Memorial Day, 2015

Memorial Day means many things to its observers but I thought a few words from a Confederate general, mass murderer and founder of the Ku Klux Klan, Nathan Bedford Forrest, might have surprising relevance for today's would be secessionist, including the Vermont type. Forrest is a time honored favorite amongst neo-Confederate, Lost Cause deadenders

From the Galveston Daily News of June 3, 1875:

"In Memphis, last week, a number of Federal officers and soldiers participated at the decoration of Confederate graves. As a result, Generals [Gideon Johnston] Pillow and Forrest addressed a letter through the Memphis papers to surviving Confederate soldiers and veterans of 1812, Florida and Mexico, requesting them to participate in the Federal ceremonies on Sunday last [i.e., on Memorial Day]. From this letter the subjoined is extracted:"

"However much we differed with them while public enemies, and were at war, we must admit that they fought gallantly for the preservation of the government which we fought to destroy, which is now ours, was that of our fathers, and must be that of our children. Though our love for that government was for a while supplanted by the exasperation springing out of a sense of violated rights and the conflict of battle, yet our love for free government, justly administered, has not perished, and must grow strong in the hearts of brave men who have learned to appreciate the noble qualities of the true soldier."

"Let us all, then, join their comrades who live, in spreading flowers over the graves of these dead Federal soldiers, before the whole American people, as a peace offering to the nation, as a testimonial of our respect for their devotion to duty, and as a tribute from patriots, as we have ever been, to the great Republic, and in honor of the flag against which we fought, and under which they fell, nobly maintaining the honor of that flag. It is our duty to honor the government for which they died, and if called upon, to fight for the flag we could not conquer."

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Will He or Won't He?

Back in February I challenged Vermont's last secessionist, the failed publisher of the defunct secesher propaganda rag Vermont Commons, Rob Williams, to once and for all renounce his ties to the racist and anti-Semitic hate group known as the League of the South after the LoS announced its plans to celebrate the murder of Abraham Lincoln by the deranged secessionist John Wilkes Booth here. This came after LoS's ironfisted leader, Michael Hill, organized a guerrilla group that he called "The Indomitables" and had directed his members to arm themselves with a variety of weapons including train derailers!

Here we are three months later and all we've gotten from Williams is crickets but not so at LoS. Now comes the revelation by the Southern Poverty Law Center that, not unlike the SVR super hyper secret listers of 2009-2010 that this blog exposed, the LoS had a members only secret Facebook page where like the SVR group they could chat about Jews, pesky women, homosex, miscegenation and "tribes." Here's the SPLC story.

So, with a fresh revelation of racist and anti-Semitic chat by his supposed allies at LoS the question remains, will Rob Williams ever distance himself from his bigoted friends at the League of the South or are we to assume that he approves since they, like he, are seceshers?

I think we know the answer.

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Another One Bites The Dust

Enough isn't being said about failures of the secessionist movement. What's left of the group that called itself the Second Vermont Republic is a mere shadow on a cloudy day of what it used to be. At its greatest, SVR claimed 125 "members," that is until its founder, the Dixie singin' Thomas Naylor, eliminated memberships and declared himself a "think tank." He stopped bankrolling the Vermont secesher print journal, Vermont Commons and funding their gatherings so their visibility became nil. Then Naylor up and died a year and a half ago and that brought the few remaining VT secesher antics to a screeching halt.

Similarly, Ed Sebesta over at the Anti-neo-Confederate blog reported yesterday about the folding of the Southern Nationalist Network website, a website that had been devoted to the racist and anti-gay nature of the "emerging" Southern secessionist movement. Most of its membership seems to come from the depleted ranks of the League of the South, Sons of Confederate Veterans and a few mostly defunct chapters of the Klan. It seems that the SNN feels that they've been so successful in their demonstrations, where they number usually less than ten, that they no longer have the need for a platform like a website. Su-u-re. In the 21st century the path to success lies in restricting your public access.

Here's Ed's report:

Southern Nationalist Network Website is Supposedly Shut Down Because It is Claimed That It Has Been a Big Success
May 8, 2015

"The www.southernnationalist.com website has shut down."

"The person who ran it claimed that the website was shut down for this reason:"

"Over these past 5 years demonstrations have been held to rally folks to the idea of independence for Dixie. Many people have become serious Southern nationalists. Due to this rise in activity SNN will be shutting down; in order to begin a new phase that will inspire even more folks to get involved in the movement."

"So because the website was successful it is being shut down and the ownership given up. I would like to suggest another possibility, the SNN wasn't going anywhere."

"You look at photos of the League of the South/SNN demonstrations and you realize that there aren't a lot of people at the demonstrations."

"Or perhaps there wasn't any money to pay the bill. Even if you were going on to another activity you would retain ownership of the existing site to refer people to your new site or activity."

"I don't think the SNN's demise is a great advance. It didn't seem to be accomplishing much. I thought because they were protesting they might get recruits. Direct action, protests often get people involved. But it seems there isn't seem to be any public support for the SNN's agenda."

The Southern seceshers got maybe ten people to turn out, on a good day, for their demos. Not unlike VT seceshers who at their last Statehouse stunt got maybe a dozen people from instate, some visiting allies from out-of-state and a few of the nutters from that worn-out act called Bread and Puppet Theater. The VT seceshers were spread out so thinly on the Statehouse floor that they had to shout to hear each other.

So, if you want to see one of the last remaining seceshers in Vermont, you'll have to go to the Waitsfield or Warren Fourth of July parade (no irony there, huh?) where you'll get to see Rob William's wizened scowl.

UPDATE Sunday, May 10, 2015, 12:00 PM: There's a particularly vicious racist, homophobic and anti-Semitic website called Occidental Dissent run by a white supremacist and neo-Confederate scumbag named Brad Griffin a.k.a. Hunter Wallace where the commenters are lamenting the passing of the Southern Nationalist Network. Included in the collective wailing and whining is this post by the piece of shit who ran the racist Southern Nationalist Network, another neo-Confederate waste of time by the name of Michael Cushman. Here's his bullshit:

Palmetto Patriot says:
May 9, 2015 at 4:44 AM

Thank you very much to those who read and supported the site. I enjoyed running SNN and met quite a few really good folks thru it. It was intended to be more than a blog. We did regular podcasts, videos, organised (sic) activism, etc. It was much too much for me to operate by myself once I began to work more hours. Even with a little help it was too much. I also felt it had served its purpose by popularising (sic) the term and ideology ‘Southern nationalist’ among those in pro-Southern and pro-White circles. We mostly defeated the Rainbow Confederate forces and moved the Southern secessionist movement in an ethno-nationalist direction. That said, we were not seeing a lot of growth in our ranks despite a lot of time, money and effort being put into the project over 5 years. So I think it is time for the next thing. To get a different – better – result something new must be tried, I think. We need talented people to step up with new ideas for spreading our worldview. For the last few months I have been focused on writing a Golden Circle book. I recently finished the first draft of that and will soon start a new book project. As HW says, I do plan to start a new blog – a much less ambitious but more manageable site than SNN.

Heh!

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Vermont State Police Report neo-Nazi Graffiti In Charlotte, VT

In a press release yesterday the Vermont State Police reported an incident involving neo-Nazi graffiti at the old Charlotte, VT train station. Their press release reads, in part:

SUMMARY OF INCIDENT: On this date and time VT State Police Williston received a vandalism complaint from VTrans (Vermont Transportation Agency). They received a report of graffiti vandalism at this location. A trooper responded and noted a significant amount of graffiti painted on the structure, to include but not limited to swastikas, anti-Semitic and racist statements.

Charlotte, home to Vermont's 1%, was the longtime community of residence of the now dead founder of the Second Vermont Republic, Thomas Naylor. Naylor was a raving anti-Semite with strong ties to the Holocaust denial community that includes Iran's propaganda arm, PressTV, as well James Edwards notoriously racist and anti-Semitic program called The Political Cesspool. Edwards is also a figure of importance at the racist League of the South where, when he lived, Naylor maintained ties for many years. Interestingly, before he died Naylor conspired with Canadian neo-Nazi, Sebastian Ernst Ronin, to create a "white homeland" in northern New England and the Canadian Maritimes.

Perhaps the Charlotte graffiti holds a deeper meaning; that is, an act meant to honor a past resident who harbored such sentiments.

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