Today is the seventeenth anniversary of the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. 168 people lost their lives on that day and the small, tightly-knit community they lived in has never been the same. The striking thing about this year’s anniversary is that it seems to have been forgotten. The national media is busy discussing the Secret Service Scandal, the death of Dick Clark, and the character of Ann Romney. The largest terrorist attack on American soil before 9/11 is not worthy of a front-page mention of any of my usual news outlets.
Our amnesia could not come at a worse time. For because the attack in Oklahoma city seems distant, the causes of it are more present than ever in our political landscape. While we have spent billions focusing on Islamic terrorism, the growth of the kind far-right patriot groups that inspired Timothy McVeigh has exploded. Rage over an African-American president has fueled this growth, as has the bad economy. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center the number of militant “patriot” groups has gone from 149 to 824 since 2009. This is the highest number since the mid 1990s when the attack on Oklahoma City occurred, and local law enforcement officials are grappling with these groups all over the country.
Interestingly, McVeigh was not a formal militia member. Instead he stayed on the periphery of the movement. For McVeigh the motivation for the bombing evolved from ideas he picked up on the gun show circuit and in conversations with militia members he had over several years. He was a Lone Wolf in support of his fellow patriots. What McVeigh learned was that Americans were in danger from the New World Order and from an out of control federal government. The disasters at Ruby Ridge and Waco proved this to the militia movement and McVeigh took their message as a call to action.
He chose the Murrah Building because it housed both the FBI and the ATF, the agencies that McVeigh blamed for the suppression of gun rights. On the two year anniversary of the Waco raid he was ready. He parked a rental truck filled with fertilizer in front of the building and lit the fuse. As he left the area he wore a shirt emblazoned with a quote by Thomas Jefferson, “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” This is a popular sentiment within the patriot movement to this day.
Meanwhile, our many of our political leaders continue to engage in rhetoric that demonizes people who serve in government and law enforcement as an evil force that works against regular Americans. Dime a dozen right-wing pundits peddle vague conspiracies about how government workers are ripping us off and stripping us of our rights. In state after state politicians have attacked public service unions and characterized our school teachers, fire fighters , and bureaucrats as thugs and goons.
However, people who work for the government are not a network of conspirators working against us. They are us. That is the real lesson that we should not forget from Oklahoma City. It is easy to portray “the government” as a faceless force that wants to take our money, watch our every move, and lock us up if we become troublesome. There are genuine concerns about civil liberties in post-9/11 America. As technology and police power advances it is easy to feel that our leaders and institutions have taken a menacing stance. In an era of black sites and pepper-spraying cops it is easy to feel at war with our own authorities.
But we are not at war. Ultimately, American citizens still hold the keys to changing these policies. We still cast the votes and sign the paychecks. Pretending otherwise is lazy and intellectually dishonest. Using our fear as an excuse to lash out at the people who serve us (often with very meager rewards) is reprehensible. When we speak of the government as a collective force up to no good we deny the individual worth of the lives of the people who work for us.
If there is anything we should learn from Oklahoma City it is that we should not engage rhetoric of war against ourselves. The message of militia groups must be strongly and consistently challenged, and politicians and pundits who pander to these movements should be removed from office and positions of influence. We have to hold ourselves responsible for what we say, and for not challenging those who craft narratives of hate and violence. While we may never be able to truly console those who lost loved ones that spring day in Oklahoma City; we can at strive to combat the terrible ideas that lead to that terrible attack. We cannot erase hatred, but we can certainly work to make sure that make sure that these ideas claim no more victims.
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