Check this page for new stuff at Public Good.
Right Wing Terrorism and Weapons of Mass Destruction: Motives, Strategies and Movements A guardedly pessimistic look at the adoption of weapons of mass destruction by domestic right-wing terrorists in the last two decades.Briefing paper(Adobe Acrobat .PDF) and PowerPoint Slides by Public Good research director Paul de Armond.
Presented at The "New Terrorism": Does it Exist? How Real Are the Risks of Mass Casualty Attacks? in Washington, DC on April 29-30, 1999. The conference is sponsored by the Chemical and Biological Arms Control Institute in conjunction with the Center for Global Security Research, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
The session description:
Panel 2: The Classic Politically-Motivated
Non-State Groups
These groups are understood to have refrained from mass casualty attacks
because they would be counterproductive to the goal of extracting political
concessions from a targeted entity. But the constellation of politically
motivated groups is changing considerably. What are the salient changes from
the perspective of the mass casualty question? Are the inhibitions of old
likely to operate in the future?
Dennis Pluchinksy, Department of State
Paul deArmond, The Public Good
Ehud Sprinzak, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Planning conflict over land use at Western Washington University
This collection of reports, testimony and public documents has been updated:
We've expanded the report to include much more feedback for you, our visitors. The Top Ten list has been expanded to cover all our reports. We've added a nifty backlinks section. It's like a links page turned inside out -- it provides links to sites that have links to Public Good. And we've taken a look at how people have used search engines to travel to Public Good.
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Planning conflict over land use at Western Washington University
In late 1996, Public Good opened a preliminary investigation into land use and planning at Western Washington University. WWU is proposing to expand into Bellingham's densest low-income neighborhoods without any stated reason, public process or consideration of alternatives. We determined that the three way conflict between the University, the City of Bellingham and the neighbors met Public Good's mission for conflict intervention.
This page contains links to eight documents which are part of the formal record at Bellingham Planning Commission hearings from February to July of 1997. The hearings are expected to continue into early September, when the Commission is expected to make a recommendation to the City Council.
Rock, Paper, Scissors: Counter-terrorism, anti-terrorism and terrorism Public Good occasional paper #6. The present occasion calls for some clarification of the actors and concepts involved in millenarian and right-wing terrorism. Anti-terrorism is the reduction of terrorist violence by non-violent means. Counter-terrorism is fighting terrorism as a limited form of low- intensity conflict. The two strategies are not opposed to each other, but one is the subset of the other.
Putting the Far Right into Perspective is Public Good's newest analytic report. This web document is a redraft of a research memorandum prepared for a Japanese newspaper. We examine the relationships between the various groups on the Far Right which participate in the so-called "Patriot" movement. The report includes a schematic diagram that covers the "Patriot" right from electoral activities to terrorist warfare.
We have a whole new look and a new indexing system to our online archives. The new set of indices allow you to access files by author, title, subject, and date of publication. A parallel index of Public Good special reports is also available, as is a new gateway to our primary documents on demand system.
The top ten most popular files at Public Good's web site. We ran the file access stats on the first two weeks of 1997 and posted the most active files.
#1 is Daniel Junas' Angry White Guys with Guns the CovertAction Quarterly article published two weeks before the Oklahoma City bombing.
#10 (with a bullet!) is "You're not paranoid if they're really out to get you" the FBI transcript of an undercover recording of Washington State Militia members plotting escape, murder and mayhem.
has been revised as a more "web-friendly" document. This lengthy report is a comprehensive history and analysis of Wise Use from its inception to the end of 1994.
The upgrades continue, with a new and improved home and About Public Good pages.
A revised home page, "What's New" and Reports pages have been uploaded. This is the first of several updates and revisions that will be occuring.
"You're not paranoid if they're really out to get you."The draft transcript of one of over 150 FBI tape recordings made during the investigation of the Washington State Militia. This is a first-hand look at what was going on. Transcript, summary, and background documents are available.
The complete text of the federal indictment of the Whatcom Count and Seattle Christian Patriots on charges of conspiracy, explosives and firearms charges. August, 1996 (10K)
Militia Members Denied BailA partial transcript of the August 1, 1996 bail hearing in U.S. District Court shows some of the information regarding the alleged risk of flight and potential danger to the community, as presented by Assistant U.S. Attorney Susan Dorhmann. Includes some background information and notes by Public Good research director, Paul de Armond. August, 1996 (20 K)
To Soothe Their FearsThe rise of the militias in Whatcom County has been a long process. This Public Good Report examines the Citizens for Liberty meeting at which John Pitner and others asked Whatcom County Sheriff Dale Brandland for his position on their activities. August, 1996 (11K)
Militia and CLUE Activities in Whatcom and Snohomish CountiesMilitia and CLUE Activity in Whatcom and Snohomish Counties. On Saturday, July 27, eight men associated with the militia movement were arrested while attending a class on bomb making in Bellingham. This chronology of will give you an overview of the past two years. August, 1996. (25K)
Public Good uncovered documents linking the Fortuna Alliance of Bellingham with the Christian Patriot movement. This article in the Albion Monitor Internet publication is the result of a six-month investigation. Although the Federal Trade Commission shut Fortuna down in May, debate still rages: was The Fortuna Alliance a revolutionary New Age business -- or a multi-million dollar Internet con game? July, 1996 (remote file)
The largest law enforcement action against fraud on the Internet. Came down on May 29, 96. Public Good uncovered legal papers linking Fortuna to the so-called Freemen or Constitutionalist movement. View these documents in our archive.
A Not So Distant MirrorWe explore the connection between the Wise Use Movement and the Militias in the Pacific Northwest. Clear historical parallels exist between these modern day apocalyptic conspiracy theorists and militant heretics of the Middle Ages in Europe.
Christian Patriots at War with the StateThe underlying beliefs of the Christian Patriots, Freemen and Militias.
Janet Bielhl's report on the cross-over between extreme libertarians and the white supremacist militia movement. Sometimes refered to as a "right woos left" phenomenon or a "red-brown" alliance, the convergence between libertarianism and militias is shown in a new light in this report from Green Perspectives, A Social Ecology Publication, Number 37, April 1996.(45K)
Public Good web pages are now more friendly to lynx users. A bug in the use of quotation marks was reported by JSW and MT. It has now been fixed and lynx users should now be able to read the reports without problems.
NEW in Public Good Reports:
WHAT'S OLD AND WHAT'S NEW ABOUT THE WISE USE MOVEMENTby Ralph Maughan and Douglas Nilson, Idaho State University Dept. of
Political Science.
Copyright 1993
This paper examines the Wise Use movement as to whether it represents a new political phenomenon or simply a recurrence of reactionary Western land revolts such as the Sagebrush Rebellion of the late 1970s and early 80s. We conclude that the Wise Use Movement is a desperate effort to defend the hegemony of the cultural and economic values of the agricultural and extractive industries of the rural West. It differs from past such movements in its level of desperation and in a first effort to win allies in other parts of the region and nation.
3 new articles in Public Good Reports:
A CALL TO DEFEND DEMOCRACY AND PLURALISMfrom The Blue Mountain Working Group -- November, 1994
This statement is meant to spark discussion of how best to defend democracy & pluralism in light of the continued victories of secular, religious, and corporate right-wing forces that employ scapegoating and demagoguery.
Help Defend Democracy & Pluralism!...We see the current general right-wing backlash as one of the most significant political developments of the decade, combining well-funded national institutions with highly-motivated grass-roots activists. To effectively counter this movement, we believe it is essential to understand the specific and complicated components of the political right wing across its many forms, and the often conflicting and competing aspects of right-wing theory and practice.
A statement and press release from the Blue Mountain Group Steering Committee -- November 17, 1994
A group of twenty-one organizers and researchers active in challenging right-wing campaigns across the country have issued a "Call to Defend Democracy and Pluralism." The call was released just days after the political and religious right celebrated their victories in electoral contests across the country, which will be one topic of discussion at a strategy meeting attended by many of the signers starting today at the Blue Mountain Conference Center in upstate New York.
LEADERLESS RESISTANCE AND THE OKLAHOMA CITY BOMBINGWhile highly critical of the polarizing tactics of right-wing leaders, the activists urge their supporters to "refrain from using the same polarizing techniques of scapegoating, demonization, and demagoguery that have been so successful for the anti-democratic right." The activists pledged to "respect diversity while defending democracy," and conceded that "many of the individual grassroots activists being mobilized by the leadership of the anti-democratic right are sincere and honest people with real fears concerning jobs, family, schools, and personal safety. They are not our enemies, they are our neighbors and potentially our allies."
By Tom Burghardt, Bay Area Coalition for Our Reproductive Rights.
(c) 1995 BACORR
"Utilizing the Leaderless Resistance concept, all individuals and groups operate independently of each other, and never report to a central headquarters or single leader for direction or instruction...participants in a program of Leaderless Resistance through Phantom Cell or individual action must know exactly what they are doing, AND EXACTLY HOW TO DO IT."
-- Louis Beam, Leaderless Resistance;
SAN FRANCISCO (April 23) The political context for the bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building, can be deciphered through a careful reading of key Christian Patriot texts. The bombing is almost a textbook case of what Aryan Nations/KKK leader, Louis Beam has termed "leaderless resistance."
Public Good moves its home page to http://www.publicgood.org (now at www.publicgood.org)
Graphics are added to the Public Good Reports menu. Articles produced by or with the research assistance of Public Good are flagged with the torch of freedom and knowledge.
nwcitizen.com is activated by INTERNIC.
Public Good's web pages go online.
Public Good's web pages are started. The next week is spent testing the overall design and converting existing reports to HTML.