…as in Thomas Rowley, the anonymous blogger who broke the story about the Vermont secession movement’s ties (real, substantiated ones, not “allegations” as they say) to Neo-Confederates and white supremacists. As always, if you’re not interested in this semi-frequent subject on here, skip it. if you love juvenile tit-for tat with people as crazy as the teabaggers (and kindred spirits, too), then this is your post.
A brief follow-up to my Rob Williams: Still A Whiny, Spineless Douche post a few weeks ago (again, if you’re not interested in the whole “VT secessionists who love neo-Confederates” thing, just skip this). Apparently, Rob’s feelings were hurt because Cathy Resmer didn’t mention his loony blog in her latest article, and did mention that blog that pointed out how he loves him some lynchers. Get over it, already, Rob, you lost. Please call me, we’ll do lunch sometime.
I know, what am I talking about? Douches? Secession? If you’re not a longtime reader, just skip this one. You’ll be glad you did. It’s really quite cranky and somewhat silly.
You longtime FBC’ers know about that whole Second Vermont Republic brouhaha a few years back. There’s a ton of it out there; just google “Thomas Naylor, SPLC, white supremacist, Second Vermont Republic, racist”, or any mixture of those phrases. Our state’s novelty of a secessionist group, led by an unrepentant, unreconstructed Confederate lunatic by the name of Thomas Naylor, got into a bit of hot water with the so-called “Vermont Left”, when me and a couple of other bloggers (admittedly, I had very little to do with it other than spreading the word and some relentless taunting) spread the word about SVR’s connections with some shady white supremacists groups such as the League of the South. Naylor popped his gasket, dug in his heels and showed his true colors, and two or three some-odd years later, the only attention SVR gets (aside from the Southern Poverty Law Center, who have done a ton of great work on SVR’s racist ties) seems to be from out-of-state press that haven’t done their homework and caught on to the fact that SVR is no more than a joke back home in Vermont, and that Naylor is a crank that nobody takes seriously, other than maybe Glenn Beck and those guys who wear the pointy white hoods.
Naylor’s biggest fanboy is Rob Williams, who runs a little indy paper and blog called “Vermont Commons”, SVR’s “sister” organization (mostly comprised of men, as far as I can tell). By and large, it’s a pretty benign, well-intentioned affair; once and a while there’s some great stuff in there about self-sufficiency and all the evil, rotten things the U.S. government does. Unfortunately, it’s tainted by that same whole “secession is a possibility right around the corner – and it keeps gaining in popularity, too! Yay! ” pipe dream that kinda makes it a bit hard to take seriously.
I know this probably isn’t of interest to many of my readers, but VT Commons’ Rob Williams, who’s been a-a-bobbin’-and-a’-weavin’ due to the heat from the Southern Poverty Law Center’s none-too-flattering report on the racists in the VT secession movement seems to give me the impression that the scrutiny is getting a bit under his skin, compartmentalized mind notwithstanding… in his latest “rebuttal” he aptly pointed out:
Now – I suppose I could take another 2 hours and attempt to dialogue with, refute or otherwise clear up (again) Mr. Odum’s accusations, selective half-truths, distortions, conflations, hyperbole, ad hominem attacks, and Biblical exegesis ( as applied to me).
and then laments “being cast out of GMD’s garden.” One tiny problem, though. He hasn’t been banned fom GMD, I don’t even know if he’s a member, and most importantly, he’s too chickenshit to bother coming to GMD or here to engage us directly about the accusations. But he did give me a cool nickname: J.D. “Grindhouse” Ryan.
Here’s a one for you, Rob, straight from the grindhouse. It’s Thomas Naylor’s worst nightmare. Don’t get scared. And thanks for the traffic.
It’s really funny how VT Commons’ editor and former smart guy Rob WIlliams keeps digging himself and his organization deeper in the whole, by simply refusing to fess up to the racist ties within the Vermont secession movement. The best he seems to be able to come up with is his whiny little “I guess this’ll give some of those lefty bloggers something to write about.”, because, you know, we just fear the success of his movement so damn much (considering the host of unsavory characters he associates with, perhaps there is something to fear, but being a straight, white male I’m probably okay). Odum at GMD did an excellent takedown of Williams’ latest today, worth a read.
And of course, Williams today is still playing the patron saint of victimhood, and he’s obviously confusing GMD with FBC (you know, three letters and such):
At least Heidi’s article will give the GMD blogging crowd something to talk about for the next few days other than the upcoming presidential “election” and “Grindhouse” movies”.
Yeah, cuz we never talk about those elections, do we? Sure, let’s talk about it. So he doesn’t like grindhouse films. I get that. Prehaps this classic film, based on the book “The Klansman” is more to his liking:
At least us GMDer’s will have something fun to discuss at the Blogger BBQ on the 28th besides the Prezelection.
It’s BAAA-CK… Two years after the fact, the Southern Poverty Law Center has finally written up its article about the deal with the secession group Second Vermont Republic’s cuddly relationship with neo-Confederate racist groups, which effectively killed most of the support that group had from the Vermont left. The major players are all there, the batshit-insane SVR head Thomas Naylor, “I-don’t-know-if-they’re-racist-and-I-don’t-care” Rob Williams of VT Commons, and Middlebury’s Kirkpatrick Sale. It’s a pretty detailed piece. I didn’t know that VT’s own right-wing free-market hack extraordianaire John McLaughry has even lost his googly eyes for them.
The money quote from Naylor, whom I really can’t help but picture either in a long, silver robe with a pointy 3-foot pyramid hat, or perhaps a bathrobe and fuzzy slippers when he said this:
In the face of these criticisms, Naylor remains defiant. “I don’t give a shit what you write,” he told the Report. “If someone tells me that I shouldn’t associate with the League of the South, it guarantees that I will associate with the League of the South.”
That really says it all, doesn’t it? If you’re a glutton for punishment and want to relive the whole thing, there’s plenty on FBC about it if you poke around, or for the real goods, VT Secession.
Hard to believe it’s been a year since that whole Second Vermont Republic fiasco, in which it was revealed that the tiny VT secessionist group had (and continues to have) some rather unsavory ties to Neo-Confederate groups. It got the wingnut brigade out in full force, but they couldn’t hide the bad PR, especially when they were defending it as though it were nothing to be concerned about. But that hasn’t stopped founder Thomas Naylor and VT Commons editor Rob “I don’t know if they’re racist and frankly, don’t care” Williams from trying. Blogger Thomas Rowley, the man who set the ball in motion that would eventually sink SVR, has a little retrospective up now. And today’s Times Argus also has the latest on the failure of the recent effort for SVR to get a secession initiative going on the ballot at Town Meeting Day in several towns this year (h/t to Jack at GMD). They couldn’t even get enough signatures to get it on one ballot, anywhere. Yet Thomas Naylor will probably insist that support is still growing, the neo-confederates are nothing for us to be concerned about, and whatever other blatherings those crazy voices in his head make him say. It seems to be his stock formula now, regardless of the truth of the matter.Nice job guys.
