Gathering Storm: America\'s Militia Threat

¶ … Gathering Storm: America's Militia Threat by Morris Dees and James Corcoran. The writer explores the main thesis of the book and provides insight as to how the authors proved their thesis. There was one source used to complete this paper.

Gathering Storm: America's Militia Threat

Racism's New Disguise

As America continues to evolve many people believe that racism is a thing of the past. Laws against hate crimes, affirmative action mandates and other elements of American society have worked to erase the evil that used to be a cancerous growth in the nation. While these measurements have provided positive steps toward the abolishment of racism the cancer still grows within the bowels of America as is illustrated in Gathering Storm, America's Militia Threat by Morris Dees and James Corcoran.

For many years authors of literature have used their pens as a springboard for driving home their personal beliefs. Whether it is a how to get rich book, a book on dog training or the les obvious forms of argument presented in the form of a novel, many books have a central theme that they wish to convey to their readers. In Gathering Storm: America's Militia Threat the authors underscore the fact that racism is not gone in America, it is nearly wearing a new outfit.

THE BOOK

While the entire book is woven in the language of recognizing hate and racism from an anecdotal viewpoint the authors also provide some clear cut facts to support their thesis. One of the most important ways the authors work to bring home their thesis is by drawing the similarities and connections between White Supremist groups and today's militia movement. In addition that connection is made between the militia groups and those groups that practice anti-Semitism.

This is perhaps one of the strongest tools used within the book to bring the point to the mind of the reader.

The old saying: "If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it is probably a duck" holds true when it comes to the points the authors make throughout this literary work.

The authors have been influenced in their thinking in two ways. First of course is the fact that they have had to live their lives as the targets of such groups which serves as a daily and constant reminder that racism is simply changing outfits, not abandoning ship. The second thing that brings their thesis to light however, is even more convincing as it is not as subjective as their personal perceptions have been. They have studied the various groups and know their history, their rhetoric and their elements of existence and are able to compare and contrast such groups to today's militia members to draw the conclusion that it is the same stuff different day (Dees, 1999).

With the knowledge that the authors gained during their gathering of information about the various events in recent history that point to the existence of racism and its hiding behind the skirts of militia movements as well as seemingly innocent groups, there had to be influences that the authors were significantly subjected to in forming their opinion and writing the book. One cannot possibly review anti-Semitism and other forms of hate over and over again and not be influenced or impacted by it. One can only hope the authors worked to remain objective and scientific in their examination of the facts and the presentation in the book.

There is a significant amount of evidence for Morris and Cocoran to base their thesis on given the volumes of media reports and court documents that outline and detail the events of groups such as the White Supremists and others (Dees, 1999). Those documents are easily held against the new age militia beliefs and the similarities become glaring and evident. Within this book the authors work to draw these comparisons and illustrate the similarities using such credible methods but at the same time they use anecdotal information to present it as well.

CRITICAL EVALUATION believe that the thesis of the book is valid. While some readers of the book accuse the authors of seeing racism around every corner, this particular book actually pinpoints so many similarities between the coming American militia and other White Supremist groups that there can be no question of its validity.

If one wishes to test the thesis strength of this book one only has to research many of the militia beliefs and recent movements and hold them against former group movements like the KKK and others to see that they are scarily similar.

One of the strongest examples of coming militia movements in America used in the book is the Oklahoma bombings (Dees, 1999). Within the Okalahoma bombings ran a constant undercurrent of fear and anger at anything that was not white in skin color and attitude.

The fact that they were willing to bomb and kill a building that had a daycare center in it because that building embraced diversity and represented the embracement by the government of diversity illustrates the thesis of the book. In the old days the KKK would hang a single man by a tree, or murder him by setting him on fire because of his color or beliefs.

The OK bombings took such narrow minded thinking a step further when the entire building was the target.

The use of this example in the book brings to light the very real need to fear and believe that the racism in this country is far from over. It is not only still around but has grown in its intensity.

The thesis is also given strength because of the experience of Dees Morris who was instrumental in the oppression of the KKK through the use of the legal system. He has had an inside view of what the KKK was about and he has the authority and knowledge to compare that group to the more recent militia groups with creditability.

Morris also proves the existence of his thesis with his discussion about the talk radio circuit and its current flavor.

Morris bounces the militia movement blueprints off of the blueprints of Aryan Nation and comes up with twins. With these facts in black and white, there is no way one can argue that the militia movement is nothing more than hate in a new disguise.

Morris opens the book with a fast paced account of a very real drama that unfolded with Louis Beam. Beam was accused of sedition which landed him on the FBI most wanted list in 1987. Morris illustrates the danger of the militia movement in the story of Beam who ended up fleeing to Mexico and getting into an altercation there shooting a Mexican official (Dees, 1999).