Oath Keepers Rally Reveals Radical Politics of Group
… if there were any questions still remaining about what the Oath Keepers really are, an event the group has planned for this weekend should lay them all to rest. Starting on Friday at the Farragut State Park outside Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, the Oath Keepers are hosting the Northwest Patriots and Self Reliance Rally. The lineup of participating allies is revealing.
There will be a workshop on colloidal silver — a substance that many on the radical right believe is a cure for all kinds of ailments that the government has kept secret from the people. In fact, the substance has no known medical use and, if used with the frequency that some radicals do, turns human skin blue.
There will be seminars on Agenda 21, a United Nations sustainability plan that has no legal enforcement mechanisms or requirements, but that the radical right is convinced is a secret plot to impose socialism on the United States.
There will be representatives from the John Birch Society — a primary proponent of the Agenda 21 conspiracy theory, the idea that fluoridation of water is a Communist plot, and the charge that President Dwight D. Eisenhower was a Communist agent. Also scheduled to attend are Sheriff Richard Mack, a long-time darling of the antigovernment “Patriot” movement who has been encouraging county sheriffs to resist federal gun laws, and Chuck Baldwin, a far-right pastor and “constitutionalist” who moved to Montana several years ago to battle the incursions of the federal government.
Also featured will be training sessions on hand-to hand combat, nighttime military patrols, survival firearms, and preparation of “bug-out bags” — all of these an obvious reflection of the radical right’s obsessive fear that the government is about to move against the American people, seizing their guns and ending liberty.
“If you’re concerned about the future of America, if you’ve awakened to the peril facing our American heritage, our Judeo Christian way of life and the very existence of our future as a nation, if you realize the importance of preparing for an uncertain future and striving for a self-sufficient lifestyle, then there will only be one place to be,” a promotional radio advertisement about the rally says.
