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Hedges: Why They Hate Us

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From Scheer Post

Book excerpt explores the rupturing of social bonds, despair and rage that come from being cast aside by the ruling elites and that define the deep animus of the radical right.

Donald Trump Rally
Donald Trump Rally
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I sat at a table in the barren dining room of the house, which was for sale, with the owner, Kat, who recently lost her job, and Scott Seddon, the founder of the militia group American Patriot the III%, or AP3. Its name was inspired by the belief that only three percent of the population actively fought the British during the American Revolution.

Seddon founded AP3 when Barack Obama took office in 2009. His initial focus was to connect survivalists for the coming collapse. But the militia soon took on a political coloring. It has expanded to multiple chapters nationwide, he said, each involved with organizing protests, training militia, and teaching survival skills to prepare for an imminent natural or man-made calamity. He estimates AP3 currently has thirty thousand to fifty thousand members. It also provides security for right-wing protests and rallies.

"I founded it out of fear, to be honest with you," he said. "I saw a change starting to occur in this country that really made me scared. It started with Obama."

He launched into an attack on the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama's former pastor in Chicago who delivered fiery sermons on the evils of empire and white supremacy. He called Wright "anti-American."

"Black Lives Matter went to the freaking White House," he said of a July 2016 meeting at the White House with Obama. "Everybody is a victim in America today.

"The majority of antifa have that victim mentality," he went on, referring to self-styled antifascists who advocate property destruction and violence. "There's no excuse for them to be in rallies every other week insulting people and not holding a job. Most of these kids, 90 percent of antifa, don't have jobs."

Michael Mosher, a former marine who is in charge of AP3's statewide security, joined us at the table. He had a tattoo of crossed rifles, another read "My Fight," and a third was the three percenter symbol of the militia. He also had a tatoo of the head of a buck.

"They're a bunch of immature kids," Mosher said of antifa. "They're disrespectful. If you don't agree with them, they spit on people. They throw urine at people."

"They throw bottles at people," Seddon said.

"How do they throw urine?" I asked. "In little balloons," Mosher said.

"Every event I've been to where there has been antifa, there's always one heavyset ethnic chick that does nothing but scream the entire time," he went on.

"They're paid actually," Kat, the owner of the house, said, joining the conversation. "They have paid organizers that come and recruit these kids online from Craigslist or what-not. They do pay them like fifteen bucks an hour to come out."

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Chris Hedges spent nearly two decades as a foreign correspondent in Central America, the Middle East, Africa and the Balkans. He has reported from more than 50 countries and has worked for The Christian Science Monitor, National Public Radio, The Dallas Morning News and The New York Times, for which he was a foreign correspondent for 15 years.

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