Tar Wars 2K: The Millennium Inquisition
Craig Goodrich
Rant Magazine
December 1999
As I write this, New Years 2000 is less than a month away, meaning it's too late for me to do much to prepare for the much-trumpeted Y2K Crisis.
Up here in Elkmont, we spent Christmas Eve 1998 in a quiet turn-of-the-century mode anyway; the electricity was off for a week (due to an ice storm, not a computer bug). It finally came back on Christmas Day just as my wife was taking the holiday dinner out of the rusty old charcoal grill on the patio. We got a new gas grill last July; I guess that constitutes some sort of preparation.
My personal feeling has always been that the main problem the Y2K consultants and salesmen will solve for you is what to do with all your blank checks that still have "19__" on them. But by the time you read this, perhaps while watching a candlelit NFL playoff on the propane-powered TV in your bunker, you'll already probably know how accurate the various prognostications were.
This isn't to say, though, that I'm brightly optimistic about the coming year. A problem much more serious in its long-term consequences than an electrical outage (or even than banking and airport shutdowns) is starting to rear its ugly head: An assault on the very foundations of American civil society, with the Y2K "crisis" as a cover, is at this very moment being planned by a large, fanatical, well-organized international hate group with cells (both open and clandestine) in every major city in America, and with secret sympathizers spread throughout our mass media.
I refer, of course, to the Federal Government. While much of the bureaucracy has shown itself utterly incompetent (surprise, surprise) at dealing with its own Y2K computer problems -- large chunks of the IRS and Social Security systems remain to be tested, even at this late date -- the Federal Emergency Management Agency has made extensive plans, not surprisingly involving the US military, to "restore essential services" in case of any Y2K breakdowns. (The possibility that Podunk Bell and Gotham Edison just might be able to restore service much more rapidly without FEMA bureaucrats breathing down their necks and Second Lieutenants behind every door apparently never occurred to them.)
More ominously, the FBI has quietly telegraphed its plans for the near future by releasing the Project Megiddo document, a "research report" which, according to a Bureau press release,
... is the culmination of an FBI research initiative which analyzed the potential for extremist criminal activity in the U.S. by individuals or domestic groups who attach special significance to the year 2000... Many extremists place significance on the next millennium, and may present challenges to law enforcement authorities. The significance is based primarily upon apocalyptic religious beliefs or political beliefs concerning the New World Order conspiracy theory. The report is intended to ... increase awareness among law enforcement officials of the unique challenges that may be presented by extremists motivated by millennial agendas.
The study is being distributed to appropriate law enforcement personnel from around the country and provides an overview of various extremist ideologies, specifically those which advocate or call for violent action beginning in the year 2000.
The public, presumably sanitized, 32-page version of the report is available on the Internet (through http://www.fbi.gov/library.htm ). It makes fascinating reading.
The first section discusses such groups as the Aryan Nation, the Christian Identity Movement, and the Black Hebrew Israelites. Basically, the whole first half of the report can be summarized in the words of the old Tom Lehrer song:
Oh, the Black folks hate the White folks
And the White folks hate the Black folks
All of my folks hate all of your folks
And everybody hates the Jews.
But now it's National Brotherhood Week, National Brotherhood Week ...
It's in the report's later sections, though, that things really start to get interesting. The Bureau discusses "apocalyptic cults," and tries in its best bureaucratese to define both of these terms and compare-and-contrast everything with everything else. (The project itself is named after the hill in Israel from which we get the word "armageddon.")
The problem, of course, is that the vast majority of American adults are (or claim to be) Christians, and with the exception of a relatively small number of "preterist" theologians*, all of them are "apocalyptic" in the sense that they believe in the Second Coming, the End of the World, judgment and resurrection, and so on. At least for most mainstream churches -- be they Catholic, Baptist, Greek Orthodox, or whatever -- that is an essential part of what "Christian" means, though of course theological details and emphasis vary widely.
Megiddo tries to distinguish between a "real" religion and a cult:
A ... useful definition of cults incorporates the term "cultic relationships" to describe the interactions within a cult. Specifically, a cultic relationship refers to "one in which a person intentionally induces others to become totally or nearly totally dependent on him or her for almost all major life decisions, and inculcates in these followers a belief that he or she has some special talent, gift, or knowledge." This definition of cults provides important distinctions that are vital for analyzing a cult's predilection towards violence.
So, is Christian Science a religion or a cult? Mary Baker Eddy certainly had a "cultic" relationship with her original followers, as did Joseph Smith among the early Mormons and William Miller among the Seventh-Day Adventists. The Catholic Church teaches the inerrancy (obviously a kind of "special knowledge") of the Pope on matters of faith and morals and (like all churches) insists that Christian morality be a primary consideration in "all major life decisions". So according to the US Department of Justice, the Catholic Church is a "cult"?
Here the Bureau is running head-on into an ancient conjugation:
My religion is revealed truth.
Your religion is ignorant superstition.
His religion is a dangerous cult.
(Moreover, this seems to be a perfect description of the relationship between President Clinton and those who crowd around him at cabinet meetings, press conferences, and other campaign rallies. Does the Clinton Cult's "predilection towards violence" explain Waco, Vince Foster, Somalia, Yugoslavia, and the sanctions that kill more than half a million Iraqi children every year? The Administration has fired a cruise missile at someone or other on the average of once every three days since its inauguration in 1993; is this really some sort of bizarre religious ritual?)
In its quest for what the press release calls a "measured and responsible picture of potential extremism", Megiddo repeatedly notes that the vast majority of members of this or that cult or militia are unlikely to commit violent act, but a small minority of violence-prone individuals may use the group's rhetoric as an excuse for terrorism.
Now, a small minority of violence-prone individuals in any group -- the Green Party, short-wave radio operators, professional bridge players, librarians -- may commit violent acts. Megiddo invites law enforcement officials to evaluate in detail various political and religious ideologies against its numerous checklists and sets of criteria. So Sergeant Friday is now expected to act as a theologian, making subtle judgments about a group's view of the nature of the Kingdom of God and the role of the faithful within it, in the hopes of identifying
a small minority of violence-prone individuals.
"I dunno, Joe. Why are we wastin' time on this mumbo-jumbo? Can't we find the violent slimeballs faster just by lookin' at the rap sheets?"
"Right, Ed. [Friday closes the volume of Kirkegaard.] But there's a better reason we should get outta here."
"Yeah?"
"It's called the Constitution." [DUMM-daDUM-DUMM, logo SPLANGGG!!]
One can nitpick this report endlessly, but the central objection to Megiddo is not that it wastes resources -- although, for example, as far back as the '50s about two thirds of the dues-paying members of the Communist Party USA were FBI informants or agents, meaning that an awful lot of CPUSA political literature was printed and distributed at taxpayer expense, and the whole operation proved irrelevant to the high-profile spy cases of the era -- nor even that it feeds the "us versus them" mindset that plagues American police forces, but that it pushes law enforcement into an area where government involvement is specifically forbidden by the First Amendment.
One would think that American news organizations, constantly bragging about its freedom and independence, would take offense at this, or at least mention the potential problem. Nope. The current generation of blow-dried mass-media journalists firmly believes that the First Amendment, indeed the whole Bill of Rights (and probably the whole Constitution) goes:
Congress shall make no law abridging Freedom of the Press. Neither shall anybody else. End of story. -30-So of course none of this bothers them, at least as long as the Feds restrict their attentions to militias, religious groups, and other Dangerous Extremists Who Make Good Copy.
Several pedantic commentators have observed that the new millennium will not actually begin until 2001. They're right, of course, but at least we can be pretty sure we're starting a new century (the twenty-hundreds? the 2Ks?). Or something. And we're starting it off with the State Department, having learned nothing at all from this century's disastrous wars, making plans for bigger and better NATO interference in other countries; with the EPA and the Energy Department, having learned nothing at all from the gas lines of the '70s, making plans for bigger and better government regulation of the fuel market; and with the FBI, having learned nothing at all from Waco, making plans for bigger and better prying into the religious and political beliefs of the citizenry.
And from all appearances, that citizenry, having learned nothing at all from the past decade of endless, constant government lies, disasters, and coverups, is planning to tolerate all this and much more, anaesthetized by a press establishment that has learned nothing at all, ever, from anything.
The real Y2K catastrophe is that this new century looks as though it'll be exactly like the old one.
* The preterists argue that the apocalyptic vision in Revelation concerned the destruction of the Nation of Israel by the Romans around 70 AD and the subsequent dispersal of the Jewish people throughout the Empire, and that since it's already happened, the Church should quit worrying about the End Times and get on with its business of saving individual souls. They may have a point.
Computer guru Craig Goodrich lives in a house in the woods in Elkmont, with his wife, two children, and four cats. He is a member of the Libertarian Party of Alabama, a smoker, and a gun owner.