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The Mind of the Militias

Describes the psychology of militia men. Threat of gun controls to the militias; Possibility for militias to commit acts of violence; Necessity of social acceptance to militia members.

Edward L. Brown, spokesman for New Hampshire's Constitutional DefenseMilitia, is patiently explaining to me how the United States government masterminded the Oklahoma City bombing, how the United Nations is taking over America, how a small consortium of international power brokers orchestrated the breakup of the Soviet Union. And what's most striking is how normal he sounds.

Not his words: His constant references to "they" and "them" are the calling cards of a conspiracy hound. So are his repeated mentions of "Marxist socialist puke"--meaning Bill and Hillary, journalists like myself, and the Jews who purportedly control the world's economy.

What's shockingly ordinary, rather, is his friendly, low-key demeanor. Much of the time Brown comes across like a grumpy but beloved uncle. When I confess that I just don't buy the conspiracy theories he's spewing, Brown doesn't rant--he gently growls, "Awwww, Peter," the way he might at a nephew's mischievous but harmless antics. And he dismisses any thought of militiamen as paranoid or dangerous. "We're kind of backwoods bubbas up here. We're a bunch of harmless old folks. We'll take you fishing, have you over for dinner, and put you up for the night. That's the kind of folks we are."

But the Norman Rockwell image forming in my brain shatters as Brown's homespun chitchat turns into advice on which foods I should be stockpiling in my basement just in case "these guys orchestrate this thing" and the world economy collapses.

In barely two years, thousands of "harmless old folks" like Brown have transformed the word "militia" from a quaint anachronism into an armed threat. They've altered the political landscape as well, creating a chasm across which rational dialogue has ceased and liberals and conservatives now only point accusatory fingers. President Clinton has taken swipes at right-wing talk show hosts like Rush Limbaugh, claiming that their rhetoric incites militia violence. Conservatives, for their part, attribute the rise of militias to antigovernment backlash.

But in talking with psychologists, psychiatrists, sociologists, local sheriffs, and militia members themselves, a far more complex picture emerges. Denouncing paramilitary groups as terrorists--or hailing them as patriots--ignores the often-subtle interplay of forces that have led to their rebirth some two centuries after Lexington and Concord. The psychological and cultural dynamics behind this resurrection can't be reduced to a catchy sound bite. But either we understand them--or we risk more Oklahoma City conflagrations.

Apocalypse Now

There's a huge overlap between militias and Christian fundamentalists, contends Charles Strozier, Ph.D., of John Jay College's Center on Violence and Human Survival, and the end of the millennium "is the shadow on everyone's mind on the Christian right." That shadow, he says, is galvanizing militia members who truly think apocalypse is at hand.

A key concern is the timing of the period of tribulation. That's when, believers say, Christ will return to claim his people amid earthly destruction. Most ordinary fundamentalists are "pre-tribbers"--they think Jesus will come before Armageddon occurs. But fundamentalist militia members, Strozier says, tend to be mid- or post-tribbers: they believe Christ will return only after violent apocalypse.

"That's an arcane point of theology, but it has enormous psychological significance because they want to be there during tribulation. They want to be there when the rivers run red. They want to take their Uzis and fight it out with the Beast. God needs their help."

Hence the gun controls that militias so vigorously oppose are a threat not just to their constitutional rights but to the Lord. The 1993 raid on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, strikes a sinister chord with fundamentalist militias because it's tangible evidence that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms is trying to prevent them "from rising up in revolution to keep the seed of Satan from destroying us," argues sociologist Brent L. Smith, Ph.D., chairman of the department of criminal justice at the University of Alabama in Birmingham and author of Terrorism in America.

Impending apocalypse might even tug at nonreligious militia members. For those motivated by idealism, violence "can take on a kind of transcendence," reports psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton, M.D., director of John Jay's

Paranoia

Political pundits interpreted last November's election as proof that voters want government off their backs. But militias believe the Feds are not only on their backs but up their pant legs, in their pockets, and--as some claim--ready to implant computer chips in their buttocks.

"The leaders of the group may be sincere in their complaints about federal intrusion into people's lives," says Theodore Feldmann, M.D., a consultant to the FBI and psychiatry professor at the University of Louisville. "But there's an excessive nature to their concern."

As a result, nearly any government law, any gathering of the rich and powerful, becomes damning proof of conspiracy. In the rhetoric of militia groups, gun control laws aren't a strategy to curb violence; they're part of a plan to enslave us. Secret societies like Yale's Skull and Bones aren't elitist fraternal groups but part of a plot to form a single world government, the New World Order. Reports of mysterious black helicopters over Montana, of foreign troops training in the Rockies, buzz across the Internet unencumbered by such nuisances as confirmation.

Outside the realm of political rhetoric, this paranoia seems more sad than frightening. When California State University sociologist James William Gibson, Ph.D., author of Warrior Dreams: Paramilitary Culture in Post-Vietnam America, enrolled in combat pistol training as part of his research, he learned "how the warrior should go to the bathroom." Urinals leave you vulnerable to rear attack, so the proper technique is to sit on the toilet with the pistol between your legs, ready to fire on any who invade your stall.

Despite their pervasive fears, most militia members are psychologically healthy, Feldmann believes. But many "are on the fringes of mental health." They're the ones he thinks most likely commit violence.

Our Uzis, Our Selves

There's more to militias than weapons training and scampering around in the woods in camouflage getup. They also give members a place to fit in. "For many members, the political belief that the group espouses may be less important than the sense of belonging and identification from being a part of it," reports Feldmann. Of course, people also get that sense of belonging from the Elks. But militia members may have a particular need to find social acceptance.

"Militias seem to attract people who have trouble fitting in anywhere else," Feldmann says. In that regard they resemble leftist terrorist groups of the 1970s, like the Symbionese Liberation Army. "Only a handful of people in that group had any real commitment to the group's cause. The rest were drawn by a sense of alienation and a need to find people they could identify with."

The militias's emphasis on guns further feeds that sense of self. "The act of violence can create a sense of vitality where that had been waning," notes Lifton. Wielding a powerful weapon instills a sense of purpose or invincibility, particularly for the economically or socially disenfranchised. That goes double for militia members who have achieved notoriety. Shortwave radio guru "Mark from Michigan" works as a janitor in a society that doesn't value manual labor. "His life as Militiaman Mark is far more meaningful than cleaning up a dorm," notes Gibson.

The Post--Cold War Blues

The United States, notes Lifton, is going through a period of "post-Cold War confusion." The collapse of the Soviet Union has left us adrift. We may have won the Cold War, but we've lost a purpose. As a result, Lifton says, "a sense of frustration and anger pervades the whole society."

It's no coincidence that this frustration is felt most deeply by the same socioeconomic group that has embraced militias: young to middle-aged white males in rural areas. "Worker bees in the movement tend to be much lower-educated than the general population," reports Alabama's Smith. And with jobs for unskilled workers drying up, they are unlikely to attain middle-class status--or have much of a stake in the status quo.

No wonder, then, that militias long for an earlier, more innocent America. But instead of waxing nostalgic about the 1950s, as did Reagan-era Republicans, militias look as far back as you can go: the Minutemen. Indeed, the very name of the Patriots--a broader movement that shares the militias's fears of a "suspended" constitution and a single world government--conjures images of Jefferson, Hamilton, and Washington. Some groups form self-sufficient communities that would resemble 18th-century villages were it not for modern amenities like computers. Danny Hashimoto, of the Boulder Patriots, even advocates the barter system, exchanging goods and services with others directly. (It also helps him avoid income taxes.)

Weapon Obsession

However concerned they may be about defending the Bill of Rights, militias aren't running through the woods waving copies of the Constitution.

"They want access to weapons," says Greg Moffat, Sheriff of Idaho's Madison County, "and I'm not talking about small arms: tanks, missiles, high explosives." Some groups acquire special equipment like night-vision goggles; the Florida State Militia is allegedly capable of defending themselves against chemical and biological warfare.

Extreme as that sounds, experts say it's just an extension of America's love affair with guns. And it has less to do with our frontier past--after all, Canada was founded in a similar fashion--than with a cultural vacuum. "The American obsession with guns and violence is a partial substitute for a traditional cultural base," Lifton says. If you're living in a remote region of Montana, visiting the local museum--or even checking out what's on cable--simply isn't an option. So why not shoot beer cans off a rock with a .22?

And throw in Rambo fantasies as well. The U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam was a crushing blow to men who equated American military might with their own masculine identity, says Gibson. Blaming defeat on bureaucrats and politicians, they rejected the John Wayne model of soldiering in favor of a new American warrior: one who fights outside a corrupt political system. Thus was born the American paramilitary movement, laying the foundation for the militias who would adopt the antigovernment rhetoric intact.

But while a fondness for firearms and warrior fantasies might be a prerequisite for militiahood, it's by no means sufficient. "I think a lot of people joined thinking, 'Lees grab rities, go out in the trees, and play games,'" says Moffat. "Then they found out it's a bit more than that, that they'd have to support theories that they didn't want to support."

The Enemy Within

One reason so many of those theories involve Orwellian visions of government, says America's premier cult expert, Margaret Thaler Singer, Ph.D., is that for militia members, many of whom operate in remote regions, the Federal government lacks a human face. Since it's far away--in Washington, D.C., or in a large city elsewhere in the state--they see little evidence in their daily lives of the good that government does--or of the people who do it.

As a result of this psychic, distance, "militias have dehumanized and demonized the government," notes Frank M. Ochberg, M.D., a psychiatrist who's served on the National Task Force on Terrorism. The implications are truly frightening. Several militia leaders claim that civil war is imminent. And turning brother against brother is far easier psychologically when you believe that "these people no longer belong to the same nation," says Ochberg. "It's rationalized as attacking an enemy--an enemy within."

Adding to the geographical distance between militia and government is a striking information gap. Militias tend to shun mainstream media, relying instead on their own newsletters, radio broadcasts, pamphlets, and the Internet for news of political and world affairs. So they rarely tap into information or perspectives that might moderate their views. And the Internet's cloak of anonymity further allows extreme views to fester uncensured.

Racism

When the media reported ties between militias and white supremacists, militias in Michigan and elsewhere scurried to prove themselves equal-opportunity organizations. True, the movement is not entirely homogenous: Patriot radio personality Norm Resnick is a bespectacled Jew with a Ph.D. in psychology. (Resnick declined to talk with PT.) But in pointing frantically to one or two black or Jewish members, most militias succeeded only in emphasizing how white and Christian the movement actually is.

Even so, only a minority of militia groups are explicitly racist. But their hatred is of a particularly virulent strain. Klan-watch researcher Tawanda Shaw says that 45 militias in 22 states have ties to white supremacists, including the neo-Nazi Aryan Nations. An even greater threat may be the Christian Identity movement, which believes that whites are God's chosen people and Jews are the children of Satan. Theology, more than politics, is central to these militias: many have resident pastors. But whereas religion may moderate the violent impulses of most Christians, the highly combustible mix of extreme religious, social, and political views makes Identity groups particularly dangerous.

The Future

So what should we do about the militia movement? Gibson says that it's crucial "not to demonize the demonizers." By expressing strong disapproval toward militia members, but not ostracizing them, we may be able to pull back toward the mainstream those who have one foot in the warrior world and the other in the world of job and family. The horror of the Oklahoma bombing may also bring some back: "Dead babies and social security clerks is not an image of heroic violence."

And if millennium fever and social upheaval are indeed major forces, the militia movement may lose steam once the new century begins--provided the government does not overreact in the interim. Most experts agree that given the militias's fears, cracking down or infiltrating them is the worst thing to do.

"If Congress makes militias illegal, if they pass more gun control laws, we could see these groups grow in size and scope," warns Smith. "It's important that the government not overreact. We need to prosecute terrorist incidents, but we don't need to expand the ATF so that it becomes the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Fertilizer."

PHOTO (BLACK & WHITE): Center for Violence and Human Survival, in New York. "People involved in it can see themselves as moving into a heroic domain, a higher purpose." And millennium fever intensifies the urge toward transcendent violence.