For week three of “Fringe Friday,” we feature independent candidate for governor Dennis Steele, a burly web-preneur from the Northeast Kingdom who says Vermont must secede from the United States — or else.
Fringe Friday is Seven Days‘ weekly web series about the independent and minor party candidates running for governor, U.S. House and U.S. Senate — many of whom are pitching more radical ideas for bettering the lives of average Vermonters.
While “fringe” might seem disparaging, we don’t mean it that way. Vermont has a strong tradition of putting independent and third-party candidates on the ballot, giving voters the option to choose from a wide menu of ideologies. Still, these candidates rarely garner more than 1 percent of the vote, perhaps due to their less traditional ideas, or poor organization or even lack of media exposure. As such, they remain on the fringes of the state’s political system.
Candidate: Dennis Steele
Party: Independent
Office Sought: Governor
Age: 42
Hometown: Kirby
Education:California Polytechnic State University (BS in liberal studies, minor in anthropology, 2003) Cuesta College (two-year degree in math and general science, 2000)
Occupation: “Web-preneur.” Founder/owner of chess-playing website chessmaniac.com and Vermont-centric radio site radiofreevermont.org.
Family: Steele grew up in Kirby, Vt., on the same street where he lives today. His father was a carpenter and his mother worked a factory job manufacturing industrial scales. Steele has Abenaki Indian blood and he’s been researching his geneology to connect with his native roots. His wife, Amber, is a stay-at-home mother and the couple have two kids: Angela, 6, and Luke, 3.
Campaign Websites: GovernorSteele.com, Second Vermont Republic, Dennis Steele for Governor Facebook page
Platform: Secession. Steele’s an active member of the Second Vermont Republic movement (publishers of Vermont Commons newspaper) and thinks Vermont must secede from the United States to avoid economic and social catastrophe. He believes the United States has lost its “moral authority” and that deepening federal deficits make it a “sinking ship” that Vermont should jump off of. Seceding would keep Vermont afloat, he believes, by reclaiming the $2 billion Vermonters currently pay into the U.S. Department of Defense budget. (Steele served in the U.S. Army for three years in the early 1980s — he joined to get money for college — and served as a helicopter crew chief.
We caught up with Steele at Langdon Street Café in Montpelier earlier this week.
Seven Days: Where were you stationed with the Army?
Dennis Steele: I served in South Carolina, Virginia and Hawaii. And then I ended up staying in Hawaii for another four years after I got out. I had all my paperwork to get into the warrant officer program and I got my real estate license. I looked at my landlord and he was driving a Mercedes Benz and the pilot was driving a Mazda 323. So I was, like, all right, I’m going to give the real estate thing a try. I failed the first time. I put three deals in escrow and they all fell out. Didn’t know what I was doing. So I was working at Radio Shack, had to call my dad to pay my rent. I saw an ad for Brothers’ Auto Sales that said you can make $5000 a month. Used cars. I was a used car salesman. This old Vietnam vet was the sales manager and he took a liking to me and hired me. The first month I made $5000. I was happy. Then I moved to California and was there for 14 years. I was teaching chess to low-income kids in San Luis Obisbo.
SD: How did your politics evolve?
DS: For me, the awakening started to happen in 2003 when we decided to go into Iraq. It didn’t make sense to me. I was living out in California. My in-laws were die-hard Reagan Republicans and here I was the only veteran in the family that was antiwar. And getting kicked out of family dinners and basically family arguments every time we were at the family dinner table. In 2006, I moved back to Vermont. In 2007, I was back in California visiting the in-laws. I was sitting on the couch with my father-in-law — he watches Fox News 24 hours a day. And on this thing came the O’Reilly show and there was Thomas Naylor, Second Vermont Republic. Vermont wants to secede from the Union, and I was just going, ‘Holy shit! What’s this? There is a revolution and it’s happening in my back yard.’ As soon as I got back here, I looked up the website, ordered the Vermont Commons, got the flag (pictured) and everything. I thought the movement was way bigger than it was. You see it on TV like that, you have different expectations.
SD: Up until that point, what had your politics been?
DS: I voted for Ross Perot. I knew Bill Clinton was lying right way. Oh — I got involved with Ron Paul, of course. I was, like, ‘This is the most intelligent person I’ve ever ever heard run for office.’ I was actually leaning toward Obama because he was talking about ending the wars and everything. One night I decided to turn on the Republican debate. I wanted to see what the warmongers were going to say. And this little guy, 76-year-old man, said, ‘Close all the bases. Bring all the troops home. Foreign policy of nonintervention.’ I about fell out of my chair on the floor. I was watching this guy all night tearing these neo-cons apart. The neo-cons completely sabotaged his campaign. So I called Thomas [Naylor] back up and said, ‘I’m back in the movement. The system’s broken and ungovernable.’
SD: Why secede?
DS: What other alternatives are there?
SD: Well, why don’t you just explain why you think it’s a good idea?
DS: The U.S. government has lost its moral authority. It’s owned, controlled and operated by corporate America, Wall Street and the Israeli lobby. It doesn’t answer to the people anymore, so what choice do we have? Most people are in denial. The only thing I can do is try to wake people up and make them understand that Vermont’s pro rata share of the U.S. Defense Department budget is $2 billion per year. And what could Vermont do with that money? A lot.
SD: Explain how it would work.
This article appears in Aug 25-31, 2010.
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Fringe isn’t just for Friday anymore. In Vermont, every day is Fringe Day.
“The Constitution of the State of Vermont would remain in force”…and would be meaningless to the out-of-state party in nearly all cases. Have you ever actually read a contract?”the state would have to step in and bridge the gap”With all that extra money they’ve got lying around, I guess.I love this blog. It’s like a magnet for insane people.
Schlomo, er Murphy, whatever. Israel is only a democracy if you are a member of the chosen tribe. For everyone else it is checkpoints, segregation and the point of a gun barrel. A few shekels? Our bought and paid for politicians have given them over a hundred billion dollars in direct aid alone since 1948. That doesn’t include the loans that are quietly forgiven or the military equipment they are lavished with. And what’s wrong with paying Arabs for oil? It’s not the same as giving them the cash for nothing. As for Egypt being the second largest recipient of foreign aid, you could consider that as aid to Israel also as it is a bribe for them to sell out their fellow Arabs and not attack the apartheid state. In typical fashion, you call people names because the facts are not on your side. You expect to end the debate when you hurl the epithets, racist, anti semite, homophobe, etc. Those names have been so over used by your ilk that they carry no meaning anymore. And, much to your chagrin, people are increasingly less fearful of being called such. So blast away.
Ha! You barely have to bait anti-semites. They expose themselves every time. So all Jews are named Schlomo? The media is controlled by the Jews? Jews are roaches hiding under rocks?Second-largest recipient of direct US aid: Egypt. AN ARAB COUNTRY.Largest recipient overall of US dollars: Arab countries (crude oil purchases). We spend WAY more $$ in private dollars to Arab countries than we give in gov’t aid to Israel.So throwing a few government shekels to support the only democracy in the middle east is bad?You, sir, are an anti-Semite. Shame on you.
Murphy – such a nice Irish name. What’s it really? Schlomo? I can feel the spittle flying with every utterance you peck on the keyboard. One doesn’t have to be an anti semite to observe the total subservience of the US Congress to a foreign lobby. Nor the theft of our tax dollars on their behalf. Does it make one a hater to note that the media is entirely controlled by people with the same agenda? One that does great harm to ALL Americans. Where is the first place that Obama and McCain went to bend on knee and swear fealty? The AIPAC convention of course. Why don’t you like this subject being brought up for debate? Is it because like a roach, you don’t like the light of day shining under your rock? The truth is that the kids who joined the Vermont National Guard in good faith, thinking they were defending their country have been betrayed. A fifth column has instigated a war for the sole benefit of a foreign nation. Or kids die and our treasury bleeds us into bankruptcy. For what? This is a question worthy of examination.
@ Scomber:I also have studied Jewish history and the Holocaust.It was Dennis Steele that raised this issue by giving Andy Bromage in the above interview “the Israeli lobby” as one of the reasons we should secede. The very term “the Israeli lobby” is obviously meant as a pejorative term. There may be 1,000 reasons for Vermont to secede, so why single out the Jewish State and its supporters? Gimme a frickin break. That’s subtlely anti-Semitic. Blaming the Jews is a time-tested formula for trying to rally people to your cause.
With economic stability that my proposals bring, and the economic independence we could actually secede. Right now we would be scrambling for a way to do business as the FED places sanctions on us for doing so. Put the banking proposals I name in place and the VUE, vermont unit of exchange, and we can do quite well all by ourselves. People ! Hear this!Please.
Of course we want to be an independent republic, what has being a member of the US done for us ? Brought us the pride of being the terror of the world ? The dignity of creating the worst pollution per capita ? The joy of having more prisons and prisoners per capita than anywhere else? The hope of being the place where our gross national product is dominated by things that kill other people?