A GROWING RAGE IN
AMERICA'S HEARTLAND

One might better think of ours as a dual political system. First, there is the symbolic political system centered around electoral and representative activities including party conflicts, voter turnout, political personalities, public pronouncements, official role-playing and certain ambiguous presentations of some of the public issues which bestir Presidents, governors, mayors and their respective legislatures. Then there is the substantive political system, involving multi-billion dollar contracts, tax write-offs, protections, rebates, grants, loss compensations, subsidies, leases, giveaways and the whole vast process of budgeting, legislating, advising, regulating, protecting and servicing major producer interest - now bending or ignoring the law on behalf of the powerful, now applying it with the full punitive vigor against heretics and "troublemakers." The symbolic system is highly visible, taught in schools, discussed by academicians, gossiped about by newsmen. The substantive system is seldom heard of or accounted for.

- Michael Parenti
in How Democratic Is The Government?

(as cited in Joel Dyer, Harvest of Rage)

A RAGE IS BUILDING IN RURAL AMERICA

The 1995 bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City killed 168 innocent people and shattered the complacency of a nation. While the smoke was still clearing from America's most infamous terrorist attack, all eyes looked across the ocean for answers. The national media began to explore which faraway terrorists were the likely culprits. After all, this was Oklahoma City, the middle of the American heartland, and only the mind of some foreign murderer could have conceived such a bloodthirsty plot.

But in Oklahoma and around the nation, FBI agents were looking across our own oceans of wheat, corn, and barley for their answers. They weren't raiding the homes of Palestinian nationals or people born in Iraq and Iran. Within hours of the blast, they were questioning men and women who had attended meetings on how to stop farm foreclosures or on how to return the country to a constitutional republic.

While a shocked nation sat glued to its television sets and watched the Oklahoma body count rise, government agents were questioning those who had attended a meeting held at an Oklahoma City motel just two weeks before the explosion. The meeting was advertised as an effort to address the issue of farm foreclosures. But instead, it had turned out to be a "Christian Identity" crash course in antigovernment theology. The guest speakers at the meeting were from Decker, Michigan - the place where James Nichols has his farm, the place where his brother Terry and his friend Timothy McVeigh had been spending a lot of time.

The speed with which the FBI moved to question attendees of the meeting demonstrated that although the victims and the national media had been caught off guard by the bloodbath in Oklahoma, the government had not. The intelligence community had been concerned with the politics of people in places like Decker long before the Murrah building became a bombed-out tomb. Agents may not have known who struck the match, but they knew the bomb's fuse had been lit somewhere in the economically devastated landscape of rural America. Moreover, they knew that - as horrible as it was - the Oklahoma City bombing may very well be only the beginning of an unprecedented wave of terror in America.

These are the chilling conclusions reached by Joel Dyer[1]  in his book, Harvest of Rage.[2] 

Dyer goes on to explain how big the landscape is that we are talking about here: a band of states that stretches from Mexico to Canada and runs from Eastern Washington in the west to Illinois, Michigan, and Louisana in the east - essentially America's geographic heartland.

Most Americans, however, are totally oblivious to the reasons which have given rise to rural America’s anger. They don’t live there and - for the most part - they don’t know anyone who does. The newspapers don’t write about it and television doesn’t report on it. All that they know is that in one way or another, the bombing in Oklahoma City is attached to "antigovernment activity" which the elite media has vaguely linked to rural America - a rural America which most Americans connect obscurely to "backwardness," "narrow-minded religious fundamentalism," "guns," the "militia," "fertilizer-bombs" and "crazies." Beyond that, urban America hasn’t a clue. Moreover, the corporate elites who are responsible for much of the devastation and turmoil that’s been going on there - Cargill, Continental, ConAgra, Louis Drefus, Bunge, Carnac, Mitsui/Cook, and Archer Daniels Midland[3]  - prefer it that way.

But what’s been happening is truly appalling. And more: it’s outrageous; many would say even disgusting! As a reporter who has spent years investigating the personal and social devastation facing rural Americans, Joel Dyer has documented the tragedy of what’s been going on there. Dyer reports that rural America is "collapsing like a black hole, pulling an entire way of life down with it." [4]  Dyer writes,

"Norman Rockwell’s version of rural America is dead ... What’s left in the 90 percent of the landmass that is designated "rural" is massive poverty and despair ... Rural residents are drowning in a tumultuous sea of circumstances beyond their control. The millions of rural Americans still trying to tread water are being pulled under by the callous decisions emanating from corporate boardrooms ... [in distant cities like New York and Chicago (and even Tokyo and London) with very little real connection to the cultural values and mores of rural America and)] they (i.e., rural Americans) have grown angry." [5] 

According to Dyer, the pandemonium which companies like Cargill, Con-Agra, Archer Daniels Midland, etc. have unleashed on rural America is responsible for the loss of over 1 million small to medium-sized farms since 1980. Indeed, in one twelve month period in the late 1980s more than 1 million people were forced from their land. In 1996 alone, 10,000 families in Oklahoma (one-sixth of all farm families in the state) lost their farms through bankruptcies and foreclosure. And it’s not just that; for those who manage to hold on, it often means holding on in grinding, unending poverty and a constant struggle just to meet the day-to-day necessities of life. The fact is, while only 20 to 25 percent (depending on who one counts as "rural") of the U.S. population live in rural areas, 38 percent of all people living in poverty live there. Sixty-seven percent of the nation’s substandard housing is rural, and 27 percent of the children in rural America are growing up hungry, forced to live in destitution even though the parents of most of them work. [6] 

As a result, Dyer believes that a vast revolutionary movement has taken root in America’s heartland which most Americans know very little about - a movement which is, in both its breath and scope, far greater and much more massive than urban Americans have been led to believe, and one which is unalterably committed to overthrowing America’s present government which those in "the movement" see as being dominated by corporate, globalist elites which are committed to destroying rural America economically and culturally.

Dyer writes,

"Common-law courts, militia groups, anti-tax organizations, and sovereignty groups are springing up in every nook and cranny of the rural landscape." [7] 

He continues,

I’ve attended a number of antigovernment meetings in different parts of the country. In many ways, they have become the center of social activity in their respective communities. Meals and casual conversation are often part of the experience. Women gather in the back of the room to talk about children, schools, and recipes ... while the men exchange hunting stories or talk about crops and weather. You would be hard-pressed to tell the difference between one of these meetings and a Kiwanis Club get-together, that is, until the meeting is called to order. Then things get deadly serious." [8] 

The antigovernment propensity of the rural activists is being fueled by elements which possess "world views" (Weltanschuungs) that America’s global (and secular) elites are little prepared or even able to understand and/or comprehend - elements which the corporately controlled elite media would like to pass superficially off to the American people as nothing more than "hate-mongers," "racists" and "know-nothings" - ludites who are vainly trying to stand in the way of modernity and irresistible economic forces.

THE GREED AND AVARICE OF THE
GLOBALISTS ARE RESPONSIBLE

If that was simply it, there might be something to substantiate the scorn most of the elite media feel for rural Americans - but it isn’t! Contrary to what most mainline Americans have been led to believe, the economic forces which are at the root of rural America’s problems are not "natural" ones, or ones which are necessarily even technologically driven, as the global elites would like ordinary Americans to believe. They are instead ones which are largely the creation of the globalists themselves and ones which are being driven by the same greed and avarice which are today driving the world’s financial markets. [Please see our article, "Ponzi Schemes, The Investment Craze, And The 'End Of Days'."] Moreover, the economic forces which the globalists have loosed on the world are not ones which aim primarily at "rationalizing" market forces and lowering super-market prices on the food and other commodities they control, but ones which aim at maximizing profits to the benefit of the elites and the detriment of ordinary people.

THE PLIGHT OF THE AMERICAN FARMER
IS THE SAME AS THE PLIGHT OF THE
PEASANTS IN CHIAPAS AND THE THIRD WORLD

Essentially, the economic forces [9]  at work in rural America - the ones responsible for all the turmoil, heartache and dislocation in the country’s heartland - are the very same "globalist" forces which Cargill, ConAgra, Louis Drefus, etc. have unleashed on the world’s other agricultural areas - areas like Chiapas, Mexico which well-known New York Times reporter John Ross writes are plaguing Mexican peasants there - specifically, those forces connected to "free trade" and "globalization." [Chiapas is a very rich coffee growing area which globalist agricultural interests want to bring under their "management" (i.e., domination). We reported on the "goings-on" in our article, "Chiapas: The Effect Of The New World Order On The Poor."]

Ross reports that insofar as the Third World is concerned, globalization undercuts peasant farming by making it compete against the giant agribusinesses of the First World - agribusinesses which are located principally in the United States and to a lesser degree in Canada and Australia. In the process, peasant agriculture is ground down under the impress of a First World agricultural juggernaut, eventually resulting in the forced migration of these peasants from their homes in rural areas to the city where they are pressed into a kind of industrial slavery for re-located First World industries (like Ford, General Motors, General Electric, etc.), the products of which are not destined for Third World customers, but for First World consumers. The vacated peasant lands are then gathered up and reconstituted as large farms very often controlled by interests in the employ of the very First World agribusinesses [10] which destroyed them in the first place.

And this isn’t so different from what’s happening to farmers in the United States; the same globalism which is destroying peasant farmers in the Third World is destroying "family farmers" in this country by making them compete against a "plantation-type" of agriculture which Archer Daniels Midland, Cargill, etc. have been introducing into this country over the past two decades - an agriculture which substitutes cheap labor for "family labor" - cheap labor which often pays less than subsistence level wages and relies on "imported" illegals (usually Mexicans which globalization has forced off the land in Mexico).

PLANTATION AGRICULTURE

This kind of agriculture - the kind which is destroying "family farmers" in the United States - is not unlike the kind of agriculture which the "Old South" employed in its system of slave labor [except in this instance, the plantation farmers (i.e., ConAgra, Cargill, etc.) bear no direct responsibility for their laborers as did the slaveholders of the Old South].[11] 

And, moreover, it’s not that much different from the "New South’s" system of "share-cropping" - a system of farming not that much removed from slavery and a system which ultimately perpetuates a two class system of agriculture consisting of a rich aristocracy and poor tenant farmers. Only in this case, the agricultural aristocracy is not a rural-based one, but an aristocracy which is based in this country’s urban areas like Chicago and New York - a distant aristocracy which, unlike the old planter aristocracy of the South, possesses no "feel" for the land and not even a modicum of interest in its labor force.

Finally, as if to add insult to injury, many of the family farmers which Cargill and the rest have forced into bankruptcy are then re-employed by these companies to till the very land they once owned - only now as employees at half the wages they once enjoyed. Dyer gives an example of what’s going on. He writes:

"Consider the fictional story of ‘farmer Jones’, a family farmer trying to make ends meet by growing wheat and raising a few head of cattle and some chickens. This is how his year went. Jones bought his wheat, seed and his cattle and chicken feed from Nutrena Corporation. His old tractor bit the dust last year, so he had to go to the Bank of Ellsworth and get a loan for a new tractor that he bought from Waycrosse, Inc. Jones had another bit of bad luck - his irrigation system fell apart. He called his insurance company, the Horizon Agency, but the agent said it wasn’t covered. He had no choice but to buy a new system from Venture Sprinkler, Inc. Jones then bought his fertilizer from Cargill, and his wheat was under way. At harvest time, the prices were low, so Jones decided to hold his crop in storage. He shipped his wheat by rail to the Heinhold Elevator Company. Eventually, Jones sold half of his crop to a Panamanian company called Tradax and the other half to a domestic milling operation owned by the Burrus Company. The Tradax half was shipped on a barge owned by Cargo Carriers, Inc., to a giant port elevator owned by Producer Marketing. A few days later, it was loaded on a ship owned by Rogers Shipping and transported to Europe.

"Meanwhile, Jones’s animals were ready for market. He sold the cattle to a feedlot owned by Caprock Industries, which later sold them to Cargill’s meatpacking plant. He sold the chickens to Dean Farms. Unfortunately for farmer Jones, the prices he received were disappointing. By the time he subtracted out the cost of the seed, feed, chemical fertilizer, tractor, sprinkler system, elevator storage, rail transportation, and insurance, he’d lost money and couldn’t pay the bank, which, therefore, repossessed his land.

"Jones was depressed. He couldn’t figure out why the companies wouldn’t pay him enough for his products to keep him in business ...

"If we looked at this situation as outsiders, we would probably reach the conclusion that farmer Jones had some bad luck and probably was a poor businessman (exactly what the globalists would like you to believe) ... What we probably wouldn’t consider is that farmer Jones (wasn’t a poor businessman at all. He’d been cheated). The fifteen different companies in the fifteen different industries (including the bank) to which Jones had paid out money during the year were all owned by one company - CARGILL. And that is the same company that paid him such a low price for his products and eventually repossessed his land. [And one shouldn’t assume that the prices Cargill paid to Jones were prices that had simply been determined by "free market forces" on the world’s commodity exchanges; such is the control of the new globalist agricultural giants that the price that is ultimately paid to the farmer are the result largely of "price-fixing" which the government no longer pays much attention, even though there are numerous laws on the book which are supposed to prevent such practices.]

"The very real companies named in the farmer Jones illustration are just a few of the companies in Cargill’s vertical integration. The company owns many more subsidiaries in still more industries, and Cargill is not unique. The other giants (i.e., Continental, ConAgra, Louis Drefus, Bunge, Carnac, Mitsui/Cook, and Archer Daniels Midland) are equally integrated." [12] 

MISERY AND HEARTACHE

The misery and heartache caused by the economic forces that Cargill and the rest of the globalist agricultural giants have loosed on rural America is far beyond the imaginings of most urban Americans - Americans who have never been "connected" to "The Land" the way most rural Americans have been, and who - when they lose their farms - lose not only their means of livelihood, but their way of life as well. Dyer illustrates the heartache by quoting from letters he has been privy to over the years. One person writes:

"I am a 46 year old mother of three children. We have lost two farms since 1980, my mother-in-law’s farm as well as our own. We were forced to sell 160 acres of land that was very special to us. It was homesteaded by my husband’s great grandfather and for years had served as home to our cow and calf operation which we were forced to sell just a few months before we sold the land.

"My husband became completely consumed by our circumstances caused by the farm crisis. He left me. Our family continued to deteriorate and our marriage ended in divorce. We had been through natural crises before, drought, flood, crop failure, these we accepted and went on.

"But when the threat of losing everything comes to your doorstep because of the bad economy, low commodity prices and when high interest on your base notes has left you hopelessly in debt, your faith is sometimes shaken. No one likes to consider that their life has been pointless.

"When you are confronted with these kinds of thoughts, along with circumstances out of your control that destroy things you cherish, I believe one might consider taking their own life.

"In many cases the intimidation techniques (of the banks) are ruthless. Lending institutions call meetings on Thanksgiving or Christmas Eve, robbing them of what little joy might have been allowed them during the holiday season.

"So why wouldn’t a farmer want to finish it? He had been judged and sees nothing left of his life’s work. He’s empty financially, physically and spiritually. All that is left is anger, denial, doubt, fear, hostility  and paranoia." [13]

So why wouldn’t a farmer want to finish it? Why wouldn’t they want to commit suicide? Dyer answers,

"That is a hard question to answer for people who have lived right, invested all they had, and believed that the American dream would come by the sweat of their brows, only to find themselves driven to the wall by impersonal and incomprehensible forces. Some in rural America cannot overcome their deep sense of personal failure. They are ending their lives at a rate that has made suicide overtake accidents as the leading cause of death on America’s farms." [14] 

It is against this kind of injustice that rural Americans feel themselves arrayed - an evil and malignant process which is forcing countless numbers of family farmers off their land, which is then being bought up by giant agribusinesses, reconstituted in a kind of "plantation system" based on cheap labor and "tenant farming," and run as a vertically arranged monopoly by companies like Archer Daniels Midland, Cargill, ConAgra, etc. - usually through a system of "subcontracting" much in the same fashion that Nike, Liz Claiborne and others in the shoe and clothing industries use to free themselves from direct contact with the injustice of the "slave labor factories" they have imposed on their workers in the Third World. [15] 

A MILIGNANT PROCESS

This is what’s causing all the unrest, not only insofar as family farmers in this country are concerned, but peasant farmers in the Third World as well. This is what all the fighting is about, not only in Chiapas, Mexico, but here in this country too. It is against this unjust, plantation-type of farming that the Zapatistas have revolted in Mexico, and rural farmers in the United States are fighting - a plantation-type of agriculture which forces family farmers and peasants off their land and leads to their subsequent indenturing to a system of industrial and/or agricultural slavery - in the case of Mexican peasants to companies like Ford, General Electric, General Motors, etc. in the Maquilladora along the border with the United States; and in the case of family farmers in the United States as "subcontractors" ("share-croppers") in the indirect employ of Archer Daniels Midland, ConAgra, Cargill, etc.

The system which ConAgra, Archer Daniels Midland, Cargill, etc. have imposed on rural America - and indeed, the world at large - is so malignant and evil that normal men and women should be excused in thinking that some kind of Satanic plot must be at the bottom of what’s going on. It’s difficult to believe that people (i.e., the globalists) could be so driven by greed and avarice that they would think nothing of the consequences of what they are doing. But that’s exactly what’s happening. As difficult as it is for ordinary people to comprehend, when dealing with the globalists we are - for the most part - dealing with people whose only real concern centers around their greedy, self-absorbed life-styles and their preoccupation with piling up ever greater amounts of material wealth and worldly treasure.

Man’s lust for "things" - for wealth - is far greater than most people are prepared to admit. To say that that’s all there is to it, is to admit how trivial and inconsequential we as human beings really are. For a lot of people, it’s actually easier to say that they are driven by some hidden, sinister Satanic goal; that there is something more behind their apparent lust for "things;" that some more profound mindset lies at the heart of what they are doing than to admit that it’s nothing more than the desire for "possessions" that drives them. To say that there is little to differentiate the people that are behind ConAgra and Archer Daniels Midland from the play yard bully who grabs all the toys for himself is to admit how small-minded and petty we as human beings really are - and that’s a horrible thing for people who pride themselves on how clever they are. People would rather say that it’s Satan that’s driving them than to admit that it’s really only their small-minded lust for "things" that’s motivating them.

But this is all it’s really about! Covetousness (i.e., the psychological drive to accumulate wealth) has blinded them - and what a terrible blindness it is! Jesus somberly warned us of its power and consequences when He said,

"Take heed and beware of covetousness: for a man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth." (Luke 12:15)

And He continued by warning of the outcome it can lead to: the failure to recognize that the grave (and ultimately judgment) awaits all of us, even the richest of us - and then what will all that wealth mean? (Luke 12:16-20)

These are the kind of men the Bible warns us against in the "end of days" - "the LOVERS OF MONEY." (2 Tim. 3:2) The Bible calls them: "lovers of self," "boastful," "arrogant," (2 Tim. 3:2) "unloving," "irreconcilable," "malicious," "without self-control," "brutal," "haters of good," (2 Tim. 3:3); and it goes on to say that they are: "treacherous," "conceited," "lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God" (2 Tim. 3:4), and it warns that although some of them may "hold to a form of godliness .. they have (nevertheless) denied its power." (2 Tim. 3:5)

It is against these kinds of people that ordinary rural Americans are arrayed - and the tendency of such people to blame their plight on some vast conspiracy is understandable - at least to an extent: while they are wrong to blame it on some vast and imaginary intrigue that is being manipulated by the Illuminati, there is, nonetheless a conspiracy that is being directed against them. Only it's not being run by the Illuminati, but by stingy, small-minded men whose only real concern is the accumulation of wealth.

MOVEMENT RECRUITING

Nonetheless, Dyer reports that people who believe that they have lost everything that had meaning in their lives eagerly embrace scenarios like the Illuminati Myth that purport to explain what is happening. Such scenarios and other antigovernment rhetoric provide an easily understandable - a "black and white," "us vs. them" - explanation of what's happening that seems to fit a person's particular circumstances like a glove; and more important, it provides a place where there are others like himself who can empathize with him and help him hang on.

The movement offers such people the hope of restoring order and justice to the confusing world around them. It reaches them at the very roots of their rural belief system, invoking God, patriotism, family values, anticommunism, and a nostalgic view of what America used to be like. It tells them that they are not to blame for their predicament. The movement provides them with a scapegoat for their rage in the form of the Jews, liberal government, secular-humanism, the IRS, and the international bankers.

The liberal elites - by telling such people to ignore such rhetoric and that their only real alternative to bring about change is to use their vote - are being very, very naive here. These people are no longer willing to choose between one corporate-sponsored, millionaire attorney and another when it comes to electing their representatives. They charge that that's how they got where they are in the first place.

Dyer reports on how such people are being recruited to the growing antigovernment movement. He cites a conversation he had with an undercover investigator while researching his book:

"At first someone will stumble across a flyer or a pamphlet that says something pretty innocuous like 'taxes are too high' or 'abortion is murder', something like that. There's usually an address for more information or maybe a date for an upcoming meeting.

"When people attend their first meeting, they usually seem pretty skeptical about what they're hearing, stuff like Jews have taken over the banks and government and that Americans have to prepare to go to war against the government. But the group treats them really nice and they (i.e., the recruits) can tell there's a lot of camaraderie among the people. Most times they'll come back for more meetings. It's a very social thing.

"After they've been coming for a while, you can watch 'em change. They start buying into everything that's said, no matter how ludicrous. They start spending all their free time with other members of the group. All they hear is conspiracy talk, and everyone around them believes it, so they do, too.

"After a while, a person who was just a little ticked off about taxes is building up an arsenal in his basement. It happens all the time. Once you join that culture, you just go deeper and deeper." (Harvest of Rage, pg. 70)

And its just not farmers, but laid-off factory workers and others who are succumbing to this antigovernment rhetoric. At an ever-quickening pace, people of all backgrounds within America's growing pockets of depression are being persuaded to join in the battle against a future that's threatening to put an end to their preferred way of life. More and more, the antigovernment movement - from its conspiracy theories to its automatic weapons - is becoming the protector of nostalgia in the decaying world of rural America and similar pockets of depression in America's urban landscape.

MOVEMENT THEOLOGY

The theology that is being fed into these groups is not unlike the theology of a Pat Robertson and a James Dobson, minus, of course, the anti-Semitic rhetoric. But the rest is pretty much the same. Most members of the antigovernment movement would have very little trouble in subscribing to Robertson's statement:

"Satan knows that a world government must soon be prepared for the man whom he is preparing to receive his particular empowerment and authority. Such a world government can come together only after the Christian United States is out of the way. After all, the rest of the world can federate any time it wants to, but a vital, economically strong, Christian United States would have at its disposal the spiritual and material force to prohibit a worldwide satanic dictator from winning his battle. With America still free and at large, Satan’s schemes will at best be only partially successful. From these shores could come the television, radio, and printed matter to counter an otherwise all-out world news blackout. An independent America could point out Satan’s lies. If America is free, people everywhere can hope for freedom. And if America goes down, all hope is lost to the rest of the world."

The only difference they would have with it is that they believe that the United States has already succumbed to the machinations of the "One-World Government" - and that they must organize to take it back. This is what the "tribulation" is all about: a time of intense struggle between the forces of Satan and the forces of God for control of America. Dyer writes:

"Several of the people I've interviewed have told me that the tribulation has already started and that God has commanded them to start carrying out his judgements. 'We're holding courts right now in every part of this land', said ... (one member) from California who identified himself as Tim. 'We're finding people guilty and we're keeping records so we can carry out the sentences'. When asked how these death sentences would be carried out, Tim said, 'There's a part of the militia that's getting ready to start working on that (i.e., the death sentences). I think they're ready to go now. You'll start seeing it soon'."

This rhetoric, of course, is not that much different from the "Joel's Army" rhetoric employed by John Wimber's (now deceased) Vineyards, the Foursquare Churches, Latter Rain, and others:

"As we see the day approaching, there's going to be a cleansing, there's going to be a purging ... and God's 'New Breed' will come forth."

Dyer reports that on October 22, 1992 - largely in response to the tragedy at Ruby Ridge - a gathering at Estes Park, Colorado took place. The meeting became known as the Rocky Mountain Rendezvous. The assembly was made up of the Who's Who of the Radical Right, including John and Randy Trochmann from the Montana militia; Louis Beam; Richard Butler, founder of the Aryan Nations; Identity pastor Pete Peters; tax protester Red Beckman; and scores of others. Also present were mainstream fundamentalist Christians from the Baptists to the Mennonites. Larry Pratt, founder of Gun Owners of America, who for a short time served as Pat Buchanan's right-hand man during his 1996 presidential campaign, was also in attendance.

The rendezvous brought together a collection of men who would normally never sit down together. Prior to the Ruby Ridge incident, their divergent religious beliefs would have overshadowed any common ground they might have had. But in 1992, all that changed. They now understood that they had a common enemy - the federal government. They knew that their only chance to defeat this common foe was to join forces. In some ways, this meeting may well have been the birth of the modern antigovernment movement.

Morris Dees, of the Southern Poverty Law Center - which among other things, operates Klanwatch, an organization that keeps tabs on right-wing extremist groups - described the rendezvous this way:

"Plans were laid for a citizen's militia movement like none this country has ever known. It's a movement that has already led to the most destructive act of terrorism in our nation's history (the Oklahoma City bombing). Unless checked, it could lead to widespread devastation or ruin." (please see page 83, Harvest of Rage)

According to Dyer, Louis Beam summed up best what the Rendezvous meant by "common enemy:"

"The two murders of the Weaver family (at Ruby Ridge) have shown us all that our religious, our political, our ideological differences mean nothing to those who wish to make us all slaves. We are viewed by the government as the same - the enemies of the state.

"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, homeschooler, 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 enemies of the state." (please see page 83, Harvest of Rage)

Dyer goes on to report that what was missing from Beam's address were the usual racial slurs that drive people like him. In fact, the hard-core racism that usually is rampant at such meetings was nearly invisible during the entire "rendezvous" - a development more significant than any other aspect of the Estes Park gathering. The missing ingredient marked the beginning of a new era, a change in strategy for the radical right. The racism that had long been a barrier to its recruiting efforts in rural America and elsewhere went underground. The Identity movement's long-held concept of a white America would now be given a new, more acceptable, moniker: "Christian America." (pg. 84, Harvest Of Rage)

Since 1992, Dyer reports, fundamentalist and Identity adherents in rural America have been fighting the same enemy, using the same words - at least in public - and professing the same goal, a new Christian government. Since the Ruby Ridge and Waco tragedies, rendezvous participants have formed militia units, common-law courts, and sovereign townships from California to North Carolina. It's as if a temporary antigovernment amnesia now binds these incompatible religions together. And the longer they're bound together, the more their ideologies and behaviors take on a single form: a "Christian America."

CHRISTIANS WITH GUNS -
AND THEY MEAN BUSINESS

Finally, one needs to take note of the fact that unlike their more moderated counterparts in the suburbs - i.e., the "Christian forces" which are being mobilized by James Dobson, Tim LaHaye, Pat Robertson, D. James Kennedy, et. al., - these people (i.e., those who live in rural America) are armed, and armed to the teeth; and they're ready to go to the mat with the federal government.

William Pierce, author of the Turner Diaries, the Bible for many in the antigovernment movement, speaking to a radio audience estimated by most observers at over 100,000 listeners shortly after the Oklahoma City bombing, said:

"Hello, my fellow Americans ...

"When the government engages in terrorism against its own citizens (i.e., Waco, Ruby Ridge, etc.), it should not be surprised when some of those citizens strike back and engage in terrorism against the government.

"Terrorism is nasty business ... but terrorism is a form of warfare and, in war, most of the victims are noncombatants.

"Certainly none of us condone the killing of children. But in fact, it is the Clinton government that has led the way in killing children (at Waco and Ruby Ridge). The hatred one hears in (Clinton's and Reno's) voices when they talk about Oklahoma City bombers is not because children were killed, it's because they know the bombing was aimed at them.

"Americans haven't had a real war fought on their own sod for 130 years ... I think things are about to change. I suspect Americans will begin engaging in terrorism on a scale the world has never known."

Dyer warns:

"Bill Heffernan, dean of rural psychology at the University of Missouri at Columbia, shared his fears with me about the future of America. Heffernan compared our current rural uprising to several of the countries in South America where he's spent a fair amount of time. He said that unless something is done to stop the decline of rural America, there will come a time in the not-so-distant future when it will no longer be safe for people to move about freely. Heffernan sees a time when just driving across the country will be hazardous. He said that if the decline continues, we could become like other places where the gaps between rich and poor and urban and rural have become so large that people must fly from one city to another, knowing that if they drove through the rural areas they would be stopped by bandits or guerilla factions composed of economically radicalized people." (Pg. 253, Harvest of Rage)