CONTENTS The Mad Farmer, Flying the Flag of Rough Branch, Secedes from the Union Wendell Berry iii Introduction Ron Miller 1 PART ONE Empire and Overshoot 11 Voices for Independence Ian Baldwin 13 The Collapse of the American Empire Kirkpatrick Sale 16 Liberals and Conservatives: Relics of the Past Thomas Naylor 20 Our Land, Our Destiny: Vermont Independence Convention Keynote Address James Howard Kunstler 22 PART TWO Global Problems, Local Solutions 27 ECONOMICS 29 The Real Economy Robert Costanza 31 Economics of Scale vs. the Scale of Economics: The New Movement for Responsible Living Kirkpatrick Sale 42 Local Living Economies: Toward Basic Principles of a Bioregional Economy Judy Wicks 47 MONEY 00 Money and Liberty Adrian Kuzminski 49 Sovereignty and the Money Problem: A New Beginning Charles Eisenstein 54 Local Currency: A Revolution That Sounds Like a WhisperAmy Kirschner 59 The Buck Slows Here: Slow Me the Money, Vermont Woody Tasch 63 ENERGY 67 Powering Vermont’s Future by Embracing the Peak-Oil ChallengeCarl Etnier and Annie Dunn Watson 69 The Way of All Empires: The United States on the Eve of Peak OilIan Baldwin 74 The Great Hydropower Heist: How Corporations Colonized Our Watershed Commons Dr. Richard Foley and Hervey Scudder 80 Energy Crisis, Energy Opportunities Gaelan Brown 88 FOOD 95 What Will You Eat if Vermont Secedes? Amy Shollenberger 97 The Food Less Traveled Enid Wonnacott 102 Putting the CSA Model to the Test Robin McDermott 107 The Case for Local Wheat and Bread in Vermont Erik Andrus 110 A Portrait of Food Sovereignty Ron Miller 115 INFORMATION 119 (Un)Covering the Empire Rob Williams 121 Project Censored: News Media Checking in at the ICU Taylor Silvestri 123 Beyond Facebook: Building an Electronic Front Porch (An Interview with Michael Wood-Lewis) Rob Williams 128 Decentralizing Educational Authority Ron Miller 132 COMMUNITY 139 The National Healthcare “Debate”: Greed, a Fear of Death, and a Vermont Alternative? Thomas Naylor 141 From Common Wealth to Common Property Peter Barnes 146 Vermont’s Common Assets: From Banana Republic to Sovereign Commonwealth Gary Flomenhoft 149 RESILIENCE 153 The Great Re-Skilling: Inventing a Twenty-First-Century Vermont Rob Williams 155 Designing Our Future in a Changing World (An Interview with Ben Falk) Rob Williams 157 When the Ecofads Fade, Ditch the Carbon-Footprint Calculator and Pick up a Shovel Ben Falk 164 Be Here Now, and in a Thousand Years: Toward a Tree-Crop Culture Ben Falk 167 PART THREE Decentralism and the Vermont Tradition 175 Left and Right: An Introduction to DecentralismJohn McClaughry 177 The Decentralist Movement: A Third Way Kirkpatrick Sale 184 Distributism: Beyond Capitalism and Socialism Kirkpatrick Sale 188 The First Populist Republic Adrian Kuzminski 191 The First Vermont “Republic”: What’s in a Name? James Hogue 197 Vermont’s Genetic Code: Toward a Decentralist Manifesto Frank Bryan 200 The Cultivation of Our Own Tradition Rowan Jacobsen 203 PART FOUR Sovereignty and Secession 207 The Violence of the Centralized State Donald W. Livingston 210 War and the Second Vermont Republic Ben Scotch 216 Origins of the New England Secession Tradition Donald W. Livingston 219 Beyond Our Independence Daze: Secession, Common Sense, and the “Spirit of 1777” Rob Williams 223 The Second Vermont Republic: Frequently Asked Questions Thomas Naylor 227 The Fall of Empire: A Time for Renewal Ben Hewitt 231 Afterword Ron Miller 233 Postscript: V for Vermont: A Concluding Call to Action Juliet Buck and Rob Williams 239 Appendix: The Middlebury Declaration 241 Contributor Biographies 245 Resources for Further Reading 252 Index 256 .