Oath Keepers: When the Teabaggers Just Aren’t Whacked Enough

[Searcher08]

So 'someone' posted joining instructions on a Skinhead board. Does that mean they support them? Who says? I posted on the JREF forum about the LooseChange forum. Does that mean I support JREF? NO!

And using one post on Shitfront as a basis for an argument?
FEEBLE

Maybe the answer will be more obvious to some, if someone posted an invitation to RI on the Shitfront board as well.

Hmm!

That would be proof, PROOF!11!1! that RI was run by NAZIS!!!

[23]

Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. had the right idea, Elias said. He aims to educate people about how to protect the U.S. Constitution and their rights. Racism, violence and demonizing political opponents have no place within Oath Keepers, he said..

Exactamundo, Elias.

Thanks for setting the record straight.

P.S. My beard likes your beard.

[23]

So 'someone' posted joining instructions on a Skinhead board. Does that mean they support them? Who says? I posted on the JREF forum about the LooseChange forum. Does that mean I support JREF? NO!

And using one post on Shitfront as a basis for an argument?
FEEBLE

Maybe the answer will be more obvious to some, if someone posted an invitation to RI on the Shitfront board as well.

Hmm!

That would be proof, PROOF!11!1! that RI was run by NAZIS!!!

Funny, isn't it?

How easy it is to be manipulated... by embracing a willingness to form quick conclusions.

I suspect the converse may be true too.

[Searcher08]

Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. had the right idea, Elias said. He aims to educate people about how to protect the U.S. Constitution and their rights. Racism, violence and demonizing political opponents have no place within Oath Keepers, he said..

Exactamundo, Elias.

Thanks for setting the record straight.

P.S. My beard likes your beard.

and my post likes your post!

[stefano]

Here is a direct link to the article concerned: “Oath Keepers” Are Now Promoting Themselves To White Nationalists

Yeah I read that article before posting the first time, and it really is feeble. It starts "The Oath Keepers are a right wing extremist group", and in the next paragraph claims that their goal is "to unite a martial oriented rightwing movement". There is nothing to support these claims, unless it is the three links to supremacist forums where the Oath Keepers' list of orders to be disobeyed are posted. This shows that members of those forums like the Oath Keepers' ideas, it doesn't say anything about the OK's views on white supremacy or whatever. The author of the post is so clearly set in her tribal allegiance that it didn't even occur to her to do a proper job writing an article, nor would anything have looked funny to most of the readers, who go to sites like that to have their "we're cleverer than those rednecks" convictions stroked. Below that article Elias Alias, who doesn't seem very internet-savvy, quite politely asked for a link to the OK's site, and got this bullshit from Lady Liberty (my bold) "Well, if you idiots actually knew how to click on links, which is the way to source and bib in today’s 21st century articles here on what you people call “the internets tubes” you will not only find the article to your own mentally deranged website, but all the links and proof of your recruitment on “white power hate sites”". Nice. The Mike Flugennock article contains this line: "when US service personnel were refusing to comply with illegal or unconstitutional orders under Bush, you could hear the future Oath Keepers howling for courts martial and trials for treason". No links or whatever, Mike just pulls it out of his bigoted arse, secure in his conviction that "they're all alike, that lot". Again, you'd have noticed if Michelle Malkin lumped all Muslims together in a category, but this kind of thing you paste into a discussion forum without thinking twice.

[23]

Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. had the right idea, Elias said. He aims to educate people about how to protect the U.S. Constitution and their rights. Racism, violence and demonizing political opponents have no place within Oath Keepers, he said..

Exactamundo, Elias.

Thanks for setting the record straight.

P.S. My beard likes your beard.

and my post likes your post!

I'd echo your sentiment (which would be true), but that might give a quick concluder some fodder to infer that we were having a virtual tryst.

Not that I have anything against virtual trysts, mind you.

Quick conclusions, on the other hand, are another story.

[Sounder]

AD wrote...

I've noticed that the people who talk about "divisiveness" and "moving beyond right and left", are usually sympathetic to extreme right wing ideas.

And what ‘extreme right wing ideas’ are you accusing ‘us’ as having AD? That Zionists have undue influence in the running of our government? NEWSFLASH AD, that is not an ‘extreme right wing idea’ and neither is the idea that we ought to show a bit more respect for our founding documents, not to mention the rule of law.

I say we should support real anti-authoritarianism by insisting on freedom in our own lives, but give the boot to all the racism, fascism, immigrant-bashing and all the other crap that plagues the Militia/Constitutionalist/Oath Keeper-type circles.

I support positive things, so guess I cannot speak to that because I am pro-authority. My issue is with false authority, which is not really ‘authority’, is it? False authority manifests and maintains itself by imposing an initial false premise on its surroundings. The boot that ‘some people’ want to put us under is the one where we are expected to ‘pick sides’ and then fight to the death until one side ‘wins’.

As an aside and a tip for other folk. When a person uses a comma, with but being the first word after the comma, it is often a signal that that person does not believe or is lying about the part before the but.
(And now that your are conscious of it AD, could you polish up your act?)

After all, none of us should want to be part of a "controlled opposition"...

Have you ever in your life had an original thought?

[lightningBugout]

How timely to see all the new patriot backwards-speak making it to RI lately.

The notion that the "oath keepers" are true constitutionalists simply because they say so and decorate their promotional materials with revolutionary war iconography is absurd. The moment they take a single action against police brutality and truly defending constitutional rights in latino and African American neighborhoods in Brooklyn, Watts, the South Side, Anacostia, etc. maybe I will reconsider.

Sarah Palin calls herself a constitutionalist too. Are you going to attack the next reporter who calls her an idiot? Because, Stefano, that "we're cleverer than those rednecks" vibe you ascertain and describe sounds 100% exactly like the vibe Palin fans intuit in any and all media that is critical of her.

PS. Being critical of a group of consenting adults joined together based on their political ideology is not analogous to racism or prejudice.

[lightningBugout]

I've noticed that the people who talk about "divisiveness" and "moving beyond right and left", are usually sympathetic to extreme right wing ideas.

Hear hear.

[Searcher08]

I've noticed that the people who talk about "divisiveness" and "moving beyond right and left", are usually sympathetic to extreme right wing ideas.

Hear hear.

Funny that, I've noticed that people who think being "non-partisan" is a threat and are only comfortable with a "clash of opposites" are usually sympathetic to extreme left wing ideas.

[lightningBugout]

I've noticed that the people who talk about "divisiveness" and "moving beyond right and left", are usually sympathetic to extreme right wing ideas.

Hear hear.

Funny that, I've noticed that people who think being "non-partisan" is a threat and are only comfortable with a "clash of opposites" are usually sympathetic to extreme left wing ideas.)

I have yet to be exposed to a politician who doesn't claim to be "non-partisan." Propaganda pure and simple. The bailout was non-partisan. And simply nothing has called more resoundingly for opposing "partisanship" than 9/11. There's quite a pattern there in fact.

By "clash of opposites" do you mean dialectics? If you've found some way to navigate socio-political understanding without any (and that includes implicit) resort to dialetics, please do share.

With all due friendliness, I consider Sounder's notion a proto-fascist one:

I am pro-authority. My issue is with false authority, which is not really ‘authority’, is it? False authority manifests and maintains itself by imposing an initial false premise on its surroundings.

When I was in college I saw a speaker who remarked upon a piece of graffiiti she had seen that made a lasting impression on her. It said "unity is fascism." And, in her recounting, it similarly made a lasting impression on me. Because authority is never and will never be "true." It comes into being via submission and the consolidation of power. It is always manufactured and it always erases difference.

One of the wisest and most enduring pieces of advice I ever received was this (and I've posted it on RI once before): in any situation look at all sides but always look over the shoulder of the most powerless (most vulnerable).

There will always be those who are more vulnerable to authority than others and it will always be more just to look over their shoulders before submitting to authority than to deem any source of authority to be just before looking over the shoulder of those most vulnerable.

Which is not necessarily to be anti-authority so much as to be committed to always remembering the moment before authority. To remember its construction and to never let it appear natural. To always remember that, practical and/or justified, or otherwise, authority is an abstraction of difference and never an adequate representation of anything but power and/or majority opinion, if that.

[stefano]

The notion that the "oath keepers" are true constitutionalists simply because they say so and decorate their promotional materials with revolutionary war iconography is absurd.

Right, so what would you rather base your opinion of them on? Your gut feeling? An amusing cartoon of a pig with a bottle of booze? What about the oath keepers makes you associate them with supremacists? The founder of the movement, for instance, wrote a thesis in 2004 calling for 'Enemy Combatants' to be handed to civilian courts for trial, not a likely position for a violent racist. One of the directors is a Robert Gomez, presumably not white.

The moment they take a single action against police brutality and truly defending constitutional rights in latino and African American neighborhoods in Brooklyn, Watts, the South Side, Anacostia, etc. maybe I will reconsider.

I actually don't expect them to ever do anything, but maybe they will.

Sarah Palin calls herself a constitutionalist too. Are you going to attack the next reporter who calls her an idiot?

Erm, no, because she obviously isn't one (cf. illegal attempts to get that trooper guy fired, blatant misuse of her office etc). As for people who claim to be constitutionalists and have never done anything contrary to that claim, what's your reason for doubting them?

Because, Stefano, that "we're cleverer than those rednecks" vibe you ascertain and describe sounds 100% exactly like the vibe Palin fans intuit in any and all media that is critical of her.

Yes, I know that. And part of the criticism is based on that. Just as part of the criticism of Barack Obama is based on his being black, a vibe that you were 'intuiting' less than two weeks ago on this forum. To you it's obvious that criticism of Sarah Palin has nothing to do with her class, it's all about the issues, etc. Just take a moment to consider the parallels with RW criticism of Obama. In both cases, when there are critics using insulting language and refusing to address the things their opponents actually say and do, it's fair to suspect that this kind of reflexive tribal politics is chiefly if not wholly based on attitudes and self-identification.

It's actually fucking amazing how elegantly this works, like there's a market research firm somewhere picking issues, faces and soundbites to get a 50/50 split in the population, with variance of no more than 1.5% in any given election year. It must be in the tender document.

PS. Being critical of a group of consenting adults joined together based on their political ideology is not analogous to racism or prejudice.

Quite. My problem with the first two articles AD posted is that they blatantly ignored the oath keepers' ideology.

[American Dream]

http://www.philadelphiaweekly.com/news- ... 42777.html

Are the Oath Keepers for The Man? Or for The People?

By Steven WellS


This image is taken from a video posted on the Oath Keepers' web site, in which the speaker exhorts his fellow patriots to resist the growing tyranny of the federal government.


It is a constant source of amusement to people in politically boring countries like Britain and Sweden that the citizens of the United States of America generally consider themselves to be the beneficiaries of the only sane, balanced and rational political system on the planet.

Just yesterday an apparently mentally healthy young American woman said to me (as we were sat in a Center City Starbucks, negotiating the price of a case of pristine, AR-15 assault rifles):

“God we’re so lucky, I’d hate to live anywhere except America. Can you imagine having to deal with the rats? With the sewage running down the middle of the street and shit?”

I asked if she’d ever been to say, France. Perhaps enjoyed a croque messier and a limon presse outside a roadside café in the Dordogne? Maybe while watching a civilized game of boules? Played by folks kept healthy by (oh my God) “socialized” medicine and a mandatory, legislated minimum five weeks (FIVE WEEKS!) annual vacation?

And she sort of shuffled in her seat and waved her hand dismissively and steered the conversation pack to the RPGs she’s heard the Russian mafia are peddling to the anti-Obama militias said to be forming in the Pacific Northwest.

This is the way Americans see the rest of the world: Cold socialist sorta-America up north. Socialist not-really-free sorta-America full of cool old stuff like castles and shit whose asses we saved in not one but two world wars overseas. Crazy Arab bit with the oil. Third World with shit running down the street. Japan.

Most of them, anyway. Most of the time. Because when Americans differ from this cuddly consensus, they squint a little and re-imagine America as some Western outpost of the Soviet gulag archipelago except with neon and cable and strip malls and Monday Night Football and the dollar meal menu back at McDonalds. NIGHTMARE!

I’m talking of course of the teabaggers.

And their new friends, the latest hot phenom on the most exciting (and let’s face it, totally fucking mental) political scene on the the planet—the Oath Keepers.

OATH KEEPER PROMOTIONAL VIDEO

Have you heard about these dudes? Teabaggers with guns, basically. Or maybe that’s a little simplistic. They Oath Keepers describe themselves as a “a non-partisan association of currently serving military, reserves, National Guard, peace officers, and veterans” and their organizing principle appears the be the sacred promise that they won’t let themselves be used as the jackbooted thug Gestapo of some apparently imminent anti-American totalitarian takeover.

Which is all well and good. No. 1 on on the Oath Keeper agenda is the promise that: “We will NOT obey any order to disarm the American people.” By the “American people”, of course, these Oath Keepers—some of whom would appear to be actually serving police officers—might well mean the American people. You. Me. Your mom. And they might well be envisioning a situation where they—as armed representatives of the state—are asked to crush armed workers soviets, formed in the next American revolution as bulwarks of democratic resistance against the capitalist pig oligarchy and its fascist stooges.

In which case one can only say: Welcome to the class struggle, comrade Oath Keepers!

On the other hand the Oath Keepers might actually be less concerned with supporting the working class in their struggle with their bourgeois oppressors, and somewhat more concerned with keeping guns in the hands of crazy fascist right-wing gun Nazis* and their first cousins in the terribly exciting American militia movement who wanna dial the U.S. Constitution back to re-allow slavery, witch burning and the right to torture, murder and rob your next-door neighbor the next time you run a bit low on drinking water and/or venison jerky and/or cable porn access.

*I’m not saying there aren’t bug-eyed crazy gun Nazis in Sweden. Or Ireland. Or even Belgium. But no other country on the planet—not even those where they currently stone rape victims to death (hello free Afghanistan) —does bug-eyed crazy gun Nazis better than the U.S.A. We freaking rule.

So are the Oath Keepers for The Man? Or for The People? Only time will tell, I guess, but in the meantime liberal spectators might be forgiven for harboring the vague suspicion (let us put it no stronger than that) that for all their anti-authoritarian and anti-fascist rhetoric, the Oath Keepers are just another layer of the vast and rapidly unraveling right-wing incompetency.

Oh, I know that as a sophisticated political observer I’m meant to be able to fully discriminate between the baggers and the keepers and the neocons and the freepers and the objectivists and the Nazis in the woods. But at the moment, who can be bothered? Mock them all and let God sort them out. It’s hot buttered popcorn time, baby. The rabid death thrashings of the American right. The best free show on the planet.

They all hate liberals. They all hate taxes. They all hate not having a president who’s a not a total drooling fucking imbecile and an international embarrassment. But most of all, I suspect, these armed-to-the-baccy-stained-back-teeth defenders of the original Constitution really hate holidays. The Founding Fathers never took vacations. The Founding Fathers fucking hated holidays. In fact there are early versions of the Declaration of Independence with the words FUCK HOLIDAYS scrawled across the bottom. Because taking time off to reflect and rest is communist. And if there’s one thing the founding fathers hated even more that gays, blacks, feminists and gun control it was communism.

And these guys—the teabaggers and the Oathies and the Fox News frothers and their backup crazies in the woods—they know that the ultimate goal of Barrack Hussein Obama (or, to give him his full name: Barrack Hussein Robin Hood Zapata Trotsky Lenin Mao Pol Pot Lone Ranger Roosevelt Jesus Christ Mr. Rodgers Mother Theresa Kriss Kringle Your Mom Obama) is to force—force I tell you!—working Americans to take two, maybe even three weeks off a year. And go on vacation. Or maybe stay at home and catch up with the chores a bit. The red bastard.*

*DISCLAIMER: The above article is a spoof. The United States of America is the greatest possible country ever. There is no way it could possibly be improved in any way at all. (Except by the possible reinstatement of the person and the policies of George W. Bush). And that includes the introduction of universal health care and more holidays. Especially the latter. Because vacations are the tool of the devil.

In fact contrary to any statements made in the above article, the author would like to state that all European countries—but especially France and “Great Shitting”—are communist-run hell-holes that impose Sharia law on their poor, benighted forced-to-take-holidays slave-citizens (all of whom are desperate to be Americans, stop taking vacations, get guns and start shooting up schools) and that sewage does in fact flow down the down the middle of the streets of both London and Paris. I’ve been there. It’s disgusting. U.S.A! U.S.A! Hey buddy, if you don’t like it here you can always go the fuck home and stop stealing a job of a some poor goddamn unemployed REAL American.

[American Dream]

See also:

Return of the Militias

[Searcher08]

What an appalling bag of crap that was.

http://www.philadelphiaweekly.com/news-and-opinion/in-extremis/Oath-Keepers-43742777.html

Are the Oath Keepers for The Man? Or for The People?

By Steven WellS


This image is taken from a video posted on the Oath Keepers' web site, in which the speaker exhorts his fellow patriots to resist the growing tyranny of the federal government.


It is a constant source of amusement to people in politically boring countries like Britain and Sweden that the citizens of the United States of America generally consider themselves to be the beneficiaries of the only sane, balanced and rational political system on the planet.

Just yesterday an apparently mentally healthy young American woman said to me (as we were sat in a Center City Starbucks, negotiating the price of a case of pristine, AR-15 assault rifles):

“God we’re so lucky, I’d hate to live anywhere except America. Can you imagine having to deal with the rats? With the sewage running down the middle of the street and shit?”

I asked if she’d ever been to say, France. Perhaps enjoyed a croque messier and a limon presse outside a roadside café in the Dordogne? Maybe while watching a civilized game of boules? Played by folks kept healthy by (oh my God) “socialized” medicine and a mandatory, legislated minimum five weeks (FIVE WEEKS!) annual vacation?

And she sort of shuffled in her seat and waved her hand dismissively and steered the conversation pack to the RPGs she’s heard the Russian mafia are peddling to the anti-Obama militias said to be forming in the Pacific Northwest.

This is the way Americans see the rest of the world: Cold socialist sorta-America up north. Socialist not-really-free sorta-America full of cool old stuff like castles and shit whose asses we saved in not one but two world wars overseas. Crazy Arab bit with the oil. Third World with shit running down the street. Japan.

Most of them, anyway. Most of the time. Because when Americans differ from this cuddly consensus, they squint a little and re-imagine America as some Western outpost of the Soviet gulag archipelago except with neon and cable and strip malls and Monday Night Football and the dollar meal menu back at McDonalds. NIGHTMARE!

I’m talking of course of the teabaggers.

And their new friends, the latest hot phenom on the most exciting (and let’s face it, totally fucking mental) political scene on the the planet—the Oath Keepers.

OATH KEEPER PROMOTIONAL VIDEO

Have you heard about these dudes? Teabaggers with guns, basically. Or maybe that’s a little simplistic. They Oath Keepers describe themselves as a “a non-partisan association of currently serving military, reserves, National Guard, peace officers, and veterans” and their organizing principle appears the be the sacred promise that they won’t let themselves be used as the jackbooted thug Gestapo of some apparently imminent anti-American totalitarian takeover.

Which is all well and good. No. 1 on on the Oath Keeper agenda is the promise that: “We will NOT obey any order to disarm the American people.” By the “American people”, of course, these Oath Keepers—some of whom would appear to be actually serving police officers—might well mean the American people. You. Me. Your mom. And they might well be envisioning a situation where they—as armed representatives of the state—are asked to crush armed workers soviets, formed in the next American revolution as bulwarks of democratic resistance against the capitalist pig oligarchy and its fascist stooges.

In which case one can only say: Welcome to the class struggle, comrade Oath Keepers!

On the other hand the Oath Keepers might actually be less concerned with supporting the working class in their struggle with their bourgeois oppressors, and somewhat more concerned with keeping guns in the hands of crazy fascist right-wing gun Nazis* and their first cousins in the terribly exciting American militia movement who wanna dial the U.S. Constitution back to re-allow slavery, witch burning and the right to torture, murder and rob your next-door neighbor the next time you run a bit low on drinking water and/or venison jerky and/or cable porn access.

*I’m not saying there aren’t bug-eyed crazy gun Nazis in Sweden. Or Ireland. Or even Belgium. But no other country on the planet—not even those where they currently stone rape victims to death (hello free Afghanistan) —does bug-eyed crazy gun Nazis better than the U.S.A. We freaking rule.

So are the Oath Keepers for The Man? Or for The People? Only time will tell, I guess, but in the meantime liberal spectators might be forgiven for harboring the vague suspicion (let us put it no stronger than that) that for all their anti-authoritarian and anti-fascist rhetoric, the Oath Keepers are just another layer of the vast and rapidly unraveling right-wing incompetency.

Oh, I know that as a sophisticated political observer I’m meant to be able to fully discriminate between the baggers and the keepers and the neocons and the freepers and the objectivists and the Nazis in the woods. But at the moment, who can be bothered? Mock them all and let God sort them out. It’s hot buttered popcorn time, baby. The rabid death thrashings of the American right. The best free show on the planet.

They all hate liberals. They all hate taxes. They all hate not having a president who’s a not a total drooling fucking imbecile and an international embarrassment. But most of all, I suspect, these armed-to-the-baccy-stained-back-teeth defenders of the original Constitution really hate holidays. The Founding Fathers never took vacations. The Founding Fathers fucking hated holidays. In fact there are early versions of the Declaration of Independence with the words FUCK HOLIDAYS scrawled across the bottom. Because taking time off to reflect and rest is communist. And if there’s one thing the founding fathers hated even more that gays, blacks, feminists and gun control it was communism.

And these guys—the teabaggers and the Oathies and the Fox News frothers and their backup crazies in the woods—they know that the ultimate goal of Barrack Hussein Obama (or, to give him his full name: Barrack Hussein Robin Hood Zapata Trotsky Lenin Mao Pol Pot Lone Ranger Roosevelt Jesus Christ Mr. Rodgers Mother Theresa Kriss Kringle Your Mom Obama) is to force—force I tell you!—working Americans to take two, maybe even three weeks off a year. And go on vacation. Or maybe stay at home and catch up with the chores a bit. The red bastard.*

*DISCLAIMER: The above article is a spoof. The United States of America is the greatest possible country ever. There is no way it could possibly be improved in any way at all. (Except by the possible reinstatement of the person and the policies of George W. Bush). And that includes the introduction of universal health care and more holidays. Especially the latter. Because vacations are the tool of the devil.

In fact contrary to any statements made in the above article, the author would like to state that all European countries—but especially France and “Great Shitting”—are communist-run hell-holes that impose Sharia law on their poor, benighted forced-to-take-holidays slave-citizens (all of whom are desperate to be Americans, stop taking vacations, get guns and start shooting up schools) and that sewage does in fact flow down the down the middle of the streets of both London and Paris. I’ve been there. It’s disgusting. U.S.A! U.S.A! Hey buddy, if you don’t like it here you can always go the fuck home and stop stealing a job of a some poor goddamn unemployed REAL American.