Posted under The South
I thought HarrisonBergeron might interested in this interview Rob Williams posted on his site Vermont Commons (www.vtcommons.org). Some flunkie from the SPLC is giving Williams the third-degree because the Second Vermont Republic group which Williams is affiliated with just happened to be at the same secessionist conference as the League of the South ( a major sin in their eyes) and Williams brushes her off.
Clearly there are people scared not just of the secessionist movements, but the joining of the old left and old right. Nearly 12% of Vermonters supported independence in a poll in February and it’s obvious some want to split the movement by using connections to the LOS as a way to tarnish non-Southern groups like the Second Vermont Republic.
Sorry, it’s not going to happen. Perhaps the SPLC should get ready for the next secessionist conference in November.
HarrisonBergeron2 on 29 Apr 2008 at 9:57 pm #
Patroon,
Thanks for posting! Here’s my response:
http://www.dixienet.org/rebellion/2008/04/vermont-commons-editor-rob-williams.html
roho on 29 Apr 2008 at 10:02 pm #
Wow!…………Heidi was in over her head, and will now resort to slander and misinformation.(“Ze vill be sorry fo dees statements!”)……..Ha-Ha!
csason on 30 Apr 2008 at 1:00 am #
November will be an even larger and better conference, for sure.
Tad B. Johnson on 30 Apr 2008 at 6:27 pm #
Hey, everyone,
I just came back from a business trip to India…It’s amazing what’s happening out there….Global capital is trying to destroy their history and culture, too, and is branding anyone who stands up to them as terrorists or backwards…Very messed up.
I’m always in support of anyone who stands up for their communities against exploitative companies…
TBJ
HarrisonBergeron2 on 30 Apr 2008 at 7:27 pm #
Tad B. Johnson,
I heard a story on NPR yesterday about young foreign-born Indians returning to their ancestral homeland. Globalism is indeed a world-wide solvent of human values and heritage, but the backlash has already begun.
http://www.8asians.com/2008/04/28/abcds-american-born-confused-desis/
Andrew T. on 30 Apr 2008 at 8:40 pm #
Guys, the increase in market freedom in India is bringing millions out of poverty and is working to dissolve their brutally oppressive caste system.
Tad B. Johnson on 01 May 2008 at 1:22 am #
Andrew T.,
That’s the classic free trader line on it but it’s more intricate than that. A buddy of mine with whom I went on this trip is writing about it for the new republic. Basically, the value of what these companies extract out of India is way more than what they put in. American companies are now doing what the East India Company did not too long ago.
The problem isn’t that trade is bad as trade – the problem is that the specific arrangements in question are bad. As far as destroying caste and the like, yeah, that’s great, but the other things that are being destroyed are awful. Temples that have stood in the same place for centuries, long before there was such a thing as a deed, are being destroyed so that new burra sahibs and mem sahibs can have TGIFridays.
So if you want to discuss hypotheticals of trade, great. If you want to talk about specific nuts and bolts of how trade with India is not as good for India as it could be and not as good for America as it could be, I’ll have the real conversatoin with you.
TBJ
HarrisonBergeron2 on 01 May 2008 at 1:45 am #
Trade is one thing, but globalist levelling is something else. We’re becoming a McPlanet.
Weaver on 01 May 2008 at 9:09 am #
An Indian I lived near while at Georgia Tech told me his grandfather was a member of the ruling class of Kashmir and owned a palace with catacombs.
Land redistribution programs however meant that he’d have to sell the palace, presumably then the state would take it over (hopefully it wouldn’t be demolished, though Muslims are in the majority there now, and I speculate that they would not appreciate a Hindu palace.)
It’s typical of Americans to insist that transforming another society in their image is an “improvement.”
Caste systems are not inherently wrong, and with the revolution in the caste system comes other transformations.
You can’t expect to radically transform another society and not lose some good with it.
roho on 01 May 2008 at 3:06 pm #
India has some major issues with Western Globalists such as Monsanto. I’ve read many articles regarding the manipulation of agriculture on our part where seeds are designed in a lab to respond to Monsanto’s pesticides, locking the agriculture base into a serfdom.(Farming is not my forte)…www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=212.
These long addresses rarely work for me, but theres tons of information on the net regarding India securing “old seeds” not yet tainted by the globalist genetic engineering.(I suspect that the globalist are actually destroying all of the small farmers on a world wide basis?)……..And spinning it with fighting famine!
HarrisonBergeron2 on 02 May 2008 at 6:38 pm #
Weaver,
I totally agree. There is deep wisdom within any system that persists through several generations.
When a social arrangement no longer suits the needs of its people, the justification and means of adjusting or ending it will trickle up from the people, creating a voluntary, enduring change the people will support.
That’s why change imposed from outside is often resisted, and, if it is forced upon them, will eventually fail.
Weaver on 03 May 2008 at 4:26 am #
HarrisonBergeron2,
If the West left India alone while giving it some investment and, most importantly, sending in missionaries I’d hope a slow quiet transformation would be possible that would lead to an enduring, deeply Christian nation with ties to its ancestors in the past.
Imagine if families there could trace back a thousand or more years to ancestors who had inhabited the same region of land. And imagine ancient pagan temples purified and hosting small churches within.
The population crisis is very serious, and I don’t know how best that should be handled. But otherwise I find this a beautiful ideal. With India’s diversity, perhaps it could grow to become like Switzerland.
What would become of the caste system etc., I know not though it’s natural for those who are gifted to rise up in caste systems I think. In elitist theory, those systems that prohibit the gifted from rising up are overthrown by said gifted.
India is so terribly complex I know only bits and pieces of it. Ideally perhaps it would be broken up along ethnic lines.
===
The West could in theory invest virtuously, but we’re so terribly corrupt that it’s a given such isn’t taking place. Or where it is, we’re seeking to impose our ideological values on India.
I’m all for encouraging Christian values but not ideological values.
Weaver on 03 May 2008 at 4:47 am #
Ah, I should refer to India as a supranation, not a nation.
And ideally of course those at influential positions within a caste system act, to a degree, in the betterment of the system and people within as a whole, where such is within their rightful power.
“There is deep wisdom within any system that persists through several generations.” — This is very true. And order is likely preferred to chaos in most cases. Revolutions are uncertain too, and no order is ideal.
Lately I’ve been reading tales of Morris Dees and have been shocked and disgusted. He’s made millions in an immoral fashion within our “free” society…
There will always be abuses. If a society is virtuous, these abuses will be lessoned. And I again think sending missionaries is the best way to improve India’s virtue.
I agree with what you say regarding trickling from “the people” but I’d add to that – there’s a natural elite within any community. I realise you meant the people as opposed to a central state though.
It would be wonderful if churches spread throughout a decentralised India and slowly transformed each community and region. I’m not sure today’s Christians are much better than today’s secularists though – they all seem to dream the same dream of a new world order under a single benevolent state… If Indians could take the actual teachings and religion without the liberal ideology, that’d be ideal.