Neo-Nazi group takes message to turnpike
By Rich McKay | Sentinel Staff Writer
Posted January 5, 2004
The same violent neo-Nazi club that inspired the
Oklahoma City bomber is advertising for new members on
a billboard in Orlando's back yard.
On Florida's Turnpike, just over the Lake County line
in Sumter County, there's a plain billboard with a
black background and big block letters in the style of
the "Got Milk?" ads.
It reads in part "WHO RULE$ AMERIKA?" Then it gives a
Web address.
That goes to the home page of the National Alliance, a
group founded in the early 1970s as a spinoff of the
American Nazi Party. (Spelling America with a K is a
nod to German Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.)
The Anti-Defamation League and other watchdog groups
call the National Alliance the most violent and
dangerous homegrown terrorist group in the United States.
"These people are gutter-level bigots with aspirations
to take over America in the name of white people," said
Art Teitelbaum, the Southern-area director of the
Anti-Defamation League.
Shaun Walker, the chief operations officer for the
National Alliance, said the club authorized the sign
and its purpose is "to raise public awareness of the
political reality we live in today."
"I'm a white American, and we'd like to return the
reins of control to white people," he said.
Walker denies law enforcement's claims that the group
is violent, but he does say that its goal is to promote
the interests of white people above all other races,
promote the belief of white people's "genetic
superiority" and keep the races separate.
Walker said most Americans are duped by a
"Jewish"-controlled media. The National Alliance's Web
site is full of anti-Semitic statements and others that
advocate the superiority of the "Aryan" race.
During these days of heightened national terror alerts,
watchdog groups warn that America shouldn't ignore its
own homegrown terrorists.
After all, the founder of the group, the late William
Pierce, is the author of The Turner Diaries, which is
considered the inspiration for Timothy McVeigh's 1995
Oklahoma City bombing that killed 149 adults and 19
children. The book describes a bombing of a federal
building with a fertilizer-and-petroleum bomb, the same
explosive McVeigh used.
"While 9-11 represented an example of international
terrorism at its most shocking and dangerous, there are
similarities with this group," Teitelbaum said.
"They are willing to commit murder in the name of an
ideology, though separate ideologies," he said. "The
National Alliance is the most dangerous domestic
extremist group, and we dare not ignore them."
The last time the NA made a significant appearance in
the area was 1997, when there was a bungled attempt to
plant pipe bombs near theme parks to distract police
from planned bank robberies, said Agent Ray Velboom of
the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.
Todd Vanbiber, then 28 and a member of the
white-supremacist group, was injured when one of 15
bombs he was building went off by accident in a shed.
Documents police found with the man showed he was a
leader in the National Alliance, Velboom said, although
the group disavowed a connection.
Other acts national law-enforcement officials and the
Anti-Defamation League attribute to the NA include the
slaying of a talk-show host in Colorado in the early 1980s.
Velboom and Sumter County sheriff's Capt. Gary Brannen
said there are no indications that the NA has an active
presence in the area.
The billboard near the Okahumpka rest stop appeared in August.
Sumter officials and the Florida Department of
Transportation, which regulates signs on the turnpike,
say they're powerless to do anything.
Advertising for a club, even a controversial and
unpopular one, is not against any law. And there is
nothing offensive on the billboard itself, said Robbie
Rogers, Sumter County's director of planning.
"We don't have anything in place that can deal with
this," she said, adding that there have been numerous complaints.
The DOT can only regulate such things as location,
lighting and placement of the signs, DOT spokesman
Steve Homan said.
Jerry Sullivan, president of Sunshine Outdoor Inc. in
Micanopy, put up the sign and has no intentions of
taking it down as long as the sign is paid for.
"It's free speech. Do you know what free speech is?" he asked.
"I don't believe in Nazis," he said. "But no, it don't
bother me none. There's no law against it."
Walker said the group has a right to promote its views,
including that Jews own 90 percent of the media and
this skews the views presented to the public, and that
Washington, D.C., was once a great city until black
people moved there.
He said there are two official chapters of the NA in
Florida -- one in Orlando and one in Tampa -- but he
said no one from the Florida chapters cared to talk to
the media.
Benny Strickland, chairman of the Sumter County
Commission, said: "Obviously we don't want people
associating Sumter County with this group. I'd be a
fool if I wasn't concerned. But I don't think we have
the power to do anything."
Rich McKay can be reached at
rmckay@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-5470.
Copyright © 2003, Orlando Sentinel
Posted by Permission
--
As Orwell pointed out long ago, pacifism in the face of
armed evil is equivalent to a blind worship of force.
It would be disastrous to entrust our children's fate
to the hands of these sad and complicitous pacifists.
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