I've always
thought this was one of the better documentaries on the background of the
Oklahoma City Bombing. I would hope future documentary makers would spend even more
time elaborating on the context and cultural milieu. People have forgotten the
level of anxiety and how worked up the Right wing was in early 1990's. I
remember. At the time, I was one of them.
You had a
Baby-Boomer president who was perceived to be a pot-smoking draft-dodging
hippie. His feminist and assertive wife was put forward to lead what was
perceived to be the charge toward socialized medicine. He was immoral and
duplicitous. This is true of virtually all presidents but the public has been
largely ignorant of this and the supposedly Left-wing media attacked Clinton in
a way no politician had ever been attacked before. The Whitewater Scandal had
already begun to percolate and would eventually through a very tormented and circuitous
route lead to the Lewinsky scandal.
We had
anti-gun legislation making the rounds (no pun intended) and while it seems
rather tame today, the Clintonian compromise of "Don't Ask, Don't
Tell" represented a significant shift in attitude. Cabinet members Janet
Reno and Donna Shalala were perceived to be lesbians. He was reaching out to
blacks and other minorities. Ruth Bader-Ginsburg, a liberal feminist Jewess was
the type of judge the Right and especially the racist Right feared.
In addition
the Cold War had ended which generated a great deal of angst. The era of
globalization was upon us, we were seeing the rise of the EU and treaties like
NAFTA. The globalist impulse upset many in Evangelical circles and the
Right-wing in general. There was an unfounded and misplaced fear of an ascendant
United Nations. It has always been continues to be an impotent joke. No one
takes the UN seriously. With the absence of the Soviet Union there was a lack
of moral cause and clarity, a disruption in narrative. Many were upset by
America's new role as international police force. They couldn't understand the
new unipolar paradigm with America as the Hyper-Power. The Yugoslav Wars were
obtuse and unclear. The 1990's seemed to many a grey and asymmetrical world and
it was reflected in the movies and pop culture of the time.
And of
course within in a short period of time we witnessed the Ruby Ridge and the
Waco incidents which stoked fears of a new order, a new type of state.
Many
Christians were upset by the moral fog and the seemingly unrelenting drive
toward a more liberal culture. Dispensationalists were alarmed that Clinton
helped to facilitate the Oslo Accords and there was a talk of 'land for peace'
which to their theology was tantamount to apostasy. The fact that 'Christian'
America was supporting this was anathema. This was also the time when abortion doctors began to be killed.
The World
Trade Center had been bombed in 1993. Something was wrong, people hated the
United States, there were forces at work in the world that were bringing
judgment on America and the leadership didn't seem to know how to deal with it.
To many on the Right the answer was clear. There was a mandate for military
action, but in the confusing morass of the 1990's... where to strike?
Finally
computers were rapidly becoming more prevalent in daily life and were moving
from being the toys that teenagers tinkered with to viable and significant
parts of daily life. Many were terribly disturbed by this and the possibilities
and dangers of the computer age.
The Far Right
believed that somehow the Communists had won. The end of the Cold War had been
too smooth. Something was funny about it all. Something was amiss. They felt
betrayed by less than pure Right-wing leaders like Reagan and Bush even though
today many of these folks have shifted and re-written their assessments of them.
At the time a lot of people on the Right were upset. They had not kept to the
Right-wing agenda, at least not sufficiently and consistently.
Rush
Limbaugh had appeared on the radio and was growing very popular. I remember
eating my lunch in my truck and listening to him back in 1991. I was distraught
when Clinton won in 1992 though I hadn't voted for Bush either. I was already
very disillusioned with the GOP. I was one of those Right-wing types who had
grown suspicious of Reagan and certainly George HW Bush.
As I
mentioned in another recent post I had just joined the US military in 1995 when
the Oklahoma City Bombing happened. I also remember the reports of unexploded
devices and the confusing reports regarding other suspects that are covered in
this video.
The story
kept changing and in time a lot of elements were written out of the story. This
documentary helps to bring them back. Was there a conspiracy? Certainly McVeigh
and Nichols conspired and their friends in Arizona knew about the plot. Did
others know?
And if so,
why has it been suppressed?
I don't
think we need to stray into the kind of hyper-orchestrated conspiracy advocated
by The Corbett Report or Alex Jones. I don't think McVeigh was actually a government
operative etc...
The
conspiracy of the Establishment system is an open one and there are many
warring factions within it. It's really more the struggle for power and that
can be complex and clandestine enough without being orchestrated. There are
instances of orchestrated plots in history but some seem to believe every event
and every aspect are somehow orchestrated and I don't believe the world ever
operates that way.
Technology
if anything has made the world more complex and difficult to manage. At the
same time it does afford other tools and opportunities for all involved in the
dance, in the great game.
This
documentary puts forward what I believe to be the most plausible explanation of
government inconsistencies and suppressed information. We know the FBI has
undercover agents, long-running stings and infiltrations and they are more than
willing to utilize agents provocateurs.
There's
reason to believe the FBI had people in these circles and that they were
monitoring these groups waiting for the right moment to strike and arrest them.
McVeigh might have slipped through the net. A full disclosure of government
activity and knowledge would be devastating and would have brought down a lot
of people in the FBI and Justice Department. If they knew about the bombing and
didn't stop McVeigh in time then the FBI might have faced collapse.
Or, even
worse if they were utilizing a provocateur and once again, McVeigh slipped
through the net and beat them to the punch... the government would feel
compelled to suppress that information. The public outrage would be beyond
anything previously known.
Do we go
further and suggest the Federal government allowed it to happen in order to
crack down on Right wing groups? Was this a modification of the Northwoods
proposal from the 1960's? If so, then it was a failure, because the Right was
not suppressed.
None of the
Far-Right narratives played out. We were supposed to buy gold because the
economy was going to collapse. Clinton was going to take us Communist. There were secret
concentration camps etc... All the same bogus rumours were floating around back
then too.
There are
many possibilities but I think some need to be avoided and are not viable. But
this video demonstrates there's quite a bit more to the story than what we
heard in the mainstream press and the numerous television documentaries and
books about the subject.
