Meanwhile, if there are any other links to this Oath Keeper sighting I would appreciate their being brought to us here at TMM. Where Oath Keepers was created.....
I know, right? That's why I posted the article. I was VERY surprised that there was no mention of this here on TMM. Is Oath Keepers starting to distance themselves from us wackos? Has TMM become too anti-government for them? Tarnishing their desired public image?
Over the past few years, the number of active members has dwindled. The number of new members has decreased quite a bit as well. Is TMM dying, or is this a natural, cyclical thing? Another thing......When JWR handed over the helm of Survivalblog to this "Hugh" character (big mistake IMHO), I'm pretty sure that the referrals for membership to TMM stopped too. That's how I personally found TMM. Rawles suggested it. I'm glad he did! If you really think about it, who was the last new "regular poster". There hasn't been any in quite a long time. 
In the past I have mentioned several times that I could pack this place with lots of new readers, but the consensus has generally been that we want to keep this place protected from the unwashed masses. So I have not done anything to drive traffic to here. It would be very simple -- I would just ask Bill to get us a "recognized" certificate, then I would put out an email blast to Oath Keepers' membership and support base, which is more than 55,000 souls, and link to here. Some of our members in Oath Keepers will not like what they see here, but thousands of them would. We are dealing with larger numbers at Oath Keepers, and percentages come into play.
Howsome-ever, until the Admins here let me know they want new faces at this table, I'm not going to bring 'em. Personally, I'd like to develop the theme, "Mental Militia", and make it popular with the people outside this small group. I'd like to sell things through this site so I could make some bucks -- long years ago I made up The Mental Militia T-shirts -- that was about twelve years ago. Sold 'em all except for a couple I keep as mementos. It would be very easy to do TMM coffee mugs, hats, and T-shirts and also place a "donate" button on the site here, and generate interest in this place -- because -- the idea of a "Mental" Militia is very timely today. But when I brought up the topic of doing T-shirts to our Admins last year, there was no real interest and some suggestions that the shirts would not sell anyway, so I dropped that idea.
I am working with James Jaeger and Edwin Vieira, Stewart Rhodes and Chuck Baldwin, Sheriff Mack and Ron Paul, KrisAnne Hall and Walter Reddy (co-founder of the Tea Party), USN Commander David R. Gillie and Rosie Haas, Devvy Kidd and Larry Pratt (of GOA) on this new film named Midnight Ride. The film was inspired by Edwin Vieira's newest book, "By Tyranny Out Of Necessity: The Bastardy Of Martial Law" and it's about the four types of "martial law". Given the dramatic militarization of our local cops these days, the DHS Fusion Centers connecting your local cop with the highest federal powers and interfacing them all into one chain of command, and given the pre-placement of military equipment in smalltown USA, and given the current spate of police brutality, etc etc, we're looking at an infrastructure for a military-police state enforcing martial law. That’s coming, mark my words.
Dr. Vieira notes that the only salvation for America in the face of this sort of martial law threat is to immediately form our Constitutional "Militia of the several States" as the Constitution requires. What Oath Keepers has done this year at the Bundy ranch and in Ferguson, Missouri, when paired with development of our Community Preparedness Teams (CPT), shows the path which Dr. Vieira has pointed out to us. It starts at the community level and moves to institute Militia offices in County Commissions, where all citizens go to register and become thereby individual parts of their own local government. The movie MIDNIGHT RIDE will promote Edwin Vieira's vision outward to the liberty movement, but as James Jaeger noted on the Liberty Brothers radio show today, getting that message out to the circles which await beyond the reach of the liberty movement, is a trick. Hitting the average American over the head with a frying pan with smart-assed remarks about purist perspectives on libertarianism or philosophical anarchy suddenly shuts the door to that one person's mind, and the message that said person needs to grok is lost in futility as he walks away mad. Oath Keepers has a way of getting past that barrier, and TMM could do it also, if "we" here at TMM merely wanted to do so. But again, to date this group has held fast with a mutual disdain for allowing the unwashed masses into our little oasis of libertarianism.
This place has huge potential for growth and development, for as I noted already its time has come. Those of you who have been here forever will recall that I'm the guy who named "The Mental Militia" back in 1999 as a Yahoo Club (before the clubs were turned into groups) (and also of note, that original Yahoo Club site is still online after all these years, by invitation only). I am the guy who had Bark build this forum in 2003, which we as TMM gave to Claire Wolfe and Debra Ricketts and named "The Claire Files Forums". When Kirsten and her crew of subversives did their infamous "Flounce-off" after four years of head-aches for Claire, Claire sold this place back to TMM. We bought the site from her in 2007 for $1500.00, under her expressed requirement that we rename it from The Claire Files Forum back to The Mental Militia. I say "we" bought it because we used this site to raise that money, which was contributed by many of our members here. At that time I bowed out as an "authority figure" here and became just another one of the Administrators with no extra powers. I wanted it to be a group effort, with no one person in command. I even let them require that I quit calling myself “General Elias Alias”, though Claire calls me that to this day, and some of us old timers here also call me that.
I have no desire to over-ride anyone's wishes here, so I have held back on running this place as I'd want to, and y'all should probably be glad about that, lol. But if the Admins want to give me license to develop traffic and money here and get this idea of a "Mental Militia" out to the American people, that can be done. What I would want would be the "right" to think up ideas for things to sell so I could supplement my income from the traffic at this forum. Otherwise, I'll slowly, as minutes allow, continue to build my own site and start selling my poetry there, and perhaps start up an "Alias Revolution" movement at my site, or something.
I have had that site for several years. Ragnar built it originally as a Drupal site, at my request, and I paid him to do that, but recently I've asked Bill St. Clair to be the webmaster for it, as Rags has not got the time. There are less than twenty articles posted on that site, for one good reason -- I'm editor for Oath Keepers national, am on their Board of Directors, and work like a beaver for James Jaeger and Edwin Vieira on making movies which might help someone some day decide to live and work for freedom, maybe. I have zero minutes each day for myself, but try at times to sit for a stolen hour and do some writing for my own pleasure, and every now and then I actually get a post up at my own site. But soon I will put up a "tip jar" link there to accept donations from people who appreciate my work and want to help keep me going, and my hope is that some day I'll be able to make my basic income from developments at that site. (Dream on, right?) LOL! Of from this site.
Anyway, this place has a history and that history is fine with me. I don't post here often for reasons I have just explained -- no minutes, day after day. I've been five and a half years totally swamped with trying to keep up with Stewart Rhodes, and that's enough to make me an old man, which I now appear to be, ack!
So anyway, when y'all get to thinking you'd like to rock 'n roll with this place, let me know and I'll focus energies here for future development and hopefully a bit of future income for myself. There could also be a fund established for the leadership at this forum in addition to what I might need, such as paying Bill St. Clair for what he does for us here. It would be great to cut a check for MamaLiberty now and then, for all she has done over the years. I've been sending Bill money in gratitude for his loyal and dependable service to this place, and for paying TMM’s bills. I get that money as a paid employee of a Nevada corporation named Oath Keepers, which would probably be paying Gooch too had he stayed in the saddle long enough. I worked for free for Oath Keepers for several years and paid some of Oath Keepers costs out of my own pocket. Now I'm being paid by the organization to do what I do for it, and I use some of that money (which ain't a lot, but is enough to pay for the groceries and gasoline and my rent) to pay the bills here. That is why I owe my minutes and time first to Oath Keepers, and must take care of my responsibilities there before I can come by here and use up minutes to chew the fat, right?
The question of whether to let this place die on the vine or pump new life into it is of course a serious question for many reading here. I want to be on the record in stating right here that I do not have any wish to over-ride what the Admins here want to do about that, and I think that the regular members here should have a say in that also. Yes, I named the place, and am the oldest living member at these boards. (I noticed that some time back it was decided to leave off members’ member-number, and that doesn’t bother me either, but for the record, Bark was member #1, which was officially retired when he died of cancer at my home in Willow Creek, Montana, and I was member #2, ahead of Claire and Debra, because Bark and I built this place and had to be here first. That’s the history.) So I’m open, either which way this place wants to go.
I’m also aware of the conflicts which would come if we brought in a new bunch of people here, and the other problems which presently are mostly prevented by our member policy and Admin policy. I recommend that each person here, if one thinks about this question at all, be cognizant of the potential problems which new and larger traffic would bring with it. It’s y’all’s call, is my final word on the matter. I can go with my own site, develop that for a future income, or I can build traffic here and develop income through this place, or continue to work as an associate producer on James Jaeger’s movies and start taking James up on his offers to pay me for the fundraising I do – which I’ve to this date declined to accept from him. But I’m an old guy, and need to think ahead for my remaining years, and I don’t like the idea of having all my eggs in one basket (Oath Keepers), even though Oath Keepers continues to show good strength and promise for the near future. Nice things keep on happening for us, such as Ted Nugent’s joining Oath Keepers as a lifetime member. The Bundy Ranch knocked us for a loop, and then along comes Ferguson and our numbers are swelling again due to the national publicity we’ve just had.
Personally, I think it would be sorta “wrong” to change the tone and dynamic of this place just to make it commercially viable. I do also think that it could be done in a way which would add a sparkle of excitement and a certain value in educational activity with outreach to those who have no clue about what’s happening to our country. To develop that, I’d want license from the Admins to draw money from the volume of money I think I (we) could generate here. Otherwise, I’m content to drop by at times for a brief visit, but cannot afford to work these boards the way I must work Oath Keepers’ national website and other facets of business. My cabin in the woods came cheaply, but the rent still comes due each month.
I think, in closing, that this place could recognize that it has a mission inherent in its very name, and the country is ready to look more closely into the whole idea of a Constitutional "Militia of the several States" as required in the Constitution; and I also think that we're in a mental war for the hearts and minds of the American people, and there is no better way to approach that war for the hearts and minds than to develop The Mental Militia and run this place like we at Oath Keepers run that place. Gooch is right -- Oath Keepers was born right here. I recall the private message I got from Stewart The Yalie back in 2008, wanting to talk with me about an idea he had. He told me he thought that idea would "grow legs", and it did. He will tell you today that I was the first guy he came to with the idea, and I'm damn proud of that fact. Visionary people are not like most other folks. I don't mind one bit admitting that I'm visionary in ways which I ascribe to my personal spirituality. I am a Voluntaryist, and a philosophical anarchist -- but I'm willing to come off my exalted high horse about my personal views long enough to share the light with those who are searching for some truth with which to answer the threat of the coming martial law. The question is: Is TMM ready and willing to step down off their libertarian purist high horse to become an effective tool for liberty? Or would TMM prefer to go quietly into that good night as people continue to lose interest in "just talking" on forums?
Salute!
Elias Alias
Author
Topic: The Oathkeepers were in Ferguson? (Read 37402 times)