April 19 is the anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing, the deadliest mass attack on the U.S. between Pearl Harbor & 9/11. Many people still don't realize it was an act of organized terrorism perpetrated by the white power movement, which still threatens our democracy today (1) pic.twitter.com/QUejutHfyZ
— Kathleen Belew (@kathleen_belew) April 19, 2022
Since then, white power activists and those in unlawful, private armies have stormed the Capitol on Jan 6 and laid siege to school boards and statehouses (3)
— Kathleen Belew (@kathleen_belew) April 19, 2022
It was too easy to accept McVeigh’s self-aggrandizing ‘lone wolf who wreaks hell’ framing to look at his allies:
… [T]he bombing remains misunderstood as an example of “lone wolf” terrorism. People repeat the words of the bomber Timothy McVeigh, an avowed white-power advocate who before his execution pointed out how scary it was that one man could wreak “this kind of hell.”
But in fact, the bombing was the outgrowth of decades of activism by the white-power movement, a coalition of Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazis, skinheads and militias, which aimed to organize a guerrilla war on the federal government and its other enemies.
Its network of activists spanned regional, generational, gender and other divides. Membership numbers are hard to pin down, but scholars estimate that in the 1980s the movement included around 25,000 hard-core members, 160,000 more who bought white-power literature and attended movement events, and 450,000 who read the literature secondhand.
These hundreds of thousands of adherents were knit tightly together. As a historian of the movement, I have spent a decade connecting threads among thousands of documents, including original correspondence and ephemera of activists, government surveillance documents, court records and newspaper reports.
From the formal unification in 1979 of previously antagonistic groups under a white-power banner, through its revolutionary turn to declare war on the government in 1983, through its militia phase in the early 1990s, the white-power movement mobilized through a cohesive social network using commonly held beliefs. Its activists operated with discipline and clarity, training in paramilitary camps and undertaking assassinations, mercenary soldiering, armed robbery, counterfeiting and weapons trafficking…
To say nothing of the threat this presents, we have not reckoned with April 19, 1995, and the families it devastated. (5)
— Kathleen Belew (@kathleen_belew) April 19, 2022
I thought you were exaggerating about the McVeigh/Hawley part, but then I realized I forgot about this news story. https://t.co/2fKj6D87dz
— Mr. Robert Dobalina IV (@doctorjonp) April 19, 2022
The Resumption of History: Part 2
FelonyGovt
I remember it. One of my clients was based in OKC at the time and I was getting real-time reporting. Interesting how white supremacist terrorists are always “lone wolves”. ?
Feathers
I remember well. My dad worked for the DOT and his office lost several people and someone’s child in the daycare.
I’m going to have to look back into the details, but I remember not too long after the attacks, Gingrich and the House Republicans calling a grandstanding committee investigation into the Waco (or perhaps Ruby Ridge?), which is of course what McVeigh claimed was his motivation.
That was when the Republicans became dead to me as an electoral party. I haven’t voted for a single one since.
catclub
Josh Hawley. wow.
jonas
I bet if the House offered a resolution today condemning the Oklahoma City bombing, it might garner 2/3 of Republican votes, at most. Quite frankly, a resolution *honoring* Timothy McVeigh might get more votes these days. Paul Gosar would sponsor it. The GOP is nothing but stone cold Nazis — or moral squishes who don’t give a shit that most of their colleagues are stone cold Nazis — so who knows?
Ohio Mom
I went over to McVeigh’s Wikipedia page to refresh my memory. Where have I heard this story before, the friendless, bullied, not-too-smart aimless boy who grows up to be fascinated with guns?
He found a cause, a purpose for his life and camaraderie in the militia movement, the movement found a stooge, and too many people found themselves dead, maimed or bereaved.
laura
The shock of it all- the intent to park the bomb adjacent to the childcare facility, the images of death and destruction, the sheer audacity of war against your own Country, the defenders, the worshippers and copycats, the infiltration of or willing supporters in law enforcement and the military, the sorrowful solemn memorial and the diligent prosecution of the perpetrators.
sab
It has always amazed me how that bombing completely disappeared from public notice.
coozledad
And then Frazier Glenn Miller and Gordon Ipock lived to see a white supremacist president.
https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/individual/frazier-glenn-miller
Geminid
@Ohio Mom: I think that Mcveigh built and placed the bomb himself, with Terry Nichols’ help. But I think there was an intellectual author of the crime, probably a militia chief. McVeigh was a good soldier and took the responsibility, and he knew how to keep any mentor out of it.
Andrew
I lived in Oklahoma City at the time of the bombing. I was working in Edmond, just to the north, when the shockwave from the explosion hit our building. I later worked inside the perimeter, caring for the SAR dogs. What I fear is that this attack is fading more and more into memory. It was overshadowed–in some ways, rightfully so–by the 9-11 attacks, but I really think people don’t want to consider that homegrown Americans are just as capable of terrorism as any actor from any other nation or group. This was a deliberate, politically motivated attack to avenge what happened in Waco the year before.
Andrew
The fact that this post is a day old and my comment above is only #10 supports my argument about the Murrah bombing fading from memory.
Citizen Alan
@Geminid: I used to say I was sad that Timothy mcveigh got the death penalty because I wanted him to live for the rest of his life in prison and watch as America rejected his views. How naive I was. Now I suspect that if he were still alive, trump might well have pardoned him.