don't think he was advocating for Obama, but rather wanted to be a part of something bigger than himself.

    4:00 p.m. Green Mountain Brigade: Dennis Steele, Kirby businessman

    WOW! I liked this guy before he even spoke because he had on a Ron Paul hat. I was going to make a point to go talk to him because I didn't know if he was someone from our meetup that I hadn't met yet. So he gets up and I (because I'm kind of obnoxious sometimes) hollered, "Yeah Ron Paul!" His speech was full of passion about saving Vermont for his kids and having a future of freedom. He is organizing what could be a new political party in Vermont based entirely around the idea of secession, The Green Mountain Brigade. I did get a chance to speak to him and his wife after the event and invited them to the C4L meeting next week. He didn't know about our meetup

    4:15 p.m. The Genteel Revolution: Thomas H. Naylor, founder, Second Vermont Republic, author, Secession

    This was frustrating to listen to because earlier this week our a member of our meetup posted an article by Naylor on the same subject. Basically, here's what he said: Let's Draft Bernie For President of the Second Vermont Republic

    So after expressing my sentiments to my meetup about this idea I was disgusted that this idea should be promoted further and during the q&a after his speech I couldn't keep my mouth shut. I stood up and said (in a nutshell) that pinning our hopes on Bernie as savior of Vermont makes as much sense as the people voting for Obama with the same intention for our country... that we need to each and every one of us get more involved on the local and statewide level. I can't remember exactly what I said, but my thought was that if we want to decentralize and regain local control we need to do it, not wait for a secession-friendly governor. To my surprise Naylor credited me with the "most profound statement of the day" and Rob Williams thanked me and said he felt like he could go home now. I was shocked that that would be construed as profound because to me it's a no-brainer.


    4:30 p.m. Benediction: "In the name of the flounder, the sunfish, and the holy mackerel." The Irreverend Ben T. Matchstick Ben's a funny guy.

    4:45 p.m. Grand Finale: Bread & Puppet Band
    I missed the show earlier but the band is always fun and my kids and I danced some.

    I got to meet 2 members of my meetup that I hadn't before which was exciting. We've communicated so much through writing and I was thrilled to have faces for the names and hands to shake.

    All in all, I am sympathetic to the movement but I cannot call myself a supporter. I feel that we haven't made enough effort to use the tools we currently have at our disposal to resort to actual secession. It is really going to take a concerted effort on the part of the disenfranchised to as Gandhi says, "be the change we wish to see in the world."
    Our culture of instant gratification has really done a number on the fine qualities of patience and persistence.



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