SUNDAY TIMES: "Militias finger their triggers for year from hell "

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SUNDAY TIMES, London
January 2 2000

MILLENNIUM NEWS

[Photo]On guard: Trochmann has stocked up on food and bullets
Photograph: Gaetan Cotton

Militias finger their triggers for year from hell

Tom Rhodes
Noxon, Montana

AT his heavily guarded home in the mountains of Montana, John Trochmann will be in a state of high alert from the moment he wakes up tomorrow. For Trochmann, 56, the white-bearded head of the Montana militia - one of America's most powerful civilian armies - surviving this year will be a full-time occupation.

He will be taking no chances as the financial markets open amid speculation that they could be vulnerable to year 2000 (Y2K) computer glitches.

Like hundreds of other men and women who belong to his militia network, Trochmann and his wife, Carolyn, 46, have been stockpiling weapons and food for months, burying them at strategic locations in readiness for the disaster they are certain will strike.

It may take weeks or even months, they believe, but they are convinced the millennium bug will close banks, cut power and communications, and empty shops. They forecast that mass panic and riots will trigger a long-planned move by the White House to mobilise troops. At best, the militia says, that will be the National Guard; at worst it could be the foreign forces of a so-called new world order under the banner of Nato or the United Nations.

"We are a rugged people here and we have plenty of guns and ammo," said Trochmann who, like his wife, always keeps two spare clips of ammunition strapped to his belt. "So our message to the military and the government is: stay the hell away. We can survive on our own."

Militia members all have generators, two-way radios, petrol and diesel supplies. The Trochmanns have also been squirrelling away grain, seasoning and cooking oil at their home near Noxon. They have access to supplies of beef as well as a kitchen garden filled with vegetables. Carolyn has been canning fresh fruit for years.

Trochmann's predictions range from the apocalyptic to the absurd. He believes that multinational corporations are poised to seize control of governments and a plague of incurable pneumonia is being let loose in America to curb the population. He also claims the Chinese army plans to use electromagnetic pulse bombs to shut down computers, cars and human thought processes.

Such theories are fuelled by internet messages. Randy Trochmann, a nephew, receives up to 700 e-mails a day from around the country, detailing plots by the federal government against patriotic Americans.

Montana has been named with Idaho and Utah by the FBI as a centre for domestic terror and an extreme form of survivalism. Topping the list of groups that cause concern is the Aryan Nations, a racist organisation with headquarters at Hayden Lake, Idaho.

Richard Butler, its leader, is the most ardent proponent of Christian identity, an ideology inspired by Hitler that presents white Aryans as God's chosen people. Butler's followers have been linked to the gunning down of Jewish children at a community centre in Los Angeles last year.

The group's outpost, set amid woods in rolling farmland, seems an unlikely focus of evil until SS insignia appear on the driveway and a swastika on an outhouse roof looms into view.

Butler believes the American government will use "propaganda" about groups such as his at the start of the new century to justify action against them. "If anyone needs to be on alert for terrorist acts, it is us," he said.

It is not just extreme elements of American society who have retreated into a survivalist wilderness of bottled water, tinned goods and generators. Seemingly sane middle-class people who fear the potential horrors of Y2K have followed their example.

Tom Kelly, a lawyer, has bought a piece of land near Austin, Texas, and furnished it with a mobile home and enough food and water for five years. After a lifetime spent eschewing guns, he now has 10. "I think people will eventually catch on and, when they do, it will be too late," he said.

Kevin Briggs, president of the American Civil Defence Association, has several 55-gallon water drums, propane tanks and a year's supply of food for his family of eight. All his Denver home lacks is a bomb shelter.

This is a luxury that one of his survivalist counterparts in Britain can boast. Michael Parrish, 50, a farmer in Essex, spent millennium night near the entrance of a former government-owned bunker on his property - fearful of an accidental strike by one of the former Soviet Union's nuclear missiles.Equipped with enough food to keep him and 20 close relatives going for three months, he calculated that he would have up to 30 minutes to lock the doors of the bunker's 360ft entrance tunnel.

By contrast, John Fenna, 42, an outdoor skills instructor from Pembrokeshire, put his faith in a Sherpa van packed with rations, a canoe and an air rifle. He was ready to flee to the hills at the slightest sight of millennium meltdown.

However, the level of paranoia in Britain is unlikely to match that of Jimmy Wynn, of the Georgia Militia. Like Trochmann and Butler, he believes the American government will use the millennium bug as an excuse to impose martial law. His group, which boasts 250 members, has identified at least six remote locations to which its members can flee in the event of a military crackdown.

"The year 2000 is going to look like 1936 Nazi Germany," Wynn said. "The technology is a little different, but the political rhetoric and assaults on individual liberties are the same."

[ENDS]

-- John Whitley (jwhitley@inforamp.net), January 02, 2000

Answers

Let us hope with all sincerety that this does not reasonably represent the people on this forum.

-- Michael Erskine (Osiris@urbanna.net), January 02, 2000.

Yeah.....there are a significant minority of them at this forum......

The amazing thing is they can rant on with their dangerous messages with complete impunity from the Sysops here.......yet if anyone brings them to task they are threatened with having their opinions deleted.......

Look at the amount of shit that guys like Andy, Jack, Invar ad nauseum posted and it was never removed.....yet if anyone posted any positive news about Y2K they were treated like they had the plague!

-- Craig (craig@ccinet.ab.ca), January 02, 2000.


Laugh and mock as you will people. However, remember, he who laughs last, laughs the loudest.

-- Notforlong (Fsur439@aol.com), January 02, 2000.

As for the real or imagined militia presence on this forum, we would refer you to the "whitless" post on Queen Lizardbeth in his other thread below. Consider the source.

-- blue collar (2ndshift@work.com), January 02, 2000.

"As for the real or imagined militia presence on this forum, we would refer you to the "whitless" post on Queen Lizardbeth in his other thread below. Consider the source."

I derived a great deal of innocent amusement from this inane contribution of yours, BlueCollar :).

As an expatriate Briton, living in Canada, I can declare with some certainty that I am not a member of John Trochman's Militia of Montana, nor any American militia, for that matter.

It's true that one of the Canadian militia Regiments solicited my membership some years ago, but since I'm not fond of military organizations composed of part-timers, and they are the equivalent of the US National Guard or the British Territorial Army, I delined. So I'm not a member of any Canadian militia unit, either :).

And, as a staunch Presbyterian and believing Christian, you could hardly include me with the Christian Identity movement. How you would find fault with my approbation of Elizabeth II's Christian testimony, too, is beyond me - perhaps you prefer the public spectacle of an adulterer and accused rapist publicly partying it up while mouthing platitudes at his nation? Well, everyone to his own taste :).

According to the US Code, though, as I recollect, you are a memberof the unorganized militia of the United States, if you are a US citizen between the requisite ages.

So be careful not to criticize and mock yourself too harshly...:)

-- John Whitley (jwhitley@inforamp.net), January 02, 2000.



The only Nazis on this forum are people like Andy Ray, Paul Davis, and most particularly, Lady Illogic, the creepiest of them all.

-- bo (diddleydaddy@bo.com), January 02, 2000.

"Let us hope with all sincerety that this does not reasonably represent the people on this forum."

I don't see any evidence that these people are hurting anyone, with the possible exception of the Aryan Nations, and the government is probably lying about that. They just don't want to be part of our corrupt establishment. More power to 'em.

-- Hawk (flyin@high.again), January 02, 2000.


I've lived in Georgia all my life and have never heard of this guy so he must not as powerful as they like to protray him.

"However, the level of paranoia in Britain is unlikely to match that of Jimmy Wynn, of the Georgia Militia. Like Trochmann and Butler, he believes the American government will use the millennium bug as an excuse to impose martial law. His group, which boasts 250 members, has identified at least six remote locations to which its members can flee in the event of a military crackdown."

I have no personal contact with militia members but from things I have read and seen on media I do not think all of them are racist as many reporters like to protray, just to hype their story line. Many of the militia I think are just survivalist who want to live independant lives without all the goverment control that has been getting stronger for many years. I see no harm in wanting to be a free person myself. Each individual had his own idea of what "to live in freedom is" to him. I have mine and they have theirs. I do have a problem with racist actions. I believe they have the right to think what they want to think, (isn't that one part of freedom, being permitted to think differently than others?). I just don't want to be around it myself. Racist just seem to concentrate on hateful rudeness and I don't like to be around ill mannered people. I like peace.

Obo

-- Obo (susanwater@excite.com), January 02, 2000.


...not a majority perhaps, but a significant minority on this forum have likeminded views...
-- Y2K Pro (y2kpro1@hotmail.com), January 02, 2000.

Did I read this right???? Is Pro actually acknowledging that we're not all would be terrorists??? My god.....you coulda' knocked me over with a feather...

-- Bokonon (bok0non@my-Deja.com), January 02, 2000.


Billy Jeff Clinton is an imbecile true. But the House of Windsor is the Teutonic Scion of a pack of scheming liars, who had to coerce real ENGLISH blood of the House of Spencer to act as a genetic thoroughbred to breed for it, to her everlasting regret. After which she was so vilely used, was dispatched with cool efficiency. You yourself in previous posts have lamented about Charles and the "Royal Consort" Camilla and what this has done to your precious Windsors. Come on Whitley, tell us more about what flag you fight under? Show us your real colours Christian. Does yours have a Maple Leaf on it, the compromise pseudo fleur-de-lis with the Gallic contingent or does yours look more like the Cross of St. George. Still fighting the dragon after all these years? Ye are an Orange Tory Royalist. Pure and Simple. This forum is for the dicussion of Y2K, not your personal mouthpiece for the dying British Aristocracy. A new millenium has dawned and Christ is the only KING. Did you not see his birth being celebrated worldwide?

-- blue collar (2ndshift@work.com), January 03, 2000.


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