Date: Tue, 9 Apr 1996 13:12:28 -0400
Reply-To: SILBERGD%[SNYNEWVM bitnet] at [cunyvm.cuny.edu]
From: Donald Morison Silberger <SILBERGD%[SNYNEWVM bitnet] at [cunyvm.cuny.edu]>
Subject: Federal moles in the militias

Helen Johnson of the Ohio Unorganized Militia has posted several times
concerning a person paid more than $1700/month in money robbed from the
tax-paying public to serve as "liaison" between the federal government
and the citizen militia movement.  Before this person was "liaison", he
was perhaps  a simple mole and potential agent provocateur.  Or, putting
the best possible light on the matter, perhaps he is *eactly* what he
says and possibly believes he is:  a person in the pay of the feds who
are intent on defusing potentially dangerous situations which may arise
when "ignorant armies clash by night" (if I may borrow from Matthew
Arnold's "Dover Beach").  With your permission I will try to shed light.

The patriot/militia movement's membership absolutely *must* have known
from the very beginning that there would be federal moles operating in
its midst.  It must constitute itself and comport itself in such a way
that the harm to that movement which may be caused by those moles is
minimized.  It should *not* react by scratching itself to death over
those impossible-to-avoid fleas.  It must not react by producing schisms
and breakdowns in internal communication, but should calmly understand
that *anyone* in that movement could be a mole, and should conduct its
policies and make its plans accordingly.  It should assume that the
government will know everything that it is doing, and should do only
those things which are perfectly justified at all times.  From my
casual observation the patriot/militia movement has been following this
advice before I offered it.  It should continue exactly that way.

History repeats itself endlessly.  During the Forties and the Fifties
it was well known that fully half of the people who attended Communist
Party cell meetings were agents of the FBI, who were there to keep tabs
on that Party's activities, and to disrupt those activities or to provoke
the cells to take foolish and even suicidal actions whenever possible.

Does the patriot movement assume that because it is the good guys and
those Fifties Communists were bad guys that exactly the same sort of
thing won't happen again and happen in fact to *them*?  Well, I've got
some news for you in that case.

Not only were not all of those Fifties' Communists bad guys, but not all
of the Nineties' Patriots are good guys.  That's the first thing to note.

The second remark is this:  Very bad things happened to innocent people
on the "left" in the Fifties, and very bad things are going to be
happening to the "right" in the Nineties.  It should be expected, and
contingency arrangements should already be in place.  Intensive *open*
communication should be maintained within the patriot movement, and
serious outreach to the American populace should be ongoing.  Far from
seeking to limit its membership to the purportedly pure of heart, one
of the patriots' principal attempts should be to recruit members.  There
are damned few perfectly pure people, and none of them reliable so.

Large membership is an aid to survival.  If there were a well-organized,
well-disciplined, and exceedingly well-behaved 20 million person
militia movement in place in this country then we would perhaps be
seeing some compromise and accommodation coming from official sources
in Washington, and a definite change in some of Washington's hysterical
agendas.  With the movement number at less than a million members, it
is vulnerable not only to the constant vilification which we now note,
but to military attack, with the jailing and murdering of people in
the movement who are among the more articulate and sensible and...
believed in.  Consequently, the "leadership" of the movement should be
as diverse and as ambiguous as possible, so that there are no clearly
visible "heads" to be lopped off.

Finally, let me remind you how FBI agent "members" of the Communist
cells in the Fifties were mainly identified:  They were the members who
actually kept up on their dues payments to the cells.  Well... that
FBI money (i.e., taxpayer money spent on spying and disruption) was as
good as the dues money paid by the naively idealistic cell members...
even if the tender *was* in the form of "bogus" Federal Reserve Notes.
Who cares, so long as one's neighborhood grocer too is deluded enough
to accept them?  Bob Dylan put it this way in one of his songs:

"Those who live outside the law/ They must be honest."  It's a placid
enough world for the sheep who remain inside their assigned pasture.
But on the other side of the fence there are wolves to be anticipated.
And some of those wolves will be wearing sheeps' clothing.

Yours for liberty,

Donald Silberger   NRA Life BCJ7873J
Hudson Valley Libertarians
[silber g d] at [npvm.newpaltz.edu]