From: nlns@igc.apc.org (New Liberation News Service)
Newsgroups: alt.activism
Subject: NLNS: CHRISTIAN IDENTITY (UPDATED VERSION)
Date: 30 Sep 92 18:54:22 GMT
Organization: The Ohio State University Department of Computer and Information Science

/* Written  6:18 pm  Sep 29, 1992 by nlns in cdp:nlns.news */
/* ---------- "NLNS Packet 3.2 *** 9/28/92" ---------- */

CHRISTIAN IDENTITY, SURVIVALISM & THE POSSE COMITATUS
Chip Berlet, NLNS

(NLNS)--The use of deadly force against the family of Idaho white 
supremacist Randy Weaver was a tragic example of police 
misconduct and abuse of power by government agencies. But even as 
the seige was underway, far rightists began manipulating justifiable 
revulsion over the government's murderous tactics to recruit 
persons into a brand of populism that avoids overt racist appeals and 
uses radical-sounding anti-government rhetoric to mask the same 
underlying fascist goals promoted by former neoNazi and Ku Klux 
Klan leader David Duke.
	Both Duke and Weaver promote versions of Christian Identity, a 
white supremacist philosophy that mirrors resugent neo-Nazi 
activism world-wide. "Identity is based on the premise that the 
Jews are literally Children of Satan - the seed of Cain, that people 
of color are 'pre-Adamic' mud people - God's failures before 
perfecting Adam, and that white Christian Aryans are the 'Lost 
Sheep of the House of Israel' - God's chosen people, and therefore 
America is the biblical promised land," explains Lenny Zeskind, 
research director of the Center for Democratic Renewal.
	"Some Identity members collect weapons and ammunition in 
expectation that the Biblical "End-Times" are near," says Zeskind 
who wrote a monograph on Christian Identity for the Division of 
Church and Society of the National Council of Churches of Christ in 
the U.S.A. "Identity theology binds together a number of previously 
isolated groups... Important sections of the Ku Klux Klan, the neo-
Nazi movement, the Posse Comitatus, the Aryan Nations, and other 
groups have adopted Identity theology,"  Zeskind reports.
	Identity is based in part on an earlier religious concept called 
"British Israelism." The group most responsible for spreading 
Christian Identity in the 1980's was the Posse Comitatus, a loosely-
knit survivalist movement which grew out of the Christian Identity 
teachings of Col. William Potter Gale in California.  Survivalists 
believe the collapse of society is imminent, and thus they collect 
weapons and conduct field exercises in armed self-defense and 
reconnaissance. Some survivalists store large quantities of grains, 
dried foods, canned goods, water and vitamins in anticipation of 
long-projected economic or political collapse and racial rioting. 
Many have moved to isolated rural areas. Not all survivalists are 
part of the white supremacist movement, but many are. Randy 
Weaver was a survivalist as well as a promoter of racist Christian 
Identity.
	The Posse Comitatus, Latin for "power of the county" but more 
accurately transliterated as "to empower the citizenry," is the legal 
concept used by sheriffs in Hollywood westerns to round up a posse 
and chase the varmints. In modern legal terms it means the right to 
deputize citizens to carry out law enforcement functions, and it also 
is the basis of a federal law preventing the use of federal troops in 
civilian law enforcement without the express consent of the 
President. Members of the Posse Comitatus, however, promote an 
unsubstantiated belief that the Constitution does not authorize any 
law enforcement powers above the level of county sheriff, and that 
state and federal officials above the county level are part of a 
gigantic conspiracy to deny average citizens their rights.
	Many Posse and Identity adherents believe Jews, Blacks, 
Communists, Homosexuals and race-traitors have seized control of 
the United States. They refer to Washington, D.C. as the Zionist 
Occupational Government (ZOG). They read the novel "The Turner 
Diaries" in which an underground white army leads a revolution 
against ZOG.
	In 1969 H. L. "Mike" Beach in Portland, Oregon began issuing 
"Sheriff's Posse Comitatus" charters and handbooks. Soon Gale began 
issuing his own charters and a handbook called the "Guide for 
Volunteer Christian Posses." Early factionalism gave way to an 
informal political and religious movement which began to grow.  In 
the early 1970's a Posse manifesto was issued in booklet form.  In 
late 1974 a national Posse convention was held in Wisconsin with 
200 - 300 attending.
	The most visible and active branch of the Posse for many years 
was in Wisconsin. The press gave much attention to Wisconsin Posse 
leader James Wickstrom, although his claims to hold some vague 
national leadership post was flatly contradicted by the autonomous 
and anarchistic nature of the Posse itself.
	States where Posse activity was reported in the 1980's 
included: California, Colorado, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, 
Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oregon, 
Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Texas, Washington, Wisconsin, and 
Wyoming.
	The most violent Posse confrontation involved the mishandled 
attempt to serve legal papers on Posse activist Gordon Kahl. Two 
federal Marshalls were killed, and several persons wounded. Kahl 
fled underground and was later killed in another mishandled attempt 
to flush him from a fortified bunker. Kahl and other white 
supremacists killed or jailed by the government have become 
martyrs to Posse adherents and other racists. After the Gordon Kahl 
incident, many Posse and Christian Identity members decided to 
carry out activities in secret or through front groups.
	While the Posse was growing in the midwest and west, 
members of Ku Klux Klan and Nazi groups joined together for a 
deadly assault on an anti-Klan rally in Greensboro, North Carolina on 
November 3, 1979. Five members and supporters of the Communist 
Workers Party were killed in the shootout. Following the Greensboro 
shootings and the death of Gordon Kahl, a number of 
previouslyantagonistic racist groups in America began to make 
contact with each other, and began to establish informal means of 
communication and information sharing. Christian Identity was the 
glue than held the groups together.
	Not all Klan groups accepted the new Identity-based coalition, 
but those that did began to call themselves the Fifth Era Klan to 
demark what they hoped would be the fifth period of growth by the 
Klan since its inception. The Fifth Era Klan adherents sought to forge 
ties with other racist groups across the nation. One concept hotly 
debated was the idea of a mass movement of white supremacists to 
the pacific northwest where there were relatively few minorities 
and a low population density. The idea was to create a racially-pure 
Aryan bastion, an idea that attracted Randy Weaver.
	Cooperation among racist groups was in the 1980's by the 
establishment of several racist computerized bulletin board 
systems and the distribution of a cable TV program "Race and 
Reason" hosted by California's Tom Metzger, head of White Aryan 
Resistance. Racist groups staged joint activities, sometimes built 
around survivalist encampments. As this cooperation became more 
formalized, what emerged was, in effect, a white racist alliance 
which shared a belief in Identity. One of the leaders of the movement 
in the northwest was Identity Pastor Richard Butler of the Church of 
Jesus Christ - Christian which operated out of a compound called 
Aryan Nations in Hayden Lake, Idaho, near the Weaver family home.
	The members of the group variously called The Order, White 
American Bastion, or The Silent Brotherhood, who were convicted in 
Seattle for staging armed robberies and mudering Denver talk show 
host Alan Berg, were predominantly adherents of Identity.  According 
to the Klanwatch Intelligence Report of the Southern Poverty Law 
Center:
	"A look at the backgrounds of some of the 23 Order members 
prosecuted in Seattle illustrates the cooperation between radicals 
that now permeates the extremist right: Five had Klan ties, one had 
been a Nazi party member, a half-dozen were Aryan Nations, one was 
a veteran tax protester, four CSA's [Covenant, Sword and Arm of the 
Lord] five National Alliance membersI.Many of the 23 were united by 
IdentityI"
	"Aryan" or "White" as used by Identity ostensibly refers to 
persons of Nordic, Anglo-Saxon or Germanic stock, or at the very 
least, persons stemming from Northern or Middle European 
ancestors. The Identity definition of "Aryan" is more closely related 
to mythological or operatic reality rather than any scientific or 
anthropological definition of Indo-European peoples. Aryan actually 
is a term used by linguists to trace the common roots of the Indo-
European languages.
	Christian Identity borrows paranoid conspiratorial beliefs 
from reactionary groups such as the John Birch Society. Birchers 
claim that secret cabals run most world governments under orders 
from wealthy elites such as the Rockefeller family acting through 
groups such as the Trilateralist Commission, the Bilderberger 
banking conference, the Council on Foreign Relations, and officials 
of the Federal Reserve Bank.
	From ultra-right Christian fundamentalists comes the idea of 
a secular humanist conspiracy involving liberal elites such as 
radical academics, teachers union leaders, journalists and network 
television programmers and gay men and lesbians who pave the way 
for leftists, socialists and communists. These are the core beliefs 
of persons such as Reed Irvine of Accuracy in Academia and 
Accuracy in Media, and Phyllis Schlafly of the Eagle Forum. Pat 
Robertson, leader of the Christian Coalition, recently wrote a book 
attacking president Bush's New World Order and echoing many 
paranoid conspiratorial charges of the reactionary and fascist right. 
Robertson also throws in a discussion of sinister networks of 
Masonic lodges and the shadowy Illuminati group. It is these 
reactionary forces that made TV appearances during the Republican 
convention.
	White supremacists add to the bizare brew a list of racial 
enemies such as Jews, Blacks, Latinos, Asians, Indians, indeed all 
non-Aryans. The Posse Comitatus also sees as agents of the 
conspiracy all state and national elected politicians, and all law 
enforcement officials above level of county sheriff such as game 
wardens, Internal Revenue Service agents, federal marshalls, and the 
FBI.
	Christian Identity wraps all the conspiracy theories together 
and adds the myth that white Christian Americans are God's Chosen 
People fighting a religious war against satanic forces. Identity 
combines the worst aspects of Hitlerian racial theories, the Spanish 
Inquisition and the Crusades.
Persons who believe in Christian Identity generally:

* Support White Power & Aryan Supremecy; * Believe in Black 
genetic inferiority; * Possess Romanticized notions of Aryan 
culture; * Are virulently anti-Communist; * Manifest a jingoistic 
patriotism a la "Rambo;"  * Mistrust government & law enforcement; 
* Fear Black power & Black pride; * See media coverage of non-
Aryans as a Jewish-Communist Plot; * Resent Black job gains in the 
working class & professions; * Think Black politicians are pawns of 
Jews; * Believe Black activism is directed from Moscow or Tel Aviv; 
* Practice armed survivalism as a defensive necessity.

	Identity theories permeate the Populist Party. Currently 
running for President under the Populist Party banner is Bo Gritz, 
who served as the negotiator who brought Randy Weaver out of his 
cabin to surrender to authorities. Gritz has called for right and left 
to join forces to smash the government.
	The fascist right has targetted for recruitment members of 
tax protest groups, farm and ranch organizations, former or current 
members of the Ku Klux Klan and various nazi groups, supporters of 
Lyndon LaRouche, persons organizing against government repression 
or covert action, alternative health care advocates, antiwar 
organizers, and persons concerned about peace in the Middle East. 
Gritz, however, primarily seeks to build networks of support in 
reactionary and far-right circles. He made a presentation on 
"MIA/POW & Government Drug Dealers" at the Third Christian 
Heritage National Conference held in November of 1990 in Florida. 
Among other featured speakers were Bob Weems, Pete Peters, Col. 
Jack Mohr and other persons who promote Christian Identity. Also 
speaking were Eustace Mullins, who provided the "Total Conspiracy 
Update," and A.J. Barker, national chairman of the Populist Party 
which ran David Duke for President in 1988 with Gritz as the 
original vice-presidential nominee. Gritz later dropped off the ticket 
to run for local office, and now makes excuses for his earlier 
affiliation with Duke. Gritz claims he opposes racism and is trying 
to clean up the Populist Party.
	But as Zeskind of the Center for Democratic Renewal explains, 
"Gritz's standard stump speech is an amalgam of themes popular 
among white supremacists and others on the far right: the Federal 
Reserve System (FED) is unconstitutional and should be abolished 
and a vast conspiracy of "internationalists" are taking over the 
world." Pastor Pete Peters, a leading proponent of the Christian 
Identity religion, helped publish and distribute Gritz's book "Called 
to Serve," which is used to promote the Gritz presidential campaign. 
In a speech at Peter's Colorado headquarters, Gritz acknowledged 
Peters' assistance. In his book Gritz writes that "Eight jewish 
families virtually control the FED."
	In the past the KKK and other racist and fascist groups in the 
U.S. intertwined with the political and law enforcement power 
structure of the communities in which they operated, especially in 
the rural South. The new racist Identity movement, however, is 
openly hostile toward most law enforcement officers because they 
are seen as collaborating with the Zionist Occupational Government. 
Thus Identity's critique of government miscoduct is central to their 
ideology, and has resulted in repeated armed conflicts with 
government agencies which in turn have used questionable tactics to 
target this sector of the racist right.
	Police brutality should be opposed whether it is used against 
Rodney King or Randy Weaver, but persons fighting government 
misconduct must also ensure they do not become pawns of fascist 
political movements using anti-government appeals to mask their 
underlying white supremacist goals.

Chip Berlet is the director of Political Researcch Asssociates and can be reached at 14 Beacon St #407, Boston, MA 02108; (617) 661-9313; cberlet@igc.apc.org

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