Blog 7

Timothy McVeigh was as an American who was responsible for the Oklahoma City bombing, an attack that killed over 150 people and injured over 500. It is seen as the most serious act of domestic terrorism in the United States. “I am sorry these people had to lose their lives. But that's the nature of the beast. It's understood going in what the human toll will be,” are McVeigh’s words about the bombing. He also spoke about his execution saying that he had accepted it: “If there is a hell, then I'll be in good company with a lot of fighter pilots who also had to bomb innocents to win the war.” Although this isn’t a social movement, McVeigh is justifying his violence against America by paralleling his individual fight as a larger picture, a war against the government. He doesn’t do a great job convincing his audience that this was the right thing to do, but he does leave us with the impression that he would do it all again.

The Ku Klux Klan committed many acts of violence in America over a span of many horrible years. Bombings, beatings and shootings of black and white activists during the  Civil Rights Movement are just a few of the horrible acts they performed. The type of violence the KKK used was “direct violence.” Their violence was clearly directed at the “enemy” (the black people and the whites who supported equal rights for blacks). They wanted to become the dominant force in America, but really only had major influence in the South. They disregarded the views and laws of the federal government and their main goal was to prevent blacks from having the same, equal rights the whites had. This particular act of violence was poorly framed on the side of KKK. They justified their violence by accusing many of their victims of crimes they did not commit. It was easy to do and it happened far too often. Many of the victims of the KKK were innocent, but the KKK did what it could to make sure they suffered, just because of their race since the Klan saw them as threatening to society. This could be framed as terrorism because of the terror and fear they created amongst blacks in the South. Violence is never the answer.