A Force Upon the Plain: The American Militia Movement and the Politics of Hate

Stern (Holocaust Denial) issues a wake-up call regarding the growing paramilitary movement, which, he estimates, has a membership of between 10,000 and 40,000, largely in states west of the Mississippi. Most of these militia members (principally men) are armed, view the federal government as the enemy of the people and feel that civil war is not only possible but justifiable. Stern cites evidence that, in addition to paranoid, these people are often racist, anti-Semitic, anti-environmentalist and anti-gun control. With the collapse of the Soviet regime, he points out, the most easily defined target of hatred disappeared, and has now been replaced by the U.N. and the federal government. Stern warns that the paramilitary groups should not be dismissed but recognized as a genuine threat, as the Oklahoma City bombing dramatized. Photos not seen by PW. Author tour. (Jan.)