The Resurrection of Gordon Kahl, the Posse Commitatus, the Christian Identity Church, and Racism

By Ed Raymond
Staff Writer
What kind of revolutionary force sponsors a convention in an upscale Nashville hotel, has a registration fee of $549, pays the headline speaker $100,000 and has lobster as a convention night dinner? Why, it’s the Tea Party, of course. No rubber chicken for these good old folks. One would think they have already taken over the government and drowned it in the nearest luxury hot tub, leaving them with real big personal play money.
 
Closing down Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, retirement programs, overtime, the 40-hour week, minimum wage laws, unemployment insurance, the food stamp program, the school lunch program, food inspection programs and all other “socialist-Marxist” programs really would put a lot of money back into the pockets of the true believers.

As I watched the placards, signs and artwork during Tea Party rallies and town halls since President Barack Obama’s election, they reminded me of Patriot militias, White Power, other white supremacists, The Order, and Ku Klux Klan members “snoopin’ and poopin’ “ through the woods about 30 years ago, getting ready to take over the government—or die trying.

But central to this whole Tea Party movement is the reappearance of the tenets of the Christian Identity Church, followed by such groups as The Order and Posse Commitatus, and individuals such as Tim McVeigh, the Oklahoma City Federal Building bomber, Randy Weaver, of Ruby Ridge fame,—and our own Gordon Kahl, the tax protester of Medina, North Dakota.
Blacks Are Mud People, Jews Are Evil as an Entire Race
Christian Identity followers believe that Adam and Eve were the first “humans” on earth, but that subhuman “beasts of the fields,” the blacks, actually preceded them. Sometime after the rib thing, Eve was seduced by Satan and lay with Adam. Evidently, Eve scrambled from one sack to the other quickly, because twins were born of this dual shackup. Cain was the son of Satan and spread his seed around indiscriminately, thus fathering the Jews. Adam’s son Abel fathered good guys such as Noah.

According to the Identity, subhuman blacks have no souls, so consequently can never be saved. Essentially they are just beasts of burden.  Jesus Christ on the cross paid only for the sins of members of the House of Israel. Whites are descendants of the ten tribes of Israel, so are God’s “Chosen People.” 

Christian Identity followers believe that blacks (the “mud people”) and whites should not mix and marry. The usual conservative views on the roles of women and homosexuals are held, along with the pro-life dictums on abortion.
Your Survival May Include Pilot Training
Christian Identity followers believe they are God’s agents and army, battling against other religions, Jews and blacks, the representatives of sin who wear the signs of the Beast such as the “666” in the hairline. They are against the United Nations (Remember the UN black helicopters spying on everybody a few decades ago?).

They believe in the “End Times” and the “Rapture” when good Christians will be snatched up to Heaven in an instant, leaving clothes, cockpit seats, and venial sins behind. What happens if your pilot is a true believer? Take jet pilot training so you can grab the controls if you are a consistent sinner and fly a lot.
They believe in the Second Coming and a worldwide race war just before Christ descends. Millions will die. The war is a part of the cleansing process that must occur before Christ’s kingdom can be established on earth.

Christian Identity groups such as Aryan Nation and its new derivatives, the old Patriot militias that are undergoing a revival through the various Tea Party groups, and 363 lunatic-fringe “combat” militias formed from the old Order, believe they are Christ’s army and must prepare to take over the country to save it. Most engage in paramilitary and survivalist training and have secret caches of food and weapons. They have to save the world from the Anti-Christ.
“How to Be Prepared for History’s Greatest Event”
I think all of the sane people in this country have to take some of the Tea Party groups and their hundreds of spinoffs seriously. A quarter-page ad in USA Today reminded me of what happened in North Dakota with the Posse Commitatus and Gordon Kahl, the Branch Davidian fiasco at Waco, the Montana Freemen and its standoffs with the feds in rural Montana, The Order and its pitched battles with the feds in Washington State, Randy Weaver and Ruby Ridge, and the Oklahoma City bombing on April 19, the day of Armageddon for many of these “patriotic” groups.

The ad reads: “Christ Is Coming Very Soon! How To Be Prepared For History’s Greatest Event.” The Bloomington, Illinois group lists “8 Compelling Reasons” why this preparation is necessary. Did you know a “recent” study shows an increase in earthquakes around the world? Well, we have had Haiti, Chile, and Taiwan in the last month or so, but it is very difficult to determine how many earthquakes took place in certain time periods because most of them start between six and ten miles from the surface of the earth.

The Anti-Christ (some say Obama) is here and is causing a tremendous increase in immorality since 1950. Hmm. Also the New World Order has taken over the world financial and political power and will soon turn these powers over to the Anti-Christ. The ad also says that hundreds of millions of people around the world are coming to the true faith of Christ, but that the media hasn’t noticed yet.
A Quick Look at a Little Kentucky Town
We all have to understand what is happening in this country, from the stress of a deep recession and the election of a black man to the presidency. A description of Leitchfield, Kentucky, pop. 6,139, was recently in the Nation magazine. One in three children and one in five adults are on food stamps. Unemployment is at 16 percent, using official figures. If we used actual figures, it would be at about 23 percent. One in five lives below the poverty line while town residents have a median income of $35,011.

Rand Paul, the son of Libertarian Congressman Ron Paul of Texas, has the support of the local Tea Party and is way ahead of two Democratic opponents. He faults George W. Bush for not being conservative enough. Most of the people in Leitchfield receive at least some assistance from government programs. Some of them would starve and be homeless without government help. Both political parties had better figure out why many seem to want to live under the anarchy of most of these groups.
Economics and the Role of Race
Certainly economics played a major role in the ugly town hall scenes repeated across the land.  The middle class hasn’t made a dime for the last decade while watching the rich add millions and billions to their assets during the first six Bush years.  Then in 2007 the consumers had no money to prop up an economy that depended upon them for 70 percent of the Gross National Product.  They were tapped out from years of lousy wages, huge health insurance costs, and medical bankruptcies. Then the housing bubble burst and mortgages suddenly went underwater because of the total absence of Bush administration regulation enforcement.

But after Obama was elected, suddenly we started hearing people scream: “We have to take our country back!” That word “our” is the big one.  It could be a reference to the Wall Street and corporatocracy dominating the country. But how often do we hear the Tea Partiers yell at bankers, stockbrokers, $100 million-a-year CEOs, and Fortune 500 boards of directors?

Having lived in the South during segregation, “separate but equal,” and Jim Crow days, I know what “our” means. In the South it means the blacks through Obama have taken the country over. Many town halls, some even in the North, had placards of Obama as an African witch doctor, a “lyin’ African,”  a black-faced ghoul, a socialist-commie-Marxist, “The Joker,” and other outrageous representations.

According to a Daily Kos poll of Republicans, 36 percent believe Obama was not born in the United States, but in Kenya, the birthplace of his father. Almost a third believe he is a racist who hates white people (Glenn Beck came up with that one), and another third believe that contraceptives should be banned. Perhaps this comes from the nutty idea spread by someone that Pope John Paul was against contraceptives because he hoped that Catholics could outproduce Muslims in the world’s religion baby race. Incidentally, the Tea Party movement is almost exclusively white, although organizers are begging blacks to show up at rallies.

A reporter at one of Glenn Beck’s 9/12 Project meetings (sponsor of a march on Washington in August) took a straw poll of 14 stalwarts who showed up. Half believed Obama is a Muslim. Only one believed he is a Christian. Over half believed he was a communist-socialist-Marxist. None of them believed he had been born in America. But this is not unusual coming from conservatives.  There are 40 Republican “birthers” in the Arizona Legislature who have indicated they want to examine Obama’s birth certificate!
A Little Welcome Sign at Each Edge of Town
In the South, where you often hear the expression, “Those people down there,”  towns still have old signs at both ends: “Nigger Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On You In This Town.”

Speaking of a welcoming, the Friends of Liberty, another offshoot of the Patriot militias, has revealed that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has over 800 prison camps spread over the country to control the population of the U.S. in case of war, insurrection, or other disasters. The largest concentration camp is just outside of Fairbanks, Alaska. The Friends of Liberty say that this “massive mental health facility” can keep two million people behind bars. Now, that has to be one helluva big place to be unknown to most Alaskans. My son who lives at Soldotna, Alaska, has been to Fairbanks recently and failed to spot it! Perhaps Sarah Palin and Big Dude will be awarded the contract to provide moose meat and dog salmon to feed those prisoners.

All of these camps supposedly have railroad and highway facilities with an airport close by. The majority of the 800 can keep 20,000 people under “control.” There is a list of the concentration camps on Google under the Friends of Liberty website. Please check it to see which one you will be assigned to by your area “Friend.”

We have to consider we are really in trouble if we have large groups of “patriots” who actually believe this crap. After watching the crowds at some of the town halls and the Tea Party rallies, I think this country is in trouble.

A bill recently passed the Virginia House of Representatives which makes the implantation of tracking devices such as microchips into human beings illegal. The bill’s sponsor said: “There’s a prophecy in the Bible that says you’ll have to receive a mark (granted by Satan) so you can neither buy or sell things during the “End Times.” The microchip could become the “mark of the beast.” Satan’s microchip will have the capability of containing your fingerprints, DNA, eye scans, financial status, and a short personal history. Other protesters claim that the government is putting nanotech sized chips in pills that can send and receive information. I guess conspiracy theories never end.

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