← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Okiereddust
Thread ID: 15680 | Posts: 2 | Started: 2004-11-18
2004-11-18 04:53 | User Profile
[URL=http://www.etherzone.com/2004/scall111804.shtml]SECESSION IS IN THE AIR (PART II)[/URL] THE SMELL IS GETTING STRONGER
By: Sean Scallon
I received a good many of responses from my last article on Etherzone: [URL=http://www.etherzone.com/2004/scall110904.shtml]Secession is in the air...Can you smell it?[/URL] To which I am very appreciative. It's always nice to know people are reading and try to respond to all written inquires. One such response was more than just an email, it was a document issued by the Second Vermont Republic. Apparently they held recent conference back on Nov. 6 in Middlebury, Vermont and issued The Middlebury Declaration stating their intent "for a new kind of politics" in the wake of the recent presidential election.
This politics is about separation and secession. Legally of course and through the democratic process. If the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions outlined the potential of state's rights to help maintain the underpinnings of the original American republic and if John C. Calhoun's Fort Hill Exposition outlined the legal basis for nullification and if American Revolution best put in words the original secession of the United States from the British Empire, then perhaps in the same vein this document can hopefully shape a new argument and debate in politics about dissolving empires, nor creating them.
So further words wasted, here is The Middlebury Declaration
The Middlebury Declaration Middlebury, Vermont
We gathered here this weekend to explore the possibilities of a new politics that might provide a realistic and enactable alternative to the familiar sorry political scene around us that has just ratified its decadent and corrupt nature with the re-election of George W. Bush. We are convinced that the American empire, now imposing its military might on 153 countries around the world, is as fragile as empires historically tend to be, and that it might well implode upon itself in the near future. Before that happens, no matter what shape the United States may take, we believe there is at this moment an opportunity to push through new political ideas and projects that will offer true popular participation and genuine democracy. The time to prepare for that is now.
In our deliberations we considered many kinds of strategies for a new politics and eventually decided upon the inauguration of a campaign to monitor, study, promote, and develop agencies of separatism. By separatism we mean all the forms by which small political bodies, dedicated to the precept of human scale, distance themselves from larger ones, as in decentralization, dissolution, disunion, division, devolution, or secession, creating small and independent bodies that rule themselves. Of course we favor such polities that operate with participatory democracy and egalitarian justice, which are attainable only at a small scale, but the primary principle is that these states should enact their separation and self-government as they see fit.
It is important to realize that the separatist/independence movement is the most important and widespread political force in the world today and has been for the last half-century, during which time the United Nations, for example, has grown from 51 nations in 1945 to 193 nations in 2004. The break-up of the Soviet Union and the former Yugoslavia are recent manifestations of this fundamental trend, and there are separatist movements in more than two dozen countries at this time, including such well-known ones as in Catalonia, Scotland, Lapland, Sardinia, Sicily, Sudan, Congo, Kashmir, Chechnya, Kurdistan, Quebec, British Columbia, Mexico, and the Indian nations of North America.
There is no reason that we cannot begin to examine the processes of secession in the United States. There are already at least 28 separatist organizations in this country-the most active seem to be in Alaska, Cascadia, Texas, Hawaii, Vermont, Puerto Rico, and the South-and there seems to be a growing sentiment that, because the national government has shown itself to be clumsy, unresponsive, and unaccountable in so many ways, power should be concentrated at lower levels. Whether these levels should be the states or coherent regions within the states or something smaller still is a matter best left to the people active in devolution, but the principle of secession must be established as valid and legitimate.
To this end, therefore, we are pledged to create a movement that will place secession on the national agenda, encourage nonviolent secessionist organizations throughout the country, develop communication among existing and future secessionist groups, and create a body of scholarship to examine and promote the ideas and principles of secessionism.
"Whenever any form of government is destructive of these ends-life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness-it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government.in such form as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness."
Well put.
Related article: [URL=http://www.etherzone.com/2004/scall110904.shtml]SECESSION IS IN THE AIR - CAN'T YOU JUST SMELL IT?[/URL]
"Published originally at EtherZone.com : republication allowed with this notice and hyperlink intact."
2004-11-18 10:49 | User Profile
I believe in "economic secession."
We need to remove ourselves from Capitalism's virtual economy.
The [URL=http://www.originaldissent.com/forums/showthread.php?t=14152]Mondragon[/URL] experience in Spain is one possible model. Mondragon grew up in Spain's Basque country as a way toward economic independence within Franco's Spain.
Now, I have a great deal of respect for the Generalissimo, but the painful fact remains that in the first decade or so of his rule he attempted to supress the Basque language, culture and identity. In addition, Franco imposed extreme state controls on businesses, including the requirement for state permission to open even a small business. This was the typical control-freak mania of the 20th century, which always proved disastrous for those countries that attempted it. To his credit, Franco began to back off these policies as the political situation stabilized, laying the foundation for a resurgence of Basque culture and indeed the economically prosperous Spain of today.
Anyway, the Mondragon Cooperative movement was an organic societal response to the incursions of a powerful centralized state that was ruled by ethnic outsiders (sound familiar?). It was also extremely successful. Mondargon now has annual revenues of $8 billion, and is by far the largest employer in the Basque country. It also became the economic plinth for Basque nationalist aspirations, albeit for the most part within a larger Spain (although Mondragon's connections to the violently separatist ETA are another story).
We need to study Mondragon, and learn its lessons. While our circumstances differ sharply from that of the Basque people in the early 1950's and we cannot simply import the Mondragon model entirely, the Mondragon experience and the exemplary perseverance of the Basques should be most beneficial to us, if we can but open our minds a bit to new ideas.
The most effective resistance that we can mount now is economic and cultural secession. The homeschool movement is a great example of the latter, but thus far we've had none of the former, as far as I can see.
Mondragon is a great place to start that conversation.
Walter