Street roots., October 07, 2016, Page 8, Image 8

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Page 8
Street Roots • Oct. 7-13, 2016
REUTERS/JIM URQUHART
Members of the Oath Keepers provide security at the Sugar Pine Mine outside Grants Pass on April 22, 2015. The owners of the Oregon gold mine called in armed activists, the Oath Keepers, to
protect their claim amid a bitter land^use dispute with the US. government, which had issued a federal stopwork order.
How the right-wing Patriot movement is organizing throughout Oregon's rural communities
BY JOANNEZUHL
Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers
Association. And like the Given Bundy clan
of Nevada, many are coming here from other
regon’s scenic Harney County, never
known for seeking the spotlight, drew states.
Jessica Campbell is the co-director of Rural
the gaze of nearly every Oregonian in
Organizing Project, or ROP, a statewide
January when armed militants occupied the
organization helping empower local groups to
Malheur National Wildlife Refuge south of
build
communities around human dignity and
the small town of Burns.
justice. Her organization has been on the
Over the weeks that followed, as the
front lines in small, under-resourced
occupation by out-of-state ranchers
communities encountering greater numbers
continued, we began hearing more about the
of people, often from out-of-state, looking to
nationwide movement they represented, a
recruit
them to their ideology.
movement with right-wing interpretations of
It’s not happenstance the movement is
the U.S. Constitution, a belief in the
taking hold in Oregon’s rural areas. Years of
supreme rights of property owners and the
stagnant incomes and poverty, government
sovereign power of local sheriffs. The
neglect and economic isolation have left
movement also comes with a disdain for
some communities desperate for
federal authority - to the point of disregard
infrastructure support, Campbell said.
- and a preoccupation with unrestricted gun
That’s why ROP created a toolkit for
ownership.
communities, lawmakers, the media and
But Harney County was only a flashpoint
every other Oregonian to better understand
in what the Rural Organizing Project sees all
the
Patriot movement, its history and
across the state. The so-called Patriot
ideology, and its tactics. “Up in Arms: A
movement, with armed paramilitary
Guide to Oregon’s Patriot Movement” was
offshoots, has connections to white
produced with Political Research Associates
nationalist groups, radical gun rights
and the assistance of University of Oregon
organizations, and anti-globalization and anti-
professors,
among others, to create a
environmental movements. They come with
comprehensive picture of what’s happening
names such as the Oath Keepers, The
across the state - Harney County and
Pacific Patriot Network, The Central Oregon
beyond.
Patriots, Three Percenters, and the
MANAGING EDITOR
O
Campbell said these groups are an
extension of the militia movement but,
perhaps more so than their predecessors,
“are really intentional and pretty
sophisticated around race politics.”
Joanne Zuhl: Explain the difference
between the Patriot movement we see today and
the militia movement of
years past.
Jessica Campbell:
"We have worked with
The militia movement
communities where people of
is really what we saw in color are leaving because their
the ’90s throughout
children are being threatened,
the Northwest, and the
and when their parents try
Patriot movement is
intervening, they're also
kind of the academic
classification for this
threatened. They've been told
newest revival of the
that their kind aren't
movement It is a
welcome."
different ideology, a
different motivation for
people who are joining,
and the white
nationalism isn’t the draw or the entry point
as it was in the militia movement
In terms of the threat, what we’re really
seeing is that a number of counties are
suffering pretty serious economic hardships
and that’s combined with the lack of federal