Archive/File: people/g/gritz.bo gritz.beacon Source: Beacon, Vol. 17, Issue 1, Jan. 1993 (Boston Mensa) (Reprinted with permission of the author) True Gritz ---------------- by Sam Silverman ---------------- I was somewhat surprised at the article "Your Tax Dollars at Work" which appeared in the December 1992 "Beacon," having recently run across some information on both "For the People," the source of the article, and Colonel James B. Gritz, more commonly known as Bo Gritz. Both "For the People" and Bo Gritz have for a long time been associated with extreme right wing views to an extent verging on fascism (a kind view of their opinions). Gritz's views are so extreme that even the Mormon Church, which is very conservative, has warned him that he may be excommunicated because of his ultra-conservative views (Boston Globe, November 30, 1992). As to the incident in question, Randy Weaver, a white supremacist, had vowed never to be taken alive, and was known to be in possession of an arsenal of weapons. Weaver has now been charged in a 10-count indictment with murder, conspiracy, arms violations and other crimes (Boston Globe, Thursday, November 26, 1992). "For the People" is a right wing organization which prominently features the books of one Eustace Mullins, a venomous anti-semite, among other things. Like most right wingers of this ilk he sees the government controlled by Jews. "For the People" broadcasts an hour program on something called "Radio Free America," which is followed by another hour by Willis Carto's Liberty Lobby, one of the most effective and notorious fascist groups in the country. Apparently the two organizations, which share similar views, are competing for the allegiance of the hate constituency. Bo Gritz, a former Green Beret, makes much of his covert activities in Vietnam, Latin America and other places. In a campaign speech he gave in Tehachapi, California on August 16, 1992, he gave his responsibilities in Latin America as "unconventional warfare, guerilla warfare, subversion, sabotage, assassination, direct action missions." He didn't give details of these activities. He also speaks much of his search for live American prisoners in Laos. In 1988 Gritz accepted a nomination to run for vice-president of the United States from the Populist Party. The presidential candidate of the party was David Duke. Gritz later resigned from the ticket and ran for Congress from Nevada instead. In 1992 Gritz ran as president on the Populist Party ticket. This party was founded with the support of Willis Carto, a virulent anti-Semite, and its leadership reads like a Who's Who of the racist movement. The party is an amalgamation of "former" Klansmen, Nazis, and other racist far-right wingers put together in 1984. The party's National Executive Director, Don Wassall, reprinted racist material in the party's newspaper from an avowed white supremacist group based in Maryland. A former chair of the Ohio chapter, had been the Grand Dragon of the Ohio Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. Local leaders of the party in California have included former Klan leaders, Nazi activists and white supremacists. These examples should be sufficient to show the nature of the party. Gritz devoted a lot of effort to Montan in this campaign. Ken Toole, president of the Montan Human Rights Network, had this to say about groups like the Populist Party: "Most disturbing of all is the success hate groups have had in stitching bigotry and ignorance into the political fabric. Radical epithets have been replaced by the buzz words like 'quotas,' 'career criminals,' and 'welfare mothers.'" The bulk of Gritz's organizing and speech making is carried out through the apparatus of the "Christian Identity" movement, which preaches that Anglo-Americans are the true "chosen people" of the Bible, that Jews are Satan-spawn, and that non-whites are "pre-Adamic," that is, subhuman. None of these views appear in his California campaign address. But they do crop up in his campaign autobiography, "Called to Serve." There he refers to the "Rockefeller/Rothschild" Federal Reserve System as being controlled by "seven Jewish families." His campaign platform states: "It is time to return America to the Americans, ... halt the illegal immigration that is turning America into a Third World country ... end affirmative action ... end this country's decadent, degenerate ways. I've spent my life fighting for America, and now it's time to fight again. Will you be a part of my grass-roots army?" These statements include thinly-veiled code words for anti-Semitism, racism, sexism and homophobia. These comments are probably sufficient to indicate the slant of the article printed in the December 1992 Beacon, and why a certain skepticism about the report is warranted. It is likely that if the FBI did indeed ask Gritz to use his influence with Weaver, it was not because of their common Green Beret background, but because of their shared racist beliefs. I will end here with an excert from Gritz's California address which Mensans interested in his intellectual capacities may find revealing. Gritz is here giving his solution to the AIDS crisis: "What about Oxygen? Oxygen is really hard to het ahold of isn't it? Oxygen doesn't cost very much, does it? Los Angeles has four ozone generators, but they don't have the most. In Moscow they have the largest ozone generator in the world. What do these things do? They purify all of the water. How do they do it? You tell me if I'm wrong. Not one virus, not one fungus, not one bacteria can live in an oxygen-intensive environment. Is that true or false? It's true. Gosh, if that's true and you can do anything you want to do to the waters of Moscow -- and they probably do in L.A. -- and it purifies it, are you telling me we can't use oxygen therapy to win the war against AIDS? Isn't AIDS a virus?" =30=
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