Hippies Were First, And By Gaia They Had Nukes

Secession movement goes beyond Texas

"AUSTIN -- As head of the Texas Nationalist Movement, Daniel Miller of Nederland believes it's time for the Lone Star State to sever its bond with the United States and return to the days when Texas was an independent republic.
"Independence. In our lifetime," Miller's organization proclaims on its Web site.
When Gov. Rick Perry suggested that some Texans might want to secede from the Union because they are fed up with the federal government, the remarks drew nationwide news coverage and became fodder for late-night comedians.
But to Texas separatists like Miller and Republican gubernatorial candidate Larry Kilgore of Mansfield, secession is no laughing matter. Nor is it exclusive to the nation's second-largest state.
Fanned by angry contempt for Washington, secession movements have sprouted up in perhaps more than a dozen states in recent years. In Vermont, retired economics professor Thomas Naylor leads the Second Vermont Republic, a self-styled citizens network dedicated to extracting the sparsely populated New England state from "the American Empire."
And on the other side of the continent, Northwestern separatists envision a "Republic of Cascadia" carved out of Oregon, Washington and the Canadian province of British Columbia."

"Ecotopia, The Notebooks and Reports of William Weston"
by Ernest Callenbach 1975

"The book is set in a 1999 future (25 years in the future, seen from 1974) and consists of the diary entries and reports of William Weston, a mainstream media reporter who is the first American proper to investigate Ecotopia, a newly formed country that broke from the USA in 1980. Prior to Weston's investigative reporting, most Americans had not been allowed to enter the new country, which is depicted as being on continual guard against revanchism. The new nation of Ecotopia consists of Northern California, Oregon and Washington; it is hinted that Southern California is a lost cause. The book is presented as a combination of narrative from Weston's diary and dispatches that he transmits to his publication, the mythical Times-Post.
Together with Weston, who at the beginning is curious about, but not particularly sympathetic to the Ecotopians, the reader learns about the Ecotopian train system, lifestyle, human blood-sports, politics (their leader is the female Ecotopian, Vera Allwen), gender relations, racial policy, sexual freedom, cannabis use, energy production, military strategy, agriculture, advanced weapons industry, education, and medical system. The narrative is told through both his official cables back to the United States and through his diary which he keeps and later sends to his editor at the end of his assignment. These parallel narrative structures allow the reader to see how his internal reflections, as recorded in his diary, are reflected in his external pronouncments to his readers. Despite his initial hesitation, throughout the novel, Ecotopian citizens are characterized as clever, technologically resourceful and occasionally violent, but also socially responsible, patriotic and often inclined to work and live in racially/ethnically "self-segregated" local team configurations. The novel concludes with Weston defecting from the United States, and remaining in Ecotopia as an immigrant to the new country."