University of Vermont Professor Frank Bryan Quits the Vermont Secession Movement

It probably had to happen. Breakups are never a pretty thing and this one has been going on in slow motion for years.

The basis for the relationship was never really all that strong. Sure, they
shared a liking for some of the same things and they had even shared professional interests. Maybe relationship is too strong a term; mutualistic might better describe what was going on.

Alright, this is all getting a little confusing so perhaps asking the question, "How did Frank M. Bryan, a quirky, respected professor at University of Vermont get hooked up with an anti-American poseur and would be founding father of an independent Vermont Republic, Thomas Naylor?" might clear things up. Or not.

For sure, only Frank will ever be the one to answer that question for himself, but what is clear is that he has "left the (Vermont secession) movement." This, according to Ohio secessionist Harold Thomas, from an email sent by Bryan three months ago to Thomas:

"I left the (Vermont secession) movement for the following reason:"

"I love America. I tear up when I hear America the beautiful sung correctly. I say the Pledge of Allegiance and mean it when I do."

"I could not stand by and watch the American flag burned. I honor our soldiers past and present and so on."

"I viewed secession as a divorce breaking up a marriage when both partners may still love one another. (It happens.) Plus I felt (and still do) that Vermont could survive and prosper as an independent Republic. With all that said I simply could not stand my own hypocrisy any longer."

"Actually I stayed on the advisory committee of the SVR (Second Vermont Republic) longer than I should have because (I) was told that 'some people' were calling us racist. I was so put off by that kind of McCarthyist tactic that I didn't want to seem to verify it by resigning at that point."

'Course, here Bryan has again made the same empty charge about being called a racist that Naylor, Rob Williams, and the rest of the Vermont secesher wingnuts have, that early on they were all called racists. The charge was then that the Second Vermont Republic advisory board had been packed with racists from the League of the South. Thomas Naylor has made no secret of his longtime alliance with openly racist groups like the LoS. Williams, when faced with the fact that some of his LoS type pals could be racist responded:

"Is he a racist? I don’t know. And frankly, it is none of my damn business, at a personal level."

You'd think that Bryan, a professor of political science, could at least get the basic facts right.

The split up between Bryan and Naylor's SVR is more than two years old. Naylor drummed Bryan out of his fantasy, secessionist republic in this statement found in a March 2009 edition of UVM's campus publication, The Vermont Cynic:

"Bryan agrees that Vermont is not ready to secede at this point in time and Naylor has said that 'Frank Bryan is not a secessionist' because of this belief."

"'If you said Vermont could secede tomorrow, I would say to you, we're not ready to secede tomorrow. I'm glad I'm not going to see Vermont secede from the union because I'd be desperately lonely. I don't think I even want my kids to [see it happen],' Bryan said.

"(Rob) Williams is on Naylor's side."

Source

On that point we can all agree that Bryan is correct. The deceptive and dishonorable campaign conducted by Naylor, Williams and their lackeys has been so offensive - particularly the undisguised hatred for the vast majority of Vermonters and their institutions - that the very idea of SVR and VTCommons ever succeeding in seceding has become a statewide joke that no one, aside from the "small community" of secesher "Internet cowboys" wants to "see it happen." Between Naylor's increasingly shrill, tweedy tirades against Israel & Vermonters, while at the same time lauding Holocaust denying Ahmadinejad, and Williams' increasingly embarrassing attempts to gain relevance by inviting the uninterested into meeting with him to explain themselves to him, prior to which he launched an Islamophobic, racist attack on President Obama, it becomes progressively clear how unhinged the leadership of the secesher movement (a figure of speech only) has become.

Here's what Naylor has said about the Iranian leader whose country, under his leadership, "remain(s) the most active state sponsor of terrorism": [1] [2]

"Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is one of the few leaders in the world who possesses the courage to confront the United States and Israel."

Source

The Bryan/Naylor squabble spilled into the public eye in this Seven Days story from late last summer, as well as in a report about it here:

Frank Bryan, a UVM political science professor who spent years arguing for Vermont’s secession, says running candidates was always a goal of the movement. But he argues its current approach is wrong.

“One of the problems with all the secessionists is they’re impatient,” says Bryan, who has turned his back on secession. “They want to go to the top immediately with candidates who really don’t have a lot of experience in governing.”

What candidates like Dennis Steele should do, Bryan argues, is run for school board and city council before seeking statewide office, to establish a record, gain experience and earn the trust of voters.

Naylor calls that argument “totally absurd."

(Connecticut native) “Dennis Steele has done more for the Vermont independence movement in the last six months than anyone has done in the last seven years,” Naylor says. “The only way you could have that platform is by running for governor.”

Naylor knows his candidates face an uphill battle. Even though one UVM poll suggested 13 percent of Vermonters favor secession (VS Editor's Note: a push poll bought and paid for by Naylor - see polling section in right column of this blog), he doesn’t expect that to translate directly into votes. Naylor would be happy if Steele got 10 percent, he says, itself a lofty goal.

Naylor knows the word “secession” carries some very negative connotations. “Secession is anathema. Secession is failure. Secession is civil war. Secession is racism,” he admits with obvious frustration. “Those are hard things to overcome.”

It's now known that Steele failed to get anywhere near the 10% that Naylor said he'd be "happy" to get. Rather, Steele got a fringer's usual less than one percent (0.79%).

Carol Moore, an anti-Semitic blogger and one of Rob Williams' contributors at Vermont Commons, is a coatracking specialist at Wikipedia who has been trying to hide the fact that Frank Bryan has left the SVR advisory board for years, as well as conceal the fact that there's a dearth of true believers in the Vermont secesher movement. No less a true believer than Vermont Commons' publisher emeritus and Naylor pal, Ian Baldwin, has labeled the movement "our small community of secessionists." [1] [2]

The Vermont secession movement has been based on historic misrepresentations, deliberate deceptions and has relied on the half-baked ideals of a coterie of bigots, anti-Semites, homophobes, racists and/or regional supremacists.

With that sort of a foundation for the relationship, a breakup just had to happen.

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