SecessionLeaks and the Mossad?

Who knew?

I've been patiently biding my time waiting for one of the nitwit paranoidiacs in the Vermont secession movement to connect the non-existent dots and claim that Julian Assange's WikiLeaks may somehow be connected to my revelation this fall of the seceshers Free Vermont listserv. None other than the founding father of a non-existent second Vermont republic, Thomas H. Naylor, took the plunge.

"(A)s much as I would like to believe that the aim of WikiLeaks is the destabilization of the U.S. Government, there is another possible scenario that has been given little attention by pundits and Internet junkies. Assange could be an agent of either the CIA or the Israeli Mossad."

"Was it by chance alone that one of the first recent WikiLeaks disclosures was a series of attacks by Arab leaders against Iran and its nuclear program?"

"...Both the Second Vermont Republic and the Texas Nationalist Movement, the two most high-profile secession movements in the United States, have recently been the object of WikiLeaks-like cyber attacks."

"For over a year twenty Vermont Internet cowboys engaged in an intense Internet debate about secession on a private network known as the Free Vermont Framework. All participants thought the network was confidential and secure. They were mistaken. Six weeks before the November 2nd election the content of the network, including all Internet conversations over the past year, was released to three Vermont Technofascist Truth Squad websites which were hostile to the Second Vermont Republic and its election candidates. The leaked information was then used to wage a vitriolic CIA-like smear campaign against SVR and its candidates."

Not so fast, Tom. You got the "Truth" part right but then very little else.

As reported here on October 6, the "leaks" came from a rather benign source,

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

The listserv, the Mailman.net Pipermail, is known to be an insecure archive. It's sort of The InterTubes version of walking around in public in your underwear, with you seemingly being the only one not aware."

Come on, Tom, but weren't the rocket scientist or media expert who created the listserv savvy enough to use a private site rather than a public, searchable site that I could then find using Google?

And just when you'd think that the Second Vermont Republic's baas, Thomas Naylor, couldn't dig that "Israeli Lobby" hole any deeper than he already has, he offered this old canard in his December 28 Internet rant:

"... Wall Street, Corporate America, the Pentagon, and the Israeli Lobby control American radio and television networks and most major newspapers"

Naylor wasn't alone recently in the world of anti-Semitic assertions that Jews control the media. CNN's Rick Sanchez was fired in October for making just such an absurd claim. Naylor's claim is not unlike "Ralph Nader's statement in 2004 that the 'Israeli puppeteer travels to Washington, meets with the puppet in the White House and goes down Pennsylvania Avenue and meets with the puppets in Congress.'"

In fact, Naylor's Israeli Mafia/Lobby obsession so concerned the listserv fools that they communicated extensively about it here. They didn't disagree with him, they just, as was so sensitively articulated by former SVR co-chairman, Rob Williams, thought:

"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?"

"... the thing is I agree with Thomas re Israel."

"The thing is" the stench of anti-Semitism that's attached to SVR and the Free Vermont crowd is of their own making, as is the stench of the uncontested homophobia and racism expressed on the listserv by the Dennis Steele campaign's largest out-of-state contributor, a contribution that the campaign chose to keep even when confronted with the unabashed bigotry of the source.

Watch for more here in 2011 on the Vermont seceshers ongoing reset for their now moribund movement.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *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.


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

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.

The Second Vermont Republic's Has Established It's First Governing Body for Vermont - A Year and a Half Before the 2010 Election!

Update July 29, 2014: Earlier this year, while Council of Censors Founder, Gary Flomenhoft, was unsuccessfully floating a public bank proposal before the Vermont Senate, the website for the by now defunct CofC was shut down. Go figure. The two screencaps below are from the original CofC website.

It seems that inconvenient, troublesome things like elections are not going to be an obstacle to the ambitions of the folks at Thomas Naylor's Second Vermont Republic

For more than three and a half years I've reported on associations, positions and, frankly, the outright wackiness of the Vermont secession movement. In recent weeks I've located a large number of disturbing web postings at the Free Vermont Framework listserv (archives of the list serve can be found here) and there are more of those that I'll be posting about in the coming weeks.

Yesterday there was a particularly interesting and headache inducing post at Green Mountain Daily about the Freeman's Oath and how there may be a conflict in voting for secession candidates and the oath. Today's post here will explore actions by the seceshers that may fall somewhere between seditious and treasonous.

This post will disclose facts and actions that grew from a retreat organized by the "Vermont Commons" editorial board and other SVR members in May of 2009.

Let me start at their beginning.

At the May 2009 retreat, the Second Vermont Republic-"Vermont Commons" crowd held a three-day, weekend retreat at Goddard College in Plainfield, VT that was headlined as "Dreaming Vermont's Destiny". [1] As I've said, the retreat was sponsored by the editorial board of VTCommons.

The working groups assembled and were tasked to "explore key questions (and)... specific problems... in order to take the first meaningful steps towards independence."

One such working group tackled governance and the law.

Here's where things got funky. One member kinda remembered the Council of Censors that existed from 1777 until 1870.

You might want to, at this point, see the Vermont Secretary of State's website for a more accurate history of Vermont Council of Censors here. Sure, it's the Sec. of State's Kid's Page but this is where this probably should have all ended. A second briefer description of the scope of duties of the then Council of Censors is,

"Until 1870, Vermont had a Council of Censors which met decennially at the beginning of the decade to suggest potential constitutional amendments and other governmental reforms." [1]

I'm not even going to try to explain their rationale but what happened next is that they decided that the very legally dissolved entity that served a distinct role in the governance of Vermont during ths state's first century needed to be reborn, and rather than reconstitute this body as it had been, by election of the people of Vermont, they'd cut-to-the-chase and resolve that oh-so-pesky plebiscite obstacle by "self-select(ing)" a renewed Council of Censors. Fact is, the election of the members of the Council of Censors was historically essential to the public acceptance of it actions on the public's behalf.

I got my first inkling of the beginnings of a shadowy or hidden, stealth governmental agency in comments that I found had been made at the Free Vermont listserv by Robert Wagner in October of 2009, presently a state Senate candidate and, then, a self-described "participa(nt) in the Council of Censors". It was Wagner's view that the legally elected legislators of Vermont had "created an immense... body of legislation," and that

"(i)t's the job of the (newly re-constituted, "self-selected" Council of) Censors to strip that away."

Some listserv participants have also called it the Council of Sensors. Potato, potahto, you might say, but still a pretty breathtaking presumption, nonetheless, by this group.

In a mid-December, 2009, post at the listserv, Wagner advised,

"Legislation, both existing and proposed, shall be reviewed by a reconsitituted Council of Censors, for its adherance to the Vermont Constitution. Each government agency shall not exceed its stated mandates.

Legislation that converts rights to privileges shall be nullified."

Perhaps he's also been thinking of the other council powers, described as,

"... (P)rincipally the authority to censure officers of government and to inquire whether public taxes had been fairly laid." [2]

Again, a pretty sweeping recommendation of powers from and for an unelected, self-selected group that had previously been formally and legally dissolved in 1870.

Okay. Here's the the Vermont Council of Censors website that is the first overt act by SVR's Thomas Naylor's and VTCommon's Rob Williams' team to establish a governmening body that they've invested authority into as "The 14th Council of Censors". This sort of stuff usually is taken down fast when I've posted about it but, as with the Free Vermont Framework listserv, the material there has been saved to memorialize this bit of SVR/VTCommons wingnuttery.

Here's how they describe themselves today:

The Council of Censors: An Idea
Whose Time has Come… Again !

Ten of us sat around a table at Goddard College in May of 2009, surrounded by chart paper upon which we had written ideas which we felt should be a part of Vermont’s future governing structures. We were Dreaming Vermont’s Destiny, (coincidentally the title of the retreat that brought us together) and recognizing that some of the present laws that govern Vermont were not in keeping with the high ideals of The Vermont Constitution. It was Gary Flomenhoft who remembered the now abolished section of the Vermont Constitution of 1777, Section 43, which called for the creation of a Council of Censors, whose duties it would be to determine, “whether the legislative and executive branches of government have performed their duty as guardians of the people; or assumed to themselves, or exercised, other or greater powers, than they are entitled to by the constitution. They are also to enquire whether the public taxes have been justly laid and collected, in all parts of this Commonwealth- in what manner the public monies have been disposed of, and whether the laws have been duly executed.” In 1786, they gained the additional mandate, “to enquire whether the constitution has been preserved inviolate, in every part.”

They were to be convened every 7 years for a period of one year. In order to accomplish these functions, the Council was given certain powers: “to send for persons, papers and records; they shall have authority to pass public censures- to order impeachments, and to recommend to the legislature the repealing such laws as appear to them to have been enacted contrary to the principles of the constitution.” Further, “the said Council of Censors shall have the power to call a Convention, to meet within two years after their sitting, if there appears to them an absolute necessity of amending any article of this constitution which may be defective-explaining such as may be thought not clearly expressed, and of adding such as are necessary for the preservation of the rights and happiness of the people…”

We lamented the fact that the Council was abolished in 1870 and thus, the Council’s work had gone undone for 140 years. With a little quick math, we realized that were the Council of Censors to have continued, the 13 members of the 33rd septenary would be due to convene in 2009, “on the first Wednesday of June”. We decided that day, that the Council of Censors had much to do and that we would reconstitute that body to do the necessary work. Rather than “elected by statewide election” as were the original Censors, we would be “self-selected”. A core group formed that day with plans to recruit others to round out the body to 13 members.

With members across the state with families and busy schedules, we took advantage of modern technology to convene as called for on June 4th. via email. A slate of questions was drawn up to decide how we would operate. We elected Rick Scharf of Duxbury to be the Chair. We decided that we would seek consensus but would rely on majority vote (2/3 majority if calling a Convention) as did the first 13 Councils. We voted to include only current Vermont residents as Censors and that in addition to transgressions of Vermont’s Constitution by the State’s legislative and executive branches, we would also be investigating transgressions by the Federal government. Finally, we decided to add the word “provisional” to our name, to be clear that we are not statewide elected as were past Councils.

The first face-to-face meeting of the 14th Provisional Council of Censors took place on October 3rd in Montpelier with 7 Censors attending. At this meeting it was decided that like past Councils we would present a written Address- possibly to be issued incrementally. While the Council of Censors has traditionally had much to say to the legislature (and it was clear that the legislature was listening), they direct their Address “To the Freemen of the State of Vermont”. We wished to operate in the public eye and have kept minutes of our meetings. We endeavored to create a repeatable process which could guide a 15th Council of Censors. Due to the fact that we would be doing 140 years worth of work, we relieved ourselves of the 1 year time limit that past Councils have operated under and recognized that it would likely take us a bit longer to accomplish our task to our satisfaction. We hope at this point to complete our work by the end of 2010.

A list of possible Constitutional violations were compiled and we began to form committees based on the interest and expertise of the Censors. Committees currently exist to investigate:

· Federal deployment of Vermont’s National Guard troops

· “Corporate Personhood”

· State tax collection and use of public monies

· Enclosure of the commons

· The relationship between Federal and State authority with specific regards to Education and Nuclear Power

· The relationship between State and local authority

· Vermont’s Constitutional amendment process

· The keeping of standing armies

· Participatory democracy

We acknowledge that there are more potential violations than we have the time and energy to investigate and welcome the involvement of others willing to assist us.

Membership in the Council has fluctuated as Censors have needed to step down due to other commitments, moving out of state, or to pursue a seat in the Senate. Others have stepped up, and as of this writing, we currently have 11 members.

We expect to be forthcoming with the first portion of our Address in time for the next issue of Vermont Commons. In the meantime, keep abreast of our activities via our website, www.VermontCouncilofCensors.org If you have questions and comments or would like to become involved with our work, contact Rick Scharf at Contact Us. [3]

Fascinating! And we're to first hear from the reconstituted 14th Council of Censors in December of this year, one month after the election!

Thomas Naylor's hand-picked candidate for governor, Connecticut native Dennis Steele, was a regular participant at the Free Vermont Framework listserv when discussions about the Council of Censors occurred, so he certainly must have known all about it.

Perhaps the seceshers at SVR and VTCommons will now say that they were only funnin' around, doing their usual comic opera play acting about their republic idea and it's not really the first step toward goverment takeover.

Sure.

It's time for Dennis Steele to come clean about his knowledge and involvement with this group set up by VTCommons that can only be described as something seditious, bordering on treason.

The "Very Foreign Minister" of Thomas Naylor's Second Vermont Republic, ...

... or the "VFM" as Dennis Morrisseau sometimes signs his communications to his subordinate political aspirants on the Free Vermont Framework listserv, has ideas for the new, proposed Second Vermont Republic that should give every thinking Vermonter pause.

Much of their plan is more than a tad frightening.

Here's a small taste from one of Morrisseau's listserv messages regarding his education proposal:

From: dmorso1 at netzero.net (Dennis Morrisseau)
Date: Sat Dec 19 01:13:40 2009
Subject: [Free Vermont Framework] 30 Position Papers 8. Education

"Let me add to this, fundamental hands on skills....."shops" and everyday living skills have to be gained by all.....in community settings. I see kids in shops, in stores, in libraries and hospitals, interning on the farm in tents and with guitars and campfires and guest "lecturers".........

"I see distance learning techniques in place in use heavily in all classrooms and some just marvellous things being taught to kids at a very early age. Small schools with multiple ages present, kids mentoring kids. (K)ids not isolated from, but integrated into their communities. And learning about the world will fit our kids to visit and understand it as well as any others."

--the VFM

All of this in lieu of, well, a real education plan. Nothing about trained educators in any of that, nor of his background in education and development for children. Much of this is what parents normally decide upon for their children but not in Morrisseau's "Brave New Republic" apparently.

Senate candidate Robert Wagner weighed in with a hearty,

From sticomythia (one of the pseudonyms used at the listserv) at gmail.com Sat Dec 19 11:24:17 2009
From: sticomythia at gmail.com (Sticomythia)
Date: Sat Dec 19 11:24:19 2009
Subject: [Free Vermont Framework] 30 Position Papers 8. Education

"...This is a great vision. I could not say this better. Would you mind cloning yourself please and becoming Minister of Education :) ?"

Yah, cool.

Connecticut native Dennis Steele, Thomas Naylor's hand-picked gubernatorial candidate, was asked by one Vermonter at a recent Vermont forum, just how do the SVR self-styled education experts intend to square their various proposals to return education responsibilities entirely to local communities, and to fund their local, extremely pared down, walk-to school programs throughout the state, with the Vermont Supreme Court's Brigham decision and the Vermont General Assembly's resultant Act 60? Little surprise that Steele completely ducked the question. He was asked,

Question: "Reliance on purely local resources for schools ignores the fact that across Vermont the funding capacity for individual towns varied by 99 to 1 prior to the passage of Act 60. That's one of the strongest reasons why the Vermont Supreme Court held that school funding based principally on local only resources was unconstitutional. How would Mr. Steele expect to reconcile his proposal with the Vermont constitution?"

Steele: "The fact is we have a $60 to $90 million dollar budget shortfall. Decentralising our schools... locally owned and locally funded schools, is important to the communities. I am the father of two young children. I would love nothing more to be able to work with the community, the parents and the teachers, to be able to come up with a curriculum for my children. I don't have that say in this, in the school. The only thing that we can control... we control very little as far as the local school control goes... It's important for that to be there... We need the diversity. If someone wants to in Burlington, if they want to teach their children musical arts, they should be able to do that. If the Northeast Kingdom decides that they want to go agriculture, then they should be able to do that. It's based on what the community wants and what the community needs. We're going to have to look at taking control of our local schools. It's important... centralizing our schools is not the answer. Decentralizing back them to the community and giving the power back to the community is whats important. That's what has to be looked at, especially with these budget shortfalls that we're facing and the fact that the schools are just too big now, and they don't meet the needs of the students. It's important."

Wow! I don't think that Sarah Palin could have ducked the substance of the question, that is, reconciling Steele's proposal with the Vermont constitution and Act 60, as badly or quite as inarticulately for what is basically an unsupportable, poorly thought out, unconstitutional reorganization.

There's a lot that Steele and his group aren't telling Vermonters about their intentions for governance, education, the courts, the constitution and the many institutions that Vermonters rely on for the social and safety network. Actually, the SVR, VTCommons, Free Vermont crowd have been taking steps to address all of this but have made little or no effort to inform the public of their acts. I will post next week about a particularly assuming, overt act.

But back in Morrisseau's "Brave New Republic" he,

"... suggest(s) that the VT Republic limit personal assets to $1,000,000 and personal annual income to the same $1,000.000.

In perpetuity."

Morrisseau has a history of making such screwy, arbitrary proposals. Nearly 22 years ago, one such proposal earned him national notoriety for his idea to give one-way tickets out of town (Burlington) for the homeless and immigrants.

From the New York Times:

Homeless Get Ticket To Leave
By Sally Johnson
Special to the New York Times
November 20, 1988

BURLINGTON, Vt., Nov. 15— Church Street Marketplace is a merchant's dream: a cobblestone mall ringed by the sort of trendy boutiques and cafes that attract the affluent shoppers of this prosperous city. But the area also attracts street people, who are not so welcome.

Dennis Morrisseau, who owns Leunig's Old World Cafe, has devised an answer to the aggressive homeless people he says have harassed his customers and his staff.

His plan is to get rid of the problem, literally: he offers those he people a one-way ticket out of town. A homeless man who Mr. Morrisseau said ''was terrorizing people in town every night'' has taken advantage of the offer.

''He had a long arrest record,'' the cafe owner said. ''He was usually blind drunk and often violent. We called the cops, but often the incident was over before they arrived.''

'It Didn't Seem So Crazy'

The proposal has called attention to a problem that everyone seems to agree will not go away on its own. The proposal has drawn both opposition and support. Recently, 30 opponents of the plan demonstrated in front of Mr. Morrisseau's cafe.

''The problem of homelessness is national tragedy caused by major cutbacks in Federal spending,'' said Bernard Sanders, a socialist who is Mayor of Burlington. ''The solution is not transporting homeless people from one end of this country to another. The solution is to provide affordable housing and counseling.''

Mr. Morrisseau said the idea of relocating the homeless man came to him over dinner with his wife, Laura Thompson. ''At first,'' he said, ''we thought the idea was crazy, but a couple days later, it didn't seem so crazy.''

Their idea became a nonprofit organization, Westward Ho!, which consists of Mr. Morrisseau, Ms. Thompson and Tim Halvorson, another cafe owner on the Marketplace. The group set up a checking account of a few hundred dollars, mostly the members' own funds, along with some donations. Through intermediaries, the group offered the offending homeless man a one-way airplane ticket to Portland, Ore., his hometown. He accepted.

Lucille Bonvouloir, executive director of the Committee on Temporary Shelter, a private, nonprofit organization that operates shelters in Burlington, said she feared that Westward Ho! was part of a growing backlash against the homeless, who number as many as 300 in Burlington, a city of 38,000.

''It's frightening,'' Ms. Bonvouloir said. ''As the people who have more continue to have more, it's harder to be tolerant of the people who have less and less. There are never good economic times for people who don't have a home.'' Practice May Have Precedent

Mr. Morrisseau insists that the relocation effort he expounds is an unofficial policy in many states. ''Law-enforcement people and social workers do it all the time,'' he said, ''but Vermont is normally on the receiving end.''

A woman who has spent several years working with refugees confirmed that the practice exists. ''It's done,'' said the worker, who spoke on the condition that she not be identified. ''I've had one person sent here from New York, and I've heard it talked about at national conferences. The cases are troublesome, and they want them out. But I don't know of any social worker who's done it who would admit to it.''

Mr. Morrisseau estimated that there were ''probably one to two dozen people causing the problem at any given time.'' He insists that their lack of housing is irrelevant to his effort. His goal, he says, is to curb abusive behavior.

Jon Svitazsky, director of the Burlington Emergency Shelter, said: ''I don't think he's a bigot toward the homeless. He is a frustrated man who is trying to raise some important issues. He knew he would sound like a fool and it was worth it to him.'' Support for Proposal

Mr. Morrisseau is not alone in his complaints. While some other Marketplace merchants have said they do not like his idea, he says others have donated money. And William Bradley, vice president and general manager of WVNY-TV, the local ABC network affiliate, supported the idea in an editorial.

''Westward Ho! is an idea that should be welcomed,'' Mr. Bradley said. ''It's being distorted and misrepresented as some sort of Machiavellian plan to force undesirables to leave our city. It's no such thing, but we're not surprised that our local bleeding hearts have chosen to vilify a respected local citizen who's doing something constructive about a real problem.''

While Mr. Morrisseau pointed to complaints of assault and harassment in making his proposal, his critics cite police statistics showing that homeless people are responsible for less than 10 percent of the cases of disorderly conduct and assaults in the Marketplace.

''I don't feel there have been clear distinctions made here,'' said Ms. Bonvouloir of the Committee on Temporary Shelter. ''I don't doubt there are some people on Church Street who are disruptive and anti-social, but that is a police matter.'' Ms. Bonvouloir's group operates two shelters for the homeless in Burlington. One of the committee's shelters, the Waystation, is at the lower end of Church Street. A third shelter in Burlington is operated by a coalition of churches.

Despite the adverse reaction to his proposal, Mr. Morrisseau is undeterred. He indicated he may offer as many as four one-way tickets a year.

Ms. Bonvouloir said her group would not object to a fund to relocate people who truly wanted it, if the offers were made in a spirit of generosity.

Mr. Morrisseau said one such arrangement is in the offing for a homeless woman. ''I had a friend approach me about transporting a refugee from El Salvador, a woman who had been badly tortured, to a torture rehabilitation center in Minnesota,'' he said. ''We agreed to do that.''

Apparently, in addition to some folks being too rich for the liking of the "Very Foreign Minisiter" Morrisseau, some are too poor and disadvantaged. Add to this sort of sentiment SVR's proposed population cap for the state and you have to wonder, who will SVR's Very Foreign Minister Morrisseau come for next?

Rather than a "Brave New Republic," think of it more as a "Back to the Third World" plan. With a ruritanian ruling elite. On steroids.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



More to come.

The Free Vermont/VTCommons/SVR "Hidey Hole"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ah, yes, brainstorming.