GREEI{ PERSPECTIVES $1.50

A Social Ecology PublicationNumber 37 April1996

The Fallacy of "Neither Left nor Right":

At a time when the political sands have shifted massively tothe right nearly everywhere, when the right is riding highwhile the left languishes in debris, it is increasingly cornmonto hear the cry "Neither left nor right!" Few right-wingersissue this cry--$ut then, why should they? Their political la-bel is the toast of several continents today. The fact is that thestrongest political winds are blowing many leftists, like therest of the society, toward conservatism and a glorification ofthe market.

Although the cry has become more common sincethe collapse of the Soviet system, it did not originate in thisera. Realo Greens were known to define their party as"neither left nor right" in the late 1970s and early 1980s.Much earlier in this century, in the interwar years, Europeanfascists who intended to reject both capitalism and cornmu-nism used a related concept to find their supposed *third

way." During the Spanish CMI War, the Falangists thoughtof themselves as "neither of the left nor right nor centre," ac-cording to one farmer:

We were a movement with our own spirit, out not to defendthe rich but also not to put the poor above the rich. kr manypoints we agreed with the socialists. But tley were material-ist revolutionaries and we were spirihral ones. What differ-entiated us most was that we lacked the hatred of capitalismwhich they exhibited. The marxists declared war on anyonewith wealth; our idea was that the right must give up a partin order to allow others to live better.t

In recent months the insurgent militia movement hasoccasioned still more rejections of the left-right dichotomy.In the leftist Nation. Alexander Cockburn describes a*Patriot" rally in Michigan as "amiable."' The Boston Globeadvises its readers that the "Freemen" movement of Montana.

t As Alberto Pastor, a Falangist farmer, told Ronald Fraser for hisBlood of Spain: An Oml History of the Spanish Civil War(NeurYork: Pantheon Books, 1979). I'm grateful to Gary Sisco for pointingout this passage.

z Alexander Cockburn, "Who's Left? Who's Right?" Beat the Devil,Nation (hne 12, 1995), p. 820.

Militia Fever

by Janet Biehl

with its ties to the militias and to apocalyptic religiosity, is"so far offthe generally accepted political scale that termslike 'left' and 'right' do not apply'' (3130196). Jason Mc-Quinn, formerly ditor of Anarchy: A Journal of DesireArmed and, currently ditor of Alternative Press Review, de-nounces left and right as two sides of the same problem:

Left and right have both proved ther bankruptcy throogh-out this century. And neither can lay legitimate claim toour loyalties. It's way past time that both traditions re-ceived the scathing critiques they deserve, so tlat we cantake what is best from them and discard what is worthless.It may be true that the left has often added far more ofvalue to the defense of community and international soli-darity than the right has ever been able to conceive. Butboth left and right have ultimately colluded in their supportfor the two "opposing" sides of capitalist development.s

Meanwhile libertarian author and publisher AdamParfrey objects to leftists who would uphold distinctions be-tween left and right, who "stump for the division of anti-establishment rightists and leftists," since they are ulti-mately serving the interests of the ruling system.o In thewake of the Oklahoma City bombing, he argues, the militiashave lamentably "become a scapegoat, a justification for in-telligence agencies' headlong rush into technocraticdystopia, where wery financial transaction is instantly mon-itored by computers operated by the Fortune 500 and its om-nipotent police force." Those who criticize the militiamovement, like the Anti-Defamation League, the SouthernPoverty Law Center, and Political Research Associates, ulti-

: Jason McQuinn, "Conspiracy Theory vs. Alternative Journalism?"Alternative Press Review (Winter 1996), p. 2.

a Parfrey defends the militias by exculpating thern from anyconnection with Oklahoma City bombing (which he equates withthe Reichstag fire). His far-fetched speculations are desigredvariously to dissociate the militia movement from McVeigh and toshowMcVeigh innocent of the bombing. Thus we leam thatintelligence agencies used doubles to implicate McVeigh and TerryNichols in the militias, and that McVeigh's buttocks wereimplanted with a "microchip" that allowed his location to be

P.O. Box 1 l IBurlington, Vermont05402 U.S.A.

I Green Perspectives

mately serve the conspirary itself. Chip Berlet of PoliticalResearch Associates demands "ideological purification' that"creates divisions between individuals," while Holly Sklar, inher book on the Trilateral Commission, advances a "crypto-Socialist theolory." So runs Parfrey's argument.

That Parfrey's neither-left-nor-right approach hasfound a congenial home in the pages of McQuinn'sAlterna-tive Press Reviery reflects the drift of a major American anar-chist editor away from the movement's leftist roots. Mean-while, some militia members tlemselves are happy to meetParfrey and Quinn halfivay in their rightward lurch. BobFletcher, chief propagandist for the Militia of Montana, isreassuring: "We don't want to hear about left and right, con-servative and liberal, all these bullshit labels. Let's get backto the idea ofgood guys and bad guys, righteous govern-ments-the honest, fair, proper, American government thatall of us have been fooled into beliwing was being main-tained.-5

To some extent, Americans of all political stripeshave received a libertarian education. The United States wasborn in a rwolution, and some of its most revered FoundingFathers extolled the right to make one. A tooobvious be-trayal of the main pillar of the American promise-the idealof democracy---could potentially inspire rebellion, even at atime when capitalism is deeply embedded in American sociallife. Antidemocratic forces tlat serve the interests of a privi-leged few ralher than the people as a whole frnd that theymust either mask their activities entirely or else stupe$ thepopulation by using the mass media. Still, suspicion of gov-ernment persists, even intensifies today, as the institutions ofthe American republic are ever more palpably hocked to cap-italist masters. Distrust of capitalism has not kept pace withdistrust of government, even though corporate rapacity has attimes been so extreme as to beget movements like the Pop-ulists of the 1890s that cast capitalism's "creative destruc-dvenesd' as a betrayal of the American promise.

It was a yeir ago this month that the militia move-ment came to national attention, denouncing "the tyranny ofa run-away, out of control government."o In the wake ofbungled government attacks on a militant separatist at RubyRidge (where an FBI sniper killed two people) and on anapocalyptic preacher and his followers at Waco (in whichmore than seventy people died), sentiment ran high that thegovernment was out to divest ordinary Americans of their

charted. Parfrey goes beyond merely making a principled defense ofthe militias against the corporate-governmental-techno-cartel, as heclaims; he seems in fact to share many of their views. He even findsreason to support the existence ofthe notorious black helicopters.Adam Parfrey, "Finding Our Way out of Oklahoma," AltemativePress Review (Winter 1996), pp. 6067, esp. pp.63,67; reprintedfrom Adam Parfrey, Cult Rapture (Portlan4 OR: Feral House,lee5).1

5 Quoted in Michael Kelly, 'Road to Paranoia," New Iorker (Jwre19, 1995), pp.60-75, esp. 63.

6 Militia of Montana Web site: http://www.nidlink.com/-%TEbobhard/mom.htrnl

rights as citizens. In particular, the right to bear armsseemed under threat by the passage of the Brady bill, whichauthorized the beginnings of gun control. These smolderingresentments were intensified by real grievances amongworkingdass people in the American heartland, whereglobal and domestic restructuring was bringing downsizing,declining real wages, and permanent layoffs. Resentmentsburst into flames, and militia groups were established in atleast forty states.

This movement swore to uphold Americansovereignty against an array ofinternational forces thatseemed intent on diminishing it: the "new world order." TheTrilateral Commission, the Council on Foreign Relations,the Federal Reserve, international trade treaties like NAFTAand GATT, and the United Nations had all at one time oranother been castigated by the left; now the militias sawthese institutions as oomponents of a "new world order" zub-verting American sovereignty. They perceived and still doperceive, a global conspiracy in which unseen but powerfrrlhands are manipulating the American government and econ-omy.

Conspiratorialism has a long history, as MichaelKelly recently wrote in The New Yorker, one that dates backto the late eighteenth century, when some began to believettlat

conspirators have been at it for more than two thousandyears, perpetuating their plots through a succession ofse-cret and semisecret societies arcing across time and culhresfrom the early-Christian-era Gnostics and the Jewish Cabal-ists, and on to the Knights Templars of the twelfth century,the Rosicrucians of the hfteenth, the Bavarian Illuminati ofthe eighteenth, and from there, through the Freemasons, tothe schemers of the twentieth-the Council of Foreign Re-lations, the Bilderbergers, and the Trilateral Commission.Along the way, step by step toward one-worldism, the plot-ters have caused everything from the French and RussianRevolutions to the creation ofthe Federal Reserve. theUnited Nations, and the Gulf War.:

In the nascent militia ideology, black helicopters,the Hong Kong police, microchips inserted under the skin,and programs to change the weather all become parts of theworld-conspiratorial plot. An army representing the "newworld order," composed of United Nations troops and inner-city gangs, was soon going to occupy America and reduce itscitizens to slaves. The Militia of Montana, one of the earliestand most influential of the militia groups, warns that "theConspirators to form a socialist one world government un-der the United Nqtion.e are . . . at work treasonously subvert-ing the Constitution in order to enslave the Citizens of theState of Montana, The United States of America, and the

7 Kelly, "Road to Paranoia," p. 61. Kelly's article, however, seemsto disallow the possibility that people could have genuine socialgrievances and genuinely seek to redress them. For Kelly, even aleftist social revolution against capitalism would appear to be basedon a conspiratorial analysis.

April 1996 I

wodd in a socialist union."8The remnant left objects with equal ardor to the on-

going globalization and centralization ofsocial, political, andeconomic forces, but its warrant is not that these forces arethreatening American sovereignty; it makes no appeal to pa-triotism. Nor would the old leftist analysis perceive a sinisterconspirary manipulating the course of events. Rather, itrightfrrlly argued, a specific social force is siphoning offpeo-ple's control over their lives and pulverizing their communi-ties, commodifying social life and despoiling the biosphere,enervating convivial relationships and reducing people towage slaves when they are at work and to mindless con-sumers the rest of the time. That system is capitalism.

To be sure, elite planning bodies do exist, accordingto Holly Sklar, author of Trilateralisrz, but they are not con-spiracies:

Going back to the early 20th cenhry, there are organizationsthat have placed fiurdamental role-not conspiracies butelite plaruring bodies, there's a findamental difference-inplanning not just U.S. policy but global policy. I want todistinguish how I see the Trilateral Commission from a con-spiracy theory. It's not a conspiracy that pulls puppetstrings and controls every'thing and everybody. It is the sin-gle most important international planning and consensusbuilding organization among people from Westem Europe,Japan, the U.S. and Canada who represent the interests ofglobal corporations and banks-+orporations like E:o<on,General Motors, Sony, Toyota, Siemens, etc. . . . Too manythink tlere's either a grand conspiracy that controls every-thing all the time, or there are no important institutionswhose motives and goals we need to rurderstand. Too manypeople look at the Trilateral Commission that way. Eitherit's a conspiracy or it's ajoke. That's completely absurd.e

Some leftists have apparently suspended this rationalunderstanding of social and economic forces to find a certainsympathy with the militias. The siren song of conspiratorial-ism, with its facile explanations and its occasional relish fordystopia, makes it all too easy to forget the overwhelminglystructural social forces that have produced misery in theworld today. "This is the terrain," as Philip Smith puts it,"where the Liberty Lobby meets the left, where the TrilateralCommission runs the world, and one'time Vietnam Warprotesters join militias to fend offthe New World Order."Distinctions between left and right can fall b'y tlte wayside, onthe "climb toward the speculative heights where Communismand Capitalism are merely facets of the one great conspir-acy.-'o Avowed anarchist McQuinn maintains that while wemust always remember our social analysis, we should notshut our minds to conspiracies: he would investigate and ex-

a Mlitia of Montana Web site. ibid.

c David Barsamian, "Militias and Conspiracy Theories: AnInterview with Chip Berlet and Holly Sklar," Z Magazine (Sept.1995), pp. 29-35, esp. 30.

to Philip Smith,'Offthe Shelf'(book review section), CovertAction

Quarterly (Spring 1996), pp. 64-66, esp.64.

pose "the workings of the real world, whether this leads downthe road to conspiratorial or structural explanations, or both."Meanwhile Parfrey, a true conspiratorialist, defends the mili-tias as kindred albeit misinformed spirits, since "the militiaman with his Manichean conspiracies and apocallpticdreams" presents a challenge to the "interlocking network" ofgovernment, private corporations, foundations, universities,and media.

Militia Antistatism

Militia members do share some views with traditional leftists,including left-libertarians. Indeed, militia ideology shareswith traditional anarchism not only an opposition to a "newworld order," however one may define it, but a commitmentto resisting government tyranny in defense of individualrights. In a passage that could have come from any leftistwho takes seriously the legacy of the American Revolution,the Militia of Montana states that it intends to "put at oddsany scheme by government offrcials to use the force of thegovernment against the people.

When the codes and stahrtes are unjust for the majority ofthe people, the people will rightly revolt, and the govern-ment will have to acquiesce without a shot being fired, be-cause the militia stands vigilant in carrying out the will ofthe people in defense of rights, liberty, and freedom. Thepurpose of government is in the protection of the rights ofthe people, when it does not accomplish this, the militia isthe crusade who steps forwar4 and upon it rests the mantleofthe rights ofthe people."

In statements that would not have been outlandish inthe traditional left, the militia movement calls for the peopleto be armed, in defense of individual rights:

The security ofa free state . . . is found in the citizenry be-ing trained, prepmed, organized, equipped to and lead [sic]properly so that ifthe government uses its force against thecitizens, the people can respond with a superior amowtt ofarms, and appropriately defend their rights. . . . RernernberThomas Jefferson's words that the primary purpose of thesecond amendment was to ensure that Americans as a lastresort would be able to defend themselves against a tyranni-cal government.r2

Althouglr the notion is distastefirl to many on the left today,calls for an armed people were once well known at that endof the political spectrum. At a meeting of the Second Inter-national in Stuttgart in August 1907, the congress adopted aresolution co-authored by Lenin and Luxemburg that calledfor the establishment of militias:

The Consress sees in the democratic oreanization of the

tt Quoted in Kerureth S. Stern,.4 Force Upon the Plain: TheAmerican Militia Mwement and the Politics of Hate (New York:Simon and Schuster, 1996), p. 76.

', Ibid., p. 71.

t Green Perspecfives

army, in the popular militia instead of the standing army, anessential guarantee for the prevention ofaggressive wars, andfor facilitating the removal ofdifferences between nations.t'

Structunlly, as a loose network of small groupsrather tlnn a centrally controlled organization, the militiamovement calls to mind traditional anarchist movements. Thelocal groups are to be coordinated "using correspondencecommittees, which is the traditional method."ta "These com-mittees do not attempt to act as regional, state, or national or-ganizations, but only to facilitate communications among localunits, the sharing ofliterature, and the building ofa consensusfor action." The whole movement *must be committed to thesame cause . . . but specific tactics should be left up to the in-dividual elements."r5 In other words, militia members are tothink globally but act locally.

Again echoing anarchist opposition to hierarchy andleadership elites, militia ideology advocates a concept of"leaderless resistance." According to this conc€pt, *All indi-viduals and groups operate independently ofeach other, andnever report to a central headquarters or single leader for di-rection or instruction." Reflecting this decentralization, themovement was organized overwhelmingly through Internetnewsgroups and fax networks, which allowed for a wide dis-semination of ideas and dispensed with the old former neces-sity for a demagogic, crowd-stirring leader. The purpose of"leaderless resistance" is "to defeat state tyranny. . . . Like thefog which forms when conditions are right and disappearswhen they are not, so must the resistance to t1'ranny be."'"

Decentralized in structure, tactics, and action, themovement's purported aims are decentralist as well. Militiamembers look with favor upon local political units, indeed de-fine themselves in terms of their locality, denying the legiti-macy of political entities beyond. According to the Constitu-tion Society:

The militia, like citizenship, is fimdamentally local. We arefirst and foremost citizens of our local commrurity. The word"citizen" has the same root as the word "city." Although peo-ple may also be concurrently citizens oflarger political enti-ties, such as states or the nation, and although those entitiesmay be considered to be composed of their citizens, they areessentially composed of localities, and it is the local commu-nity that is the basis for the social contmct, although it maybe considered to include a certa;n amount of surroundingterritory. Today we would usually identify t}e locality withtlte cormty.tt

t: Qnoted in J.P. Nettl, Rosa Luxembulg, abridged ed. (NewYorkllondon/Oxford: Oxford University Press, I 969), pp. 270-7 l.

tq Constitution Society, 'What Is &e Militia" (1994), Web site:http://www. scimitar. com/revolution/by-topic/hrearms/militia/-history.html

ts Quoted in Stern, Force, p. 37.

te Quoted in ibid., p. 36.

t7 Constitution Society, Web site.

The county as the highest lwel of legitimate govern-ment is a notion that has a long qurency in the far right. Itultimately derives from the Posse Comitatus, a whitesupremacist movement that rejected government authority andcalled for popular sovereignty. Today a county supremacymovement has brought direct legal challenges to the authorityofthe federal government over public lands, asserting thatthese lands should be subject to county control. Talk of directdemocracy is scarce, horrever, in the militia movement. Thesheriffis to be the highest elected official--$ut the nature ofhis power and his accountability are undefined, leaving openauthoritarian possibilities. No inkling do we glean of commu-nity self-management, and litfle is said of self-government intowns and cities, where most people live today.

Here it is instructive to compare militia ideolory withlibertarian municipalism, the political dimension of socialecolory. Social ecologr, a legatee of the traditional left, looksto the neighborhoo4 town, and city as the locale for populardirect democracy. Its fint political aim is the dwelopment offree, democratic cities tfuough a process of civic education,creating citizens out ofpresentday constituents and taxpayers,showing disempowered people the power of citizenship in as-sembly, exercising their powers of self-government, and ex-panding the latent and existing democratic institutions of themunicipality at the expense of the state. As readers of GreenPerspectives are well aware, libertarian municipalism calls forthese freed, democratized cities, increasingly scaled to humandimensions, to confederate, constitute a dual power, and ulti-mately eliminate the existing nation-state.

It is a quintessentially social revolutionary process.The militia movement, by contrast, speaks of no such processand proffers no concept of citizenship or civic education. Nordoes it explain how society is to be organized-socially, politi-cally, economically-in a countydominated polity. Instead,the tactical emphasis is on an armed people-and by armedpeople, it most often appears to mean armed individuals whoperform individual actions, like refusing to pay taxes, get so-cial security numbers, or use driver's licenses or license plates.Its heroes are strong, even Rambo+sque individuals like BoGritz, who was David Duke's running mate in hisl992 presi-dential campaign for that electoral battalion of neo-Nazis andKlan members known as the Populist Party.

Another such action is to declare a local area, even anindividual farm or dwelling, to be sovereign---outside the legaljurisdiction of the United States. An obscure theory (known as*allodial title") dating from feudal times and advanced inMilitia of Montana literature purports to validate claims thatindividuals who own land outright can be consideredsovereign. Hence the so-called "Freemen" enclave in north-eastern Montana, renamed'oJustus Township," and dozens ofother such enclaves around the country.

When it comes to defining its enemies, militias tendto confuse individuals with institutions. That is, they "takeaim" not at a social order but at individuals, threatening tomurder members of specific group of people-government em-ployees, simply by virtue of their holding gwernment office.Militias have sent death threats to senators and local officials

Apnl 1996 T

alike. In 1995 the "Justus Township" members of the"Freemen' placed a milliondollar "bounty" on the sheriffofGarfield County-they said they would try him in one of theirown "common law courts" and hang him if he were foundguilty. They threatened to hang the county attorney by a ropefrom a bridge, without even the nicety of a "common law"trial. Two otler "Freemen" issued a death threat against aU.S. district judge in Billings. Such tactics are calls not to so-cial revolution but to private acts of cold-blooded murder.

Constitutionalism

Despite their belief in government at the county lwel and be-low, militia members commonly say they uphold the U.S.Constitution and the Bill of Rights. To fight the takeover ofthe United States by the New World Order, the Militia ofMontana announced its aim "to defend the Constitution ofThe United States of America and the Constitution of TheState of Montana against All Enemies, Both Foreign and Do-mestic."tt In a country that still basically reveres its Constitu-tion after two hundred years, such language falls well withinthe range ofconventional political discourse. In fact, so ar-dently do militias champion the Constitution that an influen-tial $oup within the Militia of Montana call tlemselves Con-stitutionalists. To libertarians like Parfrey, the militias' ap-parent commitment to civil liberties is a point in their favor."Militias remain largely defensive," he writes, "chartered toprotest the erosion of constitutional rights. . . . Militias aresure to react as the government continues to overturn the Con-stitution, discarding the right to keep and bear arms, suffocat-ing the right to free speech, or roping offthe right to publicassembly."tn Progressives rnay even feel a measure of sympa-thy for people so committed to upholding the Bill of Rightsthat th€y are even willing to sacrifice life and limb.

These assertions of fealty, however, are not what theyseem. Militias like that of Montana recruit new members pre-cisely by using such unirnpeachable language in the course ofchampioning broadly popular conservative qruses like the as-sault on gun control or environmental regulation or abortion.The Constitution and Bill of Rights that these militia mem-bers are achrally supporting is not the one that constitutes thefundamental law of the United States today. The latter, Con-stitutionalists beliwe, is an illegitimate document. Only theoriginal ConstitutiorU as it came out of the Philadelphia con-vention in 1787, is valid, in their view, along with the originalten amendments that make up the Bill of Rights. The Consti-tution is to be interpreted strictly, as it was originally written,much as fundamentalists read the Bible. And it is to be readin the context of its time, not according to any later judicialinterpretations. At the time the original Constitution wasadopted, most citizens were white Christian men, enjoying

ts Mlitia of Montana Web site.

ts Par&ey, "Out of Oklahoma," p

:o Militia of Montana Web site.

rights with which God endowed them-they were what themilitias call "state" or "organiC' citizens. It is almost cer-tainly these citizens to which the Militia of Montana referswhen it says it is "dedicated to the preservation of the free-doms of all citizens . . . of the United States of America."'oSince Jews are not Christians, they would not be part of thepolity defined by the original Constitution. Contrary towidespread conservative beliet however, the original Consti-tution gives no preference the Christian religion; the FirstAmendment prohibits Congress from making laws"respecting the establishment of religion."

The later constitutional amendments that followedafter number ten-like the ones that protected the rights ofnewly freed slaves and gave the vote to women-were notpart ofthe original Constitution and as such are consideredneither legal nor binding. People who gained their citizen-ship only by tlrese later amendments are called "FourteenthAmendment" citizens and have rights and duties only underthe amended Constitution. The additional amendments, how-ever, invalidated the Constitutio& and somehow thereforewhite males need not obey it or defer to it. Indeed, inasmuchas they were given neither rights nor duties by the FourteenthAmendment, they are not necessarily citizens under theamended Constitution.

In fact, to disclaim their association with the presentgovernmental system all the more dramatically, a number ofmilitia members have publicly renounced their citizenship.One group that did so e4plained their reasons to the localnewspaper in Ravalli, Montana:

in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, fl solemnly Publishand Declare my American National Status and rights toanancipate absolute my "res" in trust from the foreigr juris-diction known as the mruricipal corporation of the District ofCohunbia, a Democracy. Any and all, past and present, po-litical ties implied by operation of law or otherwise in trustwith said democracy are hereby dissolved. By this emancipa-tion I retum to an estate of primary sovereigrty and freedomthat preexists all government(s).2t

Presumably they were returned to the "state of na-1s1's"-f1s ultimate sovereign individual, exempt from tltenecessity of obeying any laws apart from the "common law,"the governments they set up for themselves, and the Bible.Indeed, white Christian males are zupposed to be exempt frompaylng federal income tax, presumably on the grounds thatthe IRS was created by a later amendment. Since the*Internal Revenue Code is completely in violation of the Con-stitution," individuals have the right to defend themselvesagainst the IRS when it intrudes on their sovereign territory.2tThe IRS, of course, as a tool of the state, would not be part ofthe moneyless, post-scarcity society toward which social ecol-ogists strive; "taxes" would be relevant only when people inassemblies decided they were necessary in some form and im-

zt Quoted in Stern, Force, p.82

z: Quoted in ibid., p. 51.

67.

I Green Perspecfives

posed them on a face-to-face, democratic basis. But"Freemen" need not pay taxes for a different r@son, as one ofthose in the 1996 Montana farmhouse siege, Rodney Skurdal,explained in 1994: "[Ifl we the white race are God's chosenpeople . . .and our Lord God stated that 'the earth is mine,'why are we paylng taxes on 'His Land'?"t @ecause of hisown refusal to pay taxes, Skurdal's own property had prwi-ously been confiscated by the IRS.) If 'Freemen" are tax ex-empt howwer, "Fourteenth Amendment" citizens aren't sofortunate-they must pay the income tax. In fact, an outra-geously twisted reading of the very amendments tlnt grraran-teed blacks freedom is interpreted to mean that blacks mustreturn to slavery.

In the United States today, overtly racist words areunacceptable in broad political discourse, so that those whowish to express racial hatreds must use code words as a substi-tute. Most recently, in the Republican presidential primaries,Patrick Buchanan referred to Latinos using the codeword"Jose" and to Jews by invoking *Goldman Sachs" and"Brandeis students"; he expressed his ethnic preferences notby using words derogatory to blacks but by supporting the fly-ing of the Confederate flag. Similarly, the "Constitution-alism" of the militia ideology is in its essence an oblique vehi-cle for expressing racism. A large number of whitesupremacists today use tlis vehicle, designating themselvesChristian Patriots and advocating the "Constitutionalist" ex-clusion of blacks, Jews, and women from the American polity.

The "Freemen" in the Montana farmhouse, too, are aChristian Patriot or Constitutionalist group, and it is by virtueof these beliefs that they have their orvn "common law" courtsystem that iszues bounties for the "arrest" of county offtcials.Nor need Christian Patriots obey existing American laws, ac-cording to Skurdal.

How many of the People of Israel (Adam/white race) haverejected the words of Almighty God and rejected their"faith" (surety) in Almighty God, to worship man made laws,'tolor of lau" such as appl),lng for a social securitycard/number, marriage licenses, driver's licenses, insurance,vehicle registrations, welfare from the corporations, electricalinspections, permits to build your private home, incometaxes, property taxes, inheritance taxes, etc., etc., etc. . . .Once you have applied for these benefits . . . you have volun-tarily become their new "slaves" to tax at their will, for youare no longer "free," i.e., a "freeman."'

At this writing, the "Freemen' under seige by the FBIhave given notice that they will defend their sovereign land byforce if necessary: "Our Special orders . . . is for our specialappointed constables and our Lauftl Posse to shoot to kill anypublic hireling or 14th amendment citizen who is caught inany act whatsoever of taking private property."tt Here,"Constitutionalism" has become a shoot-to-kill license against

z: Quoted in ibid., p. 89.

z+ Quoted in Stern, Force, p.89.

zs Reuters, Mar. 27, 1996.

people that "Freemen' despise, simply because they despisethem.

The militias oppose laws, too, because they are thelaws of a state that they abhor. But judging by their pro-nouncements and their actions, the new political units thatwould replace the state would be at least as bad as the exist-ing one. The death penalty would remain in place, and pri-vate property would be preserved. People would be excludedon the basis of ethnicity, and women would lose the fran-chise. Environmental conservation, land-use planning, andzoning would recede to dim memory. The individual wouldbe so disencumbered of community responsibilities and obli-gations that the atomizd self-interest-maximizing, egotisti-cal individual of classical liberal political theory would seemthe soul of benwolence by comparison. At the same time, afundamentalist Christian religion would be established, avail-able to justif any exercise of authority as divinely sanc-tioned.

Christian ldenfity and Anti-Semitism

Lest there be any doubt, this is not a leftist ideologr; nor is itone that leftists should touch with a ten-foot pole. Nonethe-less, some may be ignorant of the militias' racism and findslrnpathy for them as insurgents against the "new wodd or-der." Whatever they----or George Bush-actually understoodthe phrase "new world ordet''to mean during the Gulf War,it has burgeoned with a family of meanings that have little todo with a leftist critique of capitalism and everything to dowith a new version of the conspiratorialism described byKelly. And as is so commonplace in the history of that con-spiratorialism, the unseen secret elite that conspires to pullthe strings of world events is made up of Jews. Donald Ell-wanger, a Patriot in Washington state, expressed the scenariothis way in 1994:

a "British Banking cartel (Rothschilds Bank of London andBerlinf'owns 52 7o of the stock in the deceptively named"Federal Reserve System," which is also a Foreigr PrivateCorporation and controls the IRS. The IRS is the FederalReserve Systern's private collection agency. The ronaining48% ofthe Federal Reserve System stock is held by foreignand domestic subsidiaries of the Rothschilds Bank of Lon-don.*

This Jewish-controlled international banking system, with its"collection agency," is to be fought at all costs, including its"supporters" inside the United States, according to the anti-Semitism typical of the far-right milieu in which the militiasexist.

Kenneth Stern, who studies hate gtoups for theAmerican Jewish Committee, argues that although many peo-ple join militias innocently, for reasons that have nothing todo with hating Jews and blacks, anti-Semitism and racismare nonetheless "essential to the movement."

x Quoted in Stern, Force, p.84.

Apnl 1996 T

Many of the movers and shakers of the militia movementare anti-Semites [ike John Trochmarn]. . . . It would benearly impossible to attend any militia meeting in theUnited States, even one run by a group without an anti-Semitic history or agenda, and not encowrter literahue fromanti-Semitic and white supremacist individr.rals and groups[ike Bo Gritz and the anti-Semitic Liberty Lobby's Spof-lightl. .. . The conspiracy theories that underlie the move-ment are rooted in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion[uirichf. . . posits that Jews are secretly plotting to run theworld.''

Militia anti-Semitism derives in great measure fromChristian Identity, a "religion" that holds that "Aryans" arethe lost tribes of Israel and hence are the authentic Jews,while those who call themselves Jews today are actually thespawn of the Devil-and people of color are "mud people."It is hard to know with certainty how many militia memhrsadhere to Christian ldentity, but it too is endemic to the mi-lieu that fostered the militia movement. Aryan Nations,White Aryan Resistance, remnants of the Posse Comitatus,Christian Reconstructionists (who call for a religious dicta-torship), militant antiabortionists, and Constitutionalists allmake up this milieu. So do members of the Christian rightwho accept the worldview of Pat Robertson's l99l The NewWorld Order, a book intended to show that a conspiracy ofsecret elites controls the world using the UN as a tool.Loosely known as Patriots, these various grcups also gave themilitias key points of their ideology, which also has an-tecedents in the John Birch Society and the Ku Klux Klan.The militias, says Chip Berlet are "tle armed wing of thepatriot movement."28 The concept of "leaderless resistance"was in fact drawn up by Louis Beam, a leader and theorist forthe Aryan Nations and former head of the Texas EmergencyReserve, a private Klan army.

And anti-Semitism and racism have been endemic tothis milieu from its beginnings in the 1970s, when the Cali-fornia neo-Nazi Richard Butler led a group of Christian lden-tity "church" members to Idaho; the other name of his churchwas the Aryan Nations. The "races" should live apart But-ler maintained, and he ranted against the Zionist Occupa-tional Government, by which Jews supposedly controlledAmerica, and against Jewish plots to take over the entireworld and build a "new world order." He called upon his fel-low white Christian males to take up arms against them-to"eliminate Jewry." On the walls of the office he establishedat tlayden Lake, Idaho, he hung swastikas and pictures ofHitler.

Conspiratorialist Adam Parfrey, libertarian defender

n Stern, Force, pp. 24647. Stern gives a fourth reason for themilitias' "essential" anti-Semitism and racism: that calls for localcontrol are merely "covers for bigotry." This reason is less tenable;leftlibertarian and social anarchist calls for local control have soughtlocal control as a way to attain popular self-management, not as apretext for excluding people ofone ethnicity or another.

:8 Barsamian, "Militias and Conspiracy Theories," p. 29.

of the militias, agrees that the various Patriot groups are anti-Semitic: *the uzurpation of Hebrew identity by the Christianright-wing is correctly idenffied as a tlueat to Jews, sinceIdentilv types believe Jews to be Satanic impostors." But heimplies that neither Jews nor anyone else should go so far asto raise objections to this admitted threat:

Unfortunately, the sensationalizing of Identity groups bywatchdog organizations and their persecution by governmentauthorities, have simply justified the Identity Christians'own persecutorial and millermial beliefs. In my opinion,Identity Christians are best left alone in the same way ad-herents ofNation oflslam ideology are allowed to practicetheir own religion without the same level of harassment.Continued friction can only increase the likelihood of caus-ing a volatile reaction. D

Never mind that the anti-Semitism of the Nation of Islam,especially Louis Farrakhan, is well known and widely criti-cized; why militias should be exempt from similar scrutiny isunclear. Parfrey goes on to say that "perceived anti-Semiticovertones in militia conspirary literature" are"at least par-tially due to Je\ilish oversensitivity. . . . The presumption ofanti-Semitism in the militia movement is overstated."$

Ifany single person can be said to have founded themilitia movement, it is John Trochmann, who co-founded theMilitia of Montana in February 1994. Although Trochmannhimself denies being an anti-Semite or a racist, the ideologywith which he infused the militia movement is rife with anti-Semitism. When asked who is behind the threats to Ameri-can sovereignty, he replies: "The Warburgs and the Roth-schilds. International finance. The Federal Reserve, and itschairman Alan Greenspan.'The Anti-Christ Banksters. "'3rTrochmann has been a featured speaker at Aryan Nationsmeetings and has frequented the Aryan Nations compound;as a Christian Identity adherent, he is seeking to link that*faith" with the militias. "I am following God's law," he toldone interviewer. "Blacks. Jews. are welcome. But whenAmerica is the new Israel, they'll need to go back where theycame from. It's just nature's law-kind should go untokind.""

Trochmann's anti-Semitism and racism are of the

zr Parfrey, "Out of Oklahoma," p. 63.

30 lbid., p. 67. These statements were publishedrnAlternotivePress Review, a periodical edited by Jason McQuinn. kr 1992,McQuirm himself minimized the number of Jews mrudered by theNazis to "hundreds of thousands." "It's undeniable," he remarked inan outrageous contribution to Holocaust revisionism,'1hat 'The

Holocaust' has been magnified into a larger than life tale ofhistorical racial persecution." ("Holocaust or Bust?" tn Anarchy: AJournal of Desire Armed, no.34 (Fall 1992), p. 17.

It Quoted in Stern, Force, p.71.

r: Quoted in Daniel Voll, "At Home with M.O.M.,"Esquire (Iuly1 995), pp. 46-52, esp. 48.

rr Stern, Force, p.74-

I Green Perspectives

greatest concern because he aggressively has spread the militiaideology. According to Kenneth Stern, "Of all the militiagroups that formed across the United States in 1994 and 1995,Trochmann's was not only the first significant organization, itwas also the most active disseminator of militia propagandaaround the country."" His group sent out a wide variety ofliterature and videos through its expansive mail-order programand spread its ideas over talk radio, TV, and the Internet.Trochmann and his associates helped build the Michigan Mili-tia, whose spokesman Mark "Mark from Michigan" Koernkeoften praised the Militia of Montana over his shortwave fre-quencies.

In his recruitment literature, Trochmann waters dov,nhis propaganda drastically, talking about relatively innocuousissues like the Second Amendment. He thereby attracts peoplewho care about gun control and Waco and Ruby Ridge. Onlyafter they have responded does he send out literature pro-pounding anti-Semitic conspiracy theories based on the Proto-cols of the Elders of Zion. Thus it is that many militia mem-bers may not know exactly what kind of movement they be-long to. Those who accept the racist and anti-Semitic theoriesmay gradually find that they are no longer merely gun-controlactMsts but have joined a racist hate group.

Recent Books by Murray Bookchin

Re-enchanting Humanity: A Defense of the HumanS pi rit Agai nst Anti-h u man ism, M isanth ropy, Mys-ticism, and Primitivism. Challenges the biologisticand reductionistic thinking of deep ecologists, sociobi-ologists, Malthusians, and many postmodemists andoffers an enlightened humanism as an altemative.Published by Cassell, Wellington House, 125 Strand, London WC2R0BB, England; in the U.S., 214 Park Avenue South, New York NY10(n3

From Urbanizdion to Cities: Toward a New Politicsof Citizenship, Advances libertarian municipalist poli-tics. A new edition of Urbanization without C/ies. re-vised for U.K. readers.Published by Cassell (London and Norv York)

Social Anarchism or Lifestyle Anarchism: An Un-bridgeable Chasm. Examines the growing nihilistictrends that are undermining the revolutionary traditionof anarchism.Published by A.K Press, P.O. Box 406E2, San Francisco, CA 94140-0682 (U.S. address); 33i Torer Street, Edinburgh EH6 7BN, Scotland

TheThird Revolution: Popular Movemenfs in theRevolutionary En. Volume 1, which will be publishedin June 1996, covers the Peasant Wars, the EnglishRevolution, the American Revolution, and the FrenchRevolution. Volume 2, which will be published in1997, will cover the period from the French Revolutionof 1830 to the Spanish Civil War of 1936-39.Published by Cassell (London and New York)

Conclusion

Not all militia members share Trochmann's racist ideologrf,rlly; nor are all militias connected to hate groups. No oneknows for sure how universally accepted among militiagroups is the ideology on which the movement was originallybased. But those who accept it are indeed hate groups. Itseems certain, given the culture from which the movementsprang and the views of its key organizers, that a great manydo in fact seek to return American society to a time whenwhite Christian males were the exclusive political actors.

At a time when left-libertarians themselves are in-creasingly withdrawing into lifestyle and cultural concerns, itis deeply troubling that antistatism has been adopted by amovement of insurgent hate. At a time when the left hasbeen declared all but dead, the very existence of the milidasmakes crystal clear the need for a left. Left-libertariansshould know what this movement is and criticize it ratherthan look for afrnities with it.

Turning to conspiracies for explanations is an ano-dyne, the equivalent of turning to Prozac to ward offdepres-sion. Yet the temptation to take the conspiracy pill is itself asymptom. With the dearth of leftist theory today, much ofthe work that the remaining leftists are doing is to report onabuses and injustices--$y the IMF and World Bank, bytransnational corporations, by the American government, bythe CIA. Such journalism is indubitably and absolutely nec-essary. Yet without theory and analysis to account for thoseabuses, to explain tlem according to a rational theoreticalframework, the drift toward conspiratorialism and thence tothe right can be surprisingly easy.

More than wer in tlfs era of globalization anddownsizing, a serious leftist expression of the libertarian tra-dition is much needed to render populist distrust ofcorpora-tions progressive rather than reactionary. Lacking such ex-pression, its potential dynamism will continue to find expres-sion on the right. The fact is that the left has nothing tolearn from paranoid racists, no matter how psychedelic theirconspiracies may be. I

Green Perspectives is published by the Social Ecology Project ofBurlington, Vermont, on an occasional basis.

Publisher: Janet BiehlEditors: Munay Bookchin, Janet Biehl

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O 1996 Green Perspec'tives