Cabot VT, October 2016- As is plain to all who care to see, beyond our Green Mountains, the United States of America is a troubled place.[124] National elections are contested by shills for corporate interests, buffoons, liars, and caricatures of what polls suggest the people of Ohio and Florida and Virginia want them to be. When an honest man or woman does step forward, the party machines mobilize to cut them down. In Congress the two parties lock their jaws around each other’s throats over petty disagreements amounting to who can stick it to working class families faster than the other. The public, in turn, is fed the facsimile of conflict framed as a moderately interesting sporting event over the nightly news. As a result, public disinterest grows, working people withdraw from substantive debate, and otherwise good people are drawn into the corporate media’s advertised notion of what one should want or be (which not surprisingly coincides with the interests of the wealthy & powerful). The polls reflect these manufactured opinions, and the politicians compete to reflect these distortions. The death grip tightens.

I was once passing through some dying farm country in up-state New York. I took refuge in a hole-in-the-wall tavern. Over a $1 shot of whiskey and with a basketball game unfolding on a battered old TV (sound turned off), I asked the farmer next to me what the local issues were. He said he did not know and otherwise had no opinion; he told me he had given it no thought because no one ever asked him what he thinks and no one would care if he did say something. In New York, democratic expression, from the birth of the State, amounts to pulling a lever in a private voting booth once every four years for one of two candidates or for are against a local budget that they had no hand in crafting. And no matter how many levers are pulled, rarely does anything of genuine public interest see fruition.

Ethan Allen, a man who fought with musket and saber to forge our right to govern our communities through a true Town Meeting system, once said: “The Gods of The Valleys Are Not The Gods of The Hills.” Vermont is cut from a different cloth, agreed. Have a drink with any farmer within a rifle shot of your home; there will be no shortage of opinions on issues, I assure you. You may hear about the need to retain our school, the need to abolish property tax (in favor of a progressive income tax), what our community would be best served to do with our grant money, or how we should buy a new plow truck (but perhaps not spend too much extra on all the bells and whistles). You may hear that we need to reduce spending by cutting private contracts, but maybe we should increase the line item for languages (like French) in the school. Point being, Vermonters have opinions; we are informed because WE THE PEOPLE have a very real and very meaningful voice (the final voice!) in what is done within aspects of our communities. And here I would be lying if I said that relegating our local democracy to a voting booth would carry the same effect. When one no longer has the right and ability to propose changes, from the floor, to the budgets, and when one is now only expected to vote something secretly up or down (and leave all the details to a small Select Board or small School Board) we have lost a core element of who we are and who we will be.

The first Republic of Vermont was founded upon the rock of local participatory democracy. From times too long ago for even our great-great grandparents to remember, Town Meeting has served as the meaningful basis upon which our citizenry organizes itself. Town Meeting does not mean many of us being in one place at one time. Town Meeting does not mean hosting a debate with no binding resolution. Town Meeting, in its true sense, means the citizens of a community will come together, as needed, to both debate the issues of the day and then to act on those issues in an honest way while looking each other in the eye. For generations we have acted upon the belief that the many, when gathered together and committed to the common good, will make the best decision more times than not. Democracy, for us, is no abstraction.

But as I write these words, I understand that there are now those in our community of Cabot who advocate for the sacrificing of our proud and true traditions of participatory democracy on the altar of the voting booth (for the reward of convenience). Such a proposal is blasphemy against the principles upon which Vermont was founded; principles which men and women died for (and today continue to die for in other parts of the World). A true Town Meeting demands we face our neighbors and courageously declare where we stand (and not hide our decisions behind a curtain). A true Town Meeting demands we, as citizen-legislators, retain our rights to change or modify proposals based on reason and collective need (not simply provide a blanket sanction or rejection of a proposal from the few). A true Town Meeting demands that the citizenry retain the authority which it won through struggle (to do less is to dishonor our common ancestors).

Even so, I have listened to the arguments of some of our neighbors, and here I have heard some legitimate concerns. Having to miss a day at the job without pay (for a working class person) can be hard. Finding childcare can be hard. I agree. But working people should not be forced to diminish their collective rights because aspects of our society have thus far failed to take their needs into account. Instead we must learn from the many Unionized workers who have won a paid holiday for Town meeting Day in their Contracts. And here we all must demand that Montpelier mandate Town Meeting Day a paid State holiday for all. We must require that our State Representatives and Senators support this proposal or we must vote them out of office. We also must organize as a community, ourselves, and find the means to provide organized childcare during the duration of all Town Meetings. We would also do well to find ways to expand the role of the floor vote at Town Meeting to include articles that may presently be voted on in the booth. By protecting the pay of working people, by providing parents the ability to spend some hours focusing on town issues, and by expanding the scope of decisions made on the floor we will increase democratic participation and not lesson it.

In conclusion, the great pragmatist and Vermonter, John Dewey once proclaimed: “the solution to the ills of democracy is more democracy.” Are we now to turn our back on this premise and join the other States in their march towards the disempowerment of The People? I for one say no. And at Town Meeting, 7pm on Thursday 10/20/16, I invite you and your family to do the same.