Today, April 19, is the 15th anniversary of one of the most heinous acts of domestic terrorism -- the bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building -- which killed 168 people, many of them civilian government workers, and injured 500 others. The casualties included 19 children, 15 of them in the building's day care center. Timothy McVeigh showed little regret about the casualties in the war of his home-grown militia movement against the American government. In a 1999 taped interview with his biographers, he said, as if speaking to the survivors:
The specific details may be unique, but the truth is you're not the first mother to lose her kid. You're not the first grandparent to lose a granddaughter or a grandson. I'll use the phrase...and it may sound cold but...it's the truth: Get over it.
Tonight at 9 p.m. ET, a documentary on the anniversary of the bombing based on those interviews, "The McVeigh Tapes: Confessions of an American Terrorist," airs on MSNBC. I intend to watch it. The promos of this important documentary say that extreme "anti-government" sentiments and rhetoric don't always lead to violence, but they can and have.
Sunday morning after church, I happened to meet a retired member of the congregation who used to work for an Oklahoma lawmaker and knew some of the people who were killed on that terrible day, and one whose young son was severely injured. I could still feel the emotion in her voice as she told me the story in the church parlor over coffee. It was like talking to friends and family of the victims of 9/11. But do we really see it that way?
On this terrible day, I have to ask: Are we concerned about the clear history and threat of domestic terrorism, or just foreign-based terrorist attacks? Are we as concerned about potential terrorists who are home-grown Americans with white skin as we are sometimes obsessed with darker-skinned suspects of Middle Eastern descent? And are we willing to focus our attention on the white right-wing violence of so-called American or even "Christian" militias, like we are now seemingly ready to unleash the forces of law enforcement against the mostly harmless but very vulnerable people who crossed the border illegally? Those are some of the questions we should ask as we watch the MSNBC documentary tonight.
It's time we make it clear that different views of the role of government are legitimate and essential to a robust democratic discourse; but the hateful and even violent rhetoric that has been employed in the past, and is now having a resurgence again, is dangerous and destructive and should be renounced and rejected by people of faith and good will across the political spectrum.
Jim Wallis is the author of Rediscovering Values: On Wall Street, Main Street, and Your Street -- A Moral Compass for the New Economy, CEO of Sojourners and blogs at www.godspolitics.com.
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Dr. Raymon Brown, a highly respected geo-physicist from the Oklahoma Geophysical Society, stated that the most logical explanation of the seismographic information from OKC is that there was more than one explosiive.
Survivors reported feeling the impact of two explosions in the Federal building.
Interior building columns far away from the truck location were destroyed, but columns closer to the truck remained intact… indicating that at least two separate explosions occurred.
How you interpret these facts is up to you.
Wow. Apalling quote.
Do schools not longer teach the Battles of Lexington and Concorde. Do schools only use this dare for McVeigh?
A man that calls himself an activist is upset because people who he does not agree with are becoming activists
"Don't pray. Learn to use guns"
"I think [women] should be armed but should not [be allowed to] vote."
"We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity."
"My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times Building."
http://www.quotiki.com/people/Ann-Coulter/quotes?tags[]=violence
Yeah, she's not invoking violence just opinions
Yes they have. From your fellow traveler: http://www.zombietime.com/prairie_fire/pfpg16_1big.jpg
This from the tolerant
Try again
"Are we as concerned about potential terrorists who are home-grown Americans with white skin as we are sometimes obsessed with darker-skinned suspects of Middle Eastern descent?"
Obviously, no. And I'm surprised that all the countries handing over nuclear materials (uranium and plutonium, etc) to the USA for "safekeeping" haven't brought up the same point.