On 11/24/10, Keith In Tampa <keithintampa@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Nov 24, 2010 at 7:38 PM, Tommy News <tommysnews@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Militias, Racists and Anti-Semites Found a Home in the Tea Party
>>
>> "We Are at War": How Militias, Racists and Anti-Semites Found a Home
>> in the Tea Party
>> In places like rural Montana, the Tea Party is working hand-in-glove
>> with Patriot movement radicals -- many of whom have close ties to
>> anti-government armed militias.
>> November 21, 2010 |
>> Photo Credit: A.M. Stan LIKE THIS ARTICLE ?
>> Join our mailing list:
>> Sign up to stay up to date on the latest headlines via email.
>> Petitions by Change.org|Get Widget|Start a Petition ? Research
>> support for this article was provided by The Investigative Fund at The
>> Nation Institute.
>>
>> Maybe it's the gun-making kits that are being raffled off as door
>> prizes. Or maybe it's the fact that nearly everyone inside this hall
>> at the Ravalli County Fairground is packing heat. But most of all,
>> it's the copy of Mein Kampf sitting there on the book table, with its
>> black-and-white swastika, sandwiched between a survivalist how-to book
>> on food storage and a copy of Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals.
>>
>> It is obvious: This is not your ordinary Tea Party gathering.
>>
>> Mind you, they don't explicitly call themselves Tea Partiers. Their
>> official name is Celebrating Conservatism. But their mission statement
>> is classic Tea Party -- "to restore our country, counties, and cities
>> back to the Republic and the Constitution of the United States" -- and
>> Celebrating Conservatism is listed as a member of the national Tea
>> Party Patriots organization. Everyone in Hamilton, Montana -- the
>> whole of Montana's Bitterroot Valley, for that matter -- knows them as
>> the Tea Party's main presence in town. Once a month or so, the group
>> holds a potluck dinner at the county fairgrounds that typically
>> attracts a couple hundred people, which in a place like the Bitterroot
>> is a sizeable presence.
>>
>> This night -- a September 14, 2010, potluck in the oversized metal
>> shed that is the fairground's main hall -- is special because there is
>> a high-profile guest: Larry Pratt, leader of Gun Owners of America.
>>
>> Pratt, like a lot of Celebrating Conservatism's speakers, has a long
>> history with the far right. He is considered a godfather of the
>> militia movement, a network of conspiracy-minded, armed paramilitary
>> groups that exploded in the 1990s. Pratt addressed a pivotal three-day
>> meeting of neo-Nazis and Christian Identity adherents in Estes Park,
>> Colorado, in October 1992, convened in the wake of a shoot-out by
>> federal agents in Ruby Ridge, Idaho, that had sent shock waves through
>> the extreme right. That gathering is widely credited with birthing the
>> movement's strategy of organizing citizen militias as a form of
>> "leaderless resistance" to a looming "New World Order." Joining Pratt
>> on the stage at Estes Park were Aryan Nations leaders Richard Butler
>> and Louis Beam. (A few years later, Pratt became co-chair of Patrick
>> Buchanan's 1996 GOP presidential campaign, but was dismissed once
>> these Neo-Nazi ties surfaced in the national press.)
>>
>> Pratt is hardly the only controversial figure to address the group. In
>> May 2010, at its convention on the University of Montana's Missoula
>> campus, Celebrating Conservatism hosted tax protester Red Beckman,
>> notorious for his open anti-Semitism and the author of a 1984 book
>> that argues the Holocaust was a judgment upon Jews for worshiping
>> Satan. At a Hamilton gathering in July 2009, a onetime Arizona sheriff
>> named Richard Mack addressed the crowd; he'd made a career in the
>> 1990s out of organizing militias and speaking on the national circuit
>> of the anti-government Patriot movement. Mack's longtime Patriot
>> movement confederate, Jack McLamb, spoke at the group's Hamilton
>> gathering the following month. McLamb, a former police officer,
>> recruits "soldier and lawmen" to the Patriot cause through a group
>> called Police & Military Against a New World Order.
>>
>> Those events served notice that Celebrating Conservatism had embraced
>> the Patriot movement cause.
>>
>> Celebrating Conservatism formed in December 2008 in reaction to the
>> presidential election and slowly gained members that spring by
>> associating itself with a variety of Tea Party events in Bitterroot.
>> But locals only took real notice in September 2009, when the group
>> held a gun rights rally in downtown Hamilton at which participants
>> brandished firearms. Organizers followed up with a Celebration of
>> Right to Bear Arms in March 2010, which featured a march of several
>> hundred people along Hamilton's main drag. Anyone driving through town
>> that day was greeted by a gauntlet of people packing weapons ranging
>> from muzzle-loading muskets to a high-powered sniper-style .308
>> caliber rifle.
>>
>>
>> Continued here:
>>
>> http://www.alternet.org/story/148946/%22we_are_at_war%22%3A_how_militias%2C_racists_and_anti-semites_found_a_home_in_the_tea_party_
>> --
>> Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
>> Have a great day,
>> Tommy
>>
>> --
>> Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
>> For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum
>>
>> * Visit our other community at
>> http://www.PoliticalForum.com/<http://www.politicalforum.com/>
>> * It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls.
>> * Read the latest breaking news, and more.
>
> --
> Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
> For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum
>
> * Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/
> * It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls.
> * Read the latest breaking news, and more.
--
Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
Have a great day,
Tommy
--
Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum
* Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/
* It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls.
* Read the latest breaking news, and more.
No comments:
Post a Comment