New SPLC Report Details the Resurgent Militia Movement

Richard · 08-12-2009, 07:22

And so it goes...

Richard's $.02

Quote:

New SPLC Report Details the Resurgent Militia Movement

The 1990s saw the rise and fall of the virulently antigovernment "Patriot" movement, made up of paramilitary militias, tax defiers and so-called "sovereign citizens." Sparked by a combination of anger at the federal government and the deaths of political dissenters at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, and Waco, Texas, the movement took off in the middle of the decade and continued to grow even after 168 people were left dead by the 1995 bombing of Oklahoma City's federal building — an attack, the deadliest ever by domestic U.S. terrorists, carried out by men steeped in the rhetoric and conspiracy theories of the militias. In the years that followed, a truly remarkable number of criminal plots came out of the movement. But by early this century, the Patriots had largely faded, weakened by systematic prosecutions, aversion to growing violence, and a new, highly conservative president.

They're back. Almost a decade after largely disappearing from public view, right-wing militias, ideologically driven tax defiers and sovereign citizens are appearing in large numbers around the country. "Paper terrorism" — the use of property liens and citizens' "courts" to harass enemies — is on the rise. And once-popular militia conspiracy theories are making the rounds again, this time accompanied by nativist theories about secret Mexican plans to "reconquer" the American Southwest. One law enforcement agency has found 50 new militia training groups — one of them made up of present and former police officers and soldiers. Authorities around the country are reporting a worrying uptick in Patriot activities and propaganda. "This is the most significant growth we've seen in 10 to 12 years," says one. "All it's lacking is a spark. I think it's only a matter of time before you see threats and violence."

A key difference this time is that the federal government — the entity that almost the entire radical right views as its primary enemy — is headed by a black man. That, coupled with high levels of non-white immigration and a decline in the percentage of whites overall in America, has helped to racialize the Patriot movement, which in the past was not primarily motivated by race hate. One result has been a remarkable rash of domestic terror incidents since the presidential campaign, most of them related to anger over the election of Barack Obama. At the same time, ostensibly mainstream politicians and media pundits have helped to spread Patriot and related propaganda, from conspiracy theories about a secret network of U.S. concentration camps to wholly unsubstantiated claims about the president's country of birth.

Fifteen years ago, the Southern Poverty Law Center wrote then-Attorney General Janet Reno to warn about extremists in the militia movement, saying that the "mixture of armed groups and those who hate" was "a recipe for disaster." Just six months later, Oklahoma City's federal building was bombed. Today, the Patriot movement may not have the white-hot fury that it did in the 1990s. But the movement clearly is growing again, and Americans, in particular law enforcement officers, need to take the dangers it presents seriously. That is equally true for the politicians, pundits and preachers who, through pandering or ignorance, abet the growth of a movement marked by a proven predilection for violence.

In Pensacola, Fla., retired FBI agent Ted Gunderson tells a gathering of antigovernment "Patriots" that the federal government has set up 1,000 internment camps across the country and is storing 30,000 guillotines and a half-million caskets in Atlanta. They're there for the day the government finally declares martial law and moves in to round up or kill American dissenters, he says. "They're going to keep track of all of us, folks," Gunderson warns.

Outside Atlanta, a so-called "American Grand Jury" issues an "indictment" of Barack Obama for fraud and treason because, the panel concludes, he wasn't born in the United States and is illegally occupying the office of president. Other sham "grand juries" around the country follow suit.

And on the site in Lexington, Mass., where the opening shots of the Revolutionary War were fired in 1775, members of Oath Keepers, a newly formed group of law enforcement officers, military men and veterans, "muster" on April 19 to reaffirm their pledge to defend the U.S. Constitution. "We're in perilous times … perhaps far more perilous than in 1775," says the man administering the oath. April 19 is the anniversary not only of the battle of Lexington Green, but also of the 1993 conflagration at the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, and the lethal bombing two years later of the Oklahoma City federal building — seminal events in the lore of the extreme right, in particular the antigovernment Patriot movement.

Almost 10 years after it seemed to disappear from American life, there are unmistakable signs of a revival of what in the 1990s was commonly called the militia movement. From Idaho to New Jersey and Michigan to Florida, men in khaki and camouflage are back in the woods, gathering to practice the paramilitary skills they believe will be needed to fend off the socialistic troops of the "New World Order."

(cont'd)

http://www.splcenter.org/news/item.jsp?aid=392#

**The Reaper** · 08-12-2009, 07:31

The SPLC is a leftist, racist organization with its own agenda.

TR

Richard · 08-12-2009, 10:41

Quote:

The SPLC is a leftist, racist organization with its own agenda.

No doubt - but it ain't the only one and they aren't all on the left, either.

Recognize all the current conspiracies floating around the WWW contained in the so-called report?

Richard's $.02

Streck-Fu · 04-16-2010, 07:08

Some more on The Oath Keepers: LINK

Protect & Serve
The Oath Keepers have more in common with Henry David Thoreau than Timothy McVeigh.

Mother Jones says they represent “the Age of Treason.” Bill O’Reilly believes they’re “pretty extreme.” When Rob Waters of the Southern Poverty Law Center wrote about the group, he called on the government to “ensure that the armed forces are not inadvertently training future domestic terrorists.”

They’re talking about the Oath Keepers, a coalition of current and former military, police, and other public officials. And what treasonous, terrorist tactic have these extremists adopted? They have pledged not to obey unconstitutional commands.

Search the group’s founding document and the closest thing you will find to a call to violence is the statement that, should a dictatorship be imposed and a popular uprising break out, its members will not only refuse to fire on the dissenters but will “join them in fighting against those who dare attempt to enslave them.” And even then the “fighting” needn’t necessarily be armed. (They also say they aren’t “advocating or promoting violence towards any organization, group or person.”) Otherwise, the manifesto is a call to stand down, not to rise up. Not every Oath Keeper would appreciate the comparison, but the group has more in common with those dissidents of the ’60s who refused to go to war than with any paramilitary cell.

If you wanted to find a theoretical discussion of Oath Keepers’ plans, you wouldn’t turn to a text on terrorism or guerrilla warfare. You would open the second book of Gene Sharp’s three-volume classic on civil disobedience, The Politics of Nonviolent Action, and turn to the section headlined “Action by Government Personnel.” In “an essentially nonviolent struggle,” Sharp writes, “a mutiny may express itself entirely through the refusal to carry out usual functions of forcing the regime’s will on the populace or waging war against a foreign enemy.” In addition, “police or others may selectively refuse certain orders on a scale too limited to be described accurately as mutiny.” The examples he offers range from the British occupation of India, where a regiment refused to fire on a peaceful protest, to the Nazi occupation of Norway, where policemen frequently flouted the Germans’ orders.

In the current case, there are ten commands the Oath Keepers have forsworn. Those who join the group must refuse

• to disarm the American people

• to conduct warrantless searches of the American people, their homes, vehicles, papers, or effects

• to detain American citizens as “unlawful enemy combatants” or to subject them to trial by military tribunal

• to impose martial law or a “state of emergency” on a state, or to enter with force into a state, without the express consent and invitation of that state’s legislature and governor

• to invade and subjugate any state that asserts its sovereignty and declares the national government to be in violation of the compact by which that state entered the Union

• to blockade American cities, thus turning them into giant concentration camps

• to force American citizens into any form of detention camps under any pretext

• to assist or support the use of any foreign troops on U.S. soil against the American people

• to confiscate the property of the American people, including food and other essential supplies, under any emergency pretext whatsoever

• to do anything that would “infringe on the right of the people to free speech, to peaceably assemble, and to petition their government for a redress of grievances”

Looking at that list, three things immediately come to mind. The first is that resisting such orders should not be controversial—or at the very least, should not be considered outside the boundaries of normal debate. The item about states asserting sovereignty will raise hackles in some quarters, though it’s rooted in the fact that several legislatures are considering resolutions that lean in that direction. Otherwise these are orders that anyone with civil-libertarian instincts would reject on their face. Appearing on MSNBC in March, Crazy for God author Frank Schaeffer dismissed the group as malcontents who think they could “break the law and not follow orders if they don’t like what they’re being told.” But these are not merely instructions the members “don’t like.” They are commands that would be illegal under the Constitution.

Second, some of the orders are not very likely. Membership in the Oath Keepers often correlates with an affinity for dubious conspiracy theories, and that in turn has led the group to embrace some fears without much foundation. Despite decades of rumors, the feds have yet to reestablish the internment camps that held Japanese-American citizens in World War II. And the chances that foreign troops will occupy American soil any time in the near future are pretty low—though if they do show up, I’ll gladly endorse the Oath Keepers’ refusal to assist them.

Third, several of the other orders are likely. Indeed, some have already happened. If the Oath Keepers are overly prone to see secret plots against our liberties, that’s because open plots against our liberties have been so successful. American police forces infringe on free speech and assembly at almost every major political summit. An American citizen, José Padilla, was famously tried before a military tribunal as an enemy combatant. Cops confiscated legal firearms from peaceful citizens following Hurricane Katrina. And speaking of Katrina, if you thought the item about blockading cities belonged on the “not very likely” list, think again. When victims of the storm attempted to flee across the Crescent City Connection bridge to Jefferson Parish, they were forced back by armed agents of the Gretna, Louisiana police. If there had been some Oath Keepers on the force that day, those refugees might have escaped the devastation.

If the Oath Keepers’ agenda isn’t objectionable, why the panic? Partly it’s the general fear of “right-wing extremists” that has taken hold of so much of the media, a narrative that allows ordinarily sensible people to conflate all manner of dissident groups. (Obviously, you needn’t be on the Right to join the Oath Keepers, but the membership does tilt in that direction.) There’s also a suspicion that the group’s concern with civil liberties is only skin deep. If they’re so committed to constitutional protections, critics ask, where were they during the Bush years?

In fact, while the group wasn’t launched until early 2009, it had been germinating for a while. The founder—a veteran, Yale law grad, and former Ron Paul aide named Stewart Rhodes—spoke out about the state of civil liberties throughout the Bush era, writing angrily about the militarization of police work, the expansion of federal power during wartime, and the repression that followed Hurricane Katrina. In 2007, for example, he warned that “the Pentagon and its close allies, the defense contractors, turned to the ‘war on drugs’ and ‘terrorism’ as the new cash-crop reason for the bloated Pentagon budget”—not exactly a standard Red Team complaint. There may be people in the organization who showed little concern for the Bill of Rights from the first month of 2001 through the first month of 2009. But that problem isn’t found at the top.

Some of the group’s critics claim that even if it isn’t violent, Oath Keepers could inflame people who are. Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that he wasn’t “accusing Stewart Rhodes or any member of his group of being Timothy McVeigh or a future Timothy McVeigh.” But the organization was spreading paranoia, he argued, and “these kinds of conspiracy theories are what drive a small number of people to criminal violence.”

Streck-Fu · 04-16-2010, 07:09

cont....

Radical rhetoric does sometimes attract shady characters, and in two cases people linked to the Oath Keepers have been charged with criminal violence. The first occurred in April 2009, when Daniel Knight Hayden—or “Citizen Quasar,” as he called himself—declared his support for the Oath Keepers on his Twitter feed while also announcing his plans to start a shootout at the Oklahoma State Capitol. Hayden wasn’t a part of the organization, though, and Rhodes quickly denounced him as a “nutbag.”

More recently, a man who did have ties to the group—Marine Sgt. Charles Dyer—was arrested on child-molestation charges. While searching his house, police found a grenade launcher that officials say was stolen from a military base. Rhodes quickly distanced himself from the accused, but not very adeptly: he scrubbed references to Dyer from the Oath Keepers’ website, including one that said the man would “represent” the group at a Tea Party rally. After the arrest, Rhodes announced that Dyer “never became an actual member” of the organization since Rhodes disapproved of Dyer’s plan “to train and help organize private militias across the country when he got out of the Marines.” That may be true. Still, Dyer was clearly associated with Rhodes’s group. More importantly, if Dyer is guilty on the weapons charge, that might seem to support the position that the Oath Keeper worldview encourages insurrectionary force.

But there are two problems with Potok’s thesis. The first is that there isn’t any sign that the organization drove Hayden or Dyer to violence. Hayden was unhinged to begin with, and he was spouting New World Order theories long before the Oath Keepers existed; they were simply one convenient symbol to grab as he justified his plans. Rhodes did everything he could after Hayden’s arrest to make it clear that such kamikaze assaults were not what his operation was about. Hayden was “threatening to kill police officers,” he noted, and that’s “not very compatible with an organization made up of police officers and military. That’s not even an example of someone ‘taking it too far,’ it is comparing apples to oranges.” Dyer, too, was interested in the conspiracy theories that worry Potok before he encountered the Oath Keepers. And if he is guilty of the charges against him, he was a criminally violent person to begin with. He is accused, after all, of raping a 7-year-old girl.

That leads to the second problem with Potok’s theory. As he suggests, the set of people attracted to violence overlaps with the set of people attracted to anti-government sentiments. The set of people attracted to violence also overlaps with the set of people who work for the government itself. Oath Keepers is in the rare position of pushing both groups toward nonviolence—of telling the rebels that there’s an alternative to lashing out and of telling officials with guns that there’s an alternative to mindlessly following orders.

You can criticize the Oath Keepers for being too indulgent of fringy fears or for handling the Dyer situation poorly. But what Potok calls “these kinds of conspiracy theories” are already out there. If you’re attracted to them, the Oath Keepers will inform you that there’s a peaceful way to resist illegitimate authority. At the same time, the group concerns itself with a subject that doesn’t seem to interest Potok at all, even though it’s one of the chief reasons such theories spread in the first place: the aggressive violence of the people in power. In a time of indefinite detentions, indiscriminate SWAT raids, and increasingly militarized disaster response, the Oath Keepers’ anxieties make much more sense than the anxieties of the group’s loudest critics.

longrange1947 · 04-16-2010, 08:30

Gee, ever notice that the SPLC never names any leftist group for watching or being terrorist.

Streck-Fu · 04-16-2010, 09:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by longrange1947

Gee, ever notice that the SPLC never names any leftist group for watching or being terrorist.

They would have to include their own board of directors.

badshot · 04-16-2010, 09:30

I am slightly aware of this group...not sure what is radical about following the Constitution, especially since we have strayed from it since 1913, entitlements, rights, etc. According to our founding fathers, only the creator can grant rights. Entitlements didn't work in Jamestown and don't work now. Hand ups not hand outs do. Ever read up on Woodrow Wilson, FDR, and others. What about our current Congress and President not caring about our Constitution? Holy cow, even in the President's book he says he carefully choose whom he hung out with in school, the cool people, which happened to be Marxists. The backgrounds of most of his current advisors are a little off at best. ahh... Fundamentally change our country to a Social and Economic Justice one, how wonderful...

These are objective facts not conspiracy crap, and I certainly don't belong to any militia or other group, not my thing. I love my country, warts and all.

As for Padilla and other bottom feeders whom wish to hurt innocents, ambush LEO's, rebel with violence, etc. American or otherwise...I don't much care what happens to them and/or how it does, just as long as they are made no longer a threat to anyone except themselves.

Green Light · 04-16-2010, 09:46

Quote:

In Pensacola, Fla., retired FBI agent Ted Gunderson tells a gathering of antigovernment "Patriots" that the federal government has set up 1,000 internment camps across the country and is storing 30,000 guillotines and a half-million caskets in Atlanta. They're there for the day the government finally declares martial law and moves in to round up or kill American dissenters, he says. "They're going to keep track of all of us, folks," Gunderson warns.

When I saw the name "Ted Gunderson" it struck something in my memory. Looked him up and he's a former "Fred, Barney, and Irving" special agent (meh), he was also the defense investigator for the murderous Dr. Jeffrey MacDonald who butchered his wife and two daughters on post at Ft Bragg. He blamed the attacks on "drug crazed hippies" who chanted "drugs are groovy". Gunderson got someone to cop to the charges on video but the confession wasn't allowed in court. He was later re-tried and convicted. He's filed for retrials several times and a book was written about the whole thing. I recall that DNA evidence that was supposed to exonerate him proved that he did it.

These "militias" are generally made up of people who, if brains were gunpowder, couldn't blow their noses. They're habitually exposed as "right wing" but if you look at their politics, you'll see that most are actually leftists (Neo-Nazi = New National Socialist). Journalists' automated reaction is "if there's uniforms and guns involved, then they're right wing. It's much more complex than that. But complex thought isn't the realm of MSM.