Bill Kauffman: Bye, Bye, Miss American Empire

Orion Magazine July/Aug 2007

Secession talk in New England, cradle of Unionism, bête noire of the Confederacy, source of the “Battle Hymn of the (indivisible!) Republic”? Yet no region of the country has been as fertile a ground for secessionist thought as New England...

If Dick Cheney isn’t a dark alien force I don’t know what is. But a healthy secessionist movement must be founded in love: love of a particular place, its people (of all ethnicities and colors), its culture, its language and books and music and baseball teams and, yes, its beer and flowers and punk rock clubs.