Second Vermont Republic's Thomas Naylor Clumsily Attempts to Co-opt the Occupy Wall Street Movement

The first hint that the baas of the Second Vermont Republic, the Dixie singin' Thomas Naylor, was about to make his move to begin his attempt at co-opting what he can of the Occupy Wall Street movement came in a screed pissing on virtually every New Yorker now living in NYC (except for, of course, Brooklynite secessionist flack, Christopher Ketcham). Kind of like Naylor's repeated past condemnation of all Vermonters that I wrote about here.

A week later Naylor showed where he was heading in a post at his website titled, The Wall Street Occupation Gets It, Almost, where he wrote:

"I view myself as an enthusiastic supporter of the Wall Street Occupation (WSO) movement."

Thing is, Tom, that isn't what the movement is called, nor is that the acronym universally used. It's much like the same problem you've had here with Vermonters - you arrogantly label everyone as you wish and then blow a gasket when someone objects, even minutely. Naylor then immediately undermines his claim of being an "enthusiastic supporter" when he notes that the "WSO"(sic) falls short of his own nihilistic standard:

"Unfortunately, many WSO(sic) supporters seem to believe that the United States Government is still fixable. They fail to realize that because of its size, the United States is unsustainable, ungovernable, and, therefore, unfixable."

and

"Regrettably, many of those in the WSO(sic) movement subscribe to the view that campaign finance reform will solve all of our problems."

And then in possibly one of Naylor's most cynically obvious, opportunistic flimflam attempts at co-option, he writes:

"But a word of caution to these idealistic revolutionaries. Avoid like the plague allowing your movement to be co-opted by the Obama administration, the Democratic Party, George Soros’s moveon.com(s/be .org), or political opportunists such as Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. Also, resist the temptation to get in bed with some particular political ideology. No political ideology can save America from itself.

The Wall Street Occupation(sic) movement could be onto something very big – a paradigm shift in the way Americans view the political process. Is it possible to create a window of opportunity which might be open to heretofore unimaginable political options such as... secession..."

Too bad Naylor hasn't the honesty to tell the OWS movement that he hates Bernie Sanders because Bernie failed to resign his US Senate seat to run as Naylor's handpicked secesher candidate for Vermont governor, as Naylor had demanded years earlier.

Naylor also failed to disclose to OWS and Occupy Vermont (his real intended target audience) of his Vermont secesher movement's longtime association with white supremacists (League of the South), homophobes (Christian Exodus) and his promotion of virulent anti-Semites (like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to name just one), including past SVR board of advisor members like Franklin Sanders (neo-Confederate executive board member of the LOS), Thomas DiLorenzo (neo-Confederate, anti-union, anti-14th Amendment and whose work has been published in a Holocaust Denial journal), Jason Sorens (who's done work for the Koch brothers, founded the Free State Project and then has failed to New Hampshire as he requires of his followers, and favors limiting the voting rights of public employees) etc., etc., ad nauseum.

Even now, full blown Vermont secessionists like Matt Cropp (Vermont secesher ideologue and former campaign manager for the supremely failed secesher gubernatorial run of fringer, Dennis Steele) have embedded themselves into the Occupy Vermont-Burlington group.

It'll be interesting to see how the secesher crowd will do at co-opting the Occupy Wall Street and Occupy Vermont movements. Given the Vermont secesher track record for failure, from elections to print publications like the soon to be defunct Vermont Commons journal, the OWS and OVB movements seem to be safe for the moment.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

For the archive of the Free Vermont Framework listserv, click here.