Moral Panic
There is a tried-and-tested method for slandering one's political opponents known as the "amalgam technique". This means putting everyone you don't like in the same category, ignoring their differences. The liberal media use this approach when they talk of
"a co-mingling of anti-abortion extremists, new world-order paranoids, Waco wackos, Reconstructionist Christians, white supremacists and assault-weapon fanatics..." (NY Times, March 30 95).It is difficult to refute vague allegationa like "co-mingling". Phrases like "is believed to have links with" are used to make us associate unrelated issues. Guns - Militias - Oklahoma - racism - death camps... these are the kinds of associations they are trying to drum into us. The only connection between the militias and the Oklahoma bombers is that they are upset about the March 1993 Waco massacre. But who in their right mind isn't concerned about the government murdering over 80 innocent people?
The purpose of the militias is not to promote racism or oppose abortion. It is to defend the right of Americans to bear arms. All the founders of the USA believed this was an essential guarantee against government tyranny. That's why they put it in the Constitution. "Hate group" is a term invented by the FBI in the sixties to slander moderate black politicians like Martin Luther King. It has now been taken up by pro-police paranoia-pushers to support the suppression of their political opponents. Whom do the "hate groups" hate? The government. As the NY Times put it, they are "linked spiritually - and in some cases, electronically - by hatred of the Federal Government". That is why government jackboot-lickers are trying to stir up public support for their suppression.
Directly Helping the State
"Morris Dees, whose organization has spent decades tracking white supremacist and paramilitary groups, has urged Attorney General Janet Reno to establish a joint Federal and state task force to reduce the threat of domestic terrorism" (NY Times April 11 96).Dees went on to ask Reno to support a Federal law to prohibit private militias and give Federal agencies more latitude to collect information. To ban non-government armed groups, and to give the police more freedom to spy on people. Quite simply, he wants to turn America into a police state. You don't have to be a militia member to oppose this. It isn't just Christian communities like the "Waco wackos" who have been violently suppressed by the police. In the sixties, it was black militants and opponents of the Vietnam war. More recently, environmental activists have been on the receiving end of police terror. Do you think the government would restrict itself to rounding up the right, given the opportunity to choose which groups to suppress? Dees's "Model Anti-Militia Statute" which he urges states to adopt, would have made the Black Panthers illegal.
The Southern Poverty Law Center also gives its own files to the police. Anyone who has an interest in opposing more government power - which means just about everyone - should give Dees the kind of welcome he deserves. -- November 19 1997
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