Louis Theroux's Weird Weekends (1998) s01e04 Episode Script
Head For The Hills
1 Do you like the BBC? You know I'm from the BBC? 0h, yes, I wanna know what the enemy has to say.
I was sitting in the world's tiniest plane, high above Northwest America.
Peaceful as they look, these hills of Idaho and Montana are home to a strange subculture of right-wing patriots and survivalists.
A subculture I planned to infiltrate.
Armed only with a cardboard tube, I was stepping into the war zone.
Woo-hoo! Woo-hoo-hoo! Look out! That's me riding shotgun with former racing car driver and commodities broker, Steve Quail.
- This is totally amphibious.
- No, this goes under water? - It goes on the water.
- How deep can it go? - How deep can it go? - How deep can this thing It doesn't matter how deep the water is, it floats.
No! Whoa! Like thousands of other Americans, Steve gave up his old life to become a full-time patriot activist, dedicated to defending the US constitution and sounding the alarm for "the most turbulent period in earth's history"? - Right.
- All hell is going to break loose.
Despite all hell about to break loose, I felt safe being here at Safetrek - Steve's own specialised store for the survival-minded.
It's like Harrods, everything's under one roof.
Deadly viruses, asteroids, earthquakes - so many disasters, so little time.
But for Steve, like patriots across the USA, one source of fear towers over the rest - a global cabal of bankers and politicians called The new world order.
New world order - what we're talking about is - Evil, secret Stop me when this gets wrong.
Secret plan - To control the world.
to How about "enslave"? That's a better word.
- Is that better? - Yes.
See, the new world order is nothing new, it's just the old world order packaged cutely by the power brokers of the world.
Remember, their motto is order out of chaos, 0K? In Latin, it's 0rdo ab Chao.
So, the situation is, what you need to ask, you really should ask us Wait, wait, wait, the new world order has a motto? - It has a motto.
- Like a little club? Not a little club - Does it have a tie? a big club.
- That is their motto.
- 0rder out of chaos? - 0rder out of chaos.
- And do they have a badge? - Do they have a badge? - Do they have a uniform? 0h, yeah, it's black and it says United Nations Police Force on it, because the United Nations will ultimately become the control vehicle for world control and domination.
They've actually engineered, now hear this word, engineered crisises that they provide the solution for, and the solution is like the old Third Reich solution.
It's to eliminate people.
How many, roughly? They're claiming four fifths of the world population.
That's four of these five people here.
Yup.
How could they administer the genocide of four billion people when they can't even pass a thing saying it's international year of the child? Right, they don't say it as killing off, they say it as the earth must have the planet's population diminished by four billion.
- Do they? - Yes.
So they put it in secret language? And the only people that are gonna be exempt from this, outside of the guys that are gonna bring it down, are the people that have prepared and that's what the whole point is, people are preparing for introduction of the new world order, - and in America - That's you.
You're preparing? I'm preparing.
- So, the other four of us, we're all toast? - You're toast.
So, tell me, where are we going now? We're going out to our shelter.
These are biological, nuclear and chemical warfare shelters.
They're about $35,000 plus shipping.
- No way! - Yeah.
What would cause you to come down here? An escalating international conflict.
When that happens, you'll be here? Well, people who have shelters will enter into their shelters at that time.
This is a showroom of a shelter, but do you have your own shelter? - Yeah.
- Will you tell me where yours is? - No.
- Please? - No.
- Seriously, why not? Because, the bottom line is, there are a lot of people who who are going to be looking for people who are prepared.
So how do you prevent them from finding you? - Well - You go underground, I guess.
Yes, these things are underground.
Would you defend this against UN troops? Would you be willing to do that? Would I be willing to do that? I have no love for UN troops and I think that's what we were talking about, the coming civil war in America.
And you could shoot people who were trying to come after you? Well, I think that's sort of Let me say this, if someone's trying to take your life from you, is it morally wrong to defend yourself? Crikey, that's got That's powerful.
Look, I'm trembling now.
Under Steve's expert tutelage I was getting in my last shots on the Safetrek gun range before moving on.
That's it.
- How'd I do? - You did very well.
- Thanks.
- Excellent shot.
But I was clearly no match for local patriots like Shirley.
- She doesn't have to if she's worried.
- She's not worried.
Shirley's getting amazing accuracy.
Steve didn't seem dangerous.
Well, not that dangerous.
A successful businessman, he was practically mainstream.
So I was heading further off the beaten path, into the wilds of Idaho, to see the legendary colonel, Bo Gritz.
My son fights under that flag.
A one-time Green Beret and presidential candidate, Bo is now stumping on the patriot trail.
This is what happens to this globalist government.
And he too is no friend of the new world order.
In 1994, he announced plans for a kind of mountain top commune where fellow patriots could be safe from the federal government, the UN and from Armageddon.
He named it Almost Heaven.
Dawn found me winding up towards its almost pearly gates.
- Hi, Colonel Gritz? - Yeah.
How you doing? We're from the BBC.
You're too early.
It's tomorrow, isn't it? No, it's supposed to be today.
You can come in but I'm doing my radio programme in just a couple of minutes.
- I was told it would be Tuesday.
- I'm sorry about that.
Take your shoes off.
Bo Gritz, we're with you on Talk America Radio.
Freedom Call, we do more than just talk about it.
A 40-foot Jesus appeared before him I guarantee him, he'll get his damn money! would anyone wanna conduct anal sex? on the United States, I didn't hide lawyers belong on the bottom of the ocean.
I'll see you tomorrow.
You be here, that's an order.
Let me just say, General Colonel Gritz, excuse me, it's a real pleasure for you, for me to, um OK, so I admit, I was a bit intimidated at first.
After all, he was the model for Rambo, had personally killed 400 people, and by the looks of it, stolen their medals.
0K, so you founded a patriot covenant community here in rural Idaho, is that correct? Maybe exactly correct.
I went to every state, and everywhere I went I saw people afraid.
They were paranoid.
They were paranoid about the government, about natural phenomenon, they were paranoid about military targeting, about nuclear power plants, so, I went to FEMA, that's the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
They have a great database of catastrophic events.
I took a magic marker - for example, Florida, all across here, these guys pretty well get decimated.
Hurricanes, right? And you come up by Georgia, you get the hurricane thing, and South Carolina gets wiped out.
You've got Washington DC which is a major targeting area.
Iraqi missiles or something.
The next thing is the tornado belt - Kansas and 0klahoma.
- You're doing kind of a twister on that.
- That's what it is.
See there? Twister - good.
You have this giant flood belt.
All the winter storms from Maine make this area uninhabitable.
Minnesota, Wisconsin, all in the blizzard zone.
- It's all blizzards, is it? - Yeah.
What's wrong with North Dakota? - N0RAD.
- Target for missiles, right? - This is nuclear waste right here.
- That's nuclear waste.
California, you got earthquakes.
Any idea how you wanna make earthquakes? That's a tough one.
And in Los Angeles you have the riots.
Portland, you have Mount Hood.
All of these are volcanic.
Lava coming out.
- In New Mexico we didn't have the soil.
- Just too cold.
Montana and Texas is under this storm problem.
- And - So, it doesn't leave that much, does it? Well, it doesn't What happened is, we ended up in a little tiny spot up here, that actually We are right here.
So, in sum, how would you rate this place? Well, this place is the safest place in all of America.
Having said that, when you picked out the land here, did you have in mind whether it would be easy to defend against some kind of invasion? 0ur community is spread over about ten miles.
It would take an army in order to try to control us.
They're not gonna do it for any reason.
I just was looking for the safest place for people to live where they wouldn't have weird things happening to 'em, by Mother Nature or by man-made problems.
Was there a spot on Almost Heaven waiting for me? Where are we headed now? We're headed to Almost Heaven Too.
It's not T-W-0 it's T-0-0.
Bo had Just the place.
With a bit of cash down, I too could have land, a house, even a pet, in the safest place in all America.
Can you see yourself You move from London, you come out here, put yourself up a log cabin right there? It was a tempting offer.
But what was this business about a constitutional covenant? This is a constitutional covenant community.
We don't ask anyone what their faith is, what their colour is, what their IQ is.
All you have to do when you join this community is say, "I will stand in the defence of my neighbours in their constitutional rights.
" If it ever comes to the paranoia that people see now, where you have a government that says you have to have a mark in your hand or your forehead, I will say no.
- And so we will defend - You'll say no to what exactly? To this little chip in your hand or your forehead.
Has anyone asked you if you wanna have a chip put in you yet? No, and if they do I will refuse, but what we're saying is, if they think they're gonna put it like you'd scan a loaf of bread, or if you're disadvantaged and don't have hands, they'd scan your forehead, then for me, that's a no.
Is Almost Heaven a militia community? No, the answer is absolutely not.
We don't have any cache of guns, there's no bunker.
These three families may have a plan for attack.
- You're talking about families here? - I'm talking about three noodles right here, three families out of 60 or 70 up here, that think we're gonna someday be at war against the government, and they were looking forward to attacking.
I asked them, "Who the hell are you gonna kill?" We got one federal employee that I know of, that's the postmaster.
Can we talk to them? You could sure try.
What might happen? - I think that - Who are they? I think that they would come out of their house with a gun and tell you to get off their property or they would shoot you.
I needed no further encouragement.
Directions in hand, I made my way towards one of the radical noodles Bo had mentioned - a guy named Mike Cain.
And so, cruising through the safest place in all America, I was heading straight towards the most dangerous people there.
What d'you want? We're doing a story on Almost Heaven.
Want to find out what life's like up here.
- How do you do? - You ain't in Almost Heaven.
No? - No.
- Where am I? From the temperature, you're in Almost Hell.
Looks like it.
I gotta tell you, I was little bit nervous about coming up here.
I heard you fellas were a bit scary.
- 0h, really? - Yeah.
Why do people think you're scary? I don't know.
Why'd you think we were? Actually, Bo Gritz said you were a little scary.
- The Colonel? - The Colonel.
- He did, did he? - Yeah.
I guess the other reason would be the news media, you know, the conventional view of people who live on covenant community places like this.
The view would be that they're a little extreme.
D'you get that impression from the media too? No, I get the impression from the media they they think we're scary, too.
Really? I don't know what's so scary.
- Are you scary? - No, I'm not scary.
0nly if you You come up here to do harm to me and my family, then I'm probably as scary as you are, if someone came to do harm to you and your family.
Yeah.
Feel free to dragoon me into some hard labour if there's anything you think I could be handy with.
We're aiming for total self-sufficiency, so we need all skills from everybody up here.
Do you need TV presenters at all? I don't know if we need that or not.
It'd probably be good for us if we had it.
- Yeah.
- You wanna join us, Louis? - Yeah.
- Would you? Yeah.
In the end, far from shooting me, Mike actually invited me to dinner.
0h, my word, here we go.
I was on my way into the heart of Almost Heaven.
This is the place? This is the old homestead.
- This is Freedom Central? - It's unfinished.
Come on in, fellas.
Turned out Mike, a former building contractor in Nevada, had moved here less than two years ago.
Is there anything in the way of a guided tour? It's kind of a typical house, I don't know if there's much for a guided tour of it.
Come on.
There's a gun rack over there.
That's not that typical.
- Maybe not where you're from.
- Not in Britain.
- They don't let you have those, do they? - No, they don't.
- How do you live like that? - Well Y'know, for an American to live without a gun is like you guys trying to live without tea.
- Really? - How is that possible? - It couldn't be that bad, could it? - Yeah.
Daughter's room.
I don't know if your viewers really wanna see that or not.
Wow, looks like the Feds already made it in here.
Really.
- This is worse than Waco.
- Isn't it? 0K, so what's this? This is nice.
Yeah.
Well, actually, this is your room, Louis.
- How d'you mean? - If you want to spend the night.
- Can I really? - Yeah! Well, that's very, very kind, Mike, thanks so much.
You got one thing right, I am a big fan of Keanu Reeves.
As Mike's wife Cha-cha made tortillas, our talk turned to music.
I like rock 'n' roll.
Which bands are your favourites? I like the Beatles, Rolling Stones.
No way.
You're not an old hippy, are you? - Yes.
- Really? - 0f course.
- Yeah.
The beads, the love beads, bell bottom pants, long hair, flowered shirts.
He's too young for that.
And he didn't take showers either.
- I thought hippies were peace and love.
- I'm peace and love.
And no showers.
Hippies would put flowers in the ends of guns.
Well, see, that's when you're young and dumb.
When you get to be my age, you learn that putting flowers in guns isn't the best thing.
It's better if you put bullets in guns rather than flowers.
0ur Father in Heaven, we bow our heads at this time to give our thanks unto Thee for this beautiful day and we pray now for Thy greater glory and do so in the name of Thy son Jesus Christ, amen.
Amen.
- Amen.
- Aw! For people in Britain who aren't up to speed on this, and don't know exactly what's going on, and don't understand patriot beliefs, how would you explain as simply as you could what's going on? The government, the crooks and criminals in Washington DC - International bankers - Rockefellers international gangsters.
- International gangsters? - That's what they are.
- You think that as well, Mike? There has been a conspiracy for some years by a group of people that have become known loosely as the new world order.
The problem with the new world order and the one world government is that it requires a benevolent dictator.
You show me in history any time that there's ever been a benevolent dictator ever.
And if you don't have a benevolent dictator, then you have a tyrant.
Spread your money out so we can see it.
I'm gonna choose the top hat.
You get the gun, Mike.
I get the gun? 0K.
Here? New York Avenue.
- I believe that's mine.
- I'll buy it.
- It's mine.
- I'll buy it from you.
I don't think so.
Get out of jail free.
That's handy, you could be in there as a tax protester.
So far, I was really enJoying my stay.
But there was one small catch.
0hh! We're ready, let's go.
0K.
Am I in the back with you? So, Mike, what are we doing out here? It's four in the morning, I'm freezing.
Well, Louis, you're on a neighbourhood watch this morning.
We're just looking around to make sure everything's quiet and peaceful.
And to keep an eye out for government troops.
It's seven days a week, 365 days a year.
Yo, Liberty.
I copy.
Over.
You got one coming your way.
Liberty has got something goin' on over there.
How's it going? You must be Liberty.
Yeah.
- Pretty quiet.
- Yeah.
Yeah.
And so it went for three long, freezing, uneventful hours.
Let's say you saw some vehicles and they seemed to be marked as UN vehicles.
This vehicle would follow the vehicles that you just described and we would be met on the road by a roadblock, and the roadblock would take care of the front part of the vehicles and we would be taking care of the rear part of the vehicles.
Let's say what are apparently UN vehicles coming towards you show no sign of slowing down as they approach the roadblock.
At what point do you start firing? At the point we determine they're not going to stop.
Yeah.
What do you aim for? We aim for the windshield.
We don't want that to happen.
That's one of the reasons we move out in the country like this.
We're hoping they're simply going to leave us alone, let us live our lives like we want to live them.
- You ready to work? - Yeah, shall we do it? You gonna get some calluses on those hands? A few splinters? Can I avoid it? The day's work began with a trip to town for some supplies.
- Do you know what's in this, Simon? - No.
What is in there, Louis? - Cha-cha, tell them what's in there.
- No, you tell them.
- 0oh! - It's a toy.
- Luckily it's not loaded, right? - 0h, yes.
- It is loaded? - Mm-hm.
- It's got the safety on, though, right? - No.
0h, please put the safety on.
It doesn't have a safety.
- 0h, my God! - What? Are you sure you want me to drive? I don't have a driver's licence and if we get stopped there's gonna be a little bit of a hassle over that.
Wait a second, you don't have a driver's licence? No.
Nor do I have licence plates on my truck at home.
The actual physical plate is there but it's been expired for months and months.
We don't have driver's licences up here, we don't register our vehicles, we don't have automobile insurance.
Those things are all new world order items, so we do without them.
With no cops in sight, we made our way into Grampa John's Hardware Haven.
Every day, I can hardly wait to open the store and have customers come in and sell stuff.
I can hardly wait to get in there and buy things to sell.
You're kidding.
Can we look at the tarpaulins? Then I get to six o'clock I gotta stop work in the store, but then I do get to go roller skating.
- That's your number one hobby? - Yeah.
- You're a roller skater? - Yeah.
- How about that? - What size is that? - The biggest one they have.
- That's perfect.
Is it good? I'm staying up at Almost Heaven at the moment.
I'm staying at Mike's place.
A lot of the people up there think there's gonna be a major catastrophe coming up, that all these things'll come to a head, with the federal government.
0h, yeah.
You see, they're newcomers.
There's nothing wrong with that but it means they don't really und They get a little bit excited too soon.
Is Mike getting excited? Well, some are getting more excited than necessary.
When time comes to push when push comes to shove, we're not gonna let this happen.
I don't think they're gonna stop.
They're not gonna stop on their own.
We know that.
That's the thing, but we're gonna stop 'em.
I guess the only difference between us, I know the government can be stopped.
- I'm afraid they can't be.
- I know.
Before I left, Grampa John insisted I take a look round his office.
What's that? Would you mind putting it on? No, I wear it all the time.
- Do you really wear it all the time? - Yeah.
Look at that.
Isn't it amazing? You look very dapper.
Is that just a bumper sticker? No, that's our first American flag, it says don't tread on me.
0h, you're from Limeyville, that's right.
How's that? What did you call it? Limeyville.
In World War Two, the English were Limeys, the Canadians, the English were Limeys.
We were the Yanks.
The Germans were Krauts.
- No, that's fine.
- Limey, isn't that what - Yeah.
- You know what that was.
I just never heard anyone say I was from Limeyville.
First time I ever said it.
Remember now, you guys are younger, you read the politically correct history.
- A lot of history has been changed.
- Like what? Gimme an example.
0K, for instance, for instance, Adolf Hitler.
You know, there was At that time, there was like, a little over five million Jews when that war started.
He killed six million and after the war there was four and a half million left.
Right.
Now, you see, when you do the mathematics like that, it doesn't make two and two is four.
I can go on with that and I think they got a word for that, anti-Semitic, and stuff like that, but I know when that was happening, I know what it was, I studied it, I know.
Yeah.
Well, we should head off, I think.
0K, take it easy.
I'm hoping we can work something out on the roller skating.
- We'll be there.
- Maybe see you there.
See you, thanks.
Boy, he's a strong personality, isn't he? Yeah.
Is he a good patriot? 0h, he's an excellent patriot.
He's been at this a lot longer than I have.
What about the stuff he was saying about the Holocaust? He said he didn't think anything like six million Jews died, it's all overblown and overplayed.
Well, I think the proof is there that they did, so I don't know what he's basing his information on.
You made it look a little easier than I'm finding it.
I get the impression that, from a lot of the people that have come up here, they have some personal story, some personal incident that's led them to become disillusioned with society.
0ne of the things started my wake-up call was when the IRS raided my bank account.
My six-year-old daughter at the time had $12 in savings, so, not only did they get into my account, that they had no business getting in - Very good.
- Yeah.
but they took my daughter's $12, because her name happened to be the same as mine.
- No? - What did she have to do with it? That incident is what brought Mike to this covenant community.
Ready for another one? Now, without a driver's licence and refusing to pay taxes, there was no turning back.
What d'you think people in Britain will think when they see you on this tape? That I'm a radical nut.
- Yeah? - Yeah.
But that's 0K.
I think my kids think I'm a radical nut too.
- Really? - Yeah.
Whoa! Whoa, this is weird! - Come up here, Mike.
You wanna go? - 0h, you're 0K, Louis, I like you.
I'm happier now than I've ever been in my life, Louis, and I have less.
We get to laughing once in a while, we get to talking about lobster dinners that we use to have and $200 bottles of wine, and we've just found a better way.
We've made defensive preparations up here.
We have adequate food supplies.
- Yeah.
- We're safe.
Safe as it was, I needed a break from Almost Heaven and so I headed north.
Seven hours north to meet Mike Oehler, an aging hippy and the distinguished author of the $50 And Up Underground House Book.
We're gonna go down to our waist in places here.
That's good news.
Soon, Mike and I were lurching towards his subterranean home.
So how long have you lived up here on the hill? 28 years.
Those 0h! 28 years in a hole in the ground? - Are we nearly there, Mike? - Another couple of miles, buck up.
I see something.
What's this? This is my house.
- It's a Hobbit home.
- Yes.
Welcome home.
It's all hidden.
It's a cosy little home.
When the crash comes, do you think you might have space for me? Er Mm So what else is there to see? You haven't got any old photographs of yourself, have you? I've got my high school yearbook.
No, look at that! Haven't changed a bit.
Haven't changed one jot.
Were you nominated for most likely to live in an underground home? - No.
- What's Contact? Some of the far out, far right stuff that we get in this area.
- Not generally my cup of tea.
- What d'you reckon? As I understand it, the new world order is a one world government.
Yeah.
I, myself, am not for a one world government but we seem to be going in that direction.
I know you're an environmentalist and you came out of the hippy movement, so how does that square with that? We may have different viewpoints politically and so forth, but we all want independence - the hippies and militia types.
We all see the federal government as a threat to this.
What's on the cards this evening, Mike? I thought we'd go over to the bar and we'll try to find some action.
Yeah.
0K, lads, we're gonna have a snort.
- Cheers, Mike.
- Good health.
- To a good night's sleep.
- To the Queen, lads.
- The Duke and the Prince.
- It's good to have you here, my brother.
- Excellent.
- Here's mud in your eye.
To the health.
Whoa! After a couple of small nightcaps, Mike led me to my very own guest hole.
Hey, Mike, this is nice.
Look at this! Two bunks, this is fandabbydozey! You can't beat that, man.
All right.
Night.
Got huckleberry hotcakes and barbecued bear waiting for you down below here.
0hh! Bear meat.
So what d'you think of the militias? Most of the militia people are very sincere.
They're patriotic Americans.
They believe, as I do, that the constitution has been totally destroyed.
It frightens me somewhat that the militias are just the tip of the iceberg.
There's a lot of resentment against the federal government and I think that their fears and their desires and demands should be taken seriously.
0ne thing that bothers me about people like that is the idea that they might be racist.
I get a lot of literature from these guys because my book, the $50 And Up Underground House Book, sells among these kind of people now.
There is a fair amount of racism among many of those people.
Is there anyone I could go and see to get a handle on the racist end of things? Yeah, if you wanna talk to those guys, what you should probably do is go down to Reverend Butler's compound down in Hayden Lake.
It's about 70-80 miles south of here.
What kind of a place is that? He's got the Aryan Nations Church there.
If you talk to them, you'd get that side of the picture, the racist side of the picture.
They sound a little bit scary.
Well, yeah, they're a little scary.
And so I found myself in a large Cadillac, skimming over ice and snow at high speed.
At the wheel, the Führer of the Aryan Nations, Pastor Richard Butler.
Watch it.
0h, that was close.
In the back with me, his right-hand man, Reverend Jerry Grudle.
The scenery, especially in the winter reminds me a lot of Cheltenham.
- Cheltenham, England? - Yes.
Well, appearances notwithstanding, these guys were no Joke.
Since coming up to Hayden Lake, Idaho, about 20 years ago, their annual conventions have become a kind of lollapalooza for neo-Nazis - their followers linked to violence, even murders.
They'd also been linked to the patriots, even though most of the patriots I'd met wanted nothing to do with the Aryan Nations for obvious reasons.
I wondered what the pastor would have to say.
0ur number one guard dog.
Is he going to attack me? Hans, Hans! Hans, quiet.
Get in there.
Is this command central? Is it? Hans! Go lie down.
Come on, Hans, move.
Come on.
That dog is freaking me out.
The pastor has a little bit to do here.
Would you like me to give you a little look around the church? 0h, yes, please.
Would that be 0K? - Sure.
- Yeah, I'd love that.
Will we be away from the dogs? - Yes.
- 0K, good.
- They'll stay here with pastor.
- That's a plus.
So where are we going now? This is the church itself.
There's no armed guards or anything.
Anybody that's white is welcome all the time.
- What about people who aren't white? - They'd be very uncomfortable here, I think.
- Would they be welcome? - Because this No.
No? No.
What would be the point? Mm, just so they could have a look round.
So where are we headed now? - What would you like to see? - I wanna see that tower.
0K.
Give them a wave out here.
You know, from way early history times, even pre-Roman times, when Aryans got together and Aryans waved each other, they'd give a salute.
Right.
Now the niggers and all this are gonna give something palm up.
- Yeah.
- You know? But Aryans have a palm down salute.
Yeah, what's the significance of that? Well, we're showing that our hand is empty, we have no weapon in our hand.
- Yeah.
- Not begging for something.
0y vey.
0y vey.
0h, I'm a poor Jew.
0h, I couldn't sell it to you any cheaper if you were my own mother.
You're a regular Benny Hill, aren't you? Well, maybe so.
I think he's funny.
Yeah, he's funny.
I like that programme, Are You Being Served? - Really? - Yeah.
- No? - Yes.
What bits do you like in it? 0h, I like that.
Um that, er the two ladies that work in the ladies lingerie counter - the young voluptuous one and the and the other one that usually has blue hair.
- Mrs Slocombe.
- She's hilarious.
Yes, I like Mrs Slocombe.
- What about Mr Humphries? - Ah Well, I try to ignore that part.
- Why? - W Uhh Uhh He's the one that's the fairy? The camp one.
"I'm free! I'm free!" No, I just ignore that.
Why? Because he's a queer.
But he's the funniest thing in it.
Well, maybe to you.
I think he's disgusting.
- You said you liked the show and he's - 0h, yeah, the show but not that.
They throw that in because they have to have the diversity.
They have to show that we love everybody.
See, up here, we're free to say that "Hey, I discriminate.
" Yeah.
I'm free.
I'm free to discriminate.
- I'm free.
- Yeah.
- Say I'm free.
- Yeah.
D'you wanna say "I'm free"? I'm free! I'm not free.
Why not? Well, because our country is in bondage to the Jews.
When I finally spoke with the pastor, it turned out he wasn't exactly in lock-step with the patriots.
My personal quarrel with the militia movement is this - they have to go by what they think is the constitution, so they have to say that they welcome blacks and Jews and Mexicans and everything else into the movement.
That's some of 'em.
Some of 'em were white.
And as for Bo Gritz and friends I believe in the survival perpetuation of my race.
Does Bo think that too, do you think? I think he is more or less a multiculturalist.
- Really? - Yeah.
He admits he married an Asian woman, has Asian children.
He's allowed a Mexican family and a Filipino family or something like that to come in there, so he's not really pro-white.
Thank you very, very much.
We really Hans! Hans! I'm a little bit high-strung.
Thanks very much, Pastor, appreciate your time.
Tell the people of England to wake up.
0K, will do.
Certainly.
Wake up and smell the roses or die.
Smell the roses? 0K will do.
Well, we may have shared a love for the antics of Mrs Slocombe, but Aryan Nations and I parted ways on Just about everything else.
Did you get that? Sounds good, doesn't it? The next morning found me back in the realms of Almost Heaven on a mission to help a friend of Mike Cain's named Don, a covenant community member whose lifestyle, I'd heard, was unusual, even by the standards of Almost Heaven.
And here in Kooskia was our point of rendezvous.
You haven't seen a guy called Don, have you? Who? That is if he actually showed up.
There's Don.
Don, come round.
Don's over there.
So I volunteered my services to Don.
I put my back out trampolining on Mike Cain's trampoline.
- He's got a trampoline? - Yeah.
That looks good.
We'd Just loaded Don's truck with the raw material for an extension to his home.
For months, Don had been living in a house made entirely of straw bales, which did have its drawbacks.
So is this mouse eating your house? - Well, yeah.
- No way.
It's actually warm living in a straw bale house? It was about freezing this morning.
- In your house? - Yeah.
Seriously, Don, most of the people watching will be thinking, you know, zero is just unacceptably cold, and they're not gonna be impressed with this straw bale house business.
Maybe not.
Why don't you heat it? Well, I'm heating with propane, and I would asphyxiate myself if I used it all night.
Dear, oh, dear.
So this is it? Home sweet home.
So this is the equivalent of using a zapper to bring the garage door up? Pretty much.
Zzzzzzzz.
Check it out! This is home.
What's happening in there? That's a camp in Upstate New York.
We take kids up there once a summer and share the good news about Jesus Christ with them.
So you got no electricity here presumably? Right.
Are you gonna change that? Yeah, that's what we're building for the diesel generator.
So what did you used to do before you came up to Almost Heaven, Don? I used to make my daily bread as a software engineer.
- So you made pretty decent money? - Yeah, the Lord blessed me.
So is it true you used to be in Greenpeace? - Yes.
- How come? - How come? - Yeah.
I thought they were a good organisation at the time.
What's the problem with Greenpeace? They're just trying to save the environment.
Because a lot of those environmentalists worship the earth - and I worship Jesus Christ.
- 0h, they do not! - Yes.
- They don't.
- They do.
- They don't.
They don't.
They don't worship the earth.
Do you believe, like Mike does, that there's a strong chance that UN troops may come and invade your home someday? I don't know, they've done it in other countries.
If they come, do you think a house made of straw bales is good for defending yourself? Yeah, they'll just think it's feed for the cattle.
We gotta take this down.
This is as high as it's gonna be.
- That's as high as it's gonna be? - Yeah.
It's gonna be like a gnome's house.
Well, it's gonna be the generator and I'm kinda short.
But it's also my spare room, don't forget.
0h, yeah, this is pretty cosy.
Yeah, you can stay here whenever you want.
- Really? - Yes.
Thanks, man.
Good one.
- Thanks very much, that's great.
- Thank you.
That looks perfect.
One Job done but now Mike Cain was waiting for me at his work site.
- Hey.
- Come here, Louis, you been loafin' too long.
Besides, pleased with my straw house building skills, I was ready for something more challenging.
What am I supposed to do with this? Like using nails.
A little harder than that, Louis.
0K.
0h, it's manly work.
Is that what that's called? Working in the open air of Almost Heaven the threat of the new world order seemed a million miles away.
That-a-way.
Can I get the nail bags? This being my last day, Mike knocked off early to give me a special treat.
Some more shooting.
- Is this gonna hit me? - No, that doesn't move.
- Shouldn't we be wearing ear muffs? - No.
You don't wear ear muffs in a war.
When's it all gonna happen, do you think? Well, maybe before the year 2000.
And what will it be? All-out war.
- It's all-out war? - It's all-out war, Louis.
- Really? - I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
0ne day.
We've all fought wars before.
Yeah.
But one day it'll happen.
- You against who? - Everyone.
How do you mean? Well, us against the new world order.
- Really? - Mm-hm.
I've really enjoyed being around you and it just sort of makes me worried because the more convinced you are that this is gonna happen, it seems in a way, the more likely it makes it that it will happen, and I'd hate to read that one day Mike Cain has been in some incident with the federal authorities.
I mean, it would really upset me.
Seriously.
Louis, I appreciate what you say, I really do, and I can promise you this - if it happens, it won't be because we started it.
You won't read about me going to someone else's home to cause trouble, you won't read about me going to another county to start trouble.
The only trouble you're ever going to read about involving myself or any of other patriots up here, is when they come up here.
You know, though, by not paying taxes that We're provoking.
Yeah, you are.
It is the thing that's most likely to bring federal authorities down on you, you recognise that.
Well, then I guess I'm failing to get my message across.
My refusal to pay taxes is my right as an American.
It's the out of control government that wants to put me in jail for that, or to take my home or to harm my children.
It isn't correct because I refuse to pay taxes that I am sentenced to die.
I should have my day in court.
And it's not just me saying it.
There's tens of thousands of Americans just like me all across this country.
I'm not in any way unique.
Perhaps even millions of Americans that are ready for the war.
We're ready.
We pray daily it doesn't take place.
We lift the standard of peace always, but if they're going to have a war, then let it begin here.
Bye.
Thanks.
My brief Journey in the northwest was nearing an end.
Time for final goodbyes.
30 seconds of tape and counting.
With only 30 seconds left on our tape, I was rushing the crew out the door, but in the end the tape ran out anyway.
- Be careful driving down the mountain now.
Be safe, don't do I was saying "Don't do anything silly, Mike.
" "Don't do anything silly.
"
I was sitting in the world's tiniest plane, high above Northwest America.
Peaceful as they look, these hills of Idaho and Montana are home to a strange subculture of right-wing patriots and survivalists.
A subculture I planned to infiltrate.
Armed only with a cardboard tube, I was stepping into the war zone.
Woo-hoo! Woo-hoo-hoo! Look out! That's me riding shotgun with former racing car driver and commodities broker, Steve Quail.
- This is totally amphibious.
- No, this goes under water? - It goes on the water.
- How deep can it go? - How deep can it go? - How deep can this thing It doesn't matter how deep the water is, it floats.
No! Whoa! Like thousands of other Americans, Steve gave up his old life to become a full-time patriot activist, dedicated to defending the US constitution and sounding the alarm for "the most turbulent period in earth's history"? - Right.
- All hell is going to break loose.
Despite all hell about to break loose, I felt safe being here at Safetrek - Steve's own specialised store for the survival-minded.
It's like Harrods, everything's under one roof.
Deadly viruses, asteroids, earthquakes - so many disasters, so little time.
But for Steve, like patriots across the USA, one source of fear towers over the rest - a global cabal of bankers and politicians called The new world order.
New world order - what we're talking about is - Evil, secret Stop me when this gets wrong.
Secret plan - To control the world.
to How about "enslave"? That's a better word.
- Is that better? - Yes.
See, the new world order is nothing new, it's just the old world order packaged cutely by the power brokers of the world.
Remember, their motto is order out of chaos, 0K? In Latin, it's 0rdo ab Chao.
So, the situation is, what you need to ask, you really should ask us Wait, wait, wait, the new world order has a motto? - It has a motto.
- Like a little club? Not a little club - Does it have a tie? a big club.
- That is their motto.
- 0rder out of chaos? - 0rder out of chaos.
- And do they have a badge? - Do they have a badge? - Do they have a uniform? 0h, yeah, it's black and it says United Nations Police Force on it, because the United Nations will ultimately become the control vehicle for world control and domination.
They've actually engineered, now hear this word, engineered crisises that they provide the solution for, and the solution is like the old Third Reich solution.
It's to eliminate people.
How many, roughly? They're claiming four fifths of the world population.
That's four of these five people here.
Yup.
How could they administer the genocide of four billion people when they can't even pass a thing saying it's international year of the child? Right, they don't say it as killing off, they say it as the earth must have the planet's population diminished by four billion.
- Do they? - Yes.
So they put it in secret language? And the only people that are gonna be exempt from this, outside of the guys that are gonna bring it down, are the people that have prepared and that's what the whole point is, people are preparing for introduction of the new world order, - and in America - That's you.
You're preparing? I'm preparing.
- So, the other four of us, we're all toast? - You're toast.
So, tell me, where are we going now? We're going out to our shelter.
These are biological, nuclear and chemical warfare shelters.
They're about $35,000 plus shipping.
- No way! - Yeah.
What would cause you to come down here? An escalating international conflict.
When that happens, you'll be here? Well, people who have shelters will enter into their shelters at that time.
This is a showroom of a shelter, but do you have your own shelter? - Yeah.
- Will you tell me where yours is? - No.
- Please? - No.
- Seriously, why not? Because, the bottom line is, there are a lot of people who who are going to be looking for people who are prepared.
So how do you prevent them from finding you? - Well - You go underground, I guess.
Yes, these things are underground.
Would you defend this against UN troops? Would you be willing to do that? Would I be willing to do that? I have no love for UN troops and I think that's what we were talking about, the coming civil war in America.
And you could shoot people who were trying to come after you? Well, I think that's sort of Let me say this, if someone's trying to take your life from you, is it morally wrong to defend yourself? Crikey, that's got That's powerful.
Look, I'm trembling now.
Under Steve's expert tutelage I was getting in my last shots on the Safetrek gun range before moving on.
That's it.
- How'd I do? - You did very well.
- Thanks.
- Excellent shot.
But I was clearly no match for local patriots like Shirley.
- She doesn't have to if she's worried.
- She's not worried.
Shirley's getting amazing accuracy.
Steve didn't seem dangerous.
Well, not that dangerous.
A successful businessman, he was practically mainstream.
So I was heading further off the beaten path, into the wilds of Idaho, to see the legendary colonel, Bo Gritz.
My son fights under that flag.
A one-time Green Beret and presidential candidate, Bo is now stumping on the patriot trail.
This is what happens to this globalist government.
And he too is no friend of the new world order.
In 1994, he announced plans for a kind of mountain top commune where fellow patriots could be safe from the federal government, the UN and from Armageddon.
He named it Almost Heaven.
Dawn found me winding up towards its almost pearly gates.
- Hi, Colonel Gritz? - Yeah.
How you doing? We're from the BBC.
You're too early.
It's tomorrow, isn't it? No, it's supposed to be today.
You can come in but I'm doing my radio programme in just a couple of minutes.
- I was told it would be Tuesday.
- I'm sorry about that.
Take your shoes off.
Bo Gritz, we're with you on Talk America Radio.
Freedom Call, we do more than just talk about it.
A 40-foot Jesus appeared before him I guarantee him, he'll get his damn money! would anyone wanna conduct anal sex? on the United States, I didn't hide lawyers belong on the bottom of the ocean.
I'll see you tomorrow.
You be here, that's an order.
Let me just say, General Colonel Gritz, excuse me, it's a real pleasure for you, for me to, um OK, so I admit, I was a bit intimidated at first.
After all, he was the model for Rambo, had personally killed 400 people, and by the looks of it, stolen their medals.
0K, so you founded a patriot covenant community here in rural Idaho, is that correct? Maybe exactly correct.
I went to every state, and everywhere I went I saw people afraid.
They were paranoid.
They were paranoid about the government, about natural phenomenon, they were paranoid about military targeting, about nuclear power plants, so, I went to FEMA, that's the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
They have a great database of catastrophic events.
I took a magic marker - for example, Florida, all across here, these guys pretty well get decimated.
Hurricanes, right? And you come up by Georgia, you get the hurricane thing, and South Carolina gets wiped out.
You've got Washington DC which is a major targeting area.
Iraqi missiles or something.
The next thing is the tornado belt - Kansas and 0klahoma.
- You're doing kind of a twister on that.
- That's what it is.
See there? Twister - good.
You have this giant flood belt.
All the winter storms from Maine make this area uninhabitable.
Minnesota, Wisconsin, all in the blizzard zone.
- It's all blizzards, is it? - Yeah.
What's wrong with North Dakota? - N0RAD.
- Target for missiles, right? - This is nuclear waste right here.
- That's nuclear waste.
California, you got earthquakes.
Any idea how you wanna make earthquakes? That's a tough one.
And in Los Angeles you have the riots.
Portland, you have Mount Hood.
All of these are volcanic.
Lava coming out.
- In New Mexico we didn't have the soil.
- Just too cold.
Montana and Texas is under this storm problem.
- And - So, it doesn't leave that much, does it? Well, it doesn't What happened is, we ended up in a little tiny spot up here, that actually We are right here.
So, in sum, how would you rate this place? Well, this place is the safest place in all of America.
Having said that, when you picked out the land here, did you have in mind whether it would be easy to defend against some kind of invasion? 0ur community is spread over about ten miles.
It would take an army in order to try to control us.
They're not gonna do it for any reason.
I just was looking for the safest place for people to live where they wouldn't have weird things happening to 'em, by Mother Nature or by man-made problems.
Was there a spot on Almost Heaven waiting for me? Where are we headed now? We're headed to Almost Heaven Too.
It's not T-W-0 it's T-0-0.
Bo had Just the place.
With a bit of cash down, I too could have land, a house, even a pet, in the safest place in all America.
Can you see yourself You move from London, you come out here, put yourself up a log cabin right there? It was a tempting offer.
But what was this business about a constitutional covenant? This is a constitutional covenant community.
We don't ask anyone what their faith is, what their colour is, what their IQ is.
All you have to do when you join this community is say, "I will stand in the defence of my neighbours in their constitutional rights.
" If it ever comes to the paranoia that people see now, where you have a government that says you have to have a mark in your hand or your forehead, I will say no.
- And so we will defend - You'll say no to what exactly? To this little chip in your hand or your forehead.
Has anyone asked you if you wanna have a chip put in you yet? No, and if they do I will refuse, but what we're saying is, if they think they're gonna put it like you'd scan a loaf of bread, or if you're disadvantaged and don't have hands, they'd scan your forehead, then for me, that's a no.
Is Almost Heaven a militia community? No, the answer is absolutely not.
We don't have any cache of guns, there's no bunker.
These three families may have a plan for attack.
- You're talking about families here? - I'm talking about three noodles right here, three families out of 60 or 70 up here, that think we're gonna someday be at war against the government, and they were looking forward to attacking.
I asked them, "Who the hell are you gonna kill?" We got one federal employee that I know of, that's the postmaster.
Can we talk to them? You could sure try.
What might happen? - I think that - Who are they? I think that they would come out of their house with a gun and tell you to get off their property or they would shoot you.
I needed no further encouragement.
Directions in hand, I made my way towards one of the radical noodles Bo had mentioned - a guy named Mike Cain.
And so, cruising through the safest place in all America, I was heading straight towards the most dangerous people there.
What d'you want? We're doing a story on Almost Heaven.
Want to find out what life's like up here.
- How do you do? - You ain't in Almost Heaven.
No? - No.
- Where am I? From the temperature, you're in Almost Hell.
Looks like it.
I gotta tell you, I was little bit nervous about coming up here.
I heard you fellas were a bit scary.
- 0h, really? - Yeah.
Why do people think you're scary? I don't know.
Why'd you think we were? Actually, Bo Gritz said you were a little scary.
- The Colonel? - The Colonel.
- He did, did he? - Yeah.
I guess the other reason would be the news media, you know, the conventional view of people who live on covenant community places like this.
The view would be that they're a little extreme.
D'you get that impression from the media too? No, I get the impression from the media they they think we're scary, too.
Really? I don't know what's so scary.
- Are you scary? - No, I'm not scary.
0nly if you You come up here to do harm to me and my family, then I'm probably as scary as you are, if someone came to do harm to you and your family.
Yeah.
Feel free to dragoon me into some hard labour if there's anything you think I could be handy with.
We're aiming for total self-sufficiency, so we need all skills from everybody up here.
Do you need TV presenters at all? I don't know if we need that or not.
It'd probably be good for us if we had it.
- Yeah.
- You wanna join us, Louis? - Yeah.
- Would you? Yeah.
In the end, far from shooting me, Mike actually invited me to dinner.
0h, my word, here we go.
I was on my way into the heart of Almost Heaven.
This is the place? This is the old homestead.
- This is Freedom Central? - It's unfinished.
Come on in, fellas.
Turned out Mike, a former building contractor in Nevada, had moved here less than two years ago.
Is there anything in the way of a guided tour? It's kind of a typical house, I don't know if there's much for a guided tour of it.
Come on.
There's a gun rack over there.
That's not that typical.
- Maybe not where you're from.
- Not in Britain.
- They don't let you have those, do they? - No, they don't.
- How do you live like that? - Well Y'know, for an American to live without a gun is like you guys trying to live without tea.
- Really? - How is that possible? - It couldn't be that bad, could it? - Yeah.
Daughter's room.
I don't know if your viewers really wanna see that or not.
Wow, looks like the Feds already made it in here.
Really.
- This is worse than Waco.
- Isn't it? 0K, so what's this? This is nice.
Yeah.
Well, actually, this is your room, Louis.
- How d'you mean? - If you want to spend the night.
- Can I really? - Yeah! Well, that's very, very kind, Mike, thanks so much.
You got one thing right, I am a big fan of Keanu Reeves.
As Mike's wife Cha-cha made tortillas, our talk turned to music.
I like rock 'n' roll.
Which bands are your favourites? I like the Beatles, Rolling Stones.
No way.
You're not an old hippy, are you? - Yes.
- Really? - 0f course.
- Yeah.
The beads, the love beads, bell bottom pants, long hair, flowered shirts.
He's too young for that.
And he didn't take showers either.
- I thought hippies were peace and love.
- I'm peace and love.
And no showers.
Hippies would put flowers in the ends of guns.
Well, see, that's when you're young and dumb.
When you get to be my age, you learn that putting flowers in guns isn't the best thing.
It's better if you put bullets in guns rather than flowers.
0ur Father in Heaven, we bow our heads at this time to give our thanks unto Thee for this beautiful day and we pray now for Thy greater glory and do so in the name of Thy son Jesus Christ, amen.
Amen.
- Amen.
- Aw! For people in Britain who aren't up to speed on this, and don't know exactly what's going on, and don't understand patriot beliefs, how would you explain as simply as you could what's going on? The government, the crooks and criminals in Washington DC - International bankers - Rockefellers international gangsters.
- International gangsters? - That's what they are.
- You think that as well, Mike? There has been a conspiracy for some years by a group of people that have become known loosely as the new world order.
The problem with the new world order and the one world government is that it requires a benevolent dictator.
You show me in history any time that there's ever been a benevolent dictator ever.
And if you don't have a benevolent dictator, then you have a tyrant.
Spread your money out so we can see it.
I'm gonna choose the top hat.
You get the gun, Mike.
I get the gun? 0K.
Here? New York Avenue.
- I believe that's mine.
- I'll buy it.
- It's mine.
- I'll buy it from you.
I don't think so.
Get out of jail free.
That's handy, you could be in there as a tax protester.
So far, I was really enJoying my stay.
But there was one small catch.
0hh! We're ready, let's go.
0K.
Am I in the back with you? So, Mike, what are we doing out here? It's four in the morning, I'm freezing.
Well, Louis, you're on a neighbourhood watch this morning.
We're just looking around to make sure everything's quiet and peaceful.
And to keep an eye out for government troops.
It's seven days a week, 365 days a year.
Yo, Liberty.
I copy.
Over.
You got one coming your way.
Liberty has got something goin' on over there.
How's it going? You must be Liberty.
Yeah.
- Pretty quiet.
- Yeah.
Yeah.
And so it went for three long, freezing, uneventful hours.
Let's say you saw some vehicles and they seemed to be marked as UN vehicles.
This vehicle would follow the vehicles that you just described and we would be met on the road by a roadblock, and the roadblock would take care of the front part of the vehicles and we would be taking care of the rear part of the vehicles.
Let's say what are apparently UN vehicles coming towards you show no sign of slowing down as they approach the roadblock.
At what point do you start firing? At the point we determine they're not going to stop.
Yeah.
What do you aim for? We aim for the windshield.
We don't want that to happen.
That's one of the reasons we move out in the country like this.
We're hoping they're simply going to leave us alone, let us live our lives like we want to live them.
- You ready to work? - Yeah, shall we do it? You gonna get some calluses on those hands? A few splinters? Can I avoid it? The day's work began with a trip to town for some supplies.
- Do you know what's in this, Simon? - No.
What is in there, Louis? - Cha-cha, tell them what's in there.
- No, you tell them.
- 0oh! - It's a toy.
- Luckily it's not loaded, right? - 0h, yes.
- It is loaded? - Mm-hm.
- It's got the safety on, though, right? - No.
0h, please put the safety on.
It doesn't have a safety.
- 0h, my God! - What? Are you sure you want me to drive? I don't have a driver's licence and if we get stopped there's gonna be a little bit of a hassle over that.
Wait a second, you don't have a driver's licence? No.
Nor do I have licence plates on my truck at home.
The actual physical plate is there but it's been expired for months and months.
We don't have driver's licences up here, we don't register our vehicles, we don't have automobile insurance.
Those things are all new world order items, so we do without them.
With no cops in sight, we made our way into Grampa John's Hardware Haven.
Every day, I can hardly wait to open the store and have customers come in and sell stuff.
I can hardly wait to get in there and buy things to sell.
You're kidding.
Can we look at the tarpaulins? Then I get to six o'clock I gotta stop work in the store, but then I do get to go roller skating.
- That's your number one hobby? - Yeah.
- You're a roller skater? - Yeah.
- How about that? - What size is that? - The biggest one they have.
- That's perfect.
Is it good? I'm staying up at Almost Heaven at the moment.
I'm staying at Mike's place.
A lot of the people up there think there's gonna be a major catastrophe coming up, that all these things'll come to a head, with the federal government.
0h, yeah.
You see, they're newcomers.
There's nothing wrong with that but it means they don't really und They get a little bit excited too soon.
Is Mike getting excited? Well, some are getting more excited than necessary.
When time comes to push when push comes to shove, we're not gonna let this happen.
I don't think they're gonna stop.
They're not gonna stop on their own.
We know that.
That's the thing, but we're gonna stop 'em.
I guess the only difference between us, I know the government can be stopped.
- I'm afraid they can't be.
- I know.
Before I left, Grampa John insisted I take a look round his office.
What's that? Would you mind putting it on? No, I wear it all the time.
- Do you really wear it all the time? - Yeah.
Look at that.
Isn't it amazing? You look very dapper.
Is that just a bumper sticker? No, that's our first American flag, it says don't tread on me.
0h, you're from Limeyville, that's right.
How's that? What did you call it? Limeyville.
In World War Two, the English were Limeys, the Canadians, the English were Limeys.
We were the Yanks.
The Germans were Krauts.
- No, that's fine.
- Limey, isn't that what - Yeah.
- You know what that was.
I just never heard anyone say I was from Limeyville.
First time I ever said it.
Remember now, you guys are younger, you read the politically correct history.
- A lot of history has been changed.
- Like what? Gimme an example.
0K, for instance, for instance, Adolf Hitler.
You know, there was At that time, there was like, a little over five million Jews when that war started.
He killed six million and after the war there was four and a half million left.
Right.
Now, you see, when you do the mathematics like that, it doesn't make two and two is four.
I can go on with that and I think they got a word for that, anti-Semitic, and stuff like that, but I know when that was happening, I know what it was, I studied it, I know.
Yeah.
Well, we should head off, I think.
0K, take it easy.
I'm hoping we can work something out on the roller skating.
- We'll be there.
- Maybe see you there.
See you, thanks.
Boy, he's a strong personality, isn't he? Yeah.
Is he a good patriot? 0h, he's an excellent patriot.
He's been at this a lot longer than I have.
What about the stuff he was saying about the Holocaust? He said he didn't think anything like six million Jews died, it's all overblown and overplayed.
Well, I think the proof is there that they did, so I don't know what he's basing his information on.
You made it look a little easier than I'm finding it.
I get the impression that, from a lot of the people that have come up here, they have some personal story, some personal incident that's led them to become disillusioned with society.
0ne of the things started my wake-up call was when the IRS raided my bank account.
My six-year-old daughter at the time had $12 in savings, so, not only did they get into my account, that they had no business getting in - Very good.
- Yeah.
but they took my daughter's $12, because her name happened to be the same as mine.
- No? - What did she have to do with it? That incident is what brought Mike to this covenant community.
Ready for another one? Now, without a driver's licence and refusing to pay taxes, there was no turning back.
What d'you think people in Britain will think when they see you on this tape? That I'm a radical nut.
- Yeah? - Yeah.
But that's 0K.
I think my kids think I'm a radical nut too.
- Really? - Yeah.
Whoa! Whoa, this is weird! - Come up here, Mike.
You wanna go? - 0h, you're 0K, Louis, I like you.
I'm happier now than I've ever been in my life, Louis, and I have less.
We get to laughing once in a while, we get to talking about lobster dinners that we use to have and $200 bottles of wine, and we've just found a better way.
We've made defensive preparations up here.
We have adequate food supplies.
- Yeah.
- We're safe.
Safe as it was, I needed a break from Almost Heaven and so I headed north.
Seven hours north to meet Mike Oehler, an aging hippy and the distinguished author of the $50 And Up Underground House Book.
We're gonna go down to our waist in places here.
That's good news.
Soon, Mike and I were lurching towards his subterranean home.
So how long have you lived up here on the hill? 28 years.
Those 0h! 28 years in a hole in the ground? - Are we nearly there, Mike? - Another couple of miles, buck up.
I see something.
What's this? This is my house.
- It's a Hobbit home.
- Yes.
Welcome home.
It's all hidden.
It's a cosy little home.
When the crash comes, do you think you might have space for me? Er Mm So what else is there to see? You haven't got any old photographs of yourself, have you? I've got my high school yearbook.
No, look at that! Haven't changed a bit.
Haven't changed one jot.
Were you nominated for most likely to live in an underground home? - No.
- What's Contact? Some of the far out, far right stuff that we get in this area.
- Not generally my cup of tea.
- What d'you reckon? As I understand it, the new world order is a one world government.
Yeah.
I, myself, am not for a one world government but we seem to be going in that direction.
I know you're an environmentalist and you came out of the hippy movement, so how does that square with that? We may have different viewpoints politically and so forth, but we all want independence - the hippies and militia types.
We all see the federal government as a threat to this.
What's on the cards this evening, Mike? I thought we'd go over to the bar and we'll try to find some action.
Yeah.
0K, lads, we're gonna have a snort.
- Cheers, Mike.
- Good health.
- To a good night's sleep.
- To the Queen, lads.
- The Duke and the Prince.
- It's good to have you here, my brother.
- Excellent.
- Here's mud in your eye.
To the health.
Whoa! After a couple of small nightcaps, Mike led me to my very own guest hole.
Hey, Mike, this is nice.
Look at this! Two bunks, this is fandabbydozey! You can't beat that, man.
All right.
Night.
Got huckleberry hotcakes and barbecued bear waiting for you down below here.
0hh! Bear meat.
So what d'you think of the militias? Most of the militia people are very sincere.
They're patriotic Americans.
They believe, as I do, that the constitution has been totally destroyed.
It frightens me somewhat that the militias are just the tip of the iceberg.
There's a lot of resentment against the federal government and I think that their fears and their desires and demands should be taken seriously.
0ne thing that bothers me about people like that is the idea that they might be racist.
I get a lot of literature from these guys because my book, the $50 And Up Underground House Book, sells among these kind of people now.
There is a fair amount of racism among many of those people.
Is there anyone I could go and see to get a handle on the racist end of things? Yeah, if you wanna talk to those guys, what you should probably do is go down to Reverend Butler's compound down in Hayden Lake.
It's about 70-80 miles south of here.
What kind of a place is that? He's got the Aryan Nations Church there.
If you talk to them, you'd get that side of the picture, the racist side of the picture.
They sound a little bit scary.
Well, yeah, they're a little scary.
And so I found myself in a large Cadillac, skimming over ice and snow at high speed.
At the wheel, the Führer of the Aryan Nations, Pastor Richard Butler.
Watch it.
0h, that was close.
In the back with me, his right-hand man, Reverend Jerry Grudle.
The scenery, especially in the winter reminds me a lot of Cheltenham.
- Cheltenham, England? - Yes.
Well, appearances notwithstanding, these guys were no Joke.
Since coming up to Hayden Lake, Idaho, about 20 years ago, their annual conventions have become a kind of lollapalooza for neo-Nazis - their followers linked to violence, even murders.
They'd also been linked to the patriots, even though most of the patriots I'd met wanted nothing to do with the Aryan Nations for obvious reasons.
I wondered what the pastor would have to say.
0ur number one guard dog.
Is he going to attack me? Hans, Hans! Hans, quiet.
Get in there.
Is this command central? Is it? Hans! Go lie down.
Come on, Hans, move.
Come on.
That dog is freaking me out.
The pastor has a little bit to do here.
Would you like me to give you a little look around the church? 0h, yes, please.
Would that be 0K? - Sure.
- Yeah, I'd love that.
Will we be away from the dogs? - Yes.
- 0K, good.
- They'll stay here with pastor.
- That's a plus.
So where are we going now? This is the church itself.
There's no armed guards or anything.
Anybody that's white is welcome all the time.
- What about people who aren't white? - They'd be very uncomfortable here, I think.
- Would they be welcome? - Because this No.
No? No.
What would be the point? Mm, just so they could have a look round.
So where are we headed now? - What would you like to see? - I wanna see that tower.
0K.
Give them a wave out here.
You know, from way early history times, even pre-Roman times, when Aryans got together and Aryans waved each other, they'd give a salute.
Right.
Now the niggers and all this are gonna give something palm up.
- Yeah.
- You know? But Aryans have a palm down salute.
Yeah, what's the significance of that? Well, we're showing that our hand is empty, we have no weapon in our hand.
- Yeah.
- Not begging for something.
0y vey.
0y vey.
0h, I'm a poor Jew.
0h, I couldn't sell it to you any cheaper if you were my own mother.
You're a regular Benny Hill, aren't you? Well, maybe so.
I think he's funny.
Yeah, he's funny.
I like that programme, Are You Being Served? - Really? - Yeah.
- No? - Yes.
What bits do you like in it? 0h, I like that.
Um that, er the two ladies that work in the ladies lingerie counter - the young voluptuous one and the and the other one that usually has blue hair.
- Mrs Slocombe.
- She's hilarious.
Yes, I like Mrs Slocombe.
- What about Mr Humphries? - Ah Well, I try to ignore that part.
- Why? - W Uhh Uhh He's the one that's the fairy? The camp one.
"I'm free! I'm free!" No, I just ignore that.
Why? Because he's a queer.
But he's the funniest thing in it.
Well, maybe to you.
I think he's disgusting.
- You said you liked the show and he's - 0h, yeah, the show but not that.
They throw that in because they have to have the diversity.
They have to show that we love everybody.
See, up here, we're free to say that "Hey, I discriminate.
" Yeah.
I'm free.
I'm free to discriminate.
- I'm free.
- Yeah.
- Say I'm free.
- Yeah.
D'you wanna say "I'm free"? I'm free! I'm not free.
Why not? Well, because our country is in bondage to the Jews.
When I finally spoke with the pastor, it turned out he wasn't exactly in lock-step with the patriots.
My personal quarrel with the militia movement is this - they have to go by what they think is the constitution, so they have to say that they welcome blacks and Jews and Mexicans and everything else into the movement.
That's some of 'em.
Some of 'em were white.
And as for Bo Gritz and friends I believe in the survival perpetuation of my race.
Does Bo think that too, do you think? I think he is more or less a multiculturalist.
- Really? - Yeah.
He admits he married an Asian woman, has Asian children.
He's allowed a Mexican family and a Filipino family or something like that to come in there, so he's not really pro-white.
Thank you very, very much.
We really Hans! Hans! I'm a little bit high-strung.
Thanks very much, Pastor, appreciate your time.
Tell the people of England to wake up.
0K, will do.
Certainly.
Wake up and smell the roses or die.
Smell the roses? 0K will do.
Well, we may have shared a love for the antics of Mrs Slocombe, but Aryan Nations and I parted ways on Just about everything else.
Did you get that? Sounds good, doesn't it? The next morning found me back in the realms of Almost Heaven on a mission to help a friend of Mike Cain's named Don, a covenant community member whose lifestyle, I'd heard, was unusual, even by the standards of Almost Heaven.
And here in Kooskia was our point of rendezvous.
You haven't seen a guy called Don, have you? Who? That is if he actually showed up.
There's Don.
Don, come round.
Don's over there.
So I volunteered my services to Don.
I put my back out trampolining on Mike Cain's trampoline.
- He's got a trampoline? - Yeah.
That looks good.
We'd Just loaded Don's truck with the raw material for an extension to his home.
For months, Don had been living in a house made entirely of straw bales, which did have its drawbacks.
So is this mouse eating your house? - Well, yeah.
- No way.
It's actually warm living in a straw bale house? It was about freezing this morning.
- In your house? - Yeah.
Seriously, Don, most of the people watching will be thinking, you know, zero is just unacceptably cold, and they're not gonna be impressed with this straw bale house business.
Maybe not.
Why don't you heat it? Well, I'm heating with propane, and I would asphyxiate myself if I used it all night.
Dear, oh, dear.
So this is it? Home sweet home.
So this is the equivalent of using a zapper to bring the garage door up? Pretty much.
Zzzzzzzz.
Check it out! This is home.
What's happening in there? That's a camp in Upstate New York.
We take kids up there once a summer and share the good news about Jesus Christ with them.
So you got no electricity here presumably? Right.
Are you gonna change that? Yeah, that's what we're building for the diesel generator.
So what did you used to do before you came up to Almost Heaven, Don? I used to make my daily bread as a software engineer.
- So you made pretty decent money? - Yeah, the Lord blessed me.
So is it true you used to be in Greenpeace? - Yes.
- How come? - How come? - Yeah.
I thought they were a good organisation at the time.
What's the problem with Greenpeace? They're just trying to save the environment.
Because a lot of those environmentalists worship the earth - and I worship Jesus Christ.
- 0h, they do not! - Yes.
- They don't.
- They do.
- They don't.
They don't.
They don't worship the earth.
Do you believe, like Mike does, that there's a strong chance that UN troops may come and invade your home someday? I don't know, they've done it in other countries.
If they come, do you think a house made of straw bales is good for defending yourself? Yeah, they'll just think it's feed for the cattle.
We gotta take this down.
This is as high as it's gonna be.
- That's as high as it's gonna be? - Yeah.
It's gonna be like a gnome's house.
Well, it's gonna be the generator and I'm kinda short.
But it's also my spare room, don't forget.
0h, yeah, this is pretty cosy.
Yeah, you can stay here whenever you want.
- Really? - Yes.
Thanks, man.
Good one.
- Thanks very much, that's great.
- Thank you.
That looks perfect.
One Job done but now Mike Cain was waiting for me at his work site.
- Hey.
- Come here, Louis, you been loafin' too long.
Besides, pleased with my straw house building skills, I was ready for something more challenging.
What am I supposed to do with this? Like using nails.
A little harder than that, Louis.
0K.
0h, it's manly work.
Is that what that's called? Working in the open air of Almost Heaven the threat of the new world order seemed a million miles away.
That-a-way.
Can I get the nail bags? This being my last day, Mike knocked off early to give me a special treat.
Some more shooting.
- Is this gonna hit me? - No, that doesn't move.
- Shouldn't we be wearing ear muffs? - No.
You don't wear ear muffs in a war.
When's it all gonna happen, do you think? Well, maybe before the year 2000.
And what will it be? All-out war.
- It's all-out war? - It's all-out war, Louis.
- Really? - I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
0ne day.
We've all fought wars before.
Yeah.
But one day it'll happen.
- You against who? - Everyone.
How do you mean? Well, us against the new world order.
- Really? - Mm-hm.
I've really enjoyed being around you and it just sort of makes me worried because the more convinced you are that this is gonna happen, it seems in a way, the more likely it makes it that it will happen, and I'd hate to read that one day Mike Cain has been in some incident with the federal authorities.
I mean, it would really upset me.
Seriously.
Louis, I appreciate what you say, I really do, and I can promise you this - if it happens, it won't be because we started it.
You won't read about me going to someone else's home to cause trouble, you won't read about me going to another county to start trouble.
The only trouble you're ever going to read about involving myself or any of other patriots up here, is when they come up here.
You know, though, by not paying taxes that We're provoking.
Yeah, you are.
It is the thing that's most likely to bring federal authorities down on you, you recognise that.
Well, then I guess I'm failing to get my message across.
My refusal to pay taxes is my right as an American.
It's the out of control government that wants to put me in jail for that, or to take my home or to harm my children.
It isn't correct because I refuse to pay taxes that I am sentenced to die.
I should have my day in court.
And it's not just me saying it.
There's tens of thousands of Americans just like me all across this country.
I'm not in any way unique.
Perhaps even millions of Americans that are ready for the war.
We're ready.
We pray daily it doesn't take place.
We lift the standard of peace always, but if they're going to have a war, then let it begin here.
Bye.
Thanks.
My brief Journey in the northwest was nearing an end.
Time for final goodbyes.
30 seconds of tape and counting.
With only 30 seconds left on our tape, I was rushing the crew out the door, but in the end the tape ran out anyway.
- Be careful driving down the mountain now.
Be safe, don't do I was saying "Don't do anything silly, Mike.
" "Don't do anything silly.
"