It's Independents Day!

No, that's not a typo although I make my fair share. Sometimes it takes years to notice and correct them but the point here is to mention a few, if not all, of the independents running for congressional, statewide and legislative offices in the 2012 election cycle.

First though, as many of the regular readers of this blog know, I've been poking fun at the wouldbe "Senator" Robert "Needed Killin' " Wagner's boast that he had 6 people lined up to run for the Vermont Senate (although he could only name 5) and that he was seeking 24 more to replace the whole Senate with secessionists for the past year. Wagner never got around to naming his sixth person but he has spent a lot of bandwidth spouting off about topics where he clearly has nailed down the fringe position, such as his Marxist-Lenist-Stalinist-lite economic pablum called Georgism. But more on that at another time.

The Vermont Secretary of State's Office has just released its draft list of independent candidates here containing the typical 30+ names of many well intended sorts who'd like to make a difference but who are for the most part clueless as to how to go about doing so. True, there's the occasional political tiger like Bernie Sanders but he's very much the exception to the rule.

This year's slate contains a mother and son congressional duo; a few candidates seeking multiple seats, one of whom favors acronym encrusted solutions while another claims disability from an STD; others are bona fide independents who have contributed to their community and serve in the legislature; and then there are others who'd just like to get to play politician too but haven't figured out the system is geared to Duverger's Law.

"In political science, Duverger's law is a principle which asserts that a plurality rule election system tends to favor a two-party system."

The only secesher that I can find thus far in addition to Wagner is his pal Peter Moss. I've gone over the Secretary of State's draft list here and can't seem to find the three other names that Wagner had listed for the past year as being part of his "The Vermont 30" scheme - the murderously anti-Semitic Dennis Morrisseau, the very angry Peter Garritano

"My name is Peter Garritano. I am constanly pissed off but don't show it. I bite my tongue quite often and vent by writing and screaming at other drivers while alone in my car..."

Source

and the nobody Michael Patno who is a longtime pal of the baas of the Second Vermont Republic, the Dixie singin' Thomas H. Naylor.

From Wagner's website:

I'd thought that I'd be spending the next four months introducing Vermonters to "The 30" secesher wannabes with facts that they'd rather Vermonters not know about them but I guess that's not to be. Looks like I'm left with one befuddled old man and Wagner's raging id - he's announced that he's targeting Addison County's senator who has an impressive personal history of contributing to her community and county, Claire Ayer (D-Weybridge) with what he's promised will be one of the most negative campaigns in recent memory. It'll do.

Meanwhile, in another matter related to Wagner's conflicting positions, there's been no word yet about whether Wagner will be returning the $288.30 Federal subsidy he received while flying out of the airport in Rutland, VT, which is exactly the kind of subsidy that he "is strongly opposed to" and has argued harms Vermonters that I revealed he'd hypocritically availed himself of (as in sticking his snout in the federal money trough) here. Wagner must publicly give back that Federal subsidy money or he'll be exposed for the hypocritical fraud that many of us Vermonters know him to be.

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

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

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

... 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.

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

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

Eye On "The 30" - Michael Patno

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 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.

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

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