A much larger and more dangerous movement Right-wing militias thrive post-Bundy and the media won t talk about it - Salon.com
quotes from the article:
In common law, posse comitatus means “the authority of a law officer to conscript any able-bodied males to assist him.” In American history it refers to the the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act, a federal law prohibiting the military from policing non-federal property, which was intended specifically to cripple enforcement of the Civil War Amendments, which granted full citizenship and legal protections to former slaves and their descendants. At its core, Gale’s Posse Comitatus seeks to elevate a mere statute to the level of a core constitutional principle—and not just any law, but a law passed specifically for the purpose of effectively nullifying three separate constitutional amendments, and reducing African-Americans back to the de facto level of slaves.
---
Concerning the beginnings of how the Posse insinuated itself into land-use disputes, the report notes:
The Posse also was one of the first modern radical groups to take up issues of land use–the same kind of issues exploited by Bundy and the armed militias that supported him in Nevada this spring. It disrupted environmental regulatory hearings, fought farm unionization, and intervened in land disputes. Most importantly, it took advantage of the serious agricultural crisis then forcing hundreds of thousands of farmers off the land, infiltrating what had originally been a progressive movement seeking better price supports and injecting its anti-Semitism and race hate.
In the end, that hatred, coupled with the violence of the Posse, helped wreck the movement to save American farmers being battered by heavy debt, high interest rates and the Soviet grain embargo. Any sympathy for farmers was swept away as the Posse’s infiltration of their movement and its aims were publicized.
Of course, the radical right frequently wins by losing this way—blaming others for the negative outcomes it does so much to bring about. And so, despite the collapse of the farmers movement, the Posse’s influence only spread over time.
In common law, posse comitatus means “the authority of a law officer to conscript any able-bodied males to assist him.” In American history it refers to the the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act, a federal law prohibiting the military from policing non-federal property, which was intended specifically to cripple enforcement of the Civil War Amendments, which granted full citizenship and legal protections to former slaves and their descendants. At its core, Gale’s Posse Comitatus seeks to elevate a mere statute to the level of a core constitutional principle—and not just any law, but a law passed specifically for the purpose of effectively nullifying three separate constitutional amendments, and reducing African-Americans back to the de facto level of slaves.
---
Concerning the beginnings of how the Posse insinuated itself into land-use disputes, the report notes:
The Posse also was one of the first modern radical groups to take up issues of land use–the same kind of issues exploited by Bundy and the armed militias that supported him in Nevada this spring. It disrupted environmental regulatory hearings, fought farm unionization, and intervened in land disputes. Most importantly, it took advantage of the serious agricultural crisis then forcing hundreds of thousands of farmers off the land, infiltrating what had originally been a progressive movement seeking better price supports and injecting its anti-Semitism and race hate.
In the end, that hatred, coupled with the violence of the Posse, helped wreck the movement to save American farmers being battered by heavy debt, high interest rates and the Soviet grain embargo. Any sympathy for farmers was swept away as the Posse’s infiltration of their movement and its aims were publicized.
Of course, the radical right frequently wins by losing this way—blaming others for the negative outcomes it does so much to bring about. And so, despite the collapse of the farmers movement, the Posse’s influence only spread over time.
