
By: Robin Murray-o'hair
Re: Oklahoma City Blast

ARREST IN OKLAHOMA BOMBING FOCUSES ATTENTION ON MILITIA 'CULTISTS'

"Militia Movement" Part of Fringe Including Christian
Identity, Aryan Nations and Others

by Conrad F. Goeringer

     This afternoon, April 21, federal agents arrested two
men suspected in the Oklahoma City car bomb attack which thus
far is known to have killed over 60 persons and injured
scores of others.

   The latest news reports name Terry Nichols and twenty-
seven-year-old Timothy McVeigh as being in custody.  Both are
believed to be members of a domestic paramilitary
organization known as the Michigan Militia, although a
spokesman for that group has just denied that the two were
members, or that the Militia was behind the Oklahoma City
bombing.

   Last summer, newspaper ads throughout the country
announced that private militias would "March on Washington"
in September to serve "arrest warrants" on various
unspecified officials due to violations of the Constitution.
The Militia movement is a loosely-knit network of groups
ranging from neo-nazis and white supremacists to a-political
survivalist types. Individual members often have links to
other organizations, including the Aryan Nations church which
calls for the establishment of a "White homeland" in the
Pacific Northwest.  Other groups have been tied to acts of
violence, such as the bank robbing spree by The Order in the
early 1980s.  In most of these movements, there is an overt
racialist dogma usually directed against Blacks, Jews and
other, along with emphasis on building up stockpiles of arms
and explosives.

     It is not known as of now just how McVeigh and Nichols
might fit into the fringes of right-wing politics.  But at a
press conference earlier today, reporters asked President
Clinton if the Oklahoma bombing would spur further
investigation into these sorts of groups.  Clinton declined
to answer in specifics.

                    The Theology of Hatred

     In his book "Religion and the Racist Right," Michael
Burkun, professor of Political Science at Syracuse University
(U. of North Carolina Press, 1994), explored the origins of
contemporary racialist movements in the United States,
tracing some of them back to the "old right" of the pre-World
War II era.

     That "old right" was personified by men such as radio
preacher Father Charles Coughlin, whose anti-semitic message
of Christian fundamentalism was heard on hundreds of radio
stations throughout the country.  On the West coast, men such
as Rev. Wesley Swift managed to fuse the fundamentalist
doctrine with nationalism and a bizarre form of pre-New Age
mysticism.   Gerald L.K. Smith and the Christian Nationalist
Crusade went on to spread a similar right-wing creed after
the war, pounding away on the dangers of "International
Jewry" and communism.

   By the 1980s, a new generation of violent groups and
individuals had arisen, in groups such as the Church of Aryan
Nations, Posse Comitatus,  The Covenant, The Sword, and the
Arm of the Lord, and some of the Militia movement.  Many
members retreated to armed compounds or were involved in
shoot-outs with police.

   While no one single ideology links all of these groups,
there is a set of principles or beliefs which are widely
shared by members of these different movements, including
many Militia members.

   One is the belief that the United States is run by a
"Zionist Occupation Government" or ZOG, a hidden cabal of
international Jews as described in such discredited anti-
semitic propaganda as the "Protocols of the Learned Elders of
Zion."  One Cold War era scenario claimed that the ZOG was
planning to undermine the American economy and then wage
atomic warfare with the Soviet Union.

   Out of this fear came another tenant of the so-called
"survivalist right" -- emphasis on surviving thermonuclear
war, which was anticipated as God's judgment.  According to
journalist James Coates, author of "Armed and Dangerous --
the Rise of the Survivalist Right" (Hill and Wang, 1987),
this would be a "chance to wipe the slate of history clean
and begin anew," establishing a White/nationalist society.

   Since the late 1980s and now into the 1990s, these groups
have transmuted and evolved.  While there are still the
traditional Aryan Nations types,  the "racialist" and
survivalist movements now include "Skinheads" known for their
unique style of appearance and often violent confrontations
with minorities.  While not all skins are neo-nazi, the
right-wing of the skinhead movement is perhaps the most
visible in the public eye, thanks to numerous appearances on
TV specials and talk shows where they defend their message of
racial superiority and separatism.

   It remains to be seen how deeply Nichols and McVeigh might
have been involved in such movements, or if they were merely
"hanger-on" types on a crusade for some kind of personal
revenge.  The potential for further violence exists, though,
from a variety of hate groups and individuals who see
themselves on a mission from God, and one to be completed at
any cost.

                           --30--

 * WCE 2.0/2394 * One Nation under God -- Iran!

