Hate in the U.S.—Deep and Wide

There is a subculture of anti-government, white supremacist, racist groups in this country that is huge and pervasive, and it coincides with conventional society in such a subliminal way that most of us never see the evidence of its existence. Visit the web site of the Southern Poverty Law Center to see the locations and names of these various numerous cells and clubs across the nation. One wonders why they remain so secretive if their claim of popularity is concrete. Due to their numbers and influence, I was surprised that the government could dig up only two accomplices to the bombing of the Oklahoma City Federal Building ten years ago. The massive nature of the crime, its planning and execution, cried out as a conspiracy, rather than the destructive prank of two lone nuts.
In today’s Los Angeles Times, Richard A. Serrano writes that one of the convicted conspirators, Terry Nichols, who remains in prison on multiple life sentences with no possibility of parole, wrote a letter from prison to a woman who lost two grandchildren in the bombing. Nichols mentioned another man, Arkansas gun dealer Roger Moore, as an additional accomplice who supplied bomb components to Timothy McVeigh, plus other bomb materials found in Terry Nichols home. Nichols claims the government covered up other facts of the case and wants to help uncover the truth.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach), chairman of the investigative arm of the House Committee on International Relations, has been collecting new evidence in the bombing and said he would announce soon whether formal hearings would be opened into the April 19, 1995, tragedy.

He believes Nichols' knowledge about other potential conspirators is
central to his investigation, especially since the components found in March in a crawl space below Nichols' former home remained undetected for nearly a decade.

The congressman said it was important to determine whether others
were involved beyond Nichols and McVeigh, two Army pals who became antigovernment zealots.

"That this mass murder of Americans was accomplished by two disgruntled veterans acting alone seems to be the conclusion reached by those in authority," Rohrabacher said recently on the House floor, referring to the FBI's investigation of the bombing."However," Rohrabacher said, "there are some unsettling loose ends and unanswered questions."

Rohrabacher, a bit of a loose canon himself, may actually be onto something a lot bigger than he is imagining. Anti-government and racist groups tend to form webs of networking and ties with each other, in order to influence and solicit new membership, and that activity might have been behind the aid that McVeigh and Nichols got in their attack, and of which they may only be the tip of the iceberg. It’s interesting that Nichols sees himself helping to uncover information about government cover-up of a plot in which he played a major role.

The unraveling of this story may reveal deeper and more pervasive threads of antisocial, anti-government and bigoted elements in our communities than we are presently aware of. And that knowledge, while providing an uncomfortable fear, may lead to the exposure of more of these hate groups and individuals, thereby lessening their threat to our lives.