VTDigger Posts a Vermont Secessionist Bonehead's Energy Rant Without Disclosing That Hans O'Hanion Is A Secesher

A reader has pointed me to an Op-Ed commentary posted at VTDigger by Vermont secessionist Hans O'Hanion. O'Hanion's curricula vitae omits this fact, as well as O'Hanion's longtime association with his Charlotte neighbor, the still dead Dixie singin' anti-Semite and proponent of a white homeland comprised of northern New England and the Canadian Maritimes, Thomas H. Naylor.

Like Naylor, O'Hanion has major probs with our congressional delegation, state government and the average Vermonter's commitment to seeking a path to sustainable energy alternatives that don't involve dangerous nuclear power plants. O'Hanion's piece disparages average Vermonters in a major way because he's a scholar academic blowhard (Academic blowhards are a staple of the anti-Semitic and racist pan-secessionist movement). O'Hanion essentially argues that sustainable energy alternatives are all inferior to "safe" nuclear power modules. Remember, back before Three Mile Island, when the egghead blowhards told us that nuclear power plants were safe? O'Hanion can't seem to accept the decision of the vast majority of Vermonters that nuclear is definitely not something that they want in the energy mix. O'Hanion's chance of successfully peddling his nonsense in his lifetime is about the same as Naylor's dream of creating a white homeland in his lifetime, although he has succeeded in projecting the degree of contempt that Naylor had before he croaked for the average Vermonter.

Where this secesher nonsense involving O'Hanion and the utterly failed Vermont "independence" crap converges is in the ill-fated seditious attempt by a small group of Vermont secesher boneheads to reconstitute a state governmental branch that had been legally disbanded nearly a hundred and fifty years ago called the Vermont Council of Censors. The duties of the Council are now those of the Vermont Supreme Court. The "reconstitution" was proposed by scholar rocket scientist Gary Flomenhoft at a secesher meeting in May of 2009 at Goddard College. While the original Council members were elected by Vermonters, the "reconstituted" group was made up of self-selected appointees like Dennis "Hit List" Morrisseau, Not-So-Senator Robert "Needed Killin' " Wagner, and O'Hanion.

All this Vermont Council of Censors stupidity that was intended to oversee the legislation coming out of the General Assembly and the activities of the Governor's office came to a screeching halt when I exposed it in 2010 here.

I'm left wondering why the "diggers" at VTDigger left this out of O'Hanion's background description. Wouldn't it have helped readers to gauge how unhinged the following commentary would turn out to be?

O'Hanion has no, um, better booster than the publisher of the failed Vermont secesher hate blog, Rob Williams, who called O'Hanion:

"[an] enthusiastic supporter of Vermont independence"

At about the time O'Hanion and his cohorts were advancing their seditious plot, the late Julie Waters nailed it thusly:

"What used to be a movement that was looked at with at least some small amount of interest has now been completely discredited."
- Julie Waters, Monday, July 6, 2009

Shame on VTDigger for missing this very pertinent detail from their commentator O'Hanion's background.

(h/t Todd)

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

Public Banksters - Part IV

(This post is part of a series intended to shed some needed light on the state public banking plan being lobbied for by unregistered lobbyists from the groups Vermonters for a New Economy, The Public Banking Institute (a California based outfit) and the Gund Institute before the Vermont Senate Finance Committee. The earlier posts have generated some considerable interest but rather than authorizing comments I'm urging readers to contact the Vermont Senate Finance Committee Assistant, Barbara Dall, with their concerns bdall@leg.state.vt.us)

To suggest that there is a "Flomenhoft Mystique" is something of an exaggeration. While the neo-Georgist Gund Institute's Gary Flomenhoft, an "educator" and onetime rocket scientist, has been up to his eyeballs in the decision making processes of the Vermont secession leadership and with the public banking lobbying effort, he's not terribly mysterious or mystical, although for some insane reason VT seceshers seem to hang on his every word.

This post might also have been subtitled the Mad Men edition of the Public Banksters series for a few reasons. Certainly the public relations assault being orchestrated by the unregistered lobbyists for a state run public bank is visible for all to see except, of course, for the willfully blind. (The entire effort is being spearheaded by Flomenhoft's comrade Gwen Hallsmith, co-founder of Vermonters for a New Economy and acting executive director of a California advocacy group called The Public Banking Institute, so why aren't these people complying with Vermont's lobbyist registration law?). But it's the past mad, mad, mad, mad history of one central figure in the campaign for a public bank that is the topic of today's post. This isn't Flomenhoft's first time at the rodeo but he's yet to score a victory in any of his entries. Let me cover some of the highlights:

The Vermont Council of Censors

During a meeting in the spring of 2009 at a Goddard College get together organized by secesher deadenders who were trying to find a way out of the mess that had been created by their national alliances with racists, homophobes and anti-Semites of the extreme radical right, alliances which led to the secesher alienation from all levels of the Vermont polity and critical coverage in the Vermont press, Flomenhoft presented his latest idea (well, not really his original idea but I'll get to that): a reconstitution of the Vermont Council of Censors, a governmental organization that was lawfully disbanded by the legislature in the 1870s.

The Vermont Council of Censors was a group that met at 7 year intervals to report of the constitutionality of the actions of the legislative and executive branches of Vermont government. These duties had come to be covered more regularly and effectively by the judicial branch, thus obviating the need for a redundant organization that met less often. While the original council members were elected to the office, Flomenhoft and his secesher pals proceeded to self-appoint themselves to their conjured Council with the only apparent qualification being that one be a secesher.

The problem with Flomenhoft's idea turned out to be that this was another example of the seceshers ties to the goals and thinking of the radical right. Oh, and that I found out about it.

The first proponent of the creation of a Council of Censors was a Nebraska conservative, Republican party county chairman and Teabagger, Glenn Freeman, who created the National Council of Censors in 2003. Like Freeman, Flomenhoft eschewed any democratic form of creation; he just issued his report/statement/claptrap, like Freeman and created the unelected and supposedly reconstituted Vermont Council of Censors. It's a Teaparty kinda thing so Flomenhoft was attracted to it like a moth to a flame. The national council has done pretty much nothing; after a feisty start that was basically a few meetings and a website, Flomenhoft's Vermont group also came to a screeching halt when I posted about their seditious creation here.

Flomenhoft's Council of Censors proposal and his appointment process of seceshers only reveals his contempt for both judicial review and participatory democracy. Flomenhoft's embrace of a flagrant malapportionment designed to give him and his secesher allies an unwarranted amount of power in state governance pretty much gives you all that you'd need to know about how the seceshers would rule Vermont if they succeeded in their effort, although I'll go into more of his and the other seceshers power delusion in the section following this one.

The Free Vermont Listserv

Later in 2009 Flomenhoft was one of the earliest members to what he and the Vermont seceshers called the Free Vermont Listserv, a place where they believed that could chat in private about the upcoming 2010 election. It didn't turn out to be quite so private.

On the listserv the chat proceeded from Flomenhoft recommending that secesher candidates, like secesher gubernatorial candidate Dennis Steele, keep their policy position vague so that voters wouldn't zero in on items they might take issue with to some really whacked out stuff that anyone in their right mind would take issue with, such as: racism; anti-Semitism; violence laced misogyny; homophobia; appointing themselves minister of this and that; conspiracist claptrap like the notion that the U.S. Is receiving advanced alien technology in exchange for resources being mined on the dark side of the moon; putting members of Vermont's law enforcement community on trial for who knows what; making legislators subject to capital punishment if they don't live up to secesher standards for participation in governing; and on, and on, and on. You can read their chat for yourself at the Free Vermont Listserv provided at the end of this post or this earlier post of mine here.

The Creation of a Provisional Capitol for the Secessionist Second Vermont Republic in Hancock, VT

Perhaps my personal favorite of the lunacy that Flomenhoft has for years been a central figure of is when, hot on the heels of their crushing 2010 defeats for guv, lite-guv and a smattering of legislative seats, he and a small group of confederates met at a ramshackle B&B in Hancock, VT and declared the place to be their "provisional capitol." Dickie Drysdale's Herald of Randolph had a piece on the affair here.

'Nuff said.

Now is often the point when Flomenhoft or one of his pals scream ad hominem! That is, however, a fallacy. What's really happening here is that Flomenhoft is presenting himself as an economic expert without revealing his true agenda - separating from the economic construct of "the Empire" to further the effort for secession - or without revealing that on every occasion that Georgist economic principles have been applied to a community the effort has failed. Flomenhoft's track record for nutty proposals that come to naught speak directly to his credibility as an authority, not unlike the spiteful mayoral candidacy of his colleague and similarly unregistered lobbyist for the lobbying group Vermonters for a New Economy. The character of the proponents of a plan that so radically alters the Vermont economic landscape with the real goal in mind of secession is valid to consider.

This is by no means all of Teh Crheyzy that permeates Flomenhoft's secesher activism but what's significant is that the Vermont Senate Finance Committee has even given this last secesher pipe dream, a plan that the remnants of the Second Vermont Republic have cited on their hate blog as their #1 priority intended to escape economic entanglement with "the Empire," as much attention as they have.

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

Vermont Secessionist Rocket Scientist and Constitutional Blowhard to be an Early Presenter at...

... the third Vermont Secesher Statehouse Stunt to be held in Montpelier on Friday that they're calling their Vermont Independence Party.

There comes a point where one has to ask, how long will these idiots keep banging their heads into the wall of a society that finds them and their screwy worldview to be unsuitable, unpalatable and ultimately unsustainable.

Being one of those at the tip of the spear of the Vermont secesher braintrust, Gary Flomenhoft intends to make another boneheaded recommendation about the Vermont economy.

In 2009, Flomenhoft cooked up a scheme with ten other seceshers to set the elected Vermont legislature and other statewide elected officials straight. You see, Flomenhoft and his crew thought that the elected officials needed a report detailing their unconstitutional behavior over the last 140 plus years. So how better for Flomenhoft and his merry band of governmental usurpers to do so than by illegally convening a legally disbanded governmental agency, the Vermont Council of Censors. The Council of Censors' duties are now primarily performed by the Vermont Supreme Court but the Flomenhoft gang figured fuck'em. They said they'd be issuing their "report" on the legislature sometime around the end of 2010. Like so much of what the seceshers have promised over the years we're still waiting. The seceshers chatted repeatedly about what they were going to do as the Vermont Council of Censors at their super-secret listserv - a searchable mirror of which can be found here.

Another scheme that Flomenhoft has come up with, along with some dipshit at the "Gund Institute" named Robert Costanza who moonlights in some fashion as a kind of Vermont Commons editorial board honcho, is more confiscatory economic grab bagging. Normally when these clowns sit around dreaming up the junk they think will con others into joining them, they invariably call their tiny group a "think tank" or, as in this case, an "institute." This "institute" came up with a plan best described as Stalinism light. Along with other seceshers who propose asset and income caps, the Gund guys want to lay claim to Vermonters private property, land, minerals, woodlots and natural resources, as well as the national airwaves (radio, TV and wireless) and the Internet. Now where have we heard this bullshit before? Well, at earlier secesher konfabs for starters and from economist contemporaries of Karl Marx like Henry George. The first attempt to implement George's economic crackpottery occured in the first decade of the 20th century in Great Britain and the result was an economic crisis - Georgism now, with a few minor limited exceptions like a township in Alabama that hasn't hit the cellar yet, is dead.

And, as if Flomenhoft isn't idiot enough on his own, he's advocated that others commit felonies by hacking websites like this and two others that I know of. At the moment, one European hacker/supporter of Vermont secession is paying repeated visits to this blog, but more on this next week after the "party" is over.

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

Today In Secession History

"South Carolina is too small to be a Republic,and too large to be an insane asylum."South Carolinian anti-secessionist and Attorney General,James L. Petigru (1789-1863)

150 years ago today, on December 20, 1860, South Carolina
became the first state to formally secede from the United States in the South's War to Preserve Slavery.

Similarly desirous of creating safe harbors for dominant cultures, "Vermont Commons" blogger, Carol Moore, has advocated for secession as a mode to provide for "homogeneous (Read: segregated) communities":

"Those "identity groups" of whatever identity who desire separation to preserve their culture or live out a vision or lifestyle should not have to waste time and resources in defending or fighting discrimination lawsuits and onerous zoning laws and can focus it on building community."
Source

Just this past year the Lost Cause Northern neo-Confederates at VTCommons and the Second Vermont Republic gubernatorial candidate accepted and refused to return a contribution from an out-of-state contributor and member of the highly secret (until exposed on this blog) Free Vermont listserv. The contributor, James Duncan, has reservations about lesbians generally and race mixing in particular, and he looks forward to putting members of Vermont's law enforcement community on trial for as yet unspecified charges after the seceshers takeover.

In an often seemingly unhinged campaign that was laced with innuendo, invective and middle finger waving giddiness, Steele and his campaign staff sought to tap into baser emotions.

Since that campaign I've received an email from one secesher that, while toggling back and forth from apology to aggression, revealed the new strategy of the small Vermont secesher community for the coming year. It seems that "old times there are (to be) forgotten," while new lows in fact churning are to be employed so that up will become down, hot will become cold and white will become black - well, maybe not that last one so much. Gone are to be all recollections and rememberances of ties to League of the South advisors; or of former SVR co-chairman and current VTCommons honcho Rob Williams' infamous "Don't Ask, Don't Care" policy regarding the possible racism of contributors to his rag:

"(S)ome of our secession scholars - Don Livingston, for example - happen to be southerners. Anyone who has met and talked with Don knows the man is thoughtful and well-studied. Is he a racist? I don’t know. And frankly, it is none of my damn business, at a personal level."

Or of Thomas Naylor's revealing essay, "Minority States NOT Minority Rights".

And. of course, let's not forget while not forgetting, the early VTCommons white supremacist, racist, anti-Semitic, neo-Nazi contributor, UVM prof Robert S. Griffin, that I first reported on in February, 2007. Griffin, like Williams, had written a fawning review of Thomas J. DiLorenzo's anti-Lincoln, revisionist history. Vermont's press caught onto Griffin two years later, here, here and here (Sadly, the Times-Argus story that began the media hubbub more than two years after I first wrote about Griffin lies entombed behind their paywall.). Griffin's original VTCommons piece, although erased there, can be found at secesher and Council of Censors member Susan Ohanion's "education" website.

No doubt they'll call their upcoming reset for the Vermont secesher movement in 2011 a "Look Away" strategy. More on their re-branding effort in a future post.

Here's The Daily Show on "The South's Secession Commemoration":



UPDATE 12.21.10 12:00 PM: As if to confirm the
deranged turns that the argument for secession can take, Carol Moore has posted at the VTCommons blog that segregation and discrimination is okay if it's secessionists that are doing it.

Truly bizarre.

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

The Second Vermont Republic's Has Established It's First Governing Body for Vermont - A Year and a Half Before the 2010 Election!

Update July 29, 2014: Earlier this year, while Council of Censors Founder, Gary Flomenhoft, was unsuccessfully floating a public bank proposal before the Vermont Senate, the website for the by now defunct CofC was shut down. Go figure. The two screencaps below are from the original CofC website.

It seems that inconvenient, troublesome things like elections are not going to be an obstacle to the ambitions of the folks at Thomas Naylor's Second Vermont Republic

For more than three and a half years I've reported on associations, positions and, frankly, the outright wackiness of the Vermont secession movement. In recent weeks I've located a large number of disturbing web postings at the Free Vermont Framework listserv (archives of the list serve can be found here) and there are more of those that I'll be posting about in the coming weeks.

Yesterday there was a particularly interesting and headache inducing post at Green Mountain Daily about the Freeman's Oath and how there may be a conflict in voting for secession candidates and the oath. Today's post here will explore actions by the seceshers that may fall somewhere between seditious and treasonous.

This post will disclose facts and actions that grew from a retreat organized by the "Vermont Commons" editorial board and other SVR members in May of 2009.

Let me start at their beginning.

At the May 2009 retreat, the Second Vermont Republic-"Vermont Commons" crowd held a three-day, weekend retreat at Goddard College in Plainfield, VT that was headlined as "Dreaming Vermont's Destiny". [1] As I've said, the retreat was sponsored by the editorial board of VTCommons.

The working groups assembled and were tasked to "explore key questions (and)... specific problems... in order to take the first meaningful steps towards independence."

One such working group tackled governance and the law.

Here's where things got funky. One member kinda remembered the Council of Censors that existed from 1777 until 1870.

You might want to, at this point, see the Vermont Secretary of State's website for a more accurate history of Vermont Council of Censors here. Sure, it's the Sec. of State's Kid's Page but this is where this probably should have all ended. A second briefer description of the scope of duties of the then Council of Censors is,

"Until 1870, Vermont had a Council of Censors which met decennially at the beginning of the decade to suggest potential constitutional amendments and other governmental reforms." [1]

I'm not even going to try to explain their rationale but what happened next is that they decided that the very legally dissolved entity that served a distinct role in the governance of Vermont during ths state's first century needed to be reborn, and rather than reconstitute this body as it had been, by election of the people of Vermont, they'd cut-to-the-chase and resolve that oh-so-pesky plebiscite obstacle by "self-select(ing)" a renewed Council of Censors. Fact is, the election of the members of the Council of Censors was historically essential to the public acceptance of it actions on the public's behalf.

I got my first inkling of the beginnings of a shadowy or hidden, stealth governmental agency in comments that I found had been made at the Free Vermont listserv by Robert Wagner in October of 2009, presently a state Senate candidate and, then, a self-described "participa(nt) in the Council of Censors". It was Wagner's view that the legally elected legislators of Vermont had "created an immense... body of legislation," and that

"(i)t's the job of the (newly re-constituted, "self-selected" Council of) Censors to strip that away."

Some listserv participants have also called it the Council of Sensors. Potato, potahto, you might say, but still a pretty breathtaking presumption, nonetheless, by this group.

In a mid-December, 2009, post at the listserv, Wagner advised,

"Legislation, both existing and proposed, shall be reviewed by a reconsitituted Council of Censors, for its adherance to the Vermont Constitution. Each government agency shall not exceed its stated mandates.

Legislation that converts rights to privileges shall be nullified."

Perhaps he's also been thinking of the other council powers, described as,

"... (P)rincipally the authority to censure officers of government and to inquire whether public taxes had been fairly laid." [2]

Again, a pretty sweeping recommendation of powers from and for an unelected, self-selected group that had previously been formally and legally dissolved in 1870.

Okay. Here's the the Vermont Council of Censors website that is the first overt act by SVR's Thomas Naylor's and VTCommon's Rob Williams' team to establish a governmening body that they've invested authority into as "The 14th Council of Censors". This sort of stuff usually is taken down fast when I've posted about it but, as with the Free Vermont Framework listserv, the material there has been saved to memorialize this bit of SVR/VTCommons wingnuttery.

Here's how they describe themselves today:

The Council of Censors: An Idea
Whose Time has Come… Again !

Ten of us sat around a table at Goddard College in May of 2009, surrounded by chart paper upon which we had written ideas which we felt should be a part of Vermont’s future governing structures. We were Dreaming Vermont’s Destiny, (coincidentally the title of the retreat that brought us together) and recognizing that some of the present laws that govern Vermont were not in keeping with the high ideals of The Vermont Constitution. It was Gary Flomenhoft who remembered the now abolished section of the Vermont Constitution of 1777, Section 43, which called for the creation of a Council of Censors, whose duties it would be to determine, “whether the legislative and executive branches of government have performed their duty as guardians of the people; or assumed to themselves, or exercised, other or greater powers, than they are entitled to by the constitution. They are also to enquire whether the public taxes have been justly laid and collected, in all parts of this Commonwealth- in what manner the public monies have been disposed of, and whether the laws have been duly executed.” In 1786, they gained the additional mandate, “to enquire whether the constitution has been preserved inviolate, in every part.”

They were to be convened every 7 years for a period of one year. In order to accomplish these functions, the Council was given certain powers: “to send for persons, papers and records; they shall have authority to pass public censures- to order impeachments, and to recommend to the legislature the repealing such laws as appear to them to have been enacted contrary to the principles of the constitution.” Further, “the said Council of Censors shall have the power to call a Convention, to meet within two years after their sitting, if there appears to them an absolute necessity of amending any article of this constitution which may be defective-explaining such as may be thought not clearly expressed, and of adding such as are necessary for the preservation of the rights and happiness of the people…”

We lamented the fact that the Council was abolished in 1870 and thus, the Council’s work had gone undone for 140 years. With a little quick math, we realized that were the Council of Censors to have continued, the 13 members of the 33rd septenary would be due to convene in 2009, “on the first Wednesday of June”. We decided that day, that the Council of Censors had much to do and that we would reconstitute that body to do the necessary work. Rather than “elected by statewide election” as were the original Censors, we would be “self-selected”. A core group formed that day with plans to recruit others to round out the body to 13 members.

With members across the state with families and busy schedules, we took advantage of modern technology to convene as called for on June 4th. via email. A slate of questions was drawn up to decide how we would operate. We elected Rick Scharf of Duxbury to be the Chair. We decided that we would seek consensus but would rely on majority vote (2/3 majority if calling a Convention) as did the first 13 Councils. We voted to include only current Vermont residents as Censors and that in addition to transgressions of Vermont’s Constitution by the State’s legislative and executive branches, we would also be investigating transgressions by the Federal government. Finally, we decided to add the word “provisional” to our name, to be clear that we are not statewide elected as were past Councils.

The first face-to-face meeting of the 14th Provisional Council of Censors took place on October 3rd in Montpelier with 7 Censors attending. At this meeting it was decided that like past Councils we would present a written Address- possibly to be issued incrementally. While the Council of Censors has traditionally had much to say to the legislature (and it was clear that the legislature was listening), they direct their Address “To the Freemen of the State of Vermont”. We wished to operate in the public eye and have kept minutes of our meetings. We endeavored to create a repeatable process which could guide a 15th Council of Censors. Due to the fact that we would be doing 140 years worth of work, we relieved ourselves of the 1 year time limit that past Councils have operated under and recognized that it would likely take us a bit longer to accomplish our task to our satisfaction. We hope at this point to complete our work by the end of 2010.

A list of possible Constitutional violations were compiled and we began to form committees based on the interest and expertise of the Censors. Committees currently exist to investigate:

· Federal deployment of Vermont’s National Guard troops

· “Corporate Personhood”

· State tax collection and use of public monies

· Enclosure of the commons

· The relationship between Federal and State authority with specific regards to Education and Nuclear Power

· The relationship between State and local authority

· Vermont’s Constitutional amendment process

· The keeping of standing armies

· Participatory democracy

We acknowledge that there are more potential violations than we have the time and energy to investigate and welcome the involvement of others willing to assist us.

Membership in the Council has fluctuated as Censors have needed to step down due to other commitments, moving out of state, or to pursue a seat in the Senate. Others have stepped up, and as of this writing, we currently have 11 members.

We expect to be forthcoming with the first portion of our Address in time for the next issue of Vermont Commons. In the meantime, keep abreast of our activities via our website, www.VermontCouncilofCensors.org If you have questions and comments or would like to become involved with our work, contact Rick Scharf at Contact Us. [3]

Fascinating! And we're to first hear from the reconstituted 14th Council of Censors in December of this year, one month after the election!

Thomas Naylor's hand-picked candidate for governor, Connecticut native Dennis Steele, was a regular participant at the Free Vermont Framework listserv when discussions about the Council of Censors occurred, so he certainly must have known all about it.

Perhaps the seceshers at SVR and VTCommons will now say that they were only funnin' around, doing their usual comic opera play acting about their republic idea and it's not really the first step toward goverment takeover.

Sure.

It's time for Dennis Steele to come clean about his knowledge and involvement with this group set up by VTCommons that can only be described as something seditious, bordering on treason.