Fighting “The System”: The Turner Diaries
Carmen Celestini
The Turner Diaries has become the “Bible” of right-wing White supremacists and a symbol of violence and home-grown terrorism to mainstream media and their audiences. The book, an underground hit since the 1970s, became an overnight symbol of terrorism, homegrown fear, and racist violence when media reports linked the bombing of a federal building in Oklahoma to U.S. White supremacist who was obsessed with the book. Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma Bomber, and his accomplice Terry Nichols, brought The Turner Diaries into the spotlight. In fact, the book has not only had an impact on White supremacist groups in the United States, but it has also become an aspect of their religious mythology, created martyrs, and helped to mobilize and inspire self-envisioned heroes of the right to start what they hope will be their end time, apocalyptic revolution. Crimes have been re-enacted from the novel, groups have adopted names and step-by-step plans from the book, but McVeigh’s bombing of the government building was the most easily recognizable enactment from the book, and was also the most deadly/violent act instigated by William Pierce’s most famed fictional novel.
The Turner Diaries creates a narrative of a persecuted and marginalized people rising against other races to save the United States, and to save the White race. It has the hallmarks of conspiracy theories, redemption, and revelation. It supports a sense of continuous disaster and a pathway to hope for those currently mired in conspiracy and fear. Why has William Pierce’s fictional novel of race wars, revolution, and hatred become the “Bible” of these homegrown U.S. hate groups? More importantly, what has motivated the individuals described within this chapter to become violent murderers, robbers, counterfeiters, and conspiracists to overthrow the U.S. government? In their demise, the heroes to White supremacists call to their fellow racists to never forget and to be the catalyst to the revolution as described in The Turner Diaries. What is the impetus to this behavior? One possible answer to this question is fear and an impending sense of disaster. This fear and sense of impending doom crosses the line between secular and religious as conspiracy theories, eschatological myths, and economic downturns. Government laws and programs of equality create an atmosphere where instability in societal institutions, fears, marginalization, and religion allow individuals to easily accept ideas previously held unacceptable, to embrace theories of conspiracy that govern the world and, in their view, ultimately lead to the greatest battle between good and evil. This battle, this need to be an active participant in bringing forth this final holy revolution, is the rationale for this angry mob to mobilize.
The unlikely creator of the ultimate tale of The Turner Diaries is Dr. William Pierce, a physicist, a former professor, and, in the end, the leader and spokesperson of the neo-Nazi organization the National Alliance. Pierce graduated from the University of Colorado at Boulder with a PhD in physics in 1962 and from 1962 to 1965 he taught at the University of Oregon (McAlear, 2009). Pierce began moving within the realms of “mainstream” right-wing organizations, and soon became swept up in the extreme right of White supremacists.
Pierce, searching for answers in the late 1950s and early 1960s, wanted to stop the infiltration of Communists in the government. He wanted to stop the growth of both the size of the U.S. government and their power/infringement on the U.S. people. In response to these desires, he joined the John Birch Society (JBS), but soon became disillusioned with the anti-Communism group who did not see Communists as the same enemy as Pierce did. Pierce perceived Jews as the enemy. Both the JBS and Pierce shared in their belief that the Civil Rights Movement was being controlled and instigated by the Communists to cause civil turmoil and allow for martial law in the United States. Yet, Pierce believed that the JBS members’ letter writing campaigns, meetings, and quiet rebelling would not stop the Jewish conspiracy (Griffin, 2001). Pierce expanded his search for those who felt as he did about the ills of society and soon ended up among the neo-Nazis of the National Youth Alliance.
Becoming more involved in the White supremacist world, in 1968, Pierce began publishing Attack! to build the membership numbers for the National Youth Alliance (Griffin, 2001). The publication contained anti-Semitic and racist cartoons, “journalistic” articles, and bomb-making instructions. These anti-Semitic views gained public notoriety in 1973 when leaders and members of the National Youth Alliance testified before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, that Henry Kissinger should not be confirmed as secretary of state, because of concerns that he would put Israel before the United States (Durham, 2007). In 1974, it became the National Alliance (Durham, 2007) and Pierce took over the helm.
One of the inspirations for the book was the John Birch Society’s The John Franklin Letters, which was given to Pierce by Revilo Oliver, then one of the council members of the Birch Society. The John Franklin Letters is a collection of letters from the future from John Franklin to his uncle, about the rebellion/revolution being waged against the Communist government who had taken over the United States. Similar to the The Turner Diaries, The John Franklin Letters is written by the single hero who leaps into the fray to save his country, a patriot to the end (Anonymous, 1959). Pierce wrote the book under the alias Andrew Macdonald and published it in his periodical Attack! in 1975 (Durham, 2007). In 1978, Pierce self-published it as a novel (McAlear, 2009). Sales figures for the book are not readily available, but it is estimated that as of 2001 at least 300,000 copies had been sold (Griffin, 2001).
Similar to The John Franklin Letters, Pierce’s novel is portrayed as a manuscript found in the future, the year 2100, after an Aryan revolution had changed the world. It is the diary of a revolutionary hero named Earl Turner, a member of an elite cadre of a group of revolutionaries called The Organization, whose small, violent acts of rebellion were the beginning of this worldwide revolution. As their acts of violence grow, so does the movement itself. The book is a horrific retelling of a revolution that results in a worldwide massacre of all non-Aryans. Focusing on the beginning stages of the revolution, the diary follows Turner and his fellow “Organization” members as they conduct a guerrilla war against “The System” (the ruling government). Within the larger group, there is an elite inner structure known as “The Order,” which Earl Turner eventually joins. In the novel, The Organization damages the FBI building in Washington with a truckload of explosives. In The Turner Diaries, the explosives in the vehicle were a mixture of heating oil and ammonium nitrate fertilizer—the same mixture used by McVeigh in his attack on the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma. The two pages describing the bombing from The Turner Diaries were found in McVeigh’s vehicle after the bombing (Griffin, 2001). The members of The Organization fund their revolution through robberies of stores, banks, and armored vehicles, as well as using hidden printing presses to counterfeit money to pay for their violent revolution. The world that Pierce, under the alias of Macdonald, creates is one in which the Second Amendment has been erased, where African Americans and Jews were in control, as White people happily gave up their freedoms and “heritage” in exchange for security and a regular paycheck. It was a world where the Jewish-controlled media had fed the White populace strong liberal ideas to the point where their freedoms were gone, their hegemonic position was a thing of the past, and they were now under the control of Blacks, Latinos, and Jews.
The Turner Diaries was the first piece of evidence introduced by the prosecution at McVeigh’s trial and witnesses were brought forward to attest to McVeigh’s obsession with the book (McAlear, 2009). These witnesses revealed to the court that while McVeigh was in the military, he read the novel repeatedly, and then once out of the military, he began to sell the book at gun shows where he found his clientele (Griffin, 2001). The idea of government control, Second Amendment attacks, and revolution were the basis of McVeigh’s terrorism. The date of the Oklahoma bombing supports this because April 19, 1995, was the second anniversary of the 1993 massacre of the Branch Davidians at the hands of the U.S. government in Waco, Texas. Waco and the earlier 1992 attack at Ruby Ridge are considered the ultimate examples of the government infringing on gun laws, the Second Amendment, and the over-involvement of the government in people’s lives.
McVeigh is not the only would-be leader of the revolution to be inspired by The Turner Diaries. Two past violent groups, as cited by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), had taken their names from The Turner Diaries. Dennis McGriffin and two other individuals were charged with conspiracy to possess and produce machine guns in 1998. FBI agents testified at the three individuals’ trials that they were influenced by Pierce’s novel. The three had planned to create a “New Order” and had conversations about bombing state capitals and post offices, and poisoning the public water systems with cyanide (Griffin, 2001). In 1996, in Jackson, Mississippi, Larry Wayne Shoemaker killed an African American and wounded several others. Shoemaker’s wife said that he had read The Turner Diaries in the mid-1980s and that from that point on he had not been the same (Griffin, 2001).
The most well known of the violent groups inspired by The Turner Diaries is The Order, also known as Brüder Schweigen or Silent Brotherhood, which was formed in 1983 by National Alliance activist Robert Mathews. The small group took its name from the group of elite leaders of the revolutionary group The Organization in The Turner Diaries. What Mathews wanted to create was a group with both the will and the resources to overthrow the government that he believed to be controlled by the Jewish conspiracy, ZOG, the Zionist Occupation Government (Barkun, 1996). Members of The Order had to pledge as Aryan warriors. They engaged in counterfeiting, robbery of three armored cars, a synagogue bombing, and two murders. Alan Berg was one of those murdered, a Jewish radio talk show host who The Order believed had insulted two Christian Identity preachers, Pete Peters and Jack Mohr, on his show (Durham, 2007). Alan Berg was not the original target of The Order; he was a substitute for Morris Dees, the founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center (Durham, 2007).
Prior to this activity, Mathews had a long history with right-wing groups, and had been a member of the John Birch Society since his youth (Durham, 2007). He joined Pierce’s National Alliance in 1980. He is also known to have spoken about The Turner Diaries long before creating The Order (Barkun, 1996). In fact, on the fateful night The Order was created, he handed out copies of the book to the original nine members (Barkun, 1996). The Order was originally composed of Bob Mathews, Richie Kemp, Bill Soderquist, Ken Loff, David Lane, Dan Bauer, Denver Parmenter, Randy Duey, and Bruce Pierce (no relation to William Pierce) (Flynn & Gerhardt, 1990). Mathews had developed a six-step plan: (1) form a group, (2) set goals (what exactly they wanted and how far they were willing to go for those goals), (3) procure funds, (4) recruit, (5) use these funds for right-wing causes, and (6) form a guerrilla army, “a strike force with the ability to carry out sabotage in urban areas” (Flynn & Gerhardt, 1990, p. 126). Mathews had written an oath for each of the Aryan warriors to take as members of The Order. The oath the nine men took included a promise: “My brothers, let us be His battle axe and weapons of war. Let us go forth by ones and by twos, by scores and by legions, and as true Aryan men with pure hearts and strong minds face the enemies of our faith and our race with courage and determination” (Flynn & Gerhardt, 1990, p. 126). The men decided at first to take a “Robin Hood” approach to step 3 of the plan, procuring funds. They planned to steal the money from pimps and drug dealers. This plan did not gain the funds they required and they soon turned to more lucrative criminal activities. There was one holdout among the group; although committed to the cause and to his brothers in The Order, Loff refused to be involved in anything illegal.
The Order soon started counterfeiting money, much like The Organization in The Turner Diaries. Their revolution officially began on December 3, 1983, with the first robbery of an adult sex shop. In the end it was Mathews, Kemp, and Loff who committed the robbery; the rest dropped out and Pierce was jailed for being caught using the counterfeit money. The group soon evolved to committing bank robberies, and graduated to armored trucks. They also had planned on bombing the Olympic Four Seasons Hotel in Seattle because the Baron Elie de Rothschild was going to speak at a Jewish fundraising group (Flynn & Gerhardt, 1990, p. 134), but the group split on turning to assassinations, and focused on armored vehicles. In July 1984 they stole $3.8 million from a Brinks armored car in California. Significant portions of this money were given to right-wing organizations, many of which were Christian Identity organizations. The largest portion of this money has yet to be found (Barkun, 1996, p. 228). This returning of the money to the cause matched The Order oath: “… from this moment on, I have no fear of death, no fear of foe, that I have a sacred duty to do whatever is necessary to deliver our people from the Jew and bring total victory to the Aryan race” (Barkun, 1996, p. 229).
“We hereby invoke the blood covenant and declare that we are in a full state of war and will not lay down our weapons until we have driven the enemy into the sea and reclaimed the land which was promised to our fathers of old, and through our blood, becomes the land of our children to be” (Flynn & Gerhardt, 1990, p. 126). Members of The Order soon were laying down their weapons and some were laying down their lives for the war they had vowed to fight. Gary Lee Yarbrough was arrested on November 24, 1984, after a shootout with FBI agents at a Portland, Oregon, motel. The gun that was used in the murder of Alan Berg had been found after a raid of Yarbrough’s home on October 16th. Yarbrough was in the hotel room with Robert Mathews, who escaped (“Idaho man held,” 1984), only to die later, after a 36-hour siege, on December 8, 1984. More than 60 FBI agents were in the woods of Whidbey Island, north of Seattle, where a heavily armed Mathews hid in one of the cabins on the island and refused to leave. At the start of the second day of Mathews hiding in the cabin, the FBI surrounded the house and fired tear gas into it, attempting entry. They were met by heavy gunfire from Mathews. That night the FBI fired flares into the house to illuminate it and the house caught on fire. Mathews’s ammunition exploded as the house burned to the ground, keeping the FBI agents at bay, and his charred remains were found later in the home (Parker, 1984). A tribute to Mathews was published by William Pierce’s National Alliance via an audio recording of one of his speeches under the title of “A Call to Arms” (Durham, 2007, p. 102). Other members of The Order were apprehended throughout 1985 and 1986. Some reached plea agreements with the government; others were tried and convicted for their criminal activities as Aryan warriors in Mathews’s The Order (Barkun, 1996, p. 228). Members of The Order were put on trial in Fort Smith, Arkansas; the indictment stated that the accused had tried to overthrow the government and form a new Aryan Nation (Durham, 2007, p. 69). David Lane, who was the driver of the car in the murder of radio talk show host Alan Berg, is currently serving a 150-year sentence for racketeering, conspiracy, and violating Berg’s civil rights. Lane is famous among the extreme right for his “14 Words”: “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for White children” (Durham, 2007, p. 73).
For The Order, there was a crossing over of religion and politics. Their oath was similar to that of Earl Turner in The Turner Diaries. The men wanted to be “His battle axe and weapons of war.” That war was to return their country to how they racially envisioned it, overthrowing the government in the process. There were two religions within The Order, which eventually split the group. The Order was composed of both Christian Identity and Odinism believers (Durham, 2007, p. 73). Odinism spread among the Aryan extreme-right groups with the support of the Wotansvolk group run by Katja Lane, the wife of David Lane (Durham, 2007, p. 73). David Lane and Robert Merki attended Pete Peters’s Christian Identity church, Church of LaPorte. Lane was a prolific writer of Identity works prior to and after his incarceration (Barkun, 1996, p. 231). Mathews’s religion seems to have been a mix of Odinism and Identity, but a large portion of the eventual 30 members of The Order had direct links with Aryan Nations or the Christian Identity Church of Jesus Christ Christian associations (Barkun, 1996, p. 231). Eventually there was a split in The Order based on religion; the Identity branch (consisting of 16 men, women, and children) was led by Bruce Carroll Pierce, who was an Aryan Nations member (Barkun, 1996, p. 231). These religious aspects and their complementary viewpoints will be explained next.
It is not precisely clear where Odinism originated, but it seems to have risen in popularity in the Weimer Republic. The German Youth Movement, which was composed of displaced or disillusioned German youth who developed into wandering groups, began to make sacrifices to Wotan. These wandering groups and their sacrifices were soon given up as the Third Reich started to develop. As National Socialism was rising, the occult implications of the Nazis were gaining the attention of those outside of Germany. One such person was an Australian named Alexander Mills, a Nazi sympathizer. Mills penned the book The Odinist Religion: Overcoming Jewish Christianity, in the 1930s. He believed that the ills of contemporary society were due to Jewish influence (Kaplan, 1997, p. 15). In his view, the rise of Christianity was a victory for the Jews over the Nordic religion. The Jews had created a sinister plot to convince Aryans to worship the Jews as the chosen people. The Aryans became weakened because of immigration and miscegenation, and succumbed to the Jewish plot. This paved the way for an effeminate Christianity and claims of the equality of all (Gardell, 2003, p. 167). In the 1920s and 1930s, Mills helped establish polygamist Odinist groups in Australia, the United Kingdom, South Africa, and North America. The Church of Odin did not survive, but his tracts did. Odinism believes that Europe is the true birthplace of modern civilization, not the Middle East, and that Whites descended from a common ancestor. These descendants were responsible for the building of the pyramids and founded empires. From this imagined history, Mills added conspiracy theories, warning against usury and miscegenation, and most radical of all, that Christ did not die on the cross (Kaplan, 1997, p. 16). In the 1960s, Else and Alex Christensen rediscovered Mills’s book and Odinism. In 1970 Else, now a widow, formed the Odinist Fellowship and her group began publishing a journal in 1971 called The Odinist. Odinists hold a conspiratorial view of history, a warrior ethic that is pronounced in a hope to strike back at the dominant culture for the injustices they perceive to exist, and racial mysticism (Kaplan, 1997, p. 16). Wyatt Kaldenberg has cultivated a more political Odinism characterized by lone-wolfism and calls for violence (Gardell, 2003, p. 177). Kaldenberg wanted to establish Odinism as the White Nation of Islam (Gardell, 2003, p. 178). Kaldenberg started publishing Pagan Revival, where he openly dehumanized his racial enemies, referred the White masses as sheep, and called for war and stealing from the rich, White upper- and middle-classes to pay for this war. He argued that the only hope for survival of the White race is through violence and terrorism (Gardell, 2003, p. 181). From Odinism, Wotansvolk was developed, which has become the most influential in racial Odinism (Gardell, 2003, p. 177). Established in early 1995 by David and Katja Lane (David Lane of The Order), and Ron McVan, it has been influential with Aryan groups and has spread throughout the United States, being very successful in outreach programs to U.S. penitentiaries. Lane claimed that the U.S. government had come under ZOG control; his religion calls for a White revolution and a leaderless resistance, similar to The Organization in The Turner Diaries (Lewis & Petersen, 2005, p. 389).
Where Odinism holds that Christianity is the conspiratorial plan of the Jews to have Whites worship them as the chosen people, Christian Identity believes that the Bible narrative actually made the Whites the chosen people. In the 1870s, a movement in Britain known as British Israelism was founded by Edward Hine, who wrote of his theory in a book Identification of the British Nation with Lost Israel (1871). The doctrine states that European Jews are not descendants of ancient Hebrews but are descendants of Khazars, a warlike nation of southern Russia who converted to Judaism in the 8th or 9th century. As a result, they are not from the lineage of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and are not the people of the covenant (Flynn & Gerhardt, 1990, p. 71). Hine’s book developed the “two seed theory,” which states that Eve was seduced by the serpent and bore him a son, Cain. Adam, the first White man, passed his seed to another son, Seth, who became the father of the White race, God’s chosen people. Cain’s descendants were the Jews according to Hine, and in this book they are literally the seed of Satan (Hine, 1878). This movement claimed that Jews were only part of the people once inhabiting Israel, and that many Israelites had been taken captive by the Assyrians, 700 years before the birth of Christ, and did not return to their homeland but rather disappeared from history. Yet, they note, at the same time these individuals seemed to disappear, another new group of people suddenly appeared, namely the British. This group seemingly did not know their true identity, but now it was known that the British were the missing sons of Isaac (Durham, 2007, pp. 66–67). The United States was seen as the child that had broken away from Israel as representative of the United States breaking away from Britain, but that it would be reunited in pursuit of their rightful dominion (Durham, 2007, p. 67). British Israelism privileged the British, strongly believed that the United States had an important and crucial role in God’s plan, and advocated that the Jews should be returned to Palestine. This belief persisted until the 1930s when Christian Identity appeared as an offshoot of British Israelism. Mainstream British Israelism was not anti-Semitic. Jews were understood to have been cursed by God for rejecting Jesus, but salvation was still available for them if they converted (Barkun, 1990, p. 123). In contrast, under Christian Identity, Britain’s role diminished in theological significance; the Jews were now understood as the enemy and the United States became the Promised Land, the New Jerusalem (Durham, 2007, p. 67). Leaders such as Wesley Swift, William Potter Gale, and Bertrand Comparet fostered a belief in the hatred of Jews who were conspiring through desegregation to destroy the United States. In time, National Identity impacted Rightist groups such as the KKK (Durham, 2007, p. 67). Christian Identity claims that the lost tribes crossed the Caucasus Mountains and settled in the Western European countries. Their descendants eventually sailed to America on the Mayflower and after settling in this new Promised Land, God inspired the founding fathers to write the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. According to the Christian Identity beliefs, any changes and amendments to these documents are Satanic additions dictated through contemporary Jews to undermine the White race (Flynn & Gerhardt, 1990, pp. 71–72). Christian Identity is a purely U.S. movement, appealing to the religious identity of the rightists as well as emphasizing the importance and destiny of the United States. It tries to remove Judaism and the Jews from Christianity while substantiating the specialness of their White race (Durham, 2007, p. 82). Christian Identity followers believe that the apocalypse is nigh, seeing signs in contemporary news as direct confirmations of the Book of Revelation (Flynn & Gerhardt, 1990, p. 72). In contrast to other groups, Identity believers are not preoccupied with dates of the return of Jesus, nor are they preoccupied with interpreting signs in the news. Instead, they focus on racial struggle and conflict. They see their role in the return of Jesus as the victors of an earthly battle against the Jewish conspiracy that they believe dominates the United States, the media, and the government (Barkun, 1990, pp. 126–127).
Christian Identity is a millennial movement but is very different from the millennialism espoused by Fundamentalist Christians. Theirs does not accept the belief that Jews must return from diaspora to Israel. An anti-Semitic group would not hinge their millennial beliefs on a group whom they believe to be the spawns of the seed of Satan. Theirs is a racial apocalypse that reads both secular and sacred history from the perspective of racial reason and a promise of racial redemption (Barkun, 1990, p. 126). The Christian Fundamentalist view of the end times sees the coming of God’s Kingdom as a time of peace where believers will be awash in heavenly bliss. The Christian Identity believers see a world of racial redemption where the Whites, as God’s chosen people, are the majority in power. Christian Identity links politics with religion, linking the political enemy with Satan, the rise of the Anti-Christ, and the imminence of the end times (Barkun, 1996, p. 50). We can understand this crossover between religion and politics here, where we see the movement’s anger and resentment toward the Civil Rights Movement and affirmative action programs (blamed for taking their jobs, ensuring their poverty and loss) being understood in religious end times stories (Barkun, 1990, p. 126). They are infused with the idea of a Jewish conspiracy controlling the world—what some Aryan churches refer to as ZOG, or “Zionist Occupation Government.” This is the powerful Jewish group who securely controls the United States, including media, banks, and the government. Christian Identity is built on the idea of loss. There is less emphasis on the visions of natural disaster in the end times, so less fear of earthquakes, floods, and so on. Their idea of disaster resembles ideas of revenge. Their vision of the end times reflects retribution for the Aryan loss of inheritance through the theft of their “chosenness” by the Jews, and God’s punishments for sins of their fathers (Barkun, 1990, p. 128).
Both of these faiths, which were a part of The Order, play an important role in explaining the movement, in particular, why they are angry and why they are violent. The religions both link a mythology of race with politics, violence, and overthrowing the government. Religion and politics become one. For the Christian Identity movement and the Odinist, “the Jew as absolute evil confronts the absolute good of the “Aryan” racial adversary, which must inevitably lead to a final conflict in which the issue of racial dominance is settled once and for all” (Barkun, 1990, p. 128). This is the plot of The Turner Diaries. The main character of Pierce’s novel, Earl Turner, writes about the current state of the United States as, “We have allowed a diabolically clever alien minority to put chains on our souls and our minds” (Pierce, 1978, p. 33). Although the novel itself makes only passing reference to religion, it fulfills many of the pillars of these two faiths: the ultimate battle of good versus evil, the lone wolf among a small, leaderless group that rises up and through violence destroys “the system” and creates a new Aryan world. Much like Earl Turner, Robert Mathews became a martyr to the cause, a lone-wolf hero who led his people. As Mathews emulated the group in The Turner Diaries, soon other people and groups began to follow in his footsteps, and the power of Pierce’s novel continues to inspire violent acts.
The Aryan Republican Army (ARA) was a group of six men who robbed a series of banks in the Midwest. The ARA was composed of Peter Langan, Richard Lee Guthrie Jr., Scott Anthony Stedeford, Kevin William McCarthy, Michael William Bresica, and Mark Thomas. With Langan as its leader, the group netted over $250,000 in its bank-robbing spree (Michael, 2012, p. 41) of approximately 20 bank robberies between 1992 and 1996 (Michael, 2012, p. 182). In one bank, they left behind a lunch box with a pipe bomb and a Hostess Twinkie. In another, they left a bomb in an Easter basket. In yet another, one of the robbers wore a Santa Claus suit and left a bomb behind in a Santa hat. The ARA was dedicated to the violent overthrow of the U.S. government and the death of all Jews, and proceeds from the bank robberies were to be used to fund the revolution. The robbers left a newspaper article about McVeigh on the seat of the getaway car they used in Bridgeton, Missouri. The car had been rented and the name they used for the rental was Wayne Manis, the FBI agent who had led the hunt for Robert Mathews, founder of The Order. When police searched their house they found 13 pipe bombs, seven homemade grenades, a pistol, assault weapons, components for making explosives, and a two-hour video, “The Aryan Republican Army Presents: The Armed Struggle Underground.” In this video, Langan tells his viewers to read right-wing material like The Turner Diaries and he praises Mathews of The Order, saying, “Come on, guys the war’s been going on for 10 years. Learn from Bob. Learn from his methods” (Thomas, 1997, p. A01). Guthrie, who began cooperating with the government after he was apprehended, hung himself in his jail cell in Kentucky.
In June 1998, John William King (also known as “Possum”), Shawn Allen Berry, and Lawrence Russell Brewer chained James Byrd Jr., a disabled African American man, by his ankles to the back of their pickup and dragged him. This act ultimately ripped the man’s head and his right arm from his body. Berry, in a statement to the police, said that King had said the words “We’re starting ‘the Turner Diaries’ early” as Byrd was dragged to his death (Pressley, 1998, p. A01). According to the prosecutors at his trial, King had wanted to create his own chapter of a White supremacist group, and believed he needed a dramatic event to put him into the public eye to get members. Police found in the three men’s apartment an article from Esquire about the 1955 lynching of Emmett Till. They also found a collection of King’s racist writings, including a constitution for his future group called The Texas Rebel Soldiers Division of the Confederate Knights of America, a code of ethics, bylaws, membership applications, and a letter for new members of the group (Lyman, 1999, p. A01).
William Pierce, in his National Alliance magazine Vanguard, wrote, “No purely political program can have any real value for us in the long run unless we get our souls back, unless we learn once again how to be true to our inner nature, unless we learn to heed the divine spark inside us and base all our decisions on a clear and comprehensive philosophy illuminated by that spark” (Pierce, 1976). With this statement, he is separating the Whites from the government of the United States, stating that no political program can truly represent a lost people. Yet, the call to overthrow the U.S. government is symbolized in the acts of the government. These acts are interpreted by some as a sign, or another symbol of the persecution of the White race, and it draws people into groups like the National Alliance. In The Turner Diaries, the U.S. government bans the private ownership of guns and staged raids to arrest gun owners. These gun raids were assigned to “special deputies” who were Black men. Many see this as prophetic and see the new laws restricting gun ownership or Second Amendment changes as the beginning steps of what is depicted in Pierce’s book. The Supreme Court’s decision in Brown vs. Board of Education impacted not only the Civil Rights Movement, but also the backlash from Whites (Durham, 2007, p. 3). Many of those who opposed Brown have been drawn into the world of the extreme right (Durham, 2007, p. 3). These individuals have a sense of powerlessness and disenfranchisement, viewing the lack of jobs, women’s liberation and rights, Black power, LGBTQQIP2SAA rights, a perceived moral decline in society, jobs outsourcing including factory jobs sent to other countries, and affirmative action programs as a death of the American dream. Their culmination creates a sense of disaster, both real and imagined. There is a lack of hope and a lack of understanding as to why there is a continuous loss and as an explanation, an enemy is created to blame for all that is occurring to them. “… everything will be lost—our history, our heritage, all the blood and sacrifices and upward striving of countless thousands of years.” “If we fail, God’s great Experiment will come to an end, and this planet will once again, as it did millions of years ago, move through the other devoid of higher man” (Pierce, 1976, pp. 34–35).
With Christian Identity and Odinism and in the words of The Turner Diaries, we see stigmatized knowledge that binds all these subjects together. There is a commonality of conspiracism that something or someone, an evil power, is controlling human destinies (Barkun, 2013). Most importantly, once this common conspiracy and enemy are exposed to those who know the truth, then a plan can develop, a plan to destroy the enemy and set the world straight. Conspiracists believe that the universe is governed by design and that nothing is random. The conspiracists’ view magnifies the power held by the evil ones (Barkun, 2013). What we see is that this evil is most powerful, not simply because of their master plan or their control, but because of the inactivity and lack of response by the masses. The masses have been controlled or bribed into submission, yet this gives the impression that evil is in the supreme position. There is hope that good will rise up and will eventually win the ultimate battle, but at this moment it appears as though evil is winning and is the more powerful. This battle and this enemy give the believer a life with purpose (Barkun, 2013). This purpose can be seen in the words of Pierce, “The acceptance of our truth not only burdens us with the responsibility that other men have shunned throughout history, it bestows on us a mantle of moral authority that goes along with the responsibility, the moral authority to do whatever is necessary in carrying out our responsibility” (Pierce, 1976).
Although much of the violence described above is quite terrifying, we must remember that these groups are fragmented and there is no central organization. They are suspicious of government and of the involvement of others, and experience the continual breaking and reestablishing of internal alliances within their structure. Despite this, the core ideas among these groups seems to be uniform (Barkun, 1996, p. 60). It is reassuring that these small groups of people remain disconnected as a whole from similar groups. They are outsiders, the marginalized, who find each other, who share ideas and beliefs, build upon each other’s ideas, and introduce and accept new ones. The media is the enemy, controlled by their enemies (the Jews). The very fact that the mainstream media discounts them and their beliefs provides proof, to their adherents, of their enemies’ control and the legitimacy of their beliefs. Their ideas are shared by mediums such as magazines, ezines, websites, forums, cassettes/DVDs, mail order book services, and gun shows, all of which are interconnected, citing each other (Barkun, 1996, p. 60). These groups are becoming less and less isolated by two bridge phenomena. Michael Barkun, a scholar of religion, conspiracies, and millennialism, argues that the isolation members feel society is reduced by “bridge” phenomena that link mainstream and fringe. The members present themselves as patriots and representatives of constitutional fidelity and link themselves to core U.S. values. This makes them appear attractive to individuals who would otherwise be unlikely to join such organizations. Once they become members, they are made aware and bombarded with right-wing materials and networks … bridging the mainstream (patriotism, U.S. value systems) and then to activities and memberships that were once outside of the norm (Barkun, 1996). The violence of these groups is strategic in that it is targeted at enemy groups, the racial enemy or the government (Blee & Creasap, 2010, p. 276).
The Turner Diaries remains the “Bible” of the right-wing extremists, and even though Pierce died of cancer and kidney failure in July 2002 (Durham, 2007, p. 33), his work continues to influence. The National Alliance still publishes his writings and his speeches on its website. Before his death, Pierce purchased an Aryan Nation record company and this continues to draw in new recruits to the movement. The mobilization of these right-wing movements is increasing through the use of alternative media, such as virtual communities on blogs, websites, forums, and discussion boards. Some argue that these virtual communities are used to recruit new members, but others argue that to bring people into groups that are marginalized in society, there needs to be personal contact (Blee & Creasap, 2010, p. 277). Women are joining right-wing groups in larger numbers, although women are perceived as non-political wives and mothers by these hyper-masculinized groups. Research into why U.S. women are joining these groups seems to show that they are being recruited to work for what appears to be mainstream causes (Blee & Creasap, 2010, p. 278).
To fully understand the issue of right-wing extremism, research needs to focus on the areas of religion, conspiracy theory, and terrorism. These three areas would help us to understand political violence and social movement theory. Such investigations would benefit from the inclusion of those who feel marginalized in the public sphere. For these groups, politics is something that is inaccessible and non-representative. It would also help to overcome the self-imposed exclusion from society that these individuals insist is part of their path, their religion, and their mission.
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