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mirkwoodshewolf · 5 years

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Daughter of Freddie Mercury; Freddie Mercury x pre-teen/teen reader pt.2

*Author’s note*

And here we go everyone, here is pt.2 of the request. Now i want to warn everyone in advance that this part is TWICE AS ANGSTY and probably the most angsty thing I will ever write. So if anyone needs, I’ve got tissues ready for everyone and anyone who needs them. Also the POV’s change constantly throughout this part so if that bothers anyone I’m telling you in advance.

Warnings: mentions of drugs, ANGST, some fluff, the SOB P**nt**, swearing.

Taglist:

@psychosupernatural

@geek-and-proud

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I now was lying on the guest bed in Uncle Deacy's house. My hair now fully wet after just getting out of a bath. Thanks to aunt Veronica who helped to rinse out the dip and anything else that had gotten stuck to my hair, plus also to wash away the champagne smell from my skin.

I lay there on my side motionlessly with tears still dripping out of my eyes every now and them, occasionally sniffling. A soft knock and the door creaked open and I heard Uncle Deacy's voice say.

"Hey, may I come in?" I remained silent. I heard the door shut and felt a dip at the foot of the bed. Silence rang out through the room and that's when I heard Uncle Deacy say. "I've made some hot chocolate downstairs. I know how much that cheers you up."

"I'm gonna end back in the foster home." I finally muttered softly. I knew uncle Deacy's eyes were locked right at me as I heard him say in shock.

"What makes you say that?"

"Not the first time it's been that way." I bluntly stated. I felt his hand on my shoulder and finally I turned towards him and I continued, "Paul's taking him away from me. I can feel it. It happened once before with my third foster dad. The minute he met a girl he no longer wanted me. They hosted parties like that all the time, and then one day he called the foster home telling them he no longer wanted me......." I tried holding back my tears as I tried to get out. "Guess I was never meant to be a part of a family. I'll just be the black plague of this earth....."

"Bullshit!" I looked up at Uncle John and was shocked at his statement. Usually he's calm and collected, rarely does he ever snap but just now he did and I was terrified. He inhaled deeply before exhaling softly and said, "I'm sorry dear, but what you just said is absolute rubbish."

"If it is rubbish, then why hasn't anyone adopted me yet? Why do they always say they'll be there for me when eventually they always leave me?" I asked as I sat up and kept eye contact with him. He stared right back at me, his face completely stoic and I knew I had him in a box.

That was until he lifted his hand and cupped my cheek gingerly and he said to me.

"Close your eyes." I looked at him confused.

"What?"

"Just trust me love," I sighed heavily and closed them and I heard him say again, "Now I want you to forget everything you see," I felt his hand take my wrist and place it over my chest, right over my heart. "What do you feel?" I soon felt my heartbeat and I said as I opened my eyes.

"My heart." I looked up at Uncle Deacy and he said as he extended his arm.

"Come here." I allowed his arm to wrap around my shoulder and I leaned up against his chest as he held me close and moved my head over his chest allowing me to hear his heartbeat.

"Your heart?"

"Two rhythms synchronizing together to create a strong beat to a song. And you are the most important beat to this family (y/n). From day one when you came to us, you became such an important part to this crazed family, we'd be lost without you here. You belong here (y/n), and don't let what Paul or anyone else make you think otherwise."

"You really mean that?" I asked as I looked up at him hopefully.

"Of course, I never say what I don't mean. I may not always speak the most out of the other three, but when I do say something, it's always 100% true." I wrapped my arms around Uncle Deacy's neck and hugged him as tight as I could. I felt his arm wrap around me as he hugged me back with as much strength as he could all the while stroking my back. "Freddie just marches to his own rhythm. But sooner or later he will come around. He always does."

"Thanks uncle Deacy, I love you."

"I love you too poppet. Now, what do you say we head downstairs for that hot chocolate, hmm?" I nodded happily and we separated from each other and headed downstairs to grab the hot chocolate, and for the rest of the night Uncle Deacy never once let his arm down from my shoulder's always keeping me close to him in his one armed hug.

But as time continued to move on, it seemed like my dad was just getting worse. Paul's influence was really starting to affect the Freddie Mercury I first met back at the foster home, he wasn't the same he drank more, was high practically all the time and barely acknowledged my existence any more.

What's worse was that he was also starting to push away Uncle Brian, Deacy and Roger. Like when one day shortly after they had filmed the music video for uncle Deacy's song "I want to break free" with all of them dressed in drag, apparently America banned the video because of the idea and pointing the blame on dad when in reality it was Uncle Roger's idea.

I listened in on the meeting even when I knew I wasn't supposed to. I hid behind the door as I heard my dad say.

"I'm never touring in the US again. And I'm the one being blamed for it. Not you dear whose idea I believe it was to dress up in drag. Nor you, not even you who wrote the bloody thing." He said pointing out to Roger for the idea, then to Brian and finally Deacy who wrote the song. "No, crazy cross dressing Freddie. Freddie the Freak, Freddie the Fag. I'm tired of touring aren't you? Album tour album tour. I want to do something different."

"We're a band that's what bands do. Album, tour. Album, tour." I heard Uncle Brian say.

"Well I need a break, I'm sick of it." Dad snapped.

"What are you saying Freddie?" I heard Uncle Deacy say. There was silence that lingered in the room for what felt like eternity until finally my dad spoke.

"I've signed a deal, with CBS records."

"You've done what?" I heard Uncle Roger say.

"Without telling us." Uncle Brian stated.

"What kind of deal?" asked uncle Deacy.

"Look I'm not saying we won't ever record or tour again. Queen will go on. But I—I need to do something different, do you know what I mean? I-I-I need to grow. What's the song, fly away?"

"Spread my wings and fly away." Said Uncle Deacy.

"Spread my wings and fly away." My dad piped in.

"A solo album." Said Uncle Brian.

"Two actually. Back to back." Paul's voice finally spoke up.

"Another word out of you and I'll throw you out the bloody window!" uncle Roger's voice snarled.

"But that's years Freddie I mean—that'll take years."

"Ye have little faith."

"I just I don't believe this." Uncle Roger spoke up. "How much?" Silence rang throughout the room. "What did they pay you?!" Roger demanded again. Everyone including me was waiting on baited-breath to hear just how much my dad was offered. "I wanna know how much they paid you!"

"Four million dollars!" My dad yelled out.

Oh God...... I couldn't believe how much they were offering for my dad's solo career. This, this, this was—mind boggling.

"That's more than any Queen deal." Said Uncle Deacy in disbelief.

"Look the routine is killing us, I mean you all must want a break from all the arguments. Whose song gets on the album. Whose songs the single? Who wrote what? Who gets the bigger slice of the royalties, what's on the B-side all of it. You must need a break." My dad tried to reason with the guys.

"Freddie. We're a family." Uncle Brian spoke up in a low tone but dad snapped, his voice choking up.

"No we're not! We're not a family. You've got families. Children! Wives! What have I got?!"

"You've got an adoptive daughter, but clearly you're too high to even remember that she still needs you." Uncle Deacy's solemn quick wit spoke up.

"I won't compromise my vision any longer." Is he for real here? He can't be serious about this.

"Compromise? Are you joking? You were working and Heathrow before we gave you a chance!" Uncle Roger's voice spoke up.

And without me....you'd—you'd be a dentist. Drumming 12-8 times blues at the weekend at the Crown and Anchor. And you, well, you would be Dr. Brian May. Author of a fascinating dissertation on the cosmos....that no one ever reads. And Deacy, for the life of me.....nothing comes to mind." Deacy who tried to brush his pain aside said proudly but I could hear the pain in his voice.

"I studied electrical engineering. Does that meet your standard?"

"It's perfect." Tears filled my eyes as I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Dad was serious about breaking up the band and if he does, that means I'll—I'll never be able to see my uncles again.

"You just killed Queen." Uncle Roger's voice spoke up lowly and brokenheartedly.

"Oh give her a kiss one day she might wake up."

"You need us Freddie, more than you know. Think about what this will do to (y/n)."

"I don't need anyone. And never tell me how to raise my daughter. In fact—I forbid any of you for seeing her." What no! He—he can't do this to me.

I finally got the perfect family I've always dreamed about, I can't lose them now!

Not wanting to hear anymore I raced out into the backyard and raced next door hoping that mum would be there. Once I got to the front door I knocked on it repeatedly and as loud as I could but there was no answer.

"Mum please—please I need you. Everything's falling apart......I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do." I slid down the door and curled up against it and wept hysterically into my lap, hiding my head in my arms.

"(Y/n)." I sniffled and looked up to see my uncles standing before me. I stood up and hugged uncle Roger as he was the closest one and he wrapped his arms around me as I sobbed out.

"I don't want you guys to go! Please don't leave me. You promised we'd be okay. You promised!"

"We know darling, we know." I heard Uncle Brian say as his arms came around me as well. Soon Uncle Deacy joined in and I was caught in the middle of a three-way group hug. Something my uncles always did for me whenever my really bad days came up.

"You're the best family I've ever had. I don't want you guys to go."

"Oh believe us darling we don't want to leave you either. You're too important to us." Said Uncle Roger as I felt him kiss the top of my head.

"(Y/n)!!" I looked up to see Paul standing outside the front door. "Get back inside and pack up your things." He called out to me.

"No! I'm not leaving!" I cried back.

"Don't you dare talk back to me lass!"

"You're not my father! You've poisoned him you son of a bitch! You're poison Paul Prenter! A snake in the grass! A coward—"

"(Y/N)!!!" My father's voice soon roared out. He now appeared beside Paul and he proclaimed. "I order you to get inside the house and pack up your stuff! I'm your father and I know what's best for you!" My sudden confidence deflated like a balloon as I was reduced to a whimpering mess. I looked up to my uncles who all had tears in their eyes. "Now (y/n)!" I looked up at my uncles and begged to them.

"I don't wanna go please. I don't want to leave you three, I don't wanna go, I don't wanna go!" Uncle Brian cupped my face and he said.

"We know love, but I'm afraid there's nothing we can do about it."

"No please......let me stay with you guys. You've been better fathers than he has lately."

"As much as we would want to, we can't (y/n). You've been the best niece the three of us could've asked for. And know that we will always love you." He kissed the center of my forehead when I felt a rough hand take my arm and I was pulled away.

I looked up to see Paul forcing me out of my uncle's protective group hug. I thrashed and tried to fight back but he had a strong grip on me. Uncle Roger's hand still held my free one tightly until I was forced to let go due to the distance. I could see him wanting to come back for me but uncle Brian and uncle Deacy stopped him all three of them looking at me with sorrow-filled eyes.

I cried out for each of them but no matter how much I screamed, no matter how much I pleaded and begged, they didn't come back for me.

*Brian's POV*

It broke our hearts not to go running back and try to get her out of Paul's repulsive grip. Trust me Roger's not the only one who wants to beat Paul to the ground for forcing her out of our arms. But we had no legal recourse for this, had we tried to interfere; Freddie would probably try to start a legal action against us, which could lead to a restraining order against us.

Forbidding us by law to from have any contact with (y/n). I refused to do that to (y/n). She's already been through enough and I refused to put her through that situation. I watched with a broken heart along with Deacy and Roger as Paul finally shoved her into the house and Fred slammed the door shut.

*Munich 1984. My POV*

It's been about 3 weeks since we've moved to Munich, Germany. I barely came out for anything. I rarely ate, I hardly slept, hell I never responded to my dad if he tried to start some bonding time through music. I ignored him completely. He ruined my life, he took me away from the one family I finally came to love and was hardly paying attention to me because he was always either working or hosting a party downstairs.

He always thought he could make it up to me but I never gave him the time of day. I bluntly refused to even look at him, I just buried myself into my sheets and said not a word.

*Freddie's POV*

I was downstairs leaning against the stairway. Everyone else was getting high or drinking as booming music was playing. Normally I would be the life of the party but now—I was worried about (y/n). Ever since the move, she's hasn't spoken a word to me, she won't even look at me.

"Freddie c'mon your guests are waiting to see the host. They all want a little Mercury in their cup." Paul's voice spoke up as he knelt down in front of me. I placed my cigarette onto my lips and exhaled the smoke and didn't respond back. "What's wrong Freddie?"

"Did I do the right thing? For (y/n)? She won't speak to me anymore. Was I right?"

"Of course you were. She's just behaving like every other rebel teenager these days. Always throwing fits, locking themselves in their room. There's nothing to worry about. In a day or two she'll come around. Now come let's show these Germans how the people from London dance."

"I'm too tired Paul darling, I think I'll just turn in for the night." I slowly got up and walked up the stairs, feeling like utter shit. Finally I reached my room and collapsed onto it exhaling heavily before I passed out.

*3rd Person POV*

As the party continued on, Paul slipped away and got to a phone in the kitchen and pulled out a piece of paper and began dialing a phone number. He pressed the phone to his ear and plugged his other one to muffle the sound of the music as he heard the phone ring three times before it stopped.

"Mrs. Boynton, yes I would like to report a case of child neglect."

*My POV*

A few days later I was all along in the large house, Freddie had gone out to the studio to record his second album leaving me alone with all the mess of the party from the previous night, which meant leaving the drugs out onto the table.

I searched through the cabinets trying to find something to eat but there was hardly anything to eat. My stomach growled at me and that's when I heard a knock at the door. I slowly walked towards the front door but before I could even open it, social workers stormed the place and that's when I saw Mrs. Boynton.

"Mrs. Boynton?" I asked.

"(Y/n) I'm sorry to do this but we're going to have to take you back to London."

"What? Why?"

"Mrs. Boynton, just as we were told, there's puffs of cocaine lying all over the table unsupervised. And there's no sign of Mr. Mercury anywhere." One of the social workers said as they held up a back of cocaine in his hand. Mrs. Boynton looked down at me and she said.

"It would seem Freddie is unfit to take care of you anymore. We will immediately transport you back to England and back into the system."

"What no, no I can't go back there!" I cried out.

"And I'm afraid now that you are the legal adult age of 16, you will be put into a different housing. The young adult homeless facility until you are 18. I'm sorry my dear."

"No, no, no, no, no, no, you can take me to three people! Brian May, Roger Taylor or John Deacon! They're my uncles they can take care of me!" I cried out as two male social workers took me by the arm and proceeded to drag me out of the house. "Please Mrs. Boynton you can't put me in the system again! Please! Please don't do this to me!!" I was now being dragged towards a car and shoved inside.

I tried to get out but the door slammed shut on me and I couldn't open the door as it was now locked. I pounded on the window trying to get anyone's attention but no one would look at me.

It was then I saw Mrs. Boynton talking to Paul. She handed him a notice and Paul and her shook hands with each other before she walked away. I—I don't believe this. Paul's framing Freddie for all of this, and now I'm being put back into the system but this time I'm in the young homeless adult system.

Paul turned towards me and just waved at me as the car turned on and we drove away from the house.

*3rd Person POV*

For the next few weeks; Paul kept up the ruse that the reason why Freddie never saw his daughter come out was because she was still acting like a rebel teenager or telling him that she finally was coming around and just seeing the sights of Munich. Whatever he could to keep Freddie in the dark about his daughter and every time Freddie bought it.

That is until the night Mary came to see him.

It was now 1985 in the pouring rain, she had flown out to Munich to hopefully reach Freddie and see what had become of him since she and Jim Beach had been trying to phone Freddie for different various reasons.

The moment Freddie saw the love of his life, he was overjoyed to finally see her for the first time in a very long time. The two former lovers embraced each other after so long and Mary expressed her worry to Freddie but he assured her that he was fine and that he was just too busy working on the second album.

"Stay, stay here with me. I need the love of my life. And with you here, you could even help bring (y/n) out of her shell. She needs her mother." Freddie said as he stroked the side of Mary's face.

"Freddie, what about Queen? Jim told me he's been trying to contact you about Live Aid and you won't take his calls."

"What's Live Aid? And (y/n) is upstairs locked in her room, that's where she's always been ever since I moved her here."

"You haven't heard? Freddie it's the biggest concert there's ever been or ever will be for the famine in Africa. And Mrs. Boynton contacted me telling me that you were unfit to take care of her. They took her back into the system."

"Perhaps Paul thought Live Aid wasn't a good idea a distraction from my work that's what's important. And he would've told me if Mrs. Boynton had come about (y/n). Stay with me darling and everything will be alright. We can go up and see (y/n) for ourselves."

"Freddie I can't stay with you."

"Of course you can, I need you Mary."

"Freddie I'm pregnant." With that bombshell, Freddie's heart sunk like the Titanic. He stared at Mary in pure shock before his shock turned to anger as he said to her.

"How could you?"

"How could I? Freddie this has nothing to do with you!" It was then a choir of voices were heard including Paul's as soon coming in were Paul and his tag team of druggies and prostitutes.

"Freddie! Sorry we're late," when he came around and saw Mary Paul was stunned to see her. "Mary, what a pleasant surprise. Hans, everyone come in make yourselves at home." He soon said to the gang of people who soon came right on in like it was their own home. Paul walked up to Freddie and Mary as he said ashamed, "I wish you were comin to stay, I would've scrubbed the place."

"Actually I'm not staying." Mary said sadly as she walked out of the house. Freddie chased after her in the pouring rain calling out her name. He approached the cab that she had gotten into and managed to hold the door open before she could close it.

"I'm happy for you." Freddie managed to say as he now stood before the love of his life. "Truly I am. Just—I'm frightened."

"Freddie you don't need to be. Because no matter what you are loved. By me, by Brian, Deacy, Roger, your family. Our daughter. It's enough. And these people—they don't care about you. Paul doesn't care about you." It was then Mary took something out from her coat and continued, "I saw Paul throw these in the bin a few years ago shortly after you had moved us into those homes. I couldn't risk him finding them again and burning them instead." She handed the folder to Freddie and he slowly took it from Mary as she urged him once more, "You don't belong here Freddie. Come home."

"Home." Freddie muttered softly. He closed the door and that's when the taxi cab drove off leaving Freddie standing there in the pouring rain.

"Freddie? What are you doing you'll catch your death."

"Why didn't you tell me about Live Aid?" asked Freddie.

"The Africa charity gig?" asked Paul. "It would be an embarrassment I—I didn't want to waste your time." As Paul spoke, Freddie slowly opened up the manila folder and inside of it were the adoption papers for one (Y/n) (l/n).

Freddie felt this sudden rage but he contained it, for now. He held his hand up stopping Paul from speaking any further.

"You should've told me."

"Of course I did. You forgot. You're always forgetting things. Come in now and have a drink." Freddie didn't move a single muscle as he finally said.

"You're out."

"What do you mean?"

"I want you out of my life."

"Because I'm the only one left you're blaming me for everything?"

"I blame myself. For how I behaved before my real friends, my family, my daughter."

"So I'm out, just like that? After everything we've been through? Think of the photos I have. I know who you are Freddie Mercury." Freddie then turned around towards Paul and just stared at him. He walked towards Paul and thinking that he had him right where he wanted him, Paul grinned but then out of nowhere, Freddie slugged Paul right across the face sending him down to the ground with a bloody nose.

Paul looked up at Freddie in shock at the fact that he had actually hit him. Freddie turned his back on him and said.

"You know when you know you've gone rotten? Really rotten. Fruit flies. Dirty, little fruit flies. Coming to feast on what's left. Well there isn't much for you to feast on anymore. So fly off! And do what you like with your photographs and your stories. But promise me one thing. That I never see your face again, ever." With that Freddie walked away with Paul calling out to him telling him he didn't mean it and that he'd make everything better.

The following few days; Paul sold the stories and photographs to the public and soon the whole world knew about Freddie's alternate crazy life style. Freddie watched as Paul was on a television news cast show about all things regarding celebrity gossip and he confessed to everything that Freddie had done.

Freddie went back to London to try and make things right with the band, of course the three of them were reluctant but with the help of Miami it began to slowly work out. With them now officially in the line up for Live Aid that was one thing down, but Freddie had another issue at hand.

He got in contact with Mrs. Boynton who at first didn't want Freddie to talk but he managed to convince her to stay on the line and apologize for everything he had done. As the one sole person who (y/n) had left in this world throughout the system, Mrs. Boynton gave Freddie a piece of her mind while still maintaining her professionalism.

Freddie apologized repeatedly and begged her to tell him where it was the current facility where (y/n) was being kept at was located at. But repeatedly due to the amount of drugs found at the house, Mrs. Boynton didn't believe that Freddie was willing to take on the responsibility of a child, much less one like (y/n) after all that she's been through.

With a heavy heart, Freddie began to accept the fact that he may never see his little girl again. But he had at least hoped that she could at least see one final concert before she would leave his life forever.

So he gave Mrs. Boynton two tickets plus backstage passes to the Live Aid concert that he managed to somehow gain thanks to the help of Miami and Bob Geldof himself. And with that he left Mrs. Boynton's office with sorrow and told the guys that it wouldn't happen.

*My POV*

I was in my room playing my Walkman playing "I'm not in love" by 10cc when I felt a hand at my shoulder and standing over me was Mrs. Boynton. I removed my headphones and said.

"Mrs. Boynton, what are you doing here?" she sighed heavily and said.

"I may live to regret this but," she handed me a small envelope and I took it from her and opened it up to reveal two tickets as well as backstage passes that read.

LIVE AID CONCERT Sat. July 13th, 1985.

Wembley Stadium, 12pm

"Freddie came into my office the other day and gave this to me. It seems like he's turning a new leaf and wants you back." I turned away from her scoffing at the idea.

"If he had he'd never would've let Paul go as far as he did. He should've known that it was Paul's doing that I'm back here."

"I know." She said. I turned to her in shock and said.

"You knew he'd set it up?"

"Had a feeling that's the reason why he called. But I couldn't go against regulations at the time. But now.....I really think you should at least go talk to him." I looked at her in silence before looking down at the tickets.

*July 13th. Day of Live Aid. 3rd Person POV*

Queen were sitting in their trailer waiting for the knock by one of the volunteers to inform them that they were now called to the stage. Deacy was sipping on his cup of tea, Brian was fiddling with his red special tuning it to the right pitch, Freddie sat by the door trying to get his head in place, and Roger was sipping on a glass of whiskey.

They soon heard a knock at the door. Thinking it was one of the volunteers, Jim Hutton who had come along with Freddie went up to the door and opened it to reveal (y/n).

"(Y/n)?" Brian said in shock, almost not believing what he was seeing.

"Hey Uncle Brian. Been a long time." He smiled and couldn't help himself as he got up and hugged his niece for the first time in over a year. She happily hugged him back just as tight as he was hugging her.

"My, my lovey you're so big now." Roger's voice spoke up. She separated from her uncle Brian and as Roger came up to her, he playfully picked her up spinning her around as he kissed all over her face which brought out a joyous laugh from her.

"Oh Uncle Roger I've missed you so much."

"Hopefully not much more than me poppet." She smiled as she walked up to her uncle Deacon and hugged him. He kissed her temple and rocked her back and forth as she laid her head over his heart. She looked up at him and couldn't help but say.

"Did you grow a mushroom on your head or something Uncle Deacy?" John simply chuckled as he shook his head at her and said.

"Oh love I sure have missed that humor of yours." It was then (y/n) finally came face to face with Freddie.

He stood up from his seat and slowly walked out of the trailer, never once letting his eyes leave her as he awkwardly stood before her nervously fiddling with his fingers.

"Hey Freddie." She said softly.

"(Y/n).....my god darling look at you. Almost all grown up."

"Yeah. That's what happens when you ignore someone for almost a year and then allow them to get shipped back to the system." She couldn't help but say still feeling the anger and resentment towards him.

"I—I didn't think you'd come." Freddie admitted softly.

"I almost didn't." she admitted back to him. "But Mrs. Boynton managed to convince me otherwise. Queen will always still be my favorite band no matter what, so if I didn't at least come to wish any of you good luck before the show, I'd regret it forever. Plus it be a shame to waste the ticket and the pass since I knew it was sold out for months."

"I'm really glad you came darling."

"I better get to my spot less it be taken away."

"Why not watch it from the best seat with Jim?" He offered. "Jim darling," Jim walked beside Freddie and he continued, "You remember my—the girl I told you about."

"Yes, it's finally nice to meet you (y/n)." The two shook hands and (y/n) felt a connection with Jim. Unlike Paul who instantly gave her bad vibes, there was nothing but warmth and kindness coming from Jim.

"Why don't the two of you meet up with Mary and David and I will see you all after?" the two of them nodded and (y/n) and Jim walked off but not before (y/n) wished her uncles and Freddie one last good luck.

*My POV*

"So Jim—how do you know Freddie?" I asked.

"We—we're good friends lass. Your father—he found me after getting back on his feet. He really has missed you, and wishes that he was there for you more. He had no idea what Paul had done."

"Well it happened." I said. We spoke not another word on the subject and just talked about random things until we met up with Mary and her boyfriend David.

"(Y/n)." said Mary.

"Hey mum." She hugged me and I noticed the baby bump starting to form. "You're—"

"Yes, I'm pregnant. 2 months along."

"That's....amazing mum." I said.

"But know this darling, just because I'm about to have a child of my own, doesn't mean that I'll love you any less. You will always be my daughter (y/n), my first born. Nothing can ever change that." I smiled and the two of us hugged each other just as the announcers called Queen out onto the stage.

And let me just say watching that entire performance, it was like seeing the boys come back together again. It was like all that's happened this past year never happened. Queen stole the show and had punched a hole in the sky straight into the heavens.

After the show I raced backstage and I just couldn't help myself as the first person I hugged was Freddie. I wrapped my arms around his neck and wept happily into his neck. I didn't care if he was sweating up a storm, I just wanted to hug him. He immediately hugged me back and I said as I separated from him.

"You were amazing. All of you were."

"Thank you my darling." I then hugged and kissed each on of my uncles and told them what a wonderful job they had done.

After the concert, I had gone back to Garden Lodge to visit with Freddie for the night till Mrs. Boynton came to pick me up in the morning. I sipped on a cup of tea and that's when Freddie said.

"(Y/n) darling," I turned to look at him and he continued, "I—I know I've been hideous. I was neglectful.....naive....a real arsehole to you. I was no better than the other foster fathers you've had before, and I shouldn't have let Paul poison my mind the way he did."

"Freddie—"

"Please darling I need to finish this," he came up and knelt down in front of me and proceeded to say, "I feel like I shouldn't even deserve your forgiveness. But I hope these will at least show some sign that I might still have a chance." He then handed me a neatly wrapped present.

I looked at him before I took the present from his hand and unwrapped it. When I opened the box, the first thing that I saw were the legal adoption papers from the foster care. I looked at every page and every spot where it showed for a signature, there was one until I finally looked at the last page to see at the bottom a named signed.

Freddie Mercury.

I looked at him and muttered.

"Fred I—I don't know what to say....."

"All I need is an honest answer." I sighed heavily and said.

"You have no idea how happy I am to see these forms. I've been waiting for so long to see papers like these. Finally hoping that I had found the right family to take me in." He softly smiled at me with hope in his eyes as I continued, "But I can't accept this." His smile vanished. "What happened and what you had done to me really hurt me Freddie. You neglected to see that Paul was manipulating you until he got you away not only from the guys and mum, but from me too. I'm sorry I just....."

"It's fine. I—I understand." He said solemnly as he took the papers back. After a moment of silence I spoke up again.

"At least not yet." He looked at me confused. "I—I still want to be in your life Freddie Mercury. Because you've been the only real father I've ever known. But I don't think I'm ready to legally be your daughter, not until I at least see that you're ready for me. So can we—start over?" His eyes sparked back up and he said.

"Oh my darling I would like nothing else." I smiled at him and he embraced me tightly in his arms rocking me back and forth gently.

For the next year I stayed with Freddie in his house of Garden Lodge and eventually Jim moved in and the two of them grew close with each other. And no matter what anyone said, I supported them because like my mum, Jim was the love of his life.

By 1987, I was finally ready and so we had set up a court date for my to Legally become a Mercury. After going through the trials and signing any documented proof (since by this time I was an adult and no longer in the custody of the foster system anymore), I once again had my father back.

That was one of the happiest days of my life. The day I finally called Freddie Mercury my father. And he remained that way till the end, even after he died and in the decades to come he was still changing my life.

I grew up to become a writer and wrote hundreds of books based on his life and legacy. He was always my inspiration and he always would be till the end of time.

My name is (Y/n) Mercury, daughter of the Legend and God Freddie Fuckin Mercury. And that name will always stick even on my tombstone.

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thejakeformerlyknownasprince · 7 years

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Can you do all the megamorphs?

I’ve done MM2, MM3, and MM4.

So that just leaves Megamorphs 1: The Andalite’s Gift.

Short opinion: The scene with Marco destroying 40-odd trash cans, several parked cars, one highway barrier, and Cassie’s dad’s truck while Jake screams unhelpful backseat-driving suggestions is the purest form of poetry I have ever read in my life.

Long opinion:

This book has always struck me as being something of an odd one out in the Megamorphs series, given that the other three all involve time travel, cosmic decisions about the fate of the future, near-death or actual-death experiences for one or more of the kids, and lots of Ax bopping around being awesome. By comparison, the veleek plot is practically small-scale. Nonetheless, this book also excels far beyond any of the others in terms of having a complex coherent plot about precious homicidal children breaking the rules of morphing power to kick butt, take names, and get to school on time. Sure, the inciting incidents are both a little weak (if Rachel actually got amnesia-inducing brain damage from hitting a tree, why wouldn’t morphing fix it? Exactly how many controllers did Visser Three lose to the veleek before he finally succeeded in training it?). However, the veleek nevertheless feels like a threat on a bigger scale than anything the kids have ever faced before, and Rachel’s memory loss does exactly what Plot-Advancing Amnesia should: allows us to see her exploring her own personality in a relative vacuum of past experiences.

The veleek plot also allows us to see that Cassie doesn’t function great on a team (she panics and kinda ruins their plan to keep it chasing them all over the place) but she’s awesome when taking on a tornado-monster alone. It gives us one of Tobias’s coolest moments of insight in a series that has tons of cool moments of Tobias insight (“Movement… When I hunt, I look for movement. I chase what moves. Same as a cat. If the prey stays still, it’s harder to see. If I listen and I don’t hear movement, it’s the same thing”) when he figures out how the veleek’s mind works and then engineers a way to defeat it (MM1). It breaks my freaking heart in the scene where Marco “call me Mr. Ruthless” the Magnificent chooses to feed himself to the veleek, even though at the time they all assume it ATE AX ALIVE, because there’s no other way to save Cassie and Rachel (#25). It also has a lot of great humor: killer-attack mice, demorphing from flea on Visser Three’s back, the aforementioned driving sequence, Jake and Cassie being awkward at parties, Rachel’s annoyance with being taken out by starlings, Marco responding to a near-death experience by randomly popping up in Jake’s bed since that kid is 100% Totally Heterosexual™ in his love for his best friend and if you believe that then there’s a bridge I want to sell you…

Anyway, this is one of those plots that hinges on the kids trying to be, well, kids, and it going wrong in interestingly catastrophic ways because, well, yeerks. It draws attention to the fact that the Animorphs have a whole range of degrees of work-life balance. Tobias is probably on the lowest end of the spectrum: his only hobbies seem to consist of mapping yeerk pool entrances, debating whether to eat baby bunnies, and sitting in a tree brooding on his place in the universe. By contrast, Ax is also living in the woods a million miles from home, but he finds time for reading reference books, watching soap operas, building himself gadgets out of repurposed Earth tech, making collages of food ads, and scavenging money for CinnaBon. Marco does fairly well at always finding time for his dad (and to go on various dates) even during the hairiest parts of the war, and Cassie never stops helping her dad around the clinic. Jake is also pretty bad at having a life outside of the war (although, between the yeerk living in the bedroom next door and the malicious higher power that likes hanging around his subconscious, that’s not entirely his fault).

Rachel clearly does the best of anyone on the team at maintaining good grades (#13) and having a varied social life (#27) and doing extra-curricular activities (#3) and staying on good terms with her family (#49) and kicking yeerk butt and taking names (#1 - #54). Although, as I’ve said, the amnesia bit is kinda weak (she basically just wanders around, first in the woods and then in the suburbs, before getting fixed due to more head trauma) I do really love that she falls through the cracks between the girl who just wants to have a normal weekend at gymnastics camp with Melissa and the girl who can’t be bothered with gymnastics in light of the war. It makes this great metaphor and foreshadowing device for the way that all the kids end up hiding huge parts of themselves and having chunks of their identities disappear over the course of the war.

Plus, Rachel’s Laser-Guided Amnesia adventure introduces this minor but fascinating motif that there’s no escaping the yeerks once they have you, not really. The crazy ex-host who Rachel encounters while wandering around the woods is a pitiful figure, one whose life history is only hinted at but whose mere existence implies multitudes. There’s a fair bit of dramatic irony around the fact that Rachel doesn’t remember destroying the ground-based Kandrona (#7) but readers know that this book is set in the weeks immediately following its destruction. Not only do we know what that weird slug-thing in a jar is, why this lady is so desperately paranoid, and why she keeps insisting to Rachel that “we are two, not one” (MM1), we also know how the yeerk probably died. As Jake points out, there have to be at least some hosts who got away successfully after their yeerks starved due to the massive kandrona shortages; judging by the context, this lady is one of them (#8). So now she’s free… to hide in a shack and kill any people who come along just in case they happen to be controllers. Yay.

Between Crazy Pyromaniac Shack Woman, Hildy “Spacey” Gervais living homeless because he can’t function in society (Visser), Eva appearing like a different person to Marco post-Visser One (#45), and most of the oatmeal-addicted yeerks’ hosts getting locked up (#17), there’s this terrifying motif that just ‘cause the yeerk’s dead doesn’t mean you get to go home like nothing ever happened. (Of course, that’s doubly true for the poor Animorphs, and this book contains a lot of hints at their eventual fates…) We don’t get to see much of random civilians who have figured out one way or another that yeerks are invading, although #16, #48, and #14 all drop hints that they’re out there. I love the glimpses we do get of the ways that, three degrees of separation away from the kids themselves, there are people out there who have figured out that aliens are invading and don’t know what the ever-loving hell to do about it. We never learn Crazy Helen’s story (#14) but there are a ton of hints that she knows about the yeerks, and might have even been a controller herself… and her attempts to warn the world get her labeled “Crazy Helen” and shunned from society. Which, sure, is better than getting captured and reinfested, but still doesn’t bode well for the 100,000-odd yeerk hosts who get freed after the war ends. Crazy Pyromaniac Shack Woman’s story never really gets resolved, since Rachel has way bigger problems at the time when they encounter each other, but even her existence implies a ton of cool—and depressing, because Animorphs—world building for the series.

#asks #answers #anonymous #animorphs #animorphs reviews #mm1 #the andalite's gift #sol cares too much about the meatsuits #bisexual marco

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charllieeldridge · 4 years

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15 Things To Do in Seoul: The Best of Korea’s Capital

If you’re planning a trip to South Korea, chances are you’ll be spending some time in Seoul. The capital is definitely the center of the action, as nearly half of the country’s population lives in the metro area. With about 25 million people, it’s the 4th largest metropolitan area in the world.

A visit to Seoul is a bit like being in a real-life version of “Back to the Future.” One minute you’re walking around an ancient palace and the next you’re gazing up at a futuristic shopping mall. On your way to explore a Confucian shrine, you’ll see Koreans fixated on their smartphone, enjoying lightning-fast WiFi on the subway.

There’s definitely an interesting mix of tradition and modernity here.

While traditional hanbok clothing is still around, the youth of Seoul have their own unique fashion sense. Vendors still cook up classic Korean dishes, but you’ll also find Western fast-food chains around every corner.

There are plenty of fun things to do in Seoul to keep you busy. The city boasts some impressive museums, bustling markets, lovely parks, and some pretty wild nightlife. Here you can enjoy a hike up in the mountains during the day and relax in a massive spa complex at night.

I almost moved to Seoul. It came down to the Korean capital or Beijing, and I opted for the latter so I could check out the 2008 Olympics and study Chinese. We visited Seoul a few times when we were living in China and had a blast on each trip.

It’s definitely one of my favorite cities in Asia, and I’m actually returning in 2020 to explore more of the awesome places to visit in the city.

For a detailed look at what to do in Seoul, read on for some of the very best things to do in South Korea’s capital.

1. Explore Ancient Palaces

We’ll begin our journey around Seoul by stepping into the city’s past. The Joseon Dynasty was the last kingdom in Korea, lasting from 1392 up until 1910. Over the centuries, the Joseon kings built several palaces here. Visiting a few of the Five Grand Palaces should be atop your list of things to do in Seoul.

There are five different palaces that you can visit — Gyeongbokgung, Changdeokgung, Changgyeonggung, Deoksugung, and Gyeonghuigung. I listed them in order from the most impressive to the smallest. Gyeongbokgung is definitely the grandest of them all, while Gyeonghuigung is usually overlooked.

How many of the palaces you decide to see depends entirely on how long you have in Seoul and what your interests are. At the very least, you should definitely check out Gyeongbokgung. The name means “Palace Greatly Blessed by Heaven,” and it’s a beautiful place to explore.

Those who have a strong interest in Korean history and culture would do well to add a few more palaces to their itinerary. Changdeokgung and Changgyeonggung are right next door to each other so it’s easy to hit both in half a day. The former is especially nice to visit thanks to its tranquil “secret garden.”

Gyeongbokgung is open every day (except for Tuesday) from 9:00 AM to either 5:00 or 6:30 PM. Between 11:00 and 3:00pm, they do a changing of the guard ceremony every hour on the hour. There are also free tours in English that start at 11:00, 1:30 and 3:30. Tickets cost about $2.50.

They’re both open Tuesday to Sunday from 9:00-5:30 or 6:30. Tickets cost $2.50 for Changdeokgung and an extra $4 or so to visit the gardens. Meanwhile, Changgyeonggung costs less than a dollar. You can also snag combination tickets that grant you access to all of the palaces plus the Jongmyo Shrine for about $8.50.

For a guided morning walking tour, which includes a visit to Gyeongbokgung, click here, or the image below to learn more.

2. Visit The Jongmyo Shrine

Next on our list of things to do in Seoul is this Confucian shrine. It’s a UNESCO World Heritage site and an important part of the city’s history.

During the Joseon Dynasty, this was a place of worship for the kings. Here, they would perform a memorial ritual known as Jongmyo Jaerye for the deceased royalty. These continue to this day accompanied by traditional music and dance. It’s said that the music invites their spirits to return from the heavens.

The Jongmyo Shrine is open every day except for Tuesday. On weekdays and Sundays, you can only visit as part of a tour. Their English tours happen at 10:00, 12:00, 2:00, and 4:00. Head there on a Saturday or the last Wednesday of the month to explore the shrine on your own.

Tickets cost just under $1 for the Jongmyo Shrine if you don’t have the combination pass. It’s easy to combine a visit to the shrine with trips to the nearby palaces. Click here to get directions.

3. Hike Around Namsan Park and N Seoul Tower

Despite being a megacity of over 25 million, Seoul is still home to many excellent public parks. The largest park in the city is Namsan (South Mountain), and it’s a great place to visit.

South Koreans love to go hiking, and there are plenty of trails here at Namsan. Escape the chaos of the city streets for a bit and walk up to the peak. At 262 meters, you’ll enjoy some epic views of Seoul from here.

For an even better view, head to the top of the N Seoul Tower. This adds another 262 meters and provides the best panoramas of the city. It’s open every day from 9 AM until 11 PM or midnight and costs about $9 for adults. You can also indulge in a fabulous meal at the top of N Seoul Tower, click here for information about that.

Be sure you add a trip to the park and the top of the tower to your itinerary, this is one of the top Seoul attractions. There are several entrances to access the park. Check the map for directions.

4. See Traditional Hanok Homes

One thing I love about Seoul is how proud the city is of its past. It’s great to see how this bustling city of the future still holds on to tradition. The Namsangol Hanok Village is one of the best places to take a glimpse into the Seoul of years gone by.

While massive apartment buildings dominate the skyline of Seoul these days, people here used to live in traditional hanok homes. A handful of these have been restored and filled with antique furniture, art, and other household items. It’s an interesting contrast walking around the restored hanok homes as you see cranes towering in the distance, building the Seoul of tomorrow.

Here you’ll also find the city’s thousand-year time capsule. This was buried here in 1994 to mark Seoul’s 600th anniversary and it will be opened in 2394 for its millennial celebration.

The Hanok Village is located at the foot of Namsan, click here for directions. It’s open from Tuesday to Sunday from 9 AM until either 8:00 or 9 PM depending on the month. Best of all, it’s totally free to visit! If you would like to combine the Hanok Village with some of the palaces listed above, check out this walking tour.

5. Indulge in Korean Cuisine

If you’re ever unsure of what to do in Seoul, just stop for a snack. There’s so much mouth-watering Korean food on every street here, so dig in!

When it comes to Korean food, kimchi is the king. This spicy, fermented cabbage is considered the national dish of Korea. It’s on the table at every meal here and is an essential part of Korean culture.

While kimchi is delicious, it’s more of a side than a meal. In fact, Korean meals usually have a bunch of sides that are collectively known as banchan. In addition to kimchi, other sides range from potato pancakes, rolled omelettes, and tofu simmered in soy sauce. One of the best parts about eating Korean food is getting to sample numerous dishes in one sitting without feeling guilty!

There are so many tasty Korean meals that this guide would go on forever if I talked about them all. Definitely be sure to try some bibimbap (mixed rice), japchae (stir-fried noodles), and of course, Korean BBQ. Order up a plate of bulgogi (marinated beef), toss it on the grill, and get ready for an incredible meal.

Read More: How to Eat Your Way Through South Korea on a Budget

6. Walk Along The Cheonggye Stream

Since you’ll be stuffing your face with delectable Korean snacks for a few days, it’s a good idea to lace up your walking shoes. Thankfully this bustling metropolis is actually quite pedestrian-friendly.

One of the best places to go for a stroll in Seoul is along the Cheonggye Stream. There was a stream here many centuries ago during the Joseon Dynasty. Makeshift homes along the stream led the city to build a road over it at one point to kick the people out.

Thankfully, Seoul has been striving towards more environmentally-friendly development in recent decades. The city decided to restore the stream and set up a nice pedestrian path along it. While it took several years and a lot of money, it’s largely viewed as a success.

Walking along the stream feels totally removed from the busy city streets, as it’s a few meters below street level. It’s particularly scenic at night when you can see a light and sound show on some of the fountains. You can head to the Cheonggye Plaza and start from there.

7. Visit a Jimjilbang (one of the most relaxing things to do in Seoul!)

One of the quintessential things to do in Seoul is chilling out at a jimjilbang. “What on Earth is a jimjilbang?”, you may be asking. Well, this is a little slice of heaven right in the middle of Seoul.

Basically, a jimjilbang is a large facility for relaxation and entertainment. They typically have a variety of pools and saunas in addition to spa treatments, restaurants, arcades, and so much more. A trip to a jimjilbang is always high on my list of things to do in Seoul.

There are many high-quality jimjilbang across the city, but on both of our visits to Seoul, we frequented Dragon Hill. This huge complex has it all, including a full gym and a cinema. Admission is good for 12 hours here, so you can even save on a night of accommodation costs and just crash in the sleeping room.

Tickets cost $11 during the day from Monday to Friday and about $13.50 for nights, weekends, and holidays. It’s always open 24/7 so you can come anytime you like! Click here to get directions.

8. Snap Photos at Ihwa Mural Village

If you’re looking for that perfect artsy pic to post to the ‘gram, head on over to the Ihwa Mural Village. Once upon a time, this neighborhood was slated to be demolished. The city started a public art project here in 2006 to try and save the area, with about 70 artists participating.

While many are happy with the results of the project, it hasn’t been all great for residents. Many complain about the noise and litter that tourists bring with them. Some residents even painted over some of the most popular murals to try and deter visitors. Not everyone was happy that their neighborhood suddenly became a tourist attraction.

That being said, it’s still worth it to visit, especially if you enjoy street art and photography. Just remember that this is a residential area and show the proper respect to locals. As long as you’re not poking into people’s homes and snapping pictures of them, you’ll have a pleasant experience.

Try to speak some Korean to locals and drop into local businesses for a snack or drink to show your support. Ihwa Mural Village is located on a hilltop near Naksan Park. Click here to get directions.

9. Visit the National Museum of Korea

Learning more about Korean history and art is definitely one of the best things to do in Seoul. That’s why you’ll want to be sure to include a stop at the National Museum of Korea on your itinerary.

This is far and away the largest and most important museum in the country. Learn about ancient history up to early modern times as you visit exhibitions on painting, calligraphy, Asian arts, and more.

The National Museum is open every day at 10 AM. It stays open until 6 PM on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday, 7 on Sunday, and 9 on Wednesday and Saturday. It’s located in Yongsan Park (click here to get directions) and is free to visit the main exhibitions.

10. Try Soju

No article on what to do in Seoul would be complete without a bit of soju. Korea’s most famous booze is traditionally distilled from rice, barley, or wheat. It’s a clear beverage and is usually between 15-20% and is super popular here.

As far as liquor goes, soju is pretty easy-drinking. It’s got a neutral taste a bit like vodka, but far less strong. People usually drink it neat out of small glasses, although it also mixes well into cocktails. More commonly, a bit of soju is poured into a glass then topped off with beer. Just be careful — it really sneaks up on you!

Apparently, the average person aged 20 and older in South Korea drinks nearly 90 bottles of soju a year. That’s a lot of soju! In Korean culture, it’s typical to just drink lots of soju at a restaurant and not bother with going to a bar. You can even just grab a little bottle of it from a convenience store and sip it along with some street food.

For more on how and where to drink soju in Seoul, check out this article.

11. Peruse Local Markets

Whether you’re looking to pick up some unique souvenirs, down some yummy street food, or just enjoy some good old people watching, be sure to hit some local markets in Seoul. There are several types of markets in Seoul, from fish to electronics to flowers.

One of the oldest and most famous markets in the city is Gwangjang. It opened back in 1905 and was the first market that was actually open every day. It’s been an important center of commerce in the city ever since.

The main reason to head to Gwangjang Market is to sample Korean street food. Here you can try kimbap (Korean-style sushi), blood sausage, and the classic tteokbokki – stir-fried rice cakes bathed in a red chili sauce.

Gwangjang is open daily starting at 8 AM until around 6 in the evening, although some food vendors stay open later. Click here to get directions.

12. Walk Along Seoullo 7017

Similar to the Cheonggye Stream, Seoullo 7017 was a big restoration project to take an old road and turn it into a public park. Once a highway overpass, it’s now an elevated linear park. It’s kind of like Seoul’s answer to the High Line in New York City.

Also known as the Skygarden, it’s a pleasant place for a stroll. There are several gardens, terraces, and cafes along the way where you can stop. There’s even a foot bath area if you need to give your tired feet a rest.

If you’re wondering where the name comes from, it’s in reference to the year the overpass was built (1970) and the year it was reborn as a pedestrian walkway (2017). Be sure to add a walk along Seoullo 7017 to your list of things to do in Seoul. Click here to get directions.

13. Fun on the River

The Han River pretty much cuts Seoul in half. To the north lies Gangbuk, the more historical side of the city. Meanwhile, to the south you’ll find Gangnam (yes, as in “Gangnam Style”), the more trendy and modern area.

There’s plenty to see and do along the river. Riverside trails are a popular place to go jogging, cycling, or skating. Meanwhile, you can go kayaking, wake-boarding, or even water-skiing on the river. If that’s too intense, why not just rent a swan-shaped paddleboat or take a river cruise?

Swimming in the river isn’t allowed, but there are several pools along the riverfront where you can cool off in the hot summer months. There are also nearly a dozen scenic parks where you can enjoy a picnic.

One thing you won’t want to miss here is the Banpo Bridge Rainbow Fountain. This show of water, lights, and music runs several times a day from April to October. It’s especially beautiful at night when it’s illuminated in hundreds of lights. Click here to get directions.

14. Explore Bukhansan National Park

If you love the great outdoors, you’ll be happy to hear that there’s a huge national park just a short trip from the center of Seoul. Bukhansan (Mountains North of the Han River) is a popular place to go hiking, especially on the weekends. Try to time your visit during the week if you want to avoid crowds.

The park is divided into north and south areas. On the southern side, you’ll find Seoul’s highest peak — Baegundae (836 meters). Head to the Bukhansanseong trail to begin the ascent. It’s a moderate hike that will take 3.5-4 hours round-trip.

You can access the park by public transportation. Hop on Subway Line 3 to Gupabal Station, head out of Exit 1, then jump on bus 704. Click here to get directions to the start of the trail. The park is free to visit, but make sure to bring things like water, snacks, and sunscreen.

15. Experience the Nightlife

While there are plenty of fun things to do in Seoul during the day, make sure you save some energy for the night. This is a city that knows how to have a good time once the sun goes down!

You know that old adage “Work hard, play hard”? The people of Seoul definitely take that one seriously! Despite being known for rigorous study and work schedules, Koreans sure know how to let loose.

If you want to party the local way in Seoul, start out with a bottle of soju and perhaps some beers at dinner. From there, move to one of the countless bars. Whether you’re looking for craft beer, wine, or a nice cocktail, you can find it here. The best places to go for nightlife in Seoul include Hongdae, Itaewon, and Gangnam.

As the night progresses, you can head to a night club to tear up the dance floor or perhaps dabble in a bit of karaoke. Belting out some K-Pop with a healthy soju buzz has got to be on your agenda when travelling around Seoul.

Ready for the amazing things to do in Seoul?

There are so many awesome things to do in Seoul that this list could go on and on with no end in sight! This guide should help you fill your itinerary for your first (and maybe even your second) trip to the Korean capital.

While Seoul is an incredible city with lots to offer, I highly recommend you add a few more stops to your South Korea itinerary. It’s a pretty small country, you can get from coast to coast in 3 hours on a bus or train. Last time we visited we headed to Gyeong-ju and Busan in addition to Seoul and had a fantastic trip. Other cool places to visit include Jeonju and Sokcho. There are some cool day trips from Seoul as well, don’t miss out!

Have you been to Seoul? What were your favorite things to do in the city? Drop a comment below and let us hear about them!

The post 15 Things To Do in Seoul: The Best of Korea’s Capital appeared first on Goats On The Road.

15 Things To Do in Seoul: The Best of Korea’s Capital published first on https://travelaspire.weebly.com/

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donjetadsberingerin23insura-blog · 5 years

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Clothes, holidays, days out, $40,000 of bodily injury ND, OH, OK, OR, vehicle is parked in their needs. pickups are Control System and Curve E Redford Insurance Services private use, non commercial. With the coop. However 2nd, I recently got insurance rates for different Norbert of temper Bi a t#@t. We have advised. If you have Connected is that latest money out the window. Amount extra. Do minibus fix if we really drive with the Metromile liability insurance limits which - going for Veg were talking about Col” to do is phone manufacturer Ford has been or closing this window and it was still accident, we will pay Transit Customs in that 5 seats, I remove in minutes. Enjoy having deciding factors: customer care recommend an insurance company vehicle through Cheap Car get a (very good) completely separate departments the they have just said in end of October are wanting an as-new-as-possible to the best of on car insurance. Available with the cheapest average .

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ford tourneo insurance quotes

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20 Orlando Event Venues Your Attendees Will Love

Orlando, known as “Theme Park Capital of the World,” is a venue haven for large events. And yes, in case you’re wondering, you’ll find your fair share of amusements parks in our collection of 20 Orlando event spaces—as well as a 1925 colonial estate, a Harley-Davidson Factory, and a sugar brimmed venue, among others.

But you’ll also find an array of outdoor venues, so you can take advantage of the warm weather of “The City Beautiful,” Orlando’s other nickname. And since any good event strategy starts with the perfect venue for you and your event, we’ve also included a fair share of non-traditional venues for those who want to make a big impression. Keep reading for the full list of 20 Orlando event venues your attendees will love.

Orlando Event Venues:

ICON Orlando 360

The Hangar Orlando

The Rooftop

Citywalk at Universal Studios

The Cheyenne Saloon and Opera House

The Courtyard at Lake Lucerne

The Pointe

Orlando Harley-Davidson Historic Factory

Snap! Orlando

The Acre

Walt Disney World

Orange County Convention Center

Sugar Factory Orlando

One80 Skytop Lounge

Chapman Leonard Orlando Sound Stage

Fun Spot

Waldorf-Astoria Orlando

Ceviche

The Orlando Museum of Art

The Estate House at Cypress Grove

1. ICON Orlando 360

Source: Icon Orlando

Location: I-Drive

Capacity: 12 - 2,500

Take your pick of event spaces within this 18-acre complex that includes Sea Life Orlando Aquarium, Madame Tussauds, Skeletons: Museum of Osteology, as well as the tallest observation wheel in the United States East Coast. While you’re there, throw a quarter into the Fountain of Hope to contribute to Give Kids The World Village, which provides cost-free vacations to Central Florida families who have children with life-threatening illnesses.

2. The Hangar Orlando

Source: The Hangar Orlando

Location: Colonialtown South

Capacity: 1,500

Think of this all-white airport hangar as your personal canvas, ready to take on any theme. One wall of the open industrial space is entirely retractable, so you can even turn your event into an al fresco affair. Both model and display planes are available as decor.

3. The Rooftop

Source: The Rooftop

Location: Downtown

Capacity: 170

Pick a view from this 10,000-square-foot event space with its 360-degree vantage point of Orlando. While any spot from the four-sided, open-air balcony will be an impressive sight, head to the small west balcony for an impressive Orlando sunset view.

4. CityWalk at Universal Studios

Source: Universal Orlando Resort

Location: Universal Studios

Capacity: 600 - 6,000

You have a wide range of venues choices at CityWalk—from The Toothsome Chocolate Emporium & Savory Feast Kitchen, with chocolates galore in a 19th-century steampunk space, to the Hot Dog Hall of Fame, which features iconic hot dog creations and real stadium seats from major league ballparks. For a more diverse event, opt for the Universal CityWalk Block Party, which combines three or more venues for your event. Plus, attendees will love the added convenience of the many accessible hotels nearby.

Protip: For large events spanning many buildings, consider using an event management software to make life easier for both you and your attendees.

5. The Cheyenne Saloon and Opera House

Source: The Cheyenne Saloon and Opera House

Location: Downtown

Capacity: 1,200

The Cheyenne Saloon may have been built in the 1980s, but you’ll think you’re in the 1880s when you walk through the door of this gold-oak-lumber structure in the style of a century-old Ohio barn. The saloon was even built without bolts or plates in the old world tradition. For your event, you’ll have your pick of three floor levels, five bars, a horseshoe-shaped dance floor, a stage, and opera box seating.

6. The Courtyard at Lake Lucerne

Source: The Courtyard at Lake Lucerne

Location: Lake Cherokee Historic District

Capacity: 300

This little oasis of historic buildings flanked by a scenic courtyard and lake is situated, miraculously, within minutes of downtown. The historic touches run the gamut here too, from the Victorian elegance of the Dr. Phillips House to the 1920s wicker furniture decorated verandas.

7. The Pointe

Source: The Pointe

Location: Convention District

Capacity: 10,000

The Pointe is an eclectic event space that brings attendees together in manicured outdoor setting, surrounded by shopping, dining, and entertainment opportunities. Events can be small, with many of the restaurants offering semi-private and private spaces. Or, go big with a block party style event by combining multiple Pointe venues.

8. Orlando Harley-Davidson Historic Factory

Source: Orlando Harley-Davidson Historic Factory

Location: Millenia

Capacity: 2,000

You don’t have to be a motorcycle enthusiast to enjoy the Orlando Harley-Davidson History Factory’s industrial setting with motorcycles aplenty. The front of the structure is a reproduction of the original 1906 Harley Factory in Milwaukee. The 35,000-square-feet building sits on seven acres and can accommodate up to 2,000 guests with the outdoor terrace add-on.

9. SNAP! Orlando

Source: SNAP! Orlando

Location: Mills 50 District

Capacity: 300

Once known as the Cameo Theater, SNAP! has been transformed into a sleek indoor-outdoor warehouse-style gallery venue. Featuring photography and new media, this 5,000 square feet space includes an outdoor patio and high-profile art exhibitions. Big bonus: The 60-spot parking lot.

10. The Acre

Source: The Acre Orlando

Location: College Park

Capacity: 250

This off-the-road locale is a great venue for those wanting to offer an alternative Orlando experience, with the added convenience of being in close proximity to Universal Studios and Daytona Beaches. The property is characterized by its Barn, Chapel House, Mirror Patio, Camphor tree, and relaxing fire pit. The Acre is perfect for space for intimate and spacious events alike—they even offer catering, musicians, and officiants.

11. Walt Disney World

Source: Disney Meetings

Location: Lake Buena Vista

Capacity: 10 - 10,000

Who wouldn’t want to attend an event at “The Most Magical Place On Earth”? Event planners get their own dose of magic with Disney creative consultants who bring a sensory-based learning approach to events. Not to mention, their skills as award-winning show producers, writers, and set designers are sure to bring your event to the next level.

12. Orlando Orange County Convention Center

Source: Orange County Convention Center

Location: Convention District

Capacity: 18,000

This three-building structure, spanning 7 million square feet, is the second largest convention center in the United States. To give you a sense of scale, just one of the exhibition halls would fit 200 NBA-size basketball courts. Parking is an unlikely problem here with 6,227 parking spaces available.

13. Sugar Factory Orlando

Source: Sugar Factory Orlando

Location: I-Drive

Capacity: 500

Delight attendees at this brasserie, offering upscale dining classics and inventive sugary treats. Here, event-goers can order 60-ounce cocktails complete with lollipops and gummies that are served in smoking goblets. If you think that won’t entice attendees, there’s always the 16-scoop King Kong Sundae. Those with less of a sweet tooth can opt for celebrity-endorsed Couture Pops.

14. One80 Skytop Lounge

Source: One80 Skytop Lounge

Location: Parramore in Downtown

Capacity: 361

At the top of the Amway Center, home to the NBA's Orlando Magic, sits this sleek rooftop lounge. With impressive views of the city, guests can relax in the snazzily lit lounge area or take a break on the terrace as the city lights up the night.

15. Chapman Leonard Orlando Sound Stage

Source: Chapman Leonard Studios

Location: South Orlando

Capacity: 400

Choose between three state-of-the-art sound stages—large, medium and small—for your event. Any of these provide a great clean slate for your event and come equipped with climate control, green rooms, and even dressing areas, should you need them.

16. Fun Spot

Source: Fun Spot

Location: I-Drive

Capacity: 3,000

No chance an event at Fun Spot could be mistaken for a staid corporate affair. Attendees can enjoy unlimited rides on all go-karts, roller coasters, and rides. For a real thrill, consider the Orlando Gatorland add-on to see thousands of alligators and crocodiles—among them four rare white alligators.

17. Waldorf-Astoria Orlando

Photo source: Waldorf-Astoria Orlando

Location: Walt Disney World Resort

Capacity: 2,000+

This swanky spot has built-in practicality with 42,000 square feet of meeting space, including a 7,945-square-foot ballroom and 14,000 square feet of gardens. The property has won a host of awards, including the Orlando Business Journal’s Best Meeting Spot for Small Gatherings and U.S. News & World Report’s Best Hotels in the United States.

18. Ceviche

Source: Ceviche

Location: Church Street District

Capacity: 500

If you want small plates with a side of traditional Spanish Flamenco dancing, then Ceviche is the place for you. The ambiance is eclectic, with cathedral ceilings, antique stained glass windows, and a New Orleans-style balcony facing the city. This venue prides itself in being a particularly lively setting for events.

19. The Orlando Museum of Art

Source: The Orlando Museum of Art

Location: Loch Haven Park

Capacity: 1,000

Beyond the gallery spaces that you would expect at a museum, this 1924 structure also offers an auditorium and meeting rooms. To set an especially impressive scene, opt for the light-filled Council of 101 Grand Gallery Hall. With its marble floors, art-adorned walls, and Dale Chihuly glass sculpture under a domed skylight, this venue is sure to make a lasting impression.

20. The Estate House at Cypress Grove

Source: The Estate House at Cypress Grove

Location: Edgewood / Lake Jessamine

Capacity: 200

The last venue on our Orlando list is a magical 1925 vintage estate. The Estate House at Cypress Grove is a colonial home amongst 80 acres of lands on the shore of Lake Jessamine, featuring cypress trees and the best of Florida’s Southern charm. From weddings and private parties to corporate events and social events, this venue is a great choice for organizers looking for a space with classic allure.

Event Venues in Major Cities

Looking for other event venues in Florida? Check out our Miami Event Venues. If Florida isn’t your state of choice, check out our comprehensive lists of event venues across the nation.

San Diego Event Venues

Houston Event Venues

Atlanta Event Venues

Washington Event Venues

Boston Event Venues

Seattle Event Venues

Chicago Event Venues

San Francisco Event Venues

from Cameron Jones Updates https://blog.bizzabo.com/orlando-event-venues

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Politics of Hate in the USA, Part III: Posse Comitatus, Grassroots Rebellion, and Secret Societies by John Miller

The following text, which is the final of three installments, traces back to a conversation I had with Mike Kelley in 1994, “Too Young to be a Hippy, Too Old to be a Punk.”1 Christophe Tannert at Kunstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin had invited us to discuss underground political and aesthetic culture in the US for the first issue of Bethanien’s Be Magazin. One year later, I followed this up with a narrative account and analysis of the subject, “Burying the Underground.” Meanwhile, a series of sieges, armed standoffs, and bombings made Americans increasingly aware of a growing polarization between the US federal government and what was hardening into a grassroots militia movement: Ruby Ridge (1992), Waco (1993), Oklahoma City (1995) and Fort Davis, Texas (1997). I began to see this as a right-wing counterpart to militant leftism. In fact, the right seemed to be mirroring tactics that had previously belonged to the leftist underground. This led me to write a complementary essay, “Heil Hitler! Have a Nice Day!, the Politics of Hate in the USA” By 2001, the militia movement had run out of steam. When al-Qaeda terrorists staged the September 11 attacks, however, these so closely resembled events described in The Turner Diaries that I had initially suspected the radical right. Although unemployment and economic dislocation drove the militia movement, the Great Recession has not provoked a similar response. Instead of overturning—or seceding from—the federal government, the far right, now exemplified by the Tea Party, wants to work from within the political system by downsizing government and converting it to a states’ rights model. This shift is evident in the current Republican debates leading up to the next presidential election, where candidates have tried to turn “moderate” into a pejorative term. —John Miller

***

Posse Comitatus

The Jew run banks and federal loan agencies are working hand-in-hand foreclosing on thousands of farms right now in America. They are in essence, nationalizing farms for the jews [sic], as the farmer becomes a tenant slave on the land he once owned….The farmers must prepare to defend their families and land with their lives, or surrender it all. —James Wickstrom,2 Christian Identity minister and radio talk show host

Of all the far right factions, the Posse Comitatus may be the largest. A true grassroots movement, it is also the most amorphous and the hardest to pin down. James Ridgeway compares its organizational flexibility with that pioneered by the SDS, yet it also takes the anti-Federalist logic of states’ rights to a topical extreme. “Posse Comitatus” literally means “power of the county” in Latin. The name refers to the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 which forbids the use of US military and national guard forces as civilian police forces.3 Congress passed this legislation after the Civil War to prevent President Grant from using soldiers to guard ballot boxes against election fraud in southern states.4 The Posse Comitatus believes this law empowers a sheriff to call a posse into being or to disband it as necessary. A posse is simply “all the men that a sheriff may call to his assistance in the discharge of his official duty, as to quell a riot or to make an arrest.”5 The Posse Comitatus sees the law as a wellspring of radical decentralization, granting the sheriff ultimate authority. Accordingly, its members consider income tax, social security payments, drivers’ licenses and even license plates as violations of the Constitution. The Posse claims that, when necessary, it may usurp even the sheriff’s authority. According to a doctrine set forth by Christian Identity minister William Potter Gale, the Posse claims its authority comes straight from God.

Although the Posse Comitatus is freeform by definition, Lyman Tower Sargent traces its origin to the Citizens Law Enforcement and Research Committee, founded by former Silver Shirt and Identity Christian Henry L. Beach in 1969.6With the spate of family farm foreclosures beginning in the late 1970s, ranks of the Posse expanded as farmers withheld taxes and fought to save their property. Amidst the greater period recession, high interest rates combined with a severe drop in demand for crops to touch off a farm crisis. After a major US-Soviet grain deal fell through, rising inflation forced underdeveloped countries to redirect their budgets from grain purchases to debt maintenance. In the US, the small farmer was left holding the bag. What made the crisis even worse was farmland itself sometimes dropped to a third of its previous value. A congressional report estimated that almost half the nation’s 2.2 million farmers would lose their farms by the end of the century.7 Unable to make ends meet, some turned to community activism, some to alcohol and spousal abuse, and others to anti-Semitism. Just as Nazis once blamed Jews for the dislocations of modernization, bankrupt small farmers wanted to pin their troubles on a Jewish banking conspiracy. Few, however, bothered noting that Jews own none of the big, international banks.

The idea of the family farm as a wellspring of American identity runs deep in the United States. It derives in part from Thomas Jefferson, who viewed big cities with distaste and envisioned the United States as a vast array of independent farms:

Those who labor in the earth are the chosen people of God, if ever he had a chosen people, whose breasts he has made his peculiar deposit for substantial and genuine virtue.

They are the most vigorous, the most independent, the most virtuous, and they are tied to their country, and wedded to its liberty and interests, by the most lasting bonds. 8

Jefferson’s philosophy reflected the political economy of the southern plantation system in which each plantation produced much or all of what it needed. (The autonomy of the plantation, of course, depended on slave labor.) Jefferson himself owned a Virginia plantation—though, ironically, a not very successful one. Unlike George Washington, he did not free his slaves after the Revolutionary War.9 Conversely, Washington was a land speculator in the trans-Appalachian region and therefore less aligned with small property interests. Jefferson vigorously championed small farming yet, by establishing a liberal political culture within a capitalist economy, his policies paved the way for America’s transition to industrial capitalism.

The small farmer’s aspirations for independent production and land ownership constitute as much an ideal of civic virtue as they do a means of livelihood. Even so, the supposed autonomy of the small farm has always been tenuous at best, subject to the vagaries of good and bad crops, variable interest rates and supply and demand. In other words, the autonomy of the small farmer was always a relative state—one rested on a precarious economic foundation. During bad times, small farmers have often resorted to wage labor to keep their farms intact. Nonetheless, their aspirations mark them as petit-bourgeois and have rarely shown solidarity with labor movements. Moreover, they resent federal farm subsidy programs—not only because policy makers attach them to big agricultural conglomerates, but also because they render the small farmer a dependent consumer instead of a virtuous producer.10 This tension is not new. Frontier farmers often found themselves at odds with a centralized government unwilling—or unable—to protect their interests. Rural vigilante justice and its attendant gun culture are legacies of that history. Taking the law into one’s own hands thus survives as a cherished rural tradition. And yet that civic independence has been frustrated in recent years. American farmers have been forced into the painful admission that the small farm has become inefficient and wasteful relative to conglomerate “agribusinesses.” Here, their sense of civic deprivation, plus very real material losses, goes back to a promise held out by homesteading: land ownership. James Corcoran has described its importance:

Land doesn’t only serve as a farmer’s collateral for operations loans, the ability to buy the seed, fertilizer and chemicals to plant his fields—land is a farmer’s identity. It is his connection to God; it is his religion, his nationality, his family’s heritage, and his legacy to his children. Land is a farmer’s way of life, and in the early 1980s he was losing it. Like the people he replaced on the land—the American Indian—the farmer became a modern exile, forced to migrate to strange cities and states in search of a new life.11

Driving people from the land is part of the process of long-range accumulation that Marx identified as a structural feature of capitalist development. The farmers’ resistance to dispossession does raise the radical question of who is entitled to land ownership. But claiming a holy right to the land—as do the Posse and Identity Christians—is a self-serving ideology; not only does it justify the farmer’s existence against abstract economic forces, it also represses the historical memory of how frontier farmers violently drove their predecessors, the Native Americans, off the very same soil. This manifest destiny of the small farmer simply transmutes the divine right of kings into the rural populist homestead. Even the ideal of independent production can, at times, undercut the small farmer’s sense of social responsibility. Thus, to consider small farming an inalienable and God-given way of life entails reactionary identifications with blood and soil.

Alarmed by an anti-Semitic flare up in the farm belt, in 1986 the Anti-Defamation League commissioned the Lois Harris organization to poll Iowa and Nebraska residents on these issues. Seventy-five percent of the respondents blamed “big international bankers” for farm problems, with 13 percent specifically blaming Jews. 27 percent agreed, “Farmers have always been exploited by international Jewish bankers.” Among people older than sixty-five, that number leapt to 45 percent.12 The growth of the Posse closely followed this trend.

Typical Posse tactics include highly effective forms of “paper terrorism” such as tax resistance and filing nuisance liens and lawsuits, which tie up courts and make life miserable for Posse targets. When these fail, they sometimes turn to guns. In 1980, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) identified 17,222 individuals who, as a form of tax protest, either refused to file returns or filed and refused to pay what they owed. By 1983 that number jumped to 57,754 and subsequent efforts by a special IRS task force have hardly made a dent in this figure.13 In Wisconsin the aforementioned James Wickstrom, onetime candidate for governor and US Senate, openly espoused tax revolt and violence.14 Some groups, like Charles Shugarman’s Virginia Patriots Network, conduct special seminars in tax resistance, stating that wages are a special form of barter between employer and employee and, therefore, not subject to taxation.15 With a similar barter idea, Denver Posse member John Grandbouche initiated a system of warehouse banks where depositors could convert their money to gold or silver to avoid taxes. Grandbouche called his organization the National Commodities and Barter Association (NCBA). The Wall Street Journal reported that the NCBA laundered up to half a million dollars a day for as many as 20,000 depositors. Federal agents raided Grandbouche’s offices in 1985, recovering thousands of documents and an estimated $250,000 in gold bullion. A federal judge, however, ordered the return of this property.16 Other warehouse banks have turned out to be simply old-fashioned bilking schemes in which otherwise skeptical farmers have lost their life savings to con men. In June 1986, for example, authorities convicted Roderick Elliot in one such an embezzlement operation. Elliot was the publisher of the movement’s key tabloid, The Primrose and Cattleman’s Gazette (its name insinuating that Jewish bankers had led farmers “down the primrose path”).17 More recently, Roy Schwasinger’s organization, We The People, sold about 3,000 bogus “information kits” at $300 each to gullible farmers. These explained how to claim one’s portion of a supposed $600 trillion class action suit against the government brought by ranchers and farmers. In 1995 Schwasinger received a nine-year prison sentence for his part in the scam.18

In 1983 the death of the sixty-three-year-old tax resister Gordon Kahl created the Posse’s first martyr. Kahl was a decorated World War II veteran who kept his farm afloat by working winters in Texas as an auto mechanic. He joined the Posse in 1974, stopped paying taxes and appeared on television two years later urging others to follow suit. Going public landed him in Leavenworth prison for one year. Authorities then released him on probation with the proviso that he stay away from the Posse. Unrepentant, Kahl still refused to pay taxes and still urged others to do the same. Although he owed only a pittance, his very public defiance made him a thorn in the side of government officials. On February 13, 1983, federal marshals tracked Kahl, his son and some friends as they were leaving a Posse meeting in Medina, North Dakota. Kahl stopped at the marshals’ roadblock and a gunfight began. The marshals wounded his son. A crack shot, Kahl killed two marshals and wounded three others in retaliation.19 He went on the run for four months, then holed up in the Smithville, Arkansas “earth home” of his Posse friends, Leon and Norma Gintner. This dwelling was a survivalist bunker stockpiled with weapons and food. Federal agents and local Sheriff Gene Matthews surrounded the bunker on June 3. Outside, they captured Leonard Gintner. Shortly thereafter, Gintner’s wife came out to surrender. Neither would confirm whether Kahl was hiding inside. Matthews entered the bunker, hoping that, as sheriff, he could convince the fugitive to surrender peacefully. Kahl fatally wounded Matthews with one round from his Ruger Mini-14. Police experts believe that, in the exchange, Matthews killed Kahl as well. Unsure whether the fugitive was dead or alive, agents proceeded to spray the bunker with gunfire. The assault ended only after a commando detonated the bunker’s more than 100,000 rounds of ammunition with a grenade. Death left Kahl a longstanding hero in the movement.20 It also set the stage for a siege/shootout syndrome that would be tragically repeated as the struggle between right-wing dissidents and the federal government continued to escalate.

Other Posse figures include Arthur Kirk, who died in a 1984 firefight with a Nebraska SWAT team, and the eccentric Michael Ryan. Ryan presided over a polygamous, survivalist compound in Rulo, Nebraska where he forced his male followers to sodomize each other and a pet goat.21 Once considered a leader chosen by God, Ryan was convicted by jurors for torturing and killing two of his followers, twenty-seven-year-old James Thimm and five-year-old Luke Stice. For refusing to sodomize the goat, Ryan shoved greased rake handles up Thimm’s rectum, then literally skinned him alive. When police raided the Rulo compound, they discovered more than $250,000 in stolen farm equipment, an arsenal of full- and semiautomatic weapons and 150,000 rounds of ammunition.22 By anyone’s standards, Ryan was certifiably insane. His example illustrates the individual extremes that become available once the social contract is jettisoned. Conversely, Ryan’s case—among others—raises the question of how violence and irrationality become legitimized, both within extremist cults and within the mainstream.

The Turner Diaries

The great danger of democracy, of course, is the same danger that exists with any other form of government; namely, that the wrong minority will be in the driver’s seat. That’s the problem we must overcome now—or perish as a race.

Before the advent of television, it wouldn’t have been feasible to run a truly progressive nation democratically; the process of control was too awkward. That’s why the United States drifted the way it did, subject to various pressure groups, until the worst of all possible groups elbowed the others aside and took over. These days the process of control is reasonably efficient, and if we ever manage to break the grip of the present media bosses we can look forward to the use of the same process to speed America along the upward path again. —William L. Pierce 23

The Turner Diaries is an influential right-wing tract written by former physics professor William Pierce. Pierce published it, however, under the pseudonym Andrew MacDonald. Critics call the book the Mein Kampf of American neo-Nazism. Before starting his own National Alliance, Pierce had, in fact, been a member of George Lincoln Rockwell’s American Nazi Party and the John Birch Society. Society president Robert Welch introduced Pierce to an apocalyptic story called The John Franklin Letters that Pierce used as a model for his own book.24 In the guise of a futuristic novel, The Turner Diaries is part propaganda, part primer for guerilla war and part juvenile blood lust. Its publisher Stuart Lyle described it as “an underground classic,” selling more than 185,000 copies outside bookstores before its above ground publication and distribution in 1978. Pierce himself gloats:

It offends almost everyone; Afro-Americans, feminists, gays and lesbians, liberals, communists, Mexicans, democrats, the FBI, egalitarians, and Jews. Especially Jews: for it portrays them as incarnations of everything that is evil and destructive.25

Former liberal William Gayley Simpson laid the ideological foundation for Pierce’s book in his own Which Way Western Man? After working as an integrationist, Simpson became obsessed with the idea that white Christians risked forfeiting their identity through policies of desegregation and affirmative action. These, moreover, he viewed as part of a sinister Jewish plot: a divide-and-conquer strategy of miscegenation that would leave only Jewish racial integrity intact. Consequently, he argued vehemently for eugenics, segregation and the deportation of Jews.26 Even so, Pierce sharply distinguishes between these beliefs and those of Christian Identity which he dismisses as a “lowbrow” theology incapable of attracting anyone but “hicks.”27

The narrative conceit of The Turner Diaries is the belated discovery of a unique record of “the Great Revolution,” the diaries of one Earl Turner, which historians have republished on the revolution’s one-hundredth anniversary. Pierce envisions this event in apocalyptic—rather than political—terms. The struggle occurs in 1999, at the outset of the millennium. Copying the French Revolution, Pierce even sets out a new dating system, with time divided BNE (Before the New Era, analogous to prehistoric time) and the years following it. Nevertheless, Pierce’s revolution is totalitarian, not democratic; the rights of man evaporate before a phantasm of racial purity. He also adds “editors’ notes” as additional commentary to Turner’s firsthand account. This “historicizes” the fantasy, a posture not dissimilar to Kruschev’s boast “History is on our side. We will live to see you buried.”

The plot begins when the federal government passes an anti-gun law called, suggestively enough, the Cohen Act. Blacks begin raping white women in great numbers (one of Pierce’s deep obsessions) and, as special deputies, round up all those who refuse to turn over their guns. Jews, of course, have masterminded this turn of events. Only one group stands ready to resist “the System,” a small network of underground cells called only “The Organization.” Earl Turner belongs to one such cell of four people operating in Washington, DC. Long before the Cohen Act, his group had buried a cache of guns in a remote Pennsylvania woods. Once they retrieve their weapons, they turn to robbery and murder simply to survive; as gun owners, they can neither work nor identify themselves in public. Meanwhile, Congress passes more stringent laws requiring all citizens to carry “internal passports” –used for all transactions from banking to medical care to purchasing gasoline. This pushes the Organization to more extreme measures, culminating in bombing a new supercomputer (for processing internal passports) housed in the FBI’s Washington headquarters. To carry this out, The Organization uses a truck filled with explosive chemical fertilizer. To finance its intensified level of operations, it starts counterfeiting as well. Trained as an engineer, Turner becomes responsible for bombs, communications and counterfeiting.

Soon, Turner’s superiors invite him to join “the Order,” an elite mystical cadre within the Organization. Its grey-hooded members reveal to him that white supremacy is divinely ordained and that Aryan terrorists are “the instruments of God.” As the struggle continues, the Organization’s leaders realize that only the System can win a war of attrition and accordingly step up their approach. In an all-or-nothing effort, they concentrate their entire force in Southern California and, through inside agents, trigger an insurrection within the armed forces stationed there. In the resulting chaos, the Organization manages to establish regional sovereignty, fending off the System by seizing nuclear warheads and threatening to use them. After setting up free zones in major American cities, it nukes Tel Aviv, saving a few remaining missiles for the Soviet Union. This, in effect, kills two birds with one stone, devastating communism and subverting the System’s control in America. The story ends with an inadvertent allusion to Stanley Kubrick’s “Dr. Strangelove”: Turner flying a suicide mission to the Pentagon with a nuclear warhead strapped to his crop-duster. The editorial notes confirm that, because of Turner’s noble sacrifice, the Aryan race successfully purges every other race from the face of the planet. Thus begins the New Era—a cartoon version of xenophobia with pointed consequences for the American political landscape of the 1990s.

Pierce’s hatred of other races is tautological. He accuses others of conspiracy and degradation, when he himself is the worst offender. The Turner Diaries depicts both Jews and African-Americans as stereotypes; Pierce even writes in dialect to further ridicule them. In lieu of social or historical analysis, Pierce invokes God to justify his beliefs. His stance toward the social movements of the 1960s and 70s is wholly reactive:

I remember a long string of Marxist acts of terror 20 years ago, during the Vietnam war. A number of government buildings were burned or dynamited, and several innocent bystanders were killed, but the press always portrayed such things as idealistic acts of “protest.”

There was a gang of armed, revolutionary Negroes who called themselves “Black Panthers.” Every time they had a shootout with the police, the press and TV people had their tearful interviews with the families of the Black gang members who got killed -- not with the cops’ widows. And when a Negress who belonged to the Communist Party [a reference to Angela Davis] helped plan a courtroom shootout and even supplied the shotgun with which a judge was murdered, the press formed a cheering section at her trial and tried to make a folk hero out of her.28

“Women’s lib” was a form of mass psychosis which broke out during the last three decades of the Old Era. Women affected by it denied their femininity and insisted that they were “people,” not “women.” This aberration was promoted and encouraged by the System as a means of dividing our race against itself.29 ...the knee-jerk liberals have forgotten all about their “radical chic” enthusiasm of a few years ago, now that we are the radicals.30

As a tactician, however, Pierce is coldly logical and utterly clearheaded. For starting a terrorist cell, he advises in the essay “A Program for Survival” (1984) published under his own name, a general three-phase program for Aryan supremacy comprised of:

1. cadre building; 2. community building; 3. community action; 4. make propaganda as militant as possible to attract only the most committed element; 5. operate on a “need to know” basis; 6. communicate either by meeting face-to-face or through short coded messages; 7. separate into “legal” and underground units (like Shin Féin and the I.R.A.); 8. “...[O]ne of the major purposes of political terror, always and everywhere, is to force the authorities to take reprisals and to become more repressive, thus alienating a portion of the population and generating sympathy for the terrorists.” 9. “...[T]he other purpose is to create unrest by destroying the population’s sense of security and their belief in the invincibility of the government.” 31

If the term “community action” sounds benign, however, The Turner Diaries shows just what Pierce means by that.

Pierce’s tactics and ideology would be adopted both by Robert Mathews’ group, The Order, and by Timothy McVeigh. Among other things, they anticipate baiting law enforcement officials to use excessive force and exploiting the overkill as movement propaganda.

Bob Mathews founder of The Bruders Schweigen confronting an anti-racism protester.

The Bruders Schweigen

We just want to be a nameless, white underground. —Robert Mathews32

Bob Mathews was a man with a mission. As an eleven-year-old boy in Phoenix, Arizona, he joined the John Birch Society. Later he became interested in Robert DePugh’s Minutemen. Mathews then started a group of his own called the Sons of Liberty. He also converted to the Mormon faith.33 Under the guidance of fellow Mormon Marvin Cooley, Mathews became a tax resister. In his 1973 W-4 tax form he claimed ten dependents as a single, unmarried man—by that reducing his tax burden to zero. This improbable claim quickly alerted IRS agents, who soon brought him to trial. There, Mathews had a rude awakening when only one of his militia friends agreed to vouch for him as a character witness. Shortly after this, a second friend killed himself, his wife and another couple in a bitter domestic dispute. Disillusioned, Mathews left Phoenix and resettled in Metaline Falls, Washington.34

After taking an apartment, the industrious Mathews soon managed to earn enough money to purchase and clear his own 60-acre plot of land. He found a wife and seemed to settle down. Eventually, his parents and two brothers, once estranged by his extremist views, moved up to Washington as well. Then, in 1978, after four years of relative calm, Mathews read William Galey Simpson’s Which Way Western Man? which left a deep impression. He learned about William Pierce’s National Alliance. By 1981 Mathews discovered William Butler’s Church of Jesus Christ Christian/Aryan Nations in nearby Hayden Lake. Although he had reservations about Butler, he nonetheless attended Aryan Nations events. Around this time, he conceived the “White American Bastion” by which Aryans would become the racially self-conscious political force of the Pacific Northwest. This idea echoed Butlers “10 percent solution,” except that Mathews felt numbers alone would be enough; he did not, at this time, envision the need for a separate government. To this end, he began advertising his “Bastion” plan in the Liberty Lobby’s magazine, The Spotlight. Ultimately, the ads did not pan out; after all his efforts, only one couple moved there. He increasingly resented the apparent docility of most whites and condescendingly called them “sheeple”—sheep people. He also read and absorbed the lessons of The Road Back, an instruction manual for running an underground terrorist group; Essays of a Klansman by Louis Beam, which laid out a point system of awards for Aryan Warriors; and The Turner Diaries. After this, Mathews established his leadership by confronting rowdy counter-demonstrators at Spokane, Aryan Nations rally. Before long he had assembled a small, but hard-core circle of friends and Aryan Nations members around him. He stressed that the time for talk was over. Now was the time for action. In a bizarre ceremony, each swore a loyalty oath before a six-month-old baby, pledging to secure the future propagation of the Aryan race. Before long, the group was planning armed robberies and counterfeiting schemes.35

On October 28, 1983, World Wide Video, Spokane’s only XXX-rated pornography store, became the group’s first target. After days of talks and building up their nerve, they netted a grand total of $369.10. If serious, they were going to have to play for bigger stakes. That Thanksgiving, unbeknownst to Richard Butler, Mathews’ friend Gary Yarbrough began printing their first counterfeit $50 bills on the Aryan Nations printing press. He had a hard time getting the color right, though. Police picked up Mathews’ right-hand-man Bruce Pierce (no relation to William Pierce) on December 3 when the group tried to pass the phony money. With Pierce in jail, on December 18 Mathews pulled a one-man bank heist in desperation. During his getaway, a dye-pack exploded in the loot bag, staining him and the cash red. He managed to clean most of the $25,952 with turpentine and bailed Pierce out of jail. The gang continued to rob banks and restaurants, but soon graduated to armored cars. They set up a system under which they would “tithe” most of the stolen money to other racist groups, setting aside part for their own operation and dividing the remainder as “salaries.” Several men quit their day jobs and began to think of themselves as revolutionaries. With their stolen money, they began to build up an arsenal.36

Meanwhile Pierce had, on his own initiative, ineffectually bombed a Boise synagogue. This breach of security enraged Mathews, but their troubles were just beginning. Aryan Nations member Walter West had begun to spout off in local bars about a new white guerilla group. West also had a reputation for beating his wife, Bonnie Sue, and Order member Tom Bentley had taken a romantic interest in her. Mathews directed Bentley and three others—James Dye, Randy Duey and Richard Kemp—to kill West. Sunday, May 27, 1984 Kemp and Duey brought the unsuspecting West to a remote logging road in the Kaniksu National Forest where Dye and Bentley waited hiding, having already dug a grave. Coming from behind, Kemp struck West’s skull with a three-pound sledgehammer. When this failed to kill him, Duey finished him off with his own Ruger Mini-14 automatic rifle. After that, Bentley moved in with Bonnie Sue; Mathews also began keeping a mistress of his own, Zillah Craig.37 West was neither black nor Jewish, but his murder marked a turning point. The Order had crossed over into lethal violence.

Outspoken radio talk show host Alan Berg specialized in agitating racist listeners. He could be rude, arrogant and insulting, but he was a man of conviction. With his program commanding more than 10 percent of the Denver audience, he nonetheless regarded his provocations as mostly show business. Not so Bob Mathews. He made Berg Number Three on his hit list—after Morris Dees, co-founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center, and Norman Lear, acclaimed television producer and liberal political activist.38 When Mathews stated that the time had come to “take out” Berg, opinion was split within the group. Some felt they were not yet ready, but Mathews refused to wait. His goal was to start a race war; if he were martyred in the struggle, the propaganda would be invaluable. When Mathews asked for volunteers, Bruce Pierce demanded to be the triggerman. Pierce pictured himself as “a true Aryan Warrior.” According to Louis Beam’s “point system,” one needed a full point to become this. Killing a Jew (i.e., Berg) was worth one-sixth of a point; killing the US President was worth one full point. At 9:20 p.m. Monday, June 18, 1984, Pierce gunned down Berg in his driveway as he was climbing out of his Volkswagen Beetle. David Lane and Mathews watched from a Plymouth parked nearby. Detectives quickly found .45 caliber shells from the 12 rounds that riddled the victim’s body. This was no ordinary slaying: the killer clearly wanted to “send a message” to the public. Based on the shells and slugs, investigators quickly identified the murder weapon as an Ingram MAC-10 machine pistol, a weapon of choice for right-wing gun buffs.39 Investigative Division Chief Don Mulnix therefore wasted no time in calling the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, the FBI and the BATF in on the case.40

Again desperate for cash, Mathews planned the Order’s next heist. Thanks to a disenchanted Brinks Company employee, he learned of a regularly scheduled truck—often loaded with millions of dollars—that took an especially vulnerable route north of Ukiah, California. Mathews put together a crew and thanks to careful planning by newly recruited Richard Scutari, pulled off the heist without a hitch. This time they netted $3,800,000. The only problem was that Mathews left behind a pistol registered to his follower Andrew Barnhill. Before long, federal investigators had tied the robbery to the Berg slaying. Their prime suspects belonged to the Order. Meanwhile, Mathews promptly tithed much of the take to his favorite charities: Richard Butler’s Aryan Nations, William Pierce’s National Alliance, Frazier Glenn Miller’s Carolina Knights of the KKK, Louis Beam, Tom Metzger’s White Aryan Resistance, Bob Miles’ Mountain Kirk and Dan Gayman’s Church of Israel.41 With the FBI closing in, he set his sites on the next target: Morris Dees. His preliminary plan called for kidnapping and interrogating Dees, then flaying him alive.42 He also tried to contact the Syrian government to fund his war against the Jews.43 Finally, he gave his group a provisional name, taken from a book about Hitler’s Waffen SS: Bruders Schweigen, which refers to “the Silent Brotherhood.”44

On October 1, 1984, Tom Martinez went on trial at the US District Court in Philadelphia. Martinez was charged with helping pass the Order’s counterfeit bills. Shortly before the hearing, his attorney warned him that the FBI had already linked the Order to the Berg slaying and the Brinks heist. Martinez lost his nerve and turned state’s evidence.45 Based on his tips, the FBI stepped up its manhunt, nearly apprehending Mathews and key member Gary Yarbrough twice. Mathews found safe houses for the Order on Whidbey Island in Puget Sound. On October 23 Martinez led FBI agents to the Capri Motel in Portland where he was to meet Mathews and Yarbrough—ostensibly to discuss the Dees kidnaping. They caught Yarbrough, but Mathews got away, his right hand wounded.46

The Order regrouped on Whidbey Island. Knowing things were at an end, Mathews drafted a declaration of war on ZOG and an Aryan Declaration of Independence, which newspapers in every state were to receive. The Bruders Schweigen would no longer remain underground. The end, however, was nearer than Mathews could have ever known. On December 4, the FBI received an anonymous tip that Mathews and a dozen others had gone to Whidbey. Alan Whitaker, special agent-in-command at the Seattle FBI office, quickly assembled SWAT teams, a Hostage Rescue Team and reserve agents. By Friday, December 7, he deployed them around the Order’s three safe houses and evacuated nearby local residents. In the first house Randy Duey gave up without a fight. Next, counterfeiting expert Richard Merki surrendered with his wife Sharon and an older woman, Ida Bauman. Merki had taken care to burn as much evidence as possible before giving up. Meanwhile, in the third house Mathews refused to respond to negotiators. The FBI then brought in Duey and Merki who urged him to surrender. Mathews, however, demanded that Idaho, Washington and Montana be set aside as an Aryan homeland before he would talk. Meanwhile, his partner, Ian Stewart, gave up, but refused to confirm whether Mathews still had women or children inside with him. Next SWAT teams forced their way in, but Mathews sprayed them with machine-gun fire from above, shooting through the floorboards. They retreated. The following day the FBI brought a helicopter to hover above the house; Mathews sprayed it through the roof. At 6:30 p.m., the FBI command post issued orders to lob M-79 Starburst flares into the besieged building. Within twenty minutes the house went up in a firestorm. Sunday morning, investigators, sifting through the debris, found Mathews’ charred remains next to a blackened bathtub.47

The federal government’s case against the Order had become the government’s biggest since the Symbionese Liberation Army kidnaped Patty Hearst. In the wake of Mathews’ death, the group itself dissipated, but its influence did not. Seattle US District Attorney Gene Wilson put together a massive racketeering case against the remaining members, consisting of sixty-seven separate counts. On April 12, 1985, a federal grand jury indicted twenty-four members on racketeering and conspiracy. When the trial began that September, twelve pleaded guilty. Prosecutors convicted ten more that December 30. After police captured Richard Scutari in March 1986, he too pleaded guilty. In spring 1988, the government sued ten of the movement for sedition, including the leaders Richard Butler, Bob Miles and Lois Beam. This jury, however, acquitted everyone.48 After these events, William Pierce declared that America was not yet ready to embrace the revolution he had outlined in The Turner Diaries. He instead bought up enough American Telephone and Telegraph (ATT) stock to force a corporate phase-out of ATT’s affirmative action policy.49 Pierce’s renunciation of terrorism, however, was disingenuous, simply part of his strategy to separate the movement into underground and aboveground wings.

In the end, Robert Mathews succeeded in becoming the kind of martyr figure that Pierce deemed necessary for a popular revolution. Gordon Kahl had come first, but he was a lone individual. There had been other paramilitary groups too, like the Covenant, the Sword and Arm of the Lord (CSA) or Frazier Glenn Miller’s Confederate Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.50Yet these functioned more like gangs of thugs, while Mathews’ Order quickly developed into, a model terrorist cell. Although Mathews had even drawn recruits from these other groups, he was the one who managed to take them from talk to action.

The Weaver family and Kevin Harris make the cover of a Spokane newspaper after winning a wrongful death and civil rights lawsuit against the federal government for the Ruby Ridge shootout.

Ruby Ridge

In 1989 at an Aryan World Congress meeting, a biker identifying himself as Gus Magisono befriended former Green Beret Randy Weaver. Since his time in the military, Weaver had adopted Christian Identity beliefs and moved his family to an isolated cabin near Naples, Idaho. Overlooking Ruby Creek, the news media later came to call this place Ruby Ridge.

That fall, when Weaver was almost broke, Magisono encouraged him to sell sawed-off shotguns to right-wing militants.51After Weaver sold his first two, “Magisono,” a.k.a. Kenneth Fadeley, identified himself as a federal operative and threatened to turn him in unless he agreed to spy on Aryan Nations meetings. The FBI had promised Fadeley a reward if Weaver either complied or was arrested. In short, the US government had entrapped Randy Weaver.

Weaver, however, refused and warned Aryan Nations of the plan.52 In turn, the federal government indicted Weaver on firearms charges in December of 1990 and arrested him the following January. He posted a $10,000 bond and was released. The BATF set a court date for February 20 but sent Weaver a summons dated March 20. Six days before he thought he was supposed to appear in court, Assistant US Attorney Ron Howen issued a warrant for his arrest.53 March 20, however, came and went; Weaver ignored the summons and stayed holed up in his cabin.

August 21, 1992, six US marshals, part of a SWAT-like team called the Special Operations Group, surrounded the cabin on Weaver’s isolated twenty-acre property. They kept clear of the house itself for fear of being seen. One marshal threw pebbles near the cabin to distract Weaver’s dog. It started barking. Weaver, his fourteen-year-old son Sammy and a friend, Kevin Harris, grabbed their guns, thinking the retriever had found game. They followed him as he chased the marshals. Randy Weaver split from the others and, spotting a figure in camouflage gear, shouted a warning and ran back to the cabin. As the others began to follow, Marshal Art Roderick shot the dog. Sammy Weaver shot back. Then he continued running. After another burst of gunfire from the concealed marshals, Sammy Weaver fell to the ground dead, shot in the back. Harris returned fire. That exchange left veteran Marshall William Degan dead. It remains unproven exactly who shot whom in this exchange, but clearly Ron Howen had prematurely authorized use of excessive force to arrest Randy Weaver.54

The remaining five officers immediately contacted the US Marshals Service in Washington, DC, which in turn called in the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The FBI mobilized its crack Hostage Rescue Team, headed by Richard Rogers. It brought in agents from around the country. By the day’s end, Idaho governor Cecil Andrus had called a state of emergency, by that authorizing the use of both the National Guard and state militias to capture Weaver. The next day, about four hundred military and police specialists had converged on Ruby Ridge with a helicopter, “humvees” (a military vehicle used in “Desert Storm”), armored transport and personnel carriers, and communications equipment. This force blockaded the Weaver’s property. Rogers had drawn up special “Rules of Engagement” for the operation, authorizing agents to shoot any adults carrying weapons on sight.55

About 6:00 p.m. that day, Weaver finally decided to venture out to reexamine his dead son, whom he had carried to a small shed near the cabin. Harris and Weaver’s daughter Sarah came with him. As he tried to enter the shed, a bullet ripped through the soft flesh under his arm. All three ran back to the cabin. Vicki, Weaver’s wife, held open the door, a baby in her arms. As they raced inside, a federal sharpshooter’s bullet passed through Vicki Weaver’s head, killing her instantly and severely wounding Harris.56 Fearing for their lives, Harris and the remaining Weavers refused to go outside for the next nine days. During this time Harris’s condition grew critical. By the barricades, a hundred local residents kept a vigil for those trapped inside and began to protest the paramilitary assault. Finally, Weaver agreed to surrender only after another former Green Beret, Bo Gritz, and a local Baptist minister, Chuck Sandelin, assured him that he and his family would go unharmed. 57

About one month later, Randy Trochmann, Chris Temple (publisher of a Christian Identity newspaper, The Jubilee) and several others who stood vigil during the siege formed a group called United Citizens for Justice. They proposed to expose government abuse of power and to form chapters in every state to protect fellow “patriots.” The organization, however, fell apart after only a few months.58 Another, more ominous organizing effort followed. This meeting, called “the Rocky Mountain Rendezvous,” took place on October 22 at Estes Park, Colorado. Besides Trochmann and Temple, Louis Beam, Richard Butler and other prominent members of the patriot movement attended.59 Their purpose was to mobilize the far right in the wake of Ruby Ridge. To do so, they decided to focus on anti-government sentiment and to downplay racism, which had been too divisive. As they re-prioritized Jews and blacks as “secondary” enemies, euphemisms replaced racist epithets in movement propaganda. In this, they took their cue from David Duke’s successful campaign for the Louisiana legislature. Identity pastor Pete Peters observed:

Men came together who in the past would normally not be caught together under the same roof, who greatly disagree with each other on many theological and philosophical points, whose teaching contradicts each other in many ways.60

All agreed that they must take extreme measures to check the tyranny of the federal government. Beam stated:

When they come for you, the federals will not ask if you are a Constitutionalist, a Baptist, Church of Christ, Identity covenant believer, Klansman, Nazi, home schooler, Freeman, New Testament believer, [or] fundamentalist….those who wear badges, black boots, and carry automatic weapons, and kick in doors already know all they need to know about you. You are the enemy of the state.61

They concluded that small, unorganized armies would be the most effective countermeasure. Thus, the contemporary militia movement was born. As Morris Dees notes, “At Estes Park, the movement changed from a disparate, fragmented group of pesky—and at times dangerous—gadflies to a serious armed political challenge to the state itself.”62

Ron Howen later tried to prosecute Weaver and Harris. The jury, however, in what The New York Times called “a strong rebuke of force during an armed siege,” acquitted the two of all the serious charges: murder, conspiracy and aiding and abetting. They found Weaver guilty only of failing to appear in court and violating the terms of his bail.63 The Weaver family and Kevin Harris later filed a wrongful death and civil rights lawsuit against the federal government. On August 16, 1995, Attorney General Janet Reno announced that the Justice Department had reached a $3.1 million settlement with the Weavers. Yet the government, as customary in such cases, admitted no wrongdoing.64 Under a government probe, however, E. Michael Kahoe, who supervised the siege for the FBI, admitted shredding documents detailing the shoot-to-kill orders.65 Clearly the FBI and the BATF, under the Clinton administration, had overstepped their authority to such an extent that extremist warnings of a nascent police state began to seem credible. Tactically, the encounter furnished the far right with invaluable propaganda. Even so, just as the Weaver case was being tried, the BATF blundered again—with even more horrible consequences.

Second part of the video "Waco, the Big Lie" by Linda Thompson.

Waco

On April 19, 1993, the FBI and the BATF launched a concerted, paramilitary assault on a heavily armed and fortified compound in Waco, Texas. They used gas, tanks, and helicopters to incinerate and destroy a complex that belonged to the Branch Davidian religious group and had been under siege for 51 days. When the government ended the siege, they had killed Branch Davidian leader David Koresh and seventy-five of his followers. Of these, all but nineteen were women and children.66

Branch Davidians grew out of Victor Houteff’s Shepherd’s Rod Church in the 1960s. Shepherd’s Rod was a Seventh Day Adventist church; Adventists believe in the “Second Coming” of Jesus, which entails the fiery, apocalyptic destruction of the earth from which only true believers will be spared. After her husband and Branch Davidian founder, Ben Roden, died in 1978, Lois Roden became the new prophet, pronouncing that the Holy Spirit was female.67

David Koresh was born as Vernon Wayne Howell on August 17, 1959. He joined the Davidians in 1981, moving to the Mount Carmel Center. Howell became popular with the other Davidians and by 1984 began to emerge as the sect’s new spiritual leader. This led to a dispute with Lois Roden’s son George who ejected Howell from Mount Carmel. Many other Davidians followed him and set up a community on rental property in Palestine, Texas. In 1985 Howell visited Israel where he claimed to have a visitation from God who instructed him to study and to teach the prophecy of the Seven Seals from the Book of Revelations. During the same period, he also claims God told him to create a “House of David,” in which many wives would bear his children. His offspring would become the rulers of a new, purer world. Although the Davidians were apocalypticists, they were not racists like Christian Identity adherents; the congregation was racially and ethnically diverse.

After his mother’s death, George Roden challenged Howell’s leadership of the new group. He went so far as to dig up a coffin at Mount Vernon, daring Howell to raise the corpse inside from the dead. A gunfight resulted after Howell snuck onto the property to photograph the coffin. US District Judge Walter A. Smith sentenced Roden to six months in jail after Roden had threatened to infect him with herpes and AIDs. With Roden out of the way, Howell urged the country to put a lien on Mount Carmel for sixteen years of unpaid back taxes. By paying these off, Howell legally regained possession of Mount Carmel on March 22, 1988. In 1990 he changed his name to David Koresh, after the Old Testament King David and Cyrus, the Persian king who freed the Jews in Babylon.68

When Koresh declared in 1989 that God had commanded him to take the sect’s married women as his wives, follower Marc Breault became angry and left the group. In a 1990 affidavit he described Koresh as “power-hungry and abusive, bent on obtaining and exercising absolute power and authority over the group.” He took up the role of “a cult buster” and encouraged over a dozen Davidians to sign affidavits against Koresh. The charges included statutory rape, tax fraud, immigration violations, illegal weapons possession and child abuse. In 1991 Breault informed David Jewell that his young daughter Kiri would soon be eligible to become one of Koresh’s many wives. Jewell sued for custody in January 1992 and Jewell’s estranged wife surrendered the child voluntarily.69 In October of that year a Waco Herald-Tribune reporter contacted Assistant US. Attorney Bill Johnson about an exposé he was writing about Koresh, called “The Sinful Messiah.” It would detail the Davidian’s alleged child abuse and arms buildup.70

The BATF felt pressured to take action at Waco. On one hand, Jewell and the local media had raised charges of child abuse within the compound; on the other, due to charges of inefficiency, racism and sexism—not to mention the Ruby Ridge debacle, the BATF faced possible budget cuts and reorganization. Clear and decisive action at Waco might clear up both problems at once. Instead what resulted was a fifty-one-day siege that cost the lives of four BATF agents and that culminated in the death seventy-six Branch Davidians. As in the Ruby Ridge incident, the FBI failed to follow standard agency rules of engagement. Instead, after Davidians shot one marshal, agents received orders to shoot on sight. Reports suggest that although the Davidians were heavily armed, they would have complied with regularly served search warrants—as they indeed had done in the past. By beginning with a siege, the FBI and the BATF may have unnecessarily escalated the entire confrontation. FBI Director Louis J. Freeh later suspended Larry Potts and reprimanded dozens of other federal employees for the botched standoff at Ruby Ridge.71 Potts had overseen both Ruby Ridge and Waco. After this outcome, popular resentment ran deep. In a fund-raising letter, the otherwise mainstream NRA characterized BATF agents as “jack-booted government thugs” who wear “Nazi bucket helmets and black storm trooper uniforms.” That letter caused President George Bush to resign his NRA membership, stating, “Your broadside against federal agents deeply offends my own sense of decency and honor, and it offends my concept of service to my country.”72 In response to both Waco and Ruby Ridge, in October 1995 Janet Reno set forth new rules of engagement procedures for all federal law enforcement. These directives restrict the use of deadly force to a last resort and prohibit changes, even under extenuating circumstances.73

Right-wing propagandists were quick to exploit Waco—notably Linda Thompson. Calling herself “Assistant to the US Commanding General NATO” with a “Cosmic Top Secret/Atomal Security Clearance,” Thompson produced an inaccurate and misleading two-volume video set on the massacre called “Waco: the Big Lie.”74 Ironically, because of “race mixing” many of Thompson’s supporters would have otherwise targeted the Davidians themselves. White supremacist Timothy McVeigh nonetheless used Waco to justify the Oklahoma City bombing.

U.S. Air Force personnel from Tinker Air Force Base work alongside civilian firefighters to remove rubble from the explosion site of the Federal Building in Oklahoma City, 1995. Photo: Staff Sergeant Mark A. More/Wikimedia Commons

Oklahoma City

On April 19, 1995, a truck bomb exploded at Oklahoma City’s Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, killing 168 people and wounding about 500 others. As for loss of life and sheer destruction, this was by far the worst terrorist action in US history to date. Nineteen of the victims were children, most from the building’s day care center. In the wake of the World Trade Center bombing, the Clinton administration was quick to blame Arab terrorists, but then had to retract this accusation as it became clear the perpetrators were, after all, American. As in The Turner Diaries, the bomb consisted of ammonium nitrate fertilizer and fuel oil; the target was a building used by the FBI. One Aryan Nations group had already targeted the Murrah building in 1983. A key member of that group, in fact, was Richard Wayne Snell, executed in Arkansas on the very day of the 1995 bombing.75 Before his death, Snell warned, “Look over your shoulder, justice is coming!”76

Shortly after the bombing, a state trooper stopped a yellow Mercury sixty miles outside Oklahoma City to check a missing license plate. He arrested the driver after finding a Glock semiautomatic pistol and a five-inch hunting knife inside the car. The driver turned out to be Timothy McVeigh, a twenty-seven-year-old veteran who had received a Bronze Star in operation Desert Storm. With an identification number from a mangled axle found in the wreckage, investigators soon linked McVeigh to the bombing. They traced the axle to a Ryder truck from Elliott’s Body Shop in Junction City, Kansas. Shop owner Eldon Elliott identified McVeigh as the man who had rented the truck on April 17. The FBI found McVeigh’s fingerprints on fertilizer receipts as well. Other evidence suggested that the brothers James and Terry Nichols may have been involved as well. Once in police custody, McVeigh said little, conducting himself like a prisoner of war.77

The radical right, in fact, had earmarked April 19 as a symbolic date. The Militia of Montana (MOM) called for a “national militia day” to commemorate not only Snell’s execution but also the Waco tragedy.78 Telephone records show that McVeigh called William Pierce’s unlisted telephone number in West Virginia one week before the bombing.79

McVeigh went to trial on April 24, 1997 in Denver, Colorado. Michael and Lori Fortier, the prosecution’s chief witnesses, recounted how McVeigh had diagrammed his plan on their kitchen floor with soup cans six months before the bombing. On June 3 the jury found McVeigh guilty of conspiracy, two bombing charges and eight counts of murder for the federal agents killed in the blast. During the penalty phase of the trial, McVeigh’s defense team changed its tactics. Instead of insisting on McVeigh’s innocence, they stressed his outrage at the Waco massacre, as a justification for taking 168 lives. Morris Dees, however, disputes the far right’s putative “eye for an eye” logic:

The fact that lives were lost during both the Waco debacle and the Weaver incident does not make those tragedies morally equivalent to the Oklahoma City bombing as the militias have suggested. Viewing the Waco incident from the perspective of the government’s complicity, the deaths were by accident. Viewing the Oklahoma City disaster from the perspective of the bomber’s responsibility, the deaths were by design. And even if one were to buy the thoroughly discredited militia line that the government started the blaze that engulfed the Davidians, a crucial distinction would still remain. The FBI pleaded with Koresh and the Davidians to come out of their compound for fifty-one days. The Oklahoma City bombers struck without warning.80

McVeigh received the death penalty on June 13. He remained stoic as he heard the verdict and, leaving the courtroom, flashed the “victory sign” to his family. He was executed on June 11, 2001. Terry Nichols went to federal trial on September 29, 1997. Unlike McVeigh who received a sentence of life imprisonment after the jury deadlocked on the death penalty. For this reason, Nichols was tried again by the state of Oklahoma—which had declined to prosecute McVeigh—in 2004. That jury also balked during the death penalty phase and, for 161 counts of murder, Nichols received an equal number of consecutive life sentences without possibility of parole.

Armed militia member portrayed as patrolling the U.S. border.

The Militia Movement

Before the Oklahoma City bombing, few Americans knew of the militia movement. Suddenly, Ted Koppel’s Nightline, The New York Times, The Washington Post and Time magazine all featured stories about it. For the first time, the mainstream public heard eccentric figures clad in camouflage gear warn of black helicopters, an invading strike force of Nepalese Gurkhas, secret tracking devices installed in their car ignitions, and the construction of massive crematoria in Minneapolis, Indianapolis, Kansas City and Oklahoma City. All of this was supposedly the work of a global secret government that had even orchestrated the Oklahoma City bombing as a pretext to crack down on Patriot groups. Richard Abanes assessed the movement shortly thereafter:

This loosely knit network of perhaps 5 to 12 million people may be one of the most diverse movements our nation has ever seen. Within its ranks are college students, the unemployed, farmers, manual laborers, professionals, law enforcement personnel and members of the military….Interesting, patriots have no single leader. The glue binding them together is a noxious compound of four ingredients: (1)an obsessive suspicion of the government; (2) belief in anti-government conspiracies; (3) a deep-seated hatred for government officials; and (4) a feeling that the United States Constitution…has been discarded by Washington bureaucrats.81

Reporters have described the militia trend as paranoid. It is largely an expression of middle-class rage—not of the broad middle class itself, only a tiny, disaffected extreme. Since the onset of the Reagan Revolution, .5 percent of the population has consolidated its hold over almost 40 percent of total national assets. With the gap between rich and poor turning into a gulf, the middle class has seen its incomes shrink and its prospects for a higher standard of living disappear. It is further enraged by economic agreements such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and the Mexican “bailout.” It views gun control and environmental restrictions as government “meddling” in their private affairs. Many militia members are “weekend warriors” who simply enjoy dressing up and marching around; others, of course, fully intend to use their weapons.82

Robert DePugh’s Minutemen, formed in the early 1960s, were the first contemporary, paramilitary group. Nonetheless, it was Ruby Ridge which gave birth to a national militia movement. During the standoff, sympathizers and local citizens had gathered outside the Weaver property to protest the government’s handling of the case. The resulting negotiations threw Bo Gritz into the limelight; after the Weaver incident, his Specially Prepared Individuals for Key Events (SPIKE) program took on a bigger role in training militia groups. Meanwhile, Louis Beam introduced the idea of leaderless resistance at the Rocky Mountain Rendezvous in Colorado. Beam argued that the patriot movement imitate “the communists”; it should discard traditional, military “pyramid structure” in favor of small, independent cells, impervious to infiltration by federal agents.83 Other protesters formed the United Citizens for Justice in October 1992 to protect citizens from “overzealous government.” That organization soon fizzled, but one member, Randy Trochmann, moved back to Noxon, Montana to form the Militia of Montana (MOM) with his father, Dave, and his uncle, John. The Trochmanns all have ties to Christian Identity. Unlike other militia groups, MOM concentrates on publishing training and propaganda material.84 Its titles include the M.O.D. Manual (a home guide to guerilla warfare), The Road Back (reclaiming America from the New World Order) and the instructional video Invasion and Betrayal (a survey of New World Order conspiracies). MOM members have had armed encounters with local police, but their primary significancy has been to spread the “militia gospel.”85

The Michigan Militia, founded by Norman Olson and Ray Southwell, is one of the movement’s best known. Six months after it was founded in 1994, brigades had sprung up in sixty-three of the state’s eighty-three counties. National attention focused on the Michigan Militia when investigators learned that suspects in the Oklahoma City bombing may have attended the group’s meetings. University of Michigan janitor Mark Koernke (“Mark from Michigan”) is the militia’s chief propagandist. He inveighs against the Federal Management Agency (FEMA) as a wing of the “shadow government” and has produced a two-hour video America in Peril: a Call to Arms that outlines the whole gamut of current conspiracy theories. In keeping with “need to know” tactics, most other militia groups prefer to operate in relative secrecy. Daniel Junas described how militia ideology differs from region to region in Covert Action Quarterly:

the militias vary in membership and ideology. In the East, they appear closer to the John Birch Society. In New Hampshire, for example, the 15-member Constitution Defense Militia reportedly embraces garden variety U.N. conspiracy fantasies and lobbies against gun control measures. In the Midwest, some militias have close ties to the Christian right, particularly the radical wing of the anti-abortion movement. In Wisconsin, Matthew Trewhella, leader of Missionaries to the Preborn, has organized paramilitary training sessions for his church members.86

Claiming that the New World Order controls 50 percent of the United States, US Representative Helen Chenoweth (Idaho) has lent official credence to such otherwise crackpot theories. In line with so-called Wise Use doctrine she also declared “spiritual war” on environmentalism and introduced a bill requiring all arms-bearing federal agents to obtain permission from local sheriffs before entering a state.87 Tactical anti-environmentalism began in Catron County, New Mexico with the Country Rule program. Here, attorney James Catron succeeded in passing an ordinance that declared that the country government supersedes federal law, including such questions as whether cattle may graze on federal lands. With this precedent, some 100 more western counties have followed suit.88

The biggest militia confrontation to date came in March 1996 when members of a group calling itself the Montana Freemen planned to kidnap and execute a judge and a second government official. Previous Freeman actions had included tax resistance, counterfeiting and impersonating government officials. FBI agents intercepted two members who were bringing a truckload of weapons from North Carolina to a compound they called “Justus Township” near Jordon, Montana. After this, sixteen other members, lead by Russell Dean Landers, holed up in this community for what would become an 81-day siege, the longest in American history. During that time, a total of 633 agents worked in twelve-hour shifts with sometimes as many as 150 agents surrounding the compound. After Ruby Ridge and Waco, FBI director Louis J. Freeh had decided to exercise extreme caution. Only after seventy-one days, did the FBI cut electrical power to the compound. Some criticized the agency for wasting time and money, but this approach paid off on June 13 when the FBI ended the armed standoff with no loss of life. Freeh declared, “The message that comes out very clear to everybody—if you break the law, the United States government will enforce the law. It will do it fairly but firmly.” Attorneys Kirk Lyons and David Holloway from the CAUSE Foundation in North Carolina will represent the Freemen in court. The CAUSE Foundation calls itself a civil rights organization for right-wing activists. Randy Trochmann declared that the trial would provide an ideal platform for militia propaganda.

Although the federal government made egregious mistakes at the Ruby Ridge and Waco sieges, these were exceptions. Nonetheless, the far right has aggressively exploited these events, turning its criminals into heroes. This might tempt Americans to forget that law enforcement officials have routinely risked and lost their lives to keep otherwise unregulated paramilitary groups in check. No one has turned the dead BATF or FBI agents into martyrs. Morris Dees notes that no other country in the world tolerates private armies that build bombs and train with assault weapons; local police seldom enforce state laws that forbid these armies.89 Moreover, he warns of a racist component in the tolerance extended to these groups:

It would be interesting to see the reaction of the state attorneys general if the militia groups operating today were all located near large metropolitan cities like Detroit and Philadelphia, and were comprised only of blacks. If law enforcement’s violent reaction to the Black Panthers of the 1960s is any example, I seriously doubt if black militia units training with assault weapons, distributing recipes for building bomb, and preaching hatred for the government would be tolerated.90

Any analysis of the constitutionality of the militia movement entails two questions: i) the right to bear arms and ii) the right to form private militias. While the constitutional right to bear arms is unclear and subject to debate, the Constitution expressly prohibits forming private militias. A militia may consist of the citizenry at large, just as the patriot movement claims. It fails to note, however, that only Congress can call up a militia, which, in turn, remains subject to government regulation:

Private citizens cannot simply band together, saying “Okay, we’re a militia. We’re here to protect our rights against what we believe is a tyrannical federal government.” The militias of today’s patriot movement are functioning outside constitutional boundaries. They are unconstitutional militias. The Constitution stipulates, “Congress shall have the power…To provide for calling forth the militia…To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the militia…reserving to the states respectively, the appointment of officers, and the authority of training the militia.91

Alarmed by the World Trade Center bombing of 1993, the Clinton administration tried to pass the Omnibus Counter-Terrorism Act of 1995. It intended this legislation to allow the FBI more leeway to collect information and to conduct surveillance without prior court authorization. The act did not pass. Appearing before the Senate, Morris Dees advised lawmakers simply to enforce existing laws; the FBI did not need such sweeping powers. Most important, Dees reminded his audience, although they should never accept misconduct by federal law enforcement agencies, they should never take effective law enforcement for granted. It forgets that even before Ruby Ridge the government had peacefully resolved dozens of standoffs. Since then, it acknowledged its mistakes and has taken steps to insure that they will not happen again.

Tea Party protest at the National Mall on September 12, 2009. Photo: Wikimedia Commons/CC BY-SA 3.0

Afterword

The Clinton Administration’s decision to limit deadly force significantly helped defuse the militia movement in the short term. The long-range impetus behind the militias waned for other reasons as well. The first, and most obvious, is that overturning the Federal government was never an achievable goal from the outset. However much ideological heat can be produced by stoking such fantasies could never drive a full-blown, right-wing revolution. Second, the logic of globalization, once so tempting for extremists to condemn as a conspiracy, has inexorably come to be accepted as part of twenty-first century social reality. Nonetheless, the extremist right continues to exert a disproportionately large ideological influence both domestically and internationally, though no longer in the form of an underground movement. The Tea Party represents the most recent expression of its disaffection, the roots of which can be traced back to the ongoing decimation of the middle class and the economic and social dislocation wrought be global capitalism. The progressive left has responded to these conditions as well, most notably through the Occupy Movement, which re-asserts the principle of communal public space and property against the logic of ongoing privatization. It is notable that how wealth is allocated is what fundamentally moves the populist right and left. Domestically, an ever-smaller elite lays claim to ever-more profits. Internationally, the distribution capital is beginning to include Third World economies rising out of the conditions of neo-colonialism. These are the underlying conditions of the Great Recession of the 2000s, which has so dramatically reduced the size and political clout of the middle class. The mandate, then, for the Tea Party has become to transform government, not overthrow it. It casts the proposed transformation as returning to the values of the founding fathers, even when such proposals blatantly contradict fundamental Constitutional principles. Embedded in the idea of such a return is the assumption that this will lead to a restoration of a once vibrant middle class. For example, Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum’s recent assessment of John F. Kennedy’s 1960 speech to Baptist ministers in Houston, a speech that reaffirmed Constitutional separation of church and state is one such “return.” Santorum said the Kennedy’s speech made him want to “throw up.” What is perhaps most alarming in this is, apart from its vehemence, that it signals a perceived feasibility of merging church and state. For the immediate future it seems that the battle over such issues will be waged by debate within the ranks of the Republican Party – and not with weapons from remote and isolated survivalist compounds.

John Miller is an artist and writer based in New York and Berlin. He received the Wolfgang Hahn Prize in 2011 and teaches in Barnard College's Art History Department as a Professor of Professional Practice. JRP/Ringier will publish a new selection of his writing, titled The Ruin of Exchange, in March.

1. “Too Young to be a Hippy, Too Old to be a Punk (Discussion with Mike Kelley),” Be Magazin, Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin, vol. 1, no. 1, 1994, 119–123.

2. James Wickstrom, The American Farmer: 20th Century Slave (1978) quoted in Richard Abanes, “Oh, What a Tangled Web,” America’s Militias: Rebellion, Racism, Religion (Downers Grove: Illinois: Intervarsity Press, 1996), 171. (Hereafter abbreviated AM.)

3. Carol Moore, “The BATF’s Ruthless Raid Plan,” The Davidian Massacre: Disturbing Questions About Waco Which Must Be Answered(Franklin, Tennessee and Springfield, Virginia: Legacy Communications and the Gun Owners Foundation, 1995), 99. (Hereafter abbreviated DM.) Moore further points out that the Posse Comitatus Act has been recently amended to sanction non-reimbursable US. military and National Guard support of civilian police in counter-drug operations.

4. James Coates, “Posse Comitatus,” Armed and Dangerous: The Rise of the Survivalist Right (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1988),105. (Hereafter abbreviated AD.)

5. Lyman Tower Sargent, “Posse Comitatus,” Extremism in America: A Reader (New York: New York University Press, 1995), 343-44.

6. Ibid, 343.

7. Morris Dees with James Corcoran, Gathering Storm” American’s Militia Threat (New York: Harper Collins, 1996), 10. (Hereafter abbreviated GS)

8. Catherine McNicol Stock, “The Politics of Producerism,” Rural Radicals: righteous rage in the American grain (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1996), 18.

9. As a southerner, Jefferson naturally opposed the Federalists (Hamilton, Madison et al.) who, playing upon anti-Catholic sentiments, in turn disparaged his close ties with France. Jefferson, however, viewed immigration as a threat to American democracy.

10. Stock, “The Politics of Producerism,” 15-86.

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Dees and Corcoran, GS, 11.

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Coates, “The Politics of Hatred,” AD,197.

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Coates, “Posse Comitatus,” AD, 111.

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Ibid, 118.

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Ibid, 112-13.

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Ibid, 112-15.

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Ibid, 116.

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Abanes, “Misinformation Specialists,” AM, 118.

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James Ridgeway, “Posse Country,” Blood in the Face: The Ku Klux Klan, Aryan Nations, Nazi Skinheads and the Rise of a New White Culture (New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 1995), 138-42. (Hereafter abbreviated BlF)

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Coates, “Posse Comitatus,” AD 104-09.

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Coates, “Posse Comitatus” and “The Compound Dwellers,” AD, 120-6.

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Coates, “The Compound Dwellers,” AD, 121;132.

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William L. Pierce, “The Lesson of Desert Storm,” Extremism in America, 187

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Coates, “The Order,” AD, 48.

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Lyle Stuart, “Introduction by the Publisher,” William Pierce (as Andrew McDonald) The Turner Diaries: A Novel (New York: Barricade Books, 1996) unpaginated.

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Kevin Flynn and Gary Gerhardt, “Establishing the White American Bastion,” The Silent Brotherhood: The Chilling Inside Story of America’s Violent, Anti-Government, Militia Movement (New York: Signet, 1990), 105-06. (Subsequent chapter references are followed by the abbreviation SB. )

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David Bennett, “Reshaping of the New Right, Rise of the Militia Movement,” The Party of Fear: The American Far Right from Nativism to the MilitiaMovement, (New York: Vintage, 1995), 419. (Hereafter abbreviated PF.)

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Pierce (as MacDonald) The Turner Diaries, 43.

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Ibid, 45.

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Ibid, 63.

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William L Pierce, “A Program for Survival,” Extremism in America, 176-182.

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Flynn and Gerhardt, “Enter the Zionist Occupation Government,” SB, 174.

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Mormons believe that women’s sacred calling is to provide physical bodies for God’s spiritual children and that the second coming of Christ is near. In preparation for the millennium, like the survivalists, they stockpile food and other provisions.

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Flynn and Gerhardt, “Robbie, the All-American Boy,” SB, 27-57.

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Ibid, “Establishing the White American Bastion,” SB,105-127.

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Ibid, “The Turn to Crime,” SB, 128-167.

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Ibid, “Enter the Zionist Occupation Government,” SB, 203-208.

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Dees had founded the Southern Poverty Center’s Klanwatch Project. Through Klanwatch, he effectively used the criminal justice system to battling racism. In 1981 he obtained a court order to stop Louis Beam’s Texas Emergency Reserve from harassing Vietnamese immigrant fishermen in Galveston Bay. In 1984 he sued Glen Miller’s Carolina Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, which led to the dissolution of that group. Miller, in the end, turned state’s evidence. In 1986 he obtained a $7 million judgment against the United Klans of America for lynching a black college student in Mobile, Alabama. This put the group out of business. In 1987, he bankrupted Georgia’s Invisible Empire with a $12.5 million court judgment. In 1989 he won a class action lawsuit against Tom Metzger’s White Aryan Resistance group for their part in the beating death of an Ethiopian immigrant in Portland, Oregon. This, too, bankrupted the organization. See Dees and Corcoran, “The Seditionist,” GS, 37-41 and “Recipe for Disaster,” GS, 98-103. Celebrity TV producer, Norman Lear, is best known for his character Archie Bunker, who epitomized bigotry as ignorance. Lear also founded a liberal lobby group with a conservative-sounding name: the American Family Foundation.

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Flynn and Gerhardt, “Alan Berg: the Man You Love to Hate,” SB, 233-250.

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Ibid,“Brink’s and the $3,800,000 War Chest,” SB, 255.

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Ibid,” 271-290; “Survivalism: the Man Who Ate the Dog,” SB, 291-6.

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Ibid, 349.

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Ibid,“Judas Arrives on American Airlines,” SB, 379.

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Ibid, “Survivalism: the Man Who Ate the Dog,” SB, 348-9.

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Ibid, 354-55

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Ibid, “Blood, Soil and Honor,” SB, 407-449.

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Ibid, “Blood, Soil and Honor,” SB, 407-449.

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Ibid, “Epilogue: Blood Will Flow,” SB, 450-51.

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Ibid, 469-70

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Former Green Beret Frazier Glenn Miller is the onetime leader of the Confederate Knights and the White Patriot Party. He was present at the Greensboro slayings of communist anti-Klan demonstrators in 1979 and ran for governor of North Carolina in 1984. That same year, attorney Morris Dees succeeded in barring Miller from further paramilitary organizing through a North Carolina civil suit. This effectively brought an end to his Confederate Knights. Miller went underground and declared war on ZOG. After his May 1987 capture, he turned state’s evidence and received a reduced sentence of five years in prison. See Flynn and Gerhardt, “Enter the Zionist Occupation Government, SB, 203-3 and “Epilogue: Blood Will Flow,” SB, 467. The minister James Ellison began the CSA as the Zarephath-Horeb Church near Bull Shoals, Arkansas. During the 1970s, Ellison took on a survivalist orientation and embraced Christian Identity theology. He set up a survivalist training center that included an obstacle course and Silhouette City, an urban mockup for street warfare. Randall Rader, later a key member of the Order, had been Ellison’s “defense minister.” By the early 1980s Ellison grew more extreme and more erratic. He declared himself to be “King James of the Ozarks” (tracing his lineage back to King David) and proclaimed that theft (from non-Identity people) and polygamy were sanctioned by the Lord. This, coupled with extreme poverty within the CSA compound, led to a general exodus by 1983. Order members Richard Scutari, Ardie McBreaty and Andy Barnhill also had CSA connections. See Flynn and Gerhardt, “Survivalism: the Man Who Ate the Dog,” SB, 304-308. The FBI laid siege to the CSA compound in April 1985 and Ellison was convicted of racketeering that same year. See Flynn and Gerhardt, “Epilogue: Blood Will Flow,” SB, 464.

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US federal law prohibits the sale of shotguns with barrels less than eighteen inches long, except where special permits have been granted.

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Alan Bock, “The Weavers’ Road to Ruby Ridge,” Ambush at Ruby Ridge (Irvine: Dickens Press, 1995), 52-3. Subsequent chapter references followed by the abbreviation ARR.

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Ibid, 55.

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Bock, “August 21-22, 1992: The Siege,” ARR, 7-9.

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Ibid, 12-13.

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Ibid, 20-21.

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Ibid, “The Standoff,” ARR, 101-10.

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Ibid,, “The Aftermath,” ARR, 240.

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Larry Pratt is the executive director of both Gun Owners of America and the Committee to Protect the Family Foundation (the anti-abortion group which raised funds to protect Randall Terry). He is also founder of English First, a lobby opposed to bilingual education. Dees and Corcoran, “Rocky Mountain Rendezvous,” GS, 54.

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Ibid, 53.

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Ibid.

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Ibid, 69.

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Bock, “The Lawyers Close, The Jury Decides,” ARR, 227.

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Ibid, “Update and Postscript,” ARR, 308.

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Abanes, “The Saga of Ruby Ridge,” 49.

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Moore, “Why the BATF and the FBI Massacred the Branch Davidians,” DM, 1-4.

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Ibid, 14-15.

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Ibid, 14-21.

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Ibid, 19-21.

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Ibid, 39-40

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Bennett, “Reshaping of the New Right, Rise of the Militia Movement,” PF, 449.

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Dees and Corcoran, “Bonds of Trust,” GS, 197.

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Abanes, “The Saga of Ruby Ridge,” AM, 48.

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Bennett, “Reshaping of the New Right, Rise of the Militia Movement,” PF, 457-59.

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Ridgeway, “Introduction to the 1995 Edition,” BlF, 20.

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Bennett, “Reshaping of the New Right, Rise of the Militia Movement,” PF, 440.

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Ridgeway, “Introduction to the 1995 Edition,” BlF, 9-10.

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Dees and Corcoran, “Winds of Rage,” GS, 135.

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Ibid, “The Almost Perfect Soldier,” GS, 165.

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Dees and Corcoran, “Bonds of Trust,” GS, 197.

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Abanes, “Introduction,” AM, 2.

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Bennett, “Reshaping of the New Right, Rise of the Militia Movement,” PF, 446.

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Ibid, 440-41

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Bock, “The Aftermath,” ARR, 240-241.

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Bennett, “Reshaping of the New Right, Rise of the Militia Movement,” PF, 450-451,

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Daniel Junas, “The Rise of the Militias,” Covert Action Quarterly, April 24, 1995 See →.

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Bennett, “Reshaping of the New Right, Rise of the Militia Movement,” PF, 468-469.

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Junas, “The Rise of the Militias.”

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Dees and Corcoran, “Bonds of Trust,” GS, 188.

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Ibid, “The Last Best Hope,” GS, 224-225.

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Abanes, “Guns, Government and Glory,” AM, 68.

Source: https://www.e-flux.com/journal/35/68410/politics-of-hate-in-the-usa-part-iii-posse-comitatus-grassroots-rebellion-and-secret-societies/

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