"Secession is in the water"

... said New York State Senator Andrew Lanza of a bill he has introduced to separate Staten Island from New York City. The same article from silive.com discusses another proposal to make Long Island into a separate State (another idea that has been around for years) and makes a passing reference to a bill in Georgia in favor of secession.

I knew that the State sovereignty resolution SR 632 had passed the Georgia Senate April 1, but I had not read it closely. The resolution as presented in the link is wordy and dense (aggravated by the lack of breaks between paragraphs). However, it is the first resolution passed by a House of a State legislature to contain New Hampshire's secession trigger. This is a noteworthy milestone in American secessionism that should have attracted more notice at the time. Of course, the Atlanta media were not overly enamored with it, as shown in this column by Jay Bookman for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

As Mr. Bookman noted, even in Georgia's most conservative counties, two-thirds of the Republicans are still opposed to secession; so the resolution's timing is probably premature. Still, when we consider the state of the discussion as recently as January, secessionism has come a long way in a very short time.

And we have this declaration from Dan Weintraub in Vermont Commons, "It is time for Vermont to secede." Last October, Mr. Weintraub wrote a piece in Vermont Commons suggesting the idea half tongue-in-cheek. In today's post, he repents for not being more serious. His arguments echo those that have appeared in this space on many occasions, focusing primarily on the economic and environmental unsustainability of the Empire as it currently exists.

"Why secession? Simply put, because our nation can never recover from the decades of corruption and duplicity and greed that have led us to this abyss lest our leaders attempt to do so through means that are anathema to the righteous moral and ethical lives, hearts and minds of the citizens of Vermont. Our leaders will do anything to save the system. And we can no longer be party to such actions. It is time for us to leave...

"A nation borne of the dreams of Enlightenment righteousness has fallen prey to the greed and corruption and theft of the robber barons and Wall Street moguls. And it has gone on for so long, and the nation has incurred such massive amounts of DEBT, that no medicine can cure the disease. On every level, "large" has failed. Small communities--if prepared and coordinated---will be able to construct social, political and economic systems that will allow these communities to exist at a comfortable "subsistence" level."

Preach on, brother! At this rate, the July 4 State sovereignty rally in Columbus just might find some participants pressing for independence.

Virtual buckeye to Gabe McGranahan for the piece from silive.com .