President's Day

PRI's (Public Radio International) Studio 360 has good Lincoln piece called The Battle of Lincoln that is not recommended for neo-Confederate historical revisionists like the folks at Second Vermont Republic, League of the South or "Vermont Commons".



(Note: Studio 360 has been having a problem on the direct link and may take you to On The Media. If that happens, link to Studio 360 here and click the player on The Battle of Lincoln piece.)

Thomas Naylor's Racist Admirer, James Edwards, Raises The White Flag At "The Political Cesspool"

Literally.

On Wednesday, James Edwards, a white supremacist, homophobic, anti-Semetic radio personality and admirer of former Klansman and neo-Nazi, David Duke, announced that he was throwing in the towel, presumably a white one.   Edwards is a member of the League of the South and attended the Chattanooga Secession conference co-sponsered and organized by by Thomas Naylor; the white supremacist head of the LoS, J. Michael Hill, who has said that slavery is "God-ordained"; and Naylor's Middlebury Institute colleague and Second Vermont Republic member, Kirkpatrick Sale.   The Southern Poverty Law Center has the whole story here.   You can read Edwards' very own swan song here.   JD Ryan pokes a stick into the dead horse for old times sake over at fivebeforechaos.   Major HT goes to Odum for having first spotted the Naylor/Edwards connection.

Edwards' program has been promoted by the Holocaust denial organization known as The Institute for Historical Review (I wonder what their take is on Abraham Lincoln?), the neo-Nazi group Stormfront.org (see banner above from the Stormfront website) and the Council of Conservative Citizens (formerly known as the White Citizen's Council) where Edwards serves as a Board of Directors member, who promised to send out a special "White Christmas" card to anyone making a donation to "The Political Cesspool."

Edwards has called Thomas Naylor "a good Confederate."   That must be true.   Naylor's only appeared on Edwards' program one time less than Edwards' true hero, David Duke.   I can even remember Tom stressing his Southern roots to Edwards and saying how much he wanted to keep in touch with Edwards and his show.   It must be comforting for Edwards to known that there are people in Vermont who will miss him dearly and all that great media exposure he gave you and SVR among his racist and anti-Semite audience, eh Tom?   Of course, that's only likely to be you and those two klansmen, Tom (See "Bad News" ).

But probably no one will miss Edwards more than his neo-Nazi pals at Stormfront.   They're already post their boo hoos and white solidarity crap on a thread that's bound to grow.   Edwards, a "sustaining member" at the Stormfront hate website has posted this:

"Dear Friends:

While I rarely have had the time to post on Stormfront, there is never a day that passes that I don't visit this site. The support that we have received from Derek and Don Black, Jamie Kelso, David Duke and everyone else here has been absolutely astonishing.

I announced the end of Political Cesspool on Wednesday morning, when Stormfront was down. I will now copy and paste my original letter below, for anyone who may be interested.

As long as there is life in us, we will continue to fight together, my brothers and sisters.

Thanks for always being there.

With Love and Respect,

James Edwards"

Perhaps Edwards best summed up the folly of it all best in his farewell address:

"It’s been said that sharks die if they aren’t swimming. Well, similar to the Great White, I’d die if I were not contributing to the survival of our race."

Great white... sigh.

Finally, A Poll On Secession in Vermont That We Can Use...

... or, "Second Vermont Republic Fails To Get On Any Town Meeting Ballots Despite Its Assurances To The Contrary"

Yesterday, AP's John Curran had a story on the failure of Vermont's secessionist tag team, the Second Vermont Republic and Vermont Commons', to get a secesssion question on even one of Vermont's Town Meeting ballots.

This is more significant than it might appear from the spin Rob Williams tries to give in the Curran story.

"The message is that the idea of Vermont independence is a new and radical idea, and it's not an idea people are going to come to easily," said Williams, of Waitsfield. "We're under no illusions. It's a difficult idea to accept. Once you sort of acknowledge that it's a viable option, people are willing to explore it.

"But this is our first year of getting this going,"

SVR has repeatedly promoted a poll that it has yet to admit to Vermonters that it commissioned and that it claims showed 8% support among Vermonter voters for secession in 2006.   SVR also claims that the support increased to 13% in 2007 for that same group. (Readers should take note of the fact that I've discovered Thomas Naylor has "disappeared" numerous posts on his website that I've cited here, such as those having to do with his phony polls except for this last embedded reference to it, his failed legislative team, and others.)

"Once you sort of acknowledge that it's a viable option, people are willing to explore it?"

Let's see, when voters are asked, "Should Vermont secede from the United States and become independent?" and supposedly 8% and then later 13% of them answer yes, that isn't an indication of acceptance or support for the idea as "a viable option?"   Come on.   That kinda spin must make even Rob dizzy.   When you then take into account that in Waitsfield, the community that must be considered VTCommons' base of support both in terms of advertising support for its publication and in fund raising, Williams (who has family serving in town government) was unable to gather the 5% of signatures of registered voters needed to get a secession question on the Waitsfield Town Meeting ballot.   Hell, apparently he couldn't even get 3% of the town's registered voters to sign his petition.   Other calls to Thomas Naylor's or his SVR Legislative Team leader Peter Moss' hometowns, Charlotte and Fairfax, failed to reveal any effort whatsoever to get a secession question on their own Town Meeting ballots.

Last month, in answer to my question to him about their progress in putting the secession question on Town Meeting ballots, Moss told me in writing that,

"Yes, some towns have secession resolutions on the town meeting ballot."

No doubt the lying could be chalked up to a typical politician's machinations in pursuit of objectives that have little public support, but is lying really the best method to advance such objectives in the face of such underwhelming support?   The more Vermonters come to know this present crop of secessionists and its supporters, the less likely it is that Vermonters will find their style acceptable and worthy of support.   That the leaders at SVR and VTCommons are dishonest can not be denied, but will Vermonters be any less inclined to repudiate their agenda when they learn that at least one blogger for VTCommons finds segregation (euphemistically called "homogeneous communities") acceptable, even a desireable consequence of secession?

Perhaps it's the self-delusion and not just the political dishonesty that caused Rob put this "best face" post up on the matter.   Complete failure to meet any of the legislative goals set for the 2008 Town Meeting can't be considered a good start for 2009.   More bullshit won't make the SVR Legislative Team look any better.   You see, when I asked Moss if there were any who were running for office this year as committed secessionists he answered,

"Yes, a few have registered for membership. We are a long ways from 50% + 1 we need for a binding secessaion declaration, but we are working at it."

Care to say who these candidates are?   Rob?   Peter?   Tom?   Anyone?

And please, don't tell me that they're anonymous for now.

UPDATE: JD Ryan at fivebeforechaos has more on Naylor and Williams' slouching towards secession.   The idea of a real discussion about secession is being explored at Green Mountain Daily, as well.   That'd be a refreshing change from the lies and delusions floated by the SVR and VTCommons crowd.

-----------------------------------

UPDATE (2/16): The Anti-Neo-Confederate makes mention of this post here.   I strongly urge those interested in revelations about the neo-Confederate movement outside of Vermont to check it out.

What A Difference A Year Can Make

Last year when I first heard of the Second Vermont Republic I had no idea where this would lead when I decided to put up a blog.   I did sense from what I'd learned initially that there was something "wrong" about the group but really I had no inkling of the depth of intellectual dishonesty that permeates the neo-Confederate movement, of which SVR is very much a part, or of the role Thomas Naylor and his cohorts at "Vermont Commons" were playing in the "Vermont secession" charade.

What I'd first thought was a possibility, that the whole "Vermont secession" thing was just a "boiling frog" scenario intended to dupe Vermonters into being the front group for a plot by a neo-Confederate cabal that Naylor has had a long, long involvement with, has turned out to be true.   Naylor spelled it out when he said that the plan was "to provide an example and a process for other states and nations which may be seriously considering separatism, secession, independence, and similar devolutionary strategies."   It turned out to be pretty much the only card in his deck and now that everyone's seen his hand the game appears to be over, at least where Vermont is concerned.

Whenever Vermonters look into secession, this seems to be where they ending up finding out "the whole story," i.e. the parts that Thomas Naylor and Rob Williams at SVR and VTCommons would rather Vermonters not find out about.   While the traffic here has been miniscule in blog terms (8,500+ hits since I started counting), it has served to get the truth out about SVR.   Even that wouldn't have been possible without the assistance of a number of Vermont blogs, most notably John Odum at Green Mountain Daily and JD Ryan at fivebeforechaos.   Out of state web resources such as the Anti-Defamation League, the Southern Poverty Law Center, the Anti-Neo-Confederate and others have been invaluable websites for finding the information that "put the pieces together" regarding Thomas Naylor's longterm, deep ties with the white supremacist, neo-Confederate movement.   The thoughts, comments and suggestions of Odum, JD, the SPLC's Intelligence Director, Mark Potok, Ed Sebesta at the Anti-Neo-Confederate, as well as many others, have all served to improve the quality of what's been posted here and this blog would have been poorer indeed were it not for each of them.

I'd understood that "there m(ight) be some heat as I shed light on the topic of secession," but I never thought that I'd get the number of threats that I did that started this past fall and have continued up until last week.   One secessionist even went so far as to put the lie to Naylor's oft stated malarkey that his is a "genteel revolution."   According to the most recent attempt at intimidation by one obvious nutcase, who also happens to blog at VTCommons and does web work for other secessionists like Kirkpatrick Sale at the Middlebury Institute, this blog promotes "dissension" which will lead to a "violent civil war."   I guess the message we're to take away is that if we Vermonters won't quietly come forward to drink the KoolAid, there'll be trouble.

It'd been my intention to wind things down as the anniversary date approached.   SVR is a spent group with little crediblity or support in Vermont any longer, but the continuing threats and blatant attempts to intimidate have now changed that intention.   The blog will remain as a chronology of Naylor and his allies now almost comically tragic pursuit of nihility.

Super Tuesday

Someone needed to say it.   With all the focus on Hillary, Obama, McCain, Romney and Huckabee, lost in the shuffle for delegates has been the darling of secessionists, nativists and white supremacists, Ron Paul.   At the moment he's got four, count'em, four delegates and is arguing that he's upped his count by 75% in West Virginia.   Unfortunately for him and his supporters, nobody knows WTF he's talking about. If the delegate count thus far for Ron Paul is any indicator, the folks at the Second Vermont Republic and Vermont Commons should note that secession today is deader than it was in 1865 and just keeps getting deader.

Race Matters

Last year, perhaps as a response to this blog having gone live and certainly as an effort to gin up the quality of the image of supporters of the Second Vermont Republic after disclosure of its ties to the League of the South , Naylor wrote of his correspondence with George Kennan, the so-called "father of containment" of communism theory and who also possessed a fondness for European dictatorships.   Naylor hopes that Kennan might someday be thought of as the godfather of SVR. [1] [2]

In his piece Naylor excerpted one letter from May 1, 2002, where Kennan wrote,

“All power to Vermont in its effort to distinguish itself from the U.S.A. as a whole, and to pursue in its own way the cultivation of its own tradition.”

Nowhere in Naylor's piece about Kennan's support for SVR is there what I found in the Bill Kaufmann piece in The American Conservative magazine about SVR, presumably from that same 2002 letter Naylor quotes from:

"Ah, but there is a complication. Kennan was attracted to the Second Vermont Republic partly because he deplored the Hispanicization of the United States. Instancing Mexican immigration, Kennan saw 'unmistakable evidences of a growing differentiation between the cultures, respectively, of large southern and southwestern regions of this country, on the one hand,' and those of 'some northern regions,' including Vermont. In the former, 'the very culture of the bulk of the population of these regions will tend to be primarily Latin-American in nature rather than what is inherited from earlier American traditions.'”

“'Could it really be that there was so little of merit' in the American Republic, asked Kennan, 'that it deserves to be recklessly trashed in favor of a polyglot mix-mash?'” [3]

"Complication" indeed.   SVR being viewed and applauded by Kennan as a potential antidote to or bulwark against the untidy results of race-mixing.   The "race mixing" problem is one that is also a concern of other SVR supporters such as David Duke admirer, James Edwards.

I remember that then SVR Co-chair Rob Williams, who now runs "Vermont Commons", said at the 2006 Secession Conference in Burlington, VT, that "Secession is not a racist plot!" [4]   Why is it then that one needn't dig very deep into the thinking of SVR's intellectual supporters, like the LoS or Kennan, to find white supremacist or anti-miscegenational sentiments?

Thomas Naylor's State of Denial About the Second Vermont Republic

Just when I thought that there wasn't much else that Thomas H. Naylor could do to make the Second Vermont Republic appear more ridiculous than it already is, he just climbs right back into that clown car and heads for the cliff.

On Monday, after having already insulted many millions of Americans by scheduling his poorly attended North-South Secession Summit celebratory dinner where he entertained Southern racist bigwigs from the League of the South in the Vermont capitol on the birth date of an American hero , Dr. Martin Luther King, Naylor issued a ludicrously entitled State of the Second Vermont Republic statement on the Martin Luther King Day holiday itself.   This followed closely on the heels of his equally ridiculous and pompous "Dispatch To The Governor Of Vermont: Mayday! The Ship Is Going Down!"   In Tom's comic opera, imaginary world where a Second Vermont Republic has come to exist, I suppose that it logically would fall to me to deliver the rebuttal to his, uh, address.

2007 was a very bad year indeed for Thomas Naylor's Second Vermont Republic.

It began with Vermont bloggers exposing his previously unnoticed connections to the white separatist organization called the League of the South.   Green Mountain Daily's John Odum and JD Ryan at five before chaos, as well as this small blog, spread the word about the previously unknown connections of SVR and Naylor to, and his outright support for, out-of-state racialist ideologues, Lincoln historical revisionists, a League of the South ex-con, gold "expert," and religious fanatics who proposed a theocratic, exclusionary, heterosexist state.   Initial reaction from SVR leaders was to engage in pure sophistry, likening any interaction with people such as the League of the South and Christian Exodus for the purpose of furthering mutual advancement and success, to that of supporting free speech. Hardly a fair comparison. It's one thing to advocate respect for a neo-Nazi to speak; it's quite another to help him to find the matches to light the ovens.

Alliances and Working With Racists and Anti-Semites

While Naylor regularly railed against the racism of the United States government, he clearly had no compunctions about inviting known racist ideologues to join his advisory board; or with jointly sponsoring conventions and "summits" with known white supremacist groups; or by participating repeatedly in hate radio station interviews with a well-known white supremacist, who is an ardent supporter of former Klansman and neo-Nazi, David Duke, and a proponent of holocaust denial, James Edwards of the Memphis based Political Cesspool, a fact that Naylor makes no mention of in his many boastful recitations of his press coverage.

Revanchism, Retrenchment and Recriminations

As outrage across the state mounted and the SVR leadership's response grew increasingly combative and offensive, to the point where Naylor sought to damage the employment of one blogger by lodging a false charge, the Vermont press began, for the very first time, to cover the SVR story as something more than a typical Vermont "story" of quirky cuteness.   Naylor cancelled a March public meeting fearing the growing public demand that he directly address the allegations and say, once and for all, that he would not ally Vermonters with out of state white supremacist organizations.   Vermont's Bread & Puppet Theatre ended its public relationship with SVR.   Naylor at SVR and Williams at VTCommons began a purge of members of the advisory board and editorial staff who raised questions and took issue with the policy of ignoring the possible racism of the out of state advisory boards members.   Community ire grew over Naylor and Williams unwillingness to transparently confront the concerns that had arisen, and not merely to the charges of a growing number of bloggers and journalists.   After author and environmentalist activist Bill McKibben's copyrighted works were abruptly removed from VTCommons this Spring, McKibben's environmental efforts were then criticized by Naylor.

Major Media Setbacks at Home

Even as SVR and VTCommons board members and editors were successfully orchestrating favorable, uncritical and "isn't that Vermont quirky" puff pieces in the national press, things at home took a decided turn for the worse.   Vermont newspapers echoed the concerns of most Vermonters and called on SVR to severe ties with its racist allies.   Vermont's Pulitzer prize winning newspaper, The Rutland Daily Herald printed an editorial opposing secession.   Writer and former Washington correspondent for the Chicago Tribune, and regular panelist on Vermont Public Television's "Vermont This Week," Jon Margolis, wrote a stinging op-ed lumping SVRers in with a cast of state "whiners."   At the height of statewide media and public furor of the growing revelations, and in perhaps SVR's greatest setback on the propaganda front, Vermont's largest award winning, weekly alternative publication, Seven Days, suddenly dropped a quarterly distribution deal of 40,000 copies of Vermont Commons, run by then SVR co-chair Rob Williams. The VTGuardian, which had also distributed VTCommons in its early days and had permitted an SVR member to write uncritical and largely favorable articles in the past without disclosing his relationship to the group, also called on SVR and VTCommons to disassociate themselves from racist and Christian Identity elements of the secession movement.

The Poll

As a part of a concerted plan to show that support for secession exists and is growing, SVR/Naylor has repeatedly alluded to a "UVM poll" in 2007 called the Vermonter Poll that shows support for secession grew from 8% of eligible Vermont voters in 2006 to 13%.   Problem is that there is no published poll from UVM showing those results, just the claim from Naylor and his colleagues.   This blog discovered and published the first questions and methodology (see links section at right), and serious questions remain about who, in fact, created the poll, as well as the validity and value of the results.   Worse still has been the national media's failure to perform its obligation for due diligence in merely repeating Naylor's questionable assertions about the poll.   In a Summer interview on The Political Cesspool Naylor admitted that SVR had commissioned the poll.   Will Thomas Naylor release the questions that he used for his poll in 2007 for comparison to his questions in the 2006 poll?   If they differ, it's unlikely that he'd release them as that would further undermine his claims about support.

Political

In the late Spring, Naylor announced the formation of an SVR Legislative Team.   Naylor named Peter Moss as the team's leader whose stated "objective is to recruit, support, and eventually elect enough secessionists to call a statewide convention to consider and adopt articles of secession calling for the return of Vermont to its status as an independent republic."   Moss spoke to a nearly empty Vermont State House Chamber on January 14 of this year.   No Vermont legislator, statewide office holder or member of Vermont's Congressional delegation has indicated support for SVR or secession in any fashion whatsoever.   No Town Meeting has indicated that they will carry a question about secession, let alone the 200 that is now being reported by out-of-state pro-secessionists.   In an apparent concession to its obvious lack of any success whatsoever, SVR has deleted all reference to its legislative team from its website.

In the Fall of 2006, the SVR announced that it had three strategic objectives:

1. Approval of articles of secession by a two-thirds majority of a state convention called by the Vermont legislature.
2. Recognition of the independent Republic of Vermont by the U.S. government and the international community.
3. Political, economic, social, cultural, and environmental sustainability.

So far, SVR has been completely unsuccessful in each of these endeavours.

Money

In his address Thomas Naylor denied a charge that to the best of my knowledge has never been publicly made, and so that denial now raises more important questions.   Who has paid for the print run and distribution of VTCommons?   Who subsidises the conferences, summits, dinners and travel stipends to which SVR brings its racist colleagues from the League of the South?   Who paid for the 2006 and 2007 Center for Rural Studies/UVM "Vermonter Poll"?

Questions for SVR in 2008

Will SVR continue to alienate so many Vermonters by failing to confront its deeply troubling affiliations with racist groups and theocratic ideologues?   Will Thomas Naylor abandon committing deeply offensive symbolic acts that violate the sensibilities of the average Vermonter, such as his recent meeting with the white supremacist League of the South on Martin Luther King's birth date?   Will Thomas Naylor persist in incorporating Vermont into his goofy Potemkin village built of phony polls, of grand sounding pronouncements about empty programs and of insults directed at virtually all segments of the state's community?   The answer is, only if his agenda is not that of the Southern racists to whom he has given so much of his effort and allegiance to advance.

Who knows what new revelations will come out in 2008 concerning Thomas Naylor and his friends at SVR and VTCommons, as well as his many friends in the neo-Confederate community?   Well, here's a sign of the direction that Naylor may be heading in from a recent grand sounding pronouncement issued by SVR:

Lakota Independence Resolution
Body

Be it resolved that the citizens of the Second Vermont Republic do hereby recognize the Lakota Indians as a separate and independent nation with whom we pledge our solidarity and support.

Be it further resolved that other Native American tribes also be encouraged to declare their rightful independence from the United States of America.

January 15, 2008
The Second Vermont Repubic [1]

After having looked at quite of few of the hundreds of stories written about this so-called secession of the Lakota nation, that may in fact be nothing more than another small group like Naylor's, rather than the Lakota tribal council, it's clear that SVR hasn't a firm grasp of the many issues involved in this incident.   But I'll save that for another post, like perhaps when Naylor names an ambassador or diplomatic delegation to the "new" Lakota nation.

Stay tuned.

Martin Luther King Day

I don't normally post on holiday occasions but this is one holiday that is of immense importance to millions across the country, as well as to many Vermonters.   Those of us who were a part of the civil rights struggle in the 60's and beyond have a special affinity for this occasion.   Dr. King, the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, a Congressional Gold Medal and so many other awards and accolades including, my own personal favorite, a Grammy, was one of the great 20th century contributors to peace and to human history.   The Montgomery Bus Boycott that he led inspired a generation.

What a shame then that on January 15, the anniversary of Dr. King's birth, Thomas H. Naylor, head of the Second Vermont Republic, held a dinner to which he invited leaders of the white separatist organization, League of the South, that I've written previously about, celebrating their attendance at a North-South Secession Summit he had convened here in Vermont.

After so many months of his denying any connection to the leadership of the LoS, it seems odd that Naylor would then go out of his way to schedule two conferences with the LoS, one of which was held on the King birth date.   Or maybe it isn't so odd after all.

Secessionists Stage State House Sideshow

This past Monday a letter appeared in the Burlington Free Press from Peter Moss who in June of last year became head of the Second Vermont Republic Legislative Team, and who was tasked with "recruiting candidates for the Vermont Legislature who are committed to Vermont independence."   Moss touched on a number of issues in his letter to the Free Press.   Unfortunately, while doing so, he chose to use the language of intolerance by announcing that he'd "formed a temporary coalition of independents to "take back" the state government."   A controversy over similar usage erupted two weeks ago over at Green Mountain Daily when someone attempting to "reinvigorate" the discussion on health care used similar "hot button" terminology that hearkens back to a time Moss certainly must remember, when intolerant Vermonters sought to marginalize and oppress many of their neighbors in the gay and lesbian community.   Given SVR's continuing perception problem over alliances with other champions of intolerance, such as the League of the South, I would think SVR's Legislative Team leader might have been better advised than to use code words for intolerance that have been directed in the past at his fellow Vermonters.   Most reasonable people cringe when they hear those words "Take Back" used in any political discussion, and rightfully so considering its awful usage in the past.  

Moss' letter in the Free Press was also an announcement of a publicity stunt scheduled for the same day in the House chamber of the State House, where he appeared with "Vermont Commons" contributing editor Jim Hogue.   During the event, Moss announced to a nearly empty chamber:

"This coalition has two positions. To uphold the Constitution, and to replace the criminals that masquerade in these hallowed halls."

Hogue, who has previously run for governor in 2004, stopped short of announcing a candidacy for statewide office, although the purpose of that day's event was to do exactly that.   Hogue said,

"Last time, I ran on a platform of 9/11 fact-finding, paper ballots and bringing soldiers back from Iraq. If I ran again, I don't see why those three items wouldn't remain, in addition to impeachment."

Impeachment?   Given that the inauguration for Vermont's statewide offices occur only a week or two prior to the inaugurations at the Federal level, and given that George Bush and Dick Cheney, the present targets of the Vermont impeachment efforts will leave office within weeks of Hogue's potential ascension to a statewide position, just how could he possibly achieve such a result even were he to, say, unseat Peter Welch, not to mention his embroiling our already financially strained state government into such obsessions as 9/11 conspiracism?

Like the SVR North-South Secession Summit dinner held the following night across the street from the State House, the Moss/Hogue stunt was poorly attended.   And while Moss attributed the low turnout due to the snowy conditions that day, I would note for my Southern readers that the amount of snow that day in the capitol area, though of a depth that in the southern region of our country causes massive disruption, here in Vermont people just go about their daily business when such minor amounts fall.

Maybe the SVR/VTCommons legislative team will rely on a convergence of what their fellow bloggers at VTCommons have said about "creation beams" and sunspot activity [1] [2] [3] to fill out their ticket and develop their upcoming election strategy.

We should all hope so, if only for the entertainment value.

Thomas Naylor's Ho-Hum Banquet

There's really no other way to describe the turnout for the Second Vermont Republic's so-called Vermont Independence Day Banquet other than to say it was disappointing.

For an organization that originally claimed a membership of 125 [1] and growing, the assemblage of 20+ guests (taking into account that number included North-South Secession Summit participants, SVR leadership family members and a surprisingly small "Vermont Commons", uh, "contingent") was an unusually low turnout.   The Winter edition of VTCommons was nowhere to be seen, just a stack of leftover Fall edition copies in the banquet hotel lobby.

The conversation was pretty much as I expected, just more of Thomas Naylor's Middlebury Institute colleague Kirkpatrick Sale and his cherry-picking facts to arrive at intellectually dishonest conclusions and the like.

Did learn one new thing though.   One League of the South member doesn't have such a peaceable view of the coming governmental response to secession and how that might be addressed.   While speaking to a local author Thomas Moore, a VA LoSer and head of the Southern National Congress, said that "When this criminal regime comes for us," state militias like Vermont's National Guard will have an important role defending the secession process.

Whoa, never saw that one coming!   Naylor, et al, have stressed repeatedly that for secession to succeed in must be a peaceable process or at least that's what they say in their press releases.   Sometimes I guess you have to be the proverbial fly on the wall to hear the real story.   Nowhere have I read in their literature that they plan for potentially mobilizing state Guard units in the event that the federal government might seek to roundup secession leadership, most likely pursuant to the holding in Texas v. White that acts of secession by legislatures are null.   I'd suggest that they learn something about Vermont's National Guard history [2] before they bet the farm on the Guard supporting a secession scheme hatched by our magnolia Vermonter and his racist pals at the League of the South.   When Gov. Chittenden, a newly elected Federalist, sought to return the state militia that was under federal military control from New York state during the War of 1812, "The officers of the brigade... flatly refused to obey." [3]

Perhaps if Tom took his Southern secessionist friends over to Vermont's State House, as I suggested below, and if they stepped into the Hall of Inscriptions that houses Lincoln's large bust they might have looked at the inscription by our thirtieth president and fellow Vermonter,

"If the spirit of liberty should in the other parts of the Union and support for our institutions should languish, it could all be replenished from the generous store held by the people of this brave little state of Vermont."
- Calvin Coolidge, 1928

A Suggestion For Thomas Naylor and His League of the South Visitors For Tomorrow Afternoon

Thomas N. Naylor, founder of the now discredited Vermont based secessionist group, Second Vermont Republic, and his partner at the Middlebury Institute, Kirkpatrick Sale, are continuing their effort to convince the outside world that there is a broad secession movement in the United States.   Just as they put together a "2nd Secessionist Convention" held in Chattanooga, TN on Oct. 3 & 4, 2007 that just happened to piggy-back with the annual League of the South convention, also to be held in Chattanooga on Oct. 6 & 7, they've scheduled a Vermont Independence Day Banquet in "conjunction" with their North-South Secession Summit dinner.

An examination of who attended their convention in October shows that the bulk and real base of the "secession movement" continues to be almost exclusively the neo-Confederate white nationalist/separatist/supremacist movement, nearly all of whom are present and former League of the South (LoS) members.   Here's a glimpse into the makeup and the minds of the secessionists who attended Naylor and Sale's effort to create the impression that there's a large, growing secession movement.   Barely 15-20 people at the table, with a few observers and press scattered about the room, and yet Naylor would have us believe that the body of the group represented a great national cross section of secessionists that he refers to as some sort of new Red State-Blue State hogwash, er, paradigm "committed to the peaceful breakup of the Empire."   Nor do tomorrow night's banquet and dinner represent the first time that the MSM has missed the connection between Sale and the LoS.   Here are delegates from the Chattanooga convention:

• Cory Burnell - virulently homophobic head of Christian Exodus and former northeast Texas LoS regional director
• Eugene C. Case - LoS Director - MS
• Dexter O. Clark - Vice Chr, Alaska Independence Party
• Lynette Clark - Chr, Alaska Independence Party
• Michael Hill - President of LoS - AL
• Walter D. Kennedy - an LoS founder and a co-author of The South Was Right! and Myths of American Slavery - considered a presidential run for the Southern Party in 2000 - in 2008 set up a presidential exploratory committee for a run in the GOP primaries - GA
• Larry S. Kilgore - TX Secession and former colleague of Cory Burnell at TX LoS - Also, a fundamentalist Christian candidate in the March 2008 Republican Texas Senate Primary whose platform includes "Texas seceding from the United States to become a sovereign Christian Nation and the implementation of Biblical Law."
• Thomas R. McBerry, Jr. - LoS Director and GA gubernatorial candidate, who also runs DixieBroadcasting, an online radio hosting service that carries, among other hard line neo-Confederate programming, the racist and anti-Semitic James Edwards' Political Cesspool - GA
• Thomas Moore - Chr, Southern National Congress and author of The Hunt For Confederate Gold - LoS - VA
• Thomas N. Naylor - SVR, now of VT but for much of his life VA, MS and a longtime friend of the LoS
• Robert Pritchett - unk
• Kirkpatrick Sale - Middlebury Institute - NY
• Franklin Sanders - ex-con - LoS Director - TN
• Mark A. Thomey - LoS Director & Chr, LALoS - LA
• "General" David Towery - Chief of Staff/Chief of Security, Confederate Legion - TN
• Michael C. Tuggle - Chair, NCLoS & LoS Director

It's important to note that there were almost no "delegates" not directly associated with the Middlebury Institute (Naylor & Sale) or the League of the South, except for an Alaskan husband and wife who had their travel expenses paid by the Middlebury Institute and the LoS.   This is not the first time that Naylor and Sale have paid the way of people to a convention so that there'd be someone (anyone!) there that wasn't a dyed in the wool, fire-breathing neo-Confederate from the white supremacist League of the South.   As a matter of fact, Naylor and Sale used the same method of paying for window dressing at their last convention in Burlington and, you guessed it, the Alaskan couple were there.   This type of strategy, designed to give the impression of broader support for secession and their events than actually exists, is what leads Naylor to pull such cheap tricks like his bait & switch banquet designed to fool Vermonters into having dinner with his League of the South friends at the Capitol Plaza Hotel tomorrow night.

Given the number of readers of my post below who are now aware of Naylor's seedy scheme to trick Vermonters into dining with his neo-Confederate friends, you'd think that he'd at least have been a little more forthcoming by now but, nope, not a chance.   The calendar notices and advertising for his event, that he'll more likely use later as publicity misinformation, have been few indeed.   Not even his sister organization, VTCommons, has publicized it.   Here's the calendar submission for his event that he has in this past week's SevenDays that once again has not a word about the North-South Secession Summit dinner that he's holding for his LoS friends in conjunction with his Vermont Independence Day Banquet in the same room:

VERMONT INDEPENDENCE DAY BANQUET
Would-be secessionists hobnob with environmental and anti-sprawl activists at a celebration of Green Mountain State self-reliance. Keynote speakers include Middlebury Institute Director Kirkpatrick Sale and Stephen Morris, author of The New Village Green. Capitol Plaza Hotel, Montpelier, reception 6 p.m., buffet dinner 7 p.m., speakers 8 p.m. $35. Reservations and info, 425-4133.

Maybe he's hoping to dupe unsuspecting Vermont legislators who stay at the banquet hotel, the Capitol Plaza, when the legislature is in session as it is this week.

That said, maybe there'll be time before the dinner for Naylor to take his Southern guests across the street to Vermont State House Hall of Inscriptions to see the large bust of Abraham Lincoln carved by Larkin Goldsmith Mead, who also carved the original statue that first topped the State House dome.   There probably won't enough time for them to hear about Vermont's many efforts, contributions and sacrifices to thwart the secessionists of 1861 that originated from that building during the Civil War but certainly, if they take a moment to ask today's Vermont legislators or visitors to the VT State House, they'll learn how proud Vermonters are of their ancestors contributions and sacrifices to end the Southern slave economy and preserve the Union.

Certainly they won't want to go back home having missed the large wall-sized painting in the Cedar Creek Room on the second floor of the State House commemorating the Civil War Battle of Cedar Creek where the Vermont Brigade delivered a crushing defeat to the Confederacy, ending any further rebel threat to Washington, D.C.   It'd give them something meaningful to discuss at their dinner that, unfortunately for them, won't take their minds far from their unbroken record of failure in the cause of secession.

So long as Naylor and Sale make hobnobbing with racists a tine of the trident in their weapon metaphor for the "new" so-called non-violent secession movement, they're doomed to continue this long record of failure.

A Vermont Secessionist's Call To Arms

Marc Awodey, over at VT Secessionist, has posted a call to arms, at both his blog and at OpEdNews.com, to Vermonters who wish to move past the disaster that Thomas N. Naylor, founder and supreme ruler of the Second Vermont Republic, has made of the idea that Vermonters might secede and form a republic meaningful to all Vermonters and not just as an adjunct to an elite corps of Naylor's neo-Confederate schemer friends from the League of the South.

Awodey says that...

"... (Thomas N. Naylor's) role as a leader and founder of contemporary Vermont secessionist thought will always be acknowledged, however, as one of our leaders he should realize that his personal statements and affiliations matter. Those prominent in the movement should live up to the mantle of leadership they’ve assumed by abandoning pet causes, and by speaking judiciously to the media and to our citizens. Lincoln revisionism, for example, has crept into Vermont secessionist dialog: why? It's (a) slap in the face of Vermont's (Civil War )history. Vermont contributed more troops per capita than any Northern state to defeat the slave holding oligarchy, and out troops suffered an unequaled 15% casualty rate in the war. The descendants of those farmers and tradesmen who went to war are the people we should honor in our noble cause of Vermont Independence - not alienate by saying their grandfathers were stooges or duped into their graves."

Further, that...

"... (p)et causes enmeshed with the independence movement do it great harm. Why have Vermont secessionists found it important to band together with other North American secessionist groups, regardless of beliefs? At the First North American Secessionist convention, in Burlington in 2005, representatives from fundamentalist Christian groups, neo- Confederates, and other right wing extremists were welcomed into the Green Mountain State. There is no reason to form alliances with such groups, especially ones that an overwhelming majority of Vermonters would certainly consider unsavory."

"Our secessionist movement should focus on gaining allies WITHIN our borders. We must be working from our own history..."

Getting to the heart of it, Awodey says that

"(w)hile there is no elected leadership in the Vermont independence movement there clearly are leaders, and I’m concerned that the personal agendas of some high profile people in the movement have diminished the independence movement's impact."

and

"... destructive to our credibility has been adherence to the 9/11 “truth” fad. 9/11 conspiracism is totally alien to the sober mindset of most Vermonters, and indeed virtually all of the central tenants of truthers have been thoroughly refuted..."

"We can let extreme positions in cause célèbre issues like Peak Oil, and 9/11 conspiracism project our identity to Vermonters. Or we can begin to lay a firmer foundation built an understanding of Vermont’s history, and what the concerns of moderate Vermonters actually are. The latest incarnation of the Vermont secession movement will whither and die in the post Bush era, unless it begins to appeal to moderates in Vermont’s body politic."

I would only add that the proponents of these extreme positions, Naylor, Sale and Williams, are in reality more closely aligned to anarcho-primivitist claptrap than to a rational view of how we might successfully deal with societal resource dilemmas that face us all in future.

"Secessionist leaders - including contributers to the online editions "Vermont Commons"
- who have painted themselves into a corner with 9/11 conspiracism need to start repairing the damage by focusing on Vermont concerns, rather than trying to fix the United States."

"Vermont first, Vermont foremost. And let Vermont independence be our only cause. Perhaps the time has come for a Republic of Vermont secessionist legislature to be formed, to inaugurate a leadership that will formulate real political policy?"

"... We’ve embarked on a very long march toward the goal of establishing a nation state that lives within its means, respects other peoples, and treads lightly on the environment. One hundred years from now our descendants will see us as either prescient, or as babbling idiots. Which shall it be my friends? Which shall it be?"

Marc Awodey,
Burlington

Is The Ron Paul Revolution Really Just Revolting?

I'm going to diverge only slightly today from my usual monitoring of the activities of Thomas Naylor's Second Vermont Republic to exam an aspect of the growing power of secessionist supporters like Ron Paul.   During the course of gathering information for this blog over the past 11 months, I've repeatedly come across secessionist principals associated with Thomas Naylor's SVR and "Vermont Commons", as well as secessionist websites and chats, supporting Ron Paul's candidacy.

Perhaps as interesting has been the support that Ron Paul has also been getting among neo-Confederates, Aryans, white nationalists, neo-Nazis and the like.   Many of them view him as a stealth candidate for their interests.   Many of their websites fund raised on his behalf.   This fall Ron Paul refused to return the campaign donation that he'd received from Don Black, the owner of the neo-Nazi website, Stormfront.org.   We know the furor that erupted when Hillary accepted and returned a contribution from a convicted felon but it was barely a one day story when Paul keep the money from this neo-Nazi convicted felon, Don Black.   Recently there's been a war of words among various white nationalists and neo-Nazis about whether or not Ron Paul meets with other white nationalists at Virginia Thai restaurant (am I the only one who finds something humorous about swaggering, knuckledraggers meeting in a Thai restaurant?).   Some of the argument has come down to Paul's accuser, a neo-Nazi named Bill White, not being Gentile enough.   Some libertarian bloggers have complained about Ron Paul's support for the League of the South.   Like Naylor, Ron Paul is a favorite interview of James Edwards on his racist and anti-Semetic Political Cesspool.

Today The New Republic published a piece on Ron Paul.   There's a lot in it about earlier Ron Paul publications that should be of concern, including his neo-Confederate views and apparent bigotry, that you can read about via the link, but I want to point these statements.   Paul's campaign spokeman, when first asked by the article's writer about Paul's involvement, said...

...that, over the years, Paul had granted "various levels of approval" to what appeared in his publications--ranging from "no approval" to instances where he "actually wrote it himself." After (the writer) read Benton some of the more offensive passages, he said, "A lot of [the newsletters] he did not see. Most of the incendiary stuff, no." He added that he was surprised to hear about the insults hurled at Martin Luther King, because "Ron thinks Martin Luther King is a hero."

In other words, Paul's campaign wants to depict its candidate as a naïve, absentee overseer, with minimal knowledge of what his underlings were doing on his behalf. This portrayal might be more believable if extremist views had cropped up in the newsletters only sporadically--or if the newsletters had just been published for a short time. But it is difficult to imagine how Paul could allow material consistently saturated in racism, homophobia, anti-Semitism, and conspiracy-mongering to be printed under his name for so long if he did not share these views. In that respect, whether or not Paul personally wrote the most offensive passages is almost beside the point. If he disagreed with what was being written under his name, you would think that at some point--over the course of decades--he would have done something about it.

Today he did.   Here's the "new" Ron Paul position on the matter from his campaign website statement:

Ron Paul Statement on The New Republic Article Regarding Old Newsletters
January 8, 2008 5:28 am EST

ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA – In response to an article published by The New Republic, Ron Paul issued the following statement:

“The quotations in The New Republic article are not mine and do not represent what I believe or have ever believed. I have never uttered such words and denounce such small-minded thoughts.

“In fact, I have always agreed with Martin Luther King, Jr. that we should only be concerned with the content of a person's character, not the color of their skin. As I stated on the floor of the U.S. House on April 20, 1999: ‘I rise in great respect for the courage and high ideals of Rosa Parks who stood steadfastly for the rights of individuals against unjust laws and oppressive governmental policies.’

“This story is old news and has been rehashed for over a decade. It's once again being resurrected for obvious political reasons on the day of the New Hampshire primary.

“When I was out of Congress and practicing medicine full-time, a newsletter was published under my name that I did not edit. Several writers contributed to the product. For over a decade, I have publicly taken moral responsibility for not paying closer attention to what went out under my name.”

Here's one of the Ron Paul newsletters from March 1990.

With supporters like Ron Paul, Thomas Naylor's secession plans have far bigger problems than its many Vermont opponents.

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

Much more here.

Bait & Switch

Despite 2007 having been a God-awful year for Thomas H. Naylor's Second Vermont Republic, Naylor has started off this new year with another stab at salvaging something from his plan to use Vermont as the front man for his phony assertion that secession advocates hail from across the political spectrum and are united, notwithstanding their many differences. The Thomas H. Naylor "Blue State/Red State" pretense continues, this time in the form of his revamped Vermont Independence Day celebration:

VERMONT INDEPENDENCE DAY BANQUET
The Vermont Village Green: Alternative to Empire
Speakers: Kirkpatrick Sale & Stephen Morris
January 15, 2008
Montpelier, Vermont

On January 15 the Second Vermont Republic will host a banquet at the Capitol Plaza Hotel in Montpelier celebrating Vermont Independence Day. The celebration will begin with a reception (cash bar) at 6:00 P.M. followed by a buffet dinner at 7:00 P.M. and talks by Kirkpatrick Sale and Stephen Morris at 8:00 P.M. The theme of the celebration will be “The Vermont Village Green: Alternative to Empire.” Music will be provided by guitarist Xander Naylor.

Kirkpatrick Sale is Director of the Middlebury Institute and author of After Eden, Human Scale, and numerous other books.

Stephen Morris is Publisher of the Public Press, Editor of Green Living Journal, and author of The New Village Green among other books.

In Vermont village greens are small communities devoted to life, liberty, land, and locality rather than death, doom, and destruction of the planet earth. They are an integral part of the Vermont mystique. America could use a lot more village greens and far fewer cruise missiles, 747s, and SUVs. It needs a new metaphor, an alternative to empire. Vermont stands ready to provide such a metaphor, the Vermont village green.

For reservations send your check for $35 to P.O. Box 544, Charlotte, Vermont 05445 or call 802-425-4133.

We invite you to join our genteel revolution of thoughtful citizens committed to saving Vermont, America, and the rest of the world from the American Empire by leading our nation into peaceful disunion.

The only other promotion of this event that I can find, other than at Naylor's own SVR web site, is a post at Alex Linder's infamous Vanguard News Network .   Last year's Vermont Independence Day event was promoted extensively by both SVR and its sister organization, "Vermont Commons".   So far this year there hasn't been a peep out of VTCommons about the event, nor is it listed as a sponsor as it was last year.   What a difference a year can make, eh?

What you won't learn from Thomas Naylor's Vermont Independence Day Banquet announcement is that he's also scheduled a simultaneous event in conjunction with the banquet called the North-South Secession Summit.   In addition to Kirkpatrick Sale and others, unnamed white wing leaders from the racist League of the South are to be fêted:

North-South Secession Summit
January 14-15, 2008
Charlotte, VT

Following on the heels of the highly successful Second North American Secessionist Convention, which took place in Chattanooga, TN in October, leaders of four secessionist organizations will meet in Charlotte, VT on January 14 and 15 to develop strategies for maintaining the momentum of the emerging national secession movement.

The North-South Secession Summit meeting will include senior representatives from the Middlebury Institute, the League of the South, the Southern National Congress, and the Second Vermont Republic. Recognizing that the American Empire is immoral, illegal, unsustainable, ungovernable, and unfixable, these secessionists have called for the peaceful dissolution of the United States of America. Through a “Genteel Revolution” they hope to help save America and the rest of the world from the American Empire.

The Vermont Secession Summit is being held in conjunction with the celebration of Vermont Independence Day in Montpelier on the evening of January 15. There will be a banquet that evening at the Capitol Plaza Hotel beginning at 6:00 p.m.

For information about the Secession Summit or reservations for the Vermont Independence Day dinner, contact Thomas H. Naylor, 802-425-4133.

BTW, Kirkpatrick Sale is this year's recipient of the Southern Poverty Law Center's Weirdest Political Alliance Award:

Weirdest Political Alliance Award
The honors here go to Kirkpatrick Sale, director of the New York-based Middlebury Institute, dedicated to secessionism. Known for decades as a left-wing intellectual, Sale last year buddied up to the white supremacist League of the South (LoS) — a group that opposes racial intermarriage, defends segregation, and calls for a return to “European cultural hegemony” in the South — to the point of actually co-sponsoring the Oct. 3-4 Second North American Secessionist Convention in Tennessee with the LoS. Now, the left-right love affair promoted by Sale has turned positively torrid, with a “North-South Secession Summit” planned for January. Attending will be top officials of the Middlebury Institute, LoS, the Southern National Congress, and the Second Vermont Republic, to seek “the peaceful dissolution” of the United States.

After last year's uproar when this blog, along with other Vermont blogs, exposed Thomas H. Naylor's decades long close ties to white supremacist groups, it should come as no surprise that our magnolia Vermonter isn't also telling prospective attendees to his Vermont Independence Day Banquet who else he's inviting to dinner.

In his banquet announcement, Naylor claims that the night's theme is "the celebration (of) “The Vermont Village Green: Alternative to Empire.”   The criminal, racist leadership at League of the South that unsuspecting Vermonters may meet at the banquet are hardly the type of people that you'd normally find on a Vermont village green.   The AP photo to the right is from a "visit" that the LoS made to the Civil Rights Memorial (dedicated to 40 who were slain during the years of the civil rights struggle 1954 thru 1968 and located on the SPLC grounds) three years ago on the day that a funeral was being held for the mother of the Southern Poverty Law Center's founder, Morris Dees.   The teen racing about with the Confederate flags is shown doing so around the memorial upon which the names of those slain are etched. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

Nice bunch, Tom.   Little wonder you're embarrassed to let Vermonters know who you'll have tricked them into breaking bread with that night.

Secession News

Item 1
Second Vermont Republic founder and its chief cook and bottle washer, Thomas Naylor, is miffed.   It seems someone gave a secession party and he wasn't invited.

Since ol'Tom has taken to deleting from his website some of his crazier material, here are both of his recent comments on the conference in their entirety:

The Empire Strikes Back in Charleston, S.C.

As a founder of the Second Vermont Republic, one of the most high profile secession movements in America, I am often asked, “Do you think Big Brother is watching you?” Until recently I have always answered, “I don’t know.” But that all changed two nights ago, when I received a late night phone call informing me of a forthcoming conference to be held in Charleston, S.C. on December 6-8 on “Secession As An International Phenomenon.”

According to the website ARENA, thirty scholars will explore the history and theory of separatism and secession around the world. The conference will be sponsored by the University of South Carolina, the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), and ARENA, the Association for Research on Ethnicity and Nationalism in the Americas.

Although I have been following the literature on secession for over fifteen years, only one of the thirty speakers is known to me.

Implicitly, the conference appears to divide secession movements into those that are good and those that are bad. Good secession movements take place in locations far away from the United States and Canada. The ultimate example of bad secession is the American Civil War. And to drive the point home, the conference concludes with a boat trip to Fort Sumter, the defining metaphor for the failure of secession in America.

No attention whatsoever will be devoted to any of the thirty or so secessionist movements in the United States or to the Parti Quebecois in Canada. No one from the League of the South, the Second Vermont Republic, the Alaskan Independence Party, the New Hampshire Free State Project, or the Puerto Rican Independence Movement was invited to participate. It’s almost as though the conference organizers believe that interest in secession died in the United States back in 1865, just as Abraham Lincoln would have wanted us to believe.

Ironically, there will be a session on “The Ethics of Secession,” even though the conference is funded by NEH, an agency of the United States government once chaired by Lynne Cheney. The U.S. government is unconditionally committed to the preservation of The American Empire at all cost. There is also a session on “Taiwan Secession.” One of the sponsors is the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office. Very interesting!

And then there is ARENA, one of the conference sponsors. Where does ARENA get its funding?

To what extent will Big Brother use this academic conference to disseminate misinformation about secession so as to counteract the recent upsurge in interest in secession nationwide? Have the conference organizers allowed Big Brother to use them or are they using Big Brother to achieve their own personal goals? Or is it a little of both?

The conference is free and open to the public. We encourage secessionists in the Atlantic Coast states to attend and ask lots of good questions. This will provide the academic panelists with the opportunity to meet some real secessionists. And that might not be all bad.

Rebel
Thomas H. Naylor
November 27, 2007

and

Some Questions About the Charleston Secession Conference

On December 6-8 there will be a conference in Charleston, S.C. entitled “Secession As An International Phenomenon.” The conference will be sponsored by the University of South Carolina, the National Endowment for the Humanities (a U.S. government agency), the Association for Research on Ethnicity & Nationalism in the Americas (ARENA), and others. A number of questions have arisen about this conference.

1. Why is an agency of the U.S. government, NEH, sponsoring a conference on secession?

2. Why were none of the 30 or so active state secession movements in the U.S. invited to participate in or co-sponsor this conference? This is particularly puzzling in light of the participation and sponsorship of the Taipei Economic and Cultural office.

3. Why was the Parti Quebecois in Canada not invited?

4. One of the conference sponsors is ARENA. What exactly is ARENA? Is it supported by the U.S. government?

5. Will the Dept. of Homeland Security be represented at the conference? What about the CIA or the National Security Agency?

6. What is the Institute for Southern Studies? By whom is it funded?

7. What about the Watson-Brown Foundation?

8. Why is so little attention devoted to the secession of the six Eastern European satellites of the U.S.S.R. from the Soviet Union in 1989? What about the peaceful dissolution of the Soviet Union itself? Wasn’t that a form of secession?

9. What exactly are the conference objectives? Where are they clearly spelled out?

10. How much money did the U.S. government contribute to the support of this conference?

11. Why is the conference being held in Charleston, S.C.?

12. Most academic conferences don’t include boat tours. Why does this one include a boat tour of Fort Sumter?

13. Few of the thirty scholars invited to this conference are actually closely identified with secession. Why is this the case?

Thomas H. Naylor
November 29, 2007

Naylor's thought and musings on the conference notwithstanding, here's what I was able to learn about the conference in Charleston, SC that was hosted by the University of South Carolina's Association for Research on Ethnicity & Nationalism in the Americas (ARENA) entitled "Secession As An International Phenomenon".   You can view the participant list here.   The abstract of papers from the conference participants may be found here.   Apparently the only participant known to Naylor is David Armitage.

Naylor is so outraged by the slight of his non-inclusion in what was to be an academic conference and not the usual partisan dog and pony show he's accustomed to being a part of that he's begun yet another of his smear jobs by suggesting with absolutely no evidence whatsoever that the conference is nothing more than a "vintage U.S. government misinformation campaign."   He made that paranoid statement in another appearance of his on the racist radio program, The Political Cesspool, hosted by David Duke acolyte, James Edwards.   He continues to push the canard that his Chattanooga "conference" was a red state/blue state meeting of the minds.   Nothing could be further from the truth.   Fact of the matter is that "blue state" organizations that went to his conference last year in Burlington didn't bother to show up this time.   Seems they've gotten their fill of being used for window dressing by Naylor and his friends like the racists and neo-Confederates at Hill's LoS and James Edwards' Political Cesspool.   You can hear the whole sorry thing here but you'll need to wade through nearly 40 minutes of Edwards' not-ready-for-prime-time radio "chat" about the brilliance of Pat Buchanan, his comments about the greatness of European ethnicity over all others in America, "towelheads" and some other junk.   I guess this is another "media appearance" that Naylor won't be crowing about as he usually does on his websites.

Also not invited to participate in the conference (according to Naylor) was UNC's own Clyde N. Wilson.   For those of you who may not know him, Wilson is another of Naylor's League of the South buddies.   Naylor wonders to Edwards why Wilson wasn't "consulted, invited to, or even told about" the conference being hosted by the very department at UNC that Wilson teaches in.   The answer to that is obvious.   Racist ideologues like Wilson are an embarrassment to institutions of learning, just as their allies here in Vermont like Naylor are to average, decent Vermonters. [1] [2]

And to underscore the close ties that exist between SVR and the League of the South, here's the Youtube posting by the LoS of the Naylor and Hill joint appearance on the notorious Glenn Beck Show.

Update: 12/11
One reader who took the time to listen to the stream of the 12/6 Political Cesspool appearance by Naylor points out Naylor mentioned that an LoS group in Charleston intended to make an appearance at the conference.   While I could find no confirmation of this neo-Confederate rabble crashing the party, I did find this chatter in the Charleston area about Naylor which then led me to this about one of Naylor's homophobic allies, Corey Burnell of the even wackier Christian Exodus, working himself up into a self-righteous lather over a supposedly gay SC senator.   Also turns out that Burnell is backing a former member of the White Citizens Council (that now calls itself the Council of Conservative Citizens) for Lindsey Graham's Senate seat.   Remember, these are the same people that Naylor cooes about having been with at his Chattanooga conference during his Cesspool interview by the racist James Edwards.   Nice!

Item 2
There's a new blog regarding Vermont secession called The Vermont Secessionist that's been started by Marc Awodey.   Marc calls for new leadership for the Vermont secession movement.   Hope that doesn't earn him a Naylor smear.

Good luck Marc!

Item 3
Finally, as most of you may know, this blog began as my own personal exploration of secession and what it might mean for me and my fellow Vermonters.   In the process I discovered what turned out to be a crass, exploitive, dishonest campaign by a relocated Southerner who now calls Vermont home, to advance his racist, neo-Confederate views and those of his friends.

Despite all the spin churned out by Thomas Naylor, Kirkpatrick Sale and Rob Williams, it's become clear to all that SVR is a spent force.   The only one who doesn't seem to get that is Naylor.   He has no political base, no matter how many essays he spews out or phony polls he fabricates.   He hasn't received press coverage here for more than six months (and, no Tom, puff pieces by inexperienced, newcomers like the VT AP bureau chief don't count for anything, no matter how much you tout them).

This blog will remain as a resource and record for anyone who may be looking at Vermont secession and it proponents.   I'll post again should something noteworthy occur but for now I think Thomas Naylor has done so much damage to a secession movement here in Vermont that there may be nothing more to report in the future of any note than SVR's death rattle.

More on James Edwards (Thomas Naylor's Hate Radio Friend) & Others

As first reported here at the beginning of this month, Thomas Naylor was on Janes Edwards' The Political Cesspool for its Confederate History Month series of broadcasts. Naylor stressed his Mississippi roots and made arrangements to stay in contact with Edwards in the future. Edwards was so impressed with Naylor that he felt moved to observed that Naylor was "obviously a good Confederate." Who could disagree with that?

Since that post there have been a series of virulent comments here that underscore the fact that even among today's new, cleaned up version of the neo-Confederate movement that now calls itself a movement for "peaceable secession," old habits, like menacing threats directed to critics, die hard.

This week my copy of the Southern Poverty Law Center's Fall Intelligence Report arrived in the mail and who should a focus for the issue be but none other than Thomas Naylor's new friend, James Edwards. The report on Edwards makes clear that while Edwards is a great admirer of David Duke, he's been careful to avoid making Duke's earlier mistakes, much like the Naylor/Sale axis has sought to avoid the earlier mistakes of often overtly racist neo-Confederates. I've listened to a number of his broadcasts now and find that even the "new" racists and anti-Semites just can't help themselves. This sidebar to the article on Edwards gives you a small sense of what he's really like. Here's one example:

On the Jews (Feb. 20, 2007):
"A lot of their motivation is that they hate Christianity. They hate what we call the WASP establishment … and they're using pornography as a subversive tool against us. Jews are by and large dominant in the porn industry. I don't need to spend time convincing people the sky is blue. You know, connect the dots and look at the names of people controlling our media, and you find out what the common denominator is. … These Zionist Jews are more interested in subverting the dominant culture, which would be the European culture here in America, than they are in helping us and assimilating into our culture."

While the SPLC piece points out that Edwards has gone to great lengths to avoid situations where he might be seen and photographed where disturbing symbols might be found, as happened to his friend and hero David Duke, here's one unusual case that I found over at this blog where he can be seen at a demonstration (at left) with a Confederate flag:

Edwards even received considerable mention in the Intelligence Report's editorial on the mainstreaming and legitimization of extremism in America. The Intelligence Report also has an interesting piece on one neo-Confederate hate group having a dustup over "political extremism correctness," to coin a new phrase.

An example of the "new look" efforts that the neo-Confederates and their friends are pursuing is the growing problem of secessionists who have been actively engaged in "cleaning up" the articles on their own groups and associates by deleting unfavorable material or altering critical text. Apparently some of this is even being done for pay. This, however, is an exercise that is doomed to fail.

One prominent player in this unethical practice has been Carol Moore, a secession advocate and blogger at "Vermont Commons." [1] In her VTCommons blog post, Carol mentions that my blog "evidently is really anti-secession." Not so fast there, Carol. Early on I was very much in the undecided camp. I really hadn't formed a solid opinion when I started out, but the clear connections to racists, anti-Semites, historical revisionists and unethical activists is something I choose not to ignore.

All the chaff that Carol throws up in her blog piece never adequately addresses the concern that many here have that if secession in Vermont leads to secession elsewhere, as Naylor and his neo-Confederate allies intend, will we not have had a hand in bad things happening to people elsewhere? Maybe that's an end result that a Carol Moore or a George Bush can be comfortable with, but I can not. In a clear example of her situational ethics, Carol has ignored Wikipedia guidelines in her attempts to "sweeten up" the secessionist articles. [2] [3] [4] [5]

Jimmy Wales, founder of the Wikimedia Foundation, which runs Wikipedia, says the site discourages such “conflict of interest” editing. “We don’t make it an absolute rule,” he said, “but it’s definitely a guideline.” [6]

An example of the Carol Moore's whitewashing efforts on behalf of one white supremacist, secessionist organization, the League of the South, is this one on behalf of its racist head, Michael Hill. On October 7, 2007, she replaced this:

The issue of race has become a source of controversy and dispute within the LoS, and in groups like Second Vermont Republic which has members loosely affiliated with it. LoS President Michael Hill has argued for the centrality of Christian white men in the movement: "But let us never deny (for the sake of pleasing the implacable Cultural Marxists) that we, the descendants of white, European Christians, are central to a movement to preserve and advance a particular civilization, cultural inheritance, and physical place."[12] Hill has also advocated the ideology of kinism, and would outlaw racial intermarriage and non-white immigration, expel all “aliens” (including Jews and Arabs), and limit the right to vote to landowning males over the age of twenty-one.[13]

With this, that in addition to replacing racist statements by Hill with his statements about the SPLC, deletes and obscures any connection in these issues with the Second Vermont Republic:

The issue of race has become a source of controversy about, and dispute within, the League of the South. In articles on its web page Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) accuses the League, and especially its President Michael Hill, of holding racist beliefs and making racist statements.[12]After SPLC issued a year 2000 report labeling LoS a "racist hate group," Hill "welcomed the designation as a 'badge of honor'," alleging SPLC has "a very leftist agenda, these sorts of things are designed to discredit you publicly."[13]

Carol has even edited the Wikipedia article about herself more than a dozen times. [7]

Over at Green Mountain Daily, Julie Waters has an interesting post that relates to what the Naylors, the Edwards, the Moores, the Sales, the Bushes, the Cheneys, et al, try to accomplish in their efforts to mainstream what is clearly offensive - having us get so accustomed to having them around that we start to not notice some of their crummier aspects any longer. Julie Waters piece underscores for me why we must remember to not ignore the potential impacts of our actions to others far from here or to get used to bad people who do bad things. These are concerns that Naylor would pooh-pooh away with his "different strokes for different strokes" rationale that really is cover for white supremacists, anti-Semites and other hate groups, and are not the issues that he would wish us to believe that he ostensibly refers to in his writings.

What Carol Moore, James Edwards, George Bush, Thomas Naylor, Dick Cheney, Kirkpatrick Sale, the few remaining Second Vermont Republic deadenders, white supremacists, anti-Semites, Holocaust deniers and the like seem to forget is that, as Shakespeare said, "in the end the truth will out."

Update (10/29): Oh, my! Carol Moore's got her sweats in a knot! You can read her admissions and menacing, overwrought retort here.

Secessionist Night Riders Redux, Blogstyle

This blog averages a comment every week or so.   Not very much considering the traffic but then it isn't that kind of blog.   That changed with the post below when it received a burst of comments a few weekends ago.

Blogs serve a multitude of purposes and I'm sure there's more than one opinion about the purpose of this blog that disagrees with what I said it would be about in my very first post:

"While I don't think that what I'll be saying in future posts as the long dead Thomas Rowley will necessarily "set the hills on fire," there may be some heat as I shed light on the topic of secession, where it may possibly take us and about just who may be actually guiding the secession discussion."

That said, it's generally been my practice to be responsive to comments.   If someone has taken the time to read a post and then wants to comment, I feel, as a matter of courtesy, that a response is due.   Spam is always deleted and there has only been one commenter who I've felt was so deceptive, evasive and non-responsive that he had to be banned.   I've even exchanged emails with neo-Nazi trash.   I will not, however, give individual responses to what appears to me to be an organized comment barrage that occurred a few weekends ago.

It's clear from the chatter among secessionists across the country that the Second Vermont Republic meltdown earlier this year has led to a morale problem among supporters of national dissolution.   This blog is generally being solely credited by some of these secessionists as having exposed the large racist component of the national leadership of the secessionist movement.   If only that were so.   Many of the facts presented here have long been available to the media from a variety of credible sources, as well as having been much better examined on other blogs and websites.

There's been recurring speculation among secessionists about who writes this blog.   Some of it's funny; some is of the "tin-foil-hat-wa-a-a-y-paranoid" genre; some is just plain dumb.   So, for the record, I have no association with the Democrats (funny how it's never been suggested that there's a Republican/neocon/conservative connection, despite my never having expressed a political opinion like, say, being for or against Bush) nor am I an apparatchik or employed by any other political group or organization such as the SPLC, although I'd be the first to say I've admired their work for years and am humbled by the confusion; I am not a covert government agent.

Sometimes a Vermonter is just a Vermonter, folks.

Now, about those comments.   It's been clear from what I've read elsewhere that the revelation that Naylor and Sale had both participated in being interviewed by the host of a hate radio program has struck an uncomfortable cord among second tier secessionist leaders.   Most of these people are pretty much on the outside looking in, while Naylor, Sale and League of the South President, Michael Hill call all of the shots at the (ironically) national level, and they're not liking where all of this controversy is taking them and their "movement."   Some of these people have, apparently acting on their speculations about this blog, have now crossed the line and have posted these sorts of comments:

"Gee, Mark Potok (SPLC Editor & Intelligence Project Director - TR) himself is from Vermont. How's the fundrai$ing going Mark? Manufacturing fear -- out in the open or anonymously -- is a great way to raise money, isn't it?"

And

"Perhaps the ranter was responding to your indiscriminate listing of people who are not known to be haters or have one or two minor faux pas in the past, so minor that only Mark Potok or his ilk would even know about it... The revolution IS coming against an increasingly facist state and all Mark and his friends whining about it can't stop it. 2010-2012 are going to be TOO Exciting."

And

"If Mark Potok's family still lives in vermont he's probably paranoid that some 8th generation Green Mountain man will come after them if he doesn't find a less SPLC way of dealing with real issues and real problems. Think about it Mark."

And

"You do NOT have to BE Mark Potok of SPLC to copy a bunch of stuff from his web pages. (However a zabasearch.com does show what seems to be one couple named POTOK in Vermont.)"

And

"Candy said...
Yes, Mark, think about treating people better. I mean having Green Mountain men doing Gandhian starvation fasts outside your home or SLPC office, in Vt or the South, where ever it might be, could actually trigger your CONSCIENCE. Of course, the Patriot Act has almost outlawed that traditional Indian form of personal witness.

The issue is not right wing racists who MIGHT secede and stop paying taxes, but the right wing anti-muslim/arab racists NOW in the white house armed with nukes and looking to first strike china and russia - right after they nuke iran and pakistan!"

Well Candy, you and the rest of the present day secessionists might want to consider this: if you don't want comparisons made to the intimidation tactics that are eerily similar to those of an earlier group founded by yesterday's failed secessionists, try not launching a comment barrage laced with specific, menacing references to a man and any member of his family that you think that you might be able to locate here in Vermont.

Oh, and y'all probably meant Green Mountain boys, not Green Mountain men, putzes.

Thomas H. Naylor: "Obviously A Good Confederate"

I received a message last week regarding an unusual Naylor sighting.   It seems that the Second Vermont Republic's founder, Thomas H. Naylor had been booked for a segment (scroll to just past the mid-point of the program where his segment starts) on a well-known hate radio program called The Political Cesspool on Memphis' WLRM during TPC's month long "celebration" of Confederate History Month this past April.   The show's host, James Edwards, is a longtime racist, anti-Semetic, white supremacist, white separatist activist [1] [2] whose Confederate History Month broadcasts were sometimes also hosted by his friend and associate Winston Smith, reputed to be the well known white supremacist and former head of the neo-Nazi group, the National Socialist White People's Party, also known as Harold Covington.  Maybe, maybe not, but it wouldn't be surprising considering that Edwards' guest list reads like a Who's Who of America's anti-civil rights, anti-Semetic, neo-Confederate, neo-Nazi, white supremacist, white separatist, racist, umm, cesspool:

Michael Hill, the League of the South president

Thomas DiLorenzo, a Second Vermont Republic advisory board member, a League of the South member and instructor at the LoS Institute for the Study of Southern History and Culture, as well as an anti-civil rights, anti-union writer.  Here's a recent promotion of Edward's program at the notorious Stormfront.org hatesite featuring the SVR's DiLorenzo. NOTE: Stormfront often takes down these links after they discover that people they consider unsympathetic to their "cause" are using them, so don't be surprised if it's gone missing when you get there.

Gordon Baum, CEO of the Council of Conservative Citizens (formerly known as the Whites Citizen's Council)

Steve McIntyre, a reenactor whose specialty is Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, who founded the Ku Klux Klan and is reputed to have ordered the massacre of black POWs during the Civil War

Larry Pratt, an anti-Semitic, white supremacist, militia advocate

J. Stanley Lott, a slavery/Lincoln history revisionist

Sam Dickson, a former Ku Klux Klan lawyer and a Holocaust denier, Lincoln history revisionist and Council of Conservative Citizens member

Ted Pike, a Cesspool regular, anti-Semite and white supremacist (for a taste of his anti-Semetic bile, watch this or this)

A few of the other past "guests" on Edwards' show:

David Duke, who needs no introduction; read the praise that the people at his website give Edwards here

Mark Weber, a renown Holocaust denier

Jamie Kelso, a racist, anti-Semite, neo-Nazi kingpin at the notorious Stormfront.org website

Peter Gemma, a Council of Conservative Citizens member

Robert Barkdoll, a white supremacist and head of the Missouri League of the South chapter

Peter J. Peters, a Christian Identity leader, white supremacist and anti-Semite

... and many, many more of this bigoted, hateful ilk

For the first time in the Edwards interview Naylor admits to having commissioned his methodologically challenged poll of Vermonters on the subject of secession, conducted for him by UVM's Center for Rural Studies.  You can see for yourself Naylor's questionable, paid for, 2006 Vermonter Poll questions that he often refers to as a UVM poll in a third person manner that doesn't disclose his direct involvement or reveal UVM's contract-only relationship to his poll. [3] [4]  Naylor now says:

"A year ago we commissioned a statewide poll (to be conducted) by the University of Vermont to find out how many secessionists there were in Vermont."

According to his "poll," 47 people said they would support secession and from that he has extrapolated that tens of thousands of Vermonters directly support secession.  When you add to the equation his "thumb on the scale" questionable methodology and the margin for error, it's more likely that the true number of supporters could meet in a phone booth.

Naylor continued:

"We're always asked, "How many people support your cause?" and we didn't know.  The answer one year ago was 8% of the eligible voters supported secession.  One year later that number had jumped from 8% to 13%."

"Jumped?"  Let's not extrapolate too much there, Tom.  If you bothered to factor in the two polls margins for error, you haven't even filled that phone booth yet.  Your increase could be, in fact, a decrease.  Once again Naylor is keeping the actual poll questions for the 2007 poll to himself as he did with the 2006 poll.   He has to since he's no doubt employed the same type of cheesy polling questions as he did last year.

As if to underscore his complete detachment from the real political world in Vermont, Naylor states that his goal and strategy is,

"(T)o persuade the (Vermont) state legislature to convene a convention... convened to consider one issue, namely articles of secession."

He goes on to say that he envisions a 2/3 to 3/4 vote of the 180 or 200 members at that convention being needed in support of the articles of secession for them to be passed credibly. He believes that this can and will happen in Vermont and at the Legislature's behest.

Yeah, right.  And he's got his political ace, Peter Moss, working on that.

Later in the interview, Naylor repeats one of his regular talking points about the dissolution of the "Soviet empire" and the six satellite states shaking off their "shackles" and asserting their independence [5], which got Edwards all warm and fuzzy, saying, "What can happen in Europe can easily happen here."

What?  Don't any of these guys know that as soon as those six countries shook off those shackles they immediately joined NATO and European Union, a mega-state of nearly 500 million people?  I'm beginning to think that they're all missing a few stars and bars.

Now before the "let's not have any guilt by association" crowd gets all lathered up, I should point out that Naylor did not just participate in the broadcast.  He acknowledge knowing that his interview was a part of a series of interviews for Confederate History Month (see companion guest list above that was available to him at the time) and he later asked for contact information from Edwards so that he could keep in touch with these scum.  Moreover, Naylor has been pretty diligent about posting on his website his appearances, interviews and press.  Actually, he's been something of a media whore about it, and yet oddly this one didn't seem make into his media scrapbook.  Nor has Rob Williams at "Vermont Commons" been crowing about the interview on his blog, as he usually does whenever someone in the media mentions SVR. Why's that, Tom?  You too, Rob.  Why is it that I always have to dig up the dirt for Vermonters?  Why did you hide from this one?

Fortunately, Edwards & company ran out of time before Naylor could launch into another one of his self-described "fantasies" about Vermont seceding and then joining the Canadian Atlantic provinces to form a new country that he calls New Acadia. [6]

At the risk of transgressing Godwin's Rule, all this talk about Europe with a couple of white separatists whose programs are feature at a neo-Nazi website with a man who has a weak grasp of European history and some far fetch fantasies about redrawing the map of North America reminds me of another mid-20th century European who moved nonexistent armies around maps of his make believe empire while eastern European artillery pounded his bunker.

Edwards closes the program calling Naylor a "good confederate" and, while acknowledging a female guest from an earlier segment of the show, he admits that

"(A) lot of the times (sic) The Political Cesspool is like a prism... it's all male; it's all white."

Prism probably isn't what he meant but I'm sure he'd be the first to say that metaphorically speaking, he's not a bright light.  Nor can Thomas Naylor be called particulary bright for having done this interview.

Update (10/4): Two months after the Naylor visit to the nasty, racist Political Cesspool radio hate show, Kirkpatrick Sale, Middlebury Institute partner of Thomas H. Naylor, did a segment with the Cesspool host, James Edwards and his co-host Eddie "The Bombardier" Miller, on the July 2, 2007 Political Cesspool show.   You'll need to wade through a half hour of bigoted bile where Edwards and Miller first joke about napalming liberals and then move on to heap praise David Duke, calling him "(A) great friend of ours & a great man," along with saying toward the end of the program, "We are blessed to have a good friendship with the Duke people and Duke himself," as well as describing the "Duke-meister" as "(O)ne of our heroes; one of our good friends."   The reading of fan mail comes at the end of the show, like one listener's paean of sorts to their show's musical selections (always white), who signs himself as being from "OntariJew, the Zionist Republic of Canada," and who they thank profusely for his comments.   When Miller compares Bush to Hitler, Edwards chastises Miller to not disrepect "the German gentleman," and later Edwards goes onto critcize "the media, the establishment, Zionist press."   Yuck!

Sale does the usual fan dance employing all the familiar talking points: a poll "by university people" without ever mentioning the that the four questions were written and paid for by his friend Naylor (with possible input from himself); the ludicrous notion that the Vermont legislature will overwhelming vote to secede; that Vermonters, by some kind of referendum process not presently provided for under the state constitution will also vote overwelming for secession; an appeal to the UN for recognition (of whom Naylor has said, "It's hard to imagine a more impotent institution than the... UN"; etc., ad nauseum.

If you have the stomach for it, research for yourself as I have some of the sponsors and promotional spots on the program. It's an eye-opening look at the type of folks Sale and Naylor value contact with more than the Vermonters that have been purged from the SVR.

Yet Another Cheesy Position on Race Matters By Thomas H. Naylor

When I first started this blog it was because I had discovered what the Vermont media had missed completely about Second Vermont Republic and "Vermont Commons".   Mainly, that the two were strongly associated with racists groups and people, and that they hadn't a bit of concern over such associations.   My own feelings about Vermont seceding were (and continue to be) ambivalent.   The idea of Vermont actually seceding is now best described as badly damaged goods.

Thomas Naylor's past involvement with the white supremacist group known as the League of the South, as well as his being there at the founding of the racist Southern Party, pretty much tells you where he was coming from then, despite his protestations of having been a Lamar Society member in good standing (unconfirmable) and that by virtue of that sort of propinquity he must then be a FOB (Friend of Julian Bond).   Interestingly, Naylor maintains his devotion to contradiction in his rant about the Southern Poverty Law Center, a frequent source for this blog, where Bond now sits on the Board of Directors.   [1] major hat-tip to odum for this one

Naylor's organization and writings continue to receive kudos and note from various extremists like the neo-Nazi group Vanguard News Network. [2] [3] [4]

According to the FAQ section at VTCommons "the Second Vermont Republic takes no official position on such controversial issues as abortion, gay marriage, school prayer, and legalizing marijuana."   Now I know that "forced integration" isn't exactly a burning issue here in Vermont, yet for some reason Naylor chose to go on about it in that rambling way of his, not very long ago at his website. [5]   In his piece, albeit in a weirdly round-about way, Naylor makes clear that he's okay with the idea of secession leading to separatist exclusionary states.   His throwaway remark that bad ideas like segregation and white supremacy are merely ideas that can be summed up as "different strokes for different folks" betrays the casual evil in his thought process.

The forced integration issue he raises is a touchstone for white supremacist and racist groups around the country like the Council of Conservative Citizens (formerly the White Citizens Council), as articulated by the racist writer, the late Samuel Francis [6] , David Duke [7], the Ku Klux Klan [8], as well as a frequent chat topic in white nationalist/racist forums. [9]

An earlier, detailed analysis of Naylor's writings on "forced integration" can be found here.

That said, Thomas Naylor, described by supporters as a "founding father" of the Vermont "republic in gestation" is less like a Ben Franklin than he is like a Ben "Pitchfork Ben" Tillman.   In his piece on "forced integration" Naylor seems to confirm the closeness of his positions to that of his segregationist father. [10]

While researching for this post I came across this,

"Next to fried food, the South has suffered most from oratory." - Walter Hines Page

Thomas Naylor and his segregationist/moth-like attraction to the light of the "forced integration" issue would seem to confirm that by his essay on the topic.

Whither VTCommons? (Update)

Second Vermont Republic's sister organization and publication, "Vermont Commons" has over the past weekend finally edited out the erroneous information on the website that said, four months after being dumped from it's distribution deal by Seven Days, it was being distrubuted quarterly in the Burlington Vermont weekly.   Nice catch, Rob!   Was that because you read about it here on Friday?   Or was that merely a result of your vaunted strengths as Vermont's "media educator and reformer?"

Sorry Rob, but after seeing you being quoted as some kind of "expert" last week in both Seven Days and on the FreePress website, I couldn't resist pointing out such an obvious editing error, if not a blatant, "mistakenly" left in bit of puffery that suggested a much wider distribution of what is clearly now nothing more than a very thin e-newsletter.

I'm also curious about that reference to you as a reformer.   Since you appear to be reading this blog, perhaps you'd care to post in comments what "reforms" you've brought about or have been a part of in Vermont or elsewhere, 'cause, hell, if it all comes from producing a thin newsletter or linking to other writer's work, then you might as well call me an expert, eh?

Whither Vermont Commons?

The whole Second Vermont Republic-SVR thing seems to have wound down to a dull thud.   Thomas Naylor appears to be the only person now writing on his website and some of what he's writing is getting downright weird.   I'll have more on that in the near future but for now I'm wondering, where can you find a copy of this Summer's edition of the quarterly "Vermont Commons?"

City Market in Burlington doesn't have one.   Same at the Warren Village Store.   I checked at the VTCommons website [1] but they're still saying that it's available in Seven Days, and we all known that ain't true. [2]

The usual catalog of articles in the current issue of the VTCommons journal is also missing from their website.   Instead there's this that they're calling the "Free Vermont E-Newsletter."   It's pretty thin and seems to be mostly earlier website posts being churned out as "new" material.

Question is, has VT Commons, like SVR, pretty much gone belly up and is it now nothing more than a fairly pathetic example of secessionist revanchism with all the political punch of e-navel gazing?

Hmmm...

Second Vermont Republic's Continuing Downward Spiral to Political Irrevelance in Vermont

Earlier this month I posted about an article written by Vermont freelance political writer Jon Margolis.   Margolis' piece was about whiners in Vermont and it led off by alluding to the Second Vermont Republic and its supporters.   Margolis concludes that the group is not only "racially tinged" and "intellectually unimpressive," but that it is also "politically impotent."   This recent press release from SVR, the self-appointed leader of the Vermont scession movement, underscores the point about the political impotence:

SVR Legislative Team

Fairfax political activist and SVR supporter Peter Moss has agreed to assume the responsibility of recruiting candidates for the Vermont Legislature who are committed to Vermont independence.

His objective is to recruit, support, and eventually elect enough secessionists to call a statewide convention to consider and adopt articles of secession calling for the return of Vermont to its status as an independent republic as it was between 1777 and 1791.

Peter is currently a 2008 candidate for the Vermont House of Representatives.

If you are a secessionist and are interested in running for the Legislature, please contact Peter Moss at peter28moss@yahoo.com.   [1]

For those who have never heard of him, Moss has been a frequent, unsuccessful candidate for statewide office.   In 2004 he ran unsuccessfully in the Republican U.S. Senate primary.  
[2]   In 2006 he ran, again unsuccessfully, against Bernie Sanders, and in some ways against the Democratic party, in the Democratic U.S. Senate primary.   [3]   In addition to being a candidate for the Vermont legislature next year, as noted in the SVR press release above, he is also a self-described "Peace Party" candidate for the Vermont seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in the 2008 election cycle.   [4]

By some accounts Moss is an affable and humorous man who campaigns promoting unusual proposals that are laced with odd word creations and rather sophomoric acronyms.   This from a recent campaign of his:

"I have proposed a new U.S. DUD (Department of Un-Do) to retroactively reverse tax cuts for the rich, re-establish the inheritance tax, not privatize Social Security, un-do excessive national debt and budget imbalance, not use religion as a political weapon, stop senseless wars, and every other anti-social act and action. This will stall the bushists‚ 2 remaining years; impeachment would do nothing and recall would install Cheney. The new DUD must report directly to the voters, and should be staffed by Goldstar Mother Cindy Sheehan and GM critic Michael Moore, and their supporters."   [5]

As well as:

"I have proposed an Environment and Energy Emergency Act [ENEMA] to replace oil with liquid hydrogen in an 18-month all-out crash program, supplemented by solar and hydroelectric power, to address environmental degradation, global warming, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, excessive oil and gasoline prices, peak oil, and the hatred fueling Islamic terrorism. ENEMA will create a wind turbine, water electrolysis, and hydrogen liquefaction ("hyliq") industry for cars and home heating, and store hyliq for low wind periods. Oil tankers would disappear and sailing ships would return for passengers and freight. Service stations would add hydrogen pumps, and the nation‚s 100-million car park retrofitted for dual fuel. All this would create economic prosperity as did World War Two. ENEMA would end most pollution and global warming, oil wars, and terrorism. Oil prices would drop from $70 a barrel to $3 and production would stop. The $67 spread finances global terrorism, I believe, so we are financing terrorism. Without oil, oil company shares would drop to penny stocks, and we could de-privatize for one dollar per 100 shares. Raze the refineries and replace with hyliq plants."   [5]

And my own personal favorite, Moss' endorsement of telescreen-like apparatuses for Vermonters (and probably the next best reason to then shoot your TV):

"Televoters Act to convert all TVS to 2-way communication, to conduct nationwide non-binding same-day opinion surveys, to replace manipulated and manipulative small-sample surveys."   [5]

Just as I thought that this couldn't get any funnier I learned that Moss also calls himself a "Lincoln Republican."   [6]   Given the SVR leadership's tendency to foam at the mouth at the mere mention of Lincoln, this alliance has tremendous potential for future ironies and conflicts in agendas.   [7]

To underscore SVR's downward spiral to political irrelevancy, I can confirm the Vermont's Dan DeWalt has been been dismissed from the SVR Advisory Board.   After having heard from a number of sources that DeWalt was dismissed, I did some checking and learned that DeWalt never really did anything while on the board.   When he offered unsolicited advice to SVR's Thomas Naylor, he found himself in conflict with the early SVR responses to the revelations here and on other blogs.   In short, Naylor found that DeWalt wasn't of the right "mindset" to remain on the board so DeWalt, like Robert Riversong   [8], is now gone.

OutFoxed

After reading the recent Thomas Naylor and/or Rob Williams post at the Second Vermont Republic website, titled "BILL O'REILLY SUPPORTS VERMONT INDEPENDENCE MOVEMENT," which was about Naylor's performance on the O'Reilly Factor and O'Reilly's alleged support for secession, one needs to ask, "Are these people wildly delusion or just pathologically dishonest?"

They state unequivocally that O'Reilly supports secession and they quote O'Reilly as follows:

In an interview with SVR founder Thomas H. Naylor, O’Reilly said “How can we help you? I want to help you secede.” Naylor responded, “You already have by having me as a guest on your show.” O’Reilly followed up with, “Can we raise some money for you?” Naylor said, “Yes, we need all the help we can get.”   [1]

SVR left an awful lot out of their spin of that interview, which probably accounts for why they provided no link to the Fox video of the interview.   Were they not plagued by a fundamental dishonesty that forces them to misrepresent so much, the SVR post would have included the following:

O'REILLY: "Doctor, how can we help you? I wanna help you (to) secede... I, I, ya know, I... Can we raise some money for you or can we provide transportation to Canada or somethin'? How can we help?"

[snip]

"Look, Canada is just a few miles away from Burlington, just right over Lake Champlain. Why don't you guys just go there? I can raise money to get you guys over there. Canada's a pretty liberal country. Wouldn't you be happy there?"

NAYLOR: Well, that's... It's interesting that you propose that. One of my fantasies, Bill, is that possibly Vermont secedes from the United States, teams up with New Hampshire, Maine and the four Atlantic provinces, and we create a little country the size of Denmark and call it New Acadia. (Unintelligible as O'Reilly/Naylor talk over each other) Would you be willing to support that?

O'REILLY: New Hampshire and Maine don't want anything to do with you guys, because... (laughing) Particularly New Hampshire... New Hampshire's live free or die; low taxes...

[snip - useless argument over whether terrorists might or might not attack an independent Vermont, at the end of which Naylor diverges in a complete non sequitur to O'Reilly's point about the need for mutual defense]

NAYLOR: Yeah, well, I agree Bill. (?) In a sense your point is, what could be more absurd then, uh, tiny Vermont, with 620,000 people, standing up to the greatest empire of all time, with 300,000,000 people. I mean that's truly absurd but, see, therein lies the power, the energy of our movement... It's classic David and Goliath...

[snip - again O'Reilly and Naylor talk over one another]

O'REILLY (after some difficulty keeping his legendary biblical characters straight): Goliath's gonna say, "Look Doctor, if you don't like it here, Canada is beckoning (?), you've got all your socialized programs, very liberal government and media, just go up there and have a good time. I mean, well, why not? It's just a few miles across the lake.

NAYLOR: That, that sounds good to me.

WHAT?

O'REILLY: Okay! All right! Now, now we're getting some place! We're going to get you a real estate agent, you're gonna sell your house in Burlington, Vermont and we'll move you right up to, ah, Canada. We'll do it for ya!

NAYLOR: No, no, we might do... we might just join them. We may, I don't know, I'm not going... I don't want to leave Vermont.

(unintelligible again)

O'REILLY: No, no, no, Vermont's part of the USA. You think it's a terrible country.

NAYLOR: I want to leave the United States, not Vermont. No but I love Vermont. I don't love the United States.

O'REILLY: Yes but, see, Vermont's part of (the United States) Doctor... and you can, you can get the whole thing...

NAYLOR: I don't want to leave Vermont, I don't want to move.

[snip - O'Reilly wants Naylor to comment on Jessica'a Law]

O'REILLY: I'm gonna get you a real estate agent. I'm gonna, I'm gonna get you outa here. Finally, you wrote that, um, "anybody with the stupidity to appear on the O'Reilly program," um, blah, blah, blah. You remember writing that? (O'Reilly holds up page with yellow highlighting on it)

NAYLOR: Oh, but it's been great fun.

O'REILLY: Yeah. You're welcome but, you know... (smiling and pointing to page containing the quote of Naylor's about only stupid people appearing on the O'Reilly program) There you go.   [2]

Oh, and Tom, the area of Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine and the four Atlantic provinces is 15 times that of Denmark.   This may seem like a small point to correct but, as is so often the case with your comparisons of Vermont to other countries, your "fact," too, is way off the mark.   At least Naylor's being consistent.

It appears that Bill and Tom could both use some help reading a map.

It also sounds as if Naylor has been taken in by his own phony poll and now believes that he'll snooker 100% of Vermont, all 620,000 of them, with his secessionist pipering.

Now Comes Jon Margolis

Last month the proponents of Vermont's self-appointed vessel of secession, the Second Vermont Republic, struck yet another significant mine in their odyssey, that time in the form of Vermont's State Archivist, Gregory Sanford (see the previous post below).   Sanford directly challenged the historical accuracy of the SVR leadership's assertions about Vermont's past - a challenge they have not responded to in any meaningful way.

Today, in a piece published today in the Sunday Rutand Herald/Times Argus', Vermont Sunday Magazine on "whiners," Jon Margolis, a freelance writer from Barton and former national political correspondent for the Chicago Tribune, writes without naming them directly that SVR is "polically impotent," "racially tinge(d)" and "intellectually unimpressive." One need look no further than Thomas Naylor's own rambling writings, Rob Williams clumsy handling of his group's making nice with racists, as well as their educational website, "Vermont Commons", to find comfirmation of Margolis' thoughts:

In This State of Whiners
by Jon Margolis

When the going gets tough, the tough get going, and the feeble go away.

Well, they threaten to go away. Being feeble, they don't actually go anywhere.

Such was the threat by the town of Vernon to secede from Vermont should the state increase taxes on the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant.

Forget for a moment the absurdity of what passed for Vernon's logic — a fear that Vermont Yankee might leave town. How? By loading the reactor onto a wheelbarrow and carting it away?

More important is that the initial response of town officials was to mumble about secession, following the model of Killington, where town bigwigs started talking about seceding a few years ago because homeowners there must now pay the same statewide school tax rate as the rest of us. The poor itty-bitty babies.

All this is disturbing, but not because anybody will secede. They will not. In America nobody ever has, successfully, except the 25 northwestern counties of Virginia which became West Virginia in 1862. But that wasn't secession; it was counter-secession.

No, what is disturbing is that only in Vermont is there much talk of secession. There are even a few people who want the whole state to secede. They need not be taken seriously. Their movement is politically impotent, and — even without its racist tinge — intellectually unimpressive.

(Read the rest of Margolis' article here)

I'll have more on SVR's self-inflicted political impotence later this week.

UPDATE:   Rob Williams offers testy commentary on Margolis' article and incorrectly tries to characterize the article as an editorial here.   And then he, as well, slams this blog without showing the courage to name it.   Oh, well.   I'd say, Rob (or is it Maul Man that you now like to be called?), that since you've now started to drop your strategy of completely ignoring this blog:

“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”
- Mahatma Gandhi

Don't forget to stop back to see my upcoming post on SVR's "political impotence" later this week, Rob.   Oh, and there's a post going up soon that'll show the parts you and/or Naylor left out of the O'Reilly interview.   I can understand why you'd not want to include that in your "transcript" that professes O'Reilly's support for secession - it'd make you guys look like liars.

You Know You're In Trouble...

... when The Onion's got your number.

The Second Vermont Republic and "Vermont Commons", as a movement leadership model, seems to be at an end of any meaningful contribution to the secession discussion or to Vermont seceding but refuses to admit any error or even the obvious.   It's an awful lot like the Bush leadership model.

UPDATE:   And you know that you're really in trouble if you're from Vermont and are invited to appear on The O'Reilly Factor.   Green Mountain Daily has the link to the video of Thomas Naylor's appearance on the show last night here.