Cyrano’s Journal Online and its semi-autonomous subsections (Thomas Paine’s Corner, The Greanville Journal, CJO Avenger, and VoxPop) would be delighted to periodically email you links to the most recent material and timeless classics available on our diverse and comprehensive site. If you would like to subscribe, type “CJO subscription” in the subject line and send your email to
Carolyn Baker Interviews Rob Williams of Vermont Commons
9/27/07
I recently caught up with Rob Williams, volunteer editor of VERMONT COMMONS which is the online voice of Vermont Independence. The organization has been working for some time to establish The Second Vermont Republic which is a peaceful, democratic, grassroots, libertarian populist movement opposed to the tyranny of the U.S. Government, corporate America, and globalization and committed to the return of Vermont to its rightful status as an independent republic, as it was between 1777 and 1791. More of the history of Vermont and the Independence movement can be read at the VT Commons website.
CB: Please explain the Vermont secessionist movement and why many Vermonters support it. Why do you support it? What do you think might happen to Vermont if secession does not happen?
RW: The Vermont secession impulse is born out of our understanding that the United States - once a great republic - has become an unsustainable Empire governed by a very few. Beyond massive (and bipartisan) national electoral fraud, 9/11’s unanswered questions, a “war on terror” (that will not end, we are told, in our life times), the collapse of the U.S. Constitution, the erosion of civil liberties, and the practicing of “disaster capitalism” on a massive scale by political and economic elites, the U.S. is simply too big to function as a democratic republic in its current state. In other words, as astute observers from across the political spectrum have pointed out, the Empire is essentially ungovernable, unsustainable, and un-reformable.
We in the Vermont independence effort are a growing group of citizens who have moved beyond frustration with the current imperial system and are championing a more honest and hopeful paradigm - that of “small is beautiful” sustainability and, if need be, peaceable secession from the Empire, and the re-invention of Vermont as an independent republic, as it was from 1777 to 1791. Contrary to popular belief, New England was the first region of the country to openly call for secession - not once but several times - during the early 19th century, for similar reasons as our own in the 21st: concern about growing corporate and commercial power, and legitimate fears of a centralized federal/statist apparatus that trumps local decision-making and state sovereignty. Given expansive federal regulatory power over our food (USDA), our airwaves (FCC), our animals and livestock (NAIS), our educational endeavors (NCLB), and every other aspect of our lives, it makes sense to take a good hard look at some legitimate alternatives that exist as a forgotten part of the U.S. political tradition - this is what we are doing here at Vermont Commons newspaper.
While this is no small task, as a patriot and a secessionist both, I support Vermont independence (and indeed, the restoration of sovereignty for all states within this allegedly “indivisible” Union) because I think that peaceable secession is the only viable way to save what we so deeply appreciate about the ideals and values of our United States. And, without sounding too grandiose, secession may allow us to help sustain our civilization as a whole as we seek to “re-invent” our former republic-turned-Empire in the face of emerging “big picture” problems such as climate change, global peak oil, and the excesses of corporate globalization, what former Bush/Wall Street insider Catherine Austin Fitts calls the “tapeworm economy.”
Click HERE to read the interview in its entirety….
