Vermont: We grow them good, fearless, and without Bull Shit!

[glowing]

I didn't realize Michael Hastings was from Vermont (my home state and where most my family and friends still live). And knowing that, I can understand why he was the way he was.

We grow up in the mountains, raise milk cows and other small family farms, we value nature (70% of our roads are still dirt), and we do things naturally still (don't ever offer anyone from VT anything but real maple syrup or we'll laugh at you and walk away from a pile of blueberry pancakes)...

Vermont used to be Republican to the core for liberty values and people minding their own damned business, unless someone is in need and then everyone rallies. Tough, resilient, and able to smell the pile of steaming cow pattie shit a mile away. It doesn't surprise me that he would do reporting his way. We aren't conformists... so, when the Republican Party lost its mind, the state kept on with their traditions.

AND those who come into the state learn our values quickly. Look at Howard Dean and Bernie Sanders. Look at our homegrown town hall meetings held every March that decides the budgets, taxes, pay, and even how much sand/ salt to buy for the upcoming winter for the road crew.

We quite frankly don't have the time or the lobbyists who would take any amount of time to do stupid things. If it makes more sense to combine everyone into one general "Medicare for All" type of program for health care coverage, then we are going to do so. If the town or the kids need something budgeted in, then paying an extra cent or two makes sense, but when the cost has been covered, the tax rate can decrease; not kept in the budget to pay for some "perk".

Growing up in this manner and in Burlington, VT, he knows, or I should say knew, a moral sense of right and wrong and that the rest of the country is F'd up and that we were the lucky one's to grow up like we did... I just turned 34, we are the same age, basically. This means that he was insulated in VT culture. Internet was just barely becoming something that we could use at school. We had little influence from the outside world. We came of age when grunge and Kirk Cobain was popular... A big time fuck off to the crappy 80's and beginning 90's. Clinton was the only Democrat we knew as a President. Our education was probably much better than most of the nation has/ have because we were taught to think, analyze, use critical thinking skills, and convey those thoughts in a concise and compelling manner. We also had smaller classes and teachers who knew us and knew when we were slacking off or pulling out the best stuff... Plus UVM was right there in his hometown.

I am particularly pissed off that one of the good one's is gone. I'm not at all convinced that this was an "accident". And if more comes to light in the following days, I'll become even more angry that they took one of OURS. We may be a state no one really knows where is on a geographical map of the USA, or what we Vermonters are made of (and that is just fine with us - keep the crap out), but we are feirce when we need to be!

We grow them good, honest, and with a proud history of doing things the way they should be done in the world... If that means we are walking in the opposite direction than the rest of the crowd, that's just fine with us. Those of us who have left out of the state are first shocked by how awful our fellow citizens have been manipulated into doing the most illogical things. When the shock wears off, then, we somehow feel obligated to get opinionated and speak truth even if it personally harms us. Doing the right thing is more important in this short life then half assing it or selling ourselves out.

RIP Michael! Peace Be with your Family at this time. You made us proud and impacted the world even in your too short life. Thank you. You will be missed. AND if this was something hinky, I do hope we will be able to dig the truth out; just as you have done for the rest of us. Rest now - feel the peace like a mid winter's day after the snow has fallen and the landscape envelopes you in a beautiful white blanket of perfection.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. Thank you for that wonderful and beautiful essay!

Very well done.

K&R

[glowing]

2. Thank you. VT is so small, when someone leaves us like this, we feel it,

even if we have never met them. The mountains are infused into our blood. I still need to go back to refresh myself every so often. I need to see those mountains, smell that crisp, clean air and just breath. It's like a piece of the earth literally runs through our blood when we are born. And you aren't a "Vernonter" unless you are born there. My dad isn't a "Vermonter" even though he's lived there for most of his life and longer than I ever did... But my mom, sister and myself are.

I don't know how to explain what going home or that it will always be the place I will define as my home, even though my physical address is in Florida, is something I'm not sure I do justice with my words. (You can imagine how living in Florida is aggravating as nothing else at times).

[flamingdem]

3. I heart VT

[glowing]

7. Me too!

[freedom fighter jh]

9. Me three nt

[monmouth3]

5. A beautiful tribute, both to Michael and to Vermont...

[glowing]

13. Thank you.

[cali]

6. glowing, so glad you wrote this.

Michael Hastings loved Vermont passionately. He wrote about it frequently and was planning to move back soon. He's the cover story of this summer's issue of Vermont Life. It was published prior to his death.

I know Calvin Coolidge said it, but I've always loved this quote:

"I love Vermont because of her hills and valleys, her scenery and invigorating climate, but most of all because of her indomitable people. They are a race of pioneers who have almost beggared themselves to serve others. If the spirit of liberty should vanish in other parts of the Union, and support of our institutions should languish, it could all be replenished from the generous store held by the people of this brave little state of Vermont."

Also, we're growing a great new crop of politicians!

Dave Zuckerman:

Zuckerman ran for the Vermont House in 1994 while still enrolled in college, losing by 59 votes. He ran again two years later and become the fourth Progressive Party member to serve in the Vermont State House, a seat that he held through 2010.[1]

Prior to serving in the House, he served on the Burlington Electric Commission. While in the House he served for 6 years on the Natural Resources and Energy Committee as well as 6 years on the Agriculture Committee, including 4 as the Chairperson. He finished his time in the House of Representatives by serving on the Ways and Means Committee. In 2005, Zuckerman considered running for the sole Vermont seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in the 2006 U.S. House election, that was being vacated by Independent Rep. (now Senator) Bernie Sanders, eventually deciding not to run in order to continue serving as Agriculture Chair in the Vermont House of Representatives.

Zuckerman ran for Vermont State Senate in 2012 and won as a Progressive/Democrat. [2][3]

In his time in the General Assembly Sen. Zuckerman has been involved in the passage of Vermonts Civil Union and Marriage equality laws, Workers rights legislation, increasing the minimum wage, sustainable (economic and environmental) agricultural policy, marijuana policy reform, election law reform, many renewable energy initiatives, progressive taxation policy as well as universal healthcare.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Zuckerman_%28politician%29



Phil Baruth,: D-State Senator, writer, commentator and professor

Tim Ashe: Another Progressive Party State Senator

Ashe worked at the Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity from 2005 to 2006. Since the Fall of 2006, Ashe has been a Project Manager at Cathedral Square, a nationally recognized[citation needed] non-profit developer of affordable housing for seniors and people with disabilities.

In November 2008 Tim Ashe became the first elected Vermont Progressive to be elected to the Vermont Senate. And in November 2010 was the first Progressive to win reelection to the senate. He won on a Progressive/Democratic fusion ticket and was endorsed by Senator Bernie Sanders.[2][3]

And there are quite a few more.

[glowing]

8. Thanks Cali...

We grew up hearing about the Green Mountain Boys and running barefoot as soon as snow and school let out (something I still tend to do - people tell me my feet look like an old woman's because they are tough)... Not too many mani- pedi's for me (unless for a special event).

And the girls are just as tough as men. I had to do chores at my grandpa's barn right alongside my male cousin. My mom had to pull horses at the fairs alongside her father (u probably know what I mean)... And she was doing that at 16 yrs young..

Don't get me wrong, not everyone in VT is a homespun, quality, hard working person, but most are. And many don't even realize how different they are from the rest told the country and the world.

I'm glad to see progress is in forward motion, while still preserving the good things that make the state one of the best hidden secrets.

[Auntie Bush]

10. We Vermonters have a lot be proud of.

I couldn't be more proud and happy to be a Vermonter. There's no place like the beautiful Green Mountains where I live.

We were asked once in a course. If you had all the money in the world...where would you like to live? I chose my own home here in VT.

It's so depressing to lose another important, valuable, sensitive, thinking Vermonter.
RIP Michal.

[Earth_First]

11. Peace be unto Michael...

...and yourself.

By the way...I have one additional gift that the State of Vermont has offered: Phish.

[cali]

12. hey, what about Grace Potter?

[glowing]

14. Ah, yes, how can we forget a great phish concert...