Even if we were to link up all the Klan groups, all Identity, Nazis orwhatever, then so what? We still don't amount to anything. [Arkansas Klan leader Thom Robb][1]
Introduction
On 9 December 1984, Robert Mathews, founder of the Bruders Schweigen or Silent Brotherhood, more popularly known as the Order, died in a hail of FBI gunfire on Whidby Island off the coast of Washington state. The long-cherished dream of many denizens of the American radical right--that the nation might awaken to the truth of its 'subjugation' at the hands of an alien conspiracy and purify itself through the cleansing violence of a popularly- based revolution-- died with him.
The demise of the Order was only the latest in a series of disappointments which the radical right has experienced in recent years. The Ku Klux Klan, the post- Civil War organization synonymous with racial violence, was by the mid- 1980s a fragmented, divisive, and dwindling cadre of true believers thoroughly infiltrated- and occasionally led- by agents of the FBI. Yet even the Ku Klux Klan held out greater promise than such pretenders to revolutionary activism as the Posse Comitatus or the Phineas Priesthood. The Posse, it turned out, was composed of a small group of high profile 'leaders' backed by a membership no more substantial than a mailing list peopled by an anonymous group of correspondents who, for the cost of a stamp and perhaps a contribution of a few dollars, could become the proud possessors of a Posse Comitatus membership card and a stack of literature which the putative new local Posse leader was invited to reproduce and distribute at will.
The Phineas Priesthood is a case in point to illustrate both the fervent hopes of the believers and the credulity of those whose mission it is to serve as 'watchdogs' over the machinations of the radical right. The literary invention of one Richard Kelly Hoskins, the Phineas Priests were embraced as a kind of an Illuminati like order of assassins from the very dawn of time whose self- imposed mission is to slay the enemies of God. Once again, the credulous on both extremes of the American political spectrum seized on the Phineas Priests as a source of either chiliastic hope or of dread danger to the republic, until at last the Phineas Priests did come to enjoy a form of quasi- existence as a mail order Order along much the same lines as the Posse Comitatus. That is, a group of entrepreneurs created a line of Phineas apparel and accessories suitable for framing or as conversational fodder for an otherwise monotonous hunting trip.
If the dream of revolutionary violence under the direction of a vanguard movement is no longer credible, however, the same can not be said of random acts of violence initiated by adherents of right wing ideologies on an individual or small group basis. Such acts of violence most often target members of other racial or ethnic groups or, increasingly, members of the homosexual community in North America. The forms which this violence takes most often involves physical assaults, often though not invariably, with weapons ranging from blunt objects to firearms. Bombings and arsons occur as well, although with far less frequency.
Part I of this article will offer a brief typology of the organizations and ideologies represented among North American radical right wing movements. Part II will utilize Ehud Sprinzak's theory of split delegitimation as a vehicle to explore the factors which may be responsible for catalyzing right wing violence, and will present a comparative framework which will examine in some depth movements whichhave turned to violence. This examination will take into account such variables as the group's ideology, identification of 'enemies' and perception of threat stemming from these perceived foes, and the reaction of both state and non- state interest groups to radical right wing activities.
Part 1- The Right Wing Constellation
In a 1993 article in the Journal of Terrorism and Political Violence, I suggested a typology of far right wing groups. What follows is a brief updated review of that typology which, while concentrating on the susceptibility of a particular ideological appeal to calls to violence, emphasizes the difficulty of differentiating ideological appeals which have many common beliefs yet at the same time are bitterly divisive and competitive for the allegiance of a limited pool of adherents. Informing this presentation are theoretical constructs of countercultural communities such as that of the cultic milieu suggested by Colin Campbell and religious mapping championed by, among others, Martin Marty.[2] Both systems posit deviance from the beliefs ofmainstream society as the key analytical factor, with mapping theory seeking to locate a particular belief system in relation to the dominant culture and Campbell's cultic milieu documenting the close interactions of members of this oppositional community. Campbell's description of the cultic milieu is particularly relevant to a discussion of the constituent elements of the radical right wing:
...cults must exist within a milieu which, if not conducive to the maintenance of individual cults, is clearly highly conducive to the spawning of cults in general. Such a generally supportive cultic milieu is continually giving birth to new cults, absorbing the debris of the dead ones and creating new generations of cult- prone individuals to maintain the high level of membership turnover. Thus, whereas cults are by definition a transitory phenomenon, the cultic milieu is, by contrast, a permanent feature of society.[3]Given the close association of the adherents of the radical right wing within this oppositional milieu, it is extraordinarily difficult to separate appeals which share such primary characteristics as a Goldengroup as an 'elect' or, in religious terms, as a 'righteous remnant'; and finally, an apocalyptic or chiliastic analysis of society. This difficulty is compounded by the pronounced tendency of the adherents of radical right wing ideologies toward serial or simultaneous membership in more than one group or belief system. Indeed, a researcher would be hard pressed to point to a single individual in the constellation of right wing movements who has not already passed through several ideological way stations, and who no doubt has a number of stops yet to make in the course of his or her life. Yet it is important to make these distinctions. Some groups do tend to be more susceptible to appeals for violent confrontations than others. More, in terms of mapping theory, the more distant a particular group tends to be from the values and beliefs of the mainstream society, the more difficult it becomes for an adherent to moderate or give up the belief system altogether. Association with a highly stigmatized ideological appeal, say Nazism or holocaust denial in contemporary North America, may well brand someone as beyond the pail of the society's acceptable discourse,and thus not only socially unacceptable, but in fact, literally unemployable.[4]
Given these qualifications then, the primary constituents of the radical right wing in North America are: Ku Klux Klan groups, Christian Identity believers, Neo- Nazi groups, Reconstructed Traditions, Idiosyncratic sectarians, and the catch- all category of Single Issue Constituencies and the inchoate hope seeking a means of fulfillment (or less elegantly, the young toughs or knuckle draggers of the movement).
Ku Klux Klan Groups Throughout the millenniums of warfare between the Aryan and the Jew, neither we nor they have ever "won." The victories each has in turn known, when spread over the centuries, equal stalemate. However, Aryan technology has shrunk the whole earth to the size of one battlefield. The eternal war, which can most properly be called a Conflict Of The Ages, has taken a final turn. The age- long conflict approaches the last battle- Ragnarök, Armageddon- is about to be fought, and there will be only one survivor of this struggle.[5] Louis Beam In the contemporary demonology of American culture, no organization elicits a more negative reaction than does the Ku Klux Klan. Fear of the Klan, and perhaps a shared collective shame for the power which the movement accrued in both the Reconstruction- era American South (c. 1865- 1876) and in a number of Northern states in the 1920s, is deeply rooted in the collective American consciousness. It is a fear which at once attracts and bedevils Klan recruits who often find their initial attraction to the Klan's mystique of secrecy and popular fear wanes with the realization that virtually any public activity undertaken by the Klan is certain to be met by a far greater crowd of counter- demonstrators. Worse, covert Klan operations appear to be undertaken at the sufferance if not the outright invitation of government authorities, given the success of federal agencies at infiltrating Klan ranks and inducing Klan leaders to cooperate in federal investigations. Thus, for a Klan group to undertake or even seriously contemplate violent action is tantamount to organizational suicide. On the one hand, members face indictment not only for whatever criminal acts may occur, but through the imaginative utilization of standing conspiracy statutes and thenewly adopted hate crime sentence enhancement provisions available in many states, lengthy incarceration. More, the successful use of civil litigation initiated by such watchdog organizations as the Klanwatch Project of the Southern Poverty Law Center on behalf of victims of Klan violence has the intended effect of putting those Klan organizations which do perpetrate acts of violence out of business.[6]
Givn these powerful disincentives to violence, it is not surprising that the already fragmented Klans in North America would enter into a bitter battle of polemics over the tactics of non- violence vs. the Klan's tradition of violent activism. Emerging from this internecine debate are two very different approaches: the call to violence championed by such firebrands as Louis Beam of Texas and Dennis Mahon of Oklahoma as opp]sed to the mediagenic call to non- violence, best embodied by Arkansas based Thomas Robb.[7]
Louis Beam, the author of the manichaean and apocalyptic analysis of contemporary history which opened this section, is a rarity among Klansmen. Undeniably intelligent, articulate and widely read- the driving force behind the dreaded right wing computer bulletin boards of the late 1980s- Louis Beam has lived the life that many Klansmen andwould- be Klansmen fantasize over. A Vietnam veteran, Beam preaches the dream of revolutionary violence and has himself not been loath to take up the dangerous existence of the underground fugitive. The most celebrated of Beams exploits may well be the shoot- out in which Mexican federal officers attempted to take Beam and his wife into custody. In the ensuing confrontation, Beams wife managed to pin down the arresting officers, allowing her husband to make good his escape. Beam's charmed life did not end with his return to the U. S. and his role in the ill-starred sedition trial held at Fort Smith, Arkansas, in 1989. Here too he was acquitted and he remains free at this writing.
Beam's successes should not, however, obscure the essential futility of his primary quest: to modernize the Ku Klux Klan by unifying its many disparate factions and forging the organization into an effective vanguard revolutionary force. The theory, put together with the help of the late Robert Miles and others, was called the 'Fifth Era Klan'; a Klan capable of a clear eyed analysis of the incompetence and, indeed, treason, which has been the history of the Klan since the original movement was disbanded in 1869, as well as an honest appraisal of the remarkably poor quality of recruits the present day Klan organizationshave managed to attract.
Only when these difficulties are addressed and rectified will Beam's ecumenical calls to take up arms, overthrow the current socio- political order, and ruthlessly take vengeance on "lying politicians, criminal bureaucrats, racial traitors, communists, assorted degenerates, culture distorters, and those who resist the implementation of lawful constitutional government"8 be more than a pipe dream. In the meantime, Beam's ecumenism is aptly demonstrated in his extra- Klan contacts, ranging from his close association with Richard Butler's Christian Identity Aryan Nations compound in Idaho to the sort of generic Odinism alluded to in his equating of the Christian Apocalypse with the Norse end- time scenario of Ragnarök in the quotation above.
Dennis Mahon is no Louis Beam, but he too has come to represent a revolutionary voice in Klan circles- so much so in fact that, having come to much the same analysis of the Klan's current status as Louis Beam, he amicably left the Klan in 1992 for Tom Metzger's White Aryan Resistance (WAR). Prior to his defection to WAR, Mahon was best known for his association with Terry Boyce's Confederate Knights of America Klan chapter and for his calls to arms in the Knight's journal, the White Beret, as well as for his occasional forays to Europe and Canada on behalf of the Klan.[9] Mahon's drift from the KKK to WAR speaks volumes to the applicability of Campbell's cultic milieu to the radical right, but of greater interest is his frank analysis of the Klan. Interspersed between intemperate attacks on Thom Robb ("the Grand Lizard") and Robb's attempts to remake the image of the Klan from a revolutionary force to, in effect, a civil rights group, is a telling appraisal of the current state of the Klan:
...after 12 years of proudly wearing the robe of the Invisible Order, I feel that Tom Metzger's leadership and personal strategies fit my personality and mind set better at this time of my life. Also, I just got tired of seeing so many mistakes in tactics and ideology of the leaders of the other 25 or so Klan groups in Zoglandia. So many of these mini- fuhrers of these other Klans have embarrassed me with these displays of weakness and idiotic statements of "Niggers are the cause of all our problems- we got to kill the niggers- nigger this, nigger that." It's like a broken record.
The Jewsmedia always link the Klan with "lynching niggers." Theaverage "Joe Six- pack" out there, whenever he thinks of a Klansman, pictures an uneducated hick half drunk, in bib overalls, with tobacco juice dripping down his chin, burning a cross on some poor Blacks (sic) lawn, and the Klansman stating how he "put the nigger in his place."
Unfortunately, many Klansmen knowingly fit the media stereotype.[10]
Mahon continues his analysis throughout the premier issue of his post-Klan vehicle, The Oklahoma Excalibur. The effortless penetration of Klan leadership ranks by government agents as well as by informants reporting for private watchdog groups is decried, as are the tactics of non-violence and staged events in which Klan groups are seen as demonstrating peacefully until they are attacked by anti- Klan demonstrators which is the forte of Thom Robb. For Mahon, the
contradictions of the modern Klan became intolerable, and thus the switch to WAR.,P. During an interview with this writer in Chicago in 1991, Identity minister and Klan leader Thom Robb made the surprising declaration that, virtually alone among members of the radical right in America, he was pleased with media coverage of his Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. Indeed,comments on any other race has dovetailed nicely with a certain trend in American society toward the reinforcement of ethnic as opposed to national identity.11 Robb's kinder, gentler Klan is unlikely to do much to erase the intensely negative associations which the organization engenders in Americans, and, as Dennis Mahon's writing amply demonstrates, it has done much to further divide an already disintegrating movement.How low the Ku Klux Klan's fortunes have ebbed in recent years are clearly documented by the watchdog community. According to Anti-Defamation League figures, total Klan membership had by 1988 hit a record low of between 4,500- 5,000 members. These figures represent the lowest Klan membership total in fifteen years according to the ADL, and Klanwatch's 1990 estimate of 5,000 shows little hope of upward growth.12 So dire are the Klan's current fortunes that in its 1991 report on the KKK, the ADL was moved to write:
Although the Klan's decade- long decline has stopped, and it may beginto grow again- especially if the current recession becomes lengthy and severe- there is little prospect of the hooded order once again becoming a significant force in the land...As long as it continues to exist, it poses a danger to the communities in which it operates. The danger consists specifically of violence and terrorism. The Klan's very presence in a community constitutes a source of anxiety to members of minority groups and a standing threat to peaceful and friendly relations among the citizens. . . . Nevertheless, considered from the standpoint of the nation as a whole, the KKK has only limited present and potential significance.[13]
Christian Identity/b>Perhaps no single constituency of the North American radical right has met with such fervent organized opposition as has the heterodox theology of Christian Identity. This state of affairs is hardly surprising in light of the adherence to Identity doctrine of such as Robert Mathews of the Order and Richard Butler of the Aryan Nations. Yet for all of the current interest in the movement, Identity's origins and its widespreadappeal have been something of a mystery. This section will offer a brief history of the movement, followed by an introduction to several of the more influential Identity churches in North America
. The movement which has come to be known as Christian Identity evolved out of the no less heterodox theology of British- Israelism. British-Israelism may have been inspired by the 18th century writings of Richard Brothers, an eccentric Englishman who several years incarcerated in a madhouse. However, the central tenet of Brothers' teachings- the belief that Anglo- Saxons are in fact the direct descendants of the Lost Tribes of Israel- had considerable appeal in 19th century imperial Britain. Adherents of British- Israelism in the last century represented the elite of British society, and it was via these social circles that the movement was disseminated throughout the Commonwealth. British-Israelism was introduced to North America primarily through the work of a Canadian, W. H. Poole. This is of considerable significance, for unlike the uniquely American genesis of the Ku Klux Klan, Canada, and in particular British Columbia, would play a vital role both in introducing British- Israel beliefs to the United States and in the transformation of the rather philo- Semitic British- Israel movement into thevirulently anti- Semitic theology of Christian Identity.[14]
This transformation occurred in the 1930s; the product of the interaction of the tireless British- Israel evangelist Howard Rand and the anti- Semitism of an associate of Rand's, William J. Cameron. The Canadian born Cameron would come to fame as the chief spokesman forHenry Ford and, of greater import, as editor of Ford's newspaper, the Dearborn Independent. It was the Independent's 1920s series, collectively titled "The International Jew" which would provide an entry for many to the world of anti- Semitism. Cameron would leave British-Israelism in the 1930s, and Howard Rand would distance himself from the movement in the same period, but the groundwork for the emergence of modern Christian Identity had been laid.
Modern Christian Identity emerged in the 1940s. Doctrinally, the movement placed its primary stress in the so- called 'two- seeds' doctrine. That is, the Bible was held to be the history of only one people, the descendants of the race of Adam, the true Israelites who are in reality the White race. The Jews represent a separate creation- the result of the seduction of Eve by Satan- with the issue of the union, Cain, as the carrier of the seed of Lucifer. Put under a curse of eternal enmity from the seed line of Adam, the two seed lines, that of White Adamic man and the children of Satan, the Jews, "have been locked in conflict for the last six thousand years upon this earth."15 The Jews in this view are not truly Israelites, they are the synagogue of Satan (Revelations 2:9 and 3:9), who are believed to have dispossessed the true Israelites, the White race, from their identity, although the Jews have failed to wrest from them the covenant relationship with God.[16] Other races are identified with the 'beasts of the field' ( Gen. 1:25) who took human form as a result of illicit mating with the nefarious Jews.
The process by which this doctrine came to be held as a sort of Identity Orthodoxy is complex. William Cameron may have been a primary influence, but the key events involved the extensive contacts between such anti- Semitic British- Israel figures as C. F. Parker and Clem Davies in Vancouver and such West Coast American adherents as the core of Identity figures associated with Gerald L. K. Smith. The most influential of these California figures were Wesley Swift, Bertrand Comperet and William Potter Gale. The actual medium of exchange was a series of conferences, with the first in 1937 attended by no lesserlights than Howard Rand and Reuben Sawyer, whose primary claim to fame lies in his being the first to combine Identity theology with Ku Klux Klan leadership. By the end of World War II however, the development of Christian Identity doctrine shifted to the United States, with the coterie surrounding Gerald L. K. Smith as the key figures.[17]
The newly energized doctrine of Christian Identity was soon to gain wide currency in the world of the American radical right. Adherents seem to have been drawn primarily from the ranks of conservative Protestant churches- particularly from Protestant fundamentalism where belief in anti- Semitism or conspiritorialism alienated many from the pro- Zionist stance of the fundamentalist churches. Jack Mohr and John Harrell are typical of this evolution. More, the apocalypticism characteristic of Christian Identity is little different from that which is found in Protestant fundamentalism in all but one key element: where fundamentalists can await the eschatological 'End if Days' secure in the knowledge that in the dreaded seven year period of the Tribulation when war and famine and disease engulf the earth they will be raptured into the air to await the inevitable conclusion of history at Jesus' side, the Identity believer has no such hope of supernatural rescue. Rather, the Christian Identity believer is secure only in his ability to persevere --to survive by the grace of God, by virtue of his own wits and through recourse to his own food stores and weapons.
Why did Christian Identity appeal to these alienated seekers? It appears that the primary explanation lies in Identity's unique ability to meet the need of many members of the racialist right for spirituality, fellowship and ritual in the context of a Christianity shorn of its Jewish roots. Identity in this view provides the hermeneutical key to unlocking the mysteries of past, present and future while offering the faithful an explanation for their current perception of dispossession. Identity apprises them of their golden past before the machinations of the satanic Jews robbed them of the knowledge of their covenantel birthright, and it assures them of their promised future of happiness and terrestrial power. Perhaps of greatest import of all, Identity doctrine gives shape and substance to the conspiratorial suspicions of the faithful remnant. In this respect, the efficacy of the two seed theory centers on its ability to demonstrate to the faithful the truth of what to the uninitiated is the weakest link in the extravagant conspiracy scenarios which it is the passion of the farright wing to unravel. That is, how is it that the Jews have succeeded in keeping alive a centrally directed conspiracy against Christianity over the course of two millennia? Identity's explanation is as simple as it is elegant. This conspiracy is genetic,18 for as the Book says, "Ye are of your father the devil; and it is your will to practice the lusts and gratify the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a falsehood, he speaks what is natural to him; for he is a liar and the father of lies and of all that is false." (Rev. 3:9).
Identity theology today is highly decentralized. There is no center of orthodoxy, and in the post- Wesley Swift era, no preeminent figure to tie together the fractious world of independent Identity churches. The three Identity leaders listed below were therefore selected to illustrate the diversity characteristic of the Identity world.
Perhaps the Identity minister who has become synonymous with the construction of Christian Identity as the 'Theology of Hate' is Richard Butler and his Aryan Nations compound at Hayden Lake, Idaho.19 Butler, a disciple of Wesley Swift in California who moved to Idaho in 1973,possessed perhaps the strongest claim to be the Swift's spiritual heir. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Butler's star did indeed appear to be in the ascendant. His Aryan Nations compound became a mecca for the radical right and his annual 'open house' attracted adherents of a wide variety of far right belief systems. A central attraction of this carnival was the weapons and survivalist training offered by Aryan Nations 'experts' who, in their snappy brown imitation Third Reich uniforms, veered as close to neo- Nazism as Christian Identity in North America has come. Of greatest import, the Aryan Nations' prison ministry appears to have been highly influential in the formation of the Aryan Brotherhood movement among white prisoners.[20]
Rev. Butler was one of the star defendants at the 1989 Fort Smith conspiracy trial. His legal position at that point was precarious. The Order emerged from the area around Hayden Lake, and several founding Order members were Aryan Nations residents. Worse, the printing press used in the Order's counterfeiting operation belonged to the Aryan Nations. Finally, when Robert West, one of the residents of Butler's compound was found to be unable to drink and keep quiet at the same time, he was murdered on orders from Robert Mathews. His body has neverbeen found.[21]
Yet Richard Butler was acquitted of all charges at Fort Smith, and indeed, he has been remarkably successful at skirting the law without actually crossing the line. This innate caution does much to explain the precipitous decline in Rev. Butler's fortunes in the 1990s. In a word, he preached a violent message while refusing to sanction- or even discuss- the possibility of acting on his words. Thus, while Robert Mathews and the Order were at the zenith of their fortunes and donating large sums of cash to a number of far right wing movements, Richard Butler whose Aryan Nations compound supplied the Order with much of its manpower saw little if any of this largess. Mathews seems to have held Butler in some contempt.[22] And, as an aging Butler casts about for a successor, the Aryan Nations movement appears to be fragmenting. Security chief and leading candidate for the succession Floyd Cochrane left the movement and publicly renounced his racist views. Louis Beam tried to shore up the group, but seems to have little interest in replacing Butler. Indeed, so low have Richard Butler's fortunes sunk that at the last Aryan Nations Congress in 1993, less than one hundred people made the trek to Hayden Lake.[23] There appear to be few realisticprospects for the movement to long survive Butler's demise.
Younger, more outspoken and also peripherally connected to the Order is Pete Peters, an Identity minister based in northern Colorado. Peters, a well known figure in the world of Christian Identity, first came to public notice during the investigation of the Order's connection with he murder of Denver radio talk show host Alan Berg with the revelation that several members of the Order attended services at Peters' Laporte, Colorado, church. He has more recently been vilified for his authorship of a booklet which owes as much to Christian Reconstructionism as to Christian Identity. The title succinctly states the message of the tract: Death Penalty for Homosexuals.[24]