The Oath Keepers: The Militant and Armed Side of the Tea Party Movement
Meet the fast-growing "patriot" group that's recruiting soldiers to resist the Obama administration.
By Justine Sharrock / Mother Jones
Pvt. 1st Class Lee Pray is saving up for has a 2,500-yard range and comes with a Mark IV scope and an easy-load magazine. It'll take plenty of military paychecks to cover the $5,600 price tag, but he considers the Bushmaster essential in his preparations to take on the US government when it declares martial law.
His belief that that day is imminent has led Pray to a group called Oath Keepers [1], one of the fastest-growing "patriot" organizations on the right. Founded last April by Yale-educated lawyer and ex-Ron Paul aide Stewart Rhodes, the group has established itself as a hub in the sprawling anti-Obama movement that includes Tea Partiers, Birthers, and 912ers. Glenn Beck, Lou Dobbs, and Pat Buchanan have all sung its praises, and in December, a grassroots summit [2] it helped organize drew such prominent guests as representatives Phil Gingrey [3] and Paul Broun [4], both Georgia Republican.
In Pray's estimate, it might not be long (months, perhaps a year) before President Obama finds some pretext—a pandemic, a natural disaster, a terror attack—to impose martial law, ban interstate travel, and begin detaining citizens en masse. One of his fellow Oath Keepers, a former infantryman, advised me to prepare a "bug out" bag with 39 items including gas masks, ammo, and water purification tablets, so that I'd be ready to go "when the shit hits the fan."
When it does, Pray and his buddies plan to go AWOL and make their way to their "fortified bunker"—the home of one comrade's parents in rural Idaho—where they've stocked survival gear, generators, food, and weapons. If it becomes necessary, they say, they will turn those guns against their fellow soldiers.
Now Pray is both a Birther and a Truther. He believes he is following an illegitimate, foreign-born president in a war on terror launched by a government plot—9/11. He admires soldiers like Army reservist Major Stefan Frederick Cook, who volunteered for a deployment last May and then sued to avoid it—claiming that Obama is not a natural-born citizen and is thus unfit for command. Pray himself had been eager to go to Iraq when his own unit deployed last June, but he smashed both knees falling from a crane rig and the injuries kept him stateside. In September, he was demoted from specialist to private first class—he'd been written up for bullshit infractions, he claims, after seeking help for a drinking problem. His job on base involves operating and maintaining heavy machinery; the day before we met, he and his fellow "undeployables" had attached a snowplow to a Humvee, their biggest assignment in a while. He spends idle hours at the now-quiet base researching the New World Order and conspiracies about swine flu quarantine camps—and doing his best to "wake up" other soldiers.
Are ya creeped out yet? Guys like this wacko are in the US Army, and live amongst us! I mentioned the Oath Keepers in just a few sentences in my Patriots post, so when I saw this today I thought it would fit right in. This article on AlterNet is over 8 pages so if you want to read it all go here
I'll leave you with this, it's from the comments section:
And Gays would be deterimental to Unit cohesiveness?
These people are saying they will turn on their own unit-Kill their fellow Americans!
Not a surprise Rhodes is also a ”Christian” code word for Satanist these days. Of course he wants to recruit LEGIONS of armed angry self absorbed and paranoid people- he’s building his army against humanity (God).
They aren’t Protecting the Divine, they are mounting an army against Him.
Rhodes is misinterpreting the Consitituion just as he is the Bible, for his own diabolic agenda.
Come on if these were Constitutionally astute (or Literate) people they would have recognized Cheney’s Coup while it was happening. They would have Reacted to the phrases ”Executive Privildege” and the various Illegal ways it had been used. They Would be screaming for Prosecutions for Acts of Treason by W, Cheney,Rummy et al.
This Group is a paid subsidiary of CheneyCo.
Burying the fact that much of what they claim could happen under Obama, already did Under W.
Want to prove you are a Patriot? Demand Cheney and his syndicate of Co conspirators be prosecuted Fully, both internationally and domestically.
Want to prove you are a true ’Christian’ recruit disciples not soldiers.Defeat ’evil’ with the Word not a weapon.
Labels are not chosen by the individual- they are determined by the group. These are Not American Patriots, nor Christians. They are Domestic Enemies and Satanists
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8 comments:
These are some of the ones Silver Fiddle said didn't exist and he was "offended" by the report when it was released too early by DHS Secretary Napolatano. The military extremists we were warned to be looking out for that he took exception with.
I liked this article because it talks about the armed teabaggers. How it also mentions ex-Ron Paul aide, Rhodes, Beck, Dobbs, Buchanan, Phil Gingrey and Paul Broun.
Like the Ft Hood incident, these guys need to be watched closely. You "patriots" who are American born are the domestic terrorists,and you are so proud of yourselves!
These "patriots" claim to love America and want to save us from Obama, but in reality they will work to destroy America and Americans. We don't need foreign terrorists on our soil, we have these groups!
Sue,
You know what frustrates me no end? The continual "race card" thing that right-wingers bring up whenever one mentions racism. And BTW this race card they keep bringing up-where exactly in the deck is it? I got 52 cards in all my decks-none of them have a race card. Jokers, yeah but no race card.
Maybe only White people get that card. One more thing. Not only the best jobs and nicer homes, they also get 53 cards in their decks.Sheeesh!
OK i'm kidding, exaggerating to make my point that while there are certainly times when people blame race instead of facing up to their own shortcomings, racism still exists and in fact is alive and well.
To deny that the extreme reaction to Obama's presidency is not race-based is to deny present day American reality.
We've got a business-friendly centrist president whose policy might accurately be described as Bush-lite. Yet he is continually vilified as a Sociallst/Marxist/Fascist/Terrorist-as someone " not like us" by the Right.
I'll resist the temptation to say "hell yeah he ain't like you and there's hella more of us who ain't like you every day" and instead just observe that the attempt to dehumanize Obama as "other" continues.
I personally don't like the man or his policy and criticize him every chance I get, my criticism is based on documented fact.
The ACORN/Czars/Birther attacks are entirely based on race. Not playing the race card, playing the truth card.
You're right Sue. And there are a lot of these home-grown terrorist groups. I had not heard of this one, so appreciate the heads up.
BTW, check your email. : )
If all of the things said about PFC Pray are true, and if it can be verified that he did say the things he allegedly said, the Army has grounds to take action against him. He is conspiring against the United States government by preparing to rebel against its elected government, conspiring with others to go AWOL, and perpetuating an unfounded allegation that the President is not his legitimate commander in chief, which in essence says a true chain of command does not exist.
I don't think the army would even waste their time trying to court martial the guy....just give him a general discharge under honorable conditions, saying that he is not compatible with the military.
I'm speaking as a veteran and a former NCO...if I knew guys under me were conspiring to go AWOL- even in this wild hypothetical scenario- it would be my responsibility to inform my CO.
Most soldiers don't talk openly about such things, but it's easy enough to tell which ones have been woken up. The Department of Defense, Sexton added, will be shocked by the number of service members willing to turn against their commanders when the time comes. "It's an absolute reality," he says. He views last April's DHS report on right-wing extremists as a "preemptive attack because they know it's coming."
"Maybe only White people get that card."
Oso - THAT is an offensive statement...
I like it and it's true. When the race card gets used, it reminds me of lazy professors that when you point out something they are clearly wrong about, they throw something bullshit out like, "semantics". Race card, same thing.
These people are seriously delusional, and I'm not talking only about the birther-9/11 drivel (I refuse to use the term "truther for something so flagrantly the opposite of truth).
They should remember what General Sherman did to the slime that spawned them. This is not patriotism, it's incipient treason and domestic terrorism, and if they want to start something, the Constitutional state must and will finish it.
"Better have tried -- better have died." General Tojo thought he could take down the United States, and he had equipment even more impressive than a Humvee with a snowplow attached to it. It availed him nothing in the end.
We've had Dr. Tiller and the Austin IRS building and now the Pentagon, and the sludge at the bottom of the gene pool stockpiling things that go boom and nursing grandiose macho fantasies -- a home-grown version of al-Qâ'idah metastasizing across the country in plain sight.
You can bet the FBI is keeping very close tabs on all this. I just hope it doesn't take another atrocity on the scale of Oklahoma City before it's squelched.
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