Cross-posted at ASR with citation links.

As the Wikileaks drama has continued to unfold, my level of concern has steadily increased. Public figures (both nationally and locally) have called for the extra-judicial murder of the organization’s founder, Julian Assange, and members of Congress have begun using its existence as a justification to implement Internet censorship systems akin to those used in China (with Senator Lieberman going so far as to publicly hold China up as a model for emulation). Such horrifying realities brought me to realize that simply promoting and defending Wikileaks from behind a computer screen is no longer sufficient – the stakes are just too high.

After some reflection, I came to the conclusion that the most effective thing to do would be to organize a public rally in support of the right to a free press and in solidarity with Wikileaks in my community of Burlington, Vermont. Such an action would be especially effective, I reasoned, because it seems that the majority of people have yet to develop hardened opinions of the topic which have been integrated into their identities. Instead, as an almost totally novel phenomenon, undecided folks are looking to their environment for cues as to how they should feel about it. They’ve been hearing the drum-beat of “treason, egomanic, putting the troops in danger, etc.” from much of the mainstream media and political elite, so it is urgent that supporters of Wikileaks provide a counter-narrative. For all of the fence-sitters who feel sympathetic (but isolated, because the neo-McCarthyist mass media they consume is attempting to equate such sympathy with treason), to see fellow supporters publicly demonstrating (in the most literal sense of the word) their feelings could be just the nudge that is needed to push them into action.

To get the ball rolling, I created a Facebook event and sent emails to every activist and activist list-serve that I’ve come in contact with over the past few years. I followed up with phone-calls and made sure to stress how important I felt it was to turn out. Often, people are jaded about rallies because they are generally a show of strength on an issue about which most people already have a set opinion, so the impact of any one person’s attendance is negligible. Once I communicated the above idea that most people are undecided and that a public show of support could have a powerful effect, however, excitement began to grow. For a time, we picked the evening rush-hour on the one of Burlington’s major arteries, Williston Road, and met in front of the Staples Plaza. Several interested and enthusiastic people couldn’t make the rally itself, but generously donated their time, energy, and artistic skills the previous evening at a sign making party, so we had plenty for supporters to hold.

When I showed up at 4:15pm, it was about twenty degrees, snowing, and (it being northern Vermont) getting dark. I took out my first sign, emblazoned with “Honk 4 Wikileaks!”, and set up shop by the side of the road. Within a couple of minutes the first supporter arrived, and we soon had a contingent of close to a dozen heavily bundled people lining Williston Road in support of Wikileaks (including one man who saw what we were doing, stopped, and asked for a sign). The ideological diversity of the participants was truly staggering, and demonstrates breadth of the coalition that has formed around the website; standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the President of the St. Michael’s College Conservatives was an IWW Delegate. Though we came from many perspectives, unity was found in our common commitment to the defense of press freedoms.

The response to our rally from passing commuters was both encouraging and informative in a few ways. First, we received a lot of positive honks and thumbs-up – according to one of the group’s elders who has been participating in such actions for many years, we had one of the most positive response rates that he’d ever seen when sign-waving. Second, the many confused and interested stares we received confirmed the idea that lots of people are still unsure of what to make of the Wikileaks controversy. The fact that those people not only saw our commitment to brave the elements in support of the issue, but also heard their fellow motorists honking their support hopefully had a powerful impact on their perceptions and attitudes. Finally, as with any sign-wave, we received a few middle fingers. However, in at least one of those cases, the driver was obviously supportive of us while his passenger was flicking us off – I can only imagine that the rest of their journey was marked by interesting conversation.

By the end of rush hour, we were cold, wet, and exhausted, but also exhilarated because it was clear that we’d had a real impact. While packing up, a high-schooler approached us and asked about our protest, because she was doing a project on human rights for her class. We told her the story of Wikileaks and pointed her to the Collateral Murder video, and she thanked us for having provided her with a topic to work on. Even if we’d had no other impact, inspiring a young mind to dig into these issues made all of the planning, work, and cold entirely worth it.

While subsequently warming my hands (and insides) with a hot toddy, I reflected on how the day’s activities are reflective of the strategy that the defenders of Wikileaks need to adopt. We are of the Internet, and the Internet generation is widely “on the bus” in terms of Wikileaks; according to a recent poll, more than 50% of people aged 18-29 believe it is be Constitutionally protected speech. Unfortunately, that rate of support declines with every subsequent age cohort, bottoming out at 20% for those 60 or older. I believe this has much to do with the fact that, while the Internet is a primary space for young people, it is more peripheral to the lives of many individuals who were not socialized into it as children. As such, if we are to reach out to those people, we need to bring our narrative to the spaces they inhabit and media they consume – radio, television, and, most importantly, the street. It is my sincere hope that the number of spontaneous demonstrations will begin increasing dramatically in the upcoming weeks as the pressure mounts and the struggle to maintain our right to a free press reaches a critical stage. If you don’t take the initiative, who will?

Cross-posted on ASR

While on Facebook recently, regular Libertarian candidate for Vermont Attorney General Karen Kerin made the following remark:

Karen Kerin Advocates Lynching

For those of you whose mob-violence slang is a bit rusty, “Necktie Party” is defined by Dictionary.com as “a lynching or other execution by hanging.” Now, regardless of your opinions of Wikileaks, the advocacy of extra-judicial mob murder is absolutely morally indefensible. What makes this a particularly horrifying case, however, is that Kerin has long-standing aspirations to be Vermont’s Attorney General. It was the endorsement and complicity of elected officials which allowed the terrorism that propped up Jim Crow to flourish, and a statement like this demonstrates that she is singularly unqualified and undeserving of that job. If she herself is advocating “necktie parties,” how can she be trusted to prosecute people who commit violent acts of which she approves?

It pains me to write this, since Ms. Kerin has been an ally on many issues, but I believe that she should not be allowed to make such an irresponsible and harmful statement without consequences. Though I identify as an independent, I find the Libertarian Party to be quite close to me ideologically, and I find it horrifying that, as the LP’s most visible candidate in Vermont, Ms. Kerin has had a large role in shaping peoples’ perceptions of my beliefs. As such, I advocate the shunning of Ms. Kerin until she apologizes for her statement and makes restitution by donating to the legal defense fund of the man whose murder she advocated. This shunning will take the following forms, and I hope other Vermonters will join me in this:

– Defriend Ms. Kerin on Facebook after sending her a note explaining your disgust with her behavior and calling on her to make restitution. Additionally, send all of your mutual friends notes encouraging them to do the same with a link to this post.

– If you are not a Facebook Friend of hers, send her an email (keringhost@gmail.com) or give her a phone call (802-282-3225) to register your disapproval of her incitement to violence.

– Uninvite her from any events you might host, and, if you encounter her at an event, tell her that you are waiting for her apology and restitution and then refuse to acknowledge her presence thereafter. If she is a speaker, leave the room for her talk.

The goal is to make it absolutely and publicly clear that the advocacy of lynching is utterly unacceptable behavior, and to do so will engender social consequences. And Ms. Kerin, if you want to make amends for your statement, I’ll be happy to post your apology on the ASR blog and to receive your donation or evidence thereof. You have my contact information.

Cross-posted at ASR

Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut recently proposed the SHIELD Act, which, if enacted, would serve as a major gag on the press in the United States.  Wired magazine has an excellent summary here, so I won’t go into too much detail on the specifics in this post.  Instead, I will advocate ACTION.  What is clear is that this bill needs to be stopped in its tracks and Lieberman must be held personally accountable for attempting to repress one of our republic’s fundamental and important rights.  In that spirit, I sent the following letter to my Senators, and encourage anyone who is concerned about this issue to do the same:

Dear Senator,

I’m writing this letter due to my grave concern over the nature of a bill that was recently introduced to the Senate by Joseph Lieberman called the SHIELD Act. This act is truly disturbing in that it aims, under the guise of “national security,” to restrict the press’ ability to serve its most important democratic function; namely, to hold the members of the government publicly accountable for abuses of power. The SHIELD Act would have a truly disturbing chilling effect on the fourth estate, and so I strongly urge you to use every means in your power to prevent this travesty from becoming law.

However, merely stopping this atrocity is not enough; Senator Lieberman needs to be held accountable for his role in sponsoring it. Like you, Senator Lieberman took an oath when he became Senator to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; [and to] bear true faith and allegiance to the same.” Given that he took this Oath, it must be assumed that he was aware of the wording of the First Amendment, which explicitly states, among other things, that “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.” Senator Lieberman has, in explicit violation of his Oath, proposed a law that would do just that. I therefore urge you to begin the process necessary to at least censure, and hopefully expel, Senator Lieberman from the Senate. While I have faith in the Supreme Court to strike down the SHIELD Act should it be enacted, the man behind it deserves to face personal consequences for his cavalier and disrespectful attempt to rob the American People of one of their most fundamental liberties. Thank you for your consideration, and I again encourage you to publicly and unabashedly stand up for our rights.

Sincerely,

Cross-Posted at ASR:

The shaky position of Burlington’s city-owned telecommunications company, Burlington Telecom, has been publicly apparent for quite some time now, but recent events have powerfully highlighted its uncertain future. It’s been in negotiations with its creditor, Citi Capital, to restructure its debt load for months, but, according to Seven Days, those talks have recently broken down and Citi Capital is demanding the either the repossession of BT’s infrastructure or the repayment of the lease from Burlington’s general fund. As a BT customer, this definitely has me concerned since I have little desire to find myself suddenly sans Internet as a result of the crisis.

As such, it is vitally important to find a just resolution to this problem, but I’ve been unimpressed by the ideas that have been floated thus far. A straight-up bailout from a City or State funding source seems to be (and should be) off the table since it would be profoundly unjust to the taxpayers who don’t utilize BT’s services. Similarly, selling the service to a private company with the cash on hand to quickly resolve the debt issue is equally problematic. Substantial public resources have gone into building Burlington Telecom, and to turn over the value embedded in that investment to a private concern while in a state of crisis (and thus likely not receiving a fair-market price) would be equally irresponsible and as much a theft from the taxpayers as a bailout. Finally, simply letting it fail due to what is essentially an artificial scarcity of capital would again be a disservice to the taxpayers and citizens of Burlington.

However, I believe there’s another route out of the BT crisis that has not been sufficiently explored: mutualization. By selling the service to its users in the form of a consumer co-operative (similar to Vermont Electric Co-op), BT could continue serving them while, at the same time, it would eliminate the risk and burden placed on non-BT subscribing taxpayers. Furthermore, selling Burlington Telecom to the “Burlington Telecom Co-op” would open new sources of capital to BT that would allow it to lessen its dependence on out-of-state financing.

The first source of capital would be member equity; each subscriber would be required to hold an ownership stake in BT and, depending on the number of subscribers, this could easily put several million dollars into its coffers right off the bat to get itself back on track with Citi and retire some of its out-of-state debt. Second, it could sell bonds to its members. Paying a greater rate of interest than most individuals can find for their savings while still keeping them lower than those paid to Citi, such bonds would create three benefits. First, they would allow BT supporters to put their money where their mouths are and pony up the capital necessary to support BT’s solvency and success. Second, they would allow for the retirement of a substantial portion of BT’s outstanding debt with debt at a lower interest rate, thus reducing the financial pressure on the company. Finally, such bonds would mean that the interest payments would accrue to BT’s stakeholders in Burlington and be fed back into our local economy rather than feeding an out-of-state banking conglomerate that has sucked up billions in Federal bailout money.

Additionally, the new co-op could also potentially obtain capital from a wide variety of sources that exist specifically to assist co-operatives. Indeed, one of seven guiding principles of the co-operative movement is “cooperation among co-operatives.” The mutualization of Burlington Telecom would be an excellent opportunity for Vermont’s co-operative movement to publicly honor that principle by purchasing BT bonds. Our state has more food co-ops per capita than anywhere else in the country, many of Vermont’s credit unions have assets in the hundreds of millions, and utility co-ops are omnipresent. If those institutions act according to their principles and step forward to invest in a fellow fledgling co-operative institution, the benefits would accrue to both their institutions and the people of Burlington. While the details of such a plan must still be worked out, I sincerely believe BT’s mutualization is the only just path forward; it deserves serious public consideration before the taxpayers are ripped off, one way or the other, in a corrupt and/or exploitative resolution of the Burlington Telecom crisis

Cross-posted at ASR

Many of the folks I know who live in Burlington, Vermont have a mixed perception of our co-operative grocery store, City Market. Though they appreciate the convenience of the downtown location, it’s often perceived as an overpriced natural foods store which might be nice for specialty items, but would break the bank if you did the bulk of your grocery shopping there. The attitude can ultimately be summed up by the epithet that some Burlingtonians apply to the store: “Shitty Mark-up.” Recent events, however, have revealed the utter falsehood of that impression; in fact, it has gotten to the point where anyone who lives in Burlington and doesn’t do the bulk of their shopping at City Market is clearly acting against their own economic self-interest.

There are several reasons that this is so, but they all derive from the fact that City Market, unlike all of the other grocery stores in the Burlington area, is not a joint stock corporation, a partnership, or a sole proprietorship, but a consumer co-operative. When many people think of food co-ops, what often comes to mind is organic, fair-trade, expensive but high-quality food. While it is true that City Market stocks a wide variety of such items, so does Healthy Living and Fresh Market, which are not co-ops. Instead of being defined by what it sells, the core of a co-op’s identity lies in its ownership structure.

A traditional corporation is owned by shareholders, who are entitled to a share of the profits commensurate to the amount of stock they own. A consumer co-op, by contrast, is owned by its customers (or, in co-op parlance, members). Each member may only own one “share” of “stock,” referred to as equity, and that share entitles him or her to a refund of the profits that were generated by that member’s patronage. As a result, the co-op operates on a non-profit basis in relation to its member-owners.

In concrete terms, this is what that looks like:

http://asftr.files.wordpress.c…

Sweet City Market Dough

The above is a picture is the patronage refund check that I received in the mail today from City Market, which refunds the profits the co-op made on my purchases between July 1, 2009 and June 30, 2010. It breaks down as follows.  Over the course of that time period, I spent $2105.60 at City Market, and the co-op returned about 7.3% of that sum back to me.  Half of that took the form of cash (hence the check is for $76.80), and an equal amount was retained in reserve to make sure the co-op has operating cash, money to pay for capital improvements, etc.  However, I retain a claim to that sum: it (along with the retained money from previous years) is in an account under my name, and if I ever leave Burlington and close out my membership, I’ll receive that a check for the total amount.

Now, someone might object that such benefits come at the cost of a $15 per year membership fee; even if that were true, membership would still be worth it. However, the $15 yearly required payment is not a membership fee, but the payment for a piece of your share of “stock.” Each share has a value of $200, but the co-op doesn’t require new members to pay the full lump sum right away. Instead, one only has to fork over a minimum of $15 per year until the total reaches $200, after which no further payments are necessary. And, as in the case of the retained patronage refund (but unlike the fee paid to a company such as Costco), if you ever leave the co-op, you get that money back.

As such, I believe that it’s financially irresponsible for anyone living in Burlington to buy their groceries anywhere but City Market. Not only do you get a portion of money you spent there back in cash and build a bit of a nest egg in the form of your retained patronage account, but the prices for staple grocery items (even excluding the dividend) are, according to the Burlington Free Press, roughly on par with other area grocery stores. Add in the financial benefits of cooperative membership, and shopping anywhere else is literally throwing your money away. So, next time you need a gallon of milk, head over to the Customer Service counter at City Market and become a member; your credit union account will thank you!

P.S. Credit unions are also organized as consumer co-ops; why put your money in a bank someone else owns when you can own your own bank and keep the profits! A list of Vermont credit unions can be found here (http://www.vermontcreditunions.com/Consumer/JOIN/vtcusearch.htm) if you want to make the smart switch!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…

I find it quite disappointing that this time of increased awareness of LGBTQ issues has been exploited to take a cheap-shot at my campaign by raising questions about my possibly being a homophobe.  Anyone who’s talked to me about the issues know I am an ally to Queer people in Vermont, and have actively tried to engage with the LGBTQ community in this campaign.  Unlike Brian Dubie, I requested inclusion (but was refused, due to my independent status) in the gubernatorial forum put on in part by Outright Vermont and RU12, and I broadcast the “Winter’s a Drag Ball” fundraiser for the VT People with AIDS Coalition on Radio Free Vermont (my online radio station).

Like the other candidates for Governor this election cycle, I don’t have an “ideological purity test” that people must take in order to donate to me –  rather, they click the link on my website and the donation goes into the campaign’s PayPal account.  As such, I find the calls for me to return the donation both odd and counterproductive; why would people who disagree so strongly with this donor want to put resources in his pocket?  If he was unaware of my stance on LGBTQ rights before this and doesn’t like what I’ve said, he doesn’t have to donate.  In the meantime, I will continue working hard on my campaign to bring focus to the issues our state faces that both Dubie and Shumlin refuse to acknowledge.  Our communities are being smothered under the weight of an Empire that costs us a trillion dollars a year and has caused the death and displacement of millions of people.  It’s time for us to stand up together to take political power back from the great corporate banks and the military-industrial complex that has bought and paid for the Federal Government, so we can begin the task of building a Vermont that works for ALL Vermonters.

Imagine… Free Vermont,

Dennis Steele

(“When I arrived that evening, I felt like I might’ve been one of the only “undecideds” in attendance.”  This writer has written about his or her feeling of confusion regarding the Burlington Ballot item “repeal of IRV” slated for a vote March 2nd, 2010.   – promoted by Maggie Gundersen)

Originally posted at http://asrblog.com/2010/02/19/…

For those readers who neither live in Burlington, Vermont, nor are political junkies, IRV stands for Instant Runoff Voting, and it has been the center of some local controversy recently.  A few years ago, Burlington voted in a referendum to change its voting system by which the mayor is elected from requiring a plurality of at least 40% to IRV, and the most recent mayoral election was the first second in which the mayor was elected by the new system.  That election has been at the center of the aforementioned controversy, and there is now an item on the upcoming ballot proposing IRV’s repeal.

Before I get into the controversy, however, we’ll first run over the whys and hows of Instant Runoff Voting.  

The traditional voting system with which we’re all familiar usually gives each person one vote, and if the candidate with the most votes fails to reach the required threshold (usually 50%, in the case of Burlington, 40%), a run-off election is held between the top two vote-getters a few weeks later.  However, there’s a glaring problem with that voting system; namely, the “spoiler effect”.  Instead of allowing people to vote their consciences, they are incentivized to vote for the least personally objectionable of the two most popular or visible candidates; hence in the 2000 election, people could claim that, by voting for Ralph Nader, people on the left were helping the right by “spoiling” the election for George Bush.  For folks who aren’t happy with having a two-choice political system, the spoiler effect is deeply problematic.

IRV was designed to eliminate the spoiler effect by allowing people to express their opinions about the full slate of candidates by ranking them.  To use a hypothetical example to illustrate this, let’s assume that the Presidential election had been conducted by IRV, with John McCain, Barack Obama, Ron Paul, and Ralph Nader on the ballot.  In a traditional election, if most people supported Barack Obama and John McCain, voting for Paul or Nader could be considered helping the other side.  However, under IRV, a hypothetical conservative might vote:

  1. Paul (First choice, most in line with personal beliefs)

  2. McCain (Not such a fan, but would prefer him to Obama or Nader)

  3. Obama (Dislikes, but not as much as that commie Nader)

  4. Nader (Bottom of the heap)

If Paul were eliminated in the first round, all first-round Paul voters’ votes would then be transferred to their second choices (in the case of our hypothetical voter, McCain), thus, in theory, eliminating the bystander effect and allowing each voter to have a more nuanced influence on the election which reflects their personal beliefs rather than being intensively molded by the logic of lesser-evilism.

I’d long thought this was a great idea, and was quite cynical when Burlington’s Republican mayoral candidate Kurt Wright decried the system after losing the last election.  However, the fact that 2,000 signatures were collected in order to get its repeal on the ballot, combined with some people (whose opinions I deeply respect) prodding me about the issue, forced me to take a second look.  Essentially, the anti-IRV camp argues that, in the last election, Bob Kiss was elected by an “artificial majority”, as he wasn’t the recipient of the most first-choice votes.  Instead, its asserted, 71% of Burlingtonians voted against Kiss in the four-way race (“voting against” meaning he wasn’t their first choice).  A lot of numbers were being thrown about and I was having trouble wrapping my head around the issue, so I was delighted to hear that there was a debate on the issue scheduled at City Hall for the 18th of February.  I resolved to attend with an open mind, and to determine my position on the issue after listening to each side’s arguments as objectively as possible.

When I arrived that evening, I felt like I might’ve been one of the only “undecideds” in attendance.  IRV supporters sported blue stickers with “40%” crossed out, while anti-IRV partisans sported bright yellow paper fliers attached to a button with a rubber band.  The debate had about forty people in the audience, and CCTV (the local government access station) and Seven Days (a local newspaper) were broadcasting it live.  The questions addressed to the two teams were posed alternatively by representatives of local media outlets (Seven Days, The Burlington Free Press, WCAX), the audience at City Hall, and TV/Internet viewers sending questions in via email.

For the first part of the debate, things didn’t look up for the pro-IRV team of State Rep. Mark Larson and Keri Toksu of the League of Women Voters.  They seemed to spend more time rehearsing trite slogans than they did explaining the value of IRV, and Larson in particular was almost painfully inarticulate.  The anti-IRV side, by contrast, was lucid and forceful in their arguments, and by the time questions rolled around to the community, I was tentatively against IRV.

Then came an incredibly insightful question from the Internet.  A large part of the anti-IRV side’s argument hinged on the assertion that IRV voters are more or less “voting in the dark”, whereas in a traditional runoff they have access to enough information to make an informed decision; the questioner essentially inquired into the nature of that information differential.  If, on election day, I know that I like A more than B, and that I like B more than C, and rank them as such, how does that change if there ends up being a runoff between B and C?  The anti-IRV team’s answer wasn’t satisfactory to me, and I spent the next few minutes wrapping my head around the implications of that question.

I wasn’t able to get in a question asking for more clarification during the debate, but afterwards I was able to talk to Kurt Wright and Sandy Baird, two IRV opponents.  Mr. Wright told me that he was the candidate who received the most “bullet votes” in the last election; that is, votes in which the voters only marked one candidate, and the implication was that he considered those people to have been disenfranchised by the IRV system.

That finished the debate for me; essentially, the problem in the last election wasn’t with the system, it was with voters.  All voters had the equal right to rank the candidates according to their preferences; I ranked them all, and thus exerted the maximum possible amount of agency allowed by the system.  Anyone who didn’t do so, and instead voted for just their favorite candidate, was the equivalent of a voter who turned out for the election but failed to show up to the runoff.  The instructions were clearly printed on the ballot; I read them and marked my ballot accordingly.  Anyone who didn’t do so was making a choice and is responsible for results their actions.  Disenfranchisement happens when an external force removes an individual’s agency; “bullet voters” voluntarily chose to not rank all the candidates and thus were not disenfranchised by the IRV system.  Once I grasped this idea, the anti-IRV argument fell apart for me.

No system of elections is perfect; in fact, by the basic laws of the universe, no system can be perfect, period.  For me, though, IRV’s elimination of the Spoiler Effect is a step in the right direction, and the repeal of IRV can thus only be justified by successfully arguing that the results generated by the system do not reflect the will of Burlington’s voters.  As the bullet voting issue indicates, though, the “disenfranchisement” trumpeted by anti-IRV advocates was really the moral equivalent of failing to vote in the runoff, and the responsibility for the result thus lay with the bullet voters who voluntarily chose to not have a say in future rounds, not the system.  I’m always open to rebuttals, but I’m pretty confident with my logic at this point.  Unless I encounter a really good argument, then, I plan on slapping on a blue sticker and voting no on 5 this town meeting day.

* Originally posted at http://asrblog.com/2009/12/23/… *

All of the candidates for Vermont Governor who still buy into “politics as usual,” whether they are Democrats or Republicans, are running on the same platform: “If I’m elected Governor, I’ll be the smoothest and most effective administrator of Federal money.” Because, in this day and age, that’s what’s expected of a Governor: that he act dutifully in his role of mid-level administrator of the Vermont arm of the Federal Government. The Congressional delegation carves out an nice fat chunk of pork, and the Governor’s job is to distribute the bacon.

This, however, is not what the Governor is supposed to be. Under the federation created by the Constitution, a State Governor is the executive of a sovereign State. In that role, the State Governor ‘s relationship with his or her Federal counterparts should be half-cooperative and half-adversarial; making sure things that are in the interest of the State go smoothly, but also using his power to resist tyrannical Federal acts. Whether we talk about Jim Douglas or Howard Dean, the part that recent Vermont governors have played has been the administrative role; their main goal has been to grab the largest slice of the Federal appropriations pie, no matter how disastrous the long-term impact of such activities may be. It’s been a long time since this State has seen a Governor with true backbone.

The current crop of mainstream candidates holds no greater hope for the future; there are many interesting personalities, but not one of them will make the hard decision to buck the will of the Federal government should justice demand it. That, more than any other reason, is why I will be voting for Dennis Steele for Governor in 2010.

When the invasion of Iraq was deceptively foisted upon the American People by their self-serving elites, millions took to the street in protest. Which didn’t do a lick of good, because the American police state learned its lessons well in the 1960s-’70s. As long as the loyalty of the professional paramilitary police is maintained, straight civil disobedience rarely has the potential to seriously threaten the power structure. However, there’s a very old, very American form of protest that those of us who are outraged by what we’ve seen in the last decade can use to turn our dissent into action: the assertion of sovereignty.

As part of the “Compromise of 1850,” an extremely harsh fugitive-slave law was passed which allowed slave-catchers to ply their trade with virtual impunity in the free North, and even simplified the process of kidnapping free blacks and selling them back into slavery. To Vermonters, whose State had outlawed slavery in its Constitution in 1777, this act was perceived as an unjust outrage, and they reacted accordingly.

Their reaction, however, was different from the way in which 21st century Americans react to the Federal government does something atrocious, like, say, giving $700 billion to private banks or invading yet another third-world country. If really riled up, the contemporary American will sign an on-line petition, send an email to his or her legislator, or maybe even attend a carefully choreographed rally. When the Vermonters of 1850 knew that a law was morally unacceptable, on the other hand, they used the full power of their State sovereignty to keep it from achieving its purpose in the land between Lake Champlain and the Connecticut river. The effect was real; from 1850 until the Civil War, not a single escaped slave was returned to the South from Vermont, despite the fact that many were living openly on sympathetic farms (You can still tour one of those farms: Rokeby of Ferrisburg; they have a letter on display written by a slaveowner impotently begging for compensation for his human “property”).

Now, after years of wars, eroded civil liberties, and bailouts, we need a Governor who will stand up to Washington when it crosses the line. When they demand that yet another power or right be stripped from the People and handed to Federal bureaucrats, we need a leader who has the courage to answer with a resounding “NO”, and whose actions will match his rhetoric. A leader who will bring Vermont’s National Guard home from the Imperial wars with or without the blessing of the Washington elites. A leader who will vocally denounce unconstitutional Federal practices, whether they be the PATRIOT act or the bailouts, and will use the power of our sovereign Vermont to mitigate the effects of those atrocities here at home, just as our forebearers did in 1850. A Governor who, when Congress bumbles into its next ill-conceived war, will use every force at his disposal to end the cycle of violence and waste that’s consumed our economy and society since the Cold War.

Neither Vermont’s Democratic nor its Republican party has the courage to stand up for us, the People of Vermont; they care more about winning Pyrrhic short-term political victories than they do about securing a long-term future of liberty, justice, peace, and sustainability. Dennis Steele, on the other hand, will choose the hard right over the easy wrong, even if it means standing up to the skulking behemoth which occupies the banks of the Potomac River.

There is no doubt that Dennis has a hard road ahead of him, and that his chance of victory, barring a crisis that fundamentally alters the political calculus, is slim. However, there’s nothing to lose by voting for him; the cause of independence isn’t a partisan issue that will swing the election to the Republican or Democratic “Federal Flunky” candidate. Even if he doesn’t win, a strong showing for Steele in 2010 will send a powerful message that there are many Vermonters who are willing to resort to serious measures to resist Federal abuses; push us further, and we know what to do and have the will to get it done. Such a statement might force the Washington elite to think twice before blithely initiating the next bailout or war; it will certainly give the buyers of the Federal debt that will fund such projects pause before they commit their money to a government whose tax-base could very well abandon it. Washington has long ago learned to ignore the will of the voters; it cannot fail to listen the voices of its creditors. Voting for a Democrat or a Republican will not tilt the balance of power in this country in favor of the people; voting for Dennis Steele for Vermont Governor in 2010 will.