Word: patrioteers
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Some recent journalism has suggested that many members of the much broader Patriot movement trace their involvement to a key negative experience with the Federal Government. A close look at Koernke's background, however, suggests not a sharp turn but a straight line. From his teens, Koernke (who declined to be interviewed for this story) has exhibited a fascination with guns and guerrilla warfare, an intense dislike of authority, a grandiose vision of himself with an attraction to the idea of martyrdom, and, as one ally puts it, the ability to "talk until most people have turned to sand...
Days after the birth, Koernke joined the 70th Division (training), U.S. Army Reserve based in Livonia, Michigan. Later, as he climbed the ladder of the Patriot right, he traded heavily on his purported military-intelligence experience, calling himself an "intelligence analyst and counterintelligence coordinator" with a top-secret clearance, and afterward the commander of two "special-warfare" brigades used to "train U.S. military in foreign warfare and tactics." However, judging from a summary of his service record provided by the Army and anecdotes from soldiers familiar with him, his claims seem inflated. He did attend the Army's intelligence school...
...people listened. Joyce Moore, an enthusiastic Michigan Patriot, was impressed by his encyclopaedic knowledge of obscure, but troubling legislation. "People asked me where I got my information from, and I told them I got it from Mark and checked it out myself, and they should do the same," she says...
James ("Bo") Gritz, ex-Special Forces commander and Vietnam War hero, is well known in the Patriot movement. But its extremist credo leaves him cold. Though mad at Washington, he helped win the 1992 surrender of separatist Randy Weaver. TIME San Francisco bureau chief David S. Jackson talked to Gritz in Bakersfield, California. Excerpts...
Armed militias are the mirror reflection of the paramilitarization of federal law enforcement. The frightening images of tanks, helicopters and armored carriers assaulting the compound in Waco, Texas, encouraged many fearful, disturbed people to stockpile arms, play guerrilla-patriot and wait for the Apocalypse. The Oklahoma City bombing is Act II of the Waco tragedy. Act III will follow the "politics of escalation" because militias are the new Viet Cong to be rooted out of their enclaves. The government has not yet admitted to itself that it is already infected with a militaristic virus that has spread to many...