The Ohio Republic - R.I.P.

Earlier this year Harold Thomas, sole proprietor and citizen of the Ohio Republic, began to exhibit signs of a coming change.  He'd dumped a perfectly good blog hosting service and started with a new blogging platform that a little research might of informed him that it wasn't going to be a good choice. At the same time he lessened the distance between himself from (and I say this knowing full well the tautological implications of the expression) some of the more odious elements of the secession movement.

It seemed an odd thing for Harold to do since he'd always struck me as someone with at least one foot in the real world, even as he intellectualized some of the batshit crazy that is the foundation of the whole nullification "and-if-that-doesn't-work-we-still-have-the-option-to-seceed" nonsense.

Anyway, Harold's decided to call it a day and shut down his blog.  I guess that he just wasn't feeling enough love for his worldview and political antidotes.  I'd always thought him to be a harmless, if somewhat hapless sort, until he started to pal around with a racist at the League of the South.

In his wordy, overly long way, Harold wrote this at the conclusion of his swan song:

"The Ohio Republic has been a wonderful experience. It has led me to many friends, a few critics, and one very interesting enemy in Vermont. They kept me going when I wanted to quit the blog or leave the book unfinished."

While I'm happy to have been some sort of inspiration to you, Harold, if I could offer you four truths to take with you into retirement, they would be:

- Ayn Rand wrote fiction; she was not an economist.
- The Gilded Age was an interlude, not the foundation of American economic principles.
- The Constitution was a compromise with more to come.
- I was never your enemy; my enemies can explain the difference to you.

Rester soif, mon ami.

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Publishers Weekly Gets It Right

Harold Thomas has written a book. Yawn.

For those of you who don't know Harold (which I expect is virtually everyone) he belongs to that branch of wobbly, somtimes-in, sometimes-not secessionists who live in a Ruritanian fantasy world pining for something that'll never come to be - a regulation free society of oh-so-noble libertarians who will kinda but not so kindly rule, probably with Penn Teller or some other similarly deluded asshole in charge of whatever's left. Harold is a longtime Goldwater-Nixon Repuglican, pro-Vietnam War (before Nixon broke his heart) apparatchik turned Teabagger. When he isn't enjoying his masochist relationship with secesher bigwigs like Kirkpatrick Sale, he's falling all over himself being a League of the South sycophant. Harold calls his tiny nation-of-one the Ohio Republic.

Harold's print-on-demand (read: couldn't find anyone who'd publish even a handful of copies or offer an advance) book that he titled "Governing Ourselves: How Americans Can Restore Their Freedom" got trashed reviewed by Publishers Weekly and for that Harold should be eternally grateful. PW dissed it for the poorly crafted polemic that it is and so Harold is miffed and calls the reviewer's unwillingness to lap up the libertarian flavored Kool-Aid in Harold's contentious and riddled with constitutionally nonsensensical bull to have occurred because the reviewer's own views are, in Harold's opinion, "politically tainted" :

"This reviewer clearly has little patience for reading contrary political views..."

"I have no problem with a negative review. A reviewer has the right and duty to give an honest evaluation of what they read. However, except for the complaint that my book is more opinion than research, I have to wonder what objective standards the reviewer used. Nowhere did they address the clarity of my writing, logical flow of ideas, originality, or any other characteristic of literary criticism we learned about in high school and college English classes."

No, the reviewer had a problem with a book that's short on facts or believable assumptions and that proposes a completely unlikely post-apocalyptic future where libertarian oompa-loompas like Harold provide beneficent guidance.

It isn't that the reviewer "has little patience for reading contrary political views" so much as the reviewer quite likely was incapable of the massive suspension of disbelief required to give Harold's goofy notions about the constitution, such as his fascination with fraudulent proposals like "nullification," to follow Harold down the rabbit hole. The reviewer was more likely so blinded by the idiocy being proposed by Harold that he failed to see any use in pursuing Harold's desired Henry Higgins-like examination for his useless book:

"The French don't care what they do actually, as long as they pronounce it properly."

High schools churn out mountains of well written junk that'll never see the light of day; PW's raison d'être isn't to hand out attaboys for spelling, punctuation, grammar and form.

Harold's book has yet to be ranked at Amazon but when it is I'm sure it'll hover somewhere in the multi-millionth percentile. Amazon, however, had this to say about Harold's book:

"The book is easy to read and requires no previous knowledge of history, politics, or economics..."

Indeed. In fact it's just such a lack of foundational knowledge that is necessary to buy into the junk that Harold's peddling, like his delusional "dismiss(al) of global climate change."

So dream on, Harold, dream on, but look on the bright side - you're not going to get remaindered, ever.

You can find the Publishers Weekly review here. If you're feeling sorry for the sad sack, you can buy a pity copy of Harold's book here.

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It Seems That Another League of the South Sycophant Is Miffed With This Blog

In a rather overwrought post that he titled "PC hit squad attacks The Ohio Republic" the blog's author, Harold Thomas, gets his panties in a knot over a change that I recently made in my Links column. I wrote here:

"On a more personally disappointing note, I've moving the Ohio Republic blog to the same column as Wagner's and Tuggle's, not so much because its author, Harold Thomas, espouses the sort of virulent hatred that oozes from sites like Wagner's, Tuggle's and, of course, Naylor's, but because of the open support he offers Tuggle's vile LOS website.

From that rather direct statement, that Harold is a supporter of much of what goes on in the LOS and thus enables the white supremacist League of the South blog called Rebellion, Thomas contorts reason to synthesize several untrue representations of my positions, opinions and "real agenda." Harold even goes so far as to fetch from the right-wing toolbox of baseless charges that are de rigueur for attacks by a paleoconservative (as he chooses to identify himself) that is the very essence of an allegation intended to eliminate all question as to who is right in a discussion while at the same time donning the mantle of supposed victimhood. Funny but I thought Harold was smart enough to know that use of the term is itself an attempt at to use political correctness and that is why most people with any sense have long ago stopped using it. Here's a definition of political correctness that would seem to leave me out. I've been accused of a lot but never as being a "whining pussy." I leave that to libertarians.

It's much like the old joke, "Libertarians don't want the government telling you what to do; that's what libertarians are there to do."

Cognitive dissonance is often a feature of Harold's posts on this, that and every other friggin' thing under the sun. The post in which he complains about his proper placement among enablers of white supremacism contains this gem:

"The League of the South really is a controversial organization, and does include some avowed white supremacists among its leadership. However, the League does not openly espouse racism in its policy statements..."

Earth to Harold: LOS and Rebellion regularly serve up the same repast of race-baiting gruel, including twisted rationales for race separation. What part of the "espous(al of) racism in its policy statements" don't you get?

Harold's sympathies are not so far removed from the "dog-whistle racism" of Mike Tuggle as he might have us believe. Two years ago today, when Harold mistakenly believed that the white supremacist blog Rebellion was shutting down, he wrote this love letter farewell to an old friend that included one of the premier racist touchstones of the 19th and 20th centuries, "Dixie":

MONDAY, MARCH 15, 2010.

Farewell to an old friend
"Longtime readers of The Ohio Republic know that one of my favorite sources of information was the blog Rebellion. I was notified last week that it had ceased publication. It was unquestionably a Southern blog, with its continuing guerrilla war against the Southern Poverty Law Center and its peculiar attitude toward Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. We made a gentlemen's agreement to disagree over the latter issue. A unique feature in recent months was the "Southern music break."

"However, Rebellion contained interesting news and comment about federal follies and secessionism that was not readily available elsewhere – so they were the largest single recipient of virtual buckeyes* from The Ohio Republic. Rebellion was more than a weblog – it was a forum, with some of the most interesting and spirited discussion to appear anywhere in the blogosphere. For many Southrons and this writer, it will be sorely missed."

"Its blogger, Mike Tuggle ("Old Rebel") will remain active, concentrating on growing his organization and working on its quarterly newspaper, Free Magnolia."

"We'll send it off by striking up the band with a rendition of an old Ohio show tune by Daniel Emmett, originally known as In Dixie's Land."

Show tune? "Gentlemen's agreement?" Really???

For any of readers of this blog who may be unfamiliar with the "In Dixie's Land" history, it's straight out of our country's racist past. It was a New York "show tune" long before Ohioans claimed this racist crap as their own. The "show tune" writer that Harold refers to, Daniel Emmett, is the "founder of the first troupe of the blackface minstrel tradition" who wrote extensively for and performed with Bryant's Minstrel's, a troupe that was a hit with both Northern and Southern racists in that troubled time before, during and after the Civil War, also known as the War to Preserve Slavery. Even Emmett, who was reknown for his black-face caricatures of African-Americans (or "slaves" as they were then known) complained that "If I had known to what use they [Southerners] were going to put my song, I will be damned if I'd have written it."

Oh, and Harold, I never "advised" you of shit, no more than you, say, advised me of your new book (I hope you do better than Thomas H. Naylor's who usually ranks in the umpteenth million percentile). I just made the Links change along with a few others in a housekeeping post and you went batshit crazy over it.

I did notice in your Comments in that "whiny" post of yours that you're getting support from an anti-Semitic proponent of "homogeneous communities" (read: "segregated"), as well as one who has a particularly odious castration fantasy, Carol Moore. Figures. No doubt Carol considers you to be a sufficiently neutered libertarian that she now deigns to comment at you blog despite your having once said,

"I also agree with you about Carol Moore, and yes, I have learned to handle her with caution. She has rather heavily colored a couple of comments about me with her worldview, which I do not share."

[and]

"I think Carol Moore's sunspot theory is loony."

Harold engages in "gentlemen's agreements," attracts "loony" bigots to his blog, lauds racist tropes like minstrel shows and hides behind the shield of supposed "political correctness attacks" of others because he can't quite come to terms with his own internal bigotry.

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Kirkpatrick Sale's Gaff(e)

Updated below on 9.29.10

"The Godfather" of the secession movement, such as it is, and head of the Middlebury Institute "think tank," Kirkpatrick Sale, has a years long history of allying with the white supremacist group, League of the South [1] . He runs a tight crew and is not one to take independence streaks lightly, at least not from those that he sees as his minions.

Here's a priceless divulgence that's come from The Source wherein not only does Sale crap all over a Canadian secessionist counterpart, Sebastian Ronin, who's something of a Fredo type character from what I've been able to find, he also then takes a nasty swipe at Harold Thomas' Ohio Republic blog. Harold's essentially a one-man band who's like a gerbil in a wheel, spitting out worthless posts about secession-is-just-around-the-corner almost daily, which is a helluva lot more than "Don" Sale can say. Otherwise, Harold's a decent, well-meaning sort who doesn't deserve such contempt from an equally ineffectual blowhard like Sale.

Sale was responding to an inquiry regarding Ronin's idea to gather "everybody together under a single umbrella" organization.

What's so telling in all of this backstabbing by Sale is what Sale is saying about the real state of the secession movement in this communication from him to his fellow flounderers:

"There have been three North American Secessionist Congresses (NOT conference - a congress implies delegates from real organizations, which is what we strove for) under the auspices of the Middlebury Institute. I decided not to have a fourth this year since I wanted to gauge the movement and find out which groups were real and active and which were only websites and individual toys.

Ronin stepped in last year and proclaimed this 2019(sic) congress, without consulting me or as far as I can see anyone else. He has no real organization, and the experience Thomas (Naylor) and I had with him when he spoke badly at the congress in New Hampshire suggests that he's a loose cannon and an uncollegial type out for his own self-hype.

I would suggest that we have nothing to do with his call for a congress--and indeed I see no sign of any real group supporting him. He has one ally in Ohio, but that's another website individual, not a real secessionist organization.

If I see signs of a revival of secessionist activity, by real groups that are active in recruiting and mobilizing, I will certainly call another congress. At the moment I don't judge the activity sufficient to warrant that, and I think it would be a mistake to waste any energy on Ronin's self-aggrandizing scheme.

That's my opinion.

Regards,
Kirkpatrick

Kirkpatrick Sale
Director, Middlebury Institute
MiddleburyInstitute.org
JKELAS@aol.com"

Three months later Sale published a more rosy assessment of secession at that weird Lew Rockwell website, but his candor in the communication above really says it all. Funny thing though is that in the Lew Rockwell piece Sale seems to like what one-man websites are doing - you know, like Thomas Naylor's one-man website and "think tank," Second Vermont Republic. Perhaps Sebastion Ronin and Harold Thomas just haven't been obsequious enough for Sale's liking.

In all probability Rob Williams' knew of Sale's self-important message, it did not make it into "Vermont Commons" Fall edition. Of course that shouldn't be surprising since truth isn't the underlying mission of a propaganda outlet like VTCommons. Instead, its ever-present "secession is just over the horizon" message was repeatedly spat out again and again in the VTCommons Fall 2010 edition.

Update: 9.29.10



Oh dear, Arnold, er Rob. I've touched a nerve, no,? You're that desperate? Spelling error? That's all you got? All you have with that is a hint of my past life. Fishing is what I still do and I think you know I've gotten a nice haul. Oddly, Herr Döktor, you even lack the sense to know that when applied to a movement political whore like Sale, the definition is of the Kinsley sort, as in,

"A gaffe is when a politician tells the truth."

You see, Rob, here in the blogosphere, when someone who is himself prone to spelling errors plays "gotcha" at that level, and scuttles out from their self-imposed walk-away to play that card and nothing else, it's a given that they've got nothing else. The edit correction to the title should give you something diversionary to talk about at the next circle jerk, er, campaign strategy session.

No, the crap you published by Sale is nothing more than the same secession-is-just-over-the-cliff stuff you've been peddling for years and of the sort he posted to the other crazies at Lew Rockwell that I mentioned. Nothing at your journal by him that corresponded to what I posted, so there was no reason to link to it. But you keep doing that ineffectual proganda thing of yours and let's just see how many votes short of 60,000 Naylor "extrapolated" that translates into.

Interesting though that you didn't link to my post so that the rest of the Sweathogs could read what I said for themselves. Oh, well. With a movement organization that couldn't fill a small classroom, I guess it's important for you to keep them from running from the building should they find out that you've been deceiving them.

I'm glad that you, Matt and the rest of Naylor's flying monkeys still have time, despite the weighty demands of campaigning, to stop by and read this blog. You might want to continue with that since there is so much more to come.