Right-Wing Extremist Militias on the Rise in the U.S.

It might just be that the War on Terror will have to begin at home.

Eileen Sullivan of Associate Press states,

The stress of a poor economy and a liberal administration led by a black president are among the causes for the recent rise, the report from the Southern Poverty Law Center says. Conspiracy theories about a secret Mexican plan to reclaim the Southwest are also growing amid the public debate about illegal immigration.

“They’re back,” Southern Poverty Law Center says.  Matthew Rothschilds goes further, “the crazies are out in force.”

The article points to this video from the Ohio Militia:

Guns don’t kill people.  People like this with guns kill people.  Southern Poverty Law Center point out that the group has even called for marches on Washington.

Sullivan continues,

A series of domestic terrorism incidents over the past year have not been directly tied to organized militias, but the rhetoric behind some of the crimes are similar with that of the militia movement. For instance, the man charged with the April killings of three Pittsburgh police officers posted some of his views online. Richard Andrew Poplawski wrote that U.S. troops could be used against American citizens, and he thinks a gun ban could be coming.

The FBI’s assistant director for counterterrorism, Michael Heimbach, said that law enforcement officials need to identify people who go beyond hateful rhetoric and decide to commit violent acts and crimes. Heimbach said one of the bigger challenges is identifying the lone-wolf offenders.

But are these just isolated individuals?

Some of these people on YouTube claim their numbers are as high as 150 million.

Is it possible for these people to influence the far-right in Canada?

The Militia Movement
The Second Wave
The return of the militias and the larger antigovernment ‘Patriot’ movement

Nativists to ‘Patriots’
Nativist vigilantes increasingly adopting the ideas of the ‘Patriot’ movement

Terror from the Right
75 plots, conspiracies and racist rampages since Oklahoma City

Download the report (PDF)

2 Comments on "Right-Wing Extremist Militias on the Rise in the U.S."

  1. JamesHalifax | August 13, 2009 at 10:44 am |

    The “Far Right” in Canada?

    Hmm…you mean the handful of pitiful losers living in their mothers’ basements alongside their copies of “Mein Kampf” and swastika flags?

    Sorry….we don’t have a great number of Canadians who could be considered “Far Right” in Canada as you would have us understand the term.

  2. If these guys are to be taken seriously, they need a PR guy who will stap saying “umm”, “uhh” and “you know” every 10 seconds. I couldn’t watch more than a minute of that “wake up call”.

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