Extreme Prejudice

How the media misrepresent the militia movement

Mack Tanner from the July 1995 issue

(Page 5 of 7)

Unlike many in the movement, Wallner doesn't buy the conspiracy theories. "We should not attribute to malice that which can adequately be explained by stupidity," he says.

Many militia activists, however, are not just scared of the government. They are looking for explanations for why their government has gotten so far off the constitutional track. They find easy answers in theories about a cabal of Trilateral Commission and Council on Foreign Relations conspirators who are manipulating events to create a New World Order in which the United Nations will rule while the American Constitution is treated as a historical curiosity.

People like Mark Koernke, the shortwave broadcaster who calls himself Mark from Michigan, travel the country speaking in public meetings. They distribute videos and publications claiming to prove that the conspirators have already secretly brought U.N. troops into the United States to impose the New World Order, and that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has prepared concentration camps where a new super secret national police force, the Multi-Jurisdictional Task Force (MJTF), will imprison those who dare to resist. Such conspiracy theories are also spread by word of mouth, reading lists, computer bulletin boards, faxes, and private shortwave radio broadcasts.

But militia activists aren't scared because they believe conspiracy theories. They believe conspiracy theories because they're scared. The fear came first; then they went looking for explanations. And all good conspiracy theories must have some basis in truth. These explain why taxes keep rising, why government regulations grow at warp speed, and why American politicians talk about a new world order while demanding that Americans be disarmed. The people describing the supposed conspiracies are offering explanations for what militia supporters see happening--the continual erosion of constitutional rights, from property rights to the right to bear arms to the rights of the accused.

Stories of U.N. troops sneaking into the United States and black helicopters scouting the countryside can be easily debunked, and publications popular with militia members, such as the John Birch Society's The New American, have already done so. But debunking the conspiracy theories does not solve the basic problem. Government still grows bigger, more expensive, and more intrusive. When politicians and media wonks refuse to recognize the legitimacy of complaints about big government, those who believe in conspiracies will not bother to listen to those trying to convince them their theories are wrong.

The most effective way to reduce militia members' paranoia would be to hold full, public hearings on Waco--the incident that galvanized many activists. "We didn't see any need to get seriously involved until we watched the Waco tragedy on live TV," a member of the U.S. Militia Association who lives in Boise, and is the mom side of a mom-and-pop business, told me. "We have been actively involved in the militia movement ever since."

Having watched it on live TV, she considers herself an eyewitness who has drawn an obvious conclusion that if the FBI didn't deliberately murder the Branch Davidians, agents did act with criminal negligence. The only way to convince her otherwise would be either for Congress to hold open hearings or to charge and try in court the federal officers who may have committed negligent acts that led to the death of innocent children. Nevertheless, this young militia mother--and every other of my contacts--was just as horrified by the Oklahoma bombing as she was by Waco.

Why would civil rights groups and the news media portray citizens like this young mother, Bill and Sheryl Tuttle, or James and Helen Johnson as dangerous threats who ought to be closely watched?

In his recent book Crying Wolf: Hate Crime Hoaxes in America, sociologist Laird Wilcox explains that as society increasingly condemns and deters hate crimes, organizations that depend on a fear of hate crime to feed their contribution coffers must constantly seek new threats. While the deceit may not be deliberate, the search for scare stories can lead to exaggerations and uncritical reporting of what may be hoaxes, unproven allegations, or simply bad information.

But the reason some people are savaging the citizen-militia movement may be even more perverse. Many supporters of an all-powerful central government have a political faith, not a political philosophy. They lack the intellectual tools necessary to challenge and debate alternative political theories. Incapable of understanding the reasons for the voters' revolt in the last election, and convinced of the truth of their own faith, they assume that those who have contrary political beliefs must be evil people.

Obviously, in this world view, those who hold guns while espousing an alternative set of political beliefs must be the most evil people of all. By suggesting that such people inspired the Oklahoma bomb blast, those with blind faith in big government expect to discredit and destroy not just the threat they see in the militia members, but also the much more real threat represented by the last election, the Contract with America, and the growing demand by millions of voters for less government, lower taxes, more effective law enforcement, and more choice for the individual.

Marvin Stern of the Anti-Defamation League insisted when I talked to him that the ADL does make a distinction between those who join militias with legitimate political complaints and those trying to use the militias to push a racist agenda. But the ADL report begins by describing the militia movement as "bands of armed right-wing militants." The author then quotes several militia leaders on gun control, the possibility of future anti-government violence, and their conservative attitudes on education, abortion, and the environment. Having established that these people all hold political views most liberals think are extreme and dangerous, the report announces that "some of them--even in leadership roles--[are] persons with histories of racial and religious bigotry and political extremism." The report's author leaves it up to the reader to decide who are the real racists and who are just dangerous, right-wing political extremists.

Stern initially told me that Idaho was one of the states where racists were most influential in the militia movement. Reminding him that I live in Idaho, I asked for more specific details. Did he include Samuel Sherwood, the only militia leader with any significant following in Idaho, in that accusation? While not Jewish, Sherwood once lived as a legal resident in Israel on a kibbutz.

Obviously not willing to debate an issue with someone who knew the territory, Stern backed down, claiming he had erred in naming Idaho. Instead, he said, John and David Trochmann, who founded the Militia of Montana, were the racists. He did not cite any specific racist incidents, nor did he quote anything written or spoken by the Trochmanns that sounded racist or anti-Semitic, nor did he mention any additional evidence other than the already printed accusations of guilt by association.

A devout Christian, John Trochmann is a strong advocate of New World Order conspiracy theories. But he adamantly denied that he is a member of any racist organization. He readily admitted that he and his family twice visited the Aryan Nation compound in Hayden Lake, Idaho, several years ago, but insisted that they had gone there as part of a home-school learning project. "I am not on their mailing list, I have never signed any of their statements, and I certainly never joined the organization," he told me in loud, angry tones.

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