Generally the wingers in our country terrorize us with their ideas and politicians they get elected, but there are even scarier types then them. There are actual terrorists in our midst. They tend to call themselves militias that try to enforce their radical ideas through violence. One of the most infamous moments was when Timothy McVeigh blew up the Oklahoma City Federal building over ten years ago. These groups have been laying low now for a while, particularly after George Bush got elected.
A logical hypothesis is that if the Democrats take back the Presidency and fight against their goals of breaking down gun control and the government itself. This isn't a conspiracy theory by any means. In fact there have been six underreported incidents in the last year alone attributed to these whackos.
From Rick Perlstein:
Stop it, stop it right now. Stop pretending Islamicists - or environmentalists or animal rights activists (which are, ridiculously, federal law enforcement and non-governmental terrorism-watchers' next most obsessive concern) - are the only imminent terrorist threats to our nation. We now know that students at Liberty University were ready to napalm protesters at Jerry Falwell's funeral. One of the suspects is a soldier at Fort Benning. [UPDATE: Falwell gave the kid a scholarship.]
If the media does not start connecting some dots, they will have abdicated their citizenship duties. How many times has the nation potentially come within a hair's breadth of suffering a right-wing terrorist attack this spring? As of today, three, or possibly six times - at least that we know about.
• Late in April, 150 federal, state, and local law enforcement officers carried out simultaneous raids in four Alabama counties in a sweep that yielded 130 grenades, a rocket launcher, and 2,500 rounds of ammunition.. In the town of Trussville, it took a U-haul truck to cart away all the materiel. At the Collinsville camper belonging to militia "major" Taymond Dillard, agents first had to defuse trip-wires rigged to explode hand grenades to kill intruders.
• Right-wing vigilantes arrested in a scuffle at one of the May 1 immigration marches, in Washington D.C., was found to have a stash of automatic weapons and explosives in his home.
• Now this, the violence allegedly thwarted at Falwell's funeral. One of the suspects is a soldier at Fort Benning - yes, he traveled all the way from Georgia with his munitions. Another was a high school student.
Sure the media has made note of the examples above, but as Perlstein said, no one is connecting the dots at CNN, the New York Times or any other major media outlet. Our fourth estate is not doing their job here and with many other societal movements going on in this country. For the most part, cable news and print journalism simply spits out press releases without any analysis or original thought.
These homegrown terrorists are a real problem and can potentially do serious damage when their radicalism mixes with heavy munitions. Honestly, do we really have to wait for another Timothy McVeigh, with dozens or hundreds killed and wounded? President Bush may want to bring the fight to the enemy in Iraq so we don't have to fight them here....but what about the enemy in our own backyard?
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