c. 1996 Religion News Service

WASHINGTON (RNS)-Some people dismiss the Freemen of Montana, still locked in a standoff with federal agents, as simply a bunch of wackos in the wilderness who love their guns and hate to pay their taxes.

Others make sense of the Oklahoma City bombing by casting suspect Timothy McVeigh as a lone disgruntled ex-soldier obsessed with scenarios of destruction.

But to attorney Kenneth Stern, hate crimes expert for the American Jewish Committee, the Freemen and McVeigh are not isolated anomalies, but the leading edge of a movement that could have dangerous implications, not only for the United States, but for democracies worldwide.

And, Stern contends, neither the media, the American people nor the nation’s lawmakers fully understand what the militia represent.

McVeigh and the Freemen, Stern said, are members of so-called”superpatriot”groups that are fueled by racism, anti-Semitism, paranoia, hatred of government and apocalyptic religious ideas. “This is a movement of 10,000 to 40,000 people. There is documented evidence of armed militia activities in 36 states. It is a movement that continues to grow,”Stern said today (May 9) at the annual meeting here of the American Jewish Committee.”We don’t take this seriously enough. And I’m concerned that the Oklahoma City bombing may not be the worst-case scenario.”Before and after Oklahoma City, there was much talk in militia groups of targeting cities and poisoning water supplies. These are not boys just walking in the woods. These are people who are . . . attempting to destroy our government and institutions.” Though 44 states have laws on the books outlawing private militias, most state attorneys general are reluctant to enforce them, said civil rights activist Morris Dees, a founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors Ku Klux Klan and militia activities.

In a joint address to the AJC on the dangers of militia groups, Stern and Dees called on Congress to hold substantive hearings on the militia threat and to pass a federal law banning private militias.

Militia members, such as the Freemen,”have taken our Constitution and twisted it like a pretzel,”Stern said. Militia leaders claim the First and Second Amendments to the Constitution-the right of free expression and the right to bear arms-allow them to raise their private armies, he said.

Stern’s most recent book,”A Force Upon the Plain”(Simon & Schuster), details how the Freemen and other militia groups, reject established law in favor of their own”common law”courts, pronouncing judgments-including death sentences-on law enforcement officers and elected officials. Such actions-in Nevada, Idaho, Montana and Washington state-have had a chilling effect.”People are becoming afraid to attend or speak at public meetings or write letters to the editor of their local papers,”Stern said.”I’m concerned about how society is responding-or fails to respond-to their thuggish intimidation of grass-roots democracy.” Months before the Oklahoma City bombing, Dees’ organization, based in Montgomery, Ala., warned U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno about the pending threat of violence from antigovernment extremists. And since then, Dees says he has written the attorneys general of 44 states that have laws banning private militias to enforce those laws.”Their response,”he said,”was not encouraging.” Dees cited a letter he received from one state attorney general who listed three reasons why he chose not to prosecute militia activities:”He said we might make them mad and provoke more incidents; that (the militias) are exercising their First Amendment rights; and that they are exercising their Second Amendment rights. But he is wrong on all three points,”Dees said.”If a bully is pushing people around, you don’t hang back out of fear you’ll make him do worse things. You don’t need guns and private armies to speak your mind in a free society. And the Supreme Court in numerous decisions has declared the Second Amendment guarantee of a well-armed militia resides with the state and national guards, not individuals.” The United States is not the only arena in which militia activities unfold.”The racist, anti-Semitic far right sees its mission as global and the growth of the Internet is making it possible,”Stern said, noting militia activity is growing in Australia, Canada, Great Britain and Germany.

There are at least 50 Internet news groups and more than 70 World Wide Web pages catering to antigovernment extremist groups, according to a recent survey by Dees’ organization.

Both Dees and Stern contend that media coverage adds to the public misperceptions of militia groups by focusing on people like retired Lt. Col. James”Bo”Gritz-a former Green Beret upon whom the film”Rambo”was based-while the true leaders of the movement stay far from sight. One of them is 39-year-old Louis Beam, a former Texas Klansman who in 1992 urged militias to prepare for all-out war against the government.”You’ll never see Louis Beam on TV,”Dees said.”But he expects to become the fuhrer of America.”END RNS