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Title: Veterans and White Supremacy
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URL Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/16/o ... -and-white-supremacy.html?_r=0
Published: Apr 18, 2014
Author: NY Times
Post Date: 2014-04-18 09:08:46 by Jethro Tull
Keywords: None
Views: 234
Comments: 8
EVANSTON, Ill. — WHEN Frazier Glenn Miller shot and killed three people in Overland Park, Kan., on Sunday, he did so as a soldier of the white power movement: a groundswell that united Klansmen, neo-Nazis and other fringe elements after the Vietnam War, crested with the bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building in 1995, and remains a diminished but potent threat today. Mr. Miller, the 73-year-old man charged in the killings, had been outspoken about his hatred of Jews, blacks, Communists and immigrants, but it would be a mistake to dismiss him as a crazed outlier. The shootings were consistent with his three decades of participation in organized hate groups. His violence was framed by a clear worldview. You can’t predict whether any one person will commit violence, but it would be hard to think of someone more befitting of law enforcement scrutiny than Mr. Miller (who also goes by the name Frazier Glenn Cross). I’ve been studying the white radical right since 2006. In my review of tens of thousands of pages of once classified federal records, as well as newly available archives of Klan and neo-Nazi publications, Mr. Miller appears as a central figure of the white power movement. The number of Vietnam veterans in that movement was small — a tiny proportion of those who served — but Vietnam veterans forged the first links between Klansmen and Nazis since World War II. They were central in leading Klan and neo-Nazi groups past the anti-civil rights backlash of the 1960s and toward paramilitary violence. The white power movement they forged had strongholds not only in the South, but also in the Pacific Northwest, Colorado, California and Pennsylvania. Its members carried weapons like those they had used in Vietnam, and used boot-camp rhetoric to frame their pursuit of domestic enemies. They condoned violence against innocent people and, eventually, the state itself. Frazier Glenn Miller was arrested on Sunday in the shootings of three people. Bullets, Blood and Then Cry of ‘Heil Hitler’APRIL 14, 2014 Before his 1979 discharge for distributing racist literature, Mr. Miller served for 20 years in the Army, including two tours in Vietnam and service as a Green Beret. Later that year he took part (but was not charged) in a deadly shooting of Communist protesters in Greensboro, N.C. In 1980, Mr. Miller formed a Klan-affiliated organization in North Carolina that eventually was known as the White Patriot Party. He outfitted members in camouflage fatigues. He paraded his neo-Nazis, in uniform and bearing arms, up and down streets. They patrolled schools and polling places, supposedly to protect whites from harassment. F.B.I. documents show that they also burned crosses. By 1986, Mr. Miller’s group claimed 2,500 members in five southern states. The archives also show that Mr. Miller received large sums of money from The Order, a white power group in the Pacific Northwest, to buy land and weapons to put his followers through paramilitary training. Mr. Miller’s group paid $50,000 for weapons and matériel stolen from the armory at Fort Bragg, N.C., including anti-tank rockets, mines and plastic explosives. He targeted active-duty troops for recruitment and hired them to conduct training exercises. Mr. Miller’s downfall came after the Southern Poverty Law Center filed a lawsuit on behalf of black North Carolinians; as part of a settlement in 1985, he agreed to stop operating a paramilitary organization. In 1987, a federal judge found that Mr. Miller had violated the agreement, and barred him from contacting others in the white power movement. Outraged, and anticipating criminal charges regarding the stolen military weapons, Mr. Miller briefly went underground. He would write in a self-published autobiography, “Since they wouldn’t allow me to fight them legally above ground, then I’d resort to the only means left, armed revolution.” He was later caught with a small arsenal, but he began cooperating with prosecutors, testifying against other white supremacists in exchange for a reduced sentence. He was released in 1990, after serving three years. In 2009, the Department of Homeland Security issued a nine-page report detailing the threat of domestic terrorism by the white power movement. This short document outlined no specific threats, but rather a set of historical factors that had predicted white-supremacist activity in the past — like economic pressure, opposition to immigration and gun-control legislation — and a new factor, the election of a black president. Jewish Americans and African Americans have served in our military proudly and courageously since the Revolutionary War. For some Americans,... "Would he have received greater scrutiny had he been a Muslim, a foreigner, not white, not a veteran? The answer is clear, and alarming." ... It is ashamed that any group of people single out others to hate. Unfortunately in our world today we have Jihad, Blacks hating Whites,... The report singled out one factor that has fueled every surge in Ku Klux Klan membership in American history, from the 1860s to the present: war. The return of veterans from combat appears to correlate more closely with Klan membership than any other historical factor. “Military veterans facing significant challenges reintegrating into their communities could lead to the potential emergence of terrorist groups or lone wolf extremists carrying out violent attacks,” the report warned. The agency was “concerned that right-wing extremists will attempt to recruit and radicalize returning veterans in order to boost their violent capabilities.” The report raised intense blowback from the American Legion, Fox News and conservative members of Congress. They demanded an apology and denounced the idea that any veteran could commit an act of domestic terrorism. The department shelved the report, removing it from its website. The threat, however, proved real. Mr. Miller obviously represents an extreme, both in his politics and in his violence. A vast majority of veterans are neither violent nor mentally ill. When they turn violent, they often harm themselves, by committing suicide. But it would be irresponsible to overlook the high rates of combat trauma among the 2.4 million Americans who have served in our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the full impact of which has not yet materialized. Veterans of those conflicts represent just 10 percent of those getting mental health services through the Department of Veterans Affairs, where the overwhelming majority of those in treatment are still Vietnam veterans. During Mr. Miller’s long membership in the white power movement, its leaders have robbed armored cars, engaged in counterfeiting and the large-scale theft of military weapons, and carried out or planned killings. The bombing by Timothy J. McVeigh, an Army veteran, of the federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995, which killed 168 people, was only the most dramatic of these crimes. When we interpret shootings like the one on Sunday as acts of mad, lone-wolf gunmen, we fail to see white power as an organized — and deadly — social movement. That Mr. Miller was able to carry out an act of domestic terror at two locations despite his history of violent behavior should alarm anyone concerned about public safety. Would he have received greater scrutiny had he been a Muslim, a foreigner, not white, not a veteran? The answer is clear, and alarming. Kathleen Belew, a postdoctoral fellow in history at Northwestern University, is at work on a book on Vietnam veterans and the radical right. Poster Comment: And the provocations continue. 
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#1. To: Jethro Tull (#0)
Here's the problem I have with these klan types, JT. They never seem to kill jews or minorities. Only their own white brothers.
Support bacteria. (The world needs more culture)
FBI informant. Look it up. 'Nuff said. Know guns, know safety, know liberty. No guns, no safety, no liberty.
The stupid shooter, the author of the article....or both? " If you cannot govern yourself, you will be governed by assholes. " Randge, Poet de Forum, 1/11/11 "Life's tough, and even tougher if you're stupid." --John Wayne
I suspect it's yet another staged, fake-history production from the Commie Legions, targeting Veterans again and so on.
------- "They're on our left, they're on our right, they're in front of us, they're behind us...they can't get away this time." -- Col. Puller, USMC
The authorette is an academic crackpot pawning for a grant from Abe Foxman. The above is a close resemblance to today's KKK.
Agree GL.
He's Mohamm5d Pedo Whitaker! surprise, surprise. There are no prizes for correctly guessing his skin-tone. “The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out... without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, intolerable.” ~ H. L. Mencken
Sorry, abraxas. The stupid shooter. Monday, April 14, 2014 Remember: Frazier Glenn Miller Was A Federal Informant Grittings: Please bear in mind that Frazier Glenn Miller testified against people like Bob Miles and Louis Beam at the Fort Smith Sedition Trial of 1988 and against Doug Sheets and Jack Jackson in 1989. I also rather doubt that the media will make much of the fact that Miller spent almost 15 years hiding in the Federal Witness Protection Program and the name “Frazier Glenn Cross” was apparently the identity given to him by the United States government and the FBI. -HAC Know guns, know safety, know liberty. No guns, no safety, no liberty.
#2. To: Obnoxicated (#1)
#3. To: randge (#2)
FBI informant.
#4. To: Jethro Tull (#0)
#5. To: Obnoxicated, 4 (#1)
#6. To: GreyLmist (#4)
#7. To: Jethro Tull, 4 (#6)
good news, the KC freeway shooter is captured - get your pen & pad at hand =
#8. To: abraxas (#3)
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