The Case for Greater Peterborough

The day is coming - and sooner than we may think - when Peterborough will be confronted with the choice as to whether to annex and absorb her neighbors, and when her neighbors will be confronted with the choice to accept her bosom or to resist it at incalculable cost. 

I recognize that, to most, this seems a criminally insane sort of statement, but I promise you that it will not seem so for long. We live in fast times, times of rapid change, times in which what seemed unfathomable yesterday is being debated today and might well seem halfway normal by tomorrow. Mistakes are costly during such times, and the mistake of assuming that absolutely anything is off the table is a relatively easy one to avoid - if one is careful. 

It won’t literally happen overnight, of course. Everyone seemingly across the political spectrum assumes that centralized, borderline-authoritarian federal power will only increase in the years to come. This is one possibility. But imagine, if you will, another possibility: the possibility that the opposite is true. What if centralized authority were to decline, leaving more in the hands of states and perhaps regional consortiums of states? Imagine a state like New Hampshire under these conditions, a state with a massive and unwieldy legislature and several other anachronistic governmental features - would it be hard, from there, to imagine power (and responsibility) further devolving to localities? 

Some, even acknowledging such potentialities, would still dismiss them as significantly less likely than more conventional forecasts, but ask yourselves whether climate catastrophes and economic chaos and supply problems turning to full-scale scarcity are things likely to produce more order or...well, something else? 

In such a world, the Monadnock Region would face a slate of arguably unpleasant choices. The obvious one, of course, is one we can all agree must be avoided at all costs: all of us getting swallowed by Keene, absorbed and drowned into the giant midwestern Applebees that it is. And if we do agree that such a fate cannot be allowed to befall us, alternative options remain limited. An alliance could perhaps be arranged with Milford, although any town in the Monadnock Region proper, Peterborough included, would find itself a junior partner in such an arrangement. Not the worst outcome, but not ideal, either. We could certainly also petition to fall under the auspices of Nashua, either as a semiautonomous protectorate or a more direct fiefdom; again, better than falling victim to Keene, but not ideal, and also there’s no guarantee that Nashua would even accept such a proposal. We can’t even be certain that they know who we are. 

Then again, when it comes to times of greater desperation, we are not a resource-poor region, and this may prove an attraction for a bigger minor power like Nashua. It also points toward a powerful argument for Monadnock Regional Independence. Some would dismiss this as pie-in-the-sky idealism, but I believe not merely in our cultural and social distinction as a region, but our right and destiny toward self-determination. 

We should be the masters of our own destiny. 

But if it is to be possible, the only stable form such an independent confederation could take would require a powerful center around which to be oriented, and even the proud folk of Rindge (if only quietly, behind closed doors, and in moments of weakness) would be hard-pressed to deny that the only town that could possibly qualify would be Our Town herself. In the circles of the quietly influential - you know them, if not by name, as the ones nestled in our hills who call all the real shots - the war-gaming is already being done, if only, at present, as a mere parlor game. 

Conventional wisdom holds that some towns will be more likely to cooperate willingly, even enthusiastically, while certain others will unquestionably hold out, trying in vain to ascertain their own micro-independent self-determination. But such efforts will prove in vain, however, for none will prove strong enough on their own to resist the other likely outcomes. Nor will the towns who readily agree to such a confederation be able to afford to tolerate such resistance given the need for strategic security and resource collectivization. 

Rather than resist the future, I choose to begin this conversation. In doing so, I stand unequivocally and openly in favor of a Greater Peterborough. 

Angelo Voiello is a French-Italian philosopher and financier, as well as a former Cardinal. He lives in Sharon with his three dachshunds.