Invasion of idaho (again) (Priest River: transplants, live in, to move)

[banjomike]

Hi, Mariner...
My replies are bolded.

Originally Posted by green_mariner

I guess these people think Idaho might accept them. It makes me wonder why the first crop of white supremacists chose Idaho in the early 90s.

Really, it was only one group, the Aryan Nations. Richard Butler was the leader, and was a Californian; pressure from the FBI and California drove him to look elsewhere. No one knows for sure why he chose N. Idaho, but some probable reasons are:
Proximity to the Canadian border
Proximity to Washington, Oregon and Montana borders
Cheap land, low population in the area, very few minorities, relatively difficult access, and 'off the radar'.
Butler arrived in the 80's. The Aryan Nations was just one of several racist groups that were scattered all over. Pennysylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Washington, Oregon, Montana and some other states all had neo-Nazi organizations, so Idaho was also a spot in the middle, due to I-90. Butler was financially supported by 2 early internet pioneers, both white power racists, both from California, who made millions selling out their company. Both moved to Idaho, and both ran afoul of the law. One is currently in prison, and the whereabouts of the other is unknown.

The AN group had several major criminals within it that conducted some murderous hate crimes, including the murder of Allan Berg, a famous talk show radio host in Denver. During the early 90's, the worst of them either passed through Butler's compound or used it loosely as a base. Look up Aryan Nations for a full history of the crimes and the people who did them.

The group attracted like-minded people, much like Hollywood attracts wannabe starlets. Most flirted with the organization for a short time and quickly left, while others moved elsewhere, due to the increasing attention paid to the group.

Opposition to the AN began in Coeur d'Alene, the largest city in N. Idaho shortly after Butler's arrival, and was met with several violent incidents. Eventually, the FBI arrested all of the members involved.

The end came after a mother and son, who drove by the compound on a public highway, were shot at, chased and terrorized by a few members. The Southern Poverty Law Center, the group that earlier broke the KKK by bankrupting it, sued Butler and the Aryan Nations on the couple's behalf, and won the suit. Bankrupt, Butler had to vacate the property, which was later purchased by another internet millionaire, a native Idahoan from S. Idaho.

He paid the mother & son for the title, and bulldozed and burned the compound. Butler moved to Washington, where one of his supporters bought him a trailer as a last act before leaving for Mexico. Butler died there a couple of years later. Butler was old, and had been a neo-Nazi for many decades before moving to Idaho.

I know Ted Turner owns alot of land in Montana. I didn't know that is where alot of hatred towards the wealthy started.

Turner wasn't the only one, but he was the richest and most famous. Montana had a lot of big ranches that were all slowly going under in the 80's and 90's, many over 100 years old. Resentment of big-city folks buying them out offended Montanan's pride, and the resentment was generally directed to Californians, who were some of the most visible newcomers. The trophy cabins and ranches didn't bring any money into the local economies, but drove up land prices enormously.

Montana, due to it's romantic appeal, generated by several very popular movies, songs, and the famous who moved there, caused a lot of common folk to pack up and move, especially to cities along the western edge; Missoula, Bozeman, Coulson, Kalispell, and other towns all had big growth problems.
Those problems were exacerbated by the growing popularity of extreme sports- mountain climbing, kayaking, radical skiing, etc. Bozeman especially just blew up in size with the arrival of these people, who came, caused heavy overload on the schools, real estate, and job market, and then left a few years later to go find the next new wilderness place. The average stay by most of the new arrivals was 18 months.

The trophy cabins and ranches caused a lot of grief in the bad forest fire years of 2000, 2001 and 2002 especially; the owners of multimillion dollar cabins wanted their properties to be protected at the expense of the forests and smaller landowners first.

The bank collapse caused many of the wealthy to sell (or abandon) a lot of those properties, further depressing the towns affected. Resentment still remains high to this day.

In addition, the western slope of the Rockies had attracted as many white separatists as Idaho. There were small organizations scattered all over Montana.


If the whole state of Idaho lets these angry fools know they aren't welcomed, hopefully these fools will not think of going to Idaho. And if there is very little money to go into these groups, then perhaps they will fade out.

The hate groups know full well they aren't wanted when they come. They love confrontation, and will escalate confrontation as a tactic to cause fear in the localities where they move to. They also love publicity, so confrontation and threats increase their visibility and credibility among their own, especially if they get up enough members to form a parade or some other public event. Id doesn't take many of them to bring a lot of major attention to them; the Posse Commitautus movement in Montana never numbered more than 12-16 members, mostly just 4 families, but they got attention for many months after threatening the county sheriff and some other civic leaders. Their standoff was in the news for months.

It's very easy to urge the locals to stand up to these guys from afar, but that is very hard to do when they are living among you. They always go after the folks who are least prepared to resist them first.

When these hate mongers find the least degree of acceptance, they use it as much as they can. And they are all huge publicity hounds, so they inflate everything they do. They also always try to give the impression that their numbers are larger than they actually are.



In short, using legalism should help.

Yup. The most effective way to run them out is by legal means.
Very few of them have much money, and most have criminal backgrounds. None are socially well adjusted, and few seek everyday jobs.
Butler's bunch were mostly drunks and druggies who drifted in, stayed a while for the party, and drifted on. They looked and acted pretty much like a big city street gang. Cross burnings are usually followed by a 3-day drunk and a bunch of shooting up the woods with guns afterwards.

Most of their income is derived by criminal enterprise and drugs. It's relatively hard to catch individual members, but it's pretty easy to go after the compounds, which are always ramshackle and would not meet construction codes. Since public roads, usually unpaved dirt roads are the only access to some of their dumps, a county can simply close the road and shrivel them up. Idaho Fish and Game access roads can be bermed and bulldozed so the roadway is permanently ruined.

Going after their bank accounts for any number of legal reasons will also stop them cold.

[Toyman at Jewel Lake]

One loser with a camp trailer squatting on land he probably will be evicted from...does not a "Movement" make. He comes across as an idiot, and is ignored by the vast majority of the residents of the area. Still, unpopular ideas or not, he has a right to them. As I or anyone else has a right to condemn him for them. Much like other racist hate groups such as the NBPP, La Raza and many others. I have trouble taking the SPLC seriously as a source, they seem like some of the most prolific biggots around.

[Toyman at Jewel Lake]

Originally Posted by analyze_this

Why is it always the biggest losers in life who are white supremacists? How come white rocket scientists, nobel prize winners, people like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Sergey Brin etc. not eager to join their ranks?

If I'm not mistaken, Richard Butler used to be an aerospace engineer for Lockheed. Bertalloti (sp?) was a lawyer. While I dispise their acts and attitudes, it's simplistic to dismiss them as "the biggest losers in life". It would actually be interesting to look into their life histories and see what lead to their beliefs and actions. Though I have trouble caring.

[BG79]

Originally Posted by countryboy73

All I will say, as a prospective future Idaho resident, is that while I am very opposed to racism in any form, Idaho residents need to be careful about giving government more power to regulate ANYONE, no matter how hated they may be. Such action often comes back to bite the very people who attempted to use the club of government to regulate undesirable people or situations out of their lives. There is always a better way to fix our problems than creating a new club for the government to use on others, especially given that that club usually usually ends up being used on its creators before too much water goes beneath the bridge. Handle your own problems, and you will be happier in the end. Government is like a mad dog, unchain it at your own peril.

This honestly is what I was thinking. I am all for social shunning by people in the area but it makes me extremely uneasy that now they're looking for any sort of permit violation or some other technicality to focus the force of the government on a private citizen. All these talks about how there should be new regulations in order to prevent people from gathering works both ways, it hurts all of our freedoms not just the ones you're trying to limit.

[banjomike]

Originally Posted by Toyman at Jewel Lake

If I'm not mistaken, Richard Butler used to be an aerospace engineer for Lockheed. Bertalloti (sp?) was a lawyer. While I dispise their acts and attitudes, it's simplistic to dismiss them as "the biggest losers in life". It would actually be interesting to look into their life histories and see what lead to their beliefs and actions. Though I have trouble caring.

I don't know about Butler, but Bertollini and his partner Carl Story started a computer parts company called Systems Chemistry that they sold just before the dot.com bust. Story had a long record as a hardware pioneer; earlier, he owned a couple of early chip manufacturing companies.

Both were busted for DUIs after they moved to Bonner county.Bertollini fled the charges and ended up in a New Mexican prison for almost 4 years, and Story forfeited bail and just vanished.

Who can say why they believed as they did, but all of them, including Butler, had good success as younger men.

[nwprof65]

What about the child (children)?

Are they being exposed to abuse (of a kind)? Substandard care? Exposure to danger?

Can these children be taken into protective custody, under exisiting laws and not returned until their parents are "rehabilitated"?

Or, be placed into loving homes where they will not re-create the mis-guided lives in the future?

[banjomike]

Originally Posted by nwprof65

What about the child (children)?

Are they being exposed to abuse (of a kind)? Substandard care? Exposure to danger?

Can these children be taken into protective custody, under exisiting laws and not returned until their parents are "rehabilitated"?

Or, be placed into loving homes where they will not re-create the mis-guided lives in the future?

Who knows?
I'm sure some lead 2 lives- good parents until they leave the house and put the KKK hood on. Others don't harm their kids physically, but gladly make the kids little copies of themselves.

Some children undoubtedly suffer from neglect and abuse, just like kids whose parents are gang members suffer. Same mentality, different gangs.

There are a couple of twin girls whose mother is big in the white power movement. As youngsters, they both took up playing music and singing, and their mom made them a big deal for a few years; they were promoted in the white power circles under the group name of Prussian Blue.
They got a little notoriety, but when they began aging, they both quit it all around age 18 or so. Their mother was must another twisted stage mom.

This just goes to show there are all kinds of parents inside the movement. Take your pick from the general population, and there you have it, with a big shot of hate and a cherry on top.

[mistyriver]

I live in the Priest River area (where Winkler is, though he's more in Vay). My daughter went to school with a girl who'd lost both parents to drugs and she and her younger siblings were being raised by her grandmother. Who moved in a known and convicted child molester. On the list and everything. The police absolutely knew about it because my daughter's friends parents (dad was a deputy sheriff) wouldn't allow her to spend the night there. Unbelievable.
But take Winkler's kids away because he's a white supremacist. I'm not seeing that happen any time soon.

[Toyman at Jewel Lake]

Originally Posted by nwprof65

What about the child (children)?

Are they being exposed to abuse (of a kind)? Substandard care? Exposure to danger?

Can these children be taken into protective custody, under exisiting laws and not returned until their parents are "rehabilitated"?

Or, be placed into loving homes where they will not re-create the mis-guided lives in the future?

Giving that level of power to the government is far scairer than anything to come out of the Aryan Nations.

[mistyriver]

White Supremacist says foreclosure won't stop Aryan Nations compound | KREM.com Spokane

And the person who is donating land to him is a "retired Los Angeles police officer".
I really hate that he says that the Priest River area is more accepting of his beliefs.