Forms to reclaim your Straw Man now available online

SEATTLE, Washington - Backwoods white survivalists and black nationalist schemers have at least one thing in common - a byzantine, conspiratorial plan to escape debts and place themselves above the law known as "Redemption Theory". And while I can visualize the mimeographed newsletters by which this theory was distributed in the past, the paperwork and instructions to help you achieve "Redemption" are now sold on the good old internet, at the Moorish Republic Nation.

I do not wish to contract with you

Redemption Theory was started by a longtime white-extremist figure named Roger Elvick in the 1980s. Without going into too much detail, Redemption holds that the United States government went bankrupt in the 1930s and started taking out international loans against a bureaucratic alter-ego of every citizen. This alter-ego is known as a "straw man" and Elvick and his soulmates claim to have discovered a complex process by which a citizen gains access to his "straw man" and to the money contained therein. In practice, the "process" consists of bad checks and various bureaucratic and commercial filings. Elvick peddled this throughout the 1980s and 1990s before being sentenced to four years in jail for various crimes in April 2005.

The analogous movement among black men is known as the al Moroccan Empire, or Moors, or Moorish Nation, or other things with Moor in the name. The only reason I know about any of this at all is that a few guys in Atlantic City were caught up in this a few years ago. In 2003 three men, including former Atlantic City Housing Authority director W. Oscar Harris, were hauled before a judge [links to Press of AC now pay-only - jeff] for attempting to liberate their "straw man." Per their ideolgy, they responded to questions from the judge with identical, cryptic responses, including "If you think you can make a legal determination for me, you're fired", "I do not wish to contract with you", and my personal favorite, "Is this your chambers, or a courtroom?"

The black wing of all of this has added an interesting twist - they claim that the 1787 treaty between the Morocco and the United States exempts "Moroccans" from U.S. law. Thus, when Moor devotee and former Pleasantville (NJ) police officer Thomas Scott was being tried for fraud, [links to Press of AC now pay-only - jeff]he simply informed the court that his name was now Oman Valord Bey and that the laws of the United States no longer applied to him.

I've read the treaty in question and I don't think I see what they're talking about.