Another Reputedly Early Vermont Secession Proponent Gets Some Distance Between Himself and the Secesher Wingnuts

Years ago Vermont writer Bill Mares wrote a book with University of Vermont professor Frank M. Bryan titled "OUT! The Vermont secession Book" that flatlanders (only) scooped up

while they were bagging up leaves to take home to prove that they'd visited Vermont during foliage or, as those same flatlanders often as not called it, "foilage" season.

Since the "small community" (their words, not mine) of Second Vermont Republic (SVR) secessionist droids appeared on the scene in 2003, Mares has kept his distance.  Bryan not so much.

Early on, Bryan served on the SVR advisory board for years despite it being well known that his fellow board members were members of white supremacist groups both here and abroad.  When Bryan finally quit the group he said that he only took so long because he didn't want to look like he was being forced out because of charges of racism against SVR. I wrote at length on Bryan's departure, no, getting his ass kicked out by that Magnolia Vermonter, Thomas Naylor, who said that Bryan wasn't a sufficiently doodah secessionist here.

You'd think a professor would have had more balls than to hang out with the Dixie singin' Thomas Naylor crowd long after it became well known that Naylor was routinely rubbing shoulders with some of the most despicable, racist Lost Cause characters that you couldn't possibly make up on your own.

Any who, Mares indirectly sinks the shaft into Vermont seceshers with a commentary that aired on VPR today.  You can listen to it here or read it below.

Mares: Secession Revisited
Vermont Public Radio
Wednesday, 11/28/12 5:55pm

By Bill Mares

"..(Host) With post-election petitions to secede flowing into the White House, writer, former state legislator and commentator Bill Mares reflects on real and fanciful moves to leave the Union."
"..(Mares) Since President Obama's re-election, numerous petitions to secede from the union have arrived at the White House. They're made up of approximately 600,000 signatures from all 50 states - or roughly 2 tenths of one percent of all Americans. The hotbed of this modern-day secession movement is Texas , whose governor Rick Perry referred to it publicly during his brief run for the presidency. The Texas secede web site insists that, "...it is practically feasible for Texas to withdraw from the union, and to do so would protect it's citizens' standard of living and re-secure their rights and liberties..."

"Secession is a topic I've thought about before. 25 years ago, UVM prof essor Frank Bryan and I wrote a book that speculated about how Vermont might secede from the union. We titled it, "OUT, The Vermont Secession Book" with the sub-title, "We won't make that mistake again." We invented a covenant supposedly signed by Ethan Allen and George Washington giving Vermont the right to secede whenever we became sufficiently angered by federal actions. We imagined a currency backed by pure maple syrup which was stored in the Granite quarries of Barrie . We proposed to sell products like fresh air, Bag-Balm, dried cow manure and hand-size plots of land (100 square inches) so that millions could own "a piece of Vermont." And so on . We me ant the book to be a satirical spoof. But these New Secessionists - like the "birther movement" to cast doubt on Obama's citizenship - are no joke."

"I grew up in Texas so I know from experience how some residents of the Lone Star State view the world . My elementary school textbook was titled "The true history of the war between the states, from a southerners' point of view." We were taught that in 1845, the United States joined Texas in a new Union. And a popular song of the era was "Save that confederate money boys, The South will rise again."

"But the urge to secede isn't limited to either the South or the Conservative Right. Before the Election six different friends sent me an open internet letter proposing that the Blue states should secede if Romney won - because, among other things, they claimed that:
62% of those in the Red states believe life is sacred unless we're discussing the death penalty or gun laws, 44% say that evolution is only a theory, 53% that Saddam was involved in 9/11 , and 38% that Jonah was actually swallowed by a whale.
Fortunately, in most of the country cooler heads have prevailed. At Mississippi State University campus newspaper student editors warned against this "internet sensation" this way:

"To those who signed petitions to secede from the union, think long and hard about what that signature implies. Abraham Lincoln once said, ‘A house divided against itself cannot stand.'"

"Finally, the secessionist fire no longer burns in Rick Perry's belly. According to his press secretary, "the Governor believes in the greatness of our Union and nothing should be done to change it."

Move over Bernie Sanders, Bill McKibben and virtually every other Vermonter who hasn't boarded the Naylor crazy train. It looks like Mares just got himself a prime seat on the enormously long Naylor shitlist.

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

Second Vermont Republic Advisory Board Member Thomas J. DiLorenzo Gave A Lecture to Another neo-Confederate Group, That Wasn't the League of the South

Ten days ago, Loyola University Maryland economics professor and a longtime advisory board member to the secessionist group, Second Vermont Republic, Thomas J. DiLorenzo was a guest lecturer on February 5, 2011 for the neo-Confederate organization called the Sons of Confederate Veterans, at their Stephen D. Lee Institute gathering.

The Sons of Confederate Veterans has a checkered history and many members are also present or former members of hate groups such as the League of the South, the white supremacist Council of Conservative Citizens (formerly known as the White Citizens Council), as well as former Klansmen, a Holocaust denial journal editor and neo-Nazis who hold leadership roles in the SCV. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

"From the Mississippi Division of the SCV, comes this new gem: The group wants the state to issue a special license plate, keyed like the Montgomery march to the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, to honor Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest — a millionaire Memphis slave trader before the war, an apparent war criminal who presided over the massacre of surrendering black prisoners at Fort Pillow, Tenn., during it, and the first national leader of the Ku Klux Klan afterward..."
Source: Southern Poverty Law Center

DiLorenzo, in addition to lecturing the Lost Cause crowd at SCV, serves as a scholar shill for the neo-Confederate movement at the Abbeville Institute [6] as does the baas of the Second Vermont Republic, Thomas Naylor. [7]

As UVM professor Frank Bryan (who left the SVR advisory board last year) told the SPLC Intelligence Report in 2008,

"You've got to watch whose conference you go to. There's no doubt about it."

DiLorenzo may not have gotten that message - yet.

(h/t: Ed Sebesta, Anti-Neo-Confederate)


An excellent overview of the neo-Confederate movement can be found here.

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

Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) Invites Second Vermont Republic Advisory Board Member to Congress

Rep. Ron Paul invited Thomas DiLorenzo, a well known Lincoln historical revisionist whackjob, to the first meeting of the House Financial Services Committee's Domestic Monetary Policy and Trade subcommittee and the shit hit the congressional fan:

"At one point, when Paul opened up the hearing to questions from committee members, Rep. Lacy Clay (D-Mo.) directly took on DiLorenzo for his membership in the League of the South, an organization that has been designated by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a "neo-Confederate" hate group advocating for Southern secession."

"Clay then rattled off a list of some of DiLorenzo's articles, including "More Lies about the Civil War," "In Defense of Sedition," and "The First Dictator-President," which examines "how Lincoln's myth has corrupted America."

"'After reviewing your work and the so-called methods you employ, I still cannot understand you being invited to testify today on the unemployment crisis, but I do know that I have no questions for you,' Clay concluded."

The Washington Post

DiLorenzo is a longtime member of the Second Vermont Republic Advisory Board.

Little surprise then that his work has also been lauded by "Vermont Commons" publisher Rob Williams and VTCommons white supremacist contributor, Robert S. Griffin (See here).

Even less of a surprise is Rep. Paul's own bigoted history documented in The New Republic's piece, Angry White Man, here.

Update 2.11.11, 1:00 PM: DiLorenzo apparently had a hissy fit over what Rep. Clay (D-MO) had to say and, not unlike what I've experienced with Vermont's own seceshers, struck back with what some might call a flat out lie.

He said in his statement that Clay had “lied about my non-existent working relationship with the League of the South” and implied that he'd had no association with the League of the South for the past 13 years. Turns out he was an invited scholar neo-Confederate flack at an August 2009 conference sponsored by the League of the South Summer Institute.

Hopefully, SVR Advisory Board DiLorenzo will drop me a note to clear this, ah, discrepancy up.

(h/t: Southern Poverty Law Center)

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