Does the Tea Party movement remind you of the militia movement of the 90s?

[Ardent15]

The fiery anti-government rhetoric, the bigotry and racism, the violence and threats of violence, the general amount of hysteria.

I really, really hope there isn't someone who will "top" Tim McVeigh's act of mass murder in the Tea Party ranks.

[fascisthunter]

1. yes, they are very similar

in fact, I do think their roots could be traced right back to these whack jobs.

[SmileyRose]

2. I assumed from the start the core is the same exact bunch of people

of course this time they roped in some blue hairs that grew up thinking black dudes have only the rape and murder of white women on their minds -- easily led to believe the unAmerican, terrorist black dude in the White House can't hardly wait to hijack their airplane (I mean um, healthcare) and trot the little blue hairs before death panels.

[The Wielding Truth]

3. They remind me of the KKK and the anti-civil rights crowd.

[EvolveOrConvolve]

4. They're the same people

using a different name. They don't remind me of the militia movement, they are the militia movement, just with a prettier name.

[get the red out]

6. +1

Exactly!

[amb123]

8. +2

No doubt.

[Initech]

15. And way more balls.

[BlueStater]

25. Balls? They're hit-and-run cowards.

They don't even have the guts to use their real names. Fucking wimps.

[Initech]

31. Yeah, I probably should've used the word "less" than "more".

[Pryderi]

5. Yes.

[KharmaTrain]

7. Not Yet...

We haven't had a Ruby Ridge or Waco develop...or the push for the wingnuts to head for the hills to avoid the "fascist" government. I'd say the Minutemen were more like what we saw in the 90s and it appears to have dissipated after several of its leaders were arrested on murder charges.

I do see a big difference between those days and now...and that's us...the "innertubes"...the blogs have been calling out the hate as its happening where a lot of what happened in the early 90s was very much under the radar and caught many by surprise. I see many of the teabaggers as former Perotistas...noisy, obnoxious and more of a danger to the rushpublicans than to Democrats.

This doesn't mean I don't expect or wouldn't be surprised if some wingnut goes McVeigh...we've seen plenty of signs that its coming, but then we're a lot more aware and prepared. Any attack will be the ultimate Waterloo for the GOOP.

[The Magistrate]

9. It Is The Militia Movement Of The Nineties, Sir

Which was the Ku Klux of the sixties and the twenties of the last century, und so weiter...

[mrmpa]

10. This is worse

The media prods the current group-they didn't in the '90's

[TankLV]

11. Not at all.

They remind me and those that survived the camps, of the Nazi Brownshirts from the 20s.

The militia movement were harmless by comparison.

[The Midway Rebel]

12. Same skunks as these guys.

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/dailyweekly/2010/03/from_border_watchers_to_bama_w.php

<<snip
Thanks in part to the double murder charges filed in Arizona against ex-Seattle prostitute Shawna Forde, one of the country's largest Minutemen border-patrol groups is killing itself off. Unfortunately, thanks in great deal to Barack Obama living up to a campaign promise approved by a majority of Americans, smaller factions of the armed militant group will refocus their protests on health care and other "socialist programs" (though not, apparently, Medicare, Social Security, VA hospitals, education and public safety, to name a few).
>>snip

'Border watchers to 'Bama watchers"?!!!

Yeah, no threat there.

(ahem)

Worthy of watching out for these guys now that their little gang has busted up and they will add to the lot of evil minds and idol hands.

[Warren Stupidity]

13. Nope. They did not have major media mouthpieces,

the backing of one major news outlet, the financial support and tacit backing of a major political party's wealthy donors, and tight message coordination with that party.

[chill_wind]

14. Yes, but they were a bit more secretive and separatist-

more under the radar as a DUer said above. You could find them, though, and their websites on the internet in the 90's, especially in numbers close to Y2k. Some were Christian Identity groups. Some disavowed such association. Regardless, they were all crazy then.

They seem much, MUCH of an even crazier mix now, if that's possible.

[defendandprotect]

16. Yes . . . and of the "pro-life" murderers ... and of the GOP/NRA . . .

amazing how guns keep cropping up in this right wing nightmare!!

They are so brave brandishing their guns/rifles!!

Also reminds me of the fascist Supremes who put Bush in the White House --

and fascist GOP-sponsored rally to stop the vote counting in Miami Dade county

which was mandated by the Florida Supreme Court.

And it reminds me of all the right wing political violence we've suffered over

the last 50 years!

Including 9/11 -- MIHOP --

[chill_wind]

17. P.S. I'd be interested in what the recruitment rate is

for returning messed up war vets is right now....

[TexasObserver]

18. Dixiecrats>>John Birchers>>Wallacites>>Reagan base>>90s Militias>>Teabaggers

These people never go away, but they become less evident when the GOP is in power.

[Swamp Rat]

37. You forgot the Ku Klux Klan

Take off the hoods and sheets, and then you have teabaggers.

[unblock]

19. it bears more resemblence to hitler's thugs from his early rise to power

the militia movement was/is largely independent groups acting with little or no coordination and no great connection with more socially accepted powers such as the major political parties. and for the most part, they were/are the leave-us-alone-and-no-one-gets-hurt types.

the tea baggers themselves look like not well organized, but the republican party and the right-wing media has latched on to them and claimed them as representative of their constituents. the republican party and the right-wing media WANT the tea baggers to be more like the ss and they are trying to support and nurture them to make them more politically effective thugs.


to my mind, a tim mcveigh scenario is the lesser of two evils, for that would instantly discredit the entire movement.

the worse scenario is if the get organized and start making carefully calculated, slowly escalating acts of targeted violence. nothing so dramatic and nothing they can't deny or dismiss as the work of an unaffiliated nutcase. THAT is a very dangerous path.

[galileoreloaded]

20. This is WAY worse. They were burying guns then, out of fear. Now they brandish them openly.

Tea Party Insurrection should be the correct term, but they would LOVE that moniker.

[chill_wind]

21. And a huge jump in numbers in 2009 per the SPLC

New SPLC Report: "Patriot" Groups, Militias Surge in Number in Past Year

MONTGOMERY, Ala. - The number of extremist groups in the United States exploded in 2009 as militias and other groups steeped in wild, antigovernment conspiracy theories exploited populist anger across the country and infiltrated the mainstream, according to a report issued today by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).

Antigovernment "Patriot" groups - militias and other extremist organizations that see the federal government as their enemy - came roaring back to life over the past year after more than a decade out of the limelight.

The SPLC documented a 244 percent increase in the number of active Patriot groups in 2009. Their numbers grew from 149 groups in 2008 to 512 groups in 2009, an astonishing addition of 363 new groups in a single year. Militias - the paramilitary arm of the Patriot movement - were a major part of the increase, growing from 42 militias in 2008 to 127 in 2009.

[newspeak]

22. well looking at another thread

it looks like the religious right gone wild. Another OK bombing with innocent children and the tea party will be history.

[starroute]

23. You can take it further back than that

They also have a lot in common with the fascist and semi-fascist groups founded as fronts for the corporate oligarchs to oppose the New Deal, such as the Liberty League, which was originally meant as a front for the intended coup against FDR. I just posted the quotation below on another threat -- but it belongs here as well.


http://www.ctka.net/pr399-fdr.html

Butler was still unconvinced that there was a real plot; however, MacGuire made some starling predictions. He predicted there would be an announcement in the press about the formation of a new organization, the American Liberty League. The American Liberty League, funded by the DuPonts, was to complement the coup by functioning as a propaganda organ to discredit the overthrown Roosevelt in the public’s mind. . . .

Although the coup never materialized, the unrelenting propaganda attack against Roosevelt and the New Deal reforms continued, spearheaded by the American Liberty League. The League listed as its main contributors the DuPont family, representatives of the Morgan interests, Robert Sterling Clark, the Pew Family (Sun Oil), and Rockefeller Associates. Its Treasurer was Grayson M.P. Murphy, MacGuire’s immediate boss. The League itself was ostensibly dedicated to the virtues of the Constitution, individual freedom and free market capitalism. But it claimed that all New Deal reforms were inspired by Communists within the Roosevelt administration. In the election of 1936, the League spent twice as much money as the Republican Party in trying to defeat Roosevelt. Although the League disbanded after Roosevelt won his second term, it spawned a series of extreme right-wing groups and paramilitary bands which constituted a network that endured through the 1960s, and whose descendants are with us today. Their propaganda was anti-Communist and anti-Semitic; their tactic was violence. Some groups which the League financed were the Sentinels of the Republic (which labeled the New Deal "Jewish Communism"), the Minutemen and the Minutewomen. Another group, the Southern Committee to Uphold the Constitution, was associated with the Silver Shirt Squad of the American Storm Troopers. The goals of this organization, headed by a Texas oil magnate, were to create a mass movement of whites in the South to dilute Roosevelt’s Dixie vote, and to stir up anti-black racism in order to attack organizing drives by the unions from the North. . . .

The main function of these hate groups was to enforce the will of right-wing corporate America, seeking to regain the political power it lost in the 1932 election. On the grassroots level, this intention translated into supporting the efforts of management to stop workers from unionizing. The most glaring example of this is the struggle at the General Motors plants (General Motors was owned by the DuPonts). The DuPonts employed the Black Legion, a sort of Northern Klux Klux Klan, which would terrorize workers, bomb union halls, and torture and murder organizers. The Legion was organized into arson squads, execution squads, and anti-Communist squads. Discipline within its own ranks was maintained with the weapons of torture or death and was strictly enforced. The LaFollette Committee found that the Legion had penetrated police departments, high government offices, and the Michigan Republican Party.

[SoCalDem]

24. same narrow minds.. probably the same people..that "dirty 30"

they never really ever go away.. they are like cicadas..they burrow down into the dirt, and then come roaring back squalling as loud as possible...

at least cicadas stay tucked away for years...and they "burn out" fairly quickly too..

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

26. I see a few fundamental differences.

The 90's militia movement was more or less content to keep to itself. They didn't try to get on TV, and aside from survivalism and general anti-governmentalism they didn't really have much of an agenda to speak of. And if McVeigh hadn't bombed the OKC federal building, we'd barely even remember them today.

The teabaggers on the other hand are all about getting their fat, bloated, ugly asses in front of as many cameras as possible, fucking all up peoples' shit, hopping up and down like a bunch of corpulent barely-sentient koosh balls, waiting for manna from their heroes (Beck, Palin, etc) to reward them for their tardedness. I'm more worried about the people who aren't the TV teabaggers. My guess is that if anybody's going to cause some serious shit, it's gonna be someone we've never heard of, who's never attended one of the teabag douche rallies... In other words, someone more like McVeigh as opposed to the local leader of your teabag corps.

[KittyWampus]

32. Thank goodness I'm not the only who sees the differences.

[Sebastian Doyle]

34. They didn't get on TV back then because....

...while the media was starting to drift to the right, it would not take the hard right wing position for a few years yet. FAUX did not yet exist, and neither did Clear Channel's mass market saturation of right wing radio. Limbaugh was out there, but he was actually humorous at the time. Yeah, he was bitching about Bill & Hillary on a daily basis, but he wasn't spewing the level of hatred that the years of Oxycontin abuse would bring out in him.

As for the fringe right wing itself, they were definitely out there, but the Internet (as we use it today) really hadn't taken off yet, and most people online still communicated by way of dial up modems and BBS systems that you would log into, download all your messages, type your replies and then log back on to send them.

I stumbled upon such a group called "SurvNet" (Surv being short for Survivalist) and though I made no attempts at hiding my Liberal views, I managed to talk my way into a moderator position in their religious forum. During my time on that network, I think I saw every extremist viewpoint you could imagine. White Supremacists, Texas Secessionists, Militia members, and some wackjob in Alaska who was not named Palin, but I wouldn't at all be surprised if he knew them.

I still have somewhere in my files a number of printouts from that network, as recent as the spring of 1995. One of those printouts specifically says that "A warning shot will be fired April 19". Of course we all know what happened that day. I can honestly say that I never saw the names of Tim McVeigh or either of the Nichols brothers there, but who is to say everyone there was posting under their real name. I sure as Hell wasn't, not with that crowd! Still though, whether anyone I was communicating with had any connection to OKC or not, I cannot say. But the coincidence was damn eerie. :scared:

[Toucano]

27. Tim McVeigh didn't have corporate backers.

Not that I am aware of, anyway.

This "grassroots" is pure Astroturf, capitalizing on the frustrations and fears (some real, some imagined) of average people.

McVeigh and his compatriots were garden variety nut jobs.

[Odin2005]

28. It's worse then the 90s.

these nuts are being openly supported by the MSM with the backing of the Corporate Elite.

[moobu2]

29. It's somewhat similar but much worse to me. n/t

[KittyWampus]

30. No. Militia types are more likely to be male, younger and not necessarily into Christian Identity

They are more active and less likely to seek limelight the way the Teabaggers do.

[Toasterlad]

33. Very Much So.

[fryguy]

35. very much so

think they are basically the same people who moved from the militias to Blackwater when W took power and now are reaching back into their foot lockers for their old uniforms. wouldn't be surprised to start hearing about the black helicopters of the UN flying around the midwest...

[anigbrowl]

36. Absolutely. The only difference is they're comfy with the internet now.

Back in the 90s people on the fringe were afraid of using the internet because they thought the government were eyeballing everything they said and would be down on them like a ton of bricks if they said anything remotely seditious. Now they are all over it like flies on shit, although the hardcore militants who believe violence is the answer are more into channeling and directing the recent converts.

I don't want to worry anyone with a long analysis that might sound paranoid or needlessly frightening, but suffice it to say I know a great deal about computer security and have been monitoring the right-wing political fringe for a long, long time...longer than most of you have known why or how to use the internet, longer than there have been such things as web browsers.

It is quite disturbing. One thing that has changed a lot with technology is not only extremists' ability and enthusiasm for easily communicating with each other, but also the fact that they are for more likely to communicate over the internet with people of opposite views (like ourselves). That results in a lot of antagonism which only escalates partisan feelings and makes people feel even more angry and put-upon, and even more sure than they were before that conflict is imminent and unavoidable.

Of course, they all think exactly the same thing about us - that DUers and their ilk are planning some commie/ jihad/ atheist/ whatever takeover of the USA, never seen treason written so openly by so many, blahdeblah. So whenever you find yourself feeling too nervous, just cheer yourself with a reminder that all the talk of conspiracies and armed revolution and so forth is rooted in fear.

You shouldn't allow yourself to be intimidated by it, nor should you feel tempted to buy into it when it seems to echo your personal views or anxieties. There are, unfortunately, people at both ends of the political spectrum who are completely out to lunch. Some of them even believe the exact same things!

For example, it's a popular trope among fringe thinkers of both the left and the right that the Federal Reserve is a hideous conspiracy dreamed up by evil (and usually Jewish) bankers to defraud the good citizens of the USA. Sound familiar? Of course it does, we see that view expressed on DU all the time. Most of the people who articulate it have only the haziest understanding of economics, and because they don't really understand what it is that a central bank does (and why you would want to have one) they assume it must be a Bad Thing.

Once people go down that intellectual rabbit they tend to go in one of two different psychological directions. Some start to lose touch with reality completely and begin believing anything from space aliens in the garden to secret occult powers. These people are easy to brainwash and will believe just about anything they are told by someone who appears to believe the same things, no matter how outlandish; cult members, in other words. Other people, who are usually fewer in number, develop schizoid tendencies: they are in touch with reality but begin to creatively re-evaluate their place in it. They become very hostile to new information (because they didn't think of it themselves, so it may be a lie intended to deceive them) and increasingly sure of their own superiority because they can see things that nobody else can. This kind of person seeks authority over others; they want to be in the 'inner circle' or even become the leader of a cult if possible.

Of course, these sort of folks and the groups they collect in mirror the structure of society as a whole. There will always be people who go with the flow and other people who want to set the agenda. It's not even unique to humans, we just go about it much much more elaborately than than animals to the point where it's not really obvious why social structures exist and we have to write books to explain them to each other. What sets the cultish types apart are their lack of perspective - their inner experience is so much more vivid than outer reality that they assume the boring realities of life must be some kind of facade - and their intense awareness of violence, either as something directed at them (space aliens attacking my brain) or something to be used by them (life will be peachy, but first all my enemies must die).

Obviously you can draw all sorts of comparisons with religion and various political movements. There isn't a bright line that divides normal and crazy people. There isn't even a bright line dividing leaders and followers. Cult members can be very pushy and authoritarian about people outside their cult, while cult leader types may be very deferential and accepting of everything their immediate or psychological superior tells them. It doesn't even have to be political - look at how people will argue over sports teams and pop groups, especially the young. But the basic things which make people fanatical are the certitude that their particular belief is The Most Important Thing There Is, and their equal certitude that violence of some sort is the inevitable outcome, whether they are on the receiving or the dispensing end.

[SpartanDem]

38. Yes and no

a lot of the rhetoric is the same, but the militias were much more secretive. The militias were all about their "training camps" while tea parties engage in public political activity. I would be more apt to describe them as extreme most libertarians.

[951-Riverside]

39. No.

Many of those militia members were ex-military, knew how to shoot, knew how to survive in wilderness for long periods of time, knew how to make explosives and hung in small groups.

The Tea Baggers OTOH are fat, out of shape, poorly educated, wouldn't know a thing about surviving for an hour without stuffing their fat faces, own guns but probably don't know how to use them properly and I feel sorry for the people nearby if one decided to try and make explosives in their mommy's basement.

[nadinbrzezinski]

40. Direct descendants

and to anybody paying attention they did NOT go away during the Bush years, just became really quiet.

And I do expect violence by the way

[MajorChode]

41. It reminds me of several groups

Going back a ways you have the Ku Klux Klan, John Birch Society, the Reform Party, and dozens of other groups. In many cases it's the same assholes.

[old mark]

42. Same crowd, mixed in with the conservative stupid activists. nt