-Caveat Lector- Militias Fall on Hard Times as They Wait Out Millennium Internal fights, talk of violence scares off many William Claiborne, Washington Post Wednesday, September 15, 1999 �1999 San Francisco Chronicle URL: http://www.commondreams.org/index.html These aren't easy times for Norman Olson and his splinter group of self- described patriot guerrillas, the Northern Michigan Regional Militia. Winter will settle in before long, and not far behind it the worldwide chaos and lawlessness that Olson believes will be triggered by the Year 2000 computer bug. The statewide armed force of militant patriots he co-founded five years ago is in disarray, riven by internal squabbling and defections following the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. Now Olson -- whose gun-toting, camouflaged-bedecked image flashed on network television in the days after the disclosure of tenuous links between his movement and one of the Oklahoma City bombers -- finds himself unable to organize an armed standoff between the remnants of his once 12,000-strong militia and law enforcement. ``We're itching for a standoff someplace,'' said Olson, 51, in an interview in his modest house in Alanson, on the mainland just southwest of this idyllic Lake Huron tourist island. ``Any movement needs a good and noble rallying point, an Alamo or a `Remember the Maine,' and this could be it.'' Olson's frustration underscores a situation faced by his own struggling militia faction and militant armed wings of the patriot movement nationwide. The groups often depend on publicized confrontations with law enforcement for the legitimacy they crave among like- minded sympathizers, and they haven't had one for several years. Dressed in Army fatigues at Alanson Armory, his at-home gun shop, Olson mused about the publicity opportunities of a police siege in northern Michigan. ``The FBI and state police show up, and hostage negotiators, a crisis management team and television satellite trucks are all there. I'd have militia people from Washington state and North Carolina, and you'd have another Waco or Ruby Ridge,'' Olson said, referring to two of the most infamous armed standoffs to stain the reputation of federal law enforcement. ``Right now is the time to strike, while . . . Janet Reno is in hot water over Waco and all,'' Olson said, referring to the attorney general's embarrassment over the FBI's and Justice Department's failure to disclose the use of potentially incendiary devices in the 1993 siege of the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas. But survivalists Mike and Chris Stitt aren't cooperating. The Stitts and their six children moved to this 12-mile-long island near the Straits of Mackinac 3 1/2 years ago to ride out the millennium apocalypse. Three weeks ago, the Stitts invited Olson and 15 of his uniformed followers to their farm for a barbecue to discuss how the militia could help them in their fight against local officials, who they claim are hounding them off the island because of their religious and survivalist lifestyle. But the couple became frightened by the talk about Waco and Ruby Ridge. ``Now I'm thinking, `Wow, you guys are going to stand here on my property and defend it with guns, with my 10-month-old baby and the lives of my children at risk,' '' said Chris Stitt, 37. ``I thought, `Some publicity would be OK, but Commander Olson, you've just been given your walking papers. Are you willing to risk the lives of my children for media attention?' '' Last week, the Stitts decided to sell their farm; put their horse, peacock, three pigs, 150 chickens, four goats and three emus on the island ferry; and get out of harm's way. It was only the latest in a series of setbacks for the militia movement in conservative northern Michigan, which, along with Montana and the Pacific Northwest, traditionally has been home to anti-government paramilitary groups. Olson, a retired Air Force master sergeant, in 1994 co-founded the Michigan Militia Corps in Wolverine, on the mainland about 40 miles south of here. In the year he commanded it, he said, he organized 83 well-armed county brigades comprising 12,000 active members and many more followers. But after Oklahoma City bombing suspect Terry Nichols was reported to be affiliated with the group, it began to fall apart. Defections snowballed, even though Olson repeatedly insisted that Nichols had attended only one meeting and was forced to leave because he was ``too radical.'' ``There was so much fear. About a third of the members quit when they realized this wasn't just shooting paintballs in the woods. Another third went underground into leaderless resistance cells, and the rest became extremely aggressive,'' Olson recalled. He said Christian Identity white supremacists came into the militia and began to criticize him for admitting members of all races and religions, leading to a schism. ``I said the heck with it all and came up here to get away from it all and form my own militia,'' said Olson. Militia expert Chip Berlet, senior analyst for the Boston-based Political Research Associates, said the Michigan militia is only one such group that has ``fallen on bleak times but not gone away'' since the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. As militia membership has shrunk, many ideas of the movement -- such as opposition to gun control, the IRS, the Federal Reserve and the United Nations -- have become mainstream issues for some conservative Republicans, he said. ``A lot of these people have taken their ideas into the ultra-conservative political movement and drained it away from the militias,'' Berlet said. ``That's not necessarily good, but it's different.'' Olson stayed with the militia movement and began issuing communiques alleging a massive campaign of Japanese espionage against the United States. He said that in retaliation, the Pentagon sent ``secret teams'' to release sarin gas in Tokyo's subway a month before Oklahoma City, and that Nichols' accomplice, Timothy McVeigh, possibly acting under the influence of implanted mind-control microchips, was a Japanese ``operative'' in a counter-retaliation. Such conspiracy theories turned the media away from his group, Olson said. Since moving here from Wolverine, he's concentrated on organizing ``wolf packs'' and weekend training camps where up to 50 members practice ``ambush sniper skills, combat hand-gunning, guerrilla squad maneuvers and battlefield medicine.'' The purpose is to prepare militiamen for the ``Y2K catastrophe,'' Olson said, which some people fear will trigger food panics and lawlessness, a declaration of martial law and then a violent revolution. That's why the Stitts, who moved here to prepare for the apocalypse, looked like the ideal cause for rallying like-minded people, Olson said. ``A lot of people are taking Y2K seriously and this is why they are violating ordinances like the Stitts, to gather food and survive.'' ``We wanted to teach our children to be survivalists,'' Chris Stitt said of their move to the island in preparation of the economic ``meltdown'' that some claim will occur after January 1. At first, she said, the 40 or so year-round island residents and township officials welcomed them. But as they began to build a barn, a greenhouse, a root cellar and a chicken coop, officials told them to remove the buildings because their property was zoned for residential use. The couple said they agreed not to expand their farm beyond the existing outbuildings, but tensions began to rise when a circuit judge ordered the buildings dismantled. The judge ordered them to appear in court to show why they should not be held in contempt of court for failure to comply. The Stitts said they believe the order was prompted by town officials' resentment of their religious and millennialist views and their outspoken opposition to ``immoral behavior'' by officials who smoked and drank in front of children. They said their troubles began when they turned in a neighbor to the police for growing marijuana. Township attorney Lyle Peck, calling their assertions ``utter nonsense,'' said they had defied the zoning ordinance by publishing legal notices in an area newspaper declaring their refusal to comply. The Stitts say they're looking for a new farm. ``We stood up to the immorality here, and now we're saying, `OK, we'll leave your island. It's not worth going to jail for,' '' Chris Stitt said. That leaves Olson and his militia once more without a rallying point. �1999 San Francisco Chronicle Page A4 DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance�not soapboxing! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright frauds is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. 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