Debating the militia

[Richard Gibson]

I spent a lot of time with militia people in Florida. They were lawyers,
judges, construction workers, MD's, carpenters, public employees,
unemployed, men, AFL leaders, women, kids....the organizing influence was
usually a combination of some prominent respectable people along with some
mouthy local wacko. I did a lot of shooting with these folks. Black people
and white people were shooting on the same grounds, not at each other. Most
of the militia folks hated the government, often for good reason, liked to
shoot and feared the government was moving to disarm them, as it is. Few of
them could hardly be considered organized, though the leadership was--and
could be seen as fascists if you could believe they are sane. The rank and
file folks  were along for the shooting, little else. Many of them believed
in the black helicopter conspiracy, etc., but it didn't take much to point
out the rich are getting richer, etc. During one anti-Klan demo I helped
lead in north-central Florida, militia people quietly provided security. In
short, from what I saw, the militia is not a monolith.

At 12:14 PM 6/2/98 -0700, you wrote:
>Katha asked about meeting with the Militia people.  One of my baskeball
>friends joined.  I was asked to give talk to a progressive group up in
>Paradise. CA, but when I got there it was set up as a debate with the
>militia people.  Some were cookes; some were highly intelligent, but
>working with wierd information which they accepted on faith, since all of
>their friends believed and discussed the same garbage.
>
>If you want, Katha, I can probably put you in touch with the Butte County
>leader,
>who is running for Auditor today.
> -- 
>Michael Perelman
>Economics Department
>California State University
>Chico, CA 95929
>
>Tel. 530-898-5321
>E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
>
Rich Gibson
Director of International Social Studies
Wayne State University
College of Education
Detroit MI 48202

http://www.pipeline.com/~rgibson/index.html
http://www.pipeline.com/~rgibson/meap.html

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