The Second Wave--The Return of the Militias

The Southern Poverty Law Center has issued its August update on the status of militias in the U.S. The report by Mark Potok reports that after a period when they faded ,weakened by systematic prosecutions and splits within ranks,the militias have re-emerged. Law enforcement agencies report they are seeing the most significant growth in 10-12 years and believe it's just a matter of time before we see threats and violence. The new twist to the Patriot movement is that because of immigration and a new black President they have become racialized. The SPLC also points out that so-called mainstream politicians and media figures have been helping spread Patriot and related propaganda from conspiracy theories about a secret network of U.S. concentration camps and wholly false claims about President Obama's country of birth.

Law enforcement authorities are concerned that militiamen, white supremacists, anti-Semites, nativists, tax protesters and others of the radical right are now cross-pollinating and may even be coalescing. One law enforcement figure said:"All it's lacking is a spark. I think it's only a matter of time before you see threats and violence." In recent months,men with pro-militia views have committed a series of high-profile murders--including the billings of six law enforcement officers since April.

The killer of Dr. Tiller in Kansas was a man steeped in the ideology of the "sovereign citizens"movement. These citizens are people who subscribe to an exotic ideology, or constitutional theory, originated by Posse Comitatus in the 1980s. Whites are a higher kind of citizen--subject only to 'common law", not the dictates of the government--while blacks and others are mere "14th Amendment citizens" who must obey their government masters. Most of these people contend they do not have to pay taxes and are not subject to most laws. Dr.Tiller's killer picked up his ideology while being a member of the Montana Freeman. His wife said he had been in such debt that he gravitated to this ideology because he understodd he would not have to pay income taxes. He also had been previously stopped by police for having a sovereign citizen license plate.

Since February, the FBI have launched a national operation targeting white supremacists and the "militia/sovereign citizen extremist groups". These people engaged in what is called "paper terrorism" such as filing unjustified property liens and setting up pseudo-legal "common law courts" and "citizens grand juries". You might have seen the grand juries in action with Orly Taitz and the birther movement. In March, authorities raided a Las Vegas printing firm where meetings of the "Sovereign People's Court for the United States" were conducted in a mock courtroom. Seminars taught how to use phony documents and other illegal means to pay off creditors. Four people were arrested on money-laundering , tax and weapons charges.

Alot of the "sovereign "talk appears in alot of the propaganda of the tea baggers and on right-wing talk radio ,often without any awareness of its origins and the groups who created it. More worrisome according to the Southern Poverty Law Center is the emergence of the Oath Keepers, a military and police organization that was formed earlier this year and mustered on the Lexington Green. Members vow to fulfill the oaths to the Constitution that they swore when they were in the military or police. They claim they are faithful to the constitution , not to politicians.

The founder is Yale Law School Student Stewart Rhodes, a former aide to Ron Paul, who believes the day is coming that we will face a full-blown tyranny and that this can only occur if "our brothers in arms" go along." One of the Oath Keepers posted a video on the group's blog claiming he was an Afghanistan and Iraq vet and described President Obama as "an enemy of the state", adding," I would rather die than be a slave to my government."

One of the most interesting points of the SPLC report is that claim that Oath Keepers is making inroads in current law enforcement circles. The group reports that the leak of the Department of Homeland Security's report on right-wing terrorism was a sworn law enforcement agent in contact with the Oath Keepers.

The report points out that a truly remarkable aspect of the antigovernment movement is the extent that they are gaining support from elected officials and the mainsteam media. They point to the 10th Amendment movement where the re-assertion of states' rights has hit 36 states. We all saw Rick Perry of Texas flirt with secession, an idea first raised by the militia movement in the 1990s. Michele Bachman raised the specter of President Obama planning "reeducation camps for the young", a service program which ironically her son joined without telling her. Alabama representative Spencer Bachus warned of 17 socialists in Congress. And, of course, the insurrectionist leader himself, Glenn Beck calls Obama a fascist, a Nazi and a Marxist and widely publicized the militia movement's conspiracy theory that Obama has set up a country-wide network of FEMA camps to be used as concentration camps. The report also cites Lou Dobbs embrace of the Aztlan conspiracy, where Mexican illegals are being salted so that our Southwest will be taken back by Mexico, and as well as his support for the birthers.

During the Sotomayor confirmation hearings, conservative politicians claimed that the judge was linked to La Raza and hence a supporter of the Aztlan conspiracy. Sadly, La Raza had to respond that they did not support this concept. Colorado representative Tom Tancredo was the most visible spouting this view as he appeared on all major networks.

David Holthouse analyzes the morphing of the nativist vigilante groups adopting the ideas of the Patriot movement. Minuteman outposts along our southern border have been amplifying the broadcasts of ResistNet and other Patriot Network programs into their base camps. Undocumented illegal immigration sparked by the Original Minuteman Project of 2005 but now these organizations appear to be emerging as the new paramilitary wing of the resurgent Patriot Movement. While immigration flows have dropped dramatically across the border because of the deep recession, paramilitary exercises and rallies have increased. The Minutemen now believe there are larger problems beyond immigration, namely a potentitally totalitarian government, driven by an illegitimate president, bent on seizing all firearms, trampling the Constitution and imposing a fascist-socialist system on a docile population.

At Campo Minutemen, the fight song is the "Tea Party Anthem", which goes like this: "Mr. President! Your stimulus is sure to bust/It's a socialist scheme./The only thing it will do?Is kill the American Dream." This sentiment has led to Minutemen groups distributing a sovereign "citizen complaint petition" demanding Obama appear before an "American Grand Jury" to answer charges of treason. If the words are familiar, it's because you've seen them in the birther literature.

The Minuteman's defacto leader now is Jeff Schwik, the head of their San Diego Branch, a man known for his confrontational tactics and his hard-line views. In mid-April, he announced the formation of the Patriot Coalition, made up of 23 organizations, including Minuteman factios, tax-protest groups, pro-gun rights and two anti-immigration organizations. No longer were they just going to resist "the invasion from Mexico" but also the "socialist takeover" of America. The press release described their common cause under the motto "Secure Borders, Constitution and Rule of Law". It went on to say that "patriotic and Constitutional American grassroots groups" had come together to "fight the growing threats to our region and to the taxpaying American citizens." Schwik declared,"Revolution is brewing!".

To put the other pieces of the political puzzle together to include the Christian Idenity, neo-nazi movements and the white supremacists and the neo-confederates, I highly recommend Blood and Politics: The History of the White Nationalist Movement from the Margins to the Mainstream by Leonard Zeskind( Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2009, $37.50). This is an extraordinary piece of work that covers the white nationalist movement for the last three decades. The author has been a persistent student of the international racialist movement, including the field of Holocaust deniers. He wrote the book as a warning with the hopes the subject would remain obscure and not relevant to our present reality. Unfortunately, Zeskind outlines exactly how the themes of these movements have almost become acceptable to elements in Washington, particularly the conservative movement and elements within the Republican Party.

What I found particularly important in Zeskind's book is his analysis of the sociology of this movement--the fact there has been highly educated and accomplished people in its ranks and is predominantly not of the lower classes. What most observers and critics maintain is that these people are on the fringe--true--but they suggest somehow they are ignorant because of a lack of education. The problem is that they have considerable abilities and often high education levels and that's why they are dangerous.