This entry was posted on 4/19/2010 5:12 PM and is filed under uncategorized.
I think it hit me harder than most folks, at least, most folks whoweren't there, or didn't have loved ones there, or who didn't livethere. People, I'm talking about who, like me, watched it on TV.
People who'd never been to Oklahoma City, I mean, unless they werepassing through or stopping at an airport.
Most Americans.
It hit me harder because, unlike most Americans, I'd spent the betterpart of a year crawling around inside the head of the Tim McVeighs ofthe world, trying to understand just what kind of mind would considerthe bombing of a building full of everyday Americans to be an heroic actof war, and the murder of babies to be "collateral damage."
In the early minutes following the first horrific, shocked TV images ofthe gutted, smoke-billowing building, the bleeding survivors, the grimrescue workers, the stunned and terrified families waiting behind policelines, television commentators were already speculating that Muslimterrorists might be responsible, as they had been for the bombing of theWorld Trade Center in 1993.
I don't suppose many other Americans did what I did when I heard that. My head swiveled around to glance at the calendar, and as soon as I sawthe date, I knew otherwise.
April 19. High holy day to right-wing extremists bent on revenge forthe Branch Davidian tragedy that had taken place in Waco just two yearsbefore.
I knew.
Right then, in spite of what all the TV journalists and commentatorswere saying, I knew that Muslims were not behind this terror. I knew itwas someone avenging the Waco deaths. I had seen and heard and readtoo much during the previous year while researching the book I waswriting at that very moment, ORDEAL,and I knew that my worst nightmare had come true.
I knew, in fact, that the plot I'd sketched out months before for mywork of fiction, and which I was 400 pages into writing, was pretty muchtaking place in real-time, right in front of a nation's--and myown--helpless gaze.
I'd spent months in a netherworld of right-wing militia paranoia,hatred, and rage, attending their rallies and conferences, reading theirunderground books, pamphlets, and other publications, browsing theirgunshows, talking to their militia zealots.
The misinformation surrounding the events that had transpired in Wacohad reached mythic proportions. At one conference, guest speakersconducted seminars dispensing outright lies purported to be facts basedon such things as autopsy reports of federal agents who'd been killed inthe shooting that day. But the information was patently false. I knewbecause I had the actual reports myself, copies of which had been givento me by a friendly Texas Ranger.
I learned, years later, that Timothy McVeigh had attended that sameconvention.
During that year I learned that an entire survivalist militia movementwas underway, preparing for war on American soil against THE GOVERNMENTand anyone who worked for it--IRS agents, game wardens, ATFagents--anyone above the county level was considered fair game. Therewas bountiful information out there--this was before the Internet was asubiquitous as it is now, and before FOX news, mind you, or even GlennBeck on TV--on how to stockpile and bury weapons and ammunition, how tomake your own bazooka at home, how to form your own militia, how tohoard food and gold, home-school your children, form an undergroundrailroad to keep felons away from law enforcement, how to makeexplosives, and so on.
Rhetoric was hate-filled and the Clintons, who were in office, were thedevil and Satan's spawn, and there was no rumor, no myth, no lieunbelievable enough about them that it would not be circulated withabsolute certainty. They--and anyone who worked for them--were evil.
All that whole year I had this horrible nameless, shapeless dread thatsomething terrible was going to happen, and I begged my conservativefamily and friends to tone down their rhetoric on the Clintons and otherthings but nobody would listen to me. Everybody thought I was beingsilly.
Until they arrested Timothy McVeigh.
And he gave his name, rank, and serial number.
And the feds showed him the dead babies and he shrugged and said,"Collateral damage."
After that, everything seemed to settle down a little bit. Peoplestopped screaming about war all the time. Ken Starr insisted that theClintons didn't really murder Vince Foster. The president got impeachedbut they couldn't throw him out of office. And then a Republican gotput in the White House and everybody on the right was happy and they REALLY shutup. After 9/11, they were quiet because then they had a REAL enemy tohate and fear.
So you could go to work at the IRS and not fear for your life.
Until Barack Obama, anyway. And now, here we go again.
And again, I am begging my conservative family and friends to tone downthe hate rhetoric and all they do is say that we did the same thingduring the anti-war demonstrations and I call BULLSHIT.
We had, what? Cindy Sheehan? Code Pink?
It has been FORTY YEARS since there has been ANYTHING on the leftanywhere NEAR comparable to what we see on the right--nowhere on theleft do we see stockpiling of weapons and ammo, explosives and militiasand talk of civil war.
NOWHERE.
Even during the height of the protests against the Iraq war, NOBODYtalked about seceding from the union--ESPECIALLY FROM THE OFFICE OF ASTATE GOVERNOR.
NOBODY from the Democratic party stepped out on the balcony of Congressand egged on anti-war demonstrations and went out into the crowd andwaved their own flags at them, the way we've seen the right wing dotheir crowds during the final debate of the health care reform rallies.
NOBODY from MSNBC called out anti-war rallies, organized them, raisedfunds for them, covered them exhaustively all day long, cheer-led forthem, and started an entire political movement based on them, the wayFOX news has done the anti-government Tea Party rallies.
NOBODY from the political left attended a George W. Bush rally wearingEXPOSED FIRE ARMS and holding up signs quoting the same T-shirt TimMcVeigh was wearing the day he bombed the Murrah building, about how thetree of liberty has to be watered with the blood of tyrants.
So please, conservative friends, don't tell me it's the same thing.
I have been down this road before, and it's not the same thing. And youknow it.
Tonight, on MSNBC, at 9 p.m., 8 p.m. central, Rachel Maddow is hosting aprogram called, TheMcVeigh Tapes: Confessions of an American Tyrant.
For the first time in history, we will be hearing Timothy McVeigh's ownwords. Although he never spoke to prosecutors, he hand-picked a coupleof reporters from Buffalo, New York, and he spoke to them for more than40 hours, in detail, about exactly what he did, how, and why.
MSNBC has boiled those tapes down to an hour-long broadcast, and hasdone a re-enactment of the crime.
What is particularly chilling, from this writer's point of view, is thatthe words he uses so enthusiastically to present his thoroughlyunrepentant story, are the very same words we hear at these ralliestoday: anti-government, words of war, words of arming to fight, words ofextremist hatred against a nameless, faceless "government" foe.
Just this weekend, for example, at a rally in South Carolina, here are acouple of quotes that were putup on video right here at TPM:
"Pastor Stan Craig, of the Choice Hills Baptist Church, wasparticularlyangry about the state of Washington, saying he "was trained to defendthe liberties of this nation." He declared that he was prepared to "suitup, get my gun, go to Washington, and do what they trained me to do."
and
"Dan Gonzales, who Chairs the Constitution Party in Florida, assertedthat "this is the end of America right here," and if the Tea Partiers"don't get to work we're going to be fighting in the streets."
The worst I ever heard any liberal say during the heaviest fighting inIraq and the worst outrages of the Bush administration was that theymight move out of the country.
MOVE. Not FIGHT IN THE STREETS.
As President Clinton pointed out so beautifully in an op-ed today in theNew York Times, the people McVeigh murdered on April 19, 1995 were notnameless, faceless GOVERNMENT:
"Most of the people killed that day were employees of the federalgovernment. They were men and women who had devoted their careers tohelping the elderly and disabled, supporting our veterans and enforcingour laws. They were good neighbors and good friends. One of them, aSecret Service agent named Al Whicher, a husband and father of three,had been on my presidential security detail. Nineteen children also losttheir lives."
He also said:
"Finally, we should never forget what drove the bombers, and howtheyjustified their actions to themselves. They took to the ultimate extremean idea advocated in the months and years before the bombing by anincreasingly vocal minority: the belief that the greatest threat toAmerican freedom is our government, and that public servants do notprotect our freedoms, but abuse them. On that April 19, the secondanniversary of the assault of the Branch Davidian compound near Waco,deeply alienated and disconnected Americans decided murder was a blowfor liberty.
"Americans have more freedom and broader rights than citizens ofalmost any other nation in the world, including the capacity tocriticize their government and their elected officials. But we do nothave the right to resort to violence — or the threat of violence — whenwe don’t get our way. Our founders constructed a system of government sothat reason could prevail over fear. Oklahoma City proved once againthat without the law there is no freedom."
Yes, that is the KEY.
President Obama is not a TYRANT. He was ELECTED president by 69MILLION PEOPLE.
When disgruntled losers--meaning, Republicans and Tea Partiers (whoare Republicans) whose candidates lost--throw rallies in which theycarry guns and threatening signs, and when elected members of congressreceive death threats for casting votes they disagree with--THAT istyranny!
They are THREATENING my freedom when they threaten my electedrepresentatives with violence because they are not getting their way.
It is mob rule.
You can't tell me a single "founding father" ever postulated such athing.
Clinton writes:
"Criticism is part of the lifeblood of democracy. No one is rightallthe time. But we should remember that there is a big difference betweencriticizing a policy or a politician and demonizing the government thatguarantees our freedoms and the public servants who enforce our laws.
"We are again dealing with difficulties in a contentious, partisantime. We are more connected than ever before, more able to spread ourideas and beliefs, our anger and fears. As we exercise the right toadvocate our views, and as we animate our supporters, we must all assumeresponsibility for our words and actions before theyenter a vast echo chamber and reach those both serious and delirious,connected and unhinged.
"Civic virtue can include harsh criticism, protest, even civildisobedience. But not violence or its advocacy. That is the bright linethat protects our freedom. It has held for a long time, since PresidentGeorge Washington called out 13,000 troops in response to the WhiskeyRebellion.
"Fifteen years ago, the line was crossed in Oklahoma City. Inthecurrent climate, with so many threats against the president, members ofCongress and other public servants, we owe it to the victims of OklahomaCity, and those who survived and responded so bravely, not to cross itagain."
Yes. Oklahoma City, where 168 empty chairs stand to commemorate lostsouls who will never sit in them again. At night, those chairs glowlike stars, up to the heavens.
Do we really want to turn back that clock?
Understand, as liberals and progressives, we are not immune to hatetalk and paranoia. I hear it all the time in comment sections on blogsand Facebook. As a Marine mom from a military family, you would notbelieve what I sometimes hear from dedicated "peace activists" who callmy son (who is no longer active duty) a murderer and worse.
The hate-rhetoric can cut both ways, and it needs to be toned down,because all it takes is one John Hinkley, one Tim McVeigh, one lonelyirrational seething hater to be provoked, to be VALIDATED by what hehears on the blogosphere and on talk-radio and TV.
But I gotta say, it's worse on the right-wing, and what frustrates methe most is that so many of them refuse to take responsibility for it.
However, I would be remiss and unfair if I refused to give a nod tothose who DO.
In his piece, "ToneDown the Hatefulness in Politics," Michael Gerson called out SarahPalin, Gov. Bob McDonnell, and others, as well as some liberals whowere hard on Bush (to be fair)--but I like what he says here:
"The most basic test of democracy is not what people do when theywin; itis what people do when they lose. Citizens bring their deepest passionsto a public debate -- convictions they regard as morally self-evident.Yet a war goes on. Abortion remains legal. A feared health-reform lawpasses. Democracy means the possibility of failure. While no democraticjudgment is final -- and citizens should continue to work to advancetheir ideals -- respecting the temporary outcome of a democratic processis the definition of political maturity.
"The opposite -- questioning the legitimacy of a democratic outcome;abusing, demeaning and attempting to silence one's opponents -- is asign of democratic decline. From the late Roman republic to WeimarGermany, these attitudes have been the prelude to thuggery. Thugs cancome with clubs, with bullhorns, with Internet access.
He mentioned, too, how Sen. Tom Coburn has been attacked byconservatives for saying that Nancy Pelosi was a nice lady. And added, "Idon't hate President Barack Obama. There. I've said it."
In the second column she wrote after winning the Pulitzer Prize,conservative columnist Kathleen Parker zeroed in on, "WhatAmericans Can Do to Discourage Future McVeighs."
Like Gerson, she, too, took issue with Sarah Palin's gunsights overDemocratic congresspeople's districts and the language of "reloading."
"Words matter," she says, and she knows whereof she speaks. During the '08 campaign, she wrote a column in which she dared to saythat Sarah Palin was not qualified to be vice-president, much lesspresident. In return, she was flooded with some 12,000 e-mails, most ofthem hate-filled vitriol, and not a few death threats--all fromconservatives--which unnerved her to such an extent that she wrote, "DixieChicks, I hear ya."
In fact, she quotes the following e-mail she received recently:
"Sorry, honey, but we don't need the squishy middle right now. Weneedthe hyper patriots, the combat vets ready to defend the constitutionwith arms if necessary."
--and goes on to add:
"The distance between such thinking and recent examples of overthostility seems too little. In this space, the unthinkable becomesplausible. "
She lays out the responsibility of the press, as she sees it, at suchtimes:
"The challenge for all, but especially the media, is to find abalancebetween vigilance and restraint. How do we expose the unhinged withoutemboldening them with attention? Inevitably, the lone operator hears hisown name summoned from the crowd.
"The only palatable answer is what conservatives say they love best:self-control and personal responsibility. When someone spewsobscenities, shout them down. When politicians and pundits useinflammatory language, condemn them.
"When you choose to remain silent, consider yourself complicit inwhatever transpires."
These voices of reason--more of whom speak out almost daily on theleft--need to keep speaking out, and we need to continue the drumbeathere at home, to our family and our friends.
When we get viral e-mails spewing hatred from a right-wing familymember or friend, it would be wise to refrain from a screaming match inreturn. Rather, simply snopes.com it and send them the refutation. Just let them see that it is inaccurate or misinformation. It willsimply deflate their angry red balloon. They won't always admit it orget back to you, but they will see, in time, that somebody, somewhere ismaking fools of them by continuing to send this garbage to them, justto provoke.
Answering the hatred, rage, and paranoia with more of your own onlyfans the flames and gives them more of what they seem to want, which isprovocation.
And even when we agree with each other, we should be careful with ourspeech, I think. It's not necessary to use some of the words ofviolence that I sometimes encounter even among people I considerpeace-loving.
We need to all sit back, take a deep breath, and remember April 19,1995.
Because there is nothing we have to say that is worth that.
