Lone Patriot: The Short Career of an American Militiaman

Having served 25 years in the Australian military and having hundreds of acquaintances and a few friends and some relatives. I don't know that any of them owns a gun. I don't and have never. Ms Kramer alleges that in the USA there are three weapons for every member of the population. A new study by James E. Loewen reveals that there were a minimum of 3000 towns in the USA, mainly in the Midwest, between 1890 and 1930 mainly, that kept out African Americans (cf Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism - New Press 2005). Statistics reveal that each year in Cook County Illinois more deaths by handgun occur every year than have occurred in all the troubles in Ireland since 1922. Why is it so? Ms Kramer has examined one community in NW USA and in doing so has pondered the 2nd Amendment, family history, the notion of "patriot" and other ideas. It is an intriguing and important read. It may be that the phenomena of militia and "patriots" is a manifestation of the importance placed on individual rights over the common good in USA society. I don't see Ms Kramer as being especially superior in her attitude to citizens involved (some of whom seem to act curioser and curioser!)but as someone who is just fascinated by the likes of John Pitner. As I imagine many are by "patriots". It certainly makes one ponder the internal threats to good order in US society as opposed to the real, and imagined, threats posed by the United Nations, Muslims, etc etc.

In the far northwest of our nation grew up a band of soldierly brethren who swore to take this country back to the basics for which it was founded. These soldiers were not the scary Nazis or the Klansmen who killed those they styled their enemies and who robbed and burgled for the good of their cause. They were not like the Unabomber, but were social beings united in a movement. They were also not like Timothy McVeigh, although McVeigh did have some dealings with them, for they never really got down to action. They were the Washington State Militia, part of a "movement that has come, grotesquely, to be called the Patriot movement," and they were armed for Armageddon. They were the Paul Reveres, ready to ride through the nation under attack by its enemies. They had explosives, they had camouflage, they had their beloved guns, they had God on their side, and they were rebels without a clue. If you enjoy laughing at the folly of others, _Lone Patriot: The Short Career of an American Militiaman_ (Pantheon) by Jane Kramer, will do nicely. It does, however, tell a darker tale.Kramer's main subject is John Pitner, a former ship-painter, unemployed, the self-described "founder, promoter, banker, quartermaster and commander in chief" of the militia. Kramer describes his beliefs and those of the militiamen around him in some detail. Pitner's mentor was John Trochmann, the leader of the Montana Militia. Trochmann, unlike most of the Patriots depicted here, made a good living from the movement. He sold hate literature and military supplies, and recruited men like Pitner to be the market for them. His credo, Christian Identity, "involved the conviction that God had made Negroes on the fifth day of His creation, along with the other beasts of the field, and not on the sixth day, when He made people." Pitner became expert at using the internet to learn the dark strategies of his particular enemy David Rockefeller, and the Rothschilds and the other Jewish bankers who ran everything. He knew about the vile machinations of the mysterious black helicopters which had hovered over his headquarters. He knew the unconstitutional nature of the income tax. He could rant about how the New World Order, with special help from former president Clinton, was closing lands to Americans in the name of ecology, and how they had sent "communist evolutionists" to the schools to teach biology. He could even manage to reveal these secrets after 44,000 volts of lasers had been fired into his brain, causing a blackout.Pitner somehow had an Amway salesman's gift for getting people involved in his movement. However, their style of paranoia cuts both ways. When his men became dissatisfied with the long wait for those UN troops to invade, and with only promises of hidden weapons rather than real weapons, they began to wonder if Pitner was perhaps on the side of the feds. No, he wasn't, but a couple of his recruits were. He went to jail for three years on a charge of o

A riveting exploration of one of American's most fascinating, dangerous and secretive societies. An important book for our times.