From: sl0n5@cc.usu.edu
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc
Subject: Bo Gritz in Idaho (article)
Date: 10 Sep 92 14:20:08 MDT
Organization: Utah State University

This comes from the Post Register written by Gene Fadness for
Friday, September 4, 1992.

[By the way, who is this guy?]

EXTREME VIEWS

Does retired Lt. Col. James "Bo" Gritz deserve praise for his mediation during
the recent standoff in north Idaho between Randy Weaver and federal marshalls? 
Yes.  But it doesn't lessen the concern all ought to have about Gritz' politics
and his growing influence in Idaho.

Idaho State University sociologist James Aho said in Thursday's Post Register
that Gritz, Populist Party candidate for president, may carry some eastern
Idaho counties.  We hope that's more because Idahoans are dissatisfied with the
major party candidates than because they cling to Gritz' extremist political
and religious views.

Gritz is a member of the Christian Identity Church which teaches white
supremacy, though he says he believes in equality for nonwhites.  He want to
eliminate the United Nations, the Internal Revenue Service, and the Federal
Reserve and the Department of Education.  America would become completely
isolationist in a Gritz presidency--no foreign aid and no foreign ownership of
American soil or companies.  Not only are foreign-owned companies taboo, but so
would be many foreigners.  Religious pluralism would also be discouraged as
Gritz and his followers want a "Christian America."

This isn't Republican, Democratic, Independent, conservative, or liberal.  And
it certainly isn't Populist in the tradition of William Jennings Bryan.  This
is the stuff of David Duke and those further to the right.

Gritz and others like him long for the day when the world was a lot larger,
when modern day transportation and communication weren't here to make this
country a melting pot of people and ideas and its government one of many in a
world community.

They sincerely see the government as an evil threat.  Behind the IRS, the
Federal Reserve, the "New World Order," the Trilateral Commission, or whatever,
there is a conspiracy to take over the country and rob us of our rights.  Those
from the Third World want to make our country less Anglo, less Christian and
less free, they believe.

Extremist groups are succeeding to a degree because the federal government has
indeed failed in many areas and alienated so many people.  To some, just an
alternative is welcome.

But don't let Gritz fool you when he says he doesn not have many of the same
beliefs as does Randy Weaver, whom Gritz got to come off the mountain after
Weaver's wife, son, and a federal marshal had been killed.

Gritz came to Idaho because of Weaver's beliefs.  At the seane of the standoff,
he rallied Weaver's followers and asked for more "patriots," many who were
neo-Nazi skinheads, to come join the cause.  After Weaver's surrender, Gritz,
dressed in military fatigures, greeted neo-Nazis and others with the "heil,
Hitler" salute.  He said he did that at the request of Weaver.

The day a candidate for the presidency of the United States uses the Nazi
salute, for whatever reason, is the day to draw the line.  The large number of
good Idahoans who support his candidacy won't want to hear it, but Gritz and
the vast majority of his ideas must be soundly rejected.

======================end of article==========

This article about this evil man was retyped for you by:
Denice Wroe
sl0n5@cc.usu.edu

Written in the Idaho Post Register

My employer has absolutely no opinion in any controversy.
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc,ca.politics,ba.politics