by Dave Mundy
Members of the Texas Nationalist Movement have spent much of the last year concentrating on “The Petition” – obtaining the signatures of Texans urging the state Legislature to put the matter of Texas independence to the voters in the form of a non-binding referendum. The idea was to present the completed petition to the Legislature when it convenes on Jan. 11, 2011, and let the people of Texas voice their opinion on the issue.
Now it appears that presentation may not happen – because those who have signed that petition are being blackmailed by a billionaire.
"We started seeing some old articles from the Far Left popping back up on websites like Media Matters, and at first I didn’t think too much of it,” said TNM President Daniel Miller. “But then we started seeing new posts in other forums and one of them made the mistake of letting the ball drop, what they are planning to do.”
The tipoff came in a post by someone using the handle “dems4texas” on the Democratic Underground website. The post reads:
“It's obvious that Slick Rick is going to do whatever to get his way. He's being pushed on by that secession group that held a rally at the capitol last year. I know for a fact that they are working with His Slickness. I went to their website and saw that they are going to give a petition on secession when the legislature meets in January. What those bumpkins don't understand is that all of those petition names and info will be available to the public. We'll be able to see exactly who is behind it and hopefully be able to embarass Slickery enough to get him and the rest of the legislature to back off on all of this crap that they're getting ready to shove down out throats. Come on Texas! We can fight this.”
To be a petition recognized by the Secretary of State’s office in Texas, signers of the petition must be validated voters in the state; their names and other personal information are thus included in the petition. Presenting the petition to the Legislature makes it a government document under the Texas Open Records Act – and enables anyone to see who has signed the petition.
While all of those who have signed the petition did so knowing the legal ramifications, they also did so under the idea that they were taking part in a democratic process. What they didn’t know is that “progressive” Democrats no longer believe in democracy.
“What the guy is saying is, once they have the names and information of everyone who has signed the petition – and not all of them are even TNM members – they’re going to attack them,” Miller said.
The fear is about smear: those who have signed the petition, once identified, could then be “reported” to various government agencies anonymously for everything from “terrorism” to “child abuse” – leading to all manner of possible harassment. Miller said he’s aware of at least one former TNM member being denied the right to purchase a firearm after a routine FBI check showed that person as “red-flagged for belonging to a ‘domestic terrorist’ group.”
“We did all of this in good faith, but I simply cannot put so many people at risk,” Miller said. “We got out-maneuvered here. For now, we will not be presenting the petition unless the state can somehow assure us that the names and information of those who have signed it will be protected.”
The Democratic Underground poster apparently referenced an April 20, 2009 news release disguised as a “memo” by Media Matters Action Network Managing Director Ari Rabin-Havt, which falsely claimed that Texas Gov. Rick Perry “has ties to” the TNM, and intentionally lumps several other organizations not affiliated with the movement under the TNM banner – calling all of them “domestic terrorists.”
In the memo, highlighted on both the Media Matters Action Network and politicalcorrection.org websites, Rabin-Havt begins with: “"From bomb threats, to kidnapping, to planning attacks using biological weapons, the Texas Nationalist Movement has a long violent history that cannot be ignored.”
No active member of the TNM has ever been accused of, much less arrested for, any such activity. Instead, Rabin-Havt slanderously attributes the activities of individuals and groups like the old Republic of Texas group to the TNM.
Rabin-Havt reports correctly that Miller was at one time a member of the Republic of Texas separatist group. He fails to report that Miller broke with that group before some of its members committed a number of crimes, and that the TNM disavows any association with the ROT.
“As an organization, we made the decision very early on that we were strictly political,” said Miller, who has headed the TNM since its foundation in the mid-1990s. “We know that the only reasonable path to independence is through the political process, so we purposely have no relationship with anybody like the militia or supremacist groups, and definitely not the Republic of Texas. We’re not here to overthrow any government by force or to revive the Old South or re-fight the Civil War.”
TNM members were at a press conference held by Perry on April 9, 2009, in which the Governor expressed his support of a bill before the Legislature at the time which reaffirmed state sovereignty, HCR 50. The bill passed but was not signed by the Governor during that session, and has been re-introduced for the next legislative session by State Sen. Glenn Hegar.
A number of TNM members were also in the crowd during a Tea Party rally at the state capitol later in the spring, and when Perry spoke of Texas having a right to secede, they cheered him loudly enoughto attract media attention.
From that, Rabin-Havt and virtually every other extreme-left media pundit and blogger deduced that Perry supports secession – he has publicly stated that he does not – and that he is working in cahoots with the TNM. Interestingly enough, the TNM did not support Perry in this year’s gubernatorial race: it endorsed Republican challenger Debra Medina, the only candidate who has ever earned its endorsement.
Rabin-Havt is guilty of, at the very least, slander. But the real question is why these national organizations have suddenly taken such an interest in Texas, and in particular why they suddenly feel a need to use Chicago-style blackmail politics to attack an organization they have long characterized as kooks?
The answer is that Texas’ emerging nationalism is a roadblock to plans for a global fascist government as envisioned by billionaire George Soros.
Even more than sweeping Republican victories across the United States on Nov. 2, an independent Texas -- free of failed socialist policies and willing to curb the political power of moneyed elitists – could start a domino affect as nation after nation uses Texas’ example to return the concept of government to its original meaning.
The fact that every one of the organizations mounting this attack on the TNM – Media Matters, Democratic Underground, and others – is funded by Soros makes the conclusion that he is personally behind this sudden shifting of progressives’ priorities irrefutable. It has been well-documented by such notables as television personality Glenn Beck (himself no friend to the TNM) that Soros made his billions by defrauding and bankrupting much of Europe, and has been “buying journalists” in the U.S. to promote his vision of a single global government which is socialist in nature but run behind the scenes by the privileged, moneyed elite – the very definition of fascism.
What is interesting is the fact that the world’s richest fascist has turned his attention to an organization that even many Republicans (including Perry) view as a “fringe” group. That’s because the TNM is fast becoming something more than an organization on the political periphery.
The TNM website now claims more than 250,000 members -- although Miller and other officers admit that is probably over-stating the number of those who are most active. Nonetheless, that many potential votes carries clout even in a populous state like Texas.
The organization has also recognized the trend and attached itself to technology, especially in communications. In addition to its website and various social-networking accounts, TNM now has several online radio shows as well as one on a public broadcast station, has specific media officers to handle queries, and has built other organizational attributes of any modern effective political organization. Miller and other officers are currently holding forums in various cities and towns around the state to network with members and bring those who are interested in TNM’s message into the fold.
Most importantly, TNM’s insistence on an approach that works with the system rather than against it has given the group a credibility lacking in almost every other “fringe” group. The group’s membership grew steadily along with the increase in federalism during the presidency of George W. Bush, but skyrocketed starting with the failed federal “bailouts” of 2008.
“Every time Congress does something stupid – and that’s pretty much every day now – we get new members,” Miller said. “More and more people are realizing that the federal government is broken and there is no way the people who keep getting sent to Washington are going to fix it. That is why, for Texas, independence is the only option.”
