AlterNet: Will Vermont Secede from the Union?
I have written from time to time about the idea of suburban secession, which is usually associated with middle class or wealthy suburbanites seeking isolation from the starving urban masses (many of whom are struggling with obesity as we speak, but that's another subject). Now we discover that the folks who want to secede are the hippies who fled to Vermont after Nixon beat McGovern in 1972. Who knew?

he winds of secession are blowing in the Green Mountain State.

Vermont was once an independent republic, and it can be one again. We think the time to make that happen is now. Over the past 50 years, the U.S. government has grown too big, too corrupt and too aggressive toward the world, toward its own citizens and toward local democratic institutions. It has abandoned the democratic vision of its founders and eroded Americans' fundamental freedoms. Vermont did not join the Union to become part of an empire. Some of us therefore seek permission to leave.