Vermont Secession

So, What's to be Done About That Pesky 1%?

2012-01-27T18:00:00.001-05:00

No, no, not that 1%. I mean that minuscule group within the Occupy Vermont movement that, although they're no longer engaging in openly anti-Semitic chat on their Facebook pages, still provide a platform where with one click you can get to some of the most virulently, vile anti-Semitic crap that's comparable to the garbage spewed at David Duke's website. The Occupy Burlington-Vermont website was directly responsible for posting this Jew-bashing photograph that falsely and maliciously claimed that a baby and mother had been deliberately killed by Israelis. Read the whole story here.

One of the anti-Semitic posters at the Occupy Burlington-Vermont, Eamon James Cahall, no longer openly posts there under that name but from time to time posts appear that link back to his Amherst, MA based Facebook page (more on that below) for work based on the writings of the dead racist, anti-Semite, Eustace Mullins, (a true scumbag if there ever was one) for whom Cahall has been such a big booster. Mullins was the author of such bile as "Adolph Hitler: An Appreciation" first published in the October 1952 issue of National Renaissance Bulletin, which described itself as “the only Fascist publication in America.” Mullins was also a well-known perpetrator of anti-Semitic hoaxes like fabricating writings attributed to rabbis and this whooper, "Jews Mass Poison American Children" based on Mullins' claim that the polio vaccine, invented by Jonas Salk, was a poison because it contains live polio germs. During the 1950's Mullins also wrote frequently for the pro-Nazi, anti-Semitic publication Common Sense. From Mullins' self-published book "The Biological Jew":

"The Jew has always functioned best as a panderer, a pornographer, a master of prostitution, an apostle of sexual perversion, an enemy of the prevailing sexual standards and prohibitions of the gentile community."

(The above about Mullins comes from FBI documents and other investigative files that cannot be linked to, however extracts and a great deal additional information may be found here)

According to Chip Berlet of Political Research Associates, Mullins is "the most vicious anti-Semite on the face of the planet." You can read more about the unhinged nature of Eustace Mullins in this piece from The Atlantic here, reading that I'd recommend for those Occupiers who seem insistent about using anti-Semitic claptrap about the Federal Reserve as a part of what they like to call "dialogue."

HAMM: "You know who is behind all this shit... I just want the banking families behind all this shit taken down.. you know the names, we don't have to go into it here.."

OVB Admin: "I would LOVE to get those banking families pulled down.You should see how much flack I get for posting Rothschild expose stuff!"

HAMM: "Yeah I'm in the same boat... Rothschilds have been the death of a few conversations for me..people are unwilling to see the simple truth..they look for truth to be very complex and convoluted..these families of people are the problem..if people could just focus on that and on them.."

OVB Admin: "I've heard those concerns before.I don't think you're being unreasonable to suggest connecting the dots in that way. I've even heard it said that this movement was started to draw all of the thinkers and doers out in the open to get their information and cart em off."

HAMM: "amen brother"

Naturally, Mullins is something of a Holocaust denier as well:

"It wasn’t really an issue until the late ’50′s. All of the sudden, they remembered that six million Jews died in WWII. I’ve often said that after six million Jews died, most of them went on to own apartments in Manhattan and Tel Aviv. It’s not really a topic that interests me much beyond how it’s used as propaganda and mind control.”

Eustace Mullins

While I was looking into connections between the anti-Semitic leadership of the Vermont secession movement and their involvement with the Burlington occupiers, it was the comments at Occupy Burlington-Vermont Facebook page about Jewish "banksters" at the Federal Reserve there that first brought this troubling issue to my attention. I'd seen earlier reports of anti-Semitic aspects at the New York OWS camp at Zuccotti Park, as well as its origins having come the call made by Kalle Lasn's magazine, Adbusters, which has a history of publishing anti-Semitic screeds. The NYOWS Media Team began to produce what can only be described as a "the right wing is out to get us by falsely labeling our movement as anti-Semitic" false meme. This falsehood is also being churned out from various Occupy groups around the country that suggests that anti-Semites that had begun to permeate the Occupy movement from coast to coast were mere "outliers" and to say otherwise was to be labeled a part of some vast rightwing conspiracy to undermine the Occupy movement. Unsurprisingly, one prominent member of the NYOWS Media Team by the name of Justin Wedes has a history working with other groups like Yes Men and US Uncut, perpetrating media hoaxes which has been reported on here and here.

I've received criticism for having focused too much on a small group of anti-Semites that has attached itself to the Vermont Occupy movement. In most cases the criticism parrots in some way the false meme that has been created by the NYOWS Media Team. Fact is that here in Vermont I'm not the only critic of, not only the anti-Semitism, but of the occupy movement's failure to adequately address the presence of anti-Semitism based, in large part, on the works of a known Nazi sympathizer and proponent of the modern day neo-Nazi movement in the US, Eustace Mullins. Here's but one example of concern raised in Vermont from an opinion piece published in UVM's The Vermont Cynic by Peyton Rosenthal, a local Occupy supporter:

"By (occupiers) allowing and not condemning (the anti-Semitism) says something to me and, I'm sure, a multitude of other people..."

"...I propose OWS condemns anti-Semitism or any message remotely racist or bigoted. The movement should at least make it clear whether they do not care, or are not affiliated with it..."

"...I know it's been said repeatedly that Occupy Wall Street is a leaderless movement, but it needs to be acknowledged that the anti-Semitic incidents are becoming a problem. Until then, I don't think I and others who are Jewish, have a place in the movement."

Source

To which I'd add, you don't have to be Jewish to have no room for anti-Semitism attached to anything in which you're involved.

But for the moment my hope for a refutation of anti-Semites in its midst isn't very high for the local Occupy movement. A recently proposed statement by one local Occupy group seeking the end to various isms has one ism, under the circumstances, glaringly missing. Care to guess which one was missing? Maybe it's just another example of activists not wanting to do anything that might undermine their anti-Zionist cred. Since their argument essentially is that concerns about anti-Semitism are an attempt to silence criticism of Israel, I suppose that it's only fair to throw similar crap back at them, only of a fact based sort of crap that is not a meme.

There are people who I like and admire that are involved with the Vermont occupy movement, and at some point they are all going to need to address and condemn the politics of hatred that has established a firm and visible foothold in Occupy Vermont movement.

On a brighter note, Eamon James Cahall, page owner of the Eustace Mullins inspired, viciously anti-Semitic "We Know The Secrets of the Federal Reserve" Facebook page has announced that he's got a problem:

This facebook page has recently received some warnings in regards to our wall posts. We have been threatened with termination, however facebook failed to inform us as to which post was against the facebook terms and conditions."

"This facebook page has recently received some warnings in regards to our wall posts. We have been threatened with termination, however facebook failed to inform us as to which post was against the facebook terms and conditions."

"Have a great weekend everyone and thanks for reading/sharing/liking!"

Naturally, his comments section contain the usual inaccurate assertions about bullshit free speech violations. Facebook has every right to prohibit some forms of speech under its terms of service, as they do with hate speech. Maybe if Cahall hadn't based his page entirely on the hateful expressions of a well known anti-Semite and Hitler lover like Eustace Mullins he wouldn't have violated FB's well publicized terms of service proscribing hate speech, no? Good riddance.

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More Anti-Semitic Red Meat From The Folks At Occupy Vermont-Burlington

2012-01-05T18:00:00.009-05:00

UPDATE: Noon, 1.6.12: OVB has taken down their anti-Semitic post based on a really foul falsehood meant to inflame hatred against Jews but you can't really disappear anything in the age of screen caps. I don't know how OVB will ever be able to represent any portion of the 99% using 100% lies and trying to airbrush their way out of the hole that they dug for themselves. The facts are below.

Meanwhile, here's what the smear was replaced with, although, naturally, with no acknowledgement of the original anti-Semitic intent:

Below is what I first wrote yesterday about, at this point, the most insidious attempt at fostering race hatred and flagrant Jew-baiting by an Occupy Vermont group.

This morning some unknown administrator of the Occupy Vermont-Burlington Facebook page posted this that s/he had obtained from Occupy Wall Street here.

The originator of the photo, (H) at OWS wrote, "(H) Can you hear or feel the pain of Palestine?" to which the OVB admin added, "Wrong wrong wrong. How can they do this stuff?!!!" and "Hardcore pic but reality sucks...."

Commenters on the OVB Facebook post followed OWS and OVB down the anti-Semitic rabbit hole and tripped over their collective dicks to add these embellishments:

David Cardill "That is a photo, which produced the remark from the izreal army, where they said "1 bullet, 2 kills" They sniped pregnant women."

And...

Occupy Vermont-Burlington "Please don't construe this post as an anti-semitic statement.That was not the idea and is not my position. - Mr. X"

And...

Occupy Vermont-Burlington "No like ^ but true."

OWS commenters were even more condemning of the Jewish state and even got into the racist, anti-Semitic Eustace Mullins' Rothchild family claptrap that is reported on repeatedly here in posts below.

You see, if the Occupy brain trust that was all over this picture during the morning today had spent the FOUR MINUTES AND TWELVE SECONDS that I did researching (sorry for the ALL CAPS, something I don't normally do, but I can't believe how STUPID these people can be when they WANT TO BE) this sad picture they would have learned:

▪ The baby was not Palestinian.

▪ The mother lived.

▪ The shooting occurred in Mosul, Iraq on August 10, 2005.

▪ The alleged shooter (unconfirmed) was not Israeli but purported to be American.

This was reported by the Iraqi League here. I found their report after clicking on the picture where I located it in a depressing collage at the Children of Iraq Association Charity here (the picture may not show but presently it's the first one directly beneath the Vanessa Williams video and to the left of the group and is labeled "Baby Killed" - it will link directly to the Iraqi League website report).

While this deal over the picture certainly rises to the level of an anti-Semitic smear designed to tap into the medieval, anti-Semitic baby killing trope known as Blood Libel, I suppose we should be thankful that OWS, OVB admin(s?) and David Cardill didn't suggest that the Israeli troops served the baby for dinner as a part of their lies.

*** On a personal note: It has been observed that the posts on some Occupiers anti-Semitic inclinations and secession are not a well connected subject. While somewhat true, there is ample justification listed in posts below about Vermont's secesher leader, Thomas Naylor, bragging about another secesher leader/activist, Matt Cropp, being a primary organizer of the Occupy Vermont Burlington group. Naylor has praised, sort of, the Burlington group and has himself expressed vile, anti-Semitic sentiments. In short, over the coming days I'll decide whether to continue posting these commentaries on the anti-Semitism which permeates some Occupy groups like OVB and OWS here or on a separate blog.

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

Occupy Gov. Peter Shumlin's State of the State Address at the Vermont Statehouse?

2012-01-04T18:00:00.007-05:00

Well, maybe not so much.

Occupiers issued a press release today about a planned action at the Vermont Statehouse for the occasion of Gov. Peter Shumlin's. Here's what it says:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

99% TO OCCUPY THE STATE OF THE STATE ADDRESS

Montpelier, Vermont, 5 January 2012 — Silently displaying their feelings about details of the Governor’s assessment of the state of the State, using hand signals indicating approval, disapproval or withheld judgment, Vermonters from around the state will line the House chamber to occupy the state of the State address on the third day of the 2012 legislative session.

Dressed in green, with personal messages for the Governor taped to their chests, Vermonters identifying themselves as the 99% will make themselves visible in a peaceful and respectful demonstration of their position at the center of government.

“It cannot ever hurt to remind our elected representatives of their obligation to the people of Vermont,” said Del Waterhouse, a member of the Occupy Central Vermont General Assembly. “Democratic government is the result of community members joining together to satisfy our needs, so it is the obligation of government to satisfy the needs of the people in our communities. As cuts are made to LIHEAP, mental health services, affordable housing programs and more, I feel the need to be visible at events such as these, to let the decision-makers know that I am paying attention. It sends a strong message to see so many of us standing together representing the 99%. We are engaged, and we want to work together to create change.”

The Occupy Central Vermont General Assembly meets every Saturday at 3:00 PM and is open to all members of the community. Updated location information can be found at occupycentralvt.org. Members work together to address issues in the community related to economic justice, inequality and democracy. Other local General Assemblies take place regularly in Brattleboro, Burlington, Rutland, and the Upper Valley.
Contact:
www.occupycentralvt.org

I've spent time at the Statehouse, as have many Vermonters, and one distinguishing fact that I'd point out to the group (I can't bring myself to call this an "occupation" - more on that below) is that unlike them, the legislators in the Vermont Statehouse General Assembly chamber were all elected to represent 100% of Vermonters in their respective districts and counties and are not self-appointed to serve a limited political agenda. And unlike the unelected occupiers, the executive and legislative members in the chamber have all taken an oath to "not, directly or indirectly, do any act or thing injurious to the (Vermont) Constitution or Government thereof... and will therein do equal right and justice to all persons, to the best of (their) judgment and ability, according to law."

In addition to announcing their intent to engineer a quasi-disruption of a governmental proceeding, they've issued instructions and press talking points that include advice on how to evade reporter's questions:

Occupy the State of the State Address Event Plan!

Below is the text from a handout we will be distributing tomorrow at the State of the State address. Please see the comments for a couple more updates.

The Event

This will be a peaceful and non-disruptive action. NO MIC CHECKING! Occupiers will listen to the speech, using General Assembly hand signals to give instant feedback on what we hear. If you are not familiar with these, ask someone! Basically it is this:

•Wiggly fingered jazz hands = approval, I like what I hear
•Level hands in front of you= I’m unsure, I’m neutral or I need more information.
•Down hands= I don’t like it, I want more information.

Write your message to the Governor on a 8 ½ x 11 piece of paper; tape it to your shirt, and deliver after the event. Message collectors will be circulating after the event and by the exits on the way out. You can also drop it off yourself in the Sergeant-at-Arms office. NO SIGNS ALLOWED in the State House.

Our message: your message

More than 70,000 Vermonters lived at or below the poverty level in 2010. Gov. Shumlin campaigned on a promise to rebuild Vermont’s Middle Class, yet we are in the slowest job growth rate on record in Vermont, and public policy continues to deepen the income disparities, dismantling the middle class and undercutting the poor. Real wages at all income levels in the state dropped over the past year, except for the top 10%. People in the bottom 20th percentile saw wages decrease an average of 5%; while the top 10% of income recipients saw a 1% increase.

We hope that, in expressing your vision and focusing on the specific issues of greatest concern to you, you will make an effort to frame issues in terms of economic and social justice, to connect the specific to the general and show the unity of our movement.

As a movement of many leaders, we have many spokespeople, and we hope that you will feel empowered to express your awareness of the problem and your vision of a solution. But please be clear that — like each of us — you are a spokesperson for yourself, not for the movement. Use “I” statements when talking to media and decision-makers. Here are some other tips:

How to talk to the media:

Talking to members of the media is an opportunity to convey a message to a large number of people and to frame and inform public conversation. It is important to know that talking with reporters is not like normal conversations.

•Reporters are not looking for a conversation at all. They are looking for a quotation, and that quotation is generally limited to a sound bite. Talk in brief statements that can be quoted.
•Focus on the message that you are trying to convey, regardless of the question a reporter might ask you. Take control of the story. Do not be afraid to repeat your message.
•Relax. You are involved because your values encouraged you to be. You need no more justification or authority than that. Talk about your values, tell your story, personal impacts- you are the expert on that!
•If you do not know an answer to a question,admit it. The truth is on your side, do not make things up.
•Be friendly, positive and accessible. Do not give the media help in marginalizing or vilifying us.
Be a character in your story. Explain how your issues affect you. Be quotable.

Quick Facts:

EDUCATION: The Legislature has cut the annual General Fund appropriation to support education for the past few years; shifting the burden onto local school boards. The shift means property taxes, which still fall harder on middle-income Vermonters than on the wealthy, are $77 million higher this year.

TAXES: The progressive income tax in Vermont was cut for those at the top of the wealth bracket. There is support from wealthy Vermonters to increase revenues from them. Many of the top 10% in Vermont want to pay their share!

JOBS:Even before the start of the Great Recession in 2007, Vermont was creating jobs at the slowest rate since records have been kept. By 2010, Vermont was seeing a net loss of jobs. This poor job-creation performance occurred in a decade when the wealthiest Vermonters — the so-called “job creators” — saved hundreds of millions of dollars in federal taxes, thanks to the Bush tax cuts.

WAGES:Median household income has only risen 1.5% over the last 20 years, while the State’s domestic product has risen almost 65%.

In 2009, the Vermont livable wage was calculated to be $16.75 an hour for a single person with no children to pay their bills and have a rainy day fund. Just a couple of days ago the minimum wage in Vermont rose to just under $8.50/hour.

Jazz hands? Really? Well, I'm sure that'll make an impression.

1/04/2012 - 1:34 PM

FYI for those coming, we have been notified that bags will be searched upon entering the building, and again, no large signs on things on sticks will be allowed in. Our goal is to be non-disruptive of this event. NO MIC CHECKING during the governor’s address. We have been working with capital police to ensure safety for all involved, they have been really helpful and accommodating and are working on reserving a number of seats in the House Chamber for us.

It is unlikely that most of us will fit in the Chamber and they have new(ish) rules that there is no standing allowed, which means many of us will be in the hallways outside. They pipe the speech through the speaker system so we should all be able to hear and use our hand signals to express our feelings about things being said.

Apparently the organizers of this yawn inducing event have been working with law enforcement assigned to the Vermont Statehouse to reduce the chance of being carted off, so no tedious mic checking, no signs, just notes taped to their chests like ones that school groups' moms do for their kids that show up at the Statehouse for outings and (groan) jazz hands.

Meanwhile, back in Burlington the local occupiers continued to purge participants on their Facebook page over the New Year's weekend, while still promoting the work of the racist anti-Semite, Eustace Mullins and claiming to "Know the Secrets of the Federal Reserve" based on Mullins' screed. Mullins was also infamous for having perpetrated a "Protocols of the Elders of Zion"-like racist hoax in the 1950's called "A Racial Program for the Twentieth Century", as well as his classic racist, anti-Semitic tomes, "Adolph Hitler An Appreciation" and "The Biological Jew".

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Thomas Naylor Calls the Racist, anti-Semitic George F. Kennan, the "Godfather" of Naylor's Vermont Secessionist Movement

2012-01-03T18:00:00.006-05:00

Just when I thought the baas of the Second Vermont Republic, the the Dixie singin' Thomas H. Naylor couldn't get any weirder, he goes straight into the batshit crazy corner and pens a big, sloppy wet kiss to a bona fide racist, misogynist and anti-Semite - George F. Kennan.

You see, during the past decade Naylor exchanged some correspondence with an obviously ill, doddering nonagenarian. You can read Naylor's tired attempt at attaching celebrity to his barely hanging on secessionist movement here. What I found so interesting is that Naylor used a recently published biography of Kennan by John Lewis Gaddis, George F. Kennan: An American Life (Penguin Press, 2011). Oddly, Naylor calls Kennan "the former dean of the American diplomatic corps" when it is well known that Kennan had been ostracized by his fellow white aristocrats for having extremist white supremacist views too distasteful even for those good old, rich and connected white boys.

Naylor quotes extensively from Gaddis' book in support of his contention that an apparently bed-ridden Kennan had embraced Naylor's lost cause.

What Naylor left out was that Gaddis extensively covered Kennan's odious bigotry. Figures.

In 1935, Kennan wrote to his sister:

“I hate democracy; I hate the press. . . . I hate the ‘peepul’; I have become clearly un-American.” In the draft of an unfinished book, begun in the nineteen-thirties, he advocated restricting the vote to white males, and other measures designed to create government by an élite.
Source and also this source

And...

"...(Kennan) wrote in 1932. “We have only a group of more or less inferior races. … No amount of education and discipline can effectively improve conditions as long as we allow the unfit to breed copiously and to preserve their young.” Among these “inferior races,” he singled out blacks and Jews as objects of his frequent harangues. These “rants,” Gaddis writes, might suggest that Kennan was becoming a “dysfunctional fascist.”
Source

And...

...it was a neighbor of his, one J. Richards Dilworth, who divined (Kennan's) true character: “George is ultra-conservative. He’s almost a monarchist.”
Source

He was also a serial philanderer.

Which probably endears him all the more to an old fraud like Naylor.

But I knew that Naylor had jumped the shark of hypocrisy on this one since Kennan was the architect of the policies that fed the Cold War and which resulted in the death of millions. But, of course, that wouldn't matter to Naylor as long as he could flimsily promote a connection to some kind of celebrity for his dying secesher movement. Unfortunately, Naylor's chosen to embrace someone who, like himself, became increasingly irrelevant in his old age.

That Naylor sees Kennan as the "Godfather" of a movement that has maintained its ties to racists, anti-Semites, misogynists and homophobes throughout its sorry, unimportant to Vermonters existence, really comes as no surprise.

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

Mother Knows Best

2011-12-25T00:00:00.004-05:00

Earlier this fall during the onset of the incipient Occupy Wall Street movement and its local incarnation in Burlington, I was struck by what was clearly a blatant and historical revisionist bent to the group, not unlike some of the group's members previous and continuing involvement with the tiny Vermont secessionist movement. Not only did some embrace the conspiracist nonsense of racists and anti-Semites like Eustace Mullins, author of "Adolph Hitler An Appreciation", but they also engaged in creating fictions that evolved as need required. For instance, first the local Occupiers blamed a widely honored and acclaimed housing and homeless assistance group for having sent homeless people to live among the Occupiers, forcing the assistance organization, which has a sterling 30 year record of achievement on behalf of Vermont's homeless to issue a public denial of the baseless charge, to the Occupiers then claiming "solidarity" with the assistance provider. Flip, flop.

When the local Occupiers stumble, miscalculate or just plain screw the pooch, they resort to lies, misrepresentations or simply make shit up.

But it's been the ongoing undercurrent of anti-Semitic conspiracism displayed by some Occupiers similar to that of a Vermont secessionist blowhard, Thomas Naylor, who has claimed that a secession activist, Matt Cropp, was one of the "principal organizers of Occupy Vermont," as well as their sad continuance of making claims against Jews that's been going on for thousands of years that caught my attention. You'd think that the Occupiers, especially one in particular who's repeatedly contacted this blog, could pull their heads out of their asses and come up with something newer than age old Jew hatred.

That said, I thought I'd share something that recently appeared on the endpage of The Sunday New York Times Magazine:

Grabbing Life by the Horns
By Shalom Auslander
Published: December 16, 2011

When I was a child, my mother told me that everyone in the world hated me. They hated me, she said, because I was a Jew.

So? I asked.

So nothing, she replied. So they hate you.

Not just the people on our street, who were “classic Jew-haters”; not just everyone in the town nearby, who were “card-carrying anti-Semites”; not just everyone in the world now, but everyone who’d ever lived, ever: Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Spaniards, Italians, Germans, Protestants, Catholics, Muslims.

I was sure she was wrong. I was sure they just hated her, which I could very well understand. She told me this when I was 6, when I was 13, when I was 15 and when I was 17. At 18, I went on a trip through Europe with some observant Orthodox friends; it was something of a symbolic trip, because we were at the age when we were getting ready to leave home, to head out into that strange new world outside the narrow religious one in which we were brought up. I was determined to find a new home for myself, something broader, more enlightened, less paranoid, less terrified.

One morning, we were on a train headed, I believe, for Paris, when we decided to pray. We had on our yarmulkes, zizit, phylacteries, the whole outfit. A U.S. Marine, in full camouflage, was seated in front of us, and he kept turning around, looking at us and smiling warmly. When we finished praying, he turned around again, and in a heavy Southern accent, with absolutely no malice or hatred whatsoever — in fact, with an almost endearing, childlike curiosity — asked me if I wouldn’t mind too terribly showing him my “Jew horns.”

Not, he added, if it’s like a big deal or something.

My first thought was that he was kidding.

My second thought was that he was serious.

My third thought was, Oh, no — Mom was right.

If he had just called me a dirty Jew, it would have been O.K. If he had just held me down and carved a swastika on my head — no biggie, I’ll wear hats. But he went all the way to horns — to the Middle Ages, Christ-killing, money-lending, shape-shifting stuff.

That was going to be a problem.

Not because of anti-Semitism. I could probably make it in a world fouled with ignorance. I could probably get by on a planet poisoned with petty prejudice and institutionalized hatred. But a world where my mother was right?

That was going to be a problem.

Source

Shame on the Occupy Vermont group in Burlington for never having called out the bigoted, racist anti-Semites among them.

Shame on them!

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Second Vermont Republic's Thomas Naylor Has Given Repeated Interviews Over the Years to Iran's State Run "Press TV"

2011-12-15T06:00:00.000-05:00

I've blogged in the past about Thomas Naylor's appearances on the racist, Holocaust denying, anti-Semitic and homophobic, to name just a few of the hatreds espoused there, Internet radio program hosted by the white supremacist League of the South honcho, James Edwards, called The Political Cesspool here and here.

It really should come as no surprise then that for years the Dixie singin' Thomas Naylor, baas of the Second Vermont Republic, has also been doing interviews with Iran's state run English news service, Press TV, which was launched in 2007 by Iranian President and Holocaust denier Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Press TV has established a reputation for providing a forum for Holocaust deniers, and while Naylor hasn't himself commented, that I can find, about the Holocaust, he's had an SVR advisory board member with long ties to the League of the South who's published Confederacy claptrap in a well known Holocaust denial publication, The Institute for Historical Review (IHR formerly was advertised on Edwards' Political Cesspool - small world!).

Press TV has a sordid history of taping the "confessions" of Iran's political prisoners in interrogation chambers, while Iranian security interrogators remain in the room to ensure that the prisoners stick to the "script."

"Maziar Bahari, an Iranian-Canadian journalist, spent three months in prison after the Iranian election in 2009. Bahari, who made confessions under duress, told the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran that his taped confession was a fabricated show, coordinated by Iranian state television and certain press outlets close to the Iranian government..."

"One was a reporter from the IRIB Persian service, one was a reporter from the English language Press TV, and the other was a reporter from Fars News Agency. All three of them and I were reading from a script. The IRIB reporters read the interrogator’s questions. When I made a mistake, just like an interrogator, the reporter would say ‘It’s better if you say it this way.’”

"According to Bahari, there was complete coordination between his interrogators and the IRIB team. “The room where I was interviewed by Press TV was the same as my interrogation room. Only that during the taping, a red curtain was put up behind me and my interrogator sat behind the curtain making sure I spoke as they wished,” said Bahari."

Read the complete August 2010 report, "Iranian State TV Acts as an Arm of the Intelligence Apparatus" at the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran here

More on Press TV' "collu(sion) with the torture and illegal detention of (the) journalist" here

You can watch Naylor's two part secesher talking point interview here and here. In these October, 2009 interview segments Naylor repeats his oft told fiction that, in this telling, 11.5 to 12 percent of Vermont's registered voters support secession. Last year's result for his handpicked gubernatorial candidate, Dennis Steele, revealed how fraudulent Naylor's figure is; Steele's candidacy was rejected by more than 99% of Vermont's voters. The irony of Naylor's appearance on an Iranian propaganda outlet mere months after the Iranian government crushed public protests over the sham re-election of Ahmadinejad and the death of hundreds of demonstrators while Naylor was denouncing the US seems to have escaped the secesher Godfather. In one instance of a sniper's attack by a member of Ahmadinejad's Basij militia (government paramilitary) that has been called "probably the most widely witnessed death in human history," Neda Agha-Soltan was murdered for attempting to reach a demonstration a kilometer away from where she was shot. Rather than come to his senses and offer a belated condemnation over Ahmadinejad's many wicked crimes and state sanctioned murders of the peaceful election protesters, as well as the ongoing criminal executions of Iran's gay youth and citizens, Naylor issued this statement a couple of months after his Press TV interview:

"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

If Time magazine named a Scumbag of the Year for 2009, Naylor surely would have been a finalist.

So, here are his entries for being the 2011 Time Scumbag of the Year, two more appearances attacking the US for an Iranian audience (February 11 and October 22) based on pieces he'd written, although for the Iranian listeners he threw in a little additional Jew-baiting, red meat:

"... the "Israeli lobby" essentially (has) hammer-lock control over the US government"

The gay genocide being perpetrated by his friends in the Iranian government shouldn't have come as news to Naylor in 2009 or this year since officials of Ahmadinejad's regime have been saying that gays"deserve to be tortured and executed" since 2007 and, for e-confirmation, Robert Cook, a Salon.com blogger suggests going to Google Images, "type in 'gay Iranians,' and you’ll see that most of the images are images of young Iranian men being hanged."

Additional sources of information about Press TV that Naylor should have consulted before contributing to Iran's propaganda machine are readily available from the Iranian democracy movement here and here. Or maybe he should have recalled the woman condemned to be "stoned" that blanketed the real press and Press TV's involvement in producing and airing her "voluntary" media confession or the condemnation from the world human rights community of Press TV's despicable act of working hand-in-hand with Iranian thugs.

For years the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Quds Force has funded the Lebanese Hezbollah militia in Iraq that have been killing Americans according to this CNN report:

I keep wondering if Naylor and the clowns in his Vermont secession movement can come up with anything dumber than they have in the past, and they seem incapable of disappointing in that regard.

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An Earlier "Besetzen Vereinigten Staaten und Kanada" ("Occupy the US and Canada") List of Jews

2011-12-09T18:00:00.024-05:00

My alternative title to this post that has much to do with an Occupy Vermont-Burlington admin's continuing Jew-baiting might have been more seasonal like, say, "He's Making A List," but when you see the content below you'll probably agree that there's no danger of violating Goodwin's Law since this is no mere analogy. The title used fits unfortunately well.

Another YouTube video has been linked to yesterday by an OVB admin and, yes, it's again about the Rothchild family. This Jew fixation on the part of the OVB leadership, a leadership that, according to that hater of the so-called "Israeli Mafia," the Dixie singin' Thomas Naylor, includes a secession organizer, Matt Cropp, is growing into a stench these guys aren't going to be able to get off of the group with a bar of human soap. And, no, I'm not going to link to this one. Suffice it to say that the producer of the vid is fascinated with Jews, Freemasons, the Illuminati, specialized sovereign citizen crazy name spellings and lore, 9/11 truthiness, grassy knolls and loads of other paranoid crap - a total nutjob that the admin could have determined in 2 minutes and 3 clicks, as I did. Or maybe they did and...

I suppose none of this is really very surprising since, as I've pointed out before, the Occupy movement was inspired and created by an anti-Semite, Kalle Lasn, who published the Occupy call to action in his Adbusters magazine. In an interview just a few days ago by Robert Siegel on NPR, Lasn addressed his listing of Jews in government from an earlier 2004 article in his Adbusters magazine:

SIEGEL: "You are identified, obviously with the Occupy Wall Street protests. But before that, with campaigns against commercialism, excessive materialism. You've been very critical of Israel and of neoconservative policies."

LASN: "Yeah."

SIEGEL: "Some people think you're out of bounds identifying who are Jews among prominent neoconservatives."

LASN: "Yes, and some people think I'm way in bounds as well."

Source

Other than some of the people at OVB and the bigots who make such lists at the white supremacist, neo-Nazi hate website Stormfront.org (like this one here) that are remarkably similar to the sort of list Lasn compiled of Jewish neocons in the Bush II administration that was reported on here, these guys are all following in the goosesteps of an earlier list maker.

Here's a little something that some OVB secret Santa might want to hurry up and bid on if someone hasn't already snapped it up - an earlier list of Jews in the US and Canada compiled by none other than the Master of the master race, who I'm also sure would have found Lasn's list, as well as the Rothchild/Jew-baiting going on over at OVB, "in bounds."

"Adolf Hitler’s personal copy of a city-by-city, state-by-state guide to the location of America’s Jewish population..."

"It also provides details of several hundred Jewish organizations, including B’nai B’rith and the Anti-Defamation League, along with names of key individuals and their addresses."

"In light of the Holocaust, it is a disquieting compendium."

"The 137-page report, “Statistik, Presse und Organisationen des Judentums in den Vereinigten Staaten und Kanada” (Statistics, Media, and Organizations of Jewry in the United States and Canada)..."

Source

It'll make a great oven, er, stocking stuffer for some Jew-baiter at OVB. Of course, if OVB missed the auction they may want to start their own list of Vermont Jews in government and banking - they're on the same track.

Last night an OVB admin posted in these comments that he's feeling some heat over his blatantly anti-Semitic conversations about Jews, in this case in a post about drones(??) while complaining to another commenter who goes by the name of Donald Hamm:

HAMM: "You know who is behind all this shit... I just want the banking families behind all this shit taken down..you know the names, we don't have to go into it here.."

OVB Admin: "I would LOVE to get those banking families pulled down.You should see how much flack I get for posting Rothschild expose stuff!"

HAMM: "Yeah I'm in the same boat... Rothschilds have been the death of a few conversations for me..people are unwilling to see the simple truth..they look for truth to be very complex and convoluted..these families of people are the problem..if people could just focus on that and on them.."

OVB Admin: "I've heard those concerns before.I don't think you're being unreasonable to suggest connecting the dots in that way.I've even heard it said that this movement was started to draw all of the thinkers and doers out in the open to get their information and cart em off."

HAMM: "amen brother"

Update December 10, 2011, 4:00 PM: Someone at OVB has "disappeared" the vile, scary exchange immediately above, so guys, here's the screen cap:

(Note to readers: Naturally I've been receiving anti-Semitic comments here from a Jew hating Holocaust denier aptly named Zero and have allowed a couple as an example of the type of scum who while posting about the Rothchild family refer to Juden, not a common English usage except among American neo-Nazis. Unless such comments are truly compelling for some reason, I won't be approving more of them. The commenters should just indulge their hatred at some Stormfront forum rather than try to post here.)

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New Occupy Vermont Burlington Anti-Semitic Posting

2011-12-08T06:00:00.000-05:00

Say what you will about Occupy Vermont Burlington, the repeated anti-Semitic references, like those of the Second Vermont Republic's Thomas Naylor's allusions to Jewish control of the US goverment and the "Israeli Mafia," are bound to make OVB as irrelevant to Vermonters as SVR has become.

OVB's Facebook page has repeatedly promoted such conspiracy theories about Jews. One of their posters who seems to get the biggest hardon when posting about Jews has been someone who goes by the name Eamon James Cahall. He has a fixation on the Rothchild banking family and the "research" of a notorious bigot by the name of Eugene Mullins that I first reported on here.

Cahall suggested that there were "amazing illustrations" done a century ago by one writer, Alfred Owen Crozier, that'd in some way would confirm what he was saying in his post here. I don't think one can find a better example of the sort of paranoid, "Jews wanting to control the world" crap than a cartoon that highlights the threat to "Christendom" so blatantly.

Then on Tuesday of this week an OVB admin promoted a YouTube embed provided by Cahill that continues their growing facination with the Rothchild meme that made the OVB admin absolutely giddy over what s/he thought was clever here. Watching the video I lost count of all of the images that related to Jews, the Rothchild family, Jews controlling the US government (including being in the pocket of Jews), an obit photo for Guy de Rothschild, AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee), etc., ad nauseum. I really shouldn't be surprised since the inspiration for such dreck that the OVB admin and commenter found so funny must have been an article written years ago by Kalle Lasn, creator of the Occupy movement, in his anti-Semitic magazine, Adbusters. You can read about Lasn's despicable past here.

Repeated anti-Semitic canards; failing to provide adequately for people living in their former camp so that one is now dead; poorly thought out shopping alternatives that harm local Vermont businesses - little wonder then that Vermont secessionists are embedding themselves into the Occupy Vermont movement.

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Second Vermont Republic's Thomas H. Naylor Brags About Matt Cropp and His Embedded Operative's Leadership Role in Occupy Vermont-Burlington

2011-12-06T18:00:00.003-05:00

(Note to "Bill": You might want to click on the access button to the main part of the blog in the right column [red letters])

Watching the Occupy Vermont-Burlington group flounder its way to irrelevance has been a lot like watching the Vermont secession movement repeatedly pulling the pin on its ever being of importance to Vermont.

Consider this bragging revelation made by the baas of the Second Vermont Republic, the Dixie singin' "Magnolia Vermonter", Thomas H. Naylor on November 1, 2011 here (confirming what was first revealed ten days earlier by me on the blog here):

"Vermont independence supporters have played an active role in the Occupy Vermont movement. Indeed, Matt Cropp, co-founder of the Vermont Independence Alliance, is one of the principal organizers of Occupy Vermont. He can be reached at carbonpenguin@yahoo.com."

If Cropp's name is familiar, that's because he was the campaign manager for last year's spectacularly failed Vermont secesher gubernatorial candidate, Dennis Steele. And, as if induced to follow his former candidate's own piss poor showing, Matt Cropp recently ran for a Board of Director's position with Burlington's City Market/Onion River Co-op and suffered a drubbing now so very familiar to all secesher electoral aspirants. City Market certainly dodged a bullet when you consider that weeks later Cropp was inspired to open a "Really, Really Free Market" in downtown Burlington as an alternative to local merchants in the immediate area (see 1 min 27 sec mark here) rather than take his "Market" to one of the big box stores that he was speaking about. Now there's a not-so-winning message for the next loser secesher candidate willing to let Matt run his campaign - "Fuck The Local Economy!"

Little wonder then that Naylor, who's condemned virtually every Vermonter alive who won't drink his secesher Kool-Aid, finds Cropp to be such a compelling organizer. Like Naylor, Cropp favors treating his string of false starts and failures as inspirational. One need look no further than the example Naylor cited as one of Cropp's accomplishments: a seven month old website with two pages here and nothing to show for it, much like Cropp's promise last year to organize programs to benefit Vermonters. So far, Cropp's most recent "organizing" effort has produced some serious unintended collateral damage - one dead. One of Cropp's colleagues at the camp made a sad situation worse by falsely claiming that the dead man was a military veteran entitled to "better services (for) troubled military veterans," and the irony escaped the organizers when they "released a statement... saying the incident gave (Occupy Vermont Burlington) an 'ever deeper resolve to stand with our most vulnerable citizens.'"

Yeah, they were already doing that and now he's dead.

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Occupy Vermont-Burlington Has Dipped Its Toe Into The Anti-Semitic Cesspool

2011-11-18T06:00:00.009-05:00

One of Occupy Vermont-Burlington's administrators has called the well known anti-Semitic, Rothchild family slander something that is "useful" to look at.

This OVB admin has promoted a post that resorted to not so sublime Jew-baiting by using source material from a renown racist, 9-11 Truther and very longtime anti-Semite, Eustace Mullins. Among Mullins' ~~writings~~ greatest hits are "Jewish TV: Sick, Sick, Sick", "Jewish War Against The Western World", "The Holocaust Explained", "Mullins' New History of the Jews" and, my personal favorite, "Adolph Hitler: An Appreciation" (search Eustace Mullins here - pg. 5 & 14).

The post I'm referring to was a direct allusion to a notorious anti-Semitic canard about the Rothschild (read: Jewish) family, the Federal Reserve and Mullins' "research" here. The poster further suggested that this sort of filth "be required reading for every high school student in the country after our movement is successful."

When clearly proper objections were raised to the anti-Semitic basis for the post, the OVB website administrator responded on October 24 in two posts at around 7:00 AM here:

"We don't need to split hairs about percentage points with respect to the Rothschild holdings, primarily because they are very good at concealing their direct connections and we might never be able to trace down all of it... Please, it's one article and a useful one at that."

Really?

An article by a irrefutable bigot whose conspiracy theories have been promoted by none other than (drumroll, please) Glenn Beck here?

Truly a disgusting display by an OVB admin who's insisted on being an indisputable leader of the rest of us 99 percenters in Vermont. Perhaps an OVB working group is in order for further examination of such pricelessly inspiring works as the afore-noted Protocols of the Elders of Zion and the "struggles" of the author of Mein Kampf.

In a recent piece about institutional quandries and solutions regarding child molesters that are sometimes labeled "sins committed in the name of a higher good," essayist John Zmirak wrote of such ethical issues and predicaments that they “smell and look like lilies. But they flank a coffin. Lying dead and stiff inside that box is natural Justice." Will the leadership, and oh yes, there certainly is one, of OVB be just another purveyor of "situational justice" in America?

Is that all there is?

Of course, by now regular visitors to this blog are probably wondering, "What's this all got to do with Vermont secessionists?"

Patience...

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Vermont Gets Its Very Own Occupy Cyberterrorist - AntiSecOp

2011-11-16T06:00:00.011-05:00

In the wake of the tragic suicide of a disturbed occupier at the Occupy Vermont-Burlington City Hall Park camp that is directly attributable to what clearly has to be the most incompetent and inept Occupy group to be found in the country - a group demonstrably unable to to deal with obviously illegal alcohol, drugs and weapons in the midst of their score or so tents - apparently there's now to be a effort to foment criminal acts at the urging of another probably associated group/person calling itself AntiSecOps against the Burlington Vermont Police Department and others including a Vermont National Guard member (see below). Some clod, er, "male", who says that he operates the Facebook page for AntiSecOp and who claims to be a Vermonter wrote there:

"Greetings Vermont,"

"Allow us to introduce ourselves, we are AntiSec."

"We have been watching your situation arise for the past days, and saw the corrupt actions of The Burlington Police Department to keep you out of your encampment during your mourning of Josh. What we saw will not be tolerated, and Burlington Police Department, you will have wished you acted with more honor in the time of tragedy. We will not sit idly by and watch Police Officers abuse their power, and unjustly keep everyone from Occupying there belongings, and holding peaceful citizens for no reason."

"This is bigger than you or I, this is about justice and equality. The time has come to show the City Of Burlington, and the Police Department of Burlington what it feels like to be brought down to their knees. I ask you this, are you going to let police harass your fellow man? Fellow citizens, I ask not what we can do for you, but rather what we all can do together. We are not as different as you may think. We are your cashiers, your college students, your lawyers, we are everywhere, and we are nowhere."

"We will not tolerate your abuse of power by shutting down the encampment in City Hall Park, so we will be sending our vessel to fight alongside the occupiers, and tear down the walls of injustice."

"We are simply an idea, an idea that is bleeding with pride, and honor."

"In response to this, we will be launching campaign OpVermont, effective November 20th at 9 p.m Eastern Standard Time. Join us."

"We are AntiSec."
"We are legion."
"We do not forget."
"We do not forgive."
"Burlington, Expect us."

Source

Yeah, whatever.

AntiSecOp's "announcement" can (for the moment) be found on their Youtube channel that contains the first announcement and a follow-up "second message" directed at BPD on Saturday. It seems that in his "second message" though that he's walking back a bit from his earlier threatening posture, but not by much.

Then his second notice.

Of course, coupled with that first announcement is this ~~thinly~~ hardly veiled threat to agencies such as the Burlington PD:

We encourage any vessel, large or small, to open fire on any government or agency that crosses their path. We fully endorse the flaunting of the word "AntiSec" on any government website defacement or physical graffiti art...
(his trail off, not mine)

Source

Someone should tell the jerk at AntiSecOp that advocating violence, hacking, offering to collude with such acts or even childishly urging that pizzas be sent to the homes of people like cops whose addresses they post happens to be a crime, mostly felonies (maybe not the pizzas but what about the pizza shop owners who won't get paid for product or delivery - that's the 1% they're going after?), not protected speech.

Interestingly, AntiSecOp's "Likes and Interests" are "Anonymous (Occupy America), Occupy Vermont, Occupy Vermont-Burlington" since it began, supposedly sometime in June or so of this year, although a few new ones have been added in recent days. Go figure.

Also, AntiSecOp offers this warning at their Facebook page:

**PRIVACY NOTICE:Warning--any person and/or institution and/or Agent and/or Agency of any governmental structure including but not limited to the United States Federal Government also using or monitoring/using this website or any of its associated websites, you do NOT have my permission to utilize any of my profile information nor any of the content contained herein including, but not limited to m...y photos, and/ or the comments made about my photos or any other "picture" art posted on my profile. You are hereby notified that you are strictly prohibited from disclosing, copying, distributing, disseminating, or taking any other action against me with regard to this profile and the contents herein. The foregoing prohibitions also apply to your employee(s), agent(s), student(s) or any personnel under your direction or control. The contents of this profile are private and legally privileged and confidential information, and the violation of my personal privacy is punishable by law...

Sure, whatever again. I'm certain that AntiSecOp has considered the ramifications involved in an anonymous Facebooker suing anyone. Idiot - try thinking beyond someone else's template.

Methinks this particular fraud, AntiSecOp, is as full of shit as the guy.fawkes.vendetta@hotmail.com faker, however he's now straying into threats against individual Vermonters. Here's post about someone that he says is an active duty Vermont National Guard member here and here:

"bitches"? Keepin' it classy, eh scumbag? Is this personal attack on a Vermont National Guard member a preliminary salvo of the Nov. 20, 9:00 PM assault on Vermont that you've promised as what you've called OpVermont? If so, I believe I can speak for the 99% of Vermonters who would say to you, "Bite me, asshole." Ain't nothing like some old fashioned misogyny to make a movement hit the wall.

The AntiSecOp jerkoff isn't the only OVB clown seeking jail time. A former OVB admin and present leader of the fizzling Occupy Rutland group posted this last Friday:

If anybody else has any skills with computers, writing scripts, installing keyloggers, etc, I am putting together a team to do a swift response to Burlington, and it's police department. I do not care about posting publicly, if your interested Private Message me, and we will let the City Of Burlington have it. Even if you have BASIC computer skills, but can catch on, I need numbers, not talent... So if you cant make it up there today, this would be a way to contribute. Again, I am doing this on my own, I do not condone "hacking", but I also don't condone excessive police tactics...

Source

Note to Zach: A "disclaimer" that you don't "condone 'hacking'" isn't going to cut it in court when it's plain to see that you're seeking help from people with skills to install "keyloggers" for a team tasked for "swift response to Burlington, and it's police department" to "let the City Of Burlington have it." Soliciting others to engage in criminal activity is a crime, putz, er, Zach.

If it doesn't wish to see its credibility erode any further than it already has, Occupy Vermont-Burlington must distance itself from this AntiSecOp thug and cool off hotheads like Zach Cavacas. Immediately.

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Vermont Secessionist Faker Poses As An Occupy Movement Style Activist

2011-11-14T18:00:00.020-05:00

NOTE: For a number of reasons I've been withholding comment on recent developments in the small Vermont secession group and its blatant attempt to coӧpt the Occupy Vermont-Burlington group. That ends tonight.

During the coming days leading up to 9:00 PM on November 20, a time and date set by an ally of the OVB group, AntiSec, when they/it/he will "show the City Of Burlington, and the Police Department of Burlington what it feels like to be brought down to their knees," I'll be posting on a number of relevant topics.

This multi-pronged attack on Vermonters is coming from OVB's ally, who also posts informational links pertaining to the children of police officers, as well as threatening acts of cyberterrorism, sexistly threatens a female Vermont National Guard member with physical assault if she reports what she considers to be threats of violence to the appropriate investigative authority - "snitches get stitches... like little bitches" - and from OVB, a group that entertains anti-Semitic canards and tropes based on the hatred of Jews by a Hitler sympathizer. Sadly, although not terribly surprising, a number of OVB commenters appear to be positively giddy over AntiSec's threats.

This ain't gonna be pretty, folks. So hang on, here we go...

In addition to attracting the ire of Vermont's "small community of secessionists", I've now "caught (the) attention" of someone who's using an email address that is, from what I can find, little more than an homage to a terrorist and would-be mass murderer, Guy Fawkes - guy.fawkes.vendetta@hotmail.com. It seems that our present-day Mr. "Fawkes" has taken a recent interest in this blog that coincides with a number of other peculiar coincidences that I'll be posting about in the coming days. Here's his query:

"Mr. Rowley,"

"An interesting blog. The 'Independence' (s/read secesher) movement has caught our attention."

"A question though. You state: "I thought that secession was worthy of discussion but was troubled by what I had learned about SVR's associations." You have alluded, in other areas of your blog, that secession may be viable but not with the current people who are advocating it."

"Having reviewed the SVR and the Vermont Commons as well as your blog, are you saying that in the proper context secession is a viable option outside of the aforementioned "associations"?

"We look forward to your response."

Really? Here's the deal, Guy: If you want to try to intimidate someone into answering what is obviously a loaded question cobbled together from unrelated statements by glomming onto the "Anonymous," not-so-much, sensation, don't leave your IP address attached to your email. You've unwittingly (read: stoopidly) left compelling evidence as to your identity.

Good luck with that Vermont senate seat you're now supposedly seeking as one of the vaunted secesher "30" who'll be seeking to take over the Vermont Senate in 2012. Normally the secesher clowns that the poseur from guy.fawkes.vendetta@hotmail.com is closely affiliated with collectively poll in the single digit (as in 1% or less). We'll see how Vermonters view a senatorial candidate who uses a fictitious email address based on the identity of a murderous terrorist and how that affects his electability.

Buh-bye, Guy... for now.

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

2011-10-21T18:00:00.000-04:00

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.

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Facts? We Don't Need No Stinkin' Facts!!

2011-10-18T06:00:00.004-04:00

Just when I start to think that Peter Garritano, the handpicked 2010 Lt. Governor candidate of the baas of the Second Vermont Republic, the Dixie singin' Magnolia Vermonter, Thomas Naylor, couldn't become more paranoid, more incoherent and more detached from the real world, he belts out another factless conspiracy theory.

In a blog post at Rob Williams' nearly defunct "Vermont Commons Journal" website titled Wall Street Hit Squad, Garritano asserts that,

"Nobody likes to be ridiculed and the con men on Wall Street have had enough of the protests. The recent allegations that the Mexican drug cartel teamed up with an Iranian to hatch a terror plot has all the markings of the made for TV events that the FBI has been sponsoring for the last ten years..."

"Wall Street was tired of the parades and signs questioning the integrity of the wealthy, so they made a call to members of their personal police force in the FBI. The people who once pretended to protect and serve us are now stuck writing bad scripts for the 49% of the population that still believes in Muslim boogie men. Wall Street has decided to show the 99% who’s boss by calling in a hit on Iran."

The only thing to be ridiculed in that hodge podge of unconnected dots is the thought processes of the declared 2012 secessionist candidate for one of the Vermont Senate seats of Chittenden county, Peter Garritano.

Back in May of this year in another of his rants here about the US gubmint and things he think have or haven't happened, Garritano said that,

"The Hall of Fame of (U.S. government) Fakery includes underwear bombs..."

Earth to Garritano: The so-called underwear bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, pled guilty after opening arguments at his trial began to all eight of the charges lodged against him, including conspiring to commit terrorism.

To paraphrase Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Garritano is entitled to his own opinion but he is not then supposed to create his own facts to support his alternate universe. This should be of interest to all Chittenden voters who may find Garritano's independence spiel even slightly appealing - facts promoted by a would-be legislator should not be independent of reality. Little wonder then that during his last political go-around in 2010 he garnered barely more than 3.6% of the statewide vote. And to think that his superiors believed that he might do better, according to Thomas Naylor's (13%) and Jim "Ethan Allen" Hogue's (18%) estimation of statewide voter support for secession.

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

Consensus? We Don't Need No Stinkin' Consensus!

2011-10-16T14:00:00.008-04:00

A friend wisely noted that I've taken my eye off the ball regarding secessionist "heavy hitters" while digressing into examination of some minor secesher links to the Occupy Vermont - Burlington group and I'm inclined to agree. The thing is that I've a rather low threshold of tolerance for posturing bullshit, a common stance of Vermont's seceshers, and they seem to have lent their talent for that sort of behavior to the OV-Bers; it all just makes me crabbier than usual.

A professor of public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government has recently noted,

"The General Assembly at Zuccotti Park (site of the Occupy Wall Street encampment) is structured to allow participants to arrive at decisions through consensus. A central aim of this arrangement is to avoid subtle processes of domination by small factions and dogmatic leaders that have undermined many social movements."

So I was enthralled on Friday by an ongoing kerfuffle on the Facebook page of the Occupy Vermont - Burlington group. One admin at the page had posted,

"I've just been informed I suck at what i"m doing. And i"m trying to play leader. On that note, good luck guys. my attention will be focused where it will be appreciated."

From there things devolved into nearly a score of alternatively accusatory and sappy, kumbayaish comments of the sort one might expect in such a "decentralized" setting.

The occupier whose feelings got hurt was a Rutland area organizer by the name of Zach Cavacas. For someone who apparently objected to being labeled a "leader," he's sure been acting like one in Rutland; from being the one deciding to obtain and sign for park usage permits, to being the one to decide when or if an event was to be called off on account of rain. But that aside, what struck me was how the "problem" got handled.

Zach had followed up his first posting with a second that suggested that OV-B was sinking, followed by another half dozen or more comments. Not very collegial but certainly an opinion that he was entitled to openly express, as well as those who agreed or disagreed in their comments. Then the real leader of the pack arrived home and saw what had been going on. Result: all posts and comments related to Zach's complaint were deleted, with this statement,

"Good evening.I have NO idea what happened here this afternoon,but I can assure you it will not EVER happen again. Moderator in the house. Everyone is welcome here.Thank you."

The whole leadership issue, along with the superficial lip-service to the idea of consensus and openness, would seem to be a problem directly imported from the seceshers and their hacks who now frequent the ranks of OV-B.

Too bad.

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

This Is What Democracy Looks Like?

2011-10-13T22:00:00.006-04:00

I took a personal look this week at the Occupy Wall Street site and found myself not very impressed.

Certainly the actual participants are sincere but the whole setting has taken on a carnival-like atmosphere, complete with breathless Amy Goodman "interviews" and her irritatingly repetitive questions that start with "talk about" and then suggest the answers that interviewees should head to.

Occupation "peepers" vastly outnumber the not quite on Wall Street occupiers.

While some reports depict the various Occupy groups throughout the US as acting on behalf of 99% of Americans, that seems to be an inflation of representation on a par with some of the stratagems, tactics and imagery used by secessionists and Teabaggers. For instance, the Burlington group headed by (if you're the one quoted usually most frequently, you're the head/spokesperson, like it or not) Matt Cropp/OB uses an image from no, not Burlington, but rather an arrest in NYC. No context, no verifiable facts, just an arrest takedown with no other information.

Was a crime committed? By whom? What happened immediately before that arrest? Is there some relationship to the Burlington PD? Nope, just an image from somewhere else meant to evoke, you know, whatever it's hoped might be seen in it by whoever, although there's no absolutely relationship whatsoever to the Burlington PD.

Did Cropp or someone else slap that image onto their Facebook page for its emotional value? Who's to say? But its relevance to the Burlington PD or any inference regarding their treatment of the occupiers here would be a bullshit conclusion. It's just the sort of misinformation that can make the Occupy Burlington group as irrelevant to Vermonters as the secessionist organization that Cropp represents (or not, depending on who he's trying to stroke) has done to themselves over the years with their misrepresentations. Fostering bad relations with the Burlington PD without any basis can't serve Vermonters or the would-be occupiers. Any such movement must be based on truth if it's to take off, unless, of course, Cropp, et al, are following the Teabagger model.

Given "the amount of print and face time" that Cropp's managed to garner for himself up to now, he's most definitely the "spokesperson" for the Vermont Occupy groups.

Cropp has said,

"(T)he vast majority of people I met (at OWS NYC) were from places other than NYC; on the second trip it was majority New Yorker"

While the first statement by Cropp may have been true, his second statement is sheer bullshit. Zuccotti Park is crawling with tourists and tour buses clog the area streets to see the "action." If Cropp's actually been there, he'd know that or he's just lying to promote a political disinformation campaign.

What's missing from the OWS locale are any advocates of Cropp's signature issue - secession. I looked hard for any sign of secessionist sentiment and it ain't there. For those of you who've forgotten or who now wish to, Matt was the campaign manager of one of the most unsuccessful gubernatorial efforts in recent Vermont history, the secessionist campaign of the middle finger waving Connecticut native Dennis Steele; Occupy Burlington might want to take note of that fact.

Cropp is seen grinning here in an early warning by Occupy Burlington to the Burlington PD. With no problem yet having presented itself with the Burlington PD, why did the group seek to draw kind of some line in the sand? Looking for an incident that you think will inspire, Matt? Back in the day we use call that being a provocateur, not leadership.

The posturing by Cropp on behalf of Occupy Burlington seems to be pretty obvious, including the field trips to OWS that he's now involved in promoting while soliciting contributions. Hopefully there'll be a full, transparent, public financial accounting of this fundraising effort by Cropp's group and given its complaints about taxes one hopes that they'll make the necessary income tax declarations (I don't think that road trips to NYC will qualify as a charitable expenditure by an as yet to be applied for 501(3)(c) status).

In fact, when a Occupy Burlington supporter complained repeatedly about the junkets to New York, Matt sought to silence the public, transparent discussion on Facebook by directing the discussion to himself personally:

"Before throwing around baseless accusations imputing the goodwill of people who've been working damn hard to help build this movement, why don't you actually try and talk to us - I'm around this afternoon and available to talk through either skype or on the phone. Send me a private message with your contact info and let's discuss your concerns"
Source: Occupy Burlington, Matt's 10/11/11, 1:17 PM response to -Zach #AntiSec's 10/11/11, 11:14 AM complaint

According to tonight's news reports, the City of New York intends to assist the owner of Zuccotti Park assert its management rights in the park tomorrow morning at 7:00 AM.

Occupy Wall Street "spokesman" Patrick Bruner has "called on people to come to the site at 6 a.m. tomorrow, an hour before cleaning is scheduled to begin, 'to defend the occupation from eviction.'”

Here's an idea for Occupy Burlington spokespersons and organizers, Matthew Cropp and Jonathan Leavitt; instead of just "be(ing) here, strong and standing together in solidarity with Occupy Wall Street.," they get on the road and be there in Zuccotti Park at 6:00 AM as is being asked for by OWS.

It's time to fish or cut bait, boys. You may want to download this app on the way there.

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

A Vermont Secessionist Seeks a Position As a Director at the City Market / Onion River Co-op in Burlington

2011-10-04T18:00:00.011-04:00

Matthew Cropp's electoral ambitions (read: power needs) continue. He's now offering his vast experience in pretty much nothing useful to the Board of Directors of the Burlington City Market / Onion River Co-op, to serve in one of three available positions on the Board as a new director.

I've read his candidate statement here and was surprised that he hadn't fleshed it out a bit more with some of his more recent endeavors, one being his stint as campaign manager for the 2010 Vermont secessionist gubernatorial candidate, Dennis Steele. Perhaps that was because the Steele campaign serves as an example of the most inept, most incompetent and most incoherent campaign in recent memory. While Cropp can't be held entirely responsible for Steele's erratic behavior, he must have had something to say about the images attached to that campaign. One particularly disturbing image was of the self-professed murderer, Che Guevara, superimposed on the Vermont National Guard battle flag that was used on the campaign website and campaign literature. Under Cropp's "stewardship" the campaign was able to "function" so "efficiently and rationally" that Steele eventually garnered barely three quarters of one percent of Vermont's 2010 gubernatorial vote, something that I'm sure that Cropp would rather re-frame as third place.

Cropp's commitment to a "trans-ideological" Vermont independence (read: secessionist) movement has included deep participation in what was called the "Free Vermont Framework listserv", which was set up, in part, as a way to avoid interference from "the pigs." (See "Free Vermont Framework listserv" archive at the bottom of the post and then search Feb. 2010 archive page 192) That commitment to "trans-ideological" involvement included remaining silent when one listserv member made repeated hateful statements directed at race-mixing and lesbians. Eventually, Cropp's Steele campaign accepted its largest out-of-state campaign contribution from this hateful individual, and when the matter was exposed on this blog the campaign chose to keep the bigot's money.

Cropp also said in his City Market / Onion River Co-op campaign statement,

"...I've had previous experiences ...including having served ...on the editorial board of several publications"

I don't know why he wasn't more forthcoming about who those editorial boards were that benefited from his expertise but I suspect that the one that I do know about, "Vermont Commons", and its reputation for harboring the written work of white supremacists, neo-Confederates and anti-Semites in its pages is something that Cropp would have difficulty explaining. Maybe it's just that "trans-ideological" thing at work again.

In addition to his work organizing the campaign of the handpicked gubernatorial candidate of the the Dixie singin' Thomas Naylor's Second Vermont Republic, Cropp interests now include central participation with the #OccupyVermont movement.

One certainly has to wonder how Cropp's unrevealed and varied interests and "perspective," as well as his experience in "cultivating working relationships" with some of society's more odious and hateful elements, will serve the Co-op, not to mention his own personal "aspirations."

As a measure of Cropp's dedication to his undisclosed ideals and the degree to which he's advanced his personal goals, one need look no farther than his creation of the Vermont Independence Alliance ten months ago and his statement of purpose,

"We are therefore dedicated to supporting service projects which strengthen our communities and strive to meet local needs with local resources."

"...In order to advance these shared principles, VIA chapters will first be organized in each of our state's counties. These groups will serve as local hubs of both political activism and community service, forming the movement's sturdy, grass-roots foundation. Once a sufficient number of counties are organized, a convention will be held to constitute a state-wide organization. While most resources and responsibilities will remain at the county level, the state organization will take the lead in coordinating large events and supporting state-wide candidates for public office."

...as well as Cropp's lengthy announcement at the Vermont secesher homebase website, Second Vermont Republic, here. The question then would be, "How's that going for ya, Matt?"

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

Earth to SVR Apparatchik and Vermont Commons Editor-at-large Kirkpatrick Sale: The Lost Cause of Southern Secession Was Always About Slavery

2011-10-03T18:00:00.004-04:00

A Second Vermont Republic founder and longtime advisory board fixture, as well as a "Vermont Commons" editor, Kirkpatrick Sale, has been involved in the modern 21st century secessionist movement almost from its inception. Certainly, he has become one of the movement's "big thinkers"; fact is, I don't think there's one member of today's tiny, secession from the "US of Empire" movement that doesn't consider himself (yes, it's a largely male group) a "big thinker." And if by "big thinker" they mean that they'll just make shit up to have their way, I'd also agree with that descriptive for the lot of them.

Earlier this spring a friend of the blog passed along a piece that Sale had written about the sesquicentennial of this country's Civil War (here) and suggested that I comment on it. VTCommons
"publisher" and poohbah-in-chief at the Vermont secesher propaganda print journal, Rob Williams, personally promoted Sale's historical fiction in the February issue of his soon to be defunct rag.

In his convoluted perversion of history Sale asserted, in all seriousness, that,
"(W)e should understand that the issue of slavery, strictly, was not the cause of Southern secession or the reason for the war on the Confederate side."
Nothing could be further from the truth. Sale even goes so far as to say that Lincoln's refusal to capitulate and submit to Southern secessionist's demands was "a clear and deliberate act of war."

I'd meant to examine this bit of secesher historical revisionism earlier but when I recently found this piece by UVM race relations professor emeritus, James W. Loewen, that succinctly exposes the mythology (read: junk history) promoted by Sale and his friends at SVR, VTCommons and the rest of the sorry neo-Confederate enterprise, it seemed the perfect way to address Sale's historical dishonesty.

Getting the Civil War Right

William Faulkner famously wrote, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” He would not be surprised to learn that Americans, 150 years after the Civil War began, are still getting it wrong.

During the last five years, I’ve asked several thousand teachers for the main reason the South seceded. They always come up with four alternatives: states’ rights, slavery, tariffs and taxes or the election of Lincoln.

When I ask them to vote, the results—and resulting discussions— convince me that no part of our history gets more mythologized than the Civil War, beginning with secession.

My informal polls show that 55 to 75 percent of teachers—regardless of region or race—cite states’ rights as the key reason southern states seceded. These conclusions are backed up by a 2011 Pew Research Center poll, which found that a wide plurality of Americans—48 percent— believe that states’ rights was the main cause of the Civil War. Fewer, 38 percent, attributed the war to slavery, while 9 percent said it was a mixture of both.

These results are alarming because they are essentially wrong. States’ rights was not the main cause of the Civil War—slavery was.

The issue is critically important for teachers to see clearly. Understanding why the Civil War began informs virtually all the attitudes about race that we wrestle with today. The distorted emphasis on states’ rights separates us from the role of slavery and allows us to deny the notions of white supremacy that fostered secession.

In short, this issue is a perfect example of what Faulkner meant when he said the past is not dead—it’s not even past.

The Lost Cause
Confederate sympathizers have long understood the importance of getting the Civil War wrong. In 1866, a year after the war ended, an ex-Confederate named Edward A. Pollard published the first pro-southern history, called The Lost Cause: A New Southern History of the War of the Confederates. Pollard’s book was followed by a torrent of similar propaganda. Soon, the term “Lost Cause” perfectly described the South’s collective memory of the war.

All these works promoting the Lost Cause consoled southern pride by echoing similar themes: The South’s leaders had been noble; the South was not out-fought but merely overwhelmed; Southerners were united in support of the Confederate cause; slavery was a benign institution overseen by benevolent masters.

A chief tenet of the Lost Cause was that secession had been forced on the South to protect states’ rights. This view spread in part because racism pervaded both North and South, and both ex-Confederates and ex-Unionists wanted to put the war behind them. Beginning with Mississippi’s new constitution in 1890, white southerners effectively removed African Americans from citizenship and enshrined their new status in Jim Crow laws. Northerners put the war behind them by turning their backs on blacks and letting Jim Crow happen.

From 1890 to about 1940, the Lost Cause version of events held sway across the United States. This worldview influenced popular culture, such as the racist 1915 movie The Birth of a Nation and Margaret Mitchell’s 1936 bestselling paean to the Old South, Gone With the Wind. As I point out in my book Lies My Teacher Told Me, history textbooks also bought into the myth and helped promote it nationwide.

What’s Wrong About States’ Rights?
But advocates of the Lost Cause— Confederates and later neo- Confederates—had a problem. The leaders of southern secession left voluminous records. The civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s prompted historians and teachers to review those records and challenge the Lost Cause. One main point they came to was this: Confederate states seceded against states’ rights, not for them.

As states left the Union, they said why. On Christmas Eve of 1860, South Carolina, the first to go, adopted a “Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union.” It listed South Carolina’s grievances, including the exercise of northern states’ rights: “We assert that fourteen of the States have deliberately refused, for years past, to fulfill their constitutional obligations, and we refer to their own Statutes for the proof.” The phrase “constitutional obligations” sounds vague, but delegates went on to quote the part of the Constitution that concerned them— the Fugitive Slave Clause. They then noted “an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery. ... In many of these States the fugitive is discharged from service or labor claimed ...”

South Carolina also attacked New York for no longer allowing temporary slavery. In the past, Charleston gentry who wanted to spend a cool August in the North could bring their cooks along. By 1860, New York made it clear that it was a free state and any slave brought there would become free. South Carolina was outraged. Delegates were further upset at a handful of northern states for letting African-American men vote. Voting was a state matter at the time, so this should have fallen under the purview of states’ rights. Nevertheless, southerners were outraged. In 1860, South Carolina pointed out that according to “the supreme law of the land, [blacks] are incapable of becoming citizens.” This was a reference to the 1857 Dred Scott decision by the southern- dominated U.S. Supreme Court.

Delegates also took offense that northern states have “denounced as sinful the institution of Slavery” and “permitted open establishment among them of [abolitionist] societies ...” In other words, northern and western states should not have the right to let people assemble and speak freely—not if what they say might threaten slavery.

Thoroughly Identified With Slavery
Other seceding states echoed South Carolina. “Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery— the greatest material interest of the world,” proclaimed Mississippi. “... [A] blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization.” Northern abolitionists, Mississippi went on to complain, have “nullified the Fugitive Slave Law,” “broken every compact” and even “invested with the honors of martyrdom” John Brown—the radical abolitionist who tried to lead a slave uprising in Virginia in 1859.

Once the Confederacy formed, its leaders wrote a new constitution that protected the institution of slavery at the national level. As historian William C. Davis has said, this showed how little Confederates cared about states’ rights and how much they cared about slavery. “To the old Union they had said that the Federal power had no authority to interfere with slavery issues in a state,” he said. “To their new nation they would declare that the state had no power to interfere with a federal protection of slavery.”

Their founding documents show that the South seceded over slavery, not states’ rights. But the neo-Confederates are right in a sense. Slavery was not the only cause. The South also seceded over white supremacy, something in which most whites—North and South—sincerely believed. White southerners came to see the 4 million African Americans in their midst as a menace, going so far as to predict calamity, even race war, were slavery ever to end. This facet of Confederate ideology helps explain why many white southerners—even those who owned no slaves and had no prospects of owning any—mobilized so swiftly and effectively to protect their key institution.

This historic map shows how the United States was divided in 1861, as the Civil War began. All of the seceding southern states were heavily dependant on slavery. Keeping African Americans in bondage allowed slave owners to cheaply grow cash crops like cotton, rice and sugar cane.

Tariffs, Taxes and Lincoln
The other alleged causes of the Civil War can be dispensed with fairly quickly. The argument that tariffs and taxes also caused secession is a part of the Lost Cause line favored by modern neo-Confederates. But this, too, is flatly wrong.

High tariffs had been the issue in the 1831 nullification controversy, but not in 1860. About tariffs and taxes, the “Declaration of the Immediate Causes” said nothing. Why would it? Tariffs had been steadily decreasing for a generation. The tariff of 1857, under which the nation was functioning, had been written by a Virginia slaveowner and was warmly approved of by southern members of Congress. Its rates were lower than at any other point in the century.

The election of Lincoln is a valid explanation for secession—not an underlying cause, but clearly the trigger. Many southern states referred to the “Black Republican Party,” to use Alabama’s term, that had “elected Abraham Lincoln to the office of President.” As “Black Republican” implies, Alabama was upset with Lincoln because he held “that the power of the Government should be so exercised that slavery in time, should be exterminated.” So it all comes back to slavery.

Study the Writing of History
None of this was secret in the 1860s. The “anything but slavery” explanations gained traction only after the war, especially after 1890—at exactly the same time that Jim Crow laws became entrenched across the South. Thus when people wrote about secession influenced what they wrote.

And here the states’ rights argument opens a door for teachers to explain how perceptions of the past change from one generation to the next. Most students imagine history is something “to be learned,” so the whole idea of historiography—that who writes history, when and for what audience, affects how history is written— is new to them. They need to know it. Knowledge of historiography empowers students, helping them become critical readers and thinkers.

Concealing the role of white supremacy — on both sides of the conflict — makes it harder for students to see white supremacy today. After all, if southerners were not championing slavery but states’ rights, then that minimizes southern racism as a cause of the war. And it gives implicit support to the Lost Cause argument that slavery was a benevolent institution. Espousing states’ rights as the reason for secession whitewashes the Confederate cause into a “David versus Goliath” undertaking— the states against the mighty federal government.

States’ rights became a rallying cry for southerners fighting all federal guarantees of civil rights for African Americans. This was true both during Reconstruction and in the 1950s, when the modern civil rights movement gained strength. Today, the cause of states’ rights is still invoked against federal social programs and education initiatives that are often beneficial to people of color.

In other words, teaching the Civil War wrong cedes power to some of the most reactionary forces in the United States, letting them, rather than truth, dictate what we say in the classroom. Allowing bad history to stand literally makes the public stupid about the past—today.

Source: Teaching Tolerance Magazine, Issue 40, Fall 2011

Well said, professor. I couldn't have said it nearly as well.

Professor Loewen's book, The Confederate and Neo-Confederate Reader: The “Great Truth” about the “Lost Cause” , written with Edward. H. Sebesta, a researcher and expert on the neo-Confederate movement, is noted in the links column to the right.

Editor's Note: Kirkpatrick Sale has relocated to South Carolina to wage his war against truth where it all began. He is also now a South Carolina delegate to the Southern National Congress, a reincarnation of the secesher movement of the 1850s. Here's what one local South Carolina commentator and admirer of Sale, Will Moredock at the Charleston City Paper, has to say about Sale's ludicrous historical revisionism.

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

Rutland County Senate Candidate Dennis Morrisseau Finally Speaks to Rutlanders About Tropical Storm Irene and the Aftermath

2011-09-23T14:30:00.001-04:00

"Ruh-roh!"

The would-be senator for Rutland county in the 2012 election cycle has broken his nearly monthlong silence on tropical storm Irene and its devastating impact on his Rutland county neighbors.

This from the website of fake "Senator" Robert Wagner - Denny, put on your crazy hat and take it away:

"Who’s for telling FEMA to get the hell off our roads and out of our skies and pockets and councils?"

Oh, snap! And then what, Denny?

Now go back to sleep, Denny.

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

A Review: Rob's Cry-Baby Letter to Seven Days and His Contribution to a Secessionist Collection of Essays About Their Alternate Historical Universe

2011-09-23T06:00:00.000-04:00

Recently Rob Williams, a journalist poseur, wrote a scathing letter to the editor to Seven Days (fourth letter down) claiming that,

"For years... [he claims that he has been the victim of] ad hominem slander... [being] accus[ed]... of “racism” (for talking with other independence-minded groups of different political stripes), “anti-Semitism,” (for criticizing the Israeli government’s harsh treatment of Palestinians and D.C.’s powerful pro-Israel lobby) and “neo-Confederate-ism” (for pointing out that Abraham Lincoln used the Civil War to radically reinvent the U.S. Constitution by centralizing federal power at the expense of individual states — Vermont included)."

Actually, Williams is a dyed-in-the-wool neo-Confederate because of his ongoing neo-Confederate four-way with the likes of neo-Confederates Donald Livingston, Thomas DiLorenzo, Kirkpatrick Sale and the baas of the Second Vermont Republic, its Dixie singin' "scholar," the Magnolia Vermonter, Thomas Naylor. Additionally, he's just contributed to a soon-to-be neo-Confederate bible, "Rethinking the American Union for the 21st Century," (already steeply discounted despite being more than a month from its October 31 release date) along with fellow neo-Confederates like the book's editor, Donald Livingston, contributors DiLorenzo, Kirkpatrick Sale and other cranks that are normally found palling around at Livingston's neo-Confederate "think tank," the Abbeville Institute. (NOTE: Secesher "scholars" all seem to need to call some spare room in their home a "think tank"; "think" Thomas Naylor's Second Vermont Republic "think tank"; Kirkpatrick Sale's Middlebury Institute "think tank.")

In 2009 The Chronicle for Higher Education had an excellent profile of Livingston and his Abbeville Institute (read it, it's well worth the time) here.

"(Livingston) started the Abbeville Institute, named after the South Carolina birthplace of John C. Calhoun, seventh vice president of the United States and a forceful advocate of slavery and states' rights. The institute now has 64 associated scholars from various colleges and disciplines. They gather to discuss topics about the South that they feel are misrepresented in today's classrooms. Feeling a chilly reception to its ideas—officials of the Southern Poverty Law Center say its work borders on white supremacy—the group has kept a low profile. Mr. Livingston's own (Emory philosophy) department chair, as well as a number of Emory history professors, say they have never heard of it."

The Chronicle's piece also says of the Abbeville Institute's "scholarly" work,

"(O)utsiders who have heard of Abbeville (Institute) tend not to like what they hear. One historian, whose research includes the cultural history of racism and white supremacy in the United States, and who asked for anonymity to avoid becoming a target of "Southern identity groups," says the lectures he has listened to on the Abbeville Web site (http://www.abbevilleinstitute.org) are dominated by racialism and are "ideological, through and through." There is the condemnation from the Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil-rights group. In 2005, Time magazine pegged Abbeville as a group of "Lincoln loathers."

SPLC had this here in 2004 on Donaldson's ~~basement~~, er, "think tank":

"(T)he Abbeville Institute but located in Georgia, is led by former LOS board member Donald Livingston, an Emory philosophy professor. Its Web site describes it as devoted to the "Southern tradition," including the allegedly ignored "achievements of white people in the South."

"About 30 people are listed as institute scholars, a staff that overlaps heavily with the LOS institute's staff."

"What these institutes teach is commonly portrayed as the fruit of an intellectual tradition that goes back to the 19th century and even, at the earliest, the colonial era — the line of thought known as "the Southern conservative tradition."

"The Southern conservative tradition stretches all the way back to Thomas Jefferson's belief in the superiority of an agriculture-based society to one built on commerce. Its giants include men like John Calhoun, the preeminent antebellum theorizer in favor of states' rights."

"To many, the tradition includes palpably racist thinkers such as Robert Lewis Dabney, who was chaplain to Civil War Gen. Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, and Thomas Dixon, whose 1905 novel The Clansman helped spark the 20th century rebirth of the Ku Klux Klan."

"The tradition also boasts of the Nashville Agrarians, a dozen Vanderbilt University-connected essayists who wrote I'll Take My Stand: The South and the Agrarian Tradition in the 1930s."

"Essentially, this intellectual tradition celebrates Southern agricultural life as Edenic, and contrasts its religious and tradition-bound ways with what is seen as the vulgar materialism of the industrializing North. It is, in the view of many, hopelessly romantic, tied more to an imagined golden age of Southern culture than to an honest appraisal of rural 19th century life as it really was."

"Be that as it may, strains of racism have been intertwined with this tradition almost from the start. In the South, a defense of "tradition" has a habit of ending up as an apologia for slavery."

Despite Williams' Lincoln-hating historical revisionism the fact remains that the slave states seceded to defend slavery and said so in many of the Articles of Secession.

Here's just one of the many, many articles by non-deluded Southerners that amply put the lie to the story that the Civil War was a war of Northern aggression and not about slavery. Transplanted northerners to South Carolina like Kirkpatrick Sale today peddle the lie that the war was not really about slavery.

In his book Livingston makes the anti-Federalist argument that "the virtues of republican life (self-government and the rule of law) were possible only in small polities.” The anti-Federalists, like Livingston and Williams, opposed the US Constitution and its eventual results. That argument was lost nearly 225 years ago. And try as he might, Williams (along with longtime SVR advisory board member and Lincoln historical revisionist, Thomas DiLorenzo) can't successfully argue that Lincoln started what was really started in 1787 and was then continued in the 1830's by Andrew Jackson - the long march of federalism.

Certainly, Williams' complaint about being linked to anti-Semitism and racism can't be taken seriously since he's published material from DiLorenzo (who's had his work published in a Holocaust denial journal and who cites racist sources in his critique of the SPLC ), Paul Michael Craig, Carol Moore (a raving anti-Semite), just to name only a few of these creeps. If he isn't anti-Semitic himself, he's definitely an anti-Semite enabler. When he was advising Connecticut native Dennis Steele's utterly failed gubernatorial campaign last year on the topic of "the Israeli Mafia" he wrote:

"I realize that the Israel plank is near and dear to Thomas (Naylor) - and he'll no doubt mail me another pointed letter scrawled in green pen with more information about the US/Israel connection and tell me that, because I am raising questions here, he will decide to push the "Israeli Mafia" phrase even MORE."

"However, Thomas is not running for office. You are."

"And, the thing is - I agree with Thomas re: Israel."

"I just don't think it makes much sense to use "Israeli Mafia" as a "talking point" for a Vermont independence campaign."

"Why? Three reasons immediately come to mind:"
"#1 - Since most Americans have been conditioned by years of corporate media training to associate anti-Israeli sentiment with Anti Semitism, talking about the Israeli Mafia smacks of antiSemitism blah blah. Holocaust, SVR are racists, etc ad nauseum. I have spent 4 years defusing the SVR/LOS nonsense and it is finally done, even in the blogosphere. Why go there again?" (So how's that working out for you, Rob?)
"#2 - MORE IMPORTANTLY, why not keep our eye on the ball - the United States?"
"#3 - Finally, the "Israeli Mafia" phrase sounds CANNED when it comes out of your mouth. EVERYTHING ELSE YOU SAY sounds like Dennis Steele talking, and kicking ass."
"So - if you decide to continue to use the phrase "Israeli Mafia," then I am asking you to help me think of something to say to Cairn, and others, when they ask."

Years ago, when he was confronted about Livingston's neo-Confederatism and strong links to white supremacists, Williams responded:

"Is ("Don") a racist? I don't know. And frankly, it is none of my damn business"

Williams is an enabler of racialism and bigotry for having invited the white supremacist League of the South and the virulently homophobic hate group, Christian Exodus, to the "talk(s)" that he's sponsored "with other independence-minded groups" over the years in Vermont.

Is Rob Williams a racist? While I have my own opinion on that, that's really more the "damn business" of every Vermonter who Williams proposes to lead into his brave new world of deliberately non-specific proposals for an unlikely "independent" Vermont that Williams would ally with racists, homophobes, anti-Semites and the like.

Williams has also said,

"Secession (began) as a (serious) conversation in New England, (not) in the south. This, also, is a historical fact." (Rob's ALLCAPS deleted)

What our self-professed historian Williams omitted from that statement is that Vermont and its delegate, like the rest of the nation, didn't support the short-lived notions of the Hartford Convention of 1814. Moreover, the three week meeting in Hartford ultimately spelled the end to the - guess who - Federalist Party! That's the group that Williams, Livingston, Naylor, DiLorenzo, Kirkpatrick Sale, et al, ad nauseum so vehemently oppose. That's also an example of the devious nature of Williams and his "small community" (according to a SVR founder and a "Vermont Commons" publisher emeritus or some such nonsense, Ian Baldwin) of Vermont seceshers who routinely twist and pervert the historical record to suit their needs.

In his letter to Seven Days, Williams, whose print publication has failed for five years to convince Vermonters that he and his secesher buddies were nothing more than fringy, ineffectual, batshit crazy, whackjobs, never disclosed that the day before he crafted his recommendations to a real journalist, he'd folded his ~~journal~~ propaganda rag that is more the type of thing that was commonly found on an old fashioned shithouse nail before Charmin came along.

As for his umpteenth sorta invitation to converse,

"Accept invitations to discuss differing political points of view in public dialogue."

I don't meet or chat in bars, as you've so often suggested we do, with Aryan Nation types, neo-Nazis, Liberty Counsel douchebags and other fundie creeps, Southern/Northern/Eastern/Western white supremacists or their enablers. Get it?

(Extra credit reading for secesher scholars like Rob here. It's a piece by a real scholar, James W. Loewen.)

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Eye on "The 30" - Monthly Update #2

2011-09-20T06:00:00.002-04:00

Just a brief update on "Senator" Wagner's progress in making truthful his July 20 boast that he had 6 candidates of the 30 needed to takeover the Vermont Senate.

As you may recall, I pointed out in this post that he'd only named 2 of the 30 as of August 1. On August 2 he added a graphic that showed 4 names (he forgot his own). Then on August 5 he added his own name which brought the total announced by him to be running to 5. (See graphics here)

It's now two months since he first made that boast that he already had 6 candidates running and yet still that sixth candidate remains a mystery.

And still 5 ≠ 6.

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

BREAKING! Vermont Commons Print Journal To Fold - This Fall's Will Be The Last Issue

2011-09-16T18:00:00.018-04:00

In a whistling past the graveyard style editorial that tries to put a cheerful face onto what to any real journalist (which Rob Williams is not and can never be since he doesn't seem to get the ethics involved) would find a horrible task, publisher, editor, statewide distributor and bottle washer, Rob Williams, of the longtime failing propaganda rag for the Vermont secessionist movement, "Vermont Commons", announced the end to print publication of his baby here. It even includes a Schwartzeneger-esque "I'll be back."

The long slide to oblivion began with the revelations on this blog in February 2007 that contributors to the journal were directly affiliated with the white supremacist group called the League of the South. Within two months of that disclosure Seven Days, the Burlington based alternative weekly, cancelled its distribution deal with "Vermont Commons" because of "confusion." Read all about it here.

Apparently a lot of free advertising that was given to fill pages and create the impression of a successful publication wasn't converting into revenue, although Rob never admits that in his editorial swan song. But then editorial honesty has never been Rob's strong suit.

In the meantime, Rob, let me be the first to say, "Buh-bye." Don't let the door hit you on the way out.

Update: 9.18.11, 8:30 AM - Williams' announcement of his soon to fold print edition which was previously found only by examining the Vermont Commons Journal's issues archive has been moved to the front page of the web site edition of the journal. Kinda sad that Rob didn't even get to break one of the few real news stories, even if it was a publicity piece, ever published in his journal.

So Rob, what's next for the secesher journal, a paywall?

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

"Senator" Wagner Makes It Official!

2011-09-15T06:00:00.014-04:00

At this point, he's going to make his likely to lose, fringer campaign for the Vermont Senate possibly the dirtiness, most negative, dishonest campaign in Addison county history and perhaps, although we've yet to see, in Vermont campaigns for a seat in the General Assembly.

You see, in Robert Wagner's world, a world unfamiliar to his neighbors in Ripton and the people he purports to represent (although he's never won an election anywhere that I can find, except in his head) in the Addison County-Brandon Vermont Senate district, all members of the Vermont legislature are dishonest; in fact, he calls them all thieves here and enablers of corporate theft:

"(International corporations... in Vermont) suck our natural resources dry, we build roads so their trucks can take our groundwater and minerals out-of-state for processing… and they pay no taxes… they’re stealing from us, and our Legislature helps them steal."

Wagner then drives home the point that he's talking about Sen. Claire Ayer (D-Addison):

"My opponent in the 2010 & 2012 elections, incumbent Claire Ayer, stated in a public meeting last Summer[sic] that going after Entergy for fines would be “too hard”. (Much less vote to shut down that leaker that they’re running into the ground.)"

"A double standard. My learned colleagues in the State House get to APPEAR to be antinuclear. Entergy’s in business to make a buck… and Entergy wouldn’t be making any bucks if the Legislature weren’t helping them left and right with environmental subsidies, exemptions, and special tax-free status."

"Too hard indeed. Radioactive tritium has been leaking into soil and water around the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant, Entergy officials misled state regulators and lawmakers by saying the plant didn’t have the kind of underground piping that carried tritium, and no fine. Ayer’s really saying that Vermonters will pay part of Entergy’s cost of doing business, keeping electricity costs low through public subsidy… so her party looks good."

"That’s all the incumbents have to offer folks: politics as usual."

Wagner doesn't accurately represent Ayer's position vis à vis why it would be "too hard," he just rails on about Entergy as though that's all that's needed to justify a legal fine.

But one need only look at his statement, "My learned colleagues in the State House," to get a true sense of how deluded Wagner is about his role in the legislature - he has none. He's never once been elected to the legislature, so such posturing is a lie.

You can see the rest of his angry, cut-and-paste ramble here.

I'll have more soon on Wagner's apparent vendettas, self-esteem issues and ongoing delusions.

In the meantime, I submit that candidate Wagner should at least do as his declared opponent has done, someone who he claims is dishonest, which is to disclose who his contributors are and what his campaign expenses have been (something neither he nor any of his past secesher legislative "colleagues" did in 2010), as his declared opponent Claire Ayer has already done months ago here, despite her not having reached the statutorily require threshold.

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

I'm Back to "Having a Good Time..."

2011-09-08T23:00:00.004-04:00

... and "there's no stopping me."

Irene in Vermont is now headed well into the recovery phase at this moment and absent another flood watch in the area, the clean-up here has progressed to the point where I'm getting my vibe back.

Google has been such an integral source of what I've found, for getting onto five years now, about Vermont's secession movement and, also, this week would have been Freddie Mercury's 65th birthday, so... (turn it up and go to full screen)

(For Freddie Mercury and Queen purists who'd prefer the full-length original [as I do], that's here.)

It's been apparent for a very long time that the Vermont secesher movement, which now likes to euphemistically call itself an independence movement, is essentially a hot-air machine posing as political substance that'll get into bed with any low-life, racist, anti-Semite or homophobe so long as it'll get them to their goal post, no matter who may possibly end up getting hung from it.

They've chosen to keep it vague and label themselves as "independents" and then cheesily presumed to draft in their pronouncements very real independent candidates as their supposed running mates simply because they all use that term "independent." At least one of their actual 7 candidates (not the 40 that some of them have claimed) during their 2010 across the board failure actually disavowed secession for Vermont.

This week is also the 10th anniversary of the lunatic conspiracy theory that they've also chosen to anchor their "movement" to, the 9/11 Truther nonsense. That's not such a surprise since at least one of their past Senate candidates, Gaelan Brown, believes that there's been collusion with aliens and the US government regarding resource extraction from the darkside of the moon.

"Personally I believe that it's likely that NASA has been collaborating with beings from other planets to mine the dark side of the moon in exchange for them giving us some of their technology."

"(I've seen unexplainable UFOs several times and I know a man who works for Carlisle who says there is heavy investment going on re infrastructure to mine the moon for titanium, H3 (nuclear fuel), and other minerals that are rare on earth.)(SIC) I have also studied the chem.-trail and HARPP systems/history and there's a lot of sketchy activity in this category as well."

"But I'm not going to focus on these issues in my campaign. Vt independence is enough of a reach without pushing people on issues that they'll never grasp."
Gaelan Brown, September 1, 2010, on the super top-secret Free Vermont Framework messageboard

Right, Gaelan. Your fellow Vermonters are too stupid to get the whole UFOs on the darkside of the moon thing; keep it simple: secede from something that Vermont sought 3 times to become a part of 220 years ago.

And at least one VTCommons blogger, Simha Bode, worries that Burlington's bike paths are really part of a UN directed, one world government conspiracy trap here, that is when he's not exploring fringe legal theories espoused by sovereign citizen movement types here. Yeah, really.

My focus tonight is on the seceshers response over the last week and a half to the Irene disaster and its wake.

Rob Williams
This week is also the one year of anniversary of "Vermont Commons" news poseur and half-assed media wiz, Rob Williams, declaring on his super top-secret, hidey-hole messageboard:

"Since most Americans have been conditioned by years of corporate media training to associate anti-Israeli sentiment with Anti Semitism, talking about the Israeli Mafia smacks of antiSemitism blah blah. Holocaust, SVR are racists, etc ad nauseum. I have spent 4 years defusing the SVR/LOS nonsense and it is finally done, even in the blogosphere. Why go there again?"

It's also Rob Wiliams' 4½ year anniversary of his infamous "Don't Ask, Don't Care" policy regarding the former director of the white supremacist's League of the South "scholarly" Institute for the Study of Southern Culture and History:

"Is ("Don") a racist? I don't know. And frankly, it is none of my damn business"

It seems that my post a few days ago here may have prompted Williams to finally do something on his blog. We learn that his vast, massive organization has limited its Irene response to his backyard and setting up a Facebook page. Oh yeah, he tweets too. Fabulous! And hyper-irrelevant.

Oh! And there's this:

"I've sent many of you who have been asking to Anne Galloway's VermontDigger - she and her crew are doing a fine job of aggregating press releases, official government response documents, and original reporting there."
Source

That's interesting since here's what he was saying on that same top-secret messageboard mentioned above specifically about Galloway in May-June of last year:

"CIA spook that she is..."
[snip]
"Most reporters regurgitate press release as "fact," and call it objective journalism, friends."
"When they dare to have an opinion, they put it on the OP/ED pages."
"It ain't right, and we need to challenge it (as everything else...)"
Source

Ahhh, what a difference a year can make for a not so smooth talking secesher when he's back to trying to woo a member of Vermont's press corps.

Williams' blog post on the Irene disaster surprisingly evoked a militaristic spirit ("boots on the ground") from our anti-miltary Williams, who then slithered off into a Larry-the-Cable-Guy catch phrase ("Git'er done"). Faux militarism with a dollop of insipid inspiration - that's our Robbie.

At times it seems as though Williams can't see his own blatant hypocrisy as others easily can, so it eludes him as to why he and his movement are getting no traction. Nothing on his website but ads and self-promotion. His denial of reality is on a scale that rivals Harold Camping's delusion, except that when Williams stands on a Waitsfield corner wearing his sandwich board, his reads, "Secession Is Near!"

Matthew Cropp
Like Williams, another elite, academic, former campaign manager for one of the most ineptly run gubernatorial bids by a Connecticut native, Dennis Steele (for whom Williams was a primary adviser). Steele was also the former self-commissioned commander of the Green Mountain Brigade (of One?) who then flip-flopped into a "Peace Candidate" of convenience. Cropp set up this spring what he calls the Vermont Independence Alliance. Again, we're presented with the usual gauzy generalities that seceshers have become known for; non-specifics designed to include whatever they think the reader would like to hear, but this one piece jumped out at me:

"We are therefore dedicated to supporting service projects which strengthen our communities and strive to meet local needs with local resources."

So I've watched and waited but nothing's happened. And then I thought that maybe with Irene that the posturing Cropp would drop the crap and finally step up with some real substance rather than the empty words he's become so well known for but, you guessed it, he's not "supporting" shit.

The scary part of Cropp's plan is this nugget:

"In a free Vermont, on the other hand, our own political vision(s) might or might not be adopted, depending on the will of the people, but they’d certainly have the opportunity to be honestly considered and rationally debated."

Did this smart-ass just fall off the intellectual, democratic despot truck? According to his scenario, "the will of the people" can certainly include segregation, reëactment of discriminatory laws based on sexual orientation, age discrimination, resurrection of "restricted public accommodation" laws from the late 40's in Vermont regarding Jews, all in the name of "the will of the people." He never allows for otherwise in his elaborate plan for his New Vermont Order. Just make it attractive to all the baser instincts and it'll get traction, eh Matt?

How can Cropp have so such contempt for Vermonter's instincts that he'd make such thinly veiled appeals to the bigots and knuckledraggers that has been the unravelling of his mentor, Thomas Naylor? And, of course, he's not announced any "service projects which strengthen our communities and strive to meet local needs with local resources" regarding the Irene tragedy at his empty website.

As J.D. Ryan over at fivebeforechaos.com once so aptly described Cropp:

"...(Cropp has an) overinflated and underfunctioning mind..."

"I had the dubious honor of meeting Matt Cropp at some get-together a while back; I can’t remember the specifics. He’s not hard to point out, as he oozes that “I’m the smartest guy in the room” vibe (which is readily apparent if you can stand reading his blog… he is soooo much smarter than you – just accept that). In actuality, he’s more like a politics version of the comic book guy on the Simpsons, with better hygiene- socially inept, arrogant as hell, and well, even though you can tell he’s read a lot of books, you just know that… he’s read a lot of books. Not much else. And, also like the comic book guy on the Simpsons, if you even bothered to notice that he left the room, you’re more likely to be wondering if he’s ever gotten laid than being amazed and humbled at how much smarter he is than you."

"So, I’ve come to find out how Matt’s mind works, and it says a lot about what we can expect in terms of how Dennis Steele’s campaign will be managed."

There's much more by Ryan on the mind of Matthew Cropp here. Fact is that Cropp was so-o-o smart that his campaign management garnered barely ¾ of one percent of gubernatorial vote which I believe may have been the smallest vote percentage of any secesher candidate. Amazingly, Cropp has characterized his candidate's miniscule showing as "momentum." Sure.

Thomas Naylor
The baas of the Second Vermont Republic, vintage über elitist, as well as an economic/academic bullshitter and longtime friend of the white supremacist League of the South hasn't even bothered to note this devastating event that's shattered the lives of so many of his Vermont neighbors. Perhaps it's because that from his redoubt in Charlotte the matter is out of sight and, so, out of mind.

Interestingly, what he did choose to post at his website the very next day after Irene struck so many was another of his banal essays entitled, "Ciphers: People of the Lie." SVR's baas tells us:

"a cipher is a secret message deliberately encoded to mislead unintended recipients."

That pretty well sums up everything that Naylor's published over the last 20 years.

He also says:

'A person, such as a (would be) political leader, who transmits misleading messages is also a cipher.'

That's Naylor to a T.

The point is that Naylor's SVR is silent and doing nothing at all for Vermonters in the wake of Irene. His dreaming of secession now doesn't count for anything except to his own "small community."

Jim Hogue
Possibly the most clueless, acting out, conspiracy addled (although probably tied in that arena with the "Very Foreign Minister" Denny Morrisseau [below]), clown reënactor in the entire "small community" of seceshers.

In his 2009 video Hogue moves up the claim of secession supporters in Vermont from 13% to 18%, which would by his calculation be 110,000 or so people. All this in front of an audience of Naylor, dullard Dennis Steele, a "producer & videographer," and three other losers.

Here's his 9/11 Truther as well as additional secesher, delusional nonsense - don't bother. It's really all a conspiracy against Vermonters, don't ya know, the Feds taking down the Twin Towers to get us in Vermont or something like that (see more below in Denny Morrisseau's segment).

Dennis Morrisseau
At the self-declared "Very Foreign Minister" of a dead in its tracks Second Vermont Republic campaign website for yet another to be miserably failed run for the 2012 Senate seat in Rutland County, so hard hit by Irene - crickets.

As we all know, Denny has a fondness for sappy 60's glurges and sexist ravings, and here's Morrisseau chicken-wire engineering ~~explanation~~ conjecture about what really happened on 9/11. The only thing missing is evidence:

What so many in hard hit Rutland county don't know, where people have been rendered homeless by Irene, is that Denny is a longtime advocate of shipping the homeless out-of-state so that he and his wife don't have to endure their presence. In fact, he feels that his endeavours in that area have been deserving of non-profit status, so much so that he's sued to obtain that benefit for his odious scheme.

"Senator" Robert Wagner
Like Williams, Wagner is keeping his Irene response hyper-local, which means basically his street, the Ripton-Lincoln Road.

This is a guy who wants a senate seat so bad that he's taken to calling himself "Senator" a year before the election for the Addison County-Brandon seat, yet he appears to have had no real, effective presence in the surrounding county since the disaster. His website has some pictures from outside of the Addison County-Brandon area that someone else took; he advises to read the local paper (Addison Independent) where his newsworthiness has apparently escaped the writers and editors; he has no report on the state of his self-declared provisional capitol, Hancock, VT; and his website has only a reprint of a more than week old CVPS press release on the storm. His top post is for some New Age drumming crap. I'm not even going to link to such a waste of bandwidth.

Michael Patno
The other declared secesher candidate from Bristol for the second Addison County-Brandon seat hasn't a damn thing at his website about what his county's residents can do or where they might obtain assistance. Perhaps more than any of the other politically ambitious seceshers, Patno truly is what Papa Naylor has called "a cipher" - one having no influence or value; a nonentity.

Peter Garritano
At the failed 2010 Lite Guv secesher candidate who's now got his sights set one of the Chittenden County senate seats website - ungotz.

Dennis Steele
Who can forget Vermont secesher gubernatorial candidate Dennis Steele? Well, apparently Wikipedia has since they ditched the article he, contrary to Wikipedia conflict of interest rules, put up about himself. Here's what Steele said on November 3, 2010, when he crashed and seriously burned in his 2010 bid for guv:

"When I agreed to take on the difficult and exhausting task of running for Governor as an independent this year, I did so with the hopes that my actions would serve to help lay the foundations for a robust, grass-roots movement that will carry the message of a Free Vermont forward. Towards that end, I’ve been collaborating with several supporters to found a democratic, state-wide organization. Dedicated to spreading the ideas of Vermont Independence, providing support for Independence-minded candidates for public office, and organizing volunteer activities that both serve our neighbors and help lessen our communities’ dependence on the Federal Government, it will serve as our movement’s new center and engine of growth. It will be organized by county, and I encourage anyone who supported my campaign to get involved in their county committee."

Odd, that sounds suspiciously like the crap that his former campaign manager, Matt Cropp, spouts up above.

Anywho, there's zip at his website here tonight about Irene or what can be done to help those in need.

It'd be easy to say that all these "independence" guys are completely full of shit, but let's just say that for all their puffery and grandstanding, when it came right down to it, well, okay, they're completely full of shit.

If there's any good to come from Irene's passage, it'll be the complete exposure of the Vermont secession and independence movement's utter irrelevance at any level to the lives and well-being of Vermonters.

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

Flood Stage

2011-09-05T22:25:00.000-04:00

This blog will be on a short hiatus while dealing with flood related matters.

Meanwhile, having just restored The Internets connectedness I am not very stunned by the irrelevance of the Second Vermont Republic, "Vermont Commons" and its blog, "Senator" Wagner and the rest of the usual posturing pimps of Vermont secession and independence movement to the flood situation gripping Vermont.

More at a later appropriate time.

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

"Senator" Wagner Is Digging In on His More Than One Month Old Lie

2011-08-26T06:00:00.001-04:00

It's fascinating to watch as Ripton, VT's Robert Wagner, the primary organizer of a campaign to throw out every Vermont state senator for being "corrupt," for "stealing from us," and for being "pathological liars," repeatedly lying on his own website about the number of Vermont secesher, er, independence candidates. Thus far, the list includes only five of the usual secesher losers whose electoral showings are normally single digit or often just a fraction of that - loopy Dennis Morrisseau, nasty Peter Garritano, flaky Peter Moss, newbie but longtime secession promoter and Second Vermont Republic honcho Michael Patno, as well as his own sorry, unaccomplished self, a member of Rob Williams' stable of headcase bloggers at "Vermont Commons", Robert Wagner.

"... we must vote out the incumbents, starting with the Vermont Senate. 30 seats. We can do it, will you run with us? I’m recruiting senators… the pay’s decent, we’ve got six so far."

Although I'd normally link to "Senator" Wagner's post, this one contains photographs that gratuitously conflate the violence in Libya with some of Wagner's usual cheesy arguments. The guy is becoming a true asshole.

5 ≠ 6

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

"Secessionists Seek To Balkanize America"

2011-08-23T06:00:00.001-04:00

In a piece published last Friday, August 19, 2011, at Business Insider, writer Vincent Trivett handicaps the meager secessionist efforts in several states, including Vermont's own Second Vermont Republic. While quoting SVR's baas, the Dixie singin' Magnolia Vermonter, Thomas Naylor, Trivett handicaps the likelihood of the seceshers succeeding at seceeding by saying in this understatement of the matter,

"The movement has faltered since Bush left power."

Trivett also quotes from the Boston Globe's Alex Beam's New York Times Op-Ed that I first wrote about here:

"'Our mission was a lot easier when Bush was in power,' Naylor told The New York Times back in July. 'In a left-wing state like Vermont, politics are basically grounded in anger and fear. Vermonters really disliked Bush, and when Bush went away, there was this notion that Obama walked on water.' In the last election, Steele, the party's gubernatorial candidate came in third, winning less than one percent of the vote."

Read Trivett's entire piece at the Business Insider here.

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

Eye on "The 30" - Monthly Update

2011-08-20T12:00:00.001-04:00

Just a brief update on "Senator" Wagner's progress in making truthful his July 20 boast that he had 6 candidates of the 30 needed to takeover the Vermont Senate.

As you may recall, I pointed out in this post that he'd only named 2 of the 30 as of August 1. On August 2 he added a graphic that showed 4 names (he forgot his own). Then on August 5 he added his own name which brought the total announced by him to be running to 5. (See graphics here)

It's now one month since he first made that boast that he already had 6 candidates running and yet still that sixth candidate remains a mystery.

5 ≠ 6

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Eye On "The 30" - Michael Patno

2011-08-15T12:00:00.003-04:00

You might ask, as I did, who the hell is this guy, Michael Patno, who's running for one of the Vermont Senate seats in Addison County?

According to the Dixie singin', Magnolia Vermonter, Thomas Naylor, Patno's a founder of the Second Vermont Republic whose involvement with secessionist groups goes back to the failed New England Confederation:

"(T)he New England Confederation('s)... objective was to have New England split away from the United States and establish itself as an independent nation-state. Unfortunately, the Confederation turned out to be mostly an Internet website rather than a real political organization. However, its website survived several years after the demise of the Confederation itself under the leadership of Bristol, Vermont resident Michael Patno."

"On March 4, 2003, two weeks before the second war with Iraq began, Michael Patno and I met for lunch in Burlington to discuss the possibility of organizing a serious, peaceful, participatory independence movement in Vermont opposed to the tyranny of the U.S. government, Corporate America, and globalization..."

"The following day I spoke at an anti-war rally at Johnson State College and decided to test-market the idea of an independent Vermont."

"Basically my pitch to the students was, “If you want to prevent future wars in places such as Afghanistan and Iraq, we have no choice but to break up the United States into smaller regions, and that process should begin with Vermont declaring its independence from the United States.” They were stunned, but they got it. Their positive response literally provided the energy for Michael Patno and I to launch the Second Vermont Republic."

Thomas Naylor, August 1, 2011

It's hard to resist at this point asking Patno and Naylor, "How's that workin' out for ya?"

Since there is no evidence from that time to today of any popular campus organizing on behalf of secession, it's fair to say that they're doing as well with their newest iteration, SVR, as they did with the New England Confederation, with both now being "mostly an Internet website rather than a real political organization." Sure, there are a couple of local professors with connections to white supremacy and some League of the South racist ideologues also involved with SVR but as a campus movement this one has ~~all the~~ less appeal than the Stamp Club.

In addition to his involvement in ineffectual secesher websites like the New England Confederation and SVR, Patno's served as a corporate officer for the secesher propaganda rag, "Vermont Commons" and was a participant at the ludicrous ceremony establishing the secesher provisional capital in Hancock, VT, on Dec. 13, 2010:

"Finally Michael Patno, a founder of the Second Vermont Republic, closed the conference with a brief note on the importance of accountability."

Source

Honestly, if you made this stuff up and proposed writing an article about it to an editor, you'd get thrown you out of the office.

What I can't find on Patno is any record of public service. Nothing at the Secretary of State's website. Nothing at any of the voter education sites, like Project Vote Smart. Unlike his probable opponents for the Addison County Senate seats, he doesn't seem to have done any work for, say, his local school board. I checked his hometown selectboard minutes in Bristol, VT, going back for a year and found no contribution there or at Bristol's Town Meeting. Remember, seceshers everywhere clamor for the return of the fairytale of Town Meeting as the fount of state governance, something that's been ruled unconstitutional, by the way, so why hasn't he been involved at his own Town Meeting of late?

Even the link to Patno's webpage from "Senator" Robert Wagner's hastily thrown up collection of links to "The 30" (who should probably be more accurately described as "The 5") takes you to nothing more than a placeholder containing zero information on the candidate for the Addison Senate seat, Michael Patno.

So far, all there is on Michael Patno is that he's probably a 50 year old Colchester high school grad with no discernible record of public service but who's got a solid record of failure as a secesher.

That should say it all.

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Eye On "The 30" - Their Senate Campaigns Are To Be Buttressed With Sappy Glurges

2011-08-11T06:00:00.006-04:00

Oy!!

After running two of the most lackluster, over-the-line stoopid campaigns for the Vermont Senate in 2010, the neo-Confederacy of Dunces comprised of "Senator" Robert Wagner (~~Addison-I~~) and the Second Vermont Republic's "Very Foreign Minister", Dennis Morriseau (~~Rutland-I~~), apparently think that a mawkish strategy based on sheer bullshit about the past is now the way to go.

Their distorted view of the 1960s is so appealing to these two secesher Mad Men that Denny passed along an urban legend, commonly called a "glurge," that's been getting chain emailed everywhere during the past six months. It's about recycling and such, and is called "The Green Thing." The "Senator" asked for the author of the original email chain letter to contact him so he could provide attribution for the piece. This one is so new that Snopes.com hasn't written about it yet but already, as the "Senator" could have easily found for himself, you get 230,000 hits for "The Green Thing."

Email chain letters like "The Green Thing" often have a sappy ring of truth to them that ignores the reality of such times. The "Senator" goes so far as to suggest that court ordered reapportionment in the 1960s, designed to eliminate disproportionate control of the legislature by small towns, was a bad thing and mistakenly suggests that it was the legislature that "usurp(ed) the authority of Town Meeting." No, "Senator." It was as a result of a "one person, one vote" ruling and order from the federal court in Buckley v. Hoff (1964) that the stranglehold of small towns like Ripton, VT on the legislature was eliminated.

Some of the other cool things that the "Senator" and Denny have forgotten or misremembered about the 1960s that don't get a mention in "The Green Thing" are: both Kennedys, Malcom X and the King assassinations; anti-miscegenation laws to protect against race mixing, something that at least one major SVR financial supporter, James Duncan, has a problem with even today; Jim Crow Laws; riots everywhere, from Detroit to Stonewall; the treatment of women (more on that below); ramping up the Vietnam War; raw sewage being piped directly from individual homes and businesses into Vermont's streams and rivers, as well as untreated waste and industrial chemicals, so much so that in many areas the streams and rivers had ecological "dead zones"; lesbians and gays being legally proscribed and medically defined as mentally ill; job and housing discrimination was legal; poll taxes; "Hey Jude"; the Voting Rights Act (the "debt crisis" political fight of its day); and, smokers were everywhere. Good times, eh guys?

You can find handy tips about how to spot an urban legend here.

Regarding women, it appears that Denny's views about them haven't evolved much since the 1960s. On February 16 of 2010, as he became aware that Anne Galloway at VTDigger was not going to agree to publish promotional material on behalf of the views of the "Very Foreign Minister" of the Second Vermont Republic, he wrote in that ALL CAPS way of his of her publication:

"WITH OUT A DOUBT, Digger is excrescence of CIA.......
Still....we gotta use the MAN'S media to extent that we can.
While biulding(sic) our own internal and external communications..."

On May 27, Denny wrote in response to a sexist nickname used by the "Senator" who had referred to Galloway as "VT GoldDigger":

"The Lady is CIA, and if she wants to sue me for the remark, she is welcome to."
DM/VFM (Very Foreign Minister)

On May 30, VTCommons publisher/editor Rob Williams chimed in about Galloway:

"CIA spook that she is..."

In a later exchange on June 1, between the "Senator" (who complained that his pithy comments were being deleted from VTDigger) and VTCommons publisher Rob Williams, Williams wrote something that explains the lack of any objective quality at his propaganda rag:

"Most reporters regurgitate press release as "fact," and call it objective journalism, friends."
"When they dare to have an opinion, they put it on the OP/ED pages."
"It ain't right, and we need to challenge it (as everything else...)"

Following in his "she's-a-CIA-operative" theme, Morrisseau responded about Anne Galloway:

"a sycophant or sucking for a job......or earning her little stipend now......What's the difference?"
"Spooks come in many varieties as do the rest of us.

But this tone had been set back on February 16 when Morrisseau wrote of how to handle VT Digger publisher, Anne Galloway:

"We will seduce her."

To which James Duncan, the racist and homophobic contributor to Dennis Steele's campaign responded:

"You are such a womanizer Denni."

But the real Morrisseau, vis-à-vis how he today sees a professional journalist who happens to be a woman, shines through in this comment to the rest of what Dixie singing Thomas Naylor likes to call his "Internet cowboys":

"Because I savaged her in our first few exchanges."
"Now I am making nice. And she likes that better. So she is liking me better......"
"Before I punched her, she did not know me or care a fig........"
"Now she sees I can laugh, I am playful....possibly intelligent...and I differ with her........"
"She begins to be intrigued."
"We have to be lovers to these sorts...... I know that is a little crass....but it's DO OR DIE time."

And so on May 28, under the subject line, "I've had enough of Galloway. VT GoldDigger" Morrisseau wrote:

"No reason for her to breathe OR DO WHAT SHE DOES.....unless she is a SPOOK."
"NOBOCY(sic) is that venal from stupidity."

To date, not one of Naylor's "Internet cowboys" who were active recipients on the secesher listserv has made any public statement condemning Morrisseau's outrageous, violence laced, sexist diatribes. Not the publisher of VTCommons, Rob Williams; nor Washington Senate candidate Gaelan Brown; nor educator & rocket scientist Gary Flomenhoft; nor the very strange Franklin County perennial loser, Peter Moss; nor homophobe and racist bigot James Duncan; nor the failed lite guv candidate, and now the present day candidate for a Chittenden County Senate seat, Peter Garritano; nor, of course, Morrisseau's self-described "friend," Addison County's Senate wannabe, "Senator" Robert Wagner.

Unless the secesher boys club take steps to address their indisputable sexism problem, they are destined for another round of exceptionally failed electoral campaigns. No doubt that VTCommons' anti-Semitic blogger and sometimes ardent feminist when it suits her agenda, Carol Moore, will be taking the boys club to task over their vile, long-running wallow in misogyny - yeah, right.

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"Senator" Robert Wagner Is Clueless

2011-08-09T17:00:00.000-04:00

I've just read his recent expansion to a post that Addison County's wouldbe senator, "Senator" Robert Wagner, put up yesterday here. It's astounding both for its ignorance of the facts and its chessiness, in that he seems to suggest that violence is a path that Vermonters might be on the brink of considering. He says,

"Vermonters: you should be angry. But you should also know what to do with that anger… read on…"

"From Montpelier: cuts to teachers pensions, with more cuts and school closures in the offing. From London, the same: see the video. They’re just a bit further along than we are. London’s on fire. How long can you permit your state rep and senator to act in a fiscally irresponsible fashion?"

When he wrote that this picture of a woman leaping for her life from flames set by criminals was everywhere:

Story here.

If "Senator" Robert Wagner believes that the situation in London is comparable to that in Vermont, as he would seem to want us to think, he's nuts.

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Eye On "The 30" - 5 ≠ 6

2011-08-05T11:00:00.010-04:00

Apparently "Senator" Wagner was a bit stung by my observation in the August 1 Eye On "The 30", that only two of the six candidates that he's bragged about are announced as running as the "Gang of 30."

The "Senator" intends to sweep the 2012 Vermont election cycle and Take Back the Senate® in the name of secessionist, constitutional strict constructionism and, after my criticism, he's put up the list of the other four announced candidates names on his website. He just forgot to put himself on his list but that still wouldn't have brought the total to the six that he announced on his website on July 20:

"So lobbying around the legislature for a few word changes in this or that amendment isn’t really going to take us anywhere or save our bacon. If you want to live free here and be able to make an honest living too, in agriculture or at all, you need to get into this fight."

"WE NEED TO RUN 30 DECENT VERMONT NON-POLITICIANS FOR THE VT SENATE NEXT YEAR AND WE NEED YOUR HELP TO ACCOMPLISH THIS…..SO WE CAN STOP MONSANTO & LOCKHEED’S TAKEOVER OF OUR STATE. STOP IT COLD WITH A ‘NO’ VOTE IN OUR SENATE……OURSELVES." (All caps his)

"Because no one else is going to have the integrity and courage to do this… no one now sitting will do this for us. They have all already caved."

"If we do this… when we just get near the goal, I am telling you the whole world will notice, and help for our cause will come gushing in. So far we have six of the Thirty." (emphasis mine)

"Please join us. Help recruit those 30 decent Vermonters."
Source

Get it? The present members of Vermont's Senate are all indecent. He's called his neighbors who serve in the legislature thieves, so why not indecent? I suppose that's what "Senator" Wagner's baas of the Second Vermont Republic, our own Magnolia Vermonter, Thomas Naylor, was refering to when he told Boston Globe columnist, Alex Beam:

“In a left-wing state like Vermont, politics are basically grounded in anger and fear."

That Naylor's slate of candidates in the 2010 election cycle had injected a theretofore unheard of degree of rancor and invective into the campaign is undisputed. His handpicked gubernatorial candidate, Connecticut native Dennis Steele, had gone so far as to "(thank) the Vermont Press Association 'for allowing (him) to take pot shots at 'Colonel' Dubie'" at a debate [1] - almost as classy as when gubernatorial candidate Steele stood at the side of a road and waved his middle finger at Vice President Biden. [2] or when Steele openly accepted campaign donations from an out-of-state bigot. [3]

And still wincing from his own utterly failed campaign for the lite guv slot, "Vermont Commons" blogger Peter Garritano, one of the five announced candidates for the Vermont Senate, ironically pronounced civil rights as "irrelevant" to Vermonters just days before Martin Luther King Day. [4]

In all my years I'd never seen such a persistently negative degree of campaigning from such an irrelevant group, the Vermont seceshers, to the Vermont body politic. True, there have been instances in the past when Vermont pols have drifted into such negative territory, normally only seen in the national campaigns, but invariably they all pull back and resume the civil exchange that Vermonters are accustomed to. Not so the seceshers. From the time they announced in January 2010, the barrage of negativity was the staple of their various campaigns. No doubt that given Naylor's homage to campaigns "grounded in anger and fear" above, we should expect much more of the same from his lackeys again this time around.

Problem is, even if you use the Teatard math and economic reckoning that "Senator" Wagner relies upon so heavily or how many times he changes the graphics at the Robert Wagner for Vermont Senate 2012 website, five still does not equal six.

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

Eye On "The 30"

2011-08-01T18:00:00.006-04:00

Beginning this month I'll be updating, as circumstances warrant, the efforts of "Senator" Robert Wagner (I-Addison) (yes, yes, I know that he's never been elected to a senatorial post but the guy's so friggin' needy that he calls himself "Senator," so let's humor him) to take over the Vermont Senate in 2012, as well as his cohorts in the Vermont secesher movement.

So far, it's only him and perennial electoral loser, Denny Morrisseau, "The 30's" token candidate for Rutland county who've recently publicized their intentions. A couple of the others of Vermont's perpetual loony candidates have indicated a desire to run but it may have just been their recent 2010 losses that prompted those claims - let's see if they come to their senses before treating their "one-more-time" candidacies for every office under the sun at the same time seriously. Meanwhile, Michele Bachmann would have a better chance of taking Nancy Pelosi's San Francisco congressional seat than Morrisseau ever has of making a decent showing in Rutland county. In true fringer fashion, Morrisseau, who likes to call himself "The Very Foreign Minister of the Second Vermont Republic," garnered a whopping 1.8% of the vote in his 2010 senatorial bid.

Now to today's installment of "Eye On 'The 30'": over the weekend "Senator" Wagner posted another of his poorly considered choices for issue analysis (no, not another Teabagger this time) from a contributor to a racist, neo-Confederate publication that is loosely allied with the League of the South called Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture, as well as to that incubator for neo-Confederate thought and theory, The Ludwig von Mises Institute, Justin Raimondo, here. You'd think that the "Senator" would have started to do a little homework to ensure that he doesn't make the same mistake that his associates at SVR and VTCommons have repeatedly made by tying themselves to neo-Confederate, white supremacist groups and individuals. A quick Google search reveals scads of material in which Raimondo is described as "an American neo-Fascist," as virulently opposed to marriage equality and is an oddly long-time supporter of the homophobic and openly racist Pat Buchanan:

Gay Buchanan Backer Defends His Candidate
San Francisco Chronicle
Jim Herron Zamora
February 23, 1996

Justin Raimondo is an openly gay man who believes that "Pat Buchanan is absolutely the best thing for America."

A longtime activist in conservative and Libertarian circles, Raimondo headed Buchanan's operation in San Francisco in 1992 and is volunteering for the 1996 campaign.

"I see no conflict between my political beliefs and my personal life," said Raimondo, 44. "Being homosexual is not like being a Libertarian or a socialist."

Raimondo's political affiliation flies in the face of the the views of many gay people, who consider Buchanan a bigot and hatemonger.

Buchanan has said he will keep openly gay people out of top White House positions if elected. But, according to Raimondo, the candidate knows and apparently doesn't care that his San Francisco supporter is gay.

"The whole gay agenda is just a sham," Raimondo said.

"The whole thing they say that Pat Buchanan wants to round us all up and send us to concentration camps is just a bunch of crap. It's a lie and a smear. He welcomes gay workers in his campaign.

"He does not think that homosexuality is all that great a thing. But I don't need his approval. Why does any gay person need anyone's benediction?"

Raimondo said a person's sexual orientation should be a private matter and that gay or lesbian people should not "force their sexuality on an unwilling public."

He also said he does not believe that gays and lesbians need "special protections" against discrimination.

Raimondo said he agrees with Buchanan on most issues.

"I'm a right-wing populist," Raimondo said Thursday.

"I support this political platform. I support America first."

He also endorsed Buchanan's opposition to U.S. intervention in Bosnia, the North American Free Trade Agreement and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade.

Raimondo, a New York native who has lived in San Francisco for 24 years, does not agree with Buchanan on every issue.

"I am pro-choice. But I agree with so much that Pat stands for. He has really gone beyond right and left to revitalize this country."

Raimondo, an analyst at the Center for Libertarian Studies in Burlingame, is the only Republican on the March primary ballot seeking the opportunity to challenge Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, in November.

In the 1992 campaign, Raimondo worked from his home handling media, organizing rallies and recruiting volunteers for Buchanan. This time around he hopes to help Buchanan "go all the way to the White House."

Buchanan wrote the foreword to the second edition of Raimondo's 1993 book, "Reclaiming the American Right: The Lost Legacy of the Conservative Movement."

Raimondo's perception of Buchanan's stance on gays does not sit well with San Francisco Supervisor Tom Ammiano, who is gay.

"He has a history of comments like this and is shunned by the gay community and their supporters," Ammiano said of Raimondo. "He loves to see his name in print. He's so contrary to what the perceptions are that it makes him so different people will write about him."

Buchanan has drawn the wrath of the nation's largest gay and lesbian Republican organization, Log Cabin Republicans, with 10,000 members in 30 states. Its executive director, Richard Tafel, in Washington, is urging members to help defeat the conservative commentator.

"The Republican Party is beginning to reap the harvest of pandering to the far right," Tafel said. ". . . Buchanan's irresponsible rhetoric about gays and lesbians should cause all Americans to shudder. Stopping Pat Buchanan now should be the goal of every gay and lesbian American."

"Senator" Wagner lauds this nutjob Raimondo as a "conservative voice" whose "good analysis... illustrates what the Independen(ce) movement in Vermont is all about."

Here is how conservatives describe "Senator" Wagner's nominee for an out of state "conservative voice" Vermonters need to hear.

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New York Times Secesher Op-Ed: "The Dubious Dream Lives On," Though "Not So Well"

2011-07-26T12:00:00.004-04:00

Treated in today's New York Times for the roadkill Vermonters now know it to be (full piece here), the Second Vermont Republic gets the evisceration it has so long deserved from a mainstream media columnist, Alex Beam of the Boston Globe.

The normal treatment by the MSM has been driven by SVR's baas, Thomas Naylor or one of his lackeys, promoting some of their "aw, ain't we cute; we're gonna leave 'the Empire'" bits of nonsense that proves to be the perfect, soft news drivel that papers need to offset the daily barrage of "negative" stories, sports, obits and obligatory feature sections.

Once in a while, usually when they don't have to do the work themselves and they just rely on the crap that spews forth regulary from the Magnolia Vermonter's pen, you get pieces like last January's throwaway "feature" in Time about the Top 10 Aspiring Nations. It was an error laden paragraph based on an earlier piece by a secession hack who later admitted to doing free advertising for the Vermont seceshers in the pieces that he submitted for publication to several online sources. No mention was made in the Time junk of their candidate's dismal, barely three quarters of one percent showing in last year's gubernatorial run, though I think that it may be no coincidence that SVR came in dead last even on the Time list.

About our local losers, Beam writes in his New York Times Op-Ed piece:

"The dubious dream lives on..."

"For years I have been receiving mailings from the Second Vermont Republic, a secessionist movement that seems to operate out of the personal computer of Thomas Naylor, a former Duke University economics professor who now lives in Charlotte, Vermont. Encomia from deceased luminaries festoon his Web site: “I must assure you of my pleasure in and approval of ... the Second Vermont Republic,” wrote the Canadian-born John Kenneth Galbraith, who owned a lovely second home in bucolic Dorset, Vermont. “All power to Vermont in its effort to distinguish itself from the U.S.A. as a whole,” quoth the late diplomat George F. Kennan, whose famous “containment doctrine” apparently did not apply to the New England states."

"I touched base with Naylor to find out how his secession plans were faring. Not so well, he reported."

“Our mission was a lot easier when Bush was in power,” he explained. “In a left-wing state like Vermont, politics are basically grounded in anger and fear. Vermonters really disliked Bush, and when Bush went away, there was this notion that Obama walked on water.”

"His movement sponsored 10 candidates in last year’s state elections, and their most respectable showing was four percent of the vote. “That man’s name appeared first on the ballot,” is how Naylor explains that result."

"For the time being, it would appear that... Vermont will probably remain under the jurisdiction of what Naylor calls “the Empire” — “a global system of dominance and deceit in which ostensibly free individuals allow transnational megacompanies and big government to control their lives” and so on."

"And so on," indeed Mr. Beam. Thank you for doing your homework; now fuhgeddaboudem.

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Looking for Lincoln

2011-07-22T12:00:00.000-04:00

Longtime Second Vermont Republic advisory board member and fellow Lincoln hater of SVR's baas, the Magnolia Vermonter, Thomas Naylor, and secesher propagandist and publisher of the usually uninteresting "Vermont Commons", Rob Williams, Thomas DiLorenzo, who, like Naylor and Williams, dabbles in Abraham Lincoln historical revisionism as an elemental part of the neo-Confederate journey that they would impose upon Vermont's future, gets ably deconstructed by Michael Lynch at the Abraham Lincoln Institute for the Study of Leadership and Public Policy at Lincoln Memorial University here.

Essentially, it puts the whole DiLorenzo "scholarship" thing on a par with this recently discovered Lincoln sighting:

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The Second Leg of the Vermont Secessionists 2012 Election Cycle's Two Legged Stool

2011-07-18T18:00:00.002-04:00

In early July of this year the seceshers began their second attempt at a takeover of the Vermont Senate with the announcement on perennial electoral loser and the self-described "Very Foreign Minister" of the Second Vermont Republic's Denny Morriseau's, and up and coming loser Robert Wagner's, various websites, called grandiosely, The Vermont 30: The Unleashing, here and here.

After their less than successful independent entries for various state offices, where their electoral percentage showing was never greater than a low single digit or, as in the case of their gubernatorial candidate, Dennis Steele, barely more than three quarters on one percent, you'd think they'd want to find a way to suppress somewhat the nearly universal perception here in Vermont that these guys represent the extreme, delusion, irrelevant political fringe.

But that not being the case, the Wagner/Morrisseau tag team followed up a week later with a blistering attack on the Vermont legislature that calls all of its members thieves and corrupt here and here:
"Here’s a quick education on how the corrupt politicians sitting in the Vermont Legislature are stealing from us."
What followed was a long attack on their Vermont neighbors, many of whom, unlike Wagner or Morrisseau, have contributed untold hours, days, weeks, months and years of selfless service to their community rather than spending virtually all of their time condemning the many contributions of their neighbors. (And no, Denny, offering to pay for one way tickets to rid Burlington of its homeless population doesn't strike most as public service, any more than your plan to cap assets, income and population for Vermont)

In his post, Wagner describes a "letter" he received from Matt Hawes in Virginia:

"Here’s a letter that I received from Ron Paul’s Campaign for Liberty, illustrating how Montpelier’s brand of sleazy politics has been adapted to Texas…"

The misleading use of word "letter," as well as a loosely correlated assessment of the similarities of the Texas and Vermont legislatures (not even remotely the same), for what was a blast email from an operative of a Tea Party group for whom Hawes serves as Vice President and Executive Director, Ron Paul's Tea Party organization, Campaign for Liberty, reveals Wagner's craving for importance and relevance. In truth, thousands of teabaggers like Wagner received this Tea Party spam.

Wagner's is a head shakingly sad attempt to fool Vermonters and inflate his importance to the national teabagger movement by saying he had received a ~~letter~~ email from the organization of a "flagrant racist," Ron Paul, the so-called "Godfather" of the Tea Party. If Wagner had spent just a few minutes looking into the Virginia teabaggers associated with Hawes' group, as I did, he'd have learned that they'd been involved in multiple acts of political intimidation and, some say, terrorism, when a VA blogger and Tea Party county capo doubled down on an incident tied to his release (mistakenly) of a Democratic party congressman's relative's address in March 0f 2010 by less than two months later calling the congressman "a target." Or maybe Wagner did check and found such rhetoric so compelling that it inspired his own inflammatory, broadsided attack on every legislator in Vermont.

It seems that the Wagner/Morrisseau campaigns are off to the start of another campaign that may prove to be just as disastrous as their last, where their underlying strategy seemed to be to insult and malign virtually every office holder in Vermont. Kinda like when Wagner went to an opening ceremony for the new bridge in Middlebury to piss all over a local, community effort that built a new, needed bridge and which created local jobs - not exactly a savvy, classy or particularly smart, vote getting move.

In closing, I was stunned yesterday to a see a huge, garish campaign sign for Wagner's 2012 campaign on a trailer parked in the state right-of-way in front of The Gathering Inn Hostel on Rte. 100 in the tiny hamlet of Hancock, VT, with the sign nearly protruding into the roadway. Readers of this blog will recall Wagner's announcement of his creation of a "provisional capital" for a secesher Vermont last fall. The innkeeper at The Gathering Inn, Kathleen Byrne, was reported by Wagner to have conducted a ribbon cutting of some sort for the "provisional capital" and/or "Center" or whatever last December here.

A huge campaign sign on a road traveled mostly by people who can't vote for Wagner certainly isn't the smartest campaign strategy but to do it more than 15 months before the election... Really???

Hopefully, despite it being one of the rules of "the Empire" that Wagner so despises, it is a campaign law none the less that he can abide by for the safety of all Vermonters and, so, "respect the rule of law" as he demands of our legislators as a part of our "government" that he so despises. (The Guide to Placement of Political Campaign Signs for Candidates is available for public viewing at the Vermont Secretary of State's website here.)

Oh, and no sign of the seceshers registering their legislature PAC yet.

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Second Vermont Republic Has Now Morphed Into a Political Action Committee

2011-07-13T15:00:00.001-04:00

In late June the Magnolia Vermonter and baas of the Second Vermont Republic, Thomas Naylor, posted yet another of his tedious screeds lambasting "the Empire."

This time, instead of condemning virtually all of Vermont's voters and statewide elected officials, all of the Vermont General Assembly, Vermont's clergy, public institutions, UVM (where a close family member works), as well as pretty much every other educational body, all of Vermont's congressional delegation (Patrick Leahy, who Naylor calls "a world-class prostitute," Peter Welch and, of course, Bernie Sanders, who Naylor got really pissed at for not resigning from Congress to run as Naylor's anointed gubernatorial candidate - Naylor, in language shockingly similar to that used in the Sovereign Citizens Movement, labels all three as "enemies of the state"), and, naturally, Democrats, Republicans and Progressives, Naylor isn't going to hold anything back - he's now compared all Americans to the citizens of Nazi Germany:

"Albert Camus’s insightful description of life in Nazi Germany, which appeared in the clandestine Resistance newspaper Combat a few weeks after the Liberation of Paris, could just as well have been written about life in the United States today. Not unlike the people of Nazi Germany, the American people are also asleep."

Oh, really? When Camus wrote that, the German people were getting their asses handed to them day and night with massive bombings from the East and the West that were leaving them little time for sleep. The comparison probably appealed to Naylor. who at this point hasn't much left in his bag of increasingly ineffectual tricks. You'd think that as a former "academic" he'd have heard of Godwin's Law. Perhaps he has and is subliminally throwing in the secesher towel:

"It is generally perceived that falling foul of Godwin's law tends to end up causing the individual making the comparison to lose their argument and/or credibility."

After having been the primary bankroller for Dennis Steele's embarrassing and utterly failed 2010 gubernatorial bid (normally I'd link to Steele's Wikipedia article but it seems that Wikipedians don't believe that he's so notable as to deserve his own article, so it's gone now - poof!) Naylor has come up with a new plan to separate Vermonters from their money - at $100 dollars a pop.

Here's the deal: send him the bread he's looking for on behalf of secesher legislative candidates, who he doesn't name, to his home mailing address and you get one of his awful books.

Support Us

Please help us save Vermont, America, and the rest of the world from the American Empire by helping tiny Vermont lead the nation into disunion. If SVR is to move to the next level, electing members of the state legislature who are open secessionists, we need your financial support. Those who contribute $100 or more receive a complimentary copy of Thomas H. Naylor’s provocative, 100-page, unpublished monograph Rebél, a philosophy of peaceful rebellion against the human condition and the American Empire.

Complete this form and return it with your check to The Second Vermont Republic, P.O. Box 544, Charlotte, VT 05445.

Source

Frankly, I'd prefer a button, a bumper sticker or maybe a CD of Naylor singing "Dixie."

Although his solicitation has all of the appeal of one of those Nigerian email scams, there's more to it than that. He's not clear about who the "us" is that he refers to in his appeal for "financial support" to "(elect) members of the state legislature who are open secessionists." And we're suppose to believe that after 8 years of accomplishing nothing much in Vermont beyond attracting fringe-ish losers who dabble in Holocaust denial, anti-Semitism, racism, wild-eyed conspiracy theories and homophobia, Naylor's now going to pick himself up, dust himself off and save Vermont. All we need to do is send him a C-note.

Ri-i-ght!

These are the facts: Naylor's Second Vermont Republic is a registered trade name since June of 2003 for a "civic club" according to the Vermont Secretary of State's search database (just enter Second Vermont Republic in the search box). SVR's registration won't expire until after the 2012 statewide election cycle.

According to the most recent information available at the VT Sec'y of State's website (searchable PDF file) it's likely that this recent step by Naylor - a solicitation for funds/contributions to finance legislative campaigns to elect seceshers - will trigger his need to register a PAC and make declarations having to do with receipt and expenses of more than $500.

Registration Requirements/Bank Designation & Treasurer Form. (17 V.S.A. §2831)

Each political committee and political party that has accepted contributions and made expenditures of $500.00 or more must register with the Secretary of State within ten days of reaching the $500.00 threshold stating its name and address, treasurer’s name, and the bank in which it maintains its campaign checking account. Any political committee or party that has filed a Bank Designation form in a previous election cycle does not need to file another one, UNLESS the committee/party is changing information on the form. You may also file this form before the $500 threshold has been reached.

Given their aversion to transparency and making the required campaign filings in a timely fashion in the last campaign, I'm not expecting the seceshers to be in a rush to make the legally required declarations and registration. After all, these are the requirements of "the Empire."

Let's see how they do this time around.

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

Vermont Commons Blogger Using Scare Tactics

2011-06-30T12:00:00.000-04:00

We can all think of recent and not so recent uses of scare tactics by political entities bent on shaping public response to their desired end: WMD, Jews, "death panels", Willie Horton, "traditional" marriage, the list is endless - and always quite shameless.

So when I saw this recent call to arms by "Vermont Commons" blogger Simha Bode I was struck by his boldness, as well as the bold-faced quality of his deception.

Bode seeks to galvanize public opinion against the use of Smart Meters, not unlike some Tea Party activists elsewhere in the country, and writes,

"This letter is to inform you that as a Vermont utility customer, I support the halt of “smart meter” installations, the removal of wireless smart meters installed and an immediate restoration of analog utility meters."

"The World Health Organization has recently classified radio frequency electromagnetic fields (wireless) as possibly carcinogenic (cancer causing)."

"It is a violation of our rights to force the installation of wireless devices upon utility customers without fair process of public or environmental review, or proof of safety."

"I demand an investigation and evidentiary hearings into the safety impacts of wireless smart meters, including over billing, interference, burned out appliances, fires and explosions, and health complaints."

"The people of Vermont deserve to know they are safe in their own home. Implementing a “pay to opt-out” legislation as has been tried in CA is unacceptable. Even if a person opts-out they still can not avoid exposure from RF meters in the workplace, public buildings and other places wireless meters will be installed."

"As a Vermont tax payer and utility customer I support imposing an immediate moratorium on wireless utility meters (smart meters) and the restoration of any analog meters that have been changed to wireless."

"Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter!"
(add your personal Message for more impact)

Vermont Public Service Board
112 State Street (Chittenden Bank Building)
Drawer 20
snail mail is recommended you can also e-mail it to - psb.clerk@state.vt.us

What Bode does here is conflate a WHO report on cell phone radio wave emissions (see here) with a marginally related fact that Smart Meters (wireless) emit RF. What is not said by Bode is that the WHO report clearly states,

"A large number of studies have been performed over the last two decades to assess whether mobile phones pose a potential health risk. To date, no adverse health effects have been established as being caused by mobile phone use."

There's much more in the WHO report and further study is urged but the immediacy of the threat, much like the bombshelter scares of the 50s and 60s, is being grossly overstated by Bode.

Unsurprisingly, Bode fails to include this study (here) (and much closer to home by the way) conducted by the Maine Public Utilities Commission - the very same sort of study he demands in his letter to the Vermont Public Service Board. The Maine review concludes:

"In conclusion, our review of these agency assessments and studies do not indicate any consistent or convincing evidence to support a concern for health effects related to the use of radiofrequency in the range of frequencies and power used by smart meters. They also do not indicate an association of EMF exposure and symptoms that have been described as electromagnetic sensitivity." (Bold type by MPUC)

Remember, scare tactics like Bode's are not about direct, provable threats, but are more on the order of coerced conclusions. You can read more about the sort of scare tactics and fear mongering Bode is using in service to his political agenda here.

Now if Simha Bode or one of the other scare mongers at VTCommons had only made some connection to the Illuminati and the UN/New World Order (NWO), I'd have gotten my letter out to the Vermont Public Service Board today.

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

Vermont Commons' Nucular Fusion Expert

2011-06-28T22:30:00.000-04:00

Simha Bode: truly a gift that keeps on giving.

Probably nothing sums up better "Vermont Commons" ~~publisher~~ über propagandist and half-assed media wiz Rob Williams' desperation to expand his "small community of secessionists," electoral losers, anti-Semites, white supremacists (and their promoters) than the inclusion of Simha Bode to Williams' small shelf of cracked pots (pun intended, Simha) posing as bloggers of importance to Vermonters.

"VT Commons blogger Simha Bode has apparently made the discovery of the millennium, as he's discovered nuclear fusion reactors (here and here). Somebody should call the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) and tell them to stop wasting their time and money."

(h/t odum at Green Mountain Daily)

Other areas of Bode's expertise include opining on the wisdom of sovereign citizen movement types' legal claptrap, the "commie UN conspiracy to sap and impurify our precious bodily fluids with bicyles," scanning the Internets for thinly reasoned arguments for his passing pet theories and, frankly, his loopy understanding of political strategeries of the more minor players in the Vermont Yankee drama.

Now comes Bode's revelation of the nucular breakthrough of this and the last century.

Priceless.

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

Second Vermont Republic's Longtime Advisory Board Member, Thomas DiLorenzo, Cites Racist Sources for His Criticism of the Southern Poverty Law Center

2011-06-14T18:00:00.002-04:00

Shameless audacity in their endeavors is something of a prerequisite for neo-Confederate, secessionist ideologues.

A recent whine about the Southern Poverty Law Center by the LewRockwell.com blog poster, longtime Second Vermont Republic advisory board member (no link to SVR's advisory board is presently available - it got "disappeared" after the Frank Bryan post on this blog), a past contributor to the now defunct journal of the Holocaust denial organization, Institute for Historical Review, and creator of a fictionalized Lincoln history that is available for sale at a the Holocaust denial website called The Barnes Review, Thomas J. DiLorenzo, has taken chutzpah to a new extreme.

DiLorenzo has jumped the neo-Confederate, racist shark by citing as a source for criticism of the SPLC the website of The Social Contract.

The Social Contract is a publisher of racist, anti-immigrant books like The Camp of the Saints. [1] [2]

The Social Contact's editorial board for the past 20 years has read like a Who's Who of racist. white supremacist, anti-immigrant "big thinkers" such as John Tauton, Kevin Lamb (who's also an editor of the white supremacist Occidental Quarterly and the communications director for the racist National Policy Institute) and Wayne Lutton (a member of the white supremacist Council of Conservative Citizens and has served as editor at Occidental Quarterly and the racist American Renaissance), each of whom is cited in the incredible article for that which DiLorenzo outrageously claims is already known about the SPLC.

Here's what DiLorenzo posted at the LewRockwell.com's blog:

Hate-Group Racketeering

Posted by Thomas DiLorenzo on May 21, 2011 10:56 AM
"A recent issue of a journal entitled The Social Contract contains seventeen articles about the left-wing hate group known as the Southern Poverty Law Center. The journal demonstrates what many of us already know: The SPLC is a neo-McCarthyite, cultural Marxist organization whose basic role within the Democratic Party is to smear all conservative or libertarian critics of Big Government in general, and Obama in particular, as racists. There can be no reasoned debate over immigration policy, for example, for the SPLC informs us that all critics of open borders (including the late Nobel laureate Milton Friedman and Nobel laureate Gary Becker; and African-American scholars Walter E. Williams [Editor's Note: A search of the SPLC website reveals no such references to immigration and Friedman, Becker and Williams]; Thomas Sowell, a true nutjob, has compared President Obama to Hitler and has a long record of overtly screwball views.) are motivated by nothing but racial hatred of “brown” immigrants. Case closed. Shut up."

"Their purpose is to censor debate, and their tactic is what the cultural Marxists call “ritual defamation,” as opposed to civilized debate of public policy issues. As an example, I recently read one of the SPLC’s “Hate Watch” reports that catalogues several genuinely nutty-sounding characters who ran for political office recently. Some of them were crazed neo-Nazis who received maybe a dozen votes in a some local political race. Then included in the list is U.S. Senator Rand Paul. Get it: Rand Paul is nearly identical to the mentally disturbed neo-Nazi who hides out in the mountains of Colorado reading a dog-eared copy of Mein Kampf. The SPLC race racketeers have personally become very wealthy at this game, as is discussed in the journal."

Source

Here's the list of The Social Contract's journal contributors to their SPLC exposé. Some on the list are regular "contributors" to the racist, white supremacist Internet radio program of James Edwards, called The Political Cesspool, in addition to their role literary mainstays of the white supremacist, conservative, racist, anti-Semitic movement.

Longtime SVR advisory board member DiLorenzo's work has been lauded by Thomas Naylor, "Vermont Commons'" publisher, Rob Williams and VTCommons' white supremacist contributor and author of "Rearing Honorable White Children", Robert S. Griffin. [3]

Given DiLorenzo's choice of fellow travelers in his doomed campaign against the SPLC, is it little wonder then that Loyola University has been "looking more closely into" his activities and his "hateful messages," as desribed by one Loyola librarian?" This isn't the first time that one of DiLorenzo's racialist sole-mates has caused a problem for him at Loyola University. In 2008 his Economics Department offered an apology for a visiting professor's racialist, economic views that "indicated poor-quality scholarship." Naturally, taken as he is with racialist "theology," DiLorenzo took issue with that reasonable view.

DiLorenzo's citation of known racist trash as qualified critic's of the SPLC, much like his own past bad acts on behalf of a racialist professor's "poor-quality scholarship," says it all.

Two weeks after DiLorenzo's post citing the work of his racist colleagues he reloaded and fired off another salvo at the SPLC, citing the 'research" of the profoundly racist and anti-Semitic VDare website here.

The VDare.com hypothesis lashes out at SPLC's "anti-majority" work and, while making poorly evidenced economic extrapolations about SPLC, warns that the SPLC is "anchored by wealthy Jewish contributors on the East and West coasts." The fervently anti-Semitic VDare writer even tries to make a Kevin Bacon-style link to Bernie Madoff in the year old piece DiLorenzo found of such value that he added it to his anti-SPLC diatribe. VDare's founder, Peter Brimelow, has counseled the GOP to concentrate its electoral efforts on white voters. He predictes that:

"Obama will do something 'that will start to shock people right away. I think that whites — that is to say, Americans — will organize...'"

Source

Tea Party, anyone?

Will Rob Williams and Thomas Naylor now care to explain to Vermonters why DiLorenzo should be advising Vermonters on their not-so-likely, inchoate future republic, although I'd say that we'd best not hold our breath waiting for that explanation.

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

In Memoriam N. B. R.

2011-05-30T06:00:00.001-04:00

Come all you laboring hands that toil below,
Among the rocks and sands, that plow and sow;
Upon your hired lands, let out by cruel hands,
'Twill make you large amends to Rutland go.

Although a Illinois native, Nathan B. Rowley, great-grandson of Vermont poet, town official and Revolutionary War veteran of the militia brigade called the Green Mountain Boys, Thomas Rowley, joined the 8th Missouri Volunteer Infantry at St. Louis, Missouri on June 26, 1861.

Such was his commitment to maintaining the Union that, like many of that time whose home regiments soon met their state quotas during the initial call for arms in the weeks after the attack by Confederates on the Union at Fort Sumter, he, like so many from the Peoria, Illinois area, found opportunity to serve in the 8th Missouri Volunteer Infantry.

He was killed in the US Civil War on May 22, 1863, during the siege of Vickburg.

"I hold it true, whate'er befall;
I feel it when I sorrow most;
'Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.

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

Which So-Called "News" Organization Has the Worse Journalistic Ethics: Fox News or the Vermont Commons Journal and Blog?

2011-05-23T12:00:00.000-04:00

Admittedly, that's a hard call even for me to make but I think the evidence will show that News Corp, the parent organization of Fox News, has squeaked ahead of the self-described "statewide independent news journal," "Vermont Commons", at least with regard to the issue of proper disclosure of in-kind political campaign contributions.

Let me explain.

A story in last Sunday's New York Times details a policy change that may have come about after shareholder complaints concerning undisclosed campaign contributions made by News Corp to conservative organizations like the Republican Governor's Association and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce:

"After the controversy over those donations, the News Corporation’s board of directors decided to revisit its policies about disclosure, and on April 12 it adopted a policy 'to publicly disclose corporate political contributions annually on News Corporation’s corporate Web site.'"

"The first such statement will be published by July 15, and later statements will be published each January. A News Corporation spokeswoman declined to comment further."

"The decision may have stemmed from shareholders who raised questions about the donations at an annual meeting last October."

A piece by Julie Carr Smyth in last Friday's HuffPost adds:

"... (T)he RGA donation was prompted by (News Corp media magnate Rupert Murdoch, who controls the company and) his friendship with then-Ohio governor candidate John Kasich."

"Kasich, a former Republican congressman, spent several years as a commentator and occasional guest host on Fox. Since winning the governor's race in November, he has remained a frequent guest on the network."

"Kasich won the election after an expensive campaign against incumbent Democrat Ted Strickland. According to Ohio campaign finance reports, the RGA spent at least $5 million in the state from May and October."

Murdoch's News Corp had donated $1 million dollars to the RGA.

"The Democratic Governors Association filed a complaint with the Ohio Elections Commission during the campaign alleging Fox provided Kasich with an illegal in-kind contribution when they displayed his website address during one of his appearances on "The O'Reilly Factor."

[snip]

"The liberal watchdog group Media Matters for America, a frequent critic of Fox, on Friday called News Corp.'s new disclosure policy a tacit admission that "they were on shaky ground" with the 2010 contributions."

"Unfortunately, the new policy has the style but not the substance of transparency," executive vice president Ari Rabin-Havt said in an email. "Filing contribution information in the next calendar year in no way meets standards of disclosure. The public deserves to be informed about News Corp.'s financial backing of candidates before an election, so that they can assess for themselves the bias of the coverage they see on Fox News."

Similarly, it appears that VTCommons may have been engaged in its own bit of campaign chicanery during the 2010 election cycle.

Perhaps no freelancing journalist has been more responsible for peddling
the myth that the Vermont seceshers are relevant to the Vermont body politic than Brooklynite Christopher Ketcham. In fact, he says he's writing a book about the seceshers.

You see, back in August of last year Ketcham wrote a piece about the Vermont secesher candidate for governor, Connecticut native Dennis Steele, for the Huffington Post. In it he repeated the nonsense about how a 2007 "poll" is supposed to show that 13% of Vermonter voters support the idea of secession,

"And they have a surprising degree of support from the street: when last polled on the matter of secession, in 2007, 13 percent of Vermont voters were for it."

(Disclosure: Last fall Christopher Ketcham had asked to interview me and it was in large part because of Ketcham's promotion of this blatant piece of political disinformation in his HuffPo piece that I saw no need to submit to what would have likely been similarly misrepresenting treatment in the interview.)

I've posted at length about the shenanigans associated with that poll in particular. Such as, Second Vermont Republic's Thomas Naylor doing interviews in which he repeatedly says that "UVM did a poll, blah, blah, blah," when the truth is that Naylor commissioned the poll questions from University of Vermont's Center for Rural Studies to do in conjunction with their annual Vermonter Poll. Naylor, the baas of SVR, made the disclosure that he'd commissioned the poll while he was speaking on-air to James Edwards, the racist, anti-Semitic, Holocaust denying host of the Memphis TN based, white supremacist Internet radio program, The Political Cesspool.

Had it been published, the methodology that Naylor used would have been so damaging to his carefully crafted results that he's had to go to great lengths to hide the questions. "Vermont Commons", which calls itself "Vermont's statewide independent news journal", contributed to the deception by deleting the poll questions PDF from their archive when it was revealed on this blog, thus attaining a new low in news management - even if you've already printed/posted it, if it hurts the "cause" then just disappear it. Not so classy, Rob. (Some of what I've revealed about Naylor's poll puffing can be found in the Poll Section in the column to the right.)

Then last fall the secesher gubernatorial candidate garnered a mere 0.79% - that's right, barely three quarters of 1% of the vote or as Steele liked to call it, "Third." Even Naylor characterized Steele's showing as suffering from a "paucity of votes.":

"In spite of the paucity of votes attracted by candidate Steele, his campaign seems to have been perceived as a major threat to someone. During the four weeks before the election, Steele and the entire Vermont independence movement were the object of a vicious, CIA-style, cybersmear campaign. Three websites and a well-organized network of anti-secessionists bombarded cyberspace with charges of racism, homophobia, and anti-semitism. The exact nature of the relationship between the smear network and the hostile websites was unclear. What was clear was that the entire effort was extremely well organized and well financed."

Naylor likely was referring to me. Thing is that I never received a cent in my life from any super-spook source, nor did I spend anything. But then it's not unlikely that someone like Naylor, who's fudged poll results with shady questions, would hesitate to just make up facts for which he had no evidence.

What's interesting is that in March of 2010 I warned Williams that I'd be monitoring his upcoming campaign and mentioned specifically that I'd be reviewing the campaign contributions made to SVR associated candidates. The rest, as they sometimes say, is history, the short version of which is that I found an out-of-state contributor which then led to finding their super-secret listserv. No tip or funds from the CIA or Mossad, just an a plain, old fashioned, cyber-paperwork investigation. During the campaign, public statements from Steele took a more hateful, anti-Semitic turn and I later found on the listserv that Williams counseled Steele to tone down the hateful campaign rhetoric since it sounded like anti-Semitism, from what seemed, by Williams' words, to have come from media (as in Jewish controlled?) indoctrination of Vermonters:

"Since most Americans have been conditioned by years of corporate media training to associate anti-Israeli sentiment with Anti Semitism, talking about the Israeli Mafia smacks of antiSemitism blah blah. Holocaust, SVR are racists, etc ad nauseum. I have spent 4 years defusing the SVR/LOS nonsense and it is finally done, even in the blogosphere. Why go there again?"

Willaims, as a listserv honcho, certainly had to be aware of the racist and homophobic comments of Steele's #1 out-of-state contributor and that a standard practice is to return such funds. Steele wouldn't return the funds even when confronted on this blog and that no doubt had more to do with his ignominious defeat than any conspiracy alluded to by Steele's baas and money stream, Thomas Naylor.

As a result of the "cyber-paperwork investigation" for this post, I learned that in March of this year Ketcham made an amazing revelation that appeared at the CounterPunch website:

"Then, last September [s/be August]... as a favor to my friends in the Vermont secessionist movement, [I] wrote a piece at HuffPo about the secessionist’s (badly losing) candidate for governor, whose main platform was the destruction of the American empire. Due to the many eyes flitting about on HuffPo, the piece – for which I was not paid, as is the case for the vast majority of the “bloggers” at the website – was widely read and re-posted and Dugg and whatever, and brought some needed attention to the sales pitch of the crazy Vermonters."

"By my own logic, obviously, the more people blathering on digitally about a Vermont secession would render the subject contemptible and irrelevant. And so it came to pass: The article disappeared after a few days; produced no new converts to the secesh movement that I know of; garnered no campaign contributions for their gubernatorial candidate [true]; and, in effect, made the whole movement look like a hiccup in the digistream [my point for years]. It may be that the movement is a hiccup, in Vermont itself as in electronic reality, or perhaps my writing wasn’t convincing over the long haul."

"For a brief moment, however, the article was good advertising."

At last, the truth: "advertising," as well as the startling admission that rather than having "a surprising degree of support from the street" as Ketcham had claimed in his August piece, the ad "made the whole movement look like a hiccup." A "mild belch" might be a more apt metaphor to describe Steele's barely three quarters of one percent showing in the vote totals.

Ketcham posted his ad (more like a sloppy, wet kiss) for the ultimately failed Vermont secesher gubernatorial candidate, Dennis Steele, at HuffPo on Monday, August 30, 2010, after 10:00 PM. Hours later, just before dawn and in the wee hours of the following morning, Rob Williams, publisher of VTCommons and a campaign advisor for Steele, posted this for his VTCommons readers, along with the complete text from Ketcham's HuffPo piece:

"Thanks to independent journalist Christopher Ketcham and the Huffington Post for this article about our emerging independence movement here in the once and future republic of Vermont."

"Free Vermont! Long live the UNtied States."

You don't have to be a conspiracy theorist to know that this was hardly a coincidence of events, especially with Ketcham's admission that:

"... as a favor to (his) friends in the Vermont secessionist movement, (he) wrote (the) piece at HuffPo"

Funny thing is, I didn't see an "in kind" contribution disclosure for that advertising on sesecher gubernatorial candidate Dennis Steele's frequently late campaign expenses and contributions disclosure forms when I last checked them. They haven't been amended yet this year either, according to Vermont Secretary of State records.

I'd long suspected that much of what Ketcham has been writing about secession is little more than flacking for the secesher crowd and said as much to him in response to his interview request. The scam works like this: someone like Ketcham writes a piece in support of his "friends" without revealing that the piece is a "favor," then the seceshers point to it endlessly as they did with his Time piece from January, 2010 and the HuffPo piece, even going so far as inserting the pieces as a reliable source (WP:RS & perhaps even more importantly WP:SPS) into Wikipedia articles without revealing the incestuousness of the process that is known at Wikipedia as coatracking.

Ketcham has written about secession in the past and there are also problems with his reporting then. He got so carried away with the puffing he was doing on behalf of SVR that he wrote this easily refutable bit of fiction:

"One day two years ago, I heard Sale speak before 1,500 attendees at a meeting of the SVR."

[snip]

"The crowd exploded, but gently. They were young and old, hippies and farmers, old Right and new Progressive, college educated and tenth-grade educated. The room where they gathered, the great hall of the Vermont State Legislature, was hung with purple velvet, and built of fine wood and marble, and smelled clean."

Source

Many Vermonters have at one time or another been to their statehouse and the idea that anyone could pack 1,500 people into the House chamber of the statehouse is absurd. By law, capacity to the House chamber is limited 350 occupants; the entire building, including all floors, is permitted for under 1,000 and is not available in its entirety for such events.

Here's a picture of one such secesher "crowd," taken nine months after Ketcham's article on the uncredible crowd of 1,500, this one seated on the east side of the House chamber :

Indeed. By then SVR baas was reporting that the "crowd" now attending had drifted downward to the vicinity of 200:

Over 200 people visited the House Chamber of the Vermont State House on November 7 for a festive event sponsored by the Second Vermont Republic.

Photos of the event suggest a somewhat lower total (Note: After I post on SVR files they are often taken down - screen caps are maintained for this blog's files.)

Last year, after Ketcham's fawning January 31, 2010 piece in Time about the inexperienced and somewhat megalomaniacal 7 or 8 secessionist candidates who'd announced their ill-fated campaign for various Vermont executive and legislative offices, I started to pay attention to his work. What Ketcham fails to mention in any of his bios attached to the articles he's written is that he can be seen to be very much in the tank and entangled with the Vermont seceshers.

The question, you might ask, is why would Ketcham jeopardize whatever reputation for objectivity as "a freelance writer, (who) has written for Vanity Fair, Harper's, GQ, The Nation, (and) Mother Jones" that he might have by making such a disclosure, to wit, that what he writes regarding secession may at times be viewed as advertising, coatracking and/or fact picking?

The answer would seem to be that in his zeal to disparage Huffington Post's creator, Arrianna Huffington, Ketcham's injudiciousness has much to do with a lack of reasonable self-constraint that typifies the secesher advocates, with the exception that he's not foul mouthed like Naylor, middle finger waving Dennis Steele, Peter Garritano and so many other of the Free Vermont listserv "cowboys," of whom Ketcham also was one - yes, he's even posted at their "secret listserv."

For those of you who may not be familiar with the listserv, it was a message board where the "cowboys" felt comfortable chatting about conspiracies (like a secret US military and alien, dark-side of the moon, resource/technology exchange), race mixing, the ickiness of lesbians, income and asset caps for Vermonters, putting today's Vermont law enforcement on trial in the New Vermont Republic, creating capital offense charges for legislators who lie, forming alliances with other extremist groups like the Oath Keepers - you know, fun "cowboy" stuff. For some reason none of that, including this listserv message from Ketcham to the "cowboys", made it into Ketcham's piece:

"Hey all - wanted to get your take on this: What can be said about the socio-economic make-up of SVR supporters, and those who generally support secession in Vermont? By that, I mean: is it only professors, students, middle class intellectuals, and guys who work for Oracle and solar energy companies?"

"Any truckdrivers or gravediggers or construction workers? How about average Vermont farmers, not the CSA folks and the organic crowd? How about Vermont gun-nuts and 2nd
Amendment types? Any interest from Tea Party types? The Tenth Amendment folks?"

"You might have noticed that there was an Oath Keeper guy at the Jan. 15 announcement of the candidacies. (You're familiar with the Oath Keepers, I assume). He was drunk, and slurring his words, and when I interviewed him he generally made little sense except to say that he was a supporter of SVR and of secession. Not sure yet what to make of the Oath Keepers. They may just be right-wing morons playing the same old game."

"Chris"

Of course, lack of actual support for SVR from average Vermonters or incidents of real support for SVR from whackjobs made it into Ketcham's ads, er, articles; we just got allusions to the phony poll commissioned by Naylor from Ketcham.

Ketcham's a bit miffed that he can't turn a profit while propagandizing on behalf of SVR. I'm just guessing but I'd bet, based on what I saw Naylor contribute in the way of reported financial support for his first ever secesher gubernatorial candidate, that the SVR baas and paymaster, Thomas Naylor, is as tight as Arriana Huffington is said to be by Ketcham when it comes to compensating for content generation. Really, shouldn't Naylor have been the one to pay for the advertising for his hand-picked candidate?

So, like Naylor himself who lambasts Vermonters Fred Phelps-style when Vermonters enmass never do what he wants and says will be best for them, Ketcham lashed out in his piece entitled "Arianna Huffington as Parasite," and so "joins the flock of 'media oxpeckers who ride the backs of pachyderms, feeding on ticks,'" but without even the meager ethical standards of a Fox News employee.

In April of this year, Ketcham wrote about the lack of true objectivity among journalists and seemingly about himself in this ironically titled piece, "Intellectual Prostitution and the Myth of Objectivity." It's worth a read, especially where he gets into news-pegs, which seems very much like what he was doing in his HuffPo advertising piece.

Ketcham writes:

... "The pretense and veneer of objectivity is the goal. This renders idiot mistakes and outright falsities so much easier to sell to the public. After all, the marketer of the junk is presented as the all-seeing eye..."

Ketcham closed with quote from 19th century journalist John Swinton:

"We are intellectual prostitutes.”

Speak for yourself, Chris.

Perhaps Naylor, Steele, Williams and Ketcham will get together and discuss the worth of Ketcham's advertising on a well-known, national web platform, and then make the needed in-kind campaign contribution disclosure that is required under Vermont law. Ketcham has made an issue of not being paid by HuffPo and he certainly has a payment in mind that he'd consider appropriate for his work. Ketcham himself called what he did "advertising," so the exception "to any news story, commentary, or editorial distributed through the facilities of any broadcasting station, newspaper, magazine, or other periodical publication which has not been paid for" in 17 V.S.A. § 2801a does not appear to apply. 17 V.S.A. § 2892 would appear to control since I'm sure that Ketcham would value his work at better than $150.00.

Will the Vermont seceshers at VTCommons, the listserv and their flacks rise at least to the level of Fox News and commit to transparency (kinda) and disclosure of campaign contributions? We'll see. Oh, and I'm looking forward to reading Ketcham's future book on the secession "movement." I can't wait to read the chapters on flacking, polls, planting stories and how to inflate the importance of a moribund movement while keeping a straight face and, hopefully, makin' a buck.

I'll update when or if they do or do not amend the September 2010 campaign contributions and expenditures disclosure report that was filed last year.

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

Donnachaidh

2011-05-21T13:00:00.000-04:00

To the person attempting to pass along information on Donnachaidh via comments:

Since this will need to be substantiated, please try contacting me via this blog's email address, vermont(dot)secession(at)yahoo(dot)com so that we may discuss this further.

Thomas Rowley

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

Vermont Commons Blogger's Conspiracy Worries: First They Came For Our Bike Paths...

2011-05-19T10:00:00.006-04:00

Last August The Denver Post's Christopher N. Oshner wrote of a Tea Party candidate's worry that a UN agency's "(b)ike agenda spins (US) cities toward U.N. control." The Teabagger, Republican gubernatorial candidate, Dan Maes said that at first he thought that:

"the mayor's efforts to promote cycling and other environmental initiatives were harmless and well-meaning. Now he realizes "that's exactly the attitude they want you to have."

"This is bigger than it looks like on the surface, and it could threaten our personal freedoms," Maes said.

"He added: "These aren't just warm, fuzzy ideas from the mayor. These are very specific strategies that are dictated to us by this United Nations program that mayors have signed on to."

Ah, yes, he wasn't going to be fooled by the supposedly benign assistance of a UN group of present day, freedom hating Blue Meanies who are coming here to "do everything they can to oppress the place."

Vermont Commons blogger and sovereignty movement legal type, Simha Bode, noting that "Burlington, South Burlington and Brattleboro have membership with the (UN's) International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI), throws in his own deep concerns,

"Personally I don't want to be represented by this "International" NGO. If you are a public official, council, committee or planning board member within an ICLEI membership town, be aware you are infringing on the sovereignty and constitutionally protected rights of US citizens, by breaking Article 1 Section 10 of the US Constitution. If you have made an oath to uphold the constitution, you are also breaking your oath."

Sure. For eighteen years this agency in Denver, devoted to evironmentally sound alternatives had worked quietly on behalf of bike paths in Denver and suddenly, as a Republican constituency, the automobile dealers feel the pinch, there's a conspiracy afoot to take away our freedoms!!!

Bode then gives us oddles of links in his post to conspiracy addled groups that confirm his "suspicions."

OY! Leave it to "Vermont Commons" publisher Rob Williams to find a looney tunes conspiracist like Bode to round out the group over at VTCommons.

Be warned of "(t)he commie UN conspiracy to sap and impurify our precious bodily fluids, with bicyles."

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

9-11 Truthers Are a Staple of the Purported Vermont Secessionist Movement

2011-05-17T00:00:00.004-04:00

Part of the problem with the Vermont secessionists' leadership is that they seem to believe that if their ideological inspirators get away with peddling lies, they can peddle the same lies as true because, you know, someone says so and no one's going to challenge their junk.

The "Vermont Commons" publisher, an exporter of boutique meats of the non-native sort, a campaign advisor to failed secesher gubernatorial candidate, Connecticut native Dennis Steele, and a lead propagandist for the supposed Vermont secession "movement," Rob Williams, is a good example of this sort of secesher self-delusion.

It's kinda like when Williams bragged last year on his "super-secret" (until exposed on this blog [1] [2] ) listserv regarding this blog's revelations regarding his secesher movement's cozy relationship with the racist, white supremacist League of the South:

"I have spent 4 years defusing the SVR/(League of the South) nonsense and it is finally done, even in the blogosphere."

Spoken too soon, eh, Rob?

Not only do Vermont seceshers continue to maintain ties to the racist LoS, they also keep in their ranks racists and homophobes like Steele's largest out-of-state campaign contributor and Second Vermont Republic essayist, James Duncan, and VTCommons anti-Semitic blogger, Carol Moore.

In a wordy, overwrought and insipid come back, Williams relies on the "exhaustive research and writings," better described as troofer nonsense, of known 9-11 Truther, David Ray Griffin.

Grifter, er, Griffin is well-known for his tin-foil hat conspiracy representations, so much so that he is a featured crank in Jonathan Kay's (the managing editor and columnist at Canada's National Post newspaper) Among The Truthers: A Journey Through America's Growing Conspiracist Underground. Jacob Heilbrunn, a regular contributor to The New York Times Book Review and a senior editor at The National Interest wrote of Kay's recent book:

"Some of Kay’s most illuminating passages center not on what conspiracy theorists believe — even to dignify it with the word “theory” is probably to grant them more legitimacy than they deserve — but on why they are attracted to such tedious rubbish in the first place. He divides them into different camps, including the “cranks” and the “firebrands.” Cranks are often reacting to male midlife crises — combating conspiracies, Kay says, offers a new sense of mission. Cranks, he adds, are frequently math teachers, computer scientists or investigative journalists."

"A leading case, according to Kay, is David Ray Griffin, a former professor at the Claremont School of Theology who has devoted his retirement to writing no fewer than 11 books that examine each minute of the 9/11 timeline. Then there is Paul Zarembka, a professor of economics at the State University of New York, Buffalo, who has scrutinized “such arcane subjects as the price of individual airline stocks in the run-up to 9/11, and the tail numbers of the hijacked 9/11 aircraft.” And Barrie Zwicker, a mainstream Canadian journalist turned truther, insisted on interviewing Kay while Kay was interviewing him, hitting buttons on a chess clock to regulate the amount of time each had."

"Once upon a time such people would most likely have operated in relative anonymity. But with the emergence of the Internet, Kay says, they have established their own cult followings, along with the sense of superiority that is created by seeming to enjoy direct access to what actually makes the world tick. Kay writes: 'Many true conspiracy theorists I’ve met don’t even bother with Web surfing anymore. . . . From the very instant they first boot up their computer in the morning, their in-boxes comprise an unbroken catalog of outrage stories ideologically tailored to their pre-existing obsessions.' ”

Heilbrunn's complete review may be read here. See also the Publisher's Weekly review here.

A quick search of the VTCommons website revealed more than a score of references to Griffin's "cogent" research by various inhabitants of the VTCommons blog nutsack. Six other references can be found on the website for Griffin's 9-11 "exposé" The New Pearl Harbor: Disturbing Questions About the Bush Administration and 911. Here's what Chip Berlet, a noted investigative journalist who studies the spread of conspiracy theories in the media and on the Internet, as well as white supremacists, homophobes, political cults and anti-Semites, has to say about Griffin's book:

"This book by David Ray Griffin is largely a compilation and restatement of materials from a variety of print and electronic sources, as the author points out in his Introduction and Acknowledgments. Griffin’s book reflects a relentless disregard of substantial evidence from multiple sources that contradict the claims he is making. Griffin repeatedly uses classic Fallacies of Logic (a Wikipedia article in progress on Fallacies of Logic may be read here) in his presentation rendering whole sections of the book refutable on this basis alone..."

[snip]

"Griffin is constantly stating that he does not know what actually happened, but that he is just analyzing possible scenarios that need to be investigated. This is disingenuous at best. While Griffin repeatedly refers to the “claims” of “critics” of the “official” account of the events of 9-11-01, he is clearly endorsing these views. In a number of cases Griffin becomes an apologist for authors (such as Thierry Meyssan or Illarion Bykov and Jared Israel) whose assertions have been thoroughly demolished by an armada of writers across the political spectrum. Griffin accomplishes this by selectively highlighting certain aspects of their work while sidestepping their most lurid and outlandish conclusions in which they claim the functioning of vast conspiracies on the flimsiest of evidence..."

[snip]

"Many of Griffin's cites track back to unsubstantiated claims..."

The complete, lengthy review of Griffin's paranoid hodge podge of conspiracist "pyramiding, a process used by conspiracists whereby an unproven allegation in a prior section is converted into a factual basis to introduce a following section" may be read here.

'Course, there's nothing that prevents conspiracist whackjobs like Griffin, Rob Williams and Vermont secesher Jim Hogue from churning these unsubstantiated tall tales. Where it does become truly vile is when Griffin suggests that the cell calls received by family members of the passengers were faked and that somehow multiple call receivers, including Ted Olson, a United States Solicitor General at the time who had been married for five years to Pentagon Flt 77 victim Barbara Olson, were fooled into thinking a faked electronic voice was a loved one. You'd think that the Vermont seceshers would be capable of some modicum of decency and would not give the improbable claims of Griffin such prominence in their endeavours. You can read more on this mean-spirited, vile act by 9-11 Troofers at VTCommons here.

Some of Griffin's conspiracist crap is based on French conspiracist, Thierry Meyssan, "work," neatly disposed of by Snopes.com here.

I look forward to reading in future VTCommons journal issues and blog post updates from Rob on the Lindbergh Baby Kidnapping Hoax, the Apollo Moon Landing Hoax, the Real story behind the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, the Illuminati Freemason Conspiracy, as well as something new on the Lincoln Assassination Hoax. Some guy says that he saw Lincoln shot but he's dead now so the assassination is unconfirmable - prob'ly just another gubmint plot, no?

"And as for "defusing the SVR/LOS nonsense" as being a "finally done" deal, "even in the blogosphere," well, not by a longshot, Rob, not by a very long shot. I never can say goodbye, boy."

(Editor's Note: David Ray Griffin is not to be confused with another contributor to the VTCommons journal, Robert S. Griffin, a white supremacist author ["Rearing Honorable White Children" published in the racist journal American Renaissance], a "professor" at University of Vermont and who has written for the racist journal, The Occidental Quarterly [3 - scroll way down]

Additionally, VTCommons publisher and all around douchebag, Rob Williams, incorrectly asserts on his blog that I have called him a "stoopid moron." In fact, I called Peter Garritano a "moron."

One need only read Garritano's barely comprehensible blog posts for confirmation that this secesher, political wannabe operates largely in the conspiracist realm, with a distinct fixation (or hatred, really) for members of today's Vermont National Guard. Maybe it's an effort to increase his cred among the small community of Vermont sovereign citizen and Oath Keeper types.

I'd described their conspiracist nonsense as "stoopid." Ya'd think Williams, a so-called publisher, would be capable of fact checking and proofing his own post. Maybe he's just incapable of "read(ing). Or just (is)n't thinking clearly."

I'd also suggested that "Williams and Garritano (were) locked in contest with Douglas Feith to see who'll be "the fucking stupidest guy on the face of the earth."

Clearly, Williams is the hands down winner in that contest with his fellow political bottom feeder, Garritano. His promotion of inexcusably hurtful jerks like Griffin [either one] puts him over the top with that sort of vile, conspiracist, racist douchebaggery.)

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

Vermont Secessionists Refuse to Give Up...

2011-05-12T12:59:00.001-04:00

... on one of the stoopidest conspiracy theories since the whole Birther nonsense gripped the Teabagging community.

It goes like this: Osama Bin Laden isn't dead and the Obama administration is lying and there is no proof of Bin Laden's death. This now from Peter Garritano. Moron.

That one's dumber (if that could be possible) than Rob Williams' overtly racist attack on Obama last week where he pictorially blended the president with the al-Qaeda bogeyman, Osama Bin Laden. Get it? Obama and Osama sound similar - what could be funnier? If you can look past the insipidly dull, racist undertone to such a conflation, you gotta say, "That Williams - what a funny guy. He's a real hoot."

Earth to two of the most needy attention seekers that I know of, Williams and the utterly delusion Garritano, try this:

"Al-Qaeda has confirmed the death of its leader, Osama bin Laden"
Al Jazeera, May 6, 2011

Maybe the CIA has tricked the entire Bin Laden family into believing that Osama Bin Laden is dead as well.

Williams and Garritano - locked in contest with Douglas Feith to see who'll be "the fucking stupidest guy on the face of the earth."

My money's on Williams - he'll be the last guy to ever back down when it comes to being stupid in the face of easily obtainable facts.

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

University of Vermont Professor Frank Bryan Quits the Vermont Secession Movement

2011-05-10T06:00:00.026-04:00

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

Vermont Secessionist's 2011 Legislative Scorecard

2011-05-06T21:00:00.010-04:00

The House of Representatives of Vermont's General Assembly adjourned today, and early to boot.

If you don't remember the legislative promise made by the utterly failed
secesher Senate candidate for one of Vermont's Addison county's two senate seats (4% of the vote or as he must like to call it "fifth" [out of five]), Robert Wagner, well, don't feel bad. Much of what he said was unmemorable, like when he castigated his neighbors and potential constituents in Middlebury for addressing a local problem with local funds rather than sucking at the state teat as he recommended for his own town here.

Just prior to get swamped, er, edge out of a win for the senate seat Wagner wrote on November 1, 2010 in the Rob Williams secesher propaganda rag at "Vermont Commons":
"I intend to write and introduce legislation whether in the Senate... or part of the Loyal Opposition, as a citizen legislator. As Vermonters, we have this right and this duty. I have some draft tax reform legislation which I'll be running before you, the people, before submitting it."
Three days later Wagner scrubbed Montpelier, Vermont from every kid's list of memorized state capitols and declared Hancock, Vermont, just over the mountain from the casa Wagner to be the secesher provisional capitol of Vermont - screw whatever the proposed constituents of the proposed Second Vermont Republic might think - Daddy Wagner and the nine or so seceshers who met in Hancock on December 12 of 2010 know best.

"In 2006 a single Free Vermont candidate ran for governor, a horse farmer and a man of the theatre known to us as Ethan Allen. This year, FORTY independents ran! This has led to many new organisational initiatives. We want to keep the momentum going. Let’s coordinate, support each other, and be successful. Hancock is now the place to go, the provisional capital of Free Vermont."

'Course, we never heard back from Wagner about the legislation or the tax reform, nor did he say that none of the SEVEN secesher candidates came anywhere near a win. Instead, he circulated a petition proposed by another group that's gone nowhere.

• Legislation Circulated - None
• Legislation Proposed - None
• Legislation Passed - None

Figures. Here in an agricultural area he's what you'd call an extra political nipple .

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

Vermont Birthers Move Over, There's a New Game in Town

2011-05-04T12:00:00.004-04:00

Or more to the point, there's a new "pig" for the Angry Birds© over at the "Vermont Commons" blog to hurl themselves towards.

Led by VTCommons publisher Rob Williams, the nattering nabobs of nuttiness there have dived headlong into the latest conspiracy theory - "The Death of Osama Bin Laden Is a Lie!"

Amongst all the other bird-brained ideas that spin out from the VTCommons propaganda machine, 9/11 Truthiness has been a constant staple feeding the wingnutters.

Williams lobbed this bit'o bird crap today, as a follow up to his attack on Monday.

Monday's offering from Williams here sports this rant from last Fall's secesher Lieutenant Governor candidate and all around fowl ball, Peter Garritano - it's a beaut:

"Osama Bin LadenObama poll numbers falling!!! Time to kill the boogie man In one of the most unbelievable stories ever to come out of the White House, Osama Bin Laden has been killed and his body dumped at sea. Don’t worry we got some DNA to prove it!! In the age of guilty before proven innocent, and torture to provide evidence, wag the dog has provided us with yet another timely news item. After 9 years of fake audio tapes made on a cassette recorder from the 50’s, we can now put an end to this sad chapter of CIA fakery. It is sad that Osama’s body was dumped at sea because he should have been buried with military honors. The Pentagon propaganda machine kept him alive and the military industrial complex raked in the dough. Osama’s time had come though because Obama is feeling the heat with the bad economy, endless military aggression, foreclosures, and plunging dollar. Nothing better than a lynching to pep up the population. The five seconds of news(sic) video I was able to stomach seemed like a clip from an old Frankenstien movie, burning torches and wild eyed hungry people. It’s time to focus people. Osama is not the reason for your woes. Corporate terrorists have caused the condition that now grips the world economy. Guantanamo’s inmates should include the CEOS from Goldman Sachs, Monsanto, Lockheed Martin, Pfizer, and Halliburton to name a few. Osama’s funeral at sea is only a temporary fix and like most news items, it will have little effect on our daily lives.. The carnival will leave town and the naked truth of the creeping fascist state will emerge once again. Big brother is watching, he’s well armed and well paid, and will be forever indebted to Osama Bin Laden."

Submitted by Peter Garritano on Mon, 05/02/2011 - 7:15pm.

Whew!

Betwixt the Williams posts comes this one from Jim Hogue, reënactor horribilis, also spinning the Osama lives/been dead/never happened or whatever myth.

No doubt the other little Angry Birds© will be chirping it up soon, what with all this new seed...

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

More Bad News For The Vermont Secession Movement

2011-05-03T18:00:00.006-04:00

The baas of the Second Vermont Republic, Thomas Naylor, as well as his toady, Rob Williams must be having another bad day.

It seems that the most successful secessionist/separatist/sovereignty movement in North America, the Bloc Québécois, took a whooping in the Monday night's elections in Canada. Naylor's and William's websites have hailed the Bloc Québécois as "powerful" and as potential allies.

The Bloc Québécois went from holding 15% stake in Canada's parliament (47 seats), to barely 1% (4 seats), a showing not dissimilar to SVR's own gubernatorial hopeful, Connecticut native Dennis Steele's paltry 0.79%. Bloc Québécois took only 1 seat in Montréal/Laval and none in Québéc City.

Read more about the Bloc Québécois collapse here and here.

Quelle horreur! Quelle surprise!! Quel dommage!!!

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Has The Second Vermont Republic's Bad Penny Turned Up Again?

2011-04-29T06:00:00.008-04:00

It's been a quiet month but some things just aren't meant to last.

Thomas Naylor, our Magnolia Vermonter, has been churning out his patented, sententious essays that, for all they lack in reality based quality, more than make up for in offering a glimpse into a mind that's left the rails. His game board mentality for reshaping the world as he would have it, despite its obvious utter misreading of histories and the present, offer insight into just how far into the ridiculous his "plans" have now veered, if you can call his muddled thinking anything like planning.

But today I have something that's not so new from the Second Vermont Republic website, written by someone that Thomas Naylor has described as one his "twenty Vermont Internet cowboys" - James Duncan.

Duncan, you may recall, is the "cowboy" who posted on the not-so-secret (although they all thought so at the time) Free Vermont listserv his disdain for lesbians and race-mixing, and was the largest out-of-state contributor to the utterly failed campaign for Vermont governor waged by Green Mountain Brigade commander, er, anti-war candidate and Connecticut native, Dennis Steele, who was just fine about keeping the money contributed by a bigot.

Duncan also has plans for "show trials" in the new Vermont Republic of current law enforcement members that he discussed in this Free Vermont listserv posting, where he suggested someone for SVR's Very Foreign Minister, Dennis Morrisseau, to contact in the Patriot movement:

From: jd882u at hotmail.com (james duncan)
Date: Fri Mar 12 14:25:53 2010
Subject: [Free Vermont Framework] FW: [New post] Oath Keepers and Oath
Take rs: Does It Really Matter?
Message-ID:

"Sorry, my encounters with law enforcement were always of the non-oath keepers types."

"You know, the socieopathic toadies of the plutocracy whose defense when we put them on trial will be ......"I was only following orders"."

"Remember, most of the servants of the Empire oppress and tyrannize you for a mere pat on the back and a Scobby snack from their masters. If you want to pursue making contact, their leader seems to be a Stuart Rhodes and this is his website http://oathkeepers.org/oath/

On the plus side, he is on SPLC shit list along with the rest of us."

A year before this threatening posting, early in 2009, Duncan had an essay published at baas Naylor's SVR website where he laid out his plans for a new Vermont currency. The plan was comprised of the usual sovereignty movement/Glenn "Hoard Gold" Beck crap, along with economic bilge of the sort usually associated with the likes of former SVR board member and current board member of the white supremacist group, the League of the South , Franklin Sanders, who received a felony conviction for his own financial shenanigans.

Duncan included a dog whistle to racialist politics and separatist ideals with this gratuitous passage in his 2009 essay:

"The Empire is in its death throes. Built on avarice and greed, it has all but eaten itself. How do we protect ourselves as it thrashes around and strikes out? Secession is of course the ultimate answer. We have nothing in common with the gang bangers in L.A., the crack dealers in Detroit, the stock swindlers in N.Y. Why should we be forced to associate with them any longer? Why should the sweat of our brows be used to spread murder abroad and tyranny at home? Enough is enough."

He even signed his piece like SVR board member Jason Sorens has also written in his scribblings that have argued for violence against some leaders - Sic Semper Tyrannis - a favorite closing line among seceshers, both past and present, including Lincoln's assassin, John Wilkes Booth.

Later that year Naylor's SVR issued what the baas has called a "token" in this announcement.

Below is from the page at Moonlight Mints that seems to indicate a a somewhat smaller minting than originally described by Naylor- 113 Nearings; 109 Duncans vs the 500 Nearings alluded to by Naylor in his offering.

In his announcement Naylor goes on to say that his "token" will trade at par with the dollar.

"Why clovers, the state flower, instead of dollars, pounds, or euros? As Voltaire once said, “Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value – zero.” With the Federal Reserve Bank printing fiat money as though it were going out of style, the value of such money can only spiral downward."

"Why clovers? Why not? Why peg something of value (silver) to a rapidly declining asset (dollars)? Why not a fresh start with a new yet time tested medium of exchange?"

"Clovers will trade at one to one vs the dollar – for now."

So Naylor's token isn't really a "token"; it's intended to be a what's called a private currency - and it seems that just might be illegal enough, based on the offer to trade for dollars, for the FBI or the Secret Service to take an interest. Recently a similar private currency issuer was convicted for another version of these money schemes. [1] [2] After I'd begun research for this post, a Vermont Commons blogger, Sherry Ackerman, expressed last week her own concerns about the SVR funny money.

So perhaps that's why this announcement now appears on the SVR website:

But the question that really needs an answer from Naylor, Williams, Flomenhoft, Wagner and/or any of the other SVR secesher braintrust of wingnuts is, "Why the hell does the Second Vermont Republic need a James Duncan coin?!?!" Maybe James Duncan would like to throw in his own two cents to explain the "Duncan" and, while he's at it, explain the Donnachaidh thing from a few months ago.

Comments are temporarily on - wingnuts start your propellers.

Oh, and don't take any wooden Naylors. (I know but I couldn't resist, having heard wa-a-ay too many yak puns from Rob Williams during the past year.)

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

Second Vermont Republic Founder Thomas Naylor Is Now Down to "Just Whistlin' Dixie"

2011-04-22T06:00:00.004-04:00

Second Vermont Republic founder, Thomas Naylor, was the largest financial backer of what ended up being an abysmal showing by Vermont secesher candidates in the 2010 election cycle due to "the paucity of votes attracted by candidate (Dennis) Steele." Steele, the head of the secesher ticket did so poorly that he came within a few votes of having his 0.79% finish bested by a perennial kook candidate who alleges discrimination because of a purported disability that supposedly arises from an STD, and secession supporter, natch.

For those who have followed the saga of the Second Vermont Republic's baas, Thomas Naylor, he has continued to try to separate the modern day secession movement from its deeply troubling racist history. That effort that's been made all the more difficult for him by his longtime association with the League of the South and its perverted view of the Land of Dixie as it supposedly was.

Naylor swerves from distancing himself (sort of) from the LoS types when speaking to media, to then embracing the Lost Causers and their various tropes at secesher meetings.

"Vermont Commons" has a new Spring issue out. In addition to all the usual sky-is-falling, doom and gloom prophecy that permeates its pages, there's an unexpected disclosure of an about-face by the Magnolia Vermonter.

It has to do with one of those symbols so important to Southern (or
Southron, as they prefer to say) seceshers - the singing of the song known as "Dixie".

The song "Dixie" is usually attributed to blackface ministrel show creator and impresario, Ohioan Dan Emmett, and is considered to be a racist view of antebellum Southern black culture.

Sung in an affected style meant to mimic how the white, racist ear hears blacks, the lyrics confirm that fact:

I wish I was in de land ob cotton,
Old times dar am not forgotten;
Look away! Look away! Look away! Dixie Land.
In Dixie Land whar I was born in,
Early on one frosty mornin,
Look away! Look away! Look away! Dixie Land.

"The remaining verses drift into the common minstrel idiom of a comical plantation scenario, "supposedly [depicting] the gayer side of life for slaves on Southern plantations:"

Old Missus marry "Will-de-weaber,"
Willium was a gay deceaber;
Look away! Look away! Look away! Dixie Land.
But when he put his arm around'er,
He smiled as fierce as a forty-pound'er,
Look away! Look away! Look away! Dixie Land.

Dar's buck-wheat cakes an 'Ingen' batter,
Makes you fat or a little fatter;
Look away! Look away! Look away! Dixie Land.
Den hoe it down an scratch your grabble,
To Dixie land I'm bound to trabble.
Look away! Look away! Look away! Dixie Land.

"In short, ["Dixie"] made the case, more strongly than any previous minstrel tune had, that slaves belonged in bondage."

Source (The 1916 rendition of "Dixie" may be heard here; click the play button when the window opens.)

Those who have flacked for Naylor in the past usually bring up an unconfirmed assertion by Naylor that he would refuse to stand for the playing of "Dixie" when he was at University of Mississippi, as though that assures that he couldn't possibly be racist. This bit of literary legerdemain from Bill Kauffman, author of "Bye Bye, Miss American Empire":

"Thomas Naylor, who as a young Mississippi liberal took pride in refusing to stand for “Dixie” when his beloved Ole Miss Rebels played, told me that he was so disarmed upon attending the 2006 League of the South convention that for the first time since before the civil rights movement he actually sang the words to that tuneful ode to the land where old times are not forgotten."

Sources [1] [2]

Finally, another fiction of the Naylor image goes "bye, bye."

While inadvertently lifting the veil on Naylor, Kauffman jumps the shark with his whitewashing, Michael Hill entry. Hill, leader of the admittedly white supremacist League of the South "call(s) antebellum slavery "God-ordained," oppos(es) racial intermarriage, and defend(s) segregation as a policy designed to protect the integrity of both races," served at a black college, notes Kauffman - which means what? Kaufmann failed to say in his written sleight of hand that,

"Michael Hill was always on oddity at (Stillman College), roaming the campus wearing a Confederate flag pin and waxing nostalgic to his mostly black students about the so-called "War Between the States."

"...In 1998, Hill finally left Stillman, which had been badly embarrassed by his efforts. ...(T)he (L)eague (of the South) grew quickly, as racist white Southerners sought the respectability of a group led by a professor..."

Source

It's truly a toss up as to who is the unseemlier - the seceshers or their flacks.

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The House Speaker of the Vermont General Assembly Labels Secession as Treason

2011-04-11T12:00:00.006-04:00

Vermont began its observance of the Civil War sesquicentennial with a commemoration of the "special session of the legislature called by Gov. Erastus Fairbanks in April, 1861 in response to Abraham Lincoln's request for troops and funds at the outbreak of the Civil War."

House Speaker Shap Smith (as then Speaker Augustus Hunton), Lt. Gov. Phil Scott (as Governor Fairbanks) and Senate President pro tem John Campbell (as Lt. Gov. Levi Underwood) all portrayed the key players at that long-ago session who met in the very same House Chamber and doubled the amount of money requested by the Union from $500,000 to $1,000,000. The reenactment was the final 2011 Farmers' Night performance in the House Chamber at the State House, held on Wednesday, April 6th at 7:30pm.

Of that long ago special session, today's House Speaker, Shap Smith, reading from a House committtee's report said,

"Secession is treason!"

"To yield to its demands is to invite it again."

"If one state may secede, all may."

"However much Vermont deprecates the horror of civil war, she believes that the triumph of rebellion, and that anarchy and confusion necessarily resulting therefrom, would be infinitely more deplorable as it would result in the loss of our blood bought civil liberties and the entire subversion of the idea of free government."

"Vermont on this question has no hesitation in avowing her choice. She assures her sister states and the executive authority of the Union that she is ever loyal and true, and will do her part in this hour of trial and danger."

"We therefore respectfully recommend the most prompt, vigorous and decisive measures to quell this insurrection. We tender to the President of the United States such aid as he may judge to be the duty of Vermont to render in this emergency."

Click here to play video of House Speaker Shap Smith's stirring representation of these words said so long ago. The entire reenactment may be heard here.

It struck me that the truth in those words spoken in the Vermont State House reflecting the universal sentiment in Vermont at that time hold much relevance for today. During this past 2010 election we learned that the new seceshers of the 21st century have their own ideas about how to savage our Vermont civil liberties and society.

The Free Vermont crowd, led by the Second Vermont Republic's Thomas Naylor and his henchman, Rob Williams, had described their own plans to seize private property, suborn civil rights, reinstitute racism, homophobia and anti-Semitic tensions, enact population, asset and income controls, return capital punishment, just to name of few of their fantasies for an "independent" Vermont to be created in a Ernesto "Che" Guevara style liberación movement. [1] [2]

Vermonters have no more interest today in such subversions of their civil liberties than they did 150 years ago.

Re-enactors of the Vermont 1st and 18th Vermont Cavalry and other units attended the session.

Ron Tallman, of the 1st Vermont Cavalry, said he takes just as dim a view of the small secession movement that exists in Vermont today as his predecessors took of Southern secession a century and a half ago.

"They'd better think long and hard about the consequences involved with it," he said.
Source

More information on sesquicentennial events yet to be held may be found at the Vermont Civil War Sesquicentennial website and the Vermont in the Civil War website

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This Day In Vermont History: March 4, 1791 - Vermont Day

2011-03-04T06:00:00.007-05:00

On March 4, 1791, the third session of the First Congress of the United States of America acted on the petition of the residents of

"(T)he said state, by the name and style of "The State of Vermont" (it was never called the Vermont Republic) shall be received and admitted into this Union, as a new and entire member of the United Sates of America."

Approved, February 18, 1791

This all came about as a result of the resolution of New York's claims to Vermont lands and within five months time Vermonters rushed, by those days standard, to join the Union:

"As a result of an act passed by the State of New York on October 7, 1790, regarding a settlement of New York's claims, the Vermont General Assembly authorized a convention to consider an application for admittance to the Union of the United States of America. The convention met at Bennington, on January 6, 1791. On January 10, 1791 the convention approved a resolution to make an application to join the United States by a vote of 105 to 2 nays. Vermont was admitted to the Union on March 4, 1791. March 4 is celebrated in Vermont as Vermont Day."

Source

Of course, this is all at quite odds with the various fictions presented about Vermont by the baas of the Second Vermont Republic, Thomas Naylor, and his chief historical revisionist and fellow Abraham Lincoln hater, Rob Williams, publisher of SVR's propaganda organ, "Vermont Commons".

Some significance must then be attached to the recent change in Naylor's own shifting views about the possibility for secession of Vermont from the United States. On September 13, 2010, Naylor wrote:

It’s Time to Liberate Ourselves From the Use of the Word Secession

"To the vast majority of Americans, whether they be from the political Left or the political Right, secession is anathema. Abraham Lincoln really did a number on us one hundred fifty years ago. He convinced most of us that secession is immoral, illegal, and unconstitutional..."

"Secession may very well be the most emotionally charged word in American English. No term is considered to be more politically incorrect. What immediately comes to mind whenever this provocative word is spoken is the Civil War, slavery, violent militias, and racism..."

"Unlike secession, liberation connotes success, not failure..."

"As secessionists we need gradually to wean ourselves away from the use of the word secession and replace it with the more positive term... The Civil War ended a long time ago and with it ended the possibility of ever having an intelligent conversation about the merits of secession."

Naylor has continued to make remarks in this vein, usually in conjunction with
his anti-Israel/Semitic obsession, until finally he said, again with the predictable blanket anti-Israel jab,

"What America needs is neither a tea party movement, a tenth amendment movement, a nullification movement, nor a secession movement..."

"As someone who has spent twenty years promoting the idea of peaceful secession in America, it is extremely painful for me to admit that the modern day secession movement in America was probably dead on arrival."

Never mind the fact that six months ago Naylor was promoting the idea that emulation of the self-professed murderer, Che Guervara, was at the top of his "to do" list after claiming to be the founder of a "genteel revolution." [1] [2] You just can't predict or believe whatever he's going to say next - he's all over the place.

It's time for the Magnolia Vermonter, Thomas Naylor, to give us all a Vermont Day gift and stop embarrassing his Vermont neighbors, and for him to just pack it in without another of his petulant, historically inaccurate eulogies.

Now go play your childish secesher games with your racist League of the South friends and SVR advisory board members, Tom. It's over.

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

Would Vermonters Secede From a Second Vermont Republic?

2011-02-26T06:00:00.005-05:00

This isn't exactly what Thomas Naylor, baas of the Second Vermont Republic, had in mind, nor is it the model of "UNTied States" that "Vermont Commons" publisher, Rob Williams, would have Vermonters pursue, that is to say, should the seceshers ever remotely seem to be gaining traction in the sense that the state of Vermont was being seen as even possibly leaving the US, that Vermonters could elect to secede from Vermont to remain in the United States of America.

Why not?

Some Arizonans, you see, think that their own state government is already too far along that secesher path so they're looking at - you guessed it - seceding from Arizona so that they can remain in the United States of America.

Pima County the 51st state?

A political committee comprised of a handful of attorneys, including the former chairman of the Pima County Democratic Party, have established a political committee dedicated to helping Southern Arizona secede from the rest of the state.

Start Our State, which is asking other like-minded counties to join the effort, is hoping to put the question before Pima County voters in 2012.

Co-chair Paul Eckerstrom said it’s not a joke and not a political statement. He said the state legislature has gone too far to the right, particularly with a round of measures to challenge federal supremacy.

“This really does border on them saying they don’t want to be part of the Union any longer,” he said. “Well, I want to be part of the United States.”

He said at a minimum, it will send a message that Pima County doesn’t want to go along with the priorities being outlined in Phoenix. He said Pima County has more land and more people than several other states.

“It’s no longer a laughing matter to me,” Eckerstrom said. “My kids’ futures are at stake because if this continues, the economic ramifications could be very dire. I’m tired of hoping and praying that rationality will come to Phoenix.”

The committee is pressing the Pima County Board of Supervisors to put the measure on the ballot. If that doesn’t happen, Eckerstrom said the group is prepared to circulate petitions.

Arizona Daily Star

At this point, a little "rationality" on the part of Naylor and Williams wouldn't be such a bad idea, either.

(h/t DangererousMinds)

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