Bitter Harvest: Gordon Kahl and the Posse Comitatus : Murder in the HeartlandGordon Kahl was a hard-working farmer, a war hero, a religious patriot who had obeyed and respected the government for most of his life. He was also a leading member of the ultra-right-wing Posse Comitatus and a fierce tax protestor. Imprisoned once for tax evasion, he vowed never to go back to jail. When Kahl broke probation, federal marshals came to arrest him again, and there was a shootout. Kahl and his son killed two marshals and Kahl became a fugitive from justice, finding refuge in the homes of sympathizers throughout the Midwest. The violence in Medina, North Dakota, wounded an entire community. Lifelong bonds were broken over conflicting sympathies about Kahl; families were ruptured. Some thought Kahl was a cold-blooded murderer, a terrorist taking the law into his own hands. Others thought he had given those representing a gluttonous, interfering government precisely what they deserved. Kahl had been a charismatic spokesman, raging against the IRS, the federal courts, the Federal Reserve Board, and the Eastern banking interests that conspired, he said, to take from him and his fellow believers their farms, their land, their way of life. The trial of Kahl's wife and son became a battle for the soul of the heartland, as the chief counter-insurgence for the Posse Comitatus threatened to storm the courtroom and "finish the job Kahl started." Author James Corcoran grew up in North Dakota not far from Gordon Kahl's farm and covered the tragedy for the Fargo Forum newspaper. |
Contents
Acknowledgments vii | 1 |
A Gathering Storm сл | 5 |
Sowers of Hate | 24 |
Copyright | |
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