I am up in Vermont today, checking out a law school. I had heard the city of Burlington referred to as a center of socialism, and indeed their longtime mayor, and one of the Green Mountain state’s current U.S. Senators, Bernie Sanders, is a self-described, not a Fox-described, socialist.
The association of socialism with this decidedly rural state is odd: From the looks of it, there is not very much in the means of production to be turned over to the proletariat! Mostly dairy farms and ski slopes as far as I can tell.
Here in South Royalton, which is far from Burlington, the feel is not so much socialistic as retro. White clapboard church, white clapboard houses, pristine creek. Even the one crunchy enviro feature, the composting toilets which, a sign above the one in the Chase Student Center announces, uses no water and no chemicals, is a throwback to the days of the outhouse, although it is nice having them inside. On the way to New Hampshire to check out another school this afternoon we intend to stop at the birthplace of Joseph Smith, the Prophet of the Mormon Church. From Mormonism to socialism or socialism to Mormonism, maybe it is something in the water in that pristine creek.
