Show notes
Oath Keepers, Stewart Rhodes, Gary North, Ron Paul, "North-Paul Strategy," 2008 Ron Paul Presidential campaign, fiat currency, financial collapse, Federal Reserve system, Minutemen, Jekyll Island, '90s militia movement, Mormonism, Mormon Constitutionalism, Cleon Skousen, Ezra Taft Benson, Edwin Vieira, 2007-2008 subprime mortgage crisis, Tea Party, patriot movement, Obama administration, Republican Party, home schooling, nullification, "continental congress," Chuck Baldwin, Occupy Wall Street, Occupy the Fed, Civilization Preservation Teams, Fourth Generation Warfare, "David vs Goliath" concept, Sagebrush Rebellion, Battle of Bunkerville, Bundy standoff, American Legislative Exchange Council, Ken Ivory, Utah, Koch Brothers, Council for National Policy, Mormonism in the patriot movement.Below are James notes' for this discussion. This is not the actual transcript, just the notes James put together for the show.QuestionsNow, a major influence on the ideology of the Oath Keepers in your estimation was Gary North. Can you give us a bit of an overview of this guy and the world view he held?Gary North is a major strategist of the Christian Reconstructionist religious movement founded by Rousas Rushdoony. North was Rushdoony’s son-in-law. Rushdoony was a religious forerunner of Fourth Generation Warfare. Rushdoony borrowed the idea of presuppositionism, that is, our beliefs are based on our presuppositions, and argued that Americans had two opposing choices: follow the laws of God or follow the laws of man. Following the laws of God meant building the Kingdom here-and-now earth and putting religious zealots in charge. It is a philosophy of theonomy and dominionism.This is the entire idea of making the US once again a Christian nation and the foundation for Christian nationalism. Christian Reconstructionism is the guiding philosophy, the driving force, of the Christian Right—though most people in the movement may never have heard of Rushdoony. If Rushdoony is the Karl Marx of the movement, Gary North may be its Lenin.North was both a political strategist—how to implement this religious philosophy—and an economist—how to bring the US economic system under biblical law, which, funny enough, was the gold standard, railing against fiat money of the Federal Reserve System, and an extreme libertarianism.As a strategist, he believed like Paul Weyrich and William Lind, in a centralized strategy executed through decentralized networks, which is exactly as Weyrich did through his ad hoc Arlington Group and Lind described for the militia.Alright, get into North's perception of the Federal Reserve system. This is crucial to so much of this stuff, so it warrants an in-depth explanation.North's notations of a pending economic collapse sounded outlandish to many normal Americans for decades. But in recent years, they've become harder and harder to ignore. Even many leading mainstream economists have expressed concerns in recent years, correct?The standard right-wing theory of how they will come to power is based on the Weimar model: catastrophically high rates of inflation and economic collapse. They have been pushing this idea since at least the 1980s, if not before. So, they believe in the Weimar model. And they push for a return to the gold standard, the abolition of the Federal Reserve System, and a balanced federal budget.The difference between, for example, the economic collapse conspiracy theory pushed by Oath Keepers and its libertarian allies and mainstream liberal economists, is that the former believes the elites will engineer a collapse. Gary North, on the other hand, thinks the economic collapse will be God’s judgement for running an unbiblical and fraudulent fiat money system.Mainstream, liberal economists with impeccable credentials believe this economic system is inherently unstable and, if it does suffer a catastrophic financial crash—because it keeps growing larger and larger, with more opaque financial instruments, and ever greater global connectivity—it could take the US government down with it.For the mainstream, it is the system’s inherent instability that causes a crash rather than the evil intentions of financial elites.You can find progressive analysts thinking a future economic collapse is possible.Indeed, it is possible to argue that both right-wing populists and left-wing populists believe the economic system is rigged by the political-economic elites against much of the American people, even if both populist wings differ on the causes, consequences, and remedies.But, whatever the cause of a future economic collapse or catastrophic financial crisis, the right-wing expects it and is prepared to exploit it to push their dominionist political agenda.Now, how does the militia movement of the 1990s tie into these notions of economic collapse? And what were some of the characteristics and hotbeds of the movement back then?New right-wing movements cannot be isolated from the dominant ideas of the conservative movement and Christian movements. These new movements may express the issues more starkly or in more extreme rhetoric, but they are not independent of these larger ideological schools of thought.The innovation of the militia/patriot movement was the idea of the New World Order. But this is rehashed, rebranded John Birch Society rhetoric about “insiders.” When globalization is the buzzword, the insiders become globalists. But “insiders” and “globalists” are sanitized code words for Jews.The Christian Identity movement believed the country was headed towards an economic collapse and racial civil war. They and the “patriot/militia” sphere trained in survivalism and borrowed from the “prepper” movement.The religious foundations of many right-wing movements are apocalyptic—they believe they are in the End Times or the end of the world. They then look for secular signs of the economic collapse. When the militias began resurging in 2004, one of their main ideas was that foreign or domestic terrorism could lead to an economic collapse.Let's talk Mormon Constitutionalism for a moment. What is it, and how did it serve as a bridge between the Christian right and the later patriot movement?I want to address this question in a broader context. I want to leave your audience with the idea that there are at least three religious movements on the right that have their differences and yet they also have some commonalities. And unless you put an individual or a group in its proper religious context, you may make some wrong inferences.Mormon Constitutionalism, according to sociologist James Aho, who published a foundational book on “Idaho Christian Patriotism” in 1990, noted that these “Christian patriots” believe in the organic Constitution—the original 1787 articles and the Bill of Rights that were ratified in December 1791.That the Constitution and the United States of America is part of God’s plan and America is God’s chosen country. Hence Americans, especially white Americans, are God’s chosen people, not the Jews.That Americans must choose to obey and follow God or obey and follow Satan. And it follows that the Great Conspiracy is the Battle of God vs Satan on earth through their respective human agents.And those beliefs are consistent with the views of the Christian Reconstructionists, the Christian Right, the John Birch Society, and Christian Identity. Even if these religious movements put different emphases on the villains, they do share a common narrative structure that allows them to understand each other and cooperate.The Christian Right and John Birch Society tone done their anti-Semitism. They do not go for overt promotion of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. But their promotion of “Cultural Marxism” as a conspiracy theory is rooted in the Protocols and Pat Robertson’s book The New World Order borrowed from anti-Semitic sources.They can signal to the hard right that they are on-board with the anti-Semitism without alerting watchdog organizations that they are anti-Semitic. They may get a wrist slap from these watchdogs, but that amounts to a nominal reprimand while the main show continues.Now, let us take a simple concept to show how one simple concept can serve as a bridge between four movement. That concept is “county supremacy” or sometimes expressed as the supremacy of the constitutional sheriff or simply as a constitutional sheriff.Mormon prophet Ezra Taft Benson believed there were three levels of legitimate government in the United States: the county, state, and federal government. Both Benson’s and fellow Mormon constitutionalist W. Cleon Skousen placed great emphasis on the significant role and importance of the county sheriff. Skousen, collaborated closely with the John Birch Society, which in the 1960s, had a “Support Your Local Sheriff” campaign. Skousen founded the Freemen Institute which later became the National Center for Constitutional Studies. The latter organization became, through Glenn Beck’s boosterism, the leading source of constitutional theory for the Tea Party movement.The Christian Reconstructionists also placed a great emphasis on county or local officials. In 1983, Gary North published an edited book, The Theology of Christian Resistance, which included a chapter on the “lesser magistrates” which was derived from John Calvin. Indeed, North also included Calvin’s brief writing on the topic.According to the Christian Reconstructionists, individuals should not resist tyranny on their own. Instead, resistance to tyranny was the responsibility of “lesser magistrates” or local officials.“Lesser magistrates” could be the governor, a board of county supervisors, or the county sheriff.Some analysts suggest that the reduction of the Christian Right’s “lesser magistrates” to the exclusive focus on the county sheriff is the product of Christian Identity and its related Posse Comitatus movement. That would give the concept a racist and anti-Semitic lineage.But prophet Benson wrote that in the “‘lawless West’” settlers came together to “hire a sheriff” and at “this precise moment, government is born.” The settlers “delegate to the sheriff their unquestionable right to protect themselves.” Thus Benson gives primacy to the county sheriff “who now does for them only what they had a right to do for themselves—nothing more.” Moreover, Benson viewed “defense against bodily harm, theft, and involuntary servitude” as the only “proper function of government.” Logically, then, the county sheriff is responsible for community defense against tyranny.Thus, when we hear about “constitutional sheriffs” or “county supremacy,” the person or organization expressing those views may or may not have derived those terms from the anti-Semitic Posse Comitatus. If that person lives in the West, in an area dominated by the Church of Latter-Day Saints, his or her views may be from Mormon sources, or even John Birch Society sources.The fact that there is consistency across three religious movements—Church of the Latter-Day Saints, Christian Reconstructionism, and Christian Identity—does not mean that the expression of a common term makes the speaker a racist or anti-Semite, especially an overt racist or anti-Semite like the Christian Identity and Posse Comitatus were.Okay, let's talk some Edwin Vieira for a moment. He had a considerable influence on the post-9/11 militia movement. Can you break his views down for us?Edwin Vieira wrote many papers on how the militias were to be properly organized under the Constitution. But he viewed all the unorganized, disorganized, and current militias as constitutionally suspect.The Southern Poverty Law Center, however, called him the “architect of the militias” for the central role he played in the 2009 meeting on Jekyll Island that led to the revitalization of the patriot/militia movement.He may have been, though I could be wrong, the first who linked the need to have gold and silver currencies for individual states as an alternative to fiat money and constitutionally organized militias as necessary to have to prevail during a catastrophic financial crisis. He believed it necessary to complete both actions—gold and silver currencies and constitutionally-organized militias—before the crisis occurs.Gary North, on the other hand, argued against the Federal Reserve System and expressed his sort-of biblically based proposals on the post-collapse reconstruction period. In North’s 1986 book, Honest Money, he called for the elimination of the Federal Reserve System and “all central banking.”Vieira’s “Purse and Sword” view linked Federal Reserve System collapse and Department of Homeland Security suppression. An economic collapse would require the political-economic elites to use DHS to remain in power. That was a major innovation on the right-wing. Thus, all gun control measures were not only unconstitutional in his view but served the larger purpose of tilting the battlefield in favor of DHS over the militias.Vieira also wrote that there was a right way and wrong way for a state to secede from the United States or the Union. Because he believed so many people were doing things wrong, he may not have been the most popular strategist. But he believed that the national security state was going to suffer a financial collapse. He advocated NOT for the return to the gold standard, but for individual states to have gold and silver currencies that would allow them to secede before or during a severe financial crisis. He was an ardent supporter of Ron Paul.Popular or not, Vieira was the deepest thinker on these issues, and he did have a direct influence on the Oath Keepers who promoted him vigorously starting in 2011 and up to at least 2014 when Vieira featured in two Ron Paul and Oath Keepers-linked videos.Prior to that Oath Keepers’ promotion, Vieira’s ideas were the foundation for the 2009 “continental congress” organized by Ron Paul’s collaborator Bob Schulz.Vieira's ideas started to gain traction around 2008, as the subprime mortgage crisis began to unfold. There were two right wing movements that emerged around then as well, the Tea Party and the patriot movement. Do you want to go over those briefly?Progressives always miss a chunk of history. Starting in late 2004 and roaring to life in early 2005 was a strong nativist movement centered on John Tanton’s white nationalist anti-immigration movement and the surge in border militias that went to our southern and northern borders to “stop the invasion” of immigrants. This movement picked up significant support in small cities and suburbs. This movement sunk President Bush’s immigration policy in 2005 and by 2009 immigration reform in the GOP is on life support. It is now pretty much dead.Then comes the financial crash of 2008. Bush and the GOP elite are already ideologically suspect.The Tea Party movement, effectively a subsidiary of the Christian Right, jettisons the culture war issues of abortion and gay rights, and concentrates the extreme libertarian message of the Christian Reconstructionists, the Christian Right, and the libertarian strains of Ron Paul and the Koch brothers.The Tea Party movement attacks the mainstream Republican Party and the new Obama administration on taxes, spending, and deficits. Their large, nation-wide protests attract white supremacists, neo-Nazis, and the white nationalist anti-immigration movement who all begin to network and try to influence this new batch of conservative, Christian activists.Organizationally, there is a centralized strategy—through the Council for National Policy and its various front groups in Washington, D.C.—and decentralized execution in the states. The Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity and the Forbes-funded FreedomWorks give the Tea Party movement its organizational coherence.The John Birch Society and Skousen’s National Center for Constitutional Studies begin the process of indoctrinating these new m…
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