The Oath Keepers: The Militant and Armed Side of the Tea Party Movement
Meet the fast-growing "patriot" group that's recruiting soldiers to resist the Obama administration.
By Justine Sharrock / Mother Jones
Pvt. 1st Class Lee Pray is saving up for has a 2,500-yard range and comes with a Mark IV scope and an easy-load magazine. It'll take plenty of military paychecks to cover the $5,600 price tag, but he considers the Bushmaster essential in his preparations to take on the US government when it declares martial law.
His belief that that day is imminent has led Pray to a group called Oath Keepers [1], one of the fastest-growing "patriot" organizations on the right. Founded last April by Yale-educated lawyer and ex-Ron Paul aide Stewart Rhodes, the group has established itself as a hub in the sprawling anti-Obama movement that includes Tea Partiers, Birthers, and 912ers. Glenn Beck, Lou Dobbs, and Pat Buchanan have all sung its praises, and in December, a grassroots summit [2] it helped organize drew such prominent guests as representatives Phil Gingrey [3] and Paul Broun [4], both Georgia Republican.
In Pray's estimate, it might not be long (months, perhaps a year) before President Obama finds some pretext—a pandemic, a natural disaster, a terror attack—to impose martial law, ban interstate travel, and begin detaining citizens en masse. One of his fellow Oath Keepers, a former infantryman, advised me to prepare a "bug out" bag with 39 items including gas masks, ammo, and water purification tablets, so that I'd be ready to go "when the shit hits the fan."
When it does, Pray and his buddies plan to go AWOL and make their way to their "fortified bunker"—the home of one comrade's parents in rural Idaho—where they've stocked survival gear, generators, food, and weapons. If it becomes necessary, they say, they will turn those guns against their fellow soldiers.
Now Pray is both a Birther and a Truther. He believes he is following an illegitimate, foreign-born president in a war on terror launched by a government plot—9/11. He admires soldiers like Army reservist Major Stefan Frederick Cook, who volunteered for a deployment last May and then sued to avoid it—claiming that Obama is not a natural-born citizen and is thus unfit for command. Pray himself had been eager to go to Iraq when his own unit deployed last June, but he smashed both knees falling from a crane rig and the injuries kept him stateside. In September, he was demoted from specialist to private first class—he'd been written up for bullshit infractions, he claims, after seeking help for a drinking problem. His job on base involves operating and maintaining heavy machinery; the day before we met, he and his fellow "undeployables" had attached a snowplow to a Humvee, their biggest assignment in a while. He spends idle hours at the now-quiet base researching the New World Order and conspiracies about swine flu quarantine camps—and doing his best to "wake up" other soldiers.
Are ya creeped out yet? Guys like this wacko are in the US Army, and live amongst us! I mentioned the Oath Keepers in just a few sentences in my Patriots post, so when I saw this today I thought it would fit right in. This article on AlterNet is over 8 pages so if you want to read it all go here
I'll leave you with this, it's from the comments section:
And Gays would be deterimental to Unit cohesiveness?
These people are saying they will turn on their own unit-Kill their fellow Americans!
Not a surprise Rhodes is also a ”Christian” code word for Satanist these days. Of course he wants to recruit LEGIONS of armed angry self absorbed and paranoid people- he’s building his army against humanity (God).
They aren’t Protecting the Divine, they are mounting an army against Him.
Rhodes is misinterpreting the Consitituion just as he is the Bible, for his own diabolic agenda.
Come on if these were Constitutionally astute (or Literate) people they would have recognized Cheney’s Coup while it was happening. They would have Reacted to the phrases ”Executive Privildege” and the various Illegal ways it had been used. They Would be screaming for Prosecutions for Acts of Treason by W, Cheney,Rummy et al.
This Group is a paid subsidiary of CheneyCo.
Burying the fact that much of what they claim could happen under Obama, already did Under W.
Want to prove you are a Patriot? Demand Cheney and his syndicate of Co conspirators be prosecuted Fully, both internationally and domestically.
Want to prove you are a true ’Christian’ recruit disciples not soldiers.Defeat ’evil’ with the Word not a weapon.
Labels are not chosen by the individual- they are determined by the group. These are Not American Patriots, nor Christians. They are Domestic Enemies and Satanists
