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.

Guess Who Thomas Naylor Is Condemning Now

He's already condemned all of Vermont's congressional delegation, statewide office holders and the General Assembly, since they haven't gushed over his plans for a Second Vermont Republic. He's condemned prominent state environmentalists, the churches ("No group is more loyal to the American Empire than are the Vermont clergy"), attorneys, all of the instate media including his former SVR flack, Shay Totten, all of Vermont's colleges, university and public schools. He's likened the Vermont left to the "White Citizen Council" (sic) and the KGB. So what's left?

Why Vermont's voters, of course!

Yes, he's put up another of his tedious screeds. You may be familiar with the style. It's as though he's put all his catch phrases and half-baked theories on refrigerator magnets, swirled them all around on the door and hit print. The only thing new is this gem,

"In spite of the paucity of votes attracted by candidate Steele, his campaign seems to have been perceived as a major threat to someone."

"During the four weeks before the election, Steele and the entire Vermont independence movement were the object of a vicious, CIA-style, cybersmear campaign. Three websites and a well-organized network of anti-secessionists bombarded cyberspace with charges of racism, homophobia, and anti-semitism. The exact nature of the relationship between the smear network and the hostile websites was unclear. What was clear was that the entire effort was extremely well organized and well financed."

Good one, Tom! I've been laughing for days. Glad to see that you're getting a grasp of the obvious, something that's eluded Dennis Steele, his campaign manager Matt Cropp and the rest of that Tin Foil Hat Party campaign. That is, the "paucity of votes attracted by... Steele," your anointed candidate this time around, and that Vermonters weren't buying any of your SVR nonsense.

I did noticed that Naylor didn't go too deeply into why the racism, homophobia and anti-Semitism stuff came up or deny any of it. Figures. He couldn't deny what was posted on the campaign's listserv, could he?

Here's an idea: next time Naylor and his pals decide to launch a campaign where the goal is to not tell Vermonters too much about themselves, they shouldn't leave their collective flies open on a publicly accessible listserv. The racism, homophobia, anti-Semitism, flying saucers, and the secretly, as well as illegitimately, reconstitution of governmental bodies makes the group sound a little, ah, nuts.

Meanwhile, Thomas Naylor's Second Vermont Republic finds itself still "on the radar" of the Southern Poverty Law Center. This morning's interview of SPLC Director Mark Potok on Vermont Public Radio can be heard here. Potok was originally scheduled to be speaking at the Kellogg Hubbard Library, 135 Main Street in Montpelier on Tuesday, November 23 at 7:00 PM. The program is called The State of Hate in America. Potok will discuss "the development of organized hatred and how it might be stemmed... (and) (w)hat accounts for the dramatic growth of hate groups in America."

Due to a larger than expected turnout the talk has been moved across Main Street to the Unitarian Church at 130 Main Street.

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