Some thoughts about right-wing terrorism ..
I came across this link the other day, and it sparked some thoughts that have only led to more thoughts about more implications. Not about the fact that DHS has de-emphasized investigation of these terrorist groups or the implication in the first link that the mainstream media also are underreporting these cases, but about the larger picture of what these groups seem to believe in and what they say about the reactionary extremes of our society, which to me say a lot about the somewhat lesser prejudices of our society writ large .. because they seem far more tolerated than they really should be.
There are elements of the darker side of early 20th century mainstream society of the southeastern USA in most of the groups mentioned in the first link, from racism to religious intolerance to homophobia. The American South may have a romanticized image of peaceful and idyllic rural life, but that story was written by the white people who had a monopoly on power in that culture, and deviating the slightest bit from how they believed things should be could be extremely dangerous, and their enforcement of their desired social norms was swift, covert, and vicious, and more often than not, calculated as much to make an example of the offender as a warning to others as it was to punish the actual offense. There were unwritten and unspoken rules whose enforcement was extralegal and carried out with a nod and a wink from the police and the courts, because it was just how things were done. If it had been done in opposition to the established power structure, not in covert support of it, it absolutely could have been called terrorism .. as it was then, it was closer to tyranny, the secret right arm of the rich white oligarchy.
Not that the rest of the country was immune to such violent and xenophobic behavior, of course. But it was less organized outside the South, and it was less a part of the unofficial power structure. Southern culture of the early 20th century was and to some extent still is an honor culture, within which individuals tend to react with anger and often violence to perceived insults, and within the larger context, the social norm at least of the early 20th century was to perceive deviations from conventionality as implicit insults, with the obvious results. And it seems to me that the unofficial power structure of covert violent response to such deviations evolved as a natural consequence, a compromise between the nominal functions of courts and police and the deeper motivations to control what couldn't be controlled through the law.
And then it all changed, by degrees. As news reporting became more efficient and stories began to travel beyond the boundaries of the South even more rapidly, it became impossible to ignore that a lot of ugly things were happening behind the scenes in a lot of Southern states, and by and large, it became clear that it wasn't the actions of isolated individuals, but a pattern of covertly sanctioned attacks on people who didn't fit into the scheme of things in the region. And over the years, the power structure lost its grip on the system even in its strongholds in the South, and became more marginalized. It became clear that civil rights needed increasingly explicit legal protections, and as these advanced, the old guard fought back at every turn, and lost more often than not, but continued to resist.
And as they were beaten back, and as they lost ground, it seems to me that they hardened and became more violent. The seeds of terrorism were sown as far back as the "conservative Christian" (and largely neopentecostal) religious upsurge of the early 1980's, or possibly even earlier. It seems very likely to me that when the right wing lost its hold on local and state level government, courts, and power in the mid to late 1960's, it reorganized and focused on the churches in the 1970's and 1980's, and when that began to crumble in the 1990's and 2000's, the same elements retreated into terrorism. For a long time, I've thought that it's the same people who were committing violence on behalf of "order and decency" back in the Jim Crow era who now, from the margins, are committing violence to advance a sick dream of the twisted ideals they still refuse to give up, today. And I don't believe they will give up.
I look back over these plots and attacks listed in the article, and every one of them seems to either be an attack on some minority group that wouldn't have been tolerated in the Old South, or an attack on what they believe is an "illegitimate" government that isn't doing what they want it to. They've lost the safe harbor they had in corrupt local and state government decades ago, and they want it back, so they lash out at the government (and at the current head of that government, who is, rather conveniently, black, and has a foreign sounding middle name). They see organizations supporting women in subverting their former tactic of controlling them through pregnancy (and, incidentally, preventing them from forcing them to bear children for them) and respond with bombs and threats and pressure campaigns and, all too often, outright murder. They see widespread public acceptance of same sex relationships and respond with bombing attacks on gay bars. They see nonwhite people gaining social acceptance and status, and they respond with bombings and sniper attacks. The world is evolving around them, moving on from what they once forced it to be, and they can't help but see it as an existential insult, and an affront to their honor, and that leads to its natural consequence.
The danger, though, is in seeing the terrorists as all there remains of the old order. They are the extreme end of the repressive side of our society, but they aren't all there is of it. In a milder form, that hostility to "conventionality" is still around in our society. There's a Texas family currently fighting their extended family in Ohio for custody of their kids, after the grandparents sued them for custody and triggered a CPS investigation which failed to find wrongdoing, then convinced a jury to award custody anyway, all because the family had an unconventional relationship arrangement. Custody raiding is a common tactic in conservative families trying to police the lifestyles of their children by proxy, and it's only one example. The changes our country has undergone in recent years are still quite recent, and a lot of the old guard are still alive and fighting them, and for those of us who are unconventional by old guard standards, it's still a dangerous world out there.
I don't know what the lesson is in all this. But I do know the reality isn't as clear cut or as orderly as the official story makes it seem. And I'm very concerned that the government and the media seem to be glossing over this very real issue, and pointing to swarthy foreign terrorists to stir up fear when the fear seems much better directed at much more real threats right here at home ..
There are elements of the darker side of early 20th century mainstream society of the southeastern USA in most of the groups mentioned in the first link, from racism to religious intolerance to homophobia. The American South may have a romanticized image of peaceful and idyllic rural life, but that story was written by the white people who had a monopoly on power in that culture, and deviating the slightest bit from how they believed things should be could be extremely dangerous, and their enforcement of their desired social norms was swift, covert, and vicious, and more often than not, calculated as much to make an example of the offender as a warning to others as it was to punish the actual offense. There were unwritten and unspoken rules whose enforcement was extralegal and carried out with a nod and a wink from the police and the courts, because it was just how things were done. If it had been done in opposition to the established power structure, not in covert support of it, it absolutely could have been called terrorism .. as it was then, it was closer to tyranny, the secret right arm of the rich white oligarchy.
Not that the rest of the country was immune to such violent and xenophobic behavior, of course. But it was less organized outside the South, and it was less a part of the unofficial power structure. Southern culture of the early 20th century was and to some extent still is an honor culture, within which individuals tend to react with anger and often violence to perceived insults, and within the larger context, the social norm at least of the early 20th century was to perceive deviations from conventionality as implicit insults, with the obvious results. And it seems to me that the unofficial power structure of covert violent response to such deviations evolved as a natural consequence, a compromise between the nominal functions of courts and police and the deeper motivations to control what couldn't be controlled through the law.
And then it all changed, by degrees. As news reporting became more efficient and stories began to travel beyond the boundaries of the South even more rapidly, it became impossible to ignore that a lot of ugly things were happening behind the scenes in a lot of Southern states, and by and large, it became clear that it wasn't the actions of isolated individuals, but a pattern of covertly sanctioned attacks on people who didn't fit into the scheme of things in the region. And over the years, the power structure lost its grip on the system even in its strongholds in the South, and became more marginalized. It became clear that civil rights needed increasingly explicit legal protections, and as these advanced, the old guard fought back at every turn, and lost more often than not, but continued to resist.
And as they were beaten back, and as they lost ground, it seems to me that they hardened and became more violent. The seeds of terrorism were sown as far back as the "conservative Christian" (and largely neopentecostal) religious upsurge of the early 1980's, or possibly even earlier. It seems very likely to me that when the right wing lost its hold on local and state level government, courts, and power in the mid to late 1960's, it reorganized and focused on the churches in the 1970's and 1980's, and when that began to crumble in the 1990's and 2000's, the same elements retreated into terrorism. For a long time, I've thought that it's the same people who were committing violence on behalf of "order and decency" back in the Jim Crow era who now, from the margins, are committing violence to advance a sick dream of the twisted ideals they still refuse to give up, today. And I don't believe they will give up.
I look back over these plots and attacks listed in the article, and every one of them seems to either be an attack on some minority group that wouldn't have been tolerated in the Old South, or an attack on what they believe is an "illegitimate" government that isn't doing what they want it to. They've lost the safe harbor they had in corrupt local and state government decades ago, and they want it back, so they lash out at the government (and at the current head of that government, who is, rather conveniently, black, and has a foreign sounding middle name). They see organizations supporting women in subverting their former tactic of controlling them through pregnancy (and, incidentally, preventing them from forcing them to bear children for them) and respond with bombs and threats and pressure campaigns and, all too often, outright murder. They see widespread public acceptance of same sex relationships and respond with bombing attacks on gay bars. They see nonwhite people gaining social acceptance and status, and they respond with bombings and sniper attacks. The world is evolving around them, moving on from what they once forced it to be, and they can't help but see it as an existential insult, and an affront to their honor, and that leads to its natural consequence.
The danger, though, is in seeing the terrorists as all there remains of the old order. They are the extreme end of the repressive side of our society, but they aren't all there is of it. In a milder form, that hostility to "conventionality" is still around in our society. There's a Texas family currently fighting their extended family in Ohio for custody of their kids, after the grandparents sued them for custody and triggered a CPS investigation which failed to find wrongdoing, then convinced a jury to award custody anyway, all because the family had an unconventional relationship arrangement. Custody raiding is a common tactic in conservative families trying to police the lifestyles of their children by proxy, and it's only one example. The changes our country has undergone in recent years are still quite recent, and a lot of the old guard are still alive and fighting them, and for those of us who are unconventional by old guard standards, it's still a dangerous world out there.
I don't know what the lesson is in all this. But I do know the reality isn't as clear cut or as orderly as the official story makes it seem. And I'm very concerned that the government and the media seem to be glossing over this very real issue, and pointing to swarthy foreign terrorists to stir up fear when the fear seems much better directed at much more real threats right here at home ..