WHITE SUPREMACIST TOM METZGER RUNS FOR CONGRESS--AGAIN
By Miriam Raftery
March 30, 2010 (San Diego’s East County) – Tom Metzger, a white supremacist and former Fallbrook resident who previously ran for Congress in San Diego County, is now running again—this time as an Republican write-in candidate in Warsaw, Indiana. Metzer is a former grand dragon of the Ku Klux Klan.
Metzger shocked local Democrats in 1980, when he won a three-way Democratic primary. Democratic party leaders condemned the racist views of Metzger and endorsed Republican Claire Burgener. Burgener won with an unprecedented 86% of the vote. Metzger later ran for U.S. Senate as an independent and has since joined the Republican Party.
Founder of the White Aryan Resistance (WAR), Metzger was ordered to pay $5 million in 1989 for intentionally inciting skinheads in Oregon to provoke violent confrontation. Several of his followers in WAR were convicted of brutally killing Mulugeta Seraw, an Ethiopian man, in Portland, Oregon. A lawsuit filed by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) bankrupted Metzger, whose home and property were seized to satisfy his debts. The SPLC describes him as “one of the most notorious living white supremacists” in the U.S.
In 1991, Metzger was jailed for six months in a cross-burning incident. He wound up in jail again in 1992 for violating Canadian immigration laws when he tried to enter the country to promote hate. In 2009, his home was searched during an investigation into a mail bomb attack that injured an Arizona diversity director.
Local Democrats in San Diego and East County recall Metzger’s unwanted appearances at party functions, including local meetings as well as a state Democratic convention in Sacramento at which state police were summoned to prevent Metzger from being seated due to a procedural violation. Metzger claims on his website that he was removed from that convention at gunpoint. This reporter, who witnessed state police refuse Metzger and his bodyguards admission to the 1980 convention, did not observe any guns drawn.
Metzger continues to openly promote violence and racist views.
The bio on his website states that he “has been involved in brawls, riots, negotiations with the Black Panthers and Louis Farrakhan, race discussions in Tokyo twice (1993 and 1999), half dozen assassination attempts… reborn from right-winger to racist, he has been subpoenaed to Grand Juries, IRS hearings, Treasury Department inquiries (racist message on back side of fake dollar bills), multiple FBI interrogations ("I have nothing to say"), denounced by presidents, congressmen, politicians.”
He also admits to ordering murders be committed and appears unrepentant: “Sued for 10 million (Tom told John who told Mazzella who told skin heads to kill non-whites), has had his house of 30 years seized and sold, work truck and tools seized and sold, and ordered to work in "non-white" areas during probation (which he used his skills in promoting black and brown self-reliance and racism).”
The New York Daily News, in a March 9,, 2010 article, states that Metzger’s “anarchist group openly promotes ideas such as racism, the use of abortion as a means of “non-white population control,” and the collapse of the U.S. government.”
In an interview with a Fort Wayne news station, Metzger reportedly stated, "I'd go to Washington and have a fistfight every day," the New York Daily News reported.
Metzger is attempting to lure working people into voting for him, hoping to tap into growing racist and anti-government sentiments being voiced publicly at T.E.A. Party rallies and other public forums. But he is poorly funded, Metzger is believed to have little chance of winning against incumbent Republican Mark Souder, who has held the Indiana seat since 1994.
View a video of candidate Metzger here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhuxkQpDkhU.