Gayle in MD
10-06-2010, 12:05 PM
http://www.terroristnextdoor.com/
THE MILITIA MOVEMENT AND THE RADICAL RIGHT
by Daniel Levitas
September 11, 2001, focused America’s attention on the terrorist threat from abroad, but as the World Trade Center towers collapsed, domestic right wing hate groups were celebrating in the United States. “Hallelu-Yahweh! May the WAR be started! DEATH to His enemies, may the World Trade Center BURN TO THE GROUND!” exulted August Kreis of the paramilitary group, the Posse Comitatus. “We can blame no others than ourselves for our problems due to the fact that we allow …Satan’s children, called jews today, to have dominion over our lives (sic).” The Terrorist Next Door reveals the men behind far right groups like the Posse Comitatus – Latin for “power of the county” - and the ideas that inspired their attempts to bring about a racist revolution in the United States.
Timothy McVeigh was executed for killing 168 people when he bombed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in 1995, but The Terrorist Next Door goes well beyond the destruction in Oklahoma City and takes readers deeper and more broadly inside the Posse and other groups that make up the paramilitary right. It tells the story of men like William Potter Gale, a retired Army officer and the founder of the Posse Comitatus whose hate-filled sermons and calls to armed insurrection have fueled generations of tax protesters, militiamen and other anti-government zealots since the 1960s.
Written by Daniel Levitas, a national expert on the origins and activities of white supremacist and neo-Nazi groups, <span style='font-size: 11pt'>The Terrorist Next Door is carefully researched and includes rich detail from official documents (including the FBI), private archives and confidential sources never before disclosed. Among other things, Levitas explains how the racist and anti-Semitic campaigns of segregationists in the 1950s and ‘60s gained ground in the Cold War climate that polarized politics following World War II. </span>
<span style='font-size: 14pt'>The book also traces the history of the right wing tax protest movement and offers the first definitive account of how the radical right preyed on financially troubled farmers during the agricultural crisis of the 1970s and ‘80s. </span>
In detailing these and other developments, Levitas provides a compelling factual narrative while also arguing that the danger posed by the radical right as a social movement goes far beyond the criminality and violence common among its organizers and adherents.
<span style='font-size: 20pt'>The greatest challenge, he points out, stems from the success that groups like the Posse have had in spreading their ideas from the margins into the political mainstream. </span>
Excerpt from second link, where one can read the entire first chapter.
Gale's beliefs were rooted in a long history of radical right-wing thought in the United States. A decade before the Kansas broadcast, and almost twenty-five years before a pair of antigovernment zealots Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols-bombed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Gale hoped to lay the groundwork for a violent revolution by creating a paramilitary group known as the Posse Comitatus. Latin for "power of the county," the term refers to the medieval British practice of summoning a group of men to aid the sheriff in keeping the peace by pursuing and arresting lawbreakers. While the historic role of a posse comitatus had been to aid civil authorities in suppressing violence and vigilantism, Bill Gale's revision stood this ancient practice on its head-his posse was devoted to promoting armed insurrection. Under Gale's definition, anyone could call out the Posse, not just the sheriff, and if government officials attempted to enforce "unlawful" legislation the Posse could arrest and put them on trial with a "citizens' jury." Although others later claimed the credit, it was Bill Gale who first developed and popularized the strategy. And it was Gale's encouragement that prompted right-wing militants to form local Posse chapters to mobilize against blacks, Jews, and other perceived enemies of the Republic, including government officials they said were subverting the intent of the Constitution. Building on the bigotry of Christian Identity theology and his involvement with the radical right after he left the army in 1950, Bill Gale popularized a set of ideas that have influenced anti-government activists to the present day. After founding the Posse Comitatus in the 1970s, Gale helped launch the Christian Patriot movement in the 1980s. And long before the first so-called "citizens' militias" appeared in the 1990s, Gale had introduced the concept of private armies and the "unorganized militia."
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/17/books/chapters/1117-1st-levitas.html
Note, Timothy McVeigh, was also a right wing zealot!
THE MILITIA MOVEMENT AND THE RADICAL RIGHT
by Daniel Levitas
September 11, 2001, focused America’s attention on the terrorist threat from abroad, but as the World Trade Center towers collapsed, domestic right wing hate groups were celebrating in the United States. “Hallelu-Yahweh! May the WAR be started! DEATH to His enemies, may the World Trade Center BURN TO THE GROUND!” exulted August Kreis of the paramilitary group, the Posse Comitatus. “We can blame no others than ourselves for our problems due to the fact that we allow …Satan’s children, called jews today, to have dominion over our lives (sic).” The Terrorist Next Door reveals the men behind far right groups like the Posse Comitatus – Latin for “power of the county” - and the ideas that inspired their attempts to bring about a racist revolution in the United States.
Timothy McVeigh was executed for killing 168 people when he bombed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in 1995, but The Terrorist Next Door goes well beyond the destruction in Oklahoma City and takes readers deeper and more broadly inside the Posse and other groups that make up the paramilitary right. It tells the story of men like William Potter Gale, a retired Army officer and the founder of the Posse Comitatus whose hate-filled sermons and calls to armed insurrection have fueled generations of tax protesters, militiamen and other anti-government zealots since the 1960s.
Written by Daniel Levitas, a national expert on the origins and activities of white supremacist and neo-Nazi groups, <span style='font-size: 11pt'>The Terrorist Next Door is carefully researched and includes rich detail from official documents (including the FBI), private archives and confidential sources never before disclosed. Among other things, Levitas explains how the racist and anti-Semitic campaigns of segregationists in the 1950s and ‘60s gained ground in the Cold War climate that polarized politics following World War II. </span>
<span style='font-size: 14pt'>The book also traces the history of the right wing tax protest movement and offers the first definitive account of how the radical right preyed on financially troubled farmers during the agricultural crisis of the 1970s and ‘80s. </span>
In detailing these and other developments, Levitas provides a compelling factual narrative while also arguing that the danger posed by the radical right as a social movement goes far beyond the criminality and violence common among its organizers and adherents.
<span style='font-size: 20pt'>The greatest challenge, he points out, stems from the success that groups like the Posse have had in spreading their ideas from the margins into the political mainstream. </span>
Excerpt from second link, where one can read the entire first chapter.
Gale's beliefs were rooted in a long history of radical right-wing thought in the United States. A decade before the Kansas broadcast, and almost twenty-five years before a pair of antigovernment zealots Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols-bombed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Gale hoped to lay the groundwork for a violent revolution by creating a paramilitary group known as the Posse Comitatus. Latin for "power of the county," the term refers to the medieval British practice of summoning a group of men to aid the sheriff in keeping the peace by pursuing and arresting lawbreakers. While the historic role of a posse comitatus had been to aid civil authorities in suppressing violence and vigilantism, Bill Gale's revision stood this ancient practice on its head-his posse was devoted to promoting armed insurrection. Under Gale's definition, anyone could call out the Posse, not just the sheriff, and if government officials attempted to enforce "unlawful" legislation the Posse could arrest and put them on trial with a "citizens' jury." Although others later claimed the credit, it was Bill Gale who first developed and popularized the strategy. And it was Gale's encouragement that prompted right-wing militants to form local Posse chapters to mobilize against blacks, Jews, and other perceived enemies of the Republic, including government officials they said were subverting the intent of the Constitution. Building on the bigotry of Christian Identity theology and his involvement with the radical right after he left the army in 1950, Bill Gale popularized a set of ideas that have influenced anti-government activists to the present day. After founding the Posse Comitatus in the 1970s, Gale helped launch the Christian Patriot movement in the 1980s. And long before the first so-called "citizens' militias" appeared in the 1990s, Gale had introduced the concept of private armies and the "unorganized militia."
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/17/books/chapters/1117-1st-levitas.html
Note, Timothy McVeigh, was also a right wing zealot!