A Surprising Admission from a Vermont Commons Blogger, Robert Wagner

Of the baas of the Second Vermont Republic's Thomas Naylor's handpicked candidate for governor, Dennis Steele, and for whom Naylor was the Steele campaign's #1 contributor, Robert Wagner, the utterly failed candidate for the Senate in Addison County says:

"The tired old strategy of running for the 'top spot', the Executive --- is dead. (Vermonters are highly sceptical of single-issue candidates.)"

Ya think? Just ask the folks who headed the short-lived Take back Vermont movement how that all worked out for them.

In case anyone thinks that Wagner is one Vermont secesher who may not have a screw or two loose, he's the guy that has declared Hancock, Vermont to be "the provisional capital of Free Vermont," that I reported on here.

He's also the hypocritcal candidate who took a stand against a community paid for solution to a community identified problem, all the while demanding his own community's place at the VTRANS trough.

Truly, a typical part of the "Vermont Commons" braintrust overseen by VTCommons publisher and Vermont's leading (after the baas, of course) historical revisionist, Rob Williams.

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

A Vermont Commons Blogger's Anti-Semitic Rant

One thing about a neo-Nazi post like last week's is that you do get email as a result.

One of the email subjects had to do with a certain veteran blogger
for"Vermont Commons" (Full Disclosure: she's also a longtime, virulent critic of this blog.), Carol Moore.

My own investigation has come up with a truly putrid example of the sort of anti-Semitism that paddles along with so much of the fringe movement known as secessionism, as well as the sovereign citizen movement, in America. [1] [2] That's not to say that because one is intrigued with what secession might mean to accomplish, it then follows that they're an anti-Semite. It's just something that as you wade through what's being written by seceshers you'll find anti-Semitism pops up as one of the rationales for why they're failing, over and over again. For instance, Thomas Naylor, baas of the Second Vermont Republic, rants about the Israeli Mafia or he suggests the possibility that this or other blogs might be agents of, or in cahoots with, the Mossad.

Here's what one VTCommons blogger, Carol Moore, a sputtering dingbat if ever there was one, has written in the past at a Yahoo group messageboard:

Re: [libs4peace] U.S. Troops vs. HAMAS?! (click on screen cap to embiggen)

"Sharon would love to have Hamas killing American troops, just like he's delighted to see them killing Jews, since it makes his facist (sic) goals of "leibenstraum" (sic) and grabbing the rest of Israel that much easier by inflaming the public."

"I'm getting tired of turning on the news first thing in the AM and seeing the TOP story is what is going on in Israel. And it disgusts me to have to watch a congressional sub-committee dominated by pro-Zionists reaming Bush for the TINY little bit he is doing to try to keep the Israelis from driving the Arabs out of what little is left of Palestine, which the goyim obviously dare not ask ANY question of the Bush official that might be interpreted as criticism of Israel. And we've seen how Bush is back to Kissing Sharon's Ass. (Plug for Carol Moore products deleted.)"

"And Mr. Sass wonders why this issue keeps coming up here.. If the Israel's (sic) just kept their oppression over there, it would be far less annoying."

"Dealing with the nefarious influence of Israel Firsters on Congress and in the media (which is mostly owned and/or controlled by pro-Zionists, mostly Jews) has got to be a prime goal of the peace movement -- but good luck, with left and right wing pro-Zionists ready to yell anti-semite at the drop of a hat. Even the Buddhist Peace group I went to recently was dominated by pro-Zionist Jews. ARGHGH!!!"

"... Meanwhile Israel keeps building up it's 400 nuke arsenal and can now deliver them any where on earth."

"Anyone else want to concentrate on nonviolent SECESSION from our Special Interest (corporations, labor union, military-industrial, Zionist) controlled government??"

CM

I've only highlighted a few of the vile, anti-Semitic and racist tropes used in Moore's tirade. A more detailed inventory of Moore's anti-Semitic image management can be found here: one example is her characterization (cover) for a Holocaust denier by suggesting that "questions remain" and the Holocaust is "has been exploited shamelessly for political gain" - Ahmadinejad couldn't have said it better. So crazed is Moore's desire for importance and relevance that she outs her perceived "obsession" with Jews at the libs4peace messageboard members here.

Moore's an example of the new anti-Semitism so prevalent in today's fringe groups or on Fox News, which equates Israel with Nazi Germany using "trivializing comparisons" such as (Lebensraum), thus suggesting that Israel is a vastly expanding fascist, neo-Nazi state whose armies of millions are on the move; reiterates the old anti-Semitic myth that Jews control the media and the US government (also called ZOG).

Moore's hateful harangue is as utterly shameful as her assertion that she is being oppressed by Israel is ludicrous.

One need look no further for evidence of Moore's ongoing war against
the Jews than her 400-500 edits in the Wikipedia article, Allegations of Jewish Control of the Media . This anti-Semitic activism caused a firestorm on the Wikipedia Noticeboards last month that has yet to abate. Here's one example, as well as others from a month earlier here and here that also revolve around actions advancing the cause of anti-Semitism. There're many, many more complaints about her anti-Semitic agenda wreaking havoc on Wikipedia articles.

No less an expert on white supremacists, the Klan, anti-Semites and other wingnuts, Chip Berlet of Political Research Associates, has had this to say about Carol Moore and her whitewash of the Branch Davidian murderers and their serial child molester/murderer/cult leader, David Koresh:

"Ah yes, Carol Moore. She wrote one of the worst books on the Branch Davidian tragedy (and there were some real stinkers)."

"She has this great theory that radical protests are tied to sunspots."

Chip Berlet

You'd think that after four years (today's the 4th anniversary for this blog), VTCommons publisher, Rob Williams, would have figured out that as long as he keeps up these sorts of direct associations with racist, white supremacist or anti-Semitic extremists like Duncan, Griffin, Naylor and plain old whackjobs like Moore, as well as his recruiting promoters of loopy sovereign citizen movement legal arguments, his movement is going to remain stopped dead in its tracks as it is.

It's time for Williams to start taking out the trash at the VTCommons blog and in the Free Vermont movement, or is his allowance of anything goes in a Brave New Vermont a not so subtle warning being given to "undesirables" of the treatment they might anticipate when he and the other cowboys (and girls) take over? Certainly Williams' Don't Ask, Don't Care policy isn't going to do (or will it Rob?):

"(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 maybe it'd be simpler if Williams would just accepted the obvious; that the vast majority Vermonters (by last count 99.21%) aren't interested in what his "small community of secessionists" is offering (Actually, 1.21% is the average of spoilt ballots over the past 22 years, so maybe no one really intended to vote for the secesher candidate in the first place).

Update 12:00 PM: Carol Moore's complained of the use of the photo. She isn't very photogenic so I get her point. The parody involved, that of a bigoted fraud who purports to be an advocate for peace and whose hateful t-shirt belies that role, apparently escaped her, but for the sake of comity I've removed the photo and replaced it with an explanatory message. In the future, the parodic use will be clear and unmistakeable, even to her.

Interestingly, Moore did not refudiate any of the above text or the thoughts and views expressed by her in any of messages sent by her this morning. She does, however, appear to be fascinated with googling herself. I hope she's not as confused about that as Marge Simpson was. Moore attached a link that she said comes up first (it doesn't) when she gives herself a googlejob. When I checked the link she provided, it discloses that her "research" relies on the likes of world class nutjob, Jerome Corsi.

Update 2.8.11, 4:00 PM: Carol Moore has written at the VTCommons blog that "The fact he gets no comments attests to the fact he doubtless has few readers, except maybe his employers, who aren't getting their moneys worth." Where to start on that little boatload of crazy?

Site stats refute her readership claims.

All the comments received have been from the very "small community" of secesher supporters and their out-of-state allies. Something about staying on topic escapes them, and I have no intention of providing therapy for what's ailing them - they were not approved for publication. In Moore's case the truth is that in addition to being an anti-Semite, she's a liar; she submitted seven nutty comments.

Comments are now closed.


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

The Second Vermont Republic: A Vermont Fairy Tale

The recent Vemont election has finally exposed the Second Vermont Republic polls commissioned by Thomas Naylor to be the misleading and deceitful constructs that I've always said they were. (see Vermont Secession Polls section in the column to the right)

Naylor's handpicked candidate for Vermont governor, Connecticut native Dennis Steele, finished the race at what can only be described as a very distant and abysmal third place. Some of the independents who ran speak of this third place showing in an unreal way, as though the three "top" vote getters were all within a few votes of each other. Of the 241,605 votes cast, nearly 240,000 supported Dennis Steele's opponents. Steele has the support of approximately 0.79% of Vermonters who voted.

Given that Naylor has been telling the out of state press and anyone else who'd listen that a UVM poll (that he rarely tells people that he'd written and commissioned) showed that 13% of Vermont voters supported the notion of secession, something must have gone terribly, terribly wrong over the past 10 months for the tiny band that comprised the Steele campaign. Indeed, Naylor has "extrapolated" that his polls indicated somewhere around 60,000 of Vermont's voters support secession. Yet, now that the counting is finally done, Naylor's "extrapolated" projection of the support in Vermont for his and Steele's "imaginings" for secession has fallen short by more than 58,000 votes.

In Charlotte, VT, the town where Thomas Naylor retired to after spending most of his life in the South, and where people generally roll their eyes at the mere mention of Naylor's ambition for Vermont, only 10 people voted for Steele. That's 0.48% of the 2041 votes cast in Charlotte. In Waitsfield, home to "Vermont Commons" publisher and über propagandist for the SVR and Free Vermont crowd, Rob Williams, Steele got 9 votes. Perhaps worst of all, Steele got only 5 votes in his present hometown of Kirby, VT.

So, what went wrong?

Well, nothing really. You see, the so-called "Vermont secessionist movement," said to be making great strides in moving the secessionist ball forward in the United States, has always been an elaborately constructed hoax. Despite "secession activist Thomas Naylor('s)... left-leaning Second Vermont Republic movement" having been described as successful in generating popular support for Vermont's independence, it just ain't so. Steele's vote total is on a par to that of other bizarro fringe candidates that appear from time to time in Vermont.

A part of the structure of the hoax of a Vermont independence movement has been, in addition to the phony poll results, an academic veneer carefully applied during the past 7 years by people such as Naylor, "Professor" Williams, Ian Baldwin, Kirkpatrick Sale, Donald Livingston, Thomas DiLorenzo, Jason Sorens, and a host of other scholarly bullshitters scattered mostly in the South. These guys grind out papers and books at a remarkable pace for something without much success or substance - secession.

Another part of that hoax has been the writers who "corroborate" the overstatement that a movement is afoot and growing. Often these supposedly objective chroniclers of this story repeat unquestioningly the "facts" put forth by the leaders of secession without presenting other contradictory facts that they are aware of, including those that directly undermine the figment of a movement to address the deficiencies of difficult times - secessionism.

No one would dispute that these are difficult times but, really, when in the experience of humankind haven't the times been difficult? Hasn't there also always been a human need to consider something that might be possible to ease or offer a pleasing alternative to the difficulties? (And no, I'm not about to launch into an equation of secession to that other great opiate, religion.)

One such instance of an easier to think of alternative to the hardships of the time occurred in England during the Great War in 1917. It was embraced by theosophists who looked for evidence of the potential for evolutionary development of man. It had to do with the supposed existence of fairies. And it was a hoax.

In order to perpetrate a fraud, a hoax or a con, you need only the con and those who want so badly to believe in an easy path to something better.

Naylor and company have been industriously working at making their secession plan appealing to whoever, and in whatever manner it takes, so as to sell the gullible on their idea. Naylor's called his plan a Genteel Revolution and has come up with all sorts of cute catch phrases to suggest that nothing could be simpler than to opt out of what he calls "the Empire." Along the way he's mangled quotes attributed to early Vermonters, issued a form of currency that he calls a token, purloined the regimental flag of the Vermont National Guard, and has lashed out at virtually every Vermonter and local institution since we have not slavishly endorsed his enthusiasms as has his "small community of secessionists". I'm surprised that they haven't thought yet to conjure up a Vermont Secession fairy for there movement.

The truth is that the Vermont secession movement, like the Cottingley fairies, is simply a hoax. Naylor at first claimed to have 125 members in SVR and then discontinued membership claims. Based on a variety of sources, a more modest figure of somewhere between 20 to 25 people constitute the hardcore center of "membership" to the Free Vermont independence group. Before launching their campaign late last year, a party registration was discouraged. Obviously that was so the true dearth of secessionists would not be revealed. Even at the January 15 announcement this year of their campaigns for statewide and General Assembly offices, they only gathered the usual 20 or so deadender sesechers that always show up for Naylor's dog and pony shows.

"I've been writing about Vermont independence for nearly ten years... and, more often than not, it was for an audience of one."- Thomas Naylor (starts at 3:07)

Vermont has had a history of oddball candidacies, some more successful than others. Just six years ago Peter Stevenson ran for Lt. Governor on the Liberty Union party ticket and received nearly 1400 more votes (3291) than Steele and a higher percentage of the vote total, 1.08%.

"Umm, I, ahh, it would be my privilege to work as Vermont's next Lt. Governor. Umm, I'm a very loyal person. I'm a hard worker and I would do a lot for the people of the state of Vermont. They say a good friend would help you move. A really good friend would help you move a body. And my message to the people of the state of Vermont is, let me know if I need to bring a shovel. Thank You."- Peter Stevenson (starts at 3:33)

Fact is, fringe candidate Stevenson is more real, as well as a more successful candidate, than the fairy tale that there is a growing Vermont secession movement.

Just in case there is any doubt about the unhinged from reality quality that infects the Vermont secesher community, here's their latest InterTubes communiqué from the "provisional capital of Free Vermont," a dispatch, if you will, meant to cash in on all that nomentum they've built up from the election:

Ribbon Cutting & First Plenary Meeting

Posted on November 4, 2010
Center for Vermont Independence

Sunday 12/12 at the Center in Hancock!

Please keep this day open, bring your expertise and ideas.

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.

Let’s please be clear that this is about Vermont’s Independence:
food/energy relocalization, our constitutional liberties, financial
independence from the corporate oligarchy, the post-carbon future of
Vermont. This is not just painting a pretty picture, this is DOING it. Want in?

Potluck meal, bring a dish if you can, then we’ll roll up our sleeves.

In a day the most we can hope to accomplish is to review the current
and future initiatives, and match up talent with those initiatives and future initiatives, and match up talent with those initiatives and
determine how to coordinate. There’s also dealing with media, lessons
learned from the 2010 election. A 2012 discussion will have to be
left for another day. (I’ve already declared for 2012, on Twitter of
all places.)

If people have concerns they should submit an agenda item in advance. New topics will be identified, interested parties can return to meet.

Cheers,
Robert (Wagner, notably unsuccessful secesher candidate for senator from Ripton, VT)

Likewise, Steele intends to cash in on his mandate by launching a new initiative:

Campaign Reflections and the Road AheadNovember 3, 2010

Today represents a beginning, not an end. 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.

... Our next step is to build upon the foundations of this success and take our movement to the next level!

Dennis Steele

No doubt that next level is to be somewhere other than where he found himself at the close of the polls - flat on his face.

In the coming months I'll, of course, be reporting on their usual lack of substantive results and the attendant puffery from the "small community" of local seceshers, as well as their out of state supporters and flacks.

Official Vermont Secretary of State results for the 2010 general election may be found here.

Update 6:00 PM: Bleatings from that wisp of a propaganda minister over at VTCommons, Rob Williams - cheeky as always but not much more to him than that.

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

Is the Small Free Vermont/Vt Commons/Second Vermont Republic Juggernaut Running Out of Gas?

When the fringers finally made it into a forum (it couldn't really be called a debate), there was plenty to write about in its aftermath. One "candidate" had a proposal that sounded more like a weird take-off, sort of, on The Running Man. Thomas Naylor's hand-picked gubernatorial candidate, Dennis Steele, who's fronting for the Second Vermont Republic while posing as an independent contributed, "Vermont should build an “industrial hemp barrier” around (Lake Champlain) to suck out the phosphorous." Since the lake isn't solely a Vermont body of water, one imagines that the details for Steeles' ambitious "plan" will be worked out by the SVR Foreign Minister (I kid you not) Dennis Morrisseau, the remaining United States (if New York hasn't declared independence by then), the Canadian federation and the Province de Québec. Good times.

While nutty notions aren't exclusively the property of the Free Vermont gang, they've explored quite a few, including tossing around the idea putting out feelers that could lead to alliances with other fringers, Tea Baggers and the always fun to look at, Oath Keepers. Since this post is more about the dwindling relevance of the FVers, those are subjects for future posts.

Those posts will be based on information gleaned from the Free Vermont Framework listserv.

The location of the listserv archive was obtained during the course of research on the true support for secessionists in Vermont (not the junk polling "commissioned" by Naylor - see Polling Section in the column to the right) based on the public records available from the Vermont Secretary of State's website for Elections - Campaign Finance (July, Aug, Sept).

Examining the list of contributions and contributors to the Steele campaign showed the top three to be #1 Naylor - $810; #2 Robert Wagner - $350; #3 (tied) Ian Baldwin/James Duncan - $300 each, and whose contributions constitute more than 80% of the $2175 raised to date from the 9 identified contributors. A third of the contributors give out of state residence addresses (NY/CO/SC). [1] [2] [3]

Seven years of SVR bloviating on and on about its growing support in Vermont; 9 known contributors, most who belong to the group's leadership. The sense of the excitement that's been generated across the state of Vermont is unmistakeable. Who knew?

While researching the backgrounds on the out-of-state contributors by using keywords associated with the Free Vermont group and the contributors names, one Google search caused the listserv for the Free Vermont Framework to show and, voilà, a more detailed look into the crazy of a Vermont fringe group that considers itself poised to assume leadership for all Vermonters.

The listserv, the Mailman.net Pipermail, is known to be an insecure archive. It's sort of The InterTubes version of walking around in public in your underwear, with you seemingly being the only one not aware. You'd have thought that the media and security "experts" on the list would have known that.



More to come.

The Free Vermont/VTCommons/SVR "Hidey Hole"

In case you've been following the recent drama going on with that clusterf*ck known as the Free Vermont stable of independent secessionist candidates, such as Connecticut native, Dennis Steele, Senatorial candidates Robert Wagner, Gaelan Brown, Dennis Morrisseau, et al, John Odum outs what I've been referring to as "The Source" today over at Green Mountain Daily in this post.

It's got a lot of the crazy that the Hohe Propagandaminister, Rob Williams, and the Great White Father, Thomas Naylor, of the Second Vermont Realm, would rather you didn't know permeates their slate of candidates. No surprise that misogyny is alive and well at the boys club/tree house/"safe space"/clown car known as the Free Vermont Framework Listserv.

Well worth the read and really quite "seduc(tive)."

Update 5:00PM:JD Ryan's opened his Christmas present early here.

Update October 4, 2010: Sometime last evening the Free Vermont listserv was either taken down or blocked.

According to one of the participants at the listserv, engaging in authoritarian, ruritanian fantasies that are laced with occasions of unconfronted misogyny, compounded by violent imagery, should be considered merely an occurence of "brainstorming ideas."

Right. Good luck with that explanation, Gaelan Brown. My question then would be, why are you guys who would lead a future Vermont now hiding your "brainstorming" considerations to de-unionize the teachers, seize private assets, create a new capital crime (that of lying by a legislator), a universal conscription (draft), a population cap, the Israeli Mafia... oh, I think I've gotten the answer to that now for myself.

For readers who still think they'd like to learn more about the Free Vermont listserv, it's been mirrored being maintained in a PDF archive accessible to the public here at FiveBeforeChaos.com. Each month is easy to search using keywords like "UFO" (Sept), "savaged her... punched her... We have to be lovers to these sorts... I know that is a little crass..." (Feb), "No reason for her to breathe OR DO WHAT SHE DOES.....unless she is a SPOOK." (May)

Ah, yes, brainstorming.