THE SKINHEADS ARE COMING, THE SKINHEADS ARE COMING!

Why The Left's Breathlessly Anticipated Wave Of Racist Domestic Terrorism Has Failed To Materialize Since the Mid-1980's

Brian Cates 
May 1, 2017

Netflix just debuted two shows well worth your time to watch:  The PBS American Experience episodes on Ruby Ridge & Oklahoma City.  I have thought for many years that someone needed to do a documentary detailing how Ruby Ridge, Waco & Oklahoma City were all related.

The Ruby Ridge episode reveals many details about that armed standoff Randy Weaver and his family had with the FBI on that remote mountain in Idaho that resulted in 3 deaths.

I watched the Ruby Ridge episode first, & thought it would have been better to explain Robert Matthews & The Order in detail instead of in passing.  You really don't understand why federal authorities were in such a big hurry to get informants in place with the Aryan Nations without this detail.

However, Robert Matthews & the ultra-violent white supremacist group he founded is discussed in great detail in the Oklahoma City episode.  Due to extensive media coverage, far more people know about Ruby Ridge, Waco & Oklahoma City than remember Matthews & The Order.  But as this American Experience episode on Oklahoma City makes clear, without Matthews & what he did, there is no Ruby Ridge or Waco.  And without Ruby Ridge or Waco, there is no Oklahoma City.

In the early 1980's, Robert Matthews founded a violent white supremacist group called 'The Order' that committed many armed robberies & killed one person, Denver radio personality Alan Berg.  After rolling up most of the members of the group, law enforcement tracked Matthews to a cabin in Washington state.  Surrounded by federal agents, Matthews chose to die rather than surrender. After a fierce hours long gun battle, the cabin he was in burned down with him inside of it.  The Order was totally broken.

If you want to know why some in our government have been warning about a forthcoming tidal wave of right wing racial violence you can trace that right back to Robert Matthews and The Order in the late 1980's. The idea of violent racial-obsessed terrorists on our own soil began with Robert Matthews.

Now, don't get me wrong. Matthews was dangerous.  But all Matthews & his tiny group of about 10 members did was rob a bunch of banks & armored cars & kill exactly one person.

When you stack that up against the crimes committed by the Weather Underground & the Black Panthers & other violent LEFT groups, it's not much. In just an 18 month span, in 1972/1973, radical Leftists in America unleashed a domestic terror campaign that has never been equaled.  Over 2,500 bombings occurred.  And it must be recall that Weather Underground radicals joined the Black Liberation Army in committing the armed robbery of a Brinks truck that killed three people, a *single* incident that immediately moves them past The Order in the number of people actually killed by their crimes by a factor of two.  

But the IDEA was fostered, there are MANY of these militant racist groups out there, and we have no idea what they are planning. Are they still just a bunch of white trash losers meeting in faraway compounds in the woods talking fantasies OR was Matthews a foretaste of a coming trend of racist radicals who have decided to put the talk of revolution and violence into actual action?  It appears top law enforcement officials in D.C. decided to answer that by saying 'Better safe than sorry'.  

From the mid-1980's to the mid-1990's, Bob Matthews & The Order were the reason federal agencies began preparing  to turn back a supposed tidal wave of forthcoming white supremacist domestic terrorism.  The feds became desperate to get informants inside the white nationalist movement before the anticipated violence could get going.

Federal agents made the mistake of viewing Randy Weaver as if he were Bob Matthews 2.0

As the PBS American Experience episode on Ruby Ridge shows in great detail, this is what led to the fiasco up on that mountain in Idaho in 1992.

Randy Weaver & his family never joined the nearby Aryan Nations cult. They did, however, occasionally visit.  After he sawed off some shotguns for an FBI informant, they tried to get Weaver to cozy up to the Aryan Nations & inform for them. Weaver refused. The federal firearms charges were then filed against him. The Weaver family's response was to completely isolate themselves. Randy Weaver refused to come down off the mountain & appear in court.

Long story short, sheer incompetence by the government led to 3 people needlessly dying. 

Now bear with me here.  It's gonna look like I'm going off on a tangent, but I'm not.

After playing up the supposed very real threat of many violent white supremacist groups preparing to attack at any time, the feds, as they are wont to do, overreacted.  To prepare to handle the numerous violent domestic terror groups they expected to show up, the ATF formed a very large, very expensive raiding team.  After staffing, equipping & training this very large raiding team, several years went by & it was noticed there were no real threats emerging.  The expected 'wave' of ultra-violent right wing domestic terrorists refused to make their expected appearance.

"Man after 5 years of training, I'm getting bored, how about you guys?"

Bob Matthews and The Order he founded burned up in 1984.  By 1988 the federal agencies were staffed, equipped and ready for the coming threat they foresaw.  As 1988 turned into 1989, then into 1990, which then turned into 1991 & then 1992 & then finally 1993, it was finally noticed this very expensive, very large ATF raiding team wasn't doing much of anything.

The ATF actually wanted to INCREASE the funding for this raiding team. But they had to justify it. There was beginning to be push back to their funding requests.  Congress was telling the federal agencies like the ATF "Why are we funding this very large team that never does much of anything?"

Somebody at the ATF decided they needed to find a real, legitimate threat big enough to warrant a full scale raid by the entire ATF team.

And the ATF picked David Koresh & the Branch Davidians outside of Waco, TX to be the threat they needed for a showcase raid.

Yeah, this crazy guy and his followers. They'll do!

And that's how Waco happened, folks.  The American Experience episode on Oklahoma City discusses Waco, but leaves all this funding background out.

They show an ATF agent giving a single statement explaining why they raided this compound the way they did, with a full scale armed SWAT-style assault.  

1)  There was a good case to make that the Branch Davidians were illegally converting semi-auto rifles into fully automatic rifles.

2) And some evidence that they were making their own hand grenades, which is also a federal weapons felony.

However, as troubling as those crimes were, what justified a full scale armed assault on a compound holding numerous women & children?

This is the simple excuse that an ATF agent voices in the documentary: Koresh had had these followers of his isolated out there a while.  And Koresh had been preaching about a soon-to-arrive Armageddon which hadn't come yet. So to keep his followers under his control,  he might get impatient & do something violent himself.

That's it, apparently.  
That's the justification.

Koresh & his followers had a lot of guns, he was preaching the end of the world and he MIGHT do something crazy 'soon'.  For that reason a large scale raid was approved for the Waco compound.   Because one day, some day, who knows, Koresh *might* become violent towards the world outside the Mt. Carmel compound.

Yeah, we all saw this movie, right? 

Explaining the REAL reason for the raid might have made the ATF look kind of bad: "Well we have this large raiding team we want more funding for but it doesn't do much of anything so we decided to have a big showcase raid to protect our funding." 

Now let's look at the raid itself. It was botched from the start. Local news was tipped off about it.  A reporter looking for the Branch Davidian compound asking for directions to it actually ended up tipping off a friend of Koresh's.

As mind-boggling as this is going to sound, once the ATF agents in charge realized Koresh had had almost an hour's warning of their raid they decided to proceed anyway.  And they didn't change hardly anything in the original plan.

This plan actually called for - I am not making this up - heavily encumbered ATF agents in 60 pounds of gear carrying ladders up to the building, then CLIMBING UP THE LADDERS & entering the building from the roof through the 2nd floor windows.

After breaking this window, an ATF agent realizes there is a thick black blanket nailed into place over it to slow any entry into the room. 

If you're going to do that even WITH the element of surprise, you had better be fast.  

They weren't fast.

It took these agents forever to place ladders, climb up them, get the windows open, and then start climbing through. And they are UNDER FIRE the entire time they are doing this. The Davidians are already behind defensive positions with guns pointed. 

It's a miracle the ATF only had 4 agents killed following this plan.

Bad leaders following a bad plan they stuck with long after they should have abandoned it got 4 ATF agents and 6 Davidians killed.

Here's some incomplete footage from the raid.  These agents were under fire from multiple directions the entire time they were climbing up these ladders & trying to get in through the windows. 

Altogether there were 76 agents for this showcase raid that turned into an utter fiasco.

In all the Congressional hearings that followed this outrage, it was revealed the ATF could've arrested Koresh without this show of force.  Because Koresh often rode into town on his motorcycle.  By himself. They could have arrested him at any time that way.

In the taped phone calls with FBI negotiators, Koresh himself keeps bringing up the fact he was absolutely amazed the ATF opted for a full scale armed assault on a his compound instead of just approaching him when he was in town. 

But if the feds did that, how do they justify the huge expense of their big raiding team? No, they need a real large, armed threat.  So they engineered one. They'd take the Davidians by surprise, parade them for the cameras, bring out all the guns they had, go 'see?'.  "Look at all the guns this large, violent extremist group had. They were planning something, you know! Good thing we stopped them now!'  And the ATF would've been lauded and applauded and there would've been promotions & larger funding and so on. 

Instead over 85 people ended up dead in what is still one of the biggest government blunders of all time. 

Now, while this was a paranoid religious sect that *was* heavily armed, they were *not* a clear & present danger to the surrounding public.  The ATF deciding to risk an armed confrontation with these people was completely unnecessary.  It was all done for show.  There is no indication that if law enforcement had peacefully come to the compound, talked about illegal weapons, violence would have ensued.

It's been 25 years since this happened. How many times since then has there been a large armed federal raid on an big extremist group in the US involving 70+ agents?  If there were any, I missed them.

At least in all the hearings that followed this utter fiasco, the government seems to have learned some important lessons.  Nothing close to a Waco raid has ever occurred since on American soil.  

After Obama was elected & the Tea Party formed, once again we were endlessly told a huge wave of right wing extremist violence was coming. For months after the Tucson shooting, people who had to know better kept trying to tie the lunatic responsible for that crime to the Tea Party and Obama's political opponents.  This trickle of 1 lunatic here, then another lunatic there a few years later is always supposed to turn into a towering wave of extremism.

Robert Matthews & The Order led directly to the Weaver tragedy at Ruby Ridge.  

Then the Feds building up their raid teams to handle a huge wave of white supremacist terrorism that didn't materialize led to Waco.  

And Waco led directly to Oklahoma City.  

Nice going, you fucking jerk

*One* asshole named Timothy McVeigh decided to be that 1 man wave of right wing terrorism.

I can't tell you how relieved those people were who'd been predicting that a huge wave of right wing domestic terrorism was coming that McVeigh finally showed up and fulfilled all their prophecies.  

Because of McVeigh, the narrative that a huge wave of white supremacist domestic terrorism will soon manifest itself will never die.

And THAT'S how the PBS American Experience episode on Oklahoma City ends: repeating that exact same narrative. Despite the fact he only had the most casual of associations with skinheads & white power fanatics, it's claimed he was 'one of them'.

McVeigh wasn't a Christian either, but that doesn't stop the Left from endlessly painting him as a 'right wing Christian terrorist'.

The Oklahoma City bombing was 23 years ago. There has been no widespread wave of white power/anti-gov't terrorism.  But that hasn't stopped some people from constantly claiming it lurks just out of sight, over the horizon & will arrive soon.

Don't misunderstand.  I'm not downplaying what McVeigh did. I'm saying it was 23 years ago. There is no big threat of a suddenly emerging white power terrorism movement.  The threat is minimal. Is it possible there could ever be another McVeigh? Yes. Is it likely there will be 'many' McVeighs?  No.

Guilty as hell and free as a bird.

But for 30 years since Bob Matthews roasted to death in that cabin in 1984 I've watched the narrative grow about racist domestic terrorism.  The same gov't & political types that sell this narrative always downplay & ignore actual real domestic terrorism from the Left.  The same universities that now lionize former hyper-violent 60's radicals such as the Weather Underground & the Black Panthers sell this narrative. Few people even remember the biggest wave of domestic terrorism in modern times in America was unleashed on this country in the 1960's and 1970's by THE RADICAL LEFT. There were over 3,000 domestic acts of terrorism, mostly bombings perpetrated by radical Leftist revolutionaries. 

I've met skinheads.  They are morons. They don't control anything, they can't even win local elections, much less realistically affect the outcome of national ones. White Power has no power. Political or otherwise. Quit listening to political activists disguised as journalists claiming differently to you. 

Yeah, be sure to keep your eyes on THESE losers...

and ignore these guys trying to suppress speech on a campus near you.

Meanwhile the radicals on the LEFT who do have real, actual power & influence, what are THEY doing?  They use their influence in Washington D.C., in academia & Hollywood to sell this narrative about right wing domestic terrorism.  Usually by skinheads.

The threat from these skinhead types is minimal. Just because they are more visible now does not mean they are more dangerous than they were in the past.

Right now the Left is on a quest to limit free speech through threatening violence. Just ask Ann Coulter, Ben Shapiro or Charles Murray.  And like a magician trying to distract you with a waving of the hand, while they do this they wail about 'growing right wing terrorism!'

There have always been right wing extremists and racists and there's always been far left revolutionaries & anarchists.  One side is always seeking more political power by playing up the dangers of the other sides worst extremists.

That American Experience episode on Oklahoma City was doing great right up until the end when it tied McVeigh to the white power movement and falsely claimed he 'came out of' that movement. 

The White Power movement is a joke. It's not a legitimate threat. It produced exactly ONE organized violent threat in 30 yrs: The Order. To give the threat greater weight, people want to claim McVeigh was something he was not. He was a loner.  McVeigh may have had contact with some white power groups, but he never joined one & in the tapes I heard he doesn't sound like a skinhead. He sounds like a anti-government fanatic, not a racist fanatic. 

But the PBS documentary ends by insisting that McVeigh 'came out of' the militant white power movement.  It's far more accurate to say he came out of an anti-government movement.  If McVeigh fits any modern group we see in America today, it's the Sovereign Citizen movement, which is virulently anti-government and has had it's share of ultra-violent radicals in it, despite it's tiny size. 

As the Oklahoma City episode details, how did McVeigh end up getting himself arrested right after the bombing?  He drove a car with no license plate on it. That was not a mistake on his part, he was deliberately doing that.   And when the cop who stopped him for no license plate noticed McVeigh was carrying a concealed handgun? Of course McVeigh had no license for it, & he was arrested.  This is textbook Sovereign Citizen behavior. 

But while there are around 500 white power groups in the US [at least according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, if you trust their #'s and for good reason many do not], Sovereign Citizens are just a tiny handful of lunatics. Like, maybe a couple thousand coast to coast.

So if you want to pretend there is a REAL growing THREAT here in America that our government needs to crack down on, which do you choose?  Both aren't very numerous. Skinheads likely aren't even 50,000 in a country of 320 million. But they way outnumber Sovereign Citizens. So they have that going for them.  So if you are going to endlessly gin up a threat that hovers over the horizon just out of sight, you use skinheads, not Sovereign Citizens.

You only know who this pathetic nobody is because the media made damned sure you did.

You may have noticed skinheads & white power types are seen more in our society today. That's not because there are more of them.  It's because it serves the purposes of the media's anti-Trump narratives to elevate their visibility right now.

Look at David Duke. He never went anywhere. He wasn't kept in a glass case reading "Break If Donald Trump Runs For President".

David Duke has always been David Duke. That is, he's always been a racist asshole. But for many years he was an out of sight racist asshole. Why did the media suddenly start giving him plenty of oxygen again? Because of Trump. 

The very pale blonde reporter standing just behind Duke's shoulder is the intrepid Olivia Nuzzi, wondering just how she got sentenced to Hell. 

Nobody cared about David Duke or what he thought for the last decade and a half or so until the media realized it could tie him to Donald Trump.  All of a sudden we started seeing that grinning prick's face in the news again, something that hadn't happened since the mid-1990's.

The media breathlessly informed us that TRUMP WAS ELEVATING AND LIFTING UP THE WHITE NATIONALISTS TO POWER!

No he wasn't.  It was the MEDIA raising the visibility of a small pathetic subset of Trump supporters to smear the entire Trump base. "Hey look who you Trump supporters have showing up your rallies. You must secretly approve of these white power groups!" 

Trump running for President & subsequently winning the White House led the media to raise the visibility of his WORST supporters. There is a deliberate purpose behind that.  As they raise the visibility of Trump's white power fans, the media ALSO gets to renew it's pimping of it's racist domestic terrorism narrative. It's one of their absolute favorite narratives, so this is two-fer for them.  

So understand what you are seeing as the media does these two things at once.  They are raising the visibility of this tiny subset of Trump fans to smear the entire Trump base as potential domestic terrorists.

No matter what actually happens, the narrative the Left sells never changes.  For 30 years it's been "The white nationalist movement is frozen out, disenfranchised, they can't participate in the system, they'll turn to terrorism!"

Now? Watch this trick: "Trump legitimized these white nationalists but he'll disappoint them & they'll turn to domestic terrorism!"

Of course, Trump didn't 'legitimize' these racist pricks, but that's what the media will tell you.  But note it doesn't matter what actually happens, a guy these racists like wins such as 'America First!' Donald Trump, or Obama is President, violence is coming either way, supposedly.

That's your first clue the narrative is based on politically motivated wishful thinking. It's the worst kind of wishcasting there is and it's time for it die in a fire. 

Now, you can't stop the media from doing this. This is who they are. It will never change.  What you can do is understand how they are trying to manipulate you and fight back.