For starters and a little bit of background, I was personally very involved with the Second Vermont Republic during its infancy and early years.  I was so precisely for what it seems are some of the reasons that the folks at ASR Blog are stirring these things back up here at GMD- namely, that the very conversation about secession, regardless of how “realistic” it is or isn’t, is one that by its own nature gets us talking about our individual rights, our rights of self-determination, of local autonomy, and the role of distant (“foreign”) ruling forces (empire, imperialism, etc).  By merely talking about or proposing secession and the dismembering of the American Empire, and in the mere act of considering it, we find ourselves in a very, very important political conversation about the role of the State, and the very nature of human life and society; we arrive in a conversation that fundamentally informs how we act socially and what we push for and desire politically (and, importantly, why we do so and towards what ends).

For myself and many others, this is an incredibly important part of any political conversation, but unfortunately not one that happens often enough at all.  Base political dialogue in the United States carries a whole host of assumptions that, quite frankly, if examined and considered on their own could positively effect the nature and outcome of many of those very political issues that grip the country and even the world.

I eventually chose to cut formal ties with SVR because I morally disagreed with the thrust of the organization which insisted that SVR be (or claim to be) a politically and morally neutral group with but one singular opinion: that Vermont should secede from the Union and that in fact the Union should be dismantled.

The problems I have with such a stance are many, though in some sense of fairness and clarification it should be noted that at an early meeting of SVR members (the membership structures and make of the organization were still very infantile at this stage- maybe two dozen people showed) at the ISE in Plainfield I brought my disagreement and concerns to the group, and after a reasonably vigorous and engaged debate on the matter, the people who agreed with my stance were out-numbered by the people who didn’t.  It was after bringing my disagreements to the group, and having them “lose” democratically, that I chose to inform Dr Naylor that I decided to end my formal ties to the group.

Briefly to address those concerns:  First and foremost, SVR was interested in disassociating with the U.S. Federal State, but not (necessarily) opposed to capitalism or the State itself.  In so doing, SVR didn’t rule out that a capitalist, empirical, tyrannical State would exist in place of the U.S..  In fact, Dr Naylor (and others at that specific meeting) were confident and content with the notion that an independent Vermont nation-state would by definition be more egalitarian, more free, and just more desirable.  This, of course, is the very nationalistic jingoism which Naylor and SVR claim to be so repulsed by (“we’re better ’cause we’re us”).

Additionally, just as post-modernism negates itself by being a “grand narrative” which insists that “grand narratives do not exist”, the alleged stance that “we’re politically neutral…” (i.e., take no stances regarding health care as a human right, regarding pot legalization, the prison-industrial complex, police brutality and discrimination, the education system, a woman’s right to control her own body, etc etc) “…except the U.S. Empire is bad and Vermont should leave it” is, of course, a political stance.  And, as a political stance, is (and should be) for or against a whole host of ideas, as well as methods.  Naylor’s favorite pastime, I came to see (one which he generally carries on with to this day) is writing and speaking about the nature and effects of capitalism and the State itself; yet he (and SVR) refuse to be explicitly anti-capitalist, or more importantly, affirmative of a person and a community’s rights to self-determination and autonomy.  On this last point, SVR has continually concluded that somehow, inherently, Vermont (meaning quite specifically the people who live in this State) would be an idealic, utopian community (i.e., State).  This stance is, as I said, simply illogical and reeks badly of implicit jingoism, nationalism, and racism (let alone classism and a hole host of social assumptions that we could find abhorrent).

As to the video linked to in the recent diary “The Strawman Responds: more of the same and none of the rest.  Lets take a look:

At about :40 in Dr Naylor claims “These accusations came out of no where” in regards to the 2007 events regarding SVR and the public debate that happened regarding the group’s ties to the League of the South and other people and groups with known white supremacist and neo-Nazi beliefs, ties agendas, and the like.  As was tried (on this site- I’m not bothering to look up and link to any of the number of SVR-related diaries that have been published here) a number of times by a number of people, I’ll explain it again:  First of all, these aren’t “accusations”- that would be a situation in which someone claimed or suggested something, but knowing the facts of the matter would require proof or an admission.  The muckracking site VT Secession made public  (and brought to the attention of front page writers at GMD) public information regarding individuals on SVR’s Board as well as organizations linked to on SVR’s website.  Initially at least, there was no accusation, but a pointing out of public fact.  From this revelation, a number of people asked “why?” and “to what end?”.  It is because of the socially and politically ignorant reaction from Naylor and SVR which follows that accusations arose; simply enough, by re-acting to the questions the way SVR did, it arose suspicion in the minds of several people.

At about 1:10 in Naylor asks “What was this really about?” and to which he answers with “The people orchestrating these attacks were clearly going for our jugular…”  Offering that even to this day Naylor seems to entire mis-understand everything about the entire controversy.  The “orchestrated attacks” were actually the investigations of maybe two people, two bloggers in fact.  As good journalists, they (at least initially) weren’t so much interested in destroying SVR (as Naylor opines at 1:28 “what was it about SVR that was so threatening?”) but in exposing an ugly and little-known fact to the public.  In so doing, the public clearly come out with disgust and disagreement over the acceptability and desirability of such relationships.  Yet, rather than view it as a public discussion about, well hey, about them and their ideas and aims and goals, Naylor et al instead took the crazy paranoid approach and decided everyone was out to destroy them (cutely enough, because SVR with a whopping 5% support according to push polls) was somehow about to dissolve the Union.  This despite the fact that myself and a number of other people (at least initially) come out in support of SVR’s goals, but critical of these associations and their means.  Such arguments were derided, ignored, taken out of context, and resulted in a number of personal attacks (myself and others I was politically involved with at the time were accused of being “council communists” seeking to make Vermont the “next Çuba” and wanting to run the whole thing for our vanguardist and selfish Stalinist means)

Then around 2:45 Naylor really starts playing his wingnut card by suggesting that the entire debate was instigated by the SPLF, which he throws out as a front of AIPAC, the Israeli lobby.  Nice Naylor- while trying to clarify that you’re not a racist or a neo-Nazi you throw out the “this whole thing is the Jews fault” card.  Fucking brilliant.  Whether or not he’s personally racist (throughout the entire arguments I always have maintained that I did get to know Dr Naylor fairly well and that I did not necessarily believe him to actually be racist) (though time has not helped convince me I’m right) the main thrust of my (and several other’s) point has been that Naylor and SVR, regardless of all else, are politically inept- as in, in matters of politics, actually impotent.  Responding to criticisms that you’re associating with morally objectionable groups by denying, name-calling, and then attacking- instead of recognizing that in that moment more people were paying attention to them and actually cared what their stance and their actions would be, and in that moment they had an opportunity to pull considerable attention and sympathy towards themselves if not in idea than at least in legitimacy; that’s just politically naive.  Likewise the bizarre stunt of denying accusations of being a neo-Nazi by blaming the Jews.

The interview goes on without any real addition to what’s been said before.  Naylor ends by noting that SVR never “endorsed the League of the South’s social or political agenda”.  Perhaps, yet known associators with neo-Nazi beliefs or ties have been welcomed onto SVR’s Board and racist groups were linked to on their website.  Despite being public information, that was very little-known until pointed out primarily on GMD in 2007.  People’s reaction what that they found it distasteful; SVR and Naylor reacted by attacking, throwing crazy conspiracy ideas into the wind, and generally digging in its heels instead of taking a social and political stance against something that clearly a number of people thought they should take.

So it’s not so much that there aren’t those of us interested in secession or that conversation or those ideas… it’s that as long as Naylor and SVR are explicitly tied to such (and as long as those most active in the “movement” continue to allow them to be) I for one, and most everyone else I talk to about such things, aren’t interested.

160-87, that was the final vote by tech workers at FAHC (Fletcher Allen Habitually under Construction) to join the AFT.  A huge congratulations to them all, because they now have a say on matters that affect them in the workplace.  I know, I know… having a say in matters that effect you (the Greek have a word for it, I’m not sure on the spelling but it’s something like “demo-cracy”) may sound crazy to some who prefer the idea that the people at the top, with the most power, who make the most money, deserve to just tell everyone else what to do, how to do it and when (without, of course, any “why”) but I think their lives will all be better- maybe a little, maybe a lot, but certainly better.

Cheers, and good luck in bargaining.

(cross-posted from Integral Psychosis)

One of the biggest stumbling blocks I find when talking politics with folks and- oddly- trying to convince them that there is something better than this American version of “democracy” and an “economy” out there is, of all things, unemployment.  One of the easier examples, for instance, is simply to point to Europe, where things like a standard 35 hour work week compare well to our 45+, where health care is provided as a right of being alive rather than treated as another industry where CEO’s can become wealthier, where higher education is offered to those who want it rather than being an extension of high school for the wealthy only, where pretty much the whole continent takes the month of August off for vacation, and where retirement is understood as one’s duly deserved reward for a lifetime of work instead of something that is increasingly a myth told to us by our parents and grandparents (“I did retire when I was 64, though now I don’t know if I’ll be able to keep the house”- “Daddy, what does grandpa mean, re-tie-are?”).  The single most common and almost predictable response to pointing out Europe’s vastly superior- though of course by no means perfect- social safety net and labor and health and education and elder care and drug policy and environmental and (etc) culture- sounds something like “Sure, but look! their unemployment rate is twice ours! their economy is failing, it can’t be sustained.  There aren’t enough jobs for all of them and the whole thing is bound to fall apart.”  Usually the argument isn’t even that nuanced but instead entails “Sure, but they’ve got 12% unemployment.”.

And though I (often) try to counter that this is simply because they calculate their unemployment rate differently then the U.S.- more accurately, mind you- there’s nothing like trying to argue against “statistics” that are well-known and common knowledge.

Which is why I was super-glad to see that someone actually does bother to figure U.S. unemployment by counting it the same way the rest of the friggin world counts it- and, well, the numbers aren’t too shocking (at least if you’re me).  16.7%.  That’s America’s real unemployment rate, if you don’t do really odd things (which the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics does) such as not count people who don’t have enough work, or people who’ve been unemployed for so long they’ve stopped looking (though they still want work).

Of course, detractors may smugly point out to me that that “someone” who figured that number is an admittedly liberal organization- Americans for Democratic Action.  Let me counter that critique by saying: whoopty-fucking-do.  Look, I’m not a fan at all of liberalism, liberal organizations, or liberal politics… but counting numbers is counting numbers and if the Kato Institute or the John Birch Society were interested in knowing the U.S.’ unemployment rate as figured by the same method that most of the world figures their unemployment rate, they would look at the same exact statistics and data and (presumably) come to the same exact number.  I may suggest they would even be doing such a thing, since it would give such conservative organizations a bully pulpit from which to preach the evils of Obama from; except to do so would open up the discussion to the illegitimacy of how the BLS currently does calculate the U.S.’ “official” unemployment rate, and thus we could easily go back and look at our artificially low numbers during those boom years, adjust them using an internationally acceptable method, and see that we had nearly identical (I’d assume) unemployment to all those crazy quasi-socialist European countries that do crazy things like allow workers to retire at a reasonable age, with dignity, offer strong social safety nets to the most vulnerable members of society, and ensure that most people live comfortably and still have the spare time to- gasp!- enjoy their goddamn lives.  And that, my friends, could start making people here in America want something similar.  And that, of course, would mean far less money into the pockets of the wealthiest among us.  And that, of course, would be un-American.

( – promoted by odum)

In my inbox:

Come all to Waterman, now, where we began a sit-in at 3:00 and where,  

at 1:45 a group of students locked down in the President’s wing.

We are here until our demands are met, at the top is NO CUTS, Revoke  

LAYOFFs and NON-REAPPOINTMENTS, and all future plans for layoffs!!!

COME NOW!!!!  Fogel and Cate are negotiating now, but not budging yet.  

 Time to make change and TAKE BACK OUR UNIVERSITY!!

–Students Stand Up!!

UPDATE 8:15PM-

Though the students who locked-down were prepared to make concessions and, well, negotiate, Fogel apparently left abruptly saying he wouldn’t agree to “any of it”.  Those students sitting in the President’s Wing were then immediately arrested (I don’t have a number of arrestees or details of charges yet but at least 7 have been arrested).

At present over 100 students, staff and faculty are still engaged in a sit-in at the Waterman building and have been told that if they don’t leave by 10pm they will be arrested too.

Organizers are calling for community members to head over to the Waterman building for a 9:30 rally this evening in support of those arrested and the coalition of students, staff and faculty who are demanding an end to budget cuts, layoffs, and outrageous administrative salaries.

http://twitter.com/studentsSta…

( – promoted by odum)

(cross-posted from Integral Psychosis)

It’s with a somewhat heavy heart that I write this post.  A number of times I have written extolling the virtues of IRV (Instant Runoff Voting), including directly after the recent 2009 mayoral election in Burlington, VT.  In fact, my previous post (on my own blog) went as far as to declare IRV in Burlington’s 2009 mayoral election to be a success while simultaneously pointing out that a paradox- a failure of the system to be consistent, free and fair- occurred.  I want to be very, very clear as I move forward here: plurality voting (i.e., whoever gets the most votes wins) is a drastically flawed system that only works when there are only two choices on the ballot.  This is because of something called Arrow’s Impossibility Theorem, which is simply a mathematical concept which states (recognizes) that whenever more than two choices appear on a ballot the standards for a consistent, free and fair vote (the Fairness Criteria– developed and agreed upon by political scientists and mathematicians) cannot be met.  In the past I have extolled IRV as being the best alternative because it generally is capable of creating paradoxes or violating the Fairness Criterion a reasonably low percent of the time.  In my opinion, there may still be some truth to this, and it is entirely true that IRV out-performs plurality voting.  However, what seems to be even more true is that there are other methods for voting which greatly out perform IRV, and at the very least a modified form of IRV is necessary to over-come its most glaring flaws.

Unfortunately, the 2009 Burlington mayoral race demonstrates pretty much everything that can go wrong with IRV voting, and the simple fact that it did so should give us all pause and make us re-consider our acceptance of this voting method.  Again, I want to be as clear as I can: IRV is drastically better than plurality voting (the method we’re accustomed to using when electing the President or members of Congress).  That IRV in this instance suffered from a number of paradoxes and most certainly proved itself to not be consistent, free and fair should in no way whatsoever be construed as a reason to revert to plurality; likewise, the other options on the table for possible ways to hold an election all carry with them their own strengths and weaknesses.  Again, Nobel winning mathematician Arrow proved for us decades ago that no system is going to be perfect, and even those few since him who claim to have found or proven an “impossibility” (a voting system that doesn’t violate the Fairness Criterion) have not done so to the degree that they have gained widespread acceptance for their findings.  This is, in the end, a terribly complicated issue and there are no easy answers.  There is, on the other hand, at least one important question on the table: was Bob Kiss preferred by the majority of voters in Burlington this past Town Meeting Day?  A careful examination of the ballots suggests the answer is no, absolutely not.  And because this is the answer the ballots themselves give us, it’s important we re-examine IRV because Kiss is the candidate it handed over as the “clear” winner.

As for the 2009 mayoral race in Burlington, I’d like to draw your attention to the facts as pointed out by UVM political scientist Anthony Gierzynski and Temple University mathematician Warren D. Smith (*and please note, whatever political agendas or personalization of this issue may exist between either of these two men and IRV or ardent IRV supporters like Terry Bouricius is not of my concern whatsoever- I am interested only in the facts as the actual ballots and a thoughtful, scientific analysis of them reveals):

–As I had already been pointed out in a previous post on my site, Montroll was the “Beats-All winner” (aka the “Condorcet winner”) as he would have beaten both Wright (56% to 44%) and Kiss (54% to 46%) in head-to-head races, demonstrating that he was the preferred candidate by the majority of voters.  This is called a “Thwarted-Majorities Paradox”.

–Despite claims that IRV eliminates the “spoiler” effect, the truth is that Wright was a spoiler to Montroll.  If Wright had not run, Montroll would have won (which, incidentally, would have been preferable for the majority of Wright supporters who listed Montroll as their second choice 1513 to 495 for Kiss as their second choice).  Anyone who voted for Wright without fear that doing so would cause Kiss to win was simply wrong, because if those Wright supporters had strategically voted Montroll (like if Nadar voters had strategically voted Gore in Florida 2000) Kiss wouldn’t have won.  This is called “Favorite-Betrayal” (i.e., when voting for your favorite harms either that candidate or another one you would have otherwise preferred).

–This election also produced a “No-Show Paradox”, meaning that if 753 Wright supporters who preferred Montroll over Kiss had simply stayed home on Town Meeting Day they would have gotten a more desirable (in their view) outcome- Montroll would have beaten Kiss.  For these folks, the election results would have been more to their liking if they didn’t bother to vote!

–The software used to tabulate the votes eliminated Smith (1306 votes), Simpson (35 votes), and “write-in” (36 votes) in the first round of counting because it deemed them all to be mathematically (“inevitably”) losers of the election.  Yet the software provider has made no clarification (that myself or the other listed authors of this analysis can ascertain) as to what criteria defines this: using the information and “logic” that has been provided, we could very well say that Montroll (and even Wright) would have “inevitably” lost and eliminated them in the first round as well.

–Most problematic of all (and for me, once I realized this my entire opinion of IRV began to rapidly shift): this election featured non-monotonicity.  If 753 people who voted Wright as their first choice (specifically, all 495 who voted Wright>Kiss>Montroll plus 258 of the 1289 people who voted Wright only) had instead voted for Kiss then Wright would have been eliminated instead of Montroll and Montroll would have beaten Kiss in the final round of IRV (4067 to 3755).  Put another way, Kiss won, but if 753 Wright voters had instead voted for Kiss, then Kiss would have lost and Montroll would have won (Monotonicity is one of the four Fairness Criteria and it states that “if x wins an election, and in a do-over or re-election the only changes made are in favor of x, then x should still win”).  Simply put: if things change in your favor, but those changes negatively impact your final outcome, that is not consistent nor fair.

In the end, there are a whole slew of voting methods to consider.  As I said, they each have their strengths and weaknesses.  In the past I have been a strong proponent of IRV.  Unfortunately, this election should give us all pause.  Consider voting methods that would have chosen Montroll (simply using the preferences indicated by the ballots cast by the voters themselves): Nanson-Baldwin, Black, Raynaud, Schulze-beatpaths, Simpson-Kramer minmax, BTR-IRV, Tideman-ranked-pairs, WBS-IRV, Copeland, Heitzig-River, Arrow-Raynaud, Borda, Dodgson, Bucklin and (probably) Range and Approval.  Voting methods that would have elected Wright: plurality.  Voting methods that would elect Kiss: IRV.

Another way we can look at this all: all of the above voting methods are unanimous in one thing: Wright was the least favorite of the top three choices (i.e., he was the “worst choice” or the least popular among them).  If this is true, then at the very least the election should come down to Kiss versus Montroll, and we know the voters preferred Montroll 54% to 46% over Kiss.

Again, none of this should be mis-construed: in a plurality voting system, Wright would have won the election despite being the “Lose-To-All loser” (i.e., he would lose head-to-head against either Montroll or Kiss), which would have been a far greater dis-service to consistency, fairness, and democracy.  As well, I am not particularly extrapolating from any of this a recommendation about what system should replace IRV.  Simply put, the jury is still out.  We do know, however, that plurality is pretty much the worst possible method for voting we could use.  As well, IRV doesn’t necessarily fail on this level every time- but the fact that it has, no matter what the statistical probability, is deeply concerning.  We also know that, according to the consensus of the political science and mathematical communities no known system completely satisfies the most basic and simple criteria for consistent, free and fair elections (and though there are a number of individuals or small sects which claim otherwise, these claims have thus far not been accepted by the wider academic community and therefore should be considered with care and a thorough examination of the facts; the public has generally demonstrated to have a weak stomach for having its democracy rest on the back of an unknown system).  Still, the claims of IRV have proven dubiously inconsistent at best,and possibly far worse than that.  Because of this the public needs to carefully, thoughtfully engage in a conversation about how best to move forward.  Range voting, for instance, may be a worthwhile step forward.

In an effort to pre-empt at least some of the critics who will come out against these conclusions: I absolutely favored Kiss to win and if I had lived in Burlington I would not only have voted for him, but probably would have volunteered for his campaign.  Likewise, the voters have approved IRV as the method they want to use and it is absolutely true that IRV produced Kiss as the winner, and I do not think any of this analysis calls into question the fact that he won the election and is mayor (Wright’s re-count, even if carried all the way through, would have reproduced Kiss as winner every time using IRV, which is the method Burlington currently uses, by law).  However, analysis of the ballots strongly suggests that Montroll was the most preferred candidate by the majority of the voters and the fact that IRV (or any other system) fails to elect him is troubling; again, not because I personally would prefer it (just the opposite, actually) but because the democratic will of the people would have.  Sound logic does not make value judgments, except against that which proves inconsistent.  The results from the 2009 mayoral race in Burlington were inconsistent (the candidate most preferred by the voters failed to win), unfair (voters intending one thing and preferring yet another got neither) and unfree (some voters would have gotten results more to their liking if they voted insincerely, or not at all).

(Lotsa numbers for you stat fiends out there. Nice. – promoted by JDRyan)

Cross-posted from Integral Psychosis

Burlington just re-elected Progressive Party mayor Bob Kiss (yes, in Vermont we have a third major Party, for those of you who aren’t from here- they’ve pretty much been in control of Burlington since 1981 and since then the city has won numerous “Most Livable  City”, “Greenest City”, “Healthiest City” (etc, etc) awards, so say what you will, they get results- nationally recognized results).  Congrats certainly to the people up there; “Silent Bob” would certainly have been my choice if I were voting there.

Most impressively, Burlington’s mayoral race was conducted using Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) (also known as preferential voting) as has been their practice since 2006.  So, how’d the system do?  Was the election fair?  Did the candidate with the most support win?

With numbers being supplied by the Burlington Free Press (OK, I know, I shouldn’t consider them a reliable source for anything but fire-starter, but they’ve got the most thorough unofficial numbers I’ve found yet)- we learn that in the third round of IRV Kiss received 4,313 (51.5%) first place votes to Republican Kurt Wright’s 4,061 (48.5).  Vermont law requires 50% + 1 (a majority) to win.  In the initial vote tallies, Wright had 2,951 first place votes to Kiss’ 2,585, Andy Montroll’s (D) 1,497, Dan Smith’s (I) 1,306 and James Simpson’s (Green Party) 35.  That brakes down roughly to 35.2%, 30.8%, 17.8%, 15.6%, .004% respectively.  True, Wright “won” the first round by having the most first place votes, but because by law “winning” the election means having 50%+1 of the people prefer you, it’s clear that no one is the winner, yet.  So Smith and Simpson were eliminated and the votes for them were re-distributed so that in the second round of calculations Montroll did the best by picking up 491 votes from Smith and Simpson supporters (for a total of 1,988 or 23.7%), Kiss gained 396 votes (2,981 total now for 35.6%), Wright gained 343 votes (3,294 or 39.3%).  At this point Wright is still “winning” but has not won, not by a long shot.  So then Montroll’s votes get re-distributed (looking at the number two choice from those ballots that had listed him as number one and looking at the third choice from those ballots that had chosen his number two) (and looking further down the ballot for anyone who chose someone who at this point had already been eliminated).  So in the decisive third round of vote tallies, Kiss picked up 1,332 votes and Wright grabbed 767- respectively totaling 4,313 (51.5%) to 4,061 (48.5%).  For the first time a candidate has over 50% of the votes and is declared winner: congrats, Mr Mayor!

Immediately, Kurt Wright and the right wing mainstream media have picked-up on the bullshit line that IRV has somehow failed the voters because Wright “won” initially but lost as a result of the system’s workings.  Lets be clear and spell it out for Wright, WCAX TV, the Burlington Free Press, and any other’s who want to try this fuzzy line of reasoning: by law (rightfully) a candidate must have over 50% of the vote to “win”.  Obviously with three “left” candidates (Progressive Kiss, Democrat Montroll and Green Simpson) and two “right” candidates (Republican Wright and independent Smith- who I recognize would take exception to being considered “right” but whatever, it’s superfluous to my argument here) (and just not true anyway) the left’s vote was spread thinner and the right  centralized their first-place votes.  In a mere plurality voting system (i.e., who ever has the most first-place votes wins) this would certainly have given Wright the victory.  But this is exactly why IRV is so good, and so important, because this whole exercise demonstrates that if that had been the case- if Wright were elected with that initial 35.2% vote, the new Mayor of Burlington would be someone supported by 48.5% of the people- and not supported by 51.5% of the people.  48.5% to 51.5% is not a democratic victory by any definition.

So Wright and WGOP, er, WCAX can bitch and moan all they want- claiming to be the “winner” with less than 50%+1 of the vote is akin to saying you prefer the winter over the summer because you prefer warm weather.  IRV worked perfectly in service of democracy and the will of the voters.  Now comes the task of getting the rest of our State’s elections to function fairly as well.

I’m seeing reports that Bob Kiss (P) won re-election as Burlington’s mayor, in the third round of the IRV (4,313 votes) over Kurt Wright (R- 4061).  Good choice Burlington.  

I’ve also heard that… no, I haven’t heard anything else.  Throw-down your Town Meeting Day results bellow…

( – promoted by odum)

(This is a re-posting of something I put up on Integral Psychosis last Valentine’s Day; it’s proven to be pretty popular and I’ve gotten a bunch of emails about it, so I figure I’ll share.  Hope you enjoy)

In all likelihood, a national poll would identify Osama Bin Laden as the most wanted criminal alive today.  A similar global poll just might even identify President George W. Bush as the holder of such a title.  Even still, if asked to identify the most devious criminal mind known to man, the more “reality-challenged” among us may give Lex Luthor the distinction.  But here in Vermont’s Capitol City, evil knows a different name: the Valentine’s Day Bandit.  While many prefer to think of this monster as a miraculous, wonderful gift of kindness and caring benevolence bestowed upon the people of Montpelier by an anonymous angel, I think it’s high time to shine some daylight onto the truly nefarious and shadowy reality of the person who asks to be known as the “Valentine’s Day Phantom”.

For those who don’t know, since the early 1990’s a person (or group of people) has mysteriously rushed through Vermont’s Capitol City in the pre-dawn hours of February 14th, taping 8 1/2 x 11 sheets of white paper with a singular, large red heart onto buildings, shop windows, street signs, homes, and the like.  The result is that, come Valentine’s Day morning, hundreds, if not thousands of these paper images over-take the visual landscape of Montpelier in what is surely as near to a miraculous sight as many of us will ever experience.

But it’s come time we stop reveling in this mystery, and get about to the truth of the matter: the self-described Valentine’s Day Phantom is without argument a social deviant.  While in and of themselves, the facts may be small and capable of being ignored, taken together, the picture we can paint of the Bandit/Phantom is not that of an earthly angel, but instead of no less than the Greatest Criminal Mind of Our Times:

Environment destruction.  In this Age of Global Warming, we can little afford the excess of carbon released into our atmosphere by the lengthy and inefficient industrial process of paper production and distribution.  Is the further destruction of our planet really an exceptable “blowback” from an annual act of “random kindness”?  Further, though out of vogue for about 15 years, once upon a time us environmentalists rallied around cries of “saving the rainforest” (yeah, remember the rainforests? they’re still being destroyed, and at a faster rate, with no help from the Phantom’s wayward usage of paper products).  In addition, it would be presumptuous of us to assume that each and every one of these pieces of paper make their way to be properly recycled, which although is a process that is far from carbon neutrality in it’s own right, nonetheless keeps mass out of our landfills and avoids even further de-forestation.  And lets not even get into the environmental costs of the ink used to print the Phantom’s little “gifts”: from production to the moment it is discarded, that is not a pleasant cycle.

Plagiarism.  Surely one of the most despicable of crimes: intellectual crime.  The Montpelier Phantom has struck our community since the early 1990’s.  However, since at least 1976 a “Valentine’s Day Phantom” has committed the identical terror throughout the city of Portland, ME.  Come on, Phantom, couldn’t you have at least become the “St Patrick’s Day Phantom” or the “Easter Phantom” (hell, I don’t care if you’re the “Memorial Day Phantom”!); originality is what makes for true magic-your copy-cat ways make you a criminal fit for the original Batman TV serious, not our modern, sophisticated world.

The image that we commonly refer to as a “heart” (the image of choice for this particular sociopath) is, frankly, un-American.  We all know (now, thanks to the efforts of Pat Robertson, Fox News, and many others) that our nation is a Christian nation; “under God”, and with good, Christian values.  Well let me let you in on something here folks: that heart image is widely believed to derived from either Pagan or Hindu imagery, and in both instances likely not in away associated with monogamy, prudence, or chastity.  The leading theory of the origins of what we refer to as a heart- hape: the ancient Greeks (well-known for their Dionysian orgies and intoxication) arrived at the shape out of their worship of the goddess of beauty, Aphrodite.  According to Dr Pranzarone of Roanoke College in Virginia, she “was beautiful all over, but was unique in that her buttocks were especially beautiful.  Her shapely, rounded hemispheres were so appreciated by the Greeks that they built a special temple to Aphrodite Kallipygos, which literally meant Goddess with the Beautiful Buttocks.  This was probably the only religious building in the world that was dedicated to buttock worship.”  As well, long before any European records of this symbol, the heart-shape (or  shapes quite similar) have often been found within Hindu art associated with the practice of Tantric sex.  Whichever of these are the true origin of the image, it is certainly something you’d want to put your parental controls on for if there were a television special about it.

As with all truly terroristic crimes, it is not just the crime itself that we must fear: there is ample evidence that the Valentine’s Day Phantom is a gathering menace who seeks not contentment, but in fact will inevitably expand upon his/her hellbent agenda.  Put more straightforward, the Phantom represents the growing possibility of future attacks on our American way.  For instance, in 2007, the Phantom not only took the bold step of demonstrating his/her ability to operate regardless of the most extreme weather conditions (a fact that anonymous sources in the intelligence community confirmed to me were beyond what was previously believed to be the Phantom’s technological limitations), but as well, the Phantom clearly violated the PATRIOT ACT’s definition of a terrorist, when he/she sought to influence the government by covering the Statehouse with the largest of these heart’s.

Just imagine- is it really possible to send a message of strength, dominance, and Manifest Destiny across the globe when our governmental centers are decorated like this?  Can we really persevere in our friendly neighborhood feuds with New York and Quebec, or our not so friendly one with New Hampshire, with an image like this likely to fall into their hands at any moment?

Even more troubling, in 2008 the Phantom (or members of his/her decentralized cell) for the first time expanded their reign of terror beyond the City limits of Montpelier, into Calais, East Montpelier, and according to a source I spoke with early that morning, throughout the inside of a home in Plainfield!  As Kissinger warned us: one bad apple can ruin the whole bunch, and since we failed to put an end to this menace at it’s onset, we now find ourselves faced with the expansion, the spread, of this maniacal worldview which has infested our mid-winter slumber and threatens to destroy all that we stand for.

My night started by heading over to the Old Labor Hall in Barre (diatribe: if you’ve never been, the Old Socialist Labor Hall in Barre is an absolutely amazing building: opened in 1900, it hosted some of the most radical thinkers of the early Twentieth Century and served as Barre’s central community space for decades).  There, the Vermont Worker’s Center was hosting a form on “Health Care as a Human Right” as part of their build-up to May 1st- for which every Vermonter is urged to call in sick to work and rally at the State House in Montpelier for universal health care now!

There were a number of moving testimonials from community members and then reactions from a panel of community “leaders”.  Before I left I got to hear Barre Rep Topper McFaun (R) take his turn on the panel and give an impassioned call out the the 60+ people in attendance to get in touch with their local representative’s and enact universal health care now… Rep McFaun, along with almost everyone else in attendance, was openly disgusted by the waste and greed and heartlessness of the American health care system and pleaded- pleaded- with everyone in attendance to “demonstrate outside the Statehouse” on May first, but also be in touch (“every chance you get”) with our local legislator’s to let them know that- like the rest of the industrialized world- we view health care as a human right that should be provided to every man, woman and child in this country.

There were many, many a moving speeches at the Old Labor Hall, but coming from an elected Republican, Topper’s was by far the most poignant to me.  Having heard the tales and woes of the previous speakers (as well as many others during his time in the legislature) Topper seemed just downright angry at the state of our health care system, and only passingly mentioned his recent “removal” from the Senate Health Care Committee (having, of course, nothing to do with the fact that he favors the immediate adoption of universal health care).

Summing up most of the evening’s speaker’s was Traven Leyshon of Middlesex, who noted (and offered to back up with cold, hard stats) that over the next three years a universal health care system in Vermont could save us “$240 million” merely on State employees and school system related costs.  “That’s not counting retirees” said Leyshon.

It was all very exciting and if you, like the rest of the industrialized world, consider health care- the chance to life a long and healthy and meaningful life- to be a human right like fire departments and running water and electric lights than you should join thousands of other Vermonter’s who will “call in sick” on May 1st and rally at the Statehouse in Montpelier.  If you do, and if you tell your friends that you’re going to do it, it will be meaningful and amazing and effective.

But so then later in the evening, on my way home, I stopped at Charlie-O’s for a beer or two, because hey, the ol’ lady is working overnight in Burlington.  And who should walk in but a local Senator who shall remain nameless (rhymes with “Will Rot”).  The (drunk) guy next to me sees him in his suit and tie and asks “So…. you’re a legislator?” to which he answers “yes” and introduces himself.  The patron asks the Washington County Republican “So… what’d ya say? if it was a Democrat in the governeor’s office, would he be proposing 600 layoffs?” (good fucking question, I thought) to which the Senator replied “Yes, you’ve got to do something, and there’s just nothing else to do; but hopefully you aim high and start a dialogue and what gets agreed upon isn’t so drastic…..” “Yeah, it’s bad out there” says the patron and “There’s just no other option” says the Senator, to which I say (loudly) “unless you want to close the capital gains tax loophole or otherwise tax the rich assholes in Stowe” to which the Senator smiles and turns around for a game of pool with his blond companion.

Shortly after, it was just time to come home to see the dogs and feed the fire.  But I still can’t help wondering: could the rest of the industrialized world be right? Do I really have a right to a chance at surviving illness debt free?  If I call my Senator’s and Representative’s and call out sick on May 1st will someone finally do something?

It’s worth a shot.

That’s the second thing that popped into my head, right after I thought “Wow, some actually clever, effective, and entertaining action from the activist ghetto”.  Check it out, from the UK Guardian:

The US defence department yesterday declared the end of the Iraq war and the immediate withdrawal of all troops, prompting an admission from Condoleezza Rice that the Bush administration knew all along that Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction, according to the New York Times.

On second thought, that introductory paragraph needs a little clarification. The New York Times proper didn’t report the end of the Iraq war. But a spoof 14-page “special edition” of the newspaper, circulating free on the streets of Manhattan today, did carry those items. It was printed in a form that was so high quality and technically accurate that many New Yorkers were nonplussed, backed up by an entire “New York Times” website that equally faithfully mimicked the original.

Dated July 4 2009, and boasting the front-page motto: “All the news we hope to print” in a twist on the daily’s famous phrase “All the news that’s fit to print”, the fake paper looks forward to the day the war ends, and envisages a chain of events that would be manna from heaven for American liberals.

In one story, ExxonMobil is taken into public ownership. In another, evangelical churches, the backbone of the Bush-supporting Christian right, open the doors of their mega-churches to Iraqi refugees.

The organisers of the high-quality and evidently expensive satire have cloaked themselves deliberately in a layer of mystery. They are connected at least to some degree to a group of activists calling themselves the Yes Men, a left-wing group that seeks to expose what it claims to be the “nastiness of powerful evildoers” through sophisticated pranks.

When the Guardian contacted the Yes Men, it received a swift response from a spokesman for the New York Times spoof going by the name of Wilfred Sassoon. He said that the Yes Men had helped with distribution, but that the paper itself had been produced by a number of anonymous writers from various New York dailies, including a couple from the New York Times itself.

“The idea behind it was to get people to exercise their imaginations,” “Sassoon” said. “We have just elected a new president, and we have for the first time in eight years a chance to see real change happen. But it won’t happen unless we keep the pressure up on politicians to do what they were elected to do.”

The project, he said, had taken about six months and had been funded by a large number of small donors.

A main target of the prank is clearly the New York Times itself. The spoof contains an editorial apologising for the paper’s “botched reporting” of the run-up to the Iraq invasion, and a column from Thomas Friedman in which he declares that he has repented of his earlier backing of the war and decided never again to write for this or any other paper.

The New York Times said it was “in the process of finding out more” about its imitation. That, at least, could be taken at face value.

There’s also a cool video about the fake NY Times, which I can’t figure out how to embed here, so you’ll have to just go check it out.  And three cheers to some good ol’ fashioned pranksterism, telling it like it is.  Abby would certainly be proud.