Charles Brown wrote:
> >>> Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> 06/04/99 05:51PM >>>
> Charles Brown wrote:
>
> >Charles: Specifically on the Michigan Militia, the former commander of it
> >( I forgot his name right now; it's not Mark of Michigan) was on talk
> >radio in Detroit regularly up until about a year ago. He said that there
> >are racist elements within the Michigan Militia's ranks. But , of course,
> >since it is an libertarian group , it is difficult to "govern" or have
> >strict membership requirements. He is not racist himself, but , he , who
> >ought to know, said that there is a problem with racists as members.
>
> I don't doubt there are racists in the militia movement (and are they still
> around? they've disappeared from the news). No one knows how many, and I
> don't think you can call The Militias a racist movement. A young union
> organizer told me recently that his best worker allies when he was trying
> to organize a plant in rural Michigan were an out Vietnamese-American
> lesbian and a white male member of the Michigan Militia. So you never know,
> really.
>
> ((((((((((((((((
>
> Charles: When the Militias first became big news, they were investigated by the anti-fascist activist network ( Center for Democratic Renewal, Anti-Defamation League, Russ Bellant, Chip Berlet, etc.). They are "pluralist" because of their libertarian theory, and they have NOT turned out to be new KKKs or Nazi like, in my opinion. However, I gave you a paraphrase from the horse's mouth. He indicated that there were enough extreme racist types that he , a Militia leader ,was concerned about it. He would not say that the militia is a racist group. The problem is that with the decentralized oraganization, it would only take a small percentage out the whole to form a squad or platoon and do your own thing (as a racist squad), in the libertarian or decentralized spirit. Timothy McVeigh and accomplices demonstrated that it only takes a squad to do real damage.
>
> (By the way , there was a bomb threat in my office building today)
>
> I think this contradiction within the militias reflects the contradiction discussed in the "Nihilism" thread. They have a legitimate gripe against the federal government, it is just that they don't realize that the federal government is, in many ways, the agent of the monopoly capitalists, so their legitimate rage at their unhappiness with life in this society is diverted somewhat, as the Nazis diverted the legitmate rage and alienation of many people.
>
> There is a tinge of racism in their anti-UN theme.
>
> I think the militias are complex and contradictory, with good and bad tendencies, but we have to keep a watch out , because they could go the wrong way. A dialectical approach looks to the direction of development of phenomena.
>
> Don't forget. All I did was go to the site above, which you demonstrated as questionable. That site linked me to something with a Michigan Militia heading. The miliitias don't seem politically sophisticated enough to keep themselves fully clear of the fascistic types.
>
> I don't know what's up with the disappearance from the news. I take it as a good sign that most of the members are decent people, horrified by the Oklahoma City bombing, quieting them down some.
>
> Outstate Michigan is very reactionary in elections these days, and there is a sort of "simplicity" of rural life/militia element in this configuration. Engler ,the governor, is atrocious, and he really relies on the American Gothic political element for his majorities. These outstates are centrally motivated by hatred of Detroit, which is a symbol of the Black population.
>
> See below from another list's discussion of Michigan today.
>
> CB
>
> Regarding "Detroit's" work against the specific Michigan state action against poor Black women and people, unfortunately Michigan is under a racist and social fascist regime in Lansing headed by Engler. I am not going to take time to parade the long eight or so year history of horribles here. But Detroit as a political unite has a "reverse" power or power deficit ,not strength , relationship with the Lansing regime. That is, much of what Engler and the Republican ,hayseed legislature do is meant to viciously assault and take power from the People of Detroit in their masses, and especially to reassert white supremacist control over the Black majority population of Detroit.
>
> As an example, Engler and the Republican legislature just took away the power to elect the local school board, substituting an appointed board. This is in a nation that will claim the right in a minute to bomb the living hell out of another country because it doesn't have elections. If elections are so sacred, then it is a measure of the racism of the Lansing regime that they took the sacred right to vote away for the school board for 750,000 people (as many as the Kosovo refugees) right here in America.
>
> In response to your inquiry , the above should show you that Detroit has almost no influence for stopping the 8 year long making of racist and socially fascist laws in the state capital at this historic moment. If Detroit is for it, Lansing is against it.
>
> Charles Brown