🚀 go-pugleaf

Hey clinton...OK if I drop you an email..?


"Clinton Gallagher" <csgallagher@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
news:oinH6.5979$kA1.277733@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net...
> Euell...
>
> You sound like a person who would like to know about
> Internet Broadcasting via the Genesis Communications
> Network. See http://www.gcnlive.com
>
> --
> <%= Clinton Gallagher
>          http://www.metromilwaukee.com/clintongallagher/
>
>
> "Euell" <walkmaster91@go.com> wrote in message
> news:3aed548b$0$2599$39cecf19@news2.twtelecom.net...
> > A grim reminder of unchecked government power. The shooting of Vicki
> Weaver
> > was outright murder.
> >
> > Boelke
> >
> >
> >
> > "bogeyman" <bogeyman@rr.com> wrote in message
> > news:vk1qet0rgrurlhah4gds18c755qo8c1107@4ax.com...
> > > Randy Weaver's Return From Ruby Ridge
> > >
> > > Back Home in Iowa, He's Got Memories -- and a Message
> > >
> > > By Anne Hull
> > > Washington Post Staff Writer
> > > Monday, April 30, 2001; Page A01
> > >
> > > JEFFERSON, Iowa -- The small town where Randy Weaver now lives is as
> > > wide and open as Ruby Ridge was steep and hidden. The Union Pacific
> > > whistles past the cornfields hourly.
> > >
> > > It is not unusual to find Weaver in Iowa because he was born and
> > > raised here, the son of a grain salesman. People forget that part.
> > > What they remember is the 11-day standoff with federal agents in
> > > 1992 that left Weaver's wife and 14-year-old son dead on an Idaho
> > > mountainside in the debacle that came to be known as Ruby Ridge.
> > > What they remember is the survivalist who wanted to separate from a
> > > race-mixing nation and its oppressive government.
> > >
> > > Now, Weaver mows his neat little lawn here on Wilson Avenue. A
> > > Cadillac sits in his driveway. He is listed in the phone book. But
> > > to say that Weaver has come down off the mountain would be only
> > > half-right.
> > >
> > > At 53, he is still not ready to forgive. Not after the Justice
> > > Department settled a lawsuit brought by his family for $3.1 million.
> > > And not after a wayward soldier named Timothy McVeigh killed 168
> > > Americans to avenge what happened at Ruby Ridge and Waco, the other
> > > disastrous federal siege.
> > >
> > > When McVeigh is executed next month for his role in the Oklahoma
> > > City bombing, a violent chapter in American history will close with
> > > one more death. Weaver says the real enemy will remain at large. The
> > > real enemy will continue to violate the Constitution and "eavesdrop
> > > on your house from a mile away with that super ear thing."
> > >
> > > Organizations that track the activities of racist and paramilitary
> > > groups dismiss Weaver as a fading figure in a waning movement. "In
> > > the scheme of things, he's milquetoasty," said Joe Roy, director of
> > > the Southern Poverty Law Center's Intelligence Project.
> > >
> > > Yet Weaver continues to rise like a martyr above the wreckage. In
> > > his case, the black helicopters really did come. A robot with a gun
> > > in its claw really did move across his cabin porch.
> > >
> > > It's hard to say who Weaver is now. The industry of rage and
> > > resentment makes certain demands upon him. He is a folk hero of
> > > ultra-right-wing groups. When asked about McVeigh's impending
> > > execution, he says almost reflexively, "There should be a bunch of
> > > federal agents lying right beside him on the gurney."
> > >
> > > Although he lost his own wife and child, Weaver identifies with
> > > McVeigh more easily than with the victims of the Oklahoma City
> > > bombing.
> > >
> > > "He was a soldier's soldier," Weaver says. "He just switched sides.
> > > Tim McVeigh was trying to make a point. He was what you call pro
> > > bono. He was going to be judge, jury and executioner. No different
> > > from the federal government. One has a badge and one don't."
> > >
> > > But other times Weaver is not so gung-ho. What if McVeigh had come
> > > to him with his plans for Oklahoma City?
> > >
> > > "I would have told him to forget it."
> > >
> > > Telling His Story
> > >
> > > "Meet Randy Weaver," the blinking sign announces outside the
> > > fairgrounds in Lincoln, Neb. Inside a stale expo hall, the tables
> > > are laid out with rifles and scopes and munitions. Weaver is near
> > > the door, standing at a table piled with $20 copies of his 1998
> > > book, "The Federal Siege at Ruby Ridge."
> > >
> > > No one here for this mid-April gun show really needs the book to
> > > tell what happened. In 1989, while living in Idaho, Weaver was
> > > caught selling two shotguns he had sawed off shorter than the legal
> > > limit to an informant working for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and
> > > Firearms. The ATF tried to enlist Weaver as an informant, promising
> > > to drop the gun charges, but he refused and was indicted by a grand
> > > jury.
> > >
> > > When Weaver failed to appear in court -- he had been given the wrong
> > > date -- an arrest warrant was issued.
> > >
> > > Seventeen months later, federal agents in camouflage and face paint
> > > were crawling around Weaver's 20 acres when they were detected by
> > > the family dog. Agents shot the dog and began a gun battle with
> > > Weaver's 14-year-old son, Sam, and a family friend, both armed. Sam
> > > was killed. So was U.S. Marshal William Degan. The siege began.
> > > Weaver holed up in the cabin with his wife and three daughters. The
> > > day after Sam was killed, Vicki Weaver was holding her 10-month-old
> > > daughter when an FBI sniper shot her in the head.
> > >
> > > Weaver surrendered after 11 days. He was charged with murder in the
> > > death of the marshal, but an Idaho jury acquitted him. He spent 16
> > > months in jail for the original gun offense.
> > >
> > > And here he is at a gun show, unable to own a firearm legally
> > > because of hisconviction. He stands at a table with only his story.
> > >
> > > The procession is steady. "My condolences," says one man, extending
> > > his hand. "I appreciate all your character. It must be a bitch."
> > >
> > > Weaver signs the book and takes the $20. "I appreciate that."
> > > They approach like mourners coming to pay their respects. He relaxes
> > > them, sometimes with humor, sometimes with anger. Some of them vent.
> > >
> > > Some want to know about missing shell casings at Ruby Ridge after
> > > the siege. One man is curious about "that shotgun robot sent in by
> > > the Freddies."
> > >
> > > "They want to talk to me a little more than I want to talk to them,"
> > > Weaver says. "They've become so upset with the government that it's
> > > hard to trust anybody. They're not bad people. They are just mad."
> > > Weaver wears motorcycle boots and keeps his wallet leashed to his
> > > blue jeans by a silver chain, Harley-style. His silver hair is cut
> > > close on the sides and long in the back.
> > >
> > > A broad-shouldered man in a John Deere jacket and an NRA cap extends
> > > his hand. "Fritz Oltjenbruns," he says. "I'm part of America's
> > > largest not-for-profit organization -- farmers. I was just telling
> > > my son this morning how the ATF snookered you down by an
> > > eighth-of-an-inch on that shotgun."
> > >
> > > Weaver rocks back on his heels. "I ain't ashamed of it. I'll cut it
> > > right down to the stock, whatever."
> > >
> > > The farmer folds his arms. "It's a darned shame what you went
> > > through with your wife," he says. "It's hard to believe the
> > > government went that corrupt that fast."
> > >
> > > Weaver signs a book and pockets the twenty. "Keep your powder dry,
> > > buddy."
> > >
> > > A concessionaire trots up with a present. "Here's something for you,
> > > Randy," he says, handing over a napkin. Buffalo jerky. "Thanks,"
> > > Weaver says, and sets it aside forever.
> > >
> > > A grandpa type holding a pistol approaches. "They haven't tried to
> > > run you out with your books, have they?" When Weaver was appearing
> > > at a gun show at the Reno Hilton once, the Northern Nevada B'nai
> > > B'rith pressured the promoter into banning his appearance.
> > >
> > > An intense, red-cheeked man holding a 32-ounce Coke pounces with a
> > > great gale of rhetoric on religion and politics that begins with
> > > Franklin Delano Roosevelt and ends with his plea, "If you have the
> > > time, I'd really like an answer."
> > >
> > > "I don't have the answer," Weaver says. "Religion's all a bunch of
> > > crap." The speechmaker, silenced, walks off into the sea of guns.
> > > The only person in the armory who isn't white is a janitor at the
> > > fairgrounds, a Native American named Floyd Pilcher. He approaches
> > > Weaver with a bag of sage, a faded bandanna and a T-shirt that
> > > reads, "IN THE SPIRIT OF CRAZY HORSE." "These are gifts from
> > > powerful people," Pilcher says.
> > >
> > > Weaver takes the gifts. "I guess anybody who's ever gotten stomped
> > > on by the government knows what I'm talkin' about," he says.
> > > Back inside, a strapping young man in a T-shirt imprinted with a
> > > Fort Benning logo and the words "DEATH COMES QUICK" solemnly shakes
> > > Weaver's hand. "I'm sorry your deal happened," he says. A
> > > creamy-skinned woman extends her hand. "By God, stand by your word,"
> > > she tells Weaver.
> > >
> > > The show doesn't end until 3:30, but Weaver starts breaking down his
> > > booth 40 minutes early. Two teenage boys hover. "Need some help?"
> > > one asks.
> > >
> > > "Thanks, partner," Weaver says.
> > >
> > > The kid turns to his friend. "He called me partner!"
> > >
> > > At Ruby Ridge
> > >
> > > When a pickup truck comes to a four-way stop in Jefferson, it is a
> > > lone red object against an endless curtain of green. Only the grain
> > > elevators have altitude. There is an A&W stand next to the
> > > ballfield, which is next to a cornfield.
> > >
> > > This is the place Randy and Vicki Weaver wanted to separate from
> > > when they sold their belongings and moved to the Pacific Northwest
> > > in 1983 with their three children. Separate from what, he is asked.
> > > "From what we were trying to get away from."
> > >
> > > It was Vicki Weaver who drove her family's peculiar following of Old
> > > Covenant Laws, calling God "Yahweh" and believing themselves to be
> > > the true Israelites. Because a woman having a child was considered
> > > unclean, Vicki Weaver gave birth to her fourth child in a shed
> > > behind their cabin on Ruby Ridge. She canned her own food and
> > > home-schooled the children.
> > >
> > > On three or four occasions, the Weavers attended Aryan Nation
> > > meetings up at Hayden Lake, a compound for government resisters and
> > > for white separatists and supremacists. Weaver says he'd drink beer
> > > and talk to the skinheads. He did nothing illegal, he says, until he
> > > got desperate for money and sold the two sawed-off shotguns to the
> > > informant.
> > >
> > > The Weavers' racial views were obscured by the enormity of what
> > > happened to them during the siege at Ruby Ridge. After the sniper
> > > killed Vicki Weaver, negotiators used a bullhorn to greet her in the
> > > morning, saying they'd had pancakes for breakfast -- what did she
> > > have?
> > >
> > > FBI Special Agent Eugene Glenn later told a Senate inquiry that
> > > agents didn't realize that Vicki Weaver had been shot. The sniper,
> > > Lon Horiuchi, testified that he could hit a target at 200 yards
> > > within one-quarter inch. He said he had been aiming for one of the
> > > armed males, not Vicki Weaver.
> > >
> > > An investigation found that the FBI had altered its rules of
> > > engagement, directing agents to shoot any armed adults on sight.
> > > Several high-ranking FBI officials were disciplined after a Justice
> > > Department inquiry found evidence of a cover-up. One pleaded guilty
> > > to obstruction of justice. The No. 2 official at the FBI, Deputy
> > > Director Larry Potts, was demoted after an investigation found
> > > evidence of misconduct. He retired two years later.
> > >
> > > The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is still reviewing whether
> > > Horiuchi should be subject to manslaughter charges.
> > >
> > > Meanwhile, the world Weaver had tried to separate from found in him
> > > a brother. He says he received more than 30,000 pieces of mail.
> > > "Hell, anyone who'd ever been picked on by the government was
> > > writing me," he says. "Airmen who'd escaped Red China, black guys
> > > from Detroit -- some friends of Leonard Peltier's mailed me one of
> > > his drawings."
> > >
> > > In the settlement of the civil lawsuit Weaver brought against the
> > > government, each of his three daughters received $1 million, and
> > > Weaver received $100,000.
> > >
> > > Weaver returned to Iowa, where relatives rented him a house in a
> > > small town next to Jefferson. He had his two youngest daughters with
> > > him. Weaver met a woman, Linda Gross, who was married and in
> > > farm-implement sales. The town suddenly got too small. Weaver and
> > > his girls went out to Montana for a few years.
> > >
> > > Weaver came back to Jefferson in 1999. He and Linda are now married
> > > and live with her two children from her first marriage. Linda is a
> > > secretary for a lawyer in town. Except for the gun shows, Weaver
> > > doesn't have a job. He's working on his next book, "The Rise and
> > > Fall of the USSA."
> > >
> > > His daughters live in Montana. The oldest, Sara, 24, is married to a
> > > corrections officer. The youngest, Elisheba, whom Vicki Weaver was
> > > cradling when she was shot, is 9 and lives with her sister Rachel,
> > > who is 19. Weaver says his kids "live out there because they like
> > > it."
> > >
> > > Before he left Iowa for the first time to live in the Pacific
> > > Northwest, Weaver sold his Harley-Davidson because he was starting a
> > > new kind of life. Now he owns a Harley Heritage Soft Tail that
> > > gleams in his garage.
> > >
> > > He writes off much about his lifestyle at Ruby Ridge. "Punk idiots"
> > > is what he calls many of the attendees at Aryan Nation meetings. He
> > > has offended Christian supporters who assume they are simpatico with
> > > him on matters of faith. "I've studied religions and pretty much
> > > decided they are all the same: [expletive]," he says. "And you
> > > shouldn't have to pay a tax-exempt preacher to hear it."
> > >
> > > He says people should live by the Golden Rule and not "whore after
> > > false deities."
> > >
> > > His views on race haven't evolved much. When asked whether white
> > > separatism isn't a losing battle in light of the new census figures
> > > that show a browning America, he shakes his head in pity. "I feel
> > > sorry for the next generation."
> > >
> > > A Place of His Own
> > >
> > > Weaver is having a White Russian at a place called Wet Goods on the
> > > town square. Joe Cocker is singing "Unchain My Heart" on the stereo.
> > > A tall man in a plaid shirt walks through the door. "Nick!" says
> > > Weaver.
> > >
> > > Nick Friess has known Weaver since elementary school. During the
> > > Vietnam War, they enlisted in the Army about the same time. Weaver
> > > was a Green Beret who remained stateside. Friess went to Vietnam,
> > > and two years later he stepped on an explosive in the grass. He was
> > > awarded a Bronze Star. Part of his leg was amputated seven years
> > > ago. He no longer farms. Now he is an educational director at an art
> > > museum.
> > >
> > > Friess sits down with Weaver. The conversation drifts from their
> > > childhood to the gypsum mine where Nick's father worked to church,
> > > and Weaver makes a crack about phony ministers. Friess says, in a
> > > very "Prairie Home Companion" way, "Oh, well, now, you can't
> > > categorize everyone. Some preachers are just fine."
> > >
> > > Weaver sits back, for once not spring-loaded. He doesn't have to be
> > > from Ruby Ridge right now. He is the boy from Jefferson who used to
> > > box with NickyFriess in the front yard while both of them tried to
> > > impress a girl named Lana.
> > >
> > > Weaver got a D in government. They both laugh.
> > > Later, Friess will say, "A lot of his beliefs, I don't agree with."
> > > And yet: "After all he's been through, jiminy, it's amazing he can
> > > be walking the streets."
> > >
> > > And finally: "Maybe with the tragic playing out of events, there is
> > > a certain obligation for him to feel a certain way."
> > >
> > > Weaver has a gun show in Las Vegas next weekend. They will come for
> > > his book and his story. They may talk about the missing shell
> > > casings and the shotgun robot sent in by the Freddies, as they did
> > > at the show in Lincoln.
> > >
> > > But what he remembers about the mountain: "There was no wind," he
> > > says. "The snowflakes were so big you could hear them when they hit
> > > the ground. The kids had three or four campgrounds around the land.
> > > They'd go out and build fires at night.
> > >
> > > "And Vicki canned. She and the kids would pick huckleberries. She
> > > got top dollar 'cause she picked clean. Or she'd trade a gallon of
> > > huckleberries for four quarts of peaches. We sold firewood -- me,
> > > Vick and the kids. Then we'd go into Bonner's Ferry and have a
> > > hamburger or a pizza."
> > >
> > > Weaver says he'd like a place in the Ozarks some day, with nothing
> > > but quiet and a clear creek running through.
> > >
> > > "That's weird, ain't it?" he asks. "Now who the hell would want to
> > > live like that?"
> >
> >
>
>