(In light of odum’s departure, I found it important to front page this, if only to shed some light and let the folks at SVR know that this isn’t going away. – promoted by JDRyan)

Note from JD – I put this on my blog, five before chaos last night, when it was first brought to my attention. Considering they’ve now put the letter in question on their website (with revisions), I feel it is important to have this post here. )

UPDATE: In an incredibly stupid move, SVR has posted their attack piece on John Odum on their website. Before reading my post here, go have a look, then come back here. And let me know if you don’t agree if it sounds more like the insane rantings of a paranoid demagogue than a well-respected (until recently) academic.

You know, when observing how the Second Vermont Republic is dealing with this ever-increasing scrutiny over their ties to Neo-Confederate organizations, the best comparison I can possibly make is to the tactics of the Bush Administration (ironic, considering how much the SVR rallies against the Bush-led imperialism). Straw man arguments, attacking the messenger, disingenuous innuendo, and bald-faced lies.  Did Karl Rove lend them his playbook?

The latest outrage is a letter sent out by Second Vermont Republic’s guru/leader, Thomas Naylor, to its members, which is basically a hit piece on John Odum, the Green Mountain Daily blogger who first drew attention to the story broken on the Vermont Secession blog. For an organization that likes to continuously attribute the motivations of its critics as coming from ‘fear of the success of SVR (while completely ignoring that to many, SVR is merely a novelty or punchline), they’re sure acting like they’re the ones with something to be afraid of.

First, they relocate the Langdon St. Cafe appearance, out of concerns of ‘risk’ (as in the ‘risk’ of being questioned and confronted about the allegations). Now, they send out this letter. You’d need a Camel’ s Hump-sized shovel to get through all of the bullshit in Naylor’s letter. Now, Odum’s more than capable of defending himself, but considering he’s getting all of the heat and attention, and it’s involving personal matters now, I thought it was best that I let those of you who are interested know about the latest lies from Naylor, because the SVR certainly isn’t going to point you to five before chaos (but they sure do see to spend a lot of time there, reading).It’s curious that FBC has stayed under the radar during all of this, considering the criticisms there on the site have been harsh, and for the most part, accurate.

1) Naylor states that anonymous blogger Rowley’s ‘only source’ is the Southern Poverty Law Center (a credible source by any means, except if one is in one of the hate groups watched by the SPLC). Naylor offers no proof on this allegation whatsoever. Must have heard it from the ghost of Ethan Allen.

2) Naylor the gets into calling Odum a ‘Democratic party hack’ and, horror of horrors, a ‘supporter of Bernie Sanders’. He then keeps insisting that Odum has a problem with the Lincoln revisionism and that he doesn’t know the well-known quote from Lincoln about being okay with him not freeing the slaves to save the Union, (which one doesn’t obviously have to be a Neo-Confederate to know-just a Howard Zinn reader). He also says that Odum thinks ‘Abe Lincoln was their greatest president’ and ‘is vehemently opposed to peaceful  secession.” Once again, there is no record of this as motivated by ‘objections to Lincoln revisionism’, and Odum has been on record as stating the idea of secession as ‘somewhat appealing’.  Naylor is just pulling this one out of his ass.

3) He then goes on to somehow insinuate that Odum’s non-profit workplace is somehow behind this. He accuses him of calling into the Brattleboro radio show last week on company time, in an apparent attempt to jam him up with his job. Problem is, Naylor’s too lazy to look out the window, because there was a huge blizzard that day, and NOBODY went to work, including Odum. The fact that Naylor is resorting to these kinds of attacks (without even bothering to check the weather) is very telling as to who the ‘scared’ ones are in this.

UPDATE: The above thing about the calling in on the snow day was removed from the website, but not on the actual letter that was sent out. out. A bit late on the fact-checking.
Here’s the original clip where they try to get odum in trouble with his job:

4) He then cites that oft-cited poll  (that nobody seems to be able to obtain specifics on) that ‘found that 40,000 Vermonters  support secession’.  It’s a bit misleading, considering that we can’t find out exactly how many people were polled, but I’ll bet it wasn’t 40,000. And one poll doth not a movement make.

5) He once again defends the League of the South, Basani and DiLorenzio, while downplaying the racism rampant in the organizations these people associate. Remember , as SVR’s Rob Williams said, ‘they don’t know and don’t care’. He then goes off on some Bernie AIPAC rant. I guess that one plays well with those ‘Zionist conspiracy’ types who might be listening.

6) He talks about the VNN controversy… apparently there was some posts on the hate site, of dubious origin with DiLorenzio’s name on them that I pointed out in the comments section of GMD. Since then, I and numerous others have acknowledged that their veracity may be in question (they’re still there, as to not insinuate we’re going back and doing some kind of whitewash). Naylor then accuses the ‘the blogger’ of a cut-and-paste fabrication. That may be true, but the ‘blogger’ in question is whoever put the posting on VNN, not FBC, Rowley, or Odum, as Naylor is trying to infer.

7) Naylor goes on to list his lifelong opposition to segregation and racism. I don’t doubt his accounts on this. He then once again goes on with the blatantly false accusation that Odum has accused Naylor of being racist. Must be Ethan Allen’s ghost whispering in his ear again.

He wraps up with the laughable and by-now-tired notion, once again, that our motivations are because we somehow fear what this organization represents. First it implies we’re in stark opposition to secession (once again, an outright lie), and second it implies that they’re much further along in their goals than they actually are. Does he actually believe the words coming out of his mouth?

It would be nice if Naylor could actually point to some real example of these allegations, instead of listening to the voices in his head. Maybe he thinks you’re too stupid to bother trying to figure it out for yourself.

I REALLY want to be done talking about this. I have better things to write about.The people who needed to know about this now do, and in the grand scheme of things, SVR doesn’t really matter all that much outside of its supporters. But if Naylor’s idea of a defense is completely sidestepping the issue here while lying his ass off, it’s important you know about it. Hopefully, this will be my last post on this for a while, so those of you who in SVR who are checking this site religiously every few hours out of fear of some new allegation, rest easy. Go back to looking at Confederate memorabilia sites or something.