Looks like not even some “Americans” want to be bullied by US of A.
I don’t think it is going to happen soon, but interesting nevertheless. These people think that this empire is about to fail. CNN said that they are not necessarily Bush bashers.
http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070605/NATIONWORLD/706050430/-1/LOCAL17
MONTPELIER, Vt. – At Riverwalk Records, the all-vinyl music store just down the street from the state Capitol, the black “U.S. OUT OF VT!” T-shirts are among the hottest sellers.
But to some people in Vermont, the idea is bigger than a $20 novelty. They want Vermont to secede from the United States – peacefully, of course.
Disillusioned by what they call an empire about to fall, a small cadre of writers and academics hopes to put the question before citizens in March. Eventually, they want to persuade state lawmakers to declare independence, returning Vermont to the status it held from 1777 to 1791.
Neither the state nor the U.S. Constitution explicitly forbids secession, but few people think it is politically viable.
“I always thought the Civil War settled that,” said Russell Wheeler, a constitutional law expert at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. If Vermont won a war with the federal government, “then you could say Vermont proved the point. But that’s not going to happen.”
Still, the idea has found plenty of sympathetic ears in Vermont, a left-leaning state that said yes to civil unions, no to slavery (before any other) and last year elected a socialist to the U.S. Senate.
Supporters have published a “Green Mountain Manifesto” subtitled “Why and How Tiny Vermont Might Help Save America From Itself by Seceding from the Union.”
In 2005, about 300 people turned out for a secession convention in the Statehouse, and plans for a second one are in the works. A poll this year by the University of Vermont’s Center for Rural Studies found that 13 percent of those surveyed support secession, up from 8 percent a year before.
“The argument for secession is that the U.S. has become an empire that is essentially ungovernable – it’s too big, it’s too corrupt and it no longer serves the needs of its citizens,” said Rob Williams, editor of Vermont Commons, a quarterly newspaper dedicated to secession.
“We have electoral fraud, rampant corporate corruption, a culture of militarism and war,” Williams said. “If you care about democracy and self-governance and any kind of representative system, the only constitutional way to preserve what’s left of the Republic is to peaceably take apart the empire.”
Thomas Naylor, 70, a retired Duke University economics professor and author, wrote the manifesto, which contains little explanation of how Vermont would make do without federal aid for security, education and social programs. Some in the movement foresee a Vermont with its own currency and passports, and some form of representative government.
Of course, skeptics abound.
“It doesn’t make economic sense. It doesn’t make political sense. It doesn’t make historical sense. Other than that, it’s a good idea,” said Paul Gillies, a lawyer and Vermont historian.