I guess Kalispell, Montana is off the list of places I want to live in. (Was it on the list in the first place? No, but now it’s on the Do Not Add list.) It seems it’s being colonized by white supremacists and anti-government right-wing lunatics.
The Pioneer Little Europe movement has brought dozens of white supremacists to the Flathead Valley. They are increasingly making their presence known by staging public events, openly recruiting and distributing racist literature, stocking up on firearms at area gun shows while dressed in neo-Nazi clothing, working for local anti-gun control and anti-abortion campaigns (according to Gaede), and issuing violent threats to perceived enemies, including Media Matters, which is now under “indictment” for treason to the white race.
The growing numbers of PLE white supremacists in the Flathead Valley parallels a recent influx to the area of ultra right-wing “Patriot” movement leaders and their followers. Their combined forces are rapidly transforming the region into the hottest flash point of right-wing extremism in the country.
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In addition to calling on fellow right-wing extremists to move to the Flathead Valley, leaders of both the PLE and the Patriot movements in the region are urging followers to exploit Montana’s weak firearms regulations by stocking up on guns, including .50 caliber sniper rifles and assault weapons, says Travis McAdam, executive director of the Montana Human Rights Network, which closely follows PLE and Patriot activity, including online communications.
Oh goody, sounds like another Ruby Ridge or Waco in our future.
Kalispell is the biggest town near Glacier National Park, which should be on everyone’s bucket list.Great place to visit in the summer. After September, not so much.
Doesn’t surprise me in the least that neo-Nazis (actually, they’re probably just plain Nazis, no “neo” required) would take up residence there. It’s remote as all get-out with lots of places for paranoid nuts to create little hidey-holes.
Looked at their blog and had to snort a little when I’d gotten back to the very first entry. Firstly, because they kick off with announcing a David Irving speech, with more details to come, though none seem to be there. Secondly, the only comment to the entry comes seven months later and its nature and the connotations of the commenter’s name are just too good…
http://kalispellple.blogspot.com/2011/03/snow-is-melting-and-spring-is-on-its.html
Creepy. I would personally prefer if they all went off and set up on some desert island somewhere, where they can’t hurt anyone, but as they will.
The Ruby Ridge comparison seems a poor one, though. From what I’ve read it genuinely was a case of some redneck getting stitched up and then getting attacked by state forces.
Was the Ruby Ridge family lunatic fringe? Absolutely.
Were they taking over a small town and making every sign of preparing to set up white hillbilly heaven, “free from them damned socialists niggers in the white house”, at the expense of the (possible) lives and wellbeing of anybody who doesn’t fit their deluded ideal? no….
Great, just what the anti-abortion campaigns were in dire need of, some more nutty totalitarians.
ruby ridge and waco are both good examples of government agencies totally bungling their responses to difficult situations, though. yes, both were situations where somebody with a badge needed to step in and do something, but neither of them needed to devolve into the bloody debacles they became, and in both cases official overreaction bore a lot of the blame for it.
thankfully our various three-letter agencies seem to have wised up since then; the few occasions of armed nutters going too far in the years since that come to my mind have been resolved more peacefully. (wasn’t there a month-long siege situation a few years ago, involving some income tax protester family? might have even been in montana, my memory’s not too clear on it. and my memory’s unclear partly because nobody ended up dead, that time. that’s the way to handle such things.)
I heard about this and it makes me terribly sad because it’s happening in my home state. Fortunately they’re staying out of my particular hometown– it’s too “liberal” for them, according to their own words.
Interesting point of view. I have lived in the Flathead area since 1993. I’ve lived in Kalispell, Columbia Falls, Hungry Horse. While it is true that people here hold firmly to their freedoms, and many do feel that the government is getting out of control, and even fear that the citizens of this great nation may need to one day take up arms again (thus most folks here like to have at least a few rifles around) I honestly have never seen any of these neo-nazis you speak of. I’ve never even heard of the PLE that you mention. In the last ten years I have seen a greater variety of races moving into the area, which is very nice to see. I’ve never seen any racism, and rarely hear of it except by a few folks that are from the southern or eastern parts of our country. True, there are incidents that receive a lot of media attention from time to time, but they are rare, and usually far more sensationalized than reality. It’s sad to hear someone passing through feel so adamantly against our community, one I chose to live in because it was the first place I’d ever felt accepted for being me, just the way I am.
Mary – passing through? I don’t think the reporter was just passing through.
Then again maybe I’m answering a Poe…