The Second Vermont Republic Founder, Thomas H. Naylor, Gives Another Interview to a Prominent Holocaust Denier

For years now hate groups have taken to naming their various enterprises by using misleading, innocuous, even patriotic sounding words that have little to do with their actual agenda. Groups like the Family Research Council or the American Family Association, both of which are virulently anti-gay and who seek to criminalize people based on sexuality are examples of such naming intended to hide the groups' hideous intent.

Another such hate group goes by name American Free Press. AFP is a weekly that is the successor to the notoriously anti-Semitic publication called The Spotlight, both founded by a promoter of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and blatant Holocaust denial, 86 year old Willis Carto. Carto has strong ties to the American neo-Nazi movement and has been an important figure in the promotion of the presidential aspirations of such infamous white supremacists and racists as George C. Wallace, David Duke and Pat Buchanan. [1] [2]

AFP maintains a staff of writers steeped in anti-Semitism who, as a group, represent one of the most extreme examples of the toxic results that can be realized by people who see conspiracies everywhere. AFP operates like Vermont Commons on steroids. Like VC, AFP promotes books by writers befuddled by too much 9/11 Truth junk and droolly anti-Semitism, but Holocaust denial works seem to be AFP's real stock in trade. One of their writers, Victor Thorn, has published historical revisionist crap like The Holo­caust Hoax Exposed: Debunk­ing the 20th Century’s Biggest Lie available from a Holocaust denial press also operated by Willis Carto called The Barnes Review, named for the anti-Semite and Holocaust denier Harry Elmer Barnes, and Made in Israel: 9-11 and the Jewish Plot Against America

Today an article appeared in the August 28 issue of AFP written by Holocaust denier and anti-Semite Victor Thorn, based on his August 16, 2012 interview of the baas of the Second Vermont Republic, Thomas H. Naylor.

It certainly befits Victor Thorn, the espouser of numerous conspiracy addled facts, to make the claim in his article that,

"(T)here exist hundreds of secessionist organizations, a few of the more prominent ones combine an anti-authoritarian streak, disgust with electoral politics, tinges of anarchy and libertarianism, plus a repudiation of corporatism and the permanent U.S. war economy."

Even Naylor's pal and co-founder of SVR, Kirkpatrick Sale, who keeps a list of such groups only shows there to be 30-35 with many of those having deadlinks, were listed as defunct or are essentially one person operations. Naylor runs through his list of tired, befuddled, secesher talking points with Thorn but does get around to the "Jews control the U.S." redmeat that Thorn was looking for with this,

"Today, the U.S. is owned, operated and controlled by corporations, the military-industrial complex and the Israeli lobby... Whether Obama or Romney wins in November, whenever Bibi [Netanyahu] says go to war, the U.S. will go for it.”

This week at his own SVR website Naylor wrote,

"The hammerlock hold of the Israeli Lobby over American foreign policy..."

So Naylor now gets to check off another must do on his bucket list of racist, anti-Semitic, homophobic, misogynistic, Holocaust denying and neo-Nazi figures, people, national and international organizations, and all around dirtbags, with his finally scoring an article in American Free Press.

Is it any wonder then, when people learn what's in his heart, why Naylor's secession dream now lies on the ash heap of history, much like the Nazis.

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

Vermont Secession Leader Levies A Unsubstantiated Charge That Seemingly Implicates The Vermont's Air National Guard's Supporters In Vandalism

Vermont secessionists have a long history of flinging absurd, wildly unhinged charges against their neighbors and those who aren't lapping up the secesher Kool-Aid. The method usually entails an allusion to responsibility of some kind for those that they hate for not slavishly sucking up to their life view in their invariably imprecise fashion. Over the weekend the Vermont Commons web and content editor, sham radical, nimby queen and anti-Vermont Army and Air National Guard activist, Juliet Buck, has made just such a slimy, flimsy, unfounded and weaselly charge by way of her most recent demand of the VTANG.

This cheesy tactic is of a type normally associated with weak campaigns that seek to undermine the perceived opposition (VTANG) by making a demand that they accept some kind of, no matter how much unwarranted, responsibility for unsubstantiated, iffy charges. Here's the schmuck's, er, Buck's specious charge:

"I think it would be entirely appropriate for the VTANG to issue a press release expressly condemning the acts of vandalism that have been committed against the personal property of certain persons opposed to the F-35. Not doing so implicitly condones this kind of cowardly intimidation.

"Implicitly?"

How 'bout Buck issue her own apology for her VTCommons website having promote the hateful anti-Semitism, white supremacism, collaboration with, both inside and outside of its membership, of racists, misogynists and homophobes. The toxic nature of the members of her group is a fact. All she's presented against the VTANG that she hates so much is an completely evidenceless smear.

Figures.

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

Second Vermont Republic Founder Thomas Naylor Is Now Down to "Just Whistlin' Dixie"

Second Vermont Republic founder, Thomas Naylor, was the largest financial backer of what ended up being an abysmal showing by Vermont secesher candidates in the 2010 election cycle due to "the paucity of votes attracted by candidate (Dennis) Steele." Steele, the head of the secesher ticket did so poorly that he came within a few votes of having his 0.79% finish bested by a perennial kook candidate who alleges discrimination because of a purported disability that supposedly arises from an STD, and secession supporter, natch.

For those who have followed the saga of the Second Vermont Republic's baas, Thomas Naylor, he has continued to try to separate the modern day secession movement from its deeply troubling racist history. That effort that's been made all the more difficult for him by his longtime association with the League of the South and its perverted view of the Land of Dixie as it supposedly was.

Naylor swerves from distancing himself (sort of) from the LoS types when speaking to media, to then embracing the Lost Causers and their various tropes at secesher meetings.

"Vermont Commons" has a new Spring issue out. In addition to all the usual sky-is-falling, doom and gloom prophecy that permeates its pages, there's an unexpected disclosure of an about-face by the Magnolia Vermonter.

It has to do with one of those symbols so important to Southern (or
Southron, as they prefer to say) seceshers - the singing of the song known as "Dixie".

The song "Dixie" is usually attributed to blackface ministrel show creator and impresario, Ohioan Dan Emmett, and is considered to be a racist view of antebellum Southern black culture.

Sung in an affected style meant to mimic how the white, racist ear hears blacks, the lyrics confirm that fact:

I wish I was in de land ob cotton,
Old times dar am not forgotten;
Look away! Look away! Look away! Dixie Land.
In Dixie Land whar I was born in,
Early on one frosty mornin,
Look away! Look away! Look away! Dixie Land.

"The remaining verses drift into the common minstrel idiom of a comical plantation scenario, "supposedly [depicting] the gayer side of life for slaves on Southern plantations:"

Old Missus marry "Will-de-weaber,"
Willium was a gay deceaber;
Look away! Look away! Look away! Dixie Land.
But when he put his arm around'er,
He smiled as fierce as a forty-pound'er,
Look away! Look away! Look away! Dixie Land.

Dar's buck-wheat cakes an 'Ingen' batter,
Makes you fat or a little fatter;
Look away! Look away! Look away! Dixie Land.
Den hoe it down an scratch your grabble,
To Dixie land I'm bound to trabble.
Look away! Look away! Look away! Dixie Land.

"In short, ["Dixie"] made the case, more strongly than any previous minstrel tune had, that slaves belonged in bondage."

Source (The 1916 rendition of "Dixie" may be heard here; click the play button when the window opens.)

Those who have flacked for Naylor in the past usually bring up an unconfirmed assertion by Naylor that he would refuse to stand for the playing of "Dixie" when he was at University of Mississippi, as though that assures that he couldn't possibly be racist. This bit of literary legerdemain from Bill Kauffman, author of "Bye Bye, Miss American Empire":

"Thomas Naylor, who as a young Mississippi liberal took pride in refusing to stand for “Dixie” when his beloved Ole Miss Rebels played, told me that he was so disarmed upon attending the 2006 League of the South convention that for the first time since before the civil rights movement he actually sang the words to that tuneful ode to the land where old times are not forgotten."

Sources [1] [2]

Finally, another fiction of the Naylor image goes "bye, bye."

While inadvertently lifting the veil on Naylor, Kauffman jumps the shark with his whitewashing, Michael Hill entry. Hill, leader of the admittedly white supremacist League of the South "call(s) antebellum slavery "God-ordained," oppos(es) racial intermarriage, and defend(s) segregation as a policy designed to protect the integrity of both races," served at a black college, notes Kauffman - which means what? Kaufmann failed to say in his written sleight of hand that,

"Michael Hill was always on oddity at (Stillman College), roaming the campus wearing a Confederate flag pin and waxing nostalgic to his mostly black students about the so-called "War Between the States."

"...In 1998, Hill finally left Stillman, which had been badly embarrassed by his efforts. ...(T)he (L)eague (of the South) grew quickly, as racist white Southerners sought the respectability of a group led by a professor..."

Source

It's truly a toss up as to who is the unseemlier - the seceshers or their flacks.

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

Secession Strategies In The Old South and Vermont

An interesting piece by Manisha Sinha, a co-signer of the 2009, 2010, and 2011 letters to President Obama to not send a wreath to the Arlington Confederate Monument, appeared in yesterday's New York Times, entitled "The Strange Victory of the Palmetto State." Well worth the read.

The slaver seceshers of the Old South's strategy bears an interesting resemblance to that of the Second Vermont Republic and its sister organization, "Vermont Commons" - an appeal to base fears that are amped up by allusions to conspiracies and threats to peaceful existence. Similarities abound, right down to language, such as The Old South's "Dis-United States" and VTCommons publisher, Rob Williams', "Untied States of America."

In other words, not so clever bullshit.

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

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

Is There A Neo-Nazi Member of the Free Vermont Group?

A few years ago I discovered that anti-Semites and racists at Alex Linder's VNN (Vanguard News Network - No Jews, Just Right) forum were oohing and ahhing over the essays of Thomas Naylor, baas of the Second Vermont Republic. One post of Naylor's was re-posted at VNN with the new header, "Vermont Secession Movement Gets the Jews." It's still there, just go here and scroll down to the new header. It includes some of his usual confused crap, such as, Iran's "We don't have homosexuals in our country" Ahmadinejad's communications are like those of "a philosopher, a theologian, or a college professor."

A regular at the VNN forum, Donnachaidh, kept the knuckle draggers there abreast of Naylor's writings and the doings of SVR. Among thousands of other Donnachaidh post there are gems like Jews Despised By History's Best Men, Jews Start Wars That White Men Fight, Pamela Anderson Weds Kike In Las Vegas, Nigger Kultur, White Woman Discovers She Really Is A Nigger - you get the idea.

Donnachaidh is Gaelic for Duncan.

During my examination of campaign contributions for the utterly failed SVR token gubernatorial candidate, Dennis "Middle Finger Waving" Steele, I'd found that one of his largest out-of-state contributors was Long Islander, James Duncan of Melville, NY. This one contributor, someone who Naylor has called one of his "twenty Vermont Internet cowboys," led to my discovery of the Vermont seceshers Free Vermont listserv.

On the Free Vermont listserv James Duncan used the email address jd882@hotmail.com.

While searching the VNN forums for more on possible SVR extremist connections or overlaps, I found not one but two occasions where the VNN forum member Donnachaidh had cut and paste for a post and where the email address of James Duncan, jd882@hotmail.com, appeared in the body, much as though he'd failed to edit it out as one would normally do. Or maybe Donnachaidh has access to James Duncan's Hotmail account. I couldn't find the two cut and pastes elsewhere on the net.

(You can see the original post of the screen cap above here)


(You can see the original post of the screen cap above here. At the original you can drag your cursor across the redacted email to see it at the lower left of your screen.)

Below, an archived version of the screen cap immediately above, shows an unredacted email address. Click on any of the three screen caps to embiggen.


!!! (If you've gone to any of the three VNN posts above or the other Donnachaidh links at the VNN forum above those screen caps, you might want to take a moment now to wash up - I'll wait for you.)

Good. You're back now.

Those of you who followed the election coverage here last year, as well as what was revealed here to be on the Free Vermont listserv, may recall that James Duncan expressed homophobic and racist views there - it seems that lesbians and race-mixing aren't his cup of tea. And you may also recall that candidate Steele chose to keep Duncan's contributions. Certainly, from time to time, Democrats, Republicans and Progressives receive contributions from outspoken racists, misogynists and homophobes and when the do find out about it, they return it or forward the tainted funds to non-profits. The difference here is that Steele knew all along about Duncan's hateful rants on the listserv and still took the money, not once but twice!

The name is not all that Donnachaidh and Duncan share in common. Neo-Nazi thugs use a variety of graphic and number symbols, and acronyms. Number symbols, like 88 have specific meanings - 88 meaning "HH" (H being the eighth letter of the alphabet), a shorthand for the Nazi greeting, "Heil Hitler." It's a symbol that often flies under the radar of the unsuspecting. And one must also look at the context wherein the symbols are found. To an anti-Semitic, racist and homophobic forum and its communicants, Duncan's email address (to those who knew his name) would translate as "JAMES DUNCAN: Heil Hitler To You" (jd882u); Donnachaidh's VNN forum avatar uses the neo-Nazi nickname for New York, "Mount Zion - Jew York Shitty" - Duncan lives a couple of miles from Queens, NY

Donnachaidh disappeared from the VNN forums sometime in the late summer of 2008.

Is Donnachaidh, James Duncan? Based on what's known, that's not a
point of view one should summarily dismiss. Perhaps Naylor, "Vermont Commons" publisher Rob Williams or even Duncan himself would like to offer their comments here - moderated Comments are now open but given the looniness that usually comes in from the foaming-at-the-mouth secesher crowd, that's not likely to continue for long. Or maybe the Vermont seceshers will want to talk this over at another of their always poorly attended events (here) scheduled for this weekend (and as noted in the Seven Days events calendar). I'll bet that Donnachaidh will be delighted to hear that he'll be the talk of the party and could have an opportunity to make his pitch for an all white, Jew-free, Aryan Vermont. Here's something for Williams' Phineas Gage Band to cover for the "Party":



Or maybe, Rob, you might want to consider yourself and Duncan as having just been Reich-rolled.

As Donnachaidh once said at the VNN forum, "I said it before and I'll say it again, we need to show them how to secede." Siegety Heil, baby!

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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 "Dennis Steele for Governor" Campaign Responds to Charge of Accepting Contributions from Known Homophobe

Here's the Steele campaign strawman response in it entirety, followed by my comments:

Steele Campaign Response
by: carbonpenguin (Campaign Mgr. Matt Cropp)
Thu Oct 21, 2010 at 16:37:54 PM EDT

I find it quite disappointing that this time of increased awareness of LGBTQ issues has been exploited to take a cheap-shot at my campaign by raising questions about my possibly being a homophobe. Anyone who's talked to me about the issues know I am an ally to Queer people in Vermont, and have actively tried to engage with the LGBTQ community in this campaign. Unlike Brian Dubie, I requested inclusion (but was refused, due to my independent status) in the gubernatorial forum put on in part by Outright Vermont and RU12, and I broadcast the "Winter's a Drag Ball" fundraiser for the VT People with AIDS Coalition on Radio Free Vermont (my online radio station).

Like the other candidates for Governor this election cycle, I don't have an "ideological purity test" that people must take in order to donate to me - rather, they click the link on my website and the dona-
tion goes into the cam-
paign's PayPal account. As such, I find the calls for me to return the donation both odd and counterproductive; why would people who disagree so strongly with this donor want to put resources in his pocket? If he was unaware of my stance on LGBTQ rights before this and doesn't like what I've said, he doesn't have to donate. In the meantime, I will continue working hard on my campaign to bring focus to the issues our state faces that both Dubie and Shumlin refuse to acknowledge. Our communities are being smothered under the weight of an Empire that costs us a trillion dollars a year and has caused the death and displacement of millions of people. It's time for us to stand up together to take political power back from the great corporate banks and the military-industrial complex that has bought and paid for the Federal Government, so we can begin the task of building a Vermont that works for ALL Vermonters.

Imagine... Free Vermont,

Dennis Steele

First, the only person who's raised the question of Steele "possibly being a homophobe" is, queerly, Steele himself.

This is an overused tactic commonly employed by those in service to Thomas Naylor and his Second Vermont Republic. For instance, no one that I know has called Naylor, propaganda minister Rob Williams or any of the other costumed, propeller heads at SVR racists, yet they've whined (Caution: Use of the word "whine" should not by inference confirm one of the myriad conspiracy theories of SVR/VTCommons, that I am, in fact, JD Ryan.) incessantly that they have been so charged, which is nonsense. Do they pal around with and re-print or refer to the works of racists in their publications? Unquestionably.

As for Steele's assertion of solidarity with the "LGBTQ community," nothing could be more misleading about the reality of the Steele campaign. There is no example of such solidarity or public statement by Steele available in the public records that I'm able to find and, believe me, I've looked. Perhaps Matt, Dennis, Rob, Ian, Thomas or some other secesher can point to the overflowing record that I've missed. I'll take his word for it that he broadcast online the fundraiser for the VT PWA Coalition on his content and traffic starved web station, now ranked 1,178,169th on the web (btw Dennis, based on the analytics, if we pull out of Kuwait you'll lose more than 40% of your audience because they'll be home with better options).

What was of more interest to me was that while Steele furiously patted himself on the back for his "hav(ing) actively tried to engage with the LGBTQ community in this campaign," he never quite managed to bring himself to condemn James Duncan's bigoted statements at the listserv even now, if not back when Duncan made his misogynistic, homophobic and racist statements in February and March, and just as Duncan was making his first $100 campaign contribution on March 8. Actually, based on what I've found in addition to the listserv and Secretary of State campaign finance reports, Duncan would seem to be much more of a Strom Thurmond type than his bigoted comments on the listserv would suggest.

I don't buy Steele's rationalization this time, anymore than I did his I-was-just-doing-some-consciousness-raising-bullshit-when-I-started-using-the-Che-Guevara-imagery-on-my-website-and-on-my-handouts. Suggesting that he's merely keeping the "resource" out of the hands of someone that others disagree with (notice that he didn't say that he does, yet again) doesn't pass the smell test:

As such, I find the calls for me to return the donation both odd and counterproductive; why would people who disagree so strongly with this donor want to put resources in his pocket?
- Dennis Steele

Not terribly clever, Matt, er, Dennis.

The fact of the matter is that when the small, by-invitation-only Free Vermont crowd at the listserv first began posting in October of 2009, they reposted a September 9, 2009 advisory on campaign strategy from Gary Flomenhoft:

From: free_vermont_framework at mailmanlist.net
Date: Wed Oct 14 23:29:03 2009
Subject: [free_vermont_framework] Past message from Gary Flo
On 9/9/09 11:35 AM, "Gary Flomenhoft" wrote:

Those who wish to create a political platform for secessionist candidates and/or party are certainly free to do so. I do not think it is advisable beyond advocating independence, and will not put my efforts there.

Here's why: When people asked Thomas (Naylor) in the past what our platform was other than secession and independence his answer was always, "Let the people of sovereign Vermont decide that." I think that is wise.

We need to create as broad a basis for agreement as possible. A political platform is bound to create divisiveness and disagreement from any small piece of it that people don't agree with. I believe it will further marginalize us, just as it did/does to the Greens.

If we just stick with independence and secession then people of all political stripes could be convinced to go along. If we publish a detailed platform, then anyone who disagrees will not support it.

Better to keep the base as broad as possible.
Gary Flo

To which Ian Baldwin of "Vermont Commons" replied:

From: free_vermont_framework at mailmanlist.net
Date: Wed Oct 14 23:31:11 2009
Subject: [free_vermont_framework] Past Message from Ian Baldwin, reply to Gary:

This is extremely provoking, challenging. I myself will not run for office even with a gun to my temple, but I have been unable to imagine a better way to get the idea ? just the thought, the notion ? of secession or independence across to a broader cross section of Vermonters than our 10,000-circulation bi-monthly. If grounded, articulate people can run on a Vermont independence platform that points to all the ways the Federal system tyrannizes us and leaves us impotent to decide our own fate in our own land ? towns, countryside, businesses and farms ? why isn't this one of
the paths we need to take to educate people?

Maybe the prominent Russian political scientist (name escapes me) who recently held fast in public to his earlier prediction that just as the Soviet empire imploded in 1989-91, so too will the USA in 2010 ? maybe we don't need to do a damn thing. Just wait for the fire to start.

We are already "marginalized," and firmly so. Establishing a platform with cajones, in which independence (self-reliance) is the pre-eminent and salient value and goal, and injecting that core idea with many supporting secondary ideas into the various debates held round the state when elections approach can hardly "marginalize" us any more than we now are.

The issue of secession itself comes MUCH later and will indeed be decided by the people as a whole.

Thomas (Naylor) advised, correctly, that we not get involved in the kinds of divisive cultural pot-boiler issues beloved by Karl Rove, gay marriage (Note to seceshers: Gay marriage was settled law as you wrote this), legalized marijuana, women's right to choose, etc., etc. I did not understand him to advise we shirk political life, the political process, altogether.

Ian

Later posts at the listserv made clear that this small group had no intention of letting Vermonters decide much of anything. Private property was to be seized and legislators deemed to be liars executed, to name just a few of their more nutty ideas for Vermont.

Although they've been asked repeatedly, no Free Vermont spokesperson or Steele campaign shill has committed to upholding the Vermont Constitution, the document that they allege created a first republic in Vermont. That's something that all Vermonters should be very, very concerned about.


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Dennis Steele's Campaign Accepts Support from Out-of-state, Anti-Gay, Listserv Member

As you may have gathered by now, I've spent a considerable amount of time going through what can only be described as the increasingly screwy chat among the seceshers at the Free Vermont Listserv - seizing private property; destroying our schools; executing those that they would most likely identify as their political opponents, er, liars in governance; sacking our constitution.

The following message is particularly vile. It comes from Dennis Steele's top out-of-state campaign contributor.

The writer of the message, James Duncan, had veered from the topic of health care to launch into an utterly unwarranted homophobic rant that equated gay weddings with perversions. Oddly, both topics, marriage equality and health care, are what the baas of the Second Vermont Republic, Thomas Naylor, had told the group months earlier were too divisive for their upcoming election platform. Apparently Duncan didn't get, or chose ignore, baas Naylor's dictum while they were engaged in one of their tediously self-absorbed "if we ruled Vermont" fantasy camp style discussions.

Naylor, as well as those at the listserv, have a fetish about keeping things that would ultimately matter in the lives of average Vermonters as vague as possible - except for things like the "Israeli Mafia," of course. That's a biggie to the baas and others like Steele, and a primary reason why his group, in addition to having the "unmistakable tinge of racis(m) attached to it," one can also detect a distinct whiff of anti-Semitism, as well. This homophobic outburst stinks too.

From jd882u at hotmail.com Thu Mar 18 20:29:06 2010
From: jd882u at hotmail.com (james duncan)
Date: Thu Mar 18 20:29:08 2010
Subject: [Free Vermont Framework] taiwan health care
Message-ID:

"As with all our problems in America, good people keep hacking at the branches instead of getting to the root of the evil that plagues us. Hence the cycles of war, economic depression, cultural Marxism, etc. continue. I just had a perfectly pleasant day ruined by reading Vermont Magazine. In the Letters to the Editor column, an obnoxiously militant lesbian threatens to cancel her subscription unless they include gay weddings in their next Weddings issue. The individual is a public relations professor and chairperson at a university. How unfortunate that such a rude individual has a position of influence over young people. I guess everyone has their unique perversions but society would be best served if they kept them to themselves and their private circle. I resent having someone else's shoved in my face. At any rate, bandaids will be the order of the day until someone amputates the entire system."

I challenge Dennis Steele to return the $300 he's received from James Duncan, his largest out-of-state contributor who's accounted for more than 10% of his campaign contributions thus far, and that he issue a statement denouncing Duncan's hateful message, along with his own unqualified support for the Vermont Supreme Court's Baker decision, the legislature's ending of the separate but equal treatment of civil unions and the subsequent override of a Republican governor's veto of the new law by a super majority in both the Senate (25-5) and the House of Representatives (100-49) in the General Assembly.

Crickets aren't going to do on this one, Dennis.

Just a reminder that not so many weeks ago Thomas Naylor at SVR and "Vermont Commons" doucheno..., er, spokesperson, Rob Williams, had a major hissy fit when blogger Jon Margolis quite correctly pointed out "that Vermont's secessionist movement has an unmistakable tinge of racism attached to it." They took others in the Vermont media who were there to task for their silence after Margolis' remarks. I can't think of anything they could have said except for maybe, "Uh huh, Jon."

By the Williams/Naylor standard, silence now will mean that Steele, Williams and Naylor stand with their out-of-state, homophobic contributor, James Duncan of Melville, NY.

And just as with their continuing associations with the League of the South past and present members, this kind of ally is a fair indicator of what the Vermont secession crowd could very well have in store for the average Vermonter. The reopening of old wounds caused by the forces of bigotry has no benefit except to the would-be oppressors.

Note to Rob: Maybe taking money from outspoken homophobes is what you meant when you said that Vermont seceshers espouse "the decentralist "beyond red and blue business as usual" politics of secession." I urge that you, Naylor, and your toady, Arthur "Circle Jerk + Lube = Teh Gay" Loose, join me in demanding that Steele return the money from an out-of-state, overtly homophobic source.

Give back the money, Dennis!!

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

Face Time

The recent debates have provided the opportunity to the nominal "independent" candidate for governor of Thomas Naylor's Second Vermont Republic, Connecticut native Dennis Steele, to flesh out some details about how he'd address the many modern problems facing Vermont. Steele's proposals, really a proposal, was articulated by him at the Vermont Public Television debate and the Vermont Press Association debate.

"... (O)ne thing that stood out after two of these debates was that the solution to the many challenges facing the state often came back to the same thing."

"... (F)or Dennis Steele... questions from health care reform to funding state government circle back to one answer - the state needs to move towards independence from the United States."
- Capital Beat, Vermont Press Bureau (no link - behind RH/TA paywall)

So it boils down to this; secede and all will be okay. Health, education, the economy, you name it. We'll take a closer look at some of the Free Vermont crowd's real ideas for solutions in future posts.

In the meantime, the above debate links should give you a sense of the lack of partical awareness or of a real vision from Naylor's candidate. Secede and we'll all be so much better off. Gone will be the blues and our dreams will turn to gold, especially with "the Once and Future Vermont Republic’s New Silver Token" available now at Steele's website. We'll all be "in the money":



Little wonder that the "Vermont Commons" blog post by VTCommons propaganda baas, Rob Williams, gave no link to the Channel 17 VPA debate. Maybe he'll correct that omission (yet again) after reading this post.

Oath Keepers and More From The Free Vermont Listserv Gift That Just Keeps On Giving

Back in March of 2010, James Duncan (the Dennis Steele contributor who first led this blog to the Free Vermont Framework listserv [1] ) reposted on the listserv a piece from DumpDC about the extremist group called Oath Keepers, a group supposedly made up of present and former law enforcement and military personnel. [2]

At the same time that some listserv participants were about to get themselves all charged up about the Oath Keepers, this piece in Mother Jones was on the newstands and the web.

"Glenn Beck, Lou Dobbs, and Pat Buchanan have all sung its praises..."
- Mother Jones

You'll find in Mother Jones that Oath Keepers shares many of the same conspiracy delusions common to some members of Free Vermont, SVR and "Vermont Commons" bloggers - 9/11 Truthers, Birthers, impending round-ups by the Empire, as well as ties to the white supremacist community.

It was already a matter of public record at the time of these listserv posts that one high profile member of the Oath Keepers, Charles Dyer, had been arrested on Federal weapons charges that arose from a sexual molestation investigation and arrest by state authorities. [3] More arrests of Oath Keeper members on a variety of weapons related charges have followed.

Dennis Morrisseau, Foreign Minister of Thomas Naylor's Second Vermont Republic and the Free Vermont candidate for the state Senate wrote on the listserv in response to Duncan's repost,

From: dmorso1 at netzero.com (Dennis Morrisseau)
Date: Fri Mar 12 02:04:31 2010
Subject: [Free Vermont Framework] FW: [New post] Oath Keepers and Oath Takers: Does It Really Matter?
Message-ID: <20100311.210243.24605.3@webmail13.vgs.untd.com>

"I like this Oath keeper group a lot!

Jim, How can we make inroads to them i wonder....and try to get a few of their VT members to join our Senate effort??? Do you know anybody inside?"

Maybe Morrisseau had seen Dyer's YouTube hit (so creepy that YouTube requires a sign-in to view it). Here's a more family friendly version of the Dyer vid that's not quite so high on the nutbar scale:



"Fear of ridicule?" Maybe it's just that mouthguard that's so off-putting to people, son.

Free Vermont Senate candidate Robert Wagner chimed in:

Date: Fri Mar 12 03:25:46 2010
Subject: [Free Vermont Framework] FW: [New post] Oath Keepers and Oath Takers: Does It Really Matter?
Message-ID: <1286712873-1268364341-cardhu_decombobulator_blackberry.rim.net-
1349255639-@bda584.bisx.prod.on.blackberry>

"I like this much better than trying to convince servicemen to not serve."

Really? Are we actually talking about a potential alliance between our kookie group of Vermont secessionists and a collection of flipped out militia types that underscore their allegiance to the the US Constitution? (See this also.)

Then comes this from Duncan, one of the few Dennis Steele contributors, alluding to the coming trials(!) in the future Second Vermont Republic :

From: jd882u at hotmail.com (james duncan)
Date: Fri Mar 12 14:25:53 2010
Subject: [Free Vermont Framework] FW: [New post] Oath Keepers and Oath
Take rs: Does It Really Matter?
Message-ID:

"Sorry, my encounters with law enforcement were always of the non-oath keepers types."

"You know, the socieopathic toadies of the plutocracy whose defense when we put them on trial will be ......"I was only following orders"."

"Remember, most of the servants of the Empire oppress and tyrannize you for a mere pat on the back and a Scobby snack from their masters. If you want to pursue making contact, their leader seems to be a Stuart Rhodes and this is his website http://oathkeepers.org/oath/ On the plus side, he is on SPLC shit list along with the rest of us."

All right, now we're getting somewhere! SVR Foreign Minister Denny?! Take us home!

From: dmorso1 at netzero.com (Dennis Morrisseau)
Date: Fri Mar 12 14:36:11 2010
Subject: [Free Vermont Framework] FW: [New post] Oath Keepers and Oath Takers: Does It Really Matter?
Message-ID: <20100312.093431.22003.7@webmail12.vgs.untd.com>

"I am more familiar than i care to say with the ones that you describe....and also second how few twinkies it takes to cement their stupic and brutal loyalty."

"Still, i have met others....always UNheralded, inside....and so i do have some hope for this outfit."

There's more, but you get the idea.

In a later post by Duncan to Morrisseau about some other Canadian secessionists called Atlantica or Novacadia or NewFrance-istan or some other nonsense, Duncan says,

"I agree foreign minister. Has the smell of kooks about it."

I couldn't have said it better, Jim. Of course, I'd be talking about just about everything you guys have said thus far.

Watch for more here in the near future about just how far the Vermont secession crowd has moved forward with their examination and, ultimately, replacement of the present form of governance in Vermont.

Of Petitions and Polls

By now most readers have heard me comment at length about Second Vermont Republic's Thomas Naylor's methodologically flawed polls. If you haven't, check out the polling box in the right column.

Rob Williams, the propaganda minister for the would-be rulers of the future Second Vermont Republic and High Poobah for the secessionist rag, "Vermont Commons" set up a petition back in March devoted to getting signers for a petition to free Vermont, or some such nonsense. As of Sunday, September 26, 2010, there're an overwhelming 39 signators for his petition (40 if you count the guy who signed twice as from CA and VT), 25% of whom don't live here and, it seems, more than half of the rest are the usual suspects comprised of VTCommons bloggers, well-known local secession dead-enders and some, but by no means all, of the 10 candidates supposedly running on the secession ticket. Hell, Vermont secessionist gubernatorial candidate and Connecticut native, Dennis Steele, as well as his campaign manager, Matthew Cropp, haven't bothered to sign it! [1]


"The 39." I kid you not. 39 signers in six months (not counting the guy who signed twice). Here they are:

#40 16:14, Sep 22, Darick Duquette, VT

#39 04:44, Sep 21, Greg Fox, VT

#38 12:18, Sep 18, Eric Rosenbloom, VT.

#37 09:52, Sep 18, Tina Tarani, OR

#36 10:08, Sep 07, Denny Lane, VT

#35 17:07, Sep 02, Preston Wright, NY

#34 08:22, Aug 17, Adam Mitchell, VT

#33 17:58, Aug 12, Jeff Ramsey, VT

#32 18:20, Aug 11, Steve Miller, VT

#31 00:41, Aug 10, Diana Licht, VT

#30 19:03, Aug 08, John Gelineau, VT

#29 03:15, Aug 08, Christopher Mattogno, VT

#28 12:53, Jul 29, Antonio Paoletti, Italy

#27 00:36, Jul 23, George Loehwing, VT

#26 13:58, Jul 16, Charles Sebrell, NC

#25 08:04, Jul 13, Wes Dunn, VT

#24 13:25, Jul 07, Shaun Sintic, NJ

#23 07:13, Jul 04, William Fielding, VT

#22 06:46, Jul 04, Sam Shulman, VT

#21 08:32, Jul 01, Cheryl Diersch, VT

#20 05:47, Jun 30, William Ritke-Jones, VT

#19 08:44, Jun 28, Alec Chalmers, VT.

#18 14:53, Jun 23, Peter McDonald, VT

#17 14:05, Jun 11, Chellis Glendinning, Bolivia.

#16 21:56, May 19, Hector Labbé, Canada

#15 04:59, May 13, Christopher Sol Cruz, MA

#14 18:32, May 09, Charles Sebrell, FL

#13 10:40, May 08, Name not displayed, NC

#12 16:54, Apr 28, Rusty Shackleford, VT

#11 16:52, Apr 28, Rusty Shackleford, CA

#10 12:24, Apr 23, Timothy Lebron, VT

#9 05:34, Apr 23, Maria Korogodsky, VT

#8 19:37, Apr 22, Robert Wagner, VT

#7 11:37, Apr 22, bailey osborne, VT

#6 18:23, Mar 26, Ian Baldwin, VT

#5 15:26, Mar 26, Dennis Morrisseau, VT

#4 14:14, Mar 26, Susie Snow, VT

#3 13:58, Mar 26, Rob Williams, VT

#2 12:55, Mar 26, Cameron Chapman, VT

#1 12:04, Mar 26, Timothy Guiles, VT

Is it any wonder then that I've learned via The Source that former VTCommons publisher, Ian Baldwin, refers to the Free Vermont crowd as "our small community of secessionists."

No doubt, Dennis Steele's backwoods, low-end George Stephanopoulos, Matthew Cropp, who seems also to be afflicted with the Vermont secessionist recessive gene, will plant his foot firmly on his... (well, you know... best to leave the overt, potty mouth stuff to my rumored alter ego) and spin this as a harbinger of the great, great things yet to come since "the only way is up!" Yazz!!!

A neo-Confederacy of Dunces

The chief cook and bottle washer at the propaganda rag "Vermont Commons", Rob Williams, has responded to my request that he show a specific lie on this blog and, as always, like the evasive weasel he seems comfortable to be seen as, he's dodged the request in that full-of-himself manner he favors.

Rather than directly address the request, he spins off into the usual dissembling - read it here. Like Rob, I've been busy and there are a number of other fish to fry. My earlier response was obviously not clear enough. Let's try this: You and I aren't ever going to meet along the lines that you'd like to dictate. Ever. Can you hear me now?

Second: Happy birthday. I hope it'll be a memorable one for you. Since one of your Senate candidates has crowed that Connecticut native, Dennis Steele, will take the majority of gubernatorial votes in the Northeast Kingdom, I'm sure that you're already planning for another shindig in Waitsfield.

Now, if it's true that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, your latest post is a big, long, sloppy, wet one, but the Joseph Goebbels-Big Lie stuff? That'd be over-the-top, even for me. Since you're the Propaganda Minister, and Senate candidate Dennis Morrisseau calls himself the Foreign Minister, and the other Senate candidate, Gaelan Brown, has taken a shine to being appointed the Minister of Commerce and Energy, how 'bout, since we're getting all chatty now, I just call you Herr Döktor - then the circle of Godwin's Law will be complete, no?

As you may by now have probably gathered, but just in case you're too busy to get the obvious, someone's been talking. Lots of locally grown beans are getting spilled.

I'm going to be a very busy blogger.

Thanks for the advice, er, warning regarding "an independent journalist" who's interested in my take on your clown car of candidates. Still waiting on that, but why don't you save her some time and suggest that she read the blog. It's all here.

It's Time For Rob Williams To Put Up or Shut Up

Second Vermont Republic propaganda minister and publisher of its card stacking journal, "Vermont Commons", said six days ago that this blog is guilty of "a series of... posts full of so many lies," while at the same time asking that I participate in a thinly veiled effort by him to normalize his small group through joining him in an unnecessary, staged event. [1]

Williams has been asked that he "post one real lie that (he) claim's been posted here on Vermont Secession" and for six days he's remained silent. Odd when you consider how pissy he got when six hours elapsed from his invite, to the blow-off.

Williams wasn't asked for every one of the "lies," since he says there're so many that he "confess(es) to having lost track of them all."

Really, just one will do, Rob. Otherwise, if you can't cite one, you're nothing more than the shill and propagrandist for a failing effort to politically swindle the people of Vermont, capable of little more than glittery generalities.

And of course, who then really is the liar?