Militias and conspiracy culture

Sovereign Citizens Police Plot

David Brutsche, who identifies himself as a sovereign citizen, appears in court in Las Vegas, Nevada, on 23 Aug. 2013. Police say an undercover officer spent four months with Brutsche and Devon Campbell Newman, collecting evidence of a domestic terror operation. (AP Photo/Las Vegas Sun, Leila Navidi/SCANPIX. Under copyright).

IN DEPTH: Anti-government rage is primarily an American phenomenon, but a number of ideas and tropes from the US anti-government subculture have entered Europe over the last 10 years through the influence of conspiracy culture.

John Færseth

It is a sunny morning in Ithaca, a small university town in upstate New York that is the American residence of the Dalai Lama. The scene taking place in a parking area appears at first sight to be right out of a 1960s countercultural movie: A group of long-haired travellers in a mobile home have just been stopped by police for driving an unlicensed vehicle.

What separates the scene from “Easy Rider” is that none of the travellers possess a driver’s license. Their leader, a dreadlocked gentleman calling himself J. M. Sovereign: Godsent, argues that licenses are unconstitutional and a breach of “common law”. As soil-born “sovereign citizens”, they have a constitutional right to drive a non-commercial vessel or dwelling on all roads in all 50 states. A lady calling herself Sue Yo Ass, who claims to represent the “Sovereign Copwatch”, is filming the entire incident. According to Ms Ass, the policemen have no legal authority over the travellers. In fact, the policemen are required to pay her and her sovereign citizens a gold fee for every question asked and are in the process of running up a $15,000 bill.

J. M. Sovereign: Godsent is the author of the self-published book “Title 4 Flag Says You’re Schwag!” – a “handbook” for sovereign citizens. The outlandish moniker reflects his belief that the name on a birth certificate does not represent an actual person, but is a “strawman identity” that refers to his or her capacity for work and earning, used by the government as security to obtain loans from international bankers.

The sovereign citizens movement is a growing subculture in the United States, and is rooted in the Posse Comitatus-movement of the 1970s and 80s, a movement founded by the bizarre preacher and ex-military William Potter Gale. Whether or not the hippie-ish Mr Godsent and Ms Ass are aware of it, the subculture shares many of its roots with the militia movement and white supremacist groups. All are manifestations of an American far-right scene characterized by anti-government conspiracy theories, usually paired with a related brand of scepticism towards the United Nations and other international organizations. The result is a paranoid view of the future involving economic collapse, strict gun laws and martial law, all seen as imminent. Racist ideologies, including anti-Semitism, sometimes infuse the brew.

Origins
Many of today’s manifestations of the extreme – and not so extreme – right have their roots in the upheavals of the 1950s and 60s, and in organizations like the John Birch Society (JBS). Founded in 1958 by Robert W. Welch Jr, a retired candy manufacturer, the JBS was named after John Birch, an American Baptist missionary and United States military intelligence officer shot by communist forces in China in August 1945 and regarded by the society as the first casualty of the Cold War. The JBS was dedicated to the fight against Communism, and opposed any form of recognition of the Soviet Union including summits with Soviet leaders. While the JBS originally had some mainstream respectability, its views often bordered on full paranoia, with the feminist and environmental movements seen as communist plots and even the Republican President, Dwight D. Eisenhower, accused of being a communist agent. Some John Birch Society publications even claimed that all forms of socialism from Marxism to social liberalism were the creations of the secret Illuminati society.

Persons affiliated with the JBS include author and conspiracy theorist Cleon Skousen, who would later become an important ideologist for parts of the Tea Party movement, and Robert DePugh, who would went on to form his own paramilitary organization, the Minutemen, after dismissing JBS members as “wimpish” letter-writers. Presidential candidate Ron Paul has denied having ever been a member, but he has declared the JBC an important influence on his thought and he was the main speaker at the JBS’s 50th Anniversary dinner in 2008.

William Potter Gale – Posse Commitatus, Christian Identity and White supremacy
William Potter Gale was a rather unsuccessful ex-militaryman who became politically radicalized in the 1950s. This led him to join DePugh’s Minutemen. His increasingly racist ideas led him to embrace Christian Identity, a racist interpretation of the Bible viewing North Europeans as descendants of the lost 10 tribes of Israel, and thus God’s chosen people, while seeing other races as “mud people”, mere animals created before Adam and Eve with no souls and therefore no possibility of salvation.

Jews hold a unique position in the Christian Identity worldview, and are either seen as descendants of the Khazars – a Turkic people who converted to Judaism in the early middle ages – and therefore impostors, or as literal spawn of Satan who mated with Eve in the Garden of Eden in the guise of the serpent. Ironically, Gale was himself almost entirely of Jewish descent, a fact he kept hidden his entire life.

Eventually Gale created his own movement, which he named Posse Comitatus. Posse Comitatus is a Latin term for “power of the county” and refers to the right of the local community to enforce laws. It usually implies absolute resistance to all forms of federal and state authorities, which are viewed as being in breach of both the original US constitution traditional Anglo-American Common Law. The only authority recognized is the local sheriff, who has been elected by his peers among the sovereign citizens. Some readers might interpret this as a radical brand of libertarianism. But for Gale and other early sovereign citizens, resistance to the federal government was deeply connected to their racism and anti-Semitism, and a reaction to the struggle for Civil Rights for African Americans. According to Gale, both the growth of federal power and the forced desegregation of the South were secretly directed by Jews and their communist dupes who controlled the government through the Federal Reserve, the American central bank. Jewish international bankers were also said to be behind the abandonment of the gold standard.

A majority of early sovereign citizens also believed that being white should be a prerequisite for citizenship, and that the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which had guaranteed citizenship to African Americans and everyone else born on US soil, had been an illegal move to make everyone permanent subject to federal and state governments.

In the 1970s the Posse Comitatus movement merged with parts of the growing tax-resistance movement and started taking a violent turn. Internal Revenue Service officers, judges and policemen were “arrested”, beaten or taken before imaginary “citizens’ grand juries”. The agricultural crisis which rocked the Midwest in the late 1970s provided a dangerous recruiting ground for Posse agitators who visited fairs, attempted to take over farmers’ organizations and sent out newsletters to farmers in which Jews and international bankers were blamed for the hard times. Some even organized “Endtime Overcomer Survival Training Schools”, which taught the use of firearms, first aid and natural birth assistance in preparation for a coming societal collapse or for resisting the government. Many of these schools also gave instruction in Christian Identity theology.

The movement gained national attention in June 1983 when a North Dakota farmer named Gordon Kahl was killed in a shootout in Arkansas. Kahl, a 63-year-old World War II veteran, had been attracted by William Potter Gale’s radio broadcasts and started to travel around the Midwest spreading the Posse “gospel“ while condemning what he called the ZOG (Zionist Occupation Government), including politicians, courts and law-enforcement officials. Kahl also refused to support the government by paying his taxes, leading to a two-year prison sentence in 1977. Released on parole, he went on to become active in the “township” movement, an attempt to make towns secede from the United States.

Kahl’s organized activities came to an end when police attempted to arrest him for breach of probation in Medina, North Dakota, using a roadblock. In the ensuing shootout two policemen were killed and Kahl escaped. Hunted by FBI, he went into hiding at a Smithville, Arkansas, farm belonging to a sympathetic family. Kahl was eventually turned in by the family’s oldest daughter, who appeared to have been scared of him as well as attracted by $25,000 in reward money. Another arrest attempt, this time with of a small army of policemen, led to another shootout. Both Kahl and Lawrence County Sheriff Gene Matthews were killed.

Despite the “martyrdom” of Gordon Kahl, the sovereign citizens movement petered out in the late 1980s. It did, however, experience a massive rebirth in the late 2000s. It is difficult to gauge the number of adherents, but by one rough estimate there are more than 500,000 tax protestors in today’s United States, of whom 300,000 are either full-blown sovereign citizens or in the process of testing out various pseudo-legal techniques for resisting anything from speeding tickets to drug charges. Sovereign ideas also seem to be spreading among prisoners and among the unemployed, and among those who are in financial trouble because of the economic crisis.

Like their predecessors, today’s sovereign citizens repudiate the duties and responsibilities usually associated with citizenship. A central claim is that no citizen is obliged to pay federal taxes or possess a driver’s license, vehicle license plate or birth certificate. Some even claim that their doctrine is divinely inspired, and that paying taxes is a sin. Unlike the sovereign citizens of the 1970s and 1980s, many of today’s sovereigns seem to be unaware of the racist origin of their ideas – indeed, many sovereigns are African American.

A common claim is that the original legal system set up by the founding fathers was at some point replaced by “Admiralty law” or “the law of the sea”, changing the legal status of citizens to that of slaves. The time of this supposed changeover varies, but a common claim is that it occurred during the Civil War or with the subsequent passing of the 14th amendment. Another is that the change happened in 1933, when the United States abandoned the gold standard replaced money backed by gold with the “full faith and credit” of the government. To sovereign citizens, this government move was tantamount to pledging the future earnings of US subjects as collateral, which could then be sold to foreign investors. Some even believe that a secret account in the name of every US resident is set up at birth and contains between $600,000 and $20 million. Through a complex legal process known as “redemption”, it is possible both to emancipate oneself from admiralty law and gain possession of these funds.

Most sovereigns do not go further than filing an endless succession of dubious complaints – a process somewhat incorrectly known as “Paper Terrorism”. But in several instances, cornered sovereigns have lashed out in anger against what they deem an unlawful government. One example involves Jerry and Joe Kane, a father and son who travelled around the country conducting redemption workshops. After being pulled over by police in West Memphis, Arkansas, in May 2010, the Kanes resisted and Joe Kane shot and killed two police officers. Four months later, in Odessa, Texas, Victor White – a Vietnam veteran, tax resister and hermit – opened fire on an oil company worker and two sheriff’s deputies who had “illegally” entered his property.

Due to its roots in American anti-federalism and its heavy use of revolutionary war imagery, the sovereign citizens movement remained a US-based subculture until recently. It has eventually spread to Canada, where it has claimed to have more than 30,000 adherents, and to the UK and Europe. Proponents outside the US tend to call themselves “Freemen on the Land”. A tragicomic example was when Calgary retiree Camille Sokol discovered to her horror that her new tenant was a self-declared “Freeman on the land” who promptly declared her house an embassy and went on to fortify it, claiming that since he had “manumitted” himself from the government, Canadian law did no longer apply to him.

Even Norway has seen a somewhat bizarre case, with a former student of Princess Märtha’s New Age-style “Angel school” attempting to give up her Norwegian citizenship, claiming that her social security number was a straw identity used by the state to borrow money.

The militia movement
Early 1994 was a busy time for John Trochmann. Trochmann, a self-proclaimed “free white Christian man, Republic of Montana State Citizen” who asserted that he had never “knowingly been a citizen of the United States”, crisscrossed Montana speaking about of an upcoming invasion by United Nations troops in black helicopters. According to Trochmann, the American government had long abandoned the interest of the American people, rendering the individual states defenceless, and was now in the process of disarming the people in order to establish a sinister “New World Order”. He believed American soldiers were already being trained for “special operations” in which they would be arresting civilians. The only remedy was to establish a citizens’ militia, which according to Trochmann was a right guaranteed by the Constitution as a bulwark against a tyrannical government. Trochmann would himself set an example by establishing the Militia of Montana the same year.

The last photograph of Vicki Weaver before she was killed by an FBI sniper 22 Aug 1992 in the Ruby Ridge standoff. It was taken by US Marshall Service surveillance on the morning of 21 Aug 1992 and was evidence at the subsequent trial. (Photo: USMS. In public domain).

The last photograph of Vicki Weaver before she was killed by an FBI sniper 22 Aug. 1992 in the Ruby Ridge standoff. It was taken by US Marshall Service surveillance on the morning of 21 Aug. and was evidence at the subsequent trial. (Photo: USMS. In public domain).

Three incidents were crucial in the growth of the militia movement in the early 1990s. The first was the shootout at Ruby Ridge, in which the Weaver family attempted to hold off local and federal police in a remote cabin on top of Ruby Ridge, Idaho. Randy and Vicki Weaver were Christian Identity believers with a firm belief that the Biblical end-times were near at hand. Randy, a military veteran, got in trouble with the authorities when he attempted to sell two sawed-off shotguns to a government informant and subsequently refused both to appear in court and to become an informant. Randy, Vicki, their four children and a family friend withdrew to the cabin, leading to a full siege in which Vicki and their teenage son Sammy lost their lives. The trial of Randy Weaver attracted national attention among right-wing extremists and everyone else with a skeptical view of the government, especially because Weaver’s lawyer choose to downplay the white supremacist element and present the Weavers as “white separatists” who simply wanted to be left alone.

800px-Mountcarmelfire04-19-93-n

The Mount Carmel Center in Waco, Texas, in flames on April 19, 1993. Photo: FBI. In public domain.

The second incident was the death of 82 members of the Branch Davidian congregation on April 19, 1993. The charismatic David Koresh (born Vernon Howell) led an offshoot of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church based in a compound at Waco, Texas. The congregation aroused the interest of the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) when the bureau received reports of weapon deliverances to the sect’s compound. Like Randy Weaver, the Branch Davidians refused to cooperate, leading to a 51-day siege that ended in tragedy when FBI agents finally assaulted the compound. During the assault, the compound caught fire. Responsibility is still being debated. In any case, 76 persons lost their lives at Waco, including 17 children.

If Ruby Ridge helped launch the militia movement, Waco provided it with scores of martyrs, as the assault was perceived as an attack on both religious freedom and the constitutional right to bear arms. Even as the siege unfolded, it attracted national and international attention because cable news broadcasters provided continuous coverage of the events. Amongst the spectators and protestors drawn to the site were several well-known right-wing extremists as well as a young man named Alex Jones, who would eventually become a guru to many conspiracy theorists, and a recently discharged soldier called Timothy McVeigh.

The third event was the passage of federal gun-control legislation in 1993 and 1994, which established a five-day waiting period to purchase a handgun and limited the sale of various types of assault rifles. Both restrictions were both considered part of a “government conspiracy” to disarm the American people and ultimately to abolish the Second Amendment right to bear arms.

John Trochmann’s Militia of Montana was one of the first militia groups to organize as a response to the perceived threat. October 22, 1994, approximately 160 men from various right-wing organizations gathered for what was dubbed “The Rocky Mountain Rendezvous”. At the summit, various racist “revolutionaries” spoke of New World Order conspiracies, tax resistance, the need for armed militias and – more disturbingly – the possibility of “leaderless resistance” in order to overthrow the government and bring about a white Christian republic.

Militia membership peaked in the mid- 1990s, when it was claimed that more than 10,000 people were organized in militias and training in guerrilla warfare and survivalist techniques, and continued growing even after the 1995 bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City. A steep decline followed, in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Reasons for the decline included systematic prosecution, aversion to the movement’s advocacy of violence, a new and highly conservative president and the fact that many militia leaders had been active proponents of the Y2K panic, stoking fears that that computers all over the world would fail to adjust to the change from 1999 to 2000 and cause a massive societal collapse.

Like the sovereign citizens movement, militia membership experienced a massive resurgence from 2008 on, after the election of Barack Obama. The resurgence was deeply connected to the belief that the new president would be a “gun grabber”, despite the fact that Obama never spoke about guns in his campaign speeches except when supporting the Second Amendment. A common rumor debated in militia Internet forums was that while Obama and the congressional Democrats knew it was impossible to outlaw guns, ammunition would be severely taxed. This rumour led to an increase in ammunition sales, which eventually made Wall-mart run out of bullets – a shortage that, according to author Will Bunch, sparked new rumours that the ammunition had been bought up by government agents. The same fear of imminent weapons regulations led the state of Montana to enact a law barring federal regulations on guns manufactured and sold in the state.

While estimates of today’s militia membership vary, the number of groups is usually set at above 300, far higher than at the previous peak in the 1990s. Most members tend to be white males between 20 and 55 years old. Unlike openly racist groups, militias tend to compare themselves to the patriots of the American Revolution, often using names and symbolism from the revolutionary war. Armed resistance against “illegitimate authority” is seen as a justifiable defence against an intrusive and tyrannical government. In the same manner, paramilitary training, stockpiling illegal weapons and similar activities are seen as necessary for self-defence and preservation. The Internet has proven an efficient recruiting and communication ground, with a multiple of forums, blogs and “blog talk radio stations” to spread and discuss relevant topics, including claims that Barack Obama will soon endorse drone strikes on American soil, and that a proposed national service corps is intended to function as Obama’s Hitlerjugend, helping in a coming mass arrest of American citizens. Like sovereign citizens, some have also resorted to imaginary courts to sentence what they deem illegal authorities, and have even ordered President Obama to appear before a “Citizens’ Grand Jury” for treason and fraud.

McVeigh_mugshot

FBI mugshot of Timothy McVeigh.

Domestic terrorism
In addition to those believing in the need to prepare for a coming suspension of civil liberties, there have for years been those who believe in preemptive action against the establishment.

Among those following the events at Waco was a 27-year old army veteran, Timothy McVeigh. McVeigh seems to have had trouble readjusting to civilian life, both in relation to holding a steady job and women. Instead he filled his time with conspiracy literature, including the writings and broadcastings of Milton William Cooper, a veteran from the UFO subculture who had mutated into a militia agitator speaking against an Illuminati-dominated “shadow government” preparing to set up a dictatorial “New World Order”. Indeed, McVeigh is said to have attempted to enter Area 51, a closed area in Nevada rumoured to be a testing ground for stolen or bartered alien technology, at some point before the event for which he is remembered.

On 19 April 1995, Timothy McVeigh struck back against a government he saw as tyrannical and traitorous by detonating a homemade bomb outside the Federal Building in Oklahoma City, destroying nine floors, killing 168 persons and wounding hundreds more.

The carnage caused by Timothy McVeigh is unique. On the other hand, there have been more than 100 lesser instances of right-wing violence or plans for such violence since 1995. The majority seem to have been inspired by antigovernment and/or militia ideology, closely followed by neo-Nazism or white supremacism. It should be noted, however, that many such ideologies overlap. For instance, it is difficult and probably not very constructive to try to determine whether Eric Rudolph – who detonated a bomb in an Atlanta park during the 1996 Summer Olympics and later bombed an abortion clinic and a gay bar – was motivated by Christian fundamentalism, radical anti-abortion or antigovernment ideology. What is known is that he claimed to be striking back against a federal government that had lost its mandate to govern by allowing the murder of unborn children. Nor are some border militias easy to categorize. They may see it as their duty to protect America from illegal Mexican and Central American immigration by terrorizing migrants, but they also share some rhetoric with the general militia movement and even sovereign citizen groups.

An instance of smaller-scale terrorism includes activity by the Republic of Texas, a radical separatist group that claims Texas is still an independent nation illegally occupied by the United States. In April 1997 the group took two hostages and demanded the release of a jailed ROT member. Another instance is the case of Andrew Joseph Stack III, a software consultant from Austin, Texas, with a longstanding income tax dispute with the IRS, who in February 2010 flew a single-engine aircraft into an office building housing an IRS office in Austin, killing one employee and injuring 13 more.

Given the rise in antigovernment and right-wing groups and the many instances of planned terror, there may be good reason to fear another large-scale incident, although today’s right wingers lack a Waco or Ruby Ridge to light the fuse.

Conspiracy culture
Many of the antigovernment ideas of the extreme right can also be found in the conspiracy culture that has developed since the late 1980s and which has exploded online since the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001. The extreme right is a main source of material for the conspiracists, although it also borrows from Christian apocalyptics and the UFO subculture, as seen in the development of Milton William Cooper from UFO theorist to full-blown “patriot” agitator. Conspiracy culture has evolved into a large media subculture that includes websites, books, radio shows and – not least – online TV and video broadcasted through YouTube.

In particular, conspiracy culture has adopted the extreme right’s scepticism towards the government and the belief that it has been taken over by sinister forces that use the government to further their own goals, typically a global dictatorship called the “New World Order”, often shortened NWO. The term NWO seems to be borrowed from Christian apocalypticism, which also infuses it with a sense of impending doom – indeed, the idea of a coming one-world dictatorship can be seen as a secularized form of Christian prophesies concerning the coming of the Antichrist before the Final Judgment. The role given to the United Nations and other international organizations by some conspiracy theorists and militia members also seems to be connected to the preeminent role of the UN in modern end-time speculation. The idea of a shadow government seems partly inspired by UFO culture, in which the shadow force is seen as having been set up to regulate contact between the official government and extraterrestrials, but has since got out of hand. The Illuminati order, which is sometimes said to control the move towards NWO, seems to be borrowed from publications of the John Birch Society, while the anti-Semitism that characterizes some strains of conspiracy culture is derived from older writings like the Protocols of the Elders of Zion as well as the writings of William Potter Gale, Willis Carto and others.

A typical mark of conspiracy culture is a willingness to blame the government or banking elite of almost anything, including the orchestration of incidents like the Oklahoma City bombings, the 9/11 attacks and the Newtown shootings, in order to further their own goals. Radio host and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, whose site is a hotbed of militia- and gun-related discussion, has blamed both Newtown and the Boston bombings on the Obama administration, describing them as pretexts to confiscate the weapons of American patriots.

While conspiracy culture has its roots in the political right, it has for years found its way over into parts of the left, where anti-Semitic ideas are repackaged as opposition to “Zionism” and “the Israel lobby”, and into New Age culture, creating a fusion culture described as “conspirituality” as represented by the Zeitgeist movies and the writings of David Icke.

The role of racism
The role played by racism in today’s anti-government culture is debatable. Some point to the presence of African-Americans in the sovereign citizens movement to prove that it has largely distanced itself from its racist past.

Others point to the fact that the militia resurgence has occurred under an African-American president, and should at least partially be seen as a response to changing demographics and rising non-white immigration, giving it a racist undertone similar to that of the 1990s, and possibly greater. The same racist undertone can be observed in the nativist sentiment that animates anti-immigrant border militias as well as fears that Barack Obama is not US-born and therefore not eligible for the presidency. And finally, as already stated, strong anti-Semitic undercurrents are present in both conspiracy culture and the hatred of “international bankers” so common among sovereign citizens, who tend to identify the bankers in charge of the Federal Reserve with the Rothschilds and other Jewish financiers.

Extremism and mainstream
At least some of the features uniting the American extreme right – including a paranoid view of government, anti-centralism and a belief in America as a chosen country whose system is continually under threat – can also be found in parts of the mainstream right, albeit in less passionate form.

Examples include commentator and Tea Party activist Glenn Beck – an outspoken admirer of Cleon Skousen – who has promoted right-wing conspiracy tropes like societal collapse, collapse of the dollar, the possibility of dictatorship and even the claim that dissidents are being put into FEMA camps, a theory he later dismissed. Some local militias are also close to the Tea Party movement, while Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul has appeared on Alex Jones’ online programme. Other examples are the never-ending rumour that Barack Obama was not born in the United States and the tendency of the right to cast itself as “real Americans” as opposed to minorities, “socialists”, immigrants and the political elites represented by “Washington”, a tradition dating back to both “producerist”, farmer-oriented populism and the John Birch Society. Indeed, as shown by Charles Postel, many of the tropes present in today’s Tea Party, including the identification of the country’s president as a socialist/collectivist “traitor”, were present in the JBS. With this in mind, it is fitting that congressman and Tea Party favourite Ron Paul was the main speaker at the society’s 50th anniversary celebration in 2008. There have also been some examples of Tea Party activists demonstrating in the company of pro-gun and Islamophobic groups connected to the militia movement. The Tea Party also shares a love of revolutionary war imagery with the antigovernment underground.

One of several places where the more radical elements of the mainstream overlap with moderate extremism is Oath Keepers, a nonprofit group founded in March 2009. Oath Keepers is based on the idea that it might eventually be necessary to resist the government by refusing to obey orders. It therefore attempts to recruit members of the police and military, and has attracted members from the fringe of the Tea Party as well as tax resisters and terrorist sympathizers. Among its endorsers: Glenn Beck.

The name “Oath Keepers” is derived from a theory that the primary duty of members of the military is to the Constitution, and that they should therefore be ready to resist an unconstitutional order. In reality, the oath of enlistment specifies that they shall obey the President. While less radical than militias, Oath Keepers is implicitly based on fears of the government will eventually find an excuse to declare martial law, confiscate guns and ammunition and arrest resisting patriots. Indeed, founder Stewart Rhodes has mentioned the “possibility” that black helicopters from the UN will eventually be entering the country to abolish American sovereignty.

Influence abroad
The anti-government conspiracy subculture of the United States remains unique, but it has its echoes in Europe. Examples include pure conspiracy websites like Norway’s Nyhetsspeilet and Sweden’s Vaken.se as well as parts of the New Age movement, in which opposition to vaccines and conventional medicine have fuelled belief in such menaces as a UN depopulation programme and a programme to control humans through microchip implantation. There have also been several instances in which people of the left, like Norwegian peace researcher Johan Galtung, have quoted right-wing ideas about international bankers and/or secret societies. The antigovernment movement should therefore be of concern not only to Americans, but to everyone interested in online radicalization.

Sources:
Daryl Johnson: Right-Wing Resurgence: How a Domestic Terrorist Threat is Being Ignored
Daniel Levitas: The Terrorist Next Door
Will Bunch: The Backlash. Right-Wing Radicals, High-Def Hucksters, and Paranoid Politics in the Age of Obama.
Lawrence Rosenthal/Christine Trost: Steep: The Precipitous Rise of the Tea Party
Peter Knight (ed.:) Conspiracy Nation. The politics of paranoia in postwar America.

 

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John Færseth

About John Færseth

John Færseth is a Norwegian author and journalist. He has written the books Ukraina - landet på grensen, about the crisis in Ukraine, and KonspiraNorge, about conspiracy culture.
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Trackbacks/Pingbacks

  1. Jeg er min egen stat fordi det er min guddommelige og universelle rett! | TJ - Land - November 11, 2014

    […] I USA driver Freemen on the Land og Sovereign Citizens Movement også med svindel, såkalt Redemption / Strawman / Bond Fraud. I tillegg har skattemyndighetene i USA Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administtrasjon (TREAS) en rekke saker fra så langt tilbake som 1992,  hvor de har etterforsket svindel og hvitvasking av penger. Freeman on the land og Sovereign Citizens Movement er foranklet i rasisme og antisemittisme. Noe du kan lese om her: Sovereign citizens, militias and conspiracy culture.  For litt over et år siden siden ble David Allen Brutsche og Devon Campbell Newman arrestert og dømt for å ha planlagt kidnapping og drap på en politimann i Las Vegas, og for å markedsføre Sovereign Citizen-bevegelsen. Fra USA – Nevada. – Cliven Bundy (selve hovedpersonen i det som kalles ‘the Bundy Ranch standoff’) og hans allierte i gruppen Oath Keepers samt ‘milits’-gruppene White Mountain Militia og Pretorian Guard bruker mye av retorikken, ikke minst ideologien fra Sovereign Citizen-bevegelsen. Vi snakker om et fenomen som er legitimerer vold som et akseptabelt virkemiddel mot myndighetene. Du kan lese mer om fenomenet her. […]

  2. Jeg er min egen stat fordi det er min guddommelige og universelle rett! | TJ – Land - July 28, 2015

    […] I USA driver Freemen on the Land og Sovereign Citizens Movement også med svindel, såkalt Redemption / Strawman / Bond Fraud. I tillegg har skattemyndighetene i USA Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administtrasjon (TREAS) en rekke saker fra så langt tilbake som 1992,  hvor de har etterforsket svindel og hvitvasking av penger. Freeman on the land og Sovereign Citizens Movement er foranklet i rasisme og antisemittisme. Noe du kan lese om her: Sovereign citizens, militias and conspiracy culture.  For litt over et år siden siden ble David Allen Brutsche og Devon Campbell Newman arrestert og dømt for å ha planlagt kidnapping og drap på en politimann i Las Vegas, og for å markedsføre Sovereign Citizen-bevegelsen. Fra USA – Nevada. – Cliven Bundy (selve hovedpersonen i det som kalles ‘the Bundy Ranch standoff’) og hans allierte i gruppen Oath Keepers samt ‘milits’-gruppene White Mountain Militia og Pretorian Guard bruker mye av retorikken, ikke minst ideologien fra Sovereign Citizen-bevegelsen. Vi snakker om et fenomen som er legitimerer vold som et akseptabelt virkemiddel mot myndighetene. Du kan lese mer om fenomenet her. […]

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