Gathering Storm

Six months before the Oklahoma City bombing, Morris Dees warned the U.S. Attorney General that the fast-growing militia movement posed serious threats. He saw the possibility of imminent danger that few understood. Dees and his associates had tracked far-right paramilitary groups and their racist leaders since the early 1980s, sometimes using daring undercover operations. In retaliation, his law office had been burned and attempts made on his life. In this revealing account, Dees names names and places, tying together for the first time the events, the players, and the history that gave life to the militia armies now operating across the country. He explains how hard-core racists and neo-Nazi leaders used the deaths of Randy Weaver's wife and son at Ruby Ridge and the Branch Davidian tragedy at Waco to convince thousands that our government was preparing for a war against its own citizens. Gathering Storm goes behind the scenes, beyond the friendly-looking militia leaders seen on TV talk shows, to explore secret paramilitary cells training deep in mountainous back country. Similar fanatics, with close ties and fueled by the same antigovernment zeal, have lived in our midst for more than a decade. These "super patriots," Dees shows, see themselves in a life-and-death struggle to reclaim the country. These militias do not operate in a vacuum but are close cousins to the religious right and ultraconservative politicians. They are fueled by the ban on assault weapons, strident radio talk show hosts, and those who preach hatred of government. Dees suggests ways to combat the militias and offers ideas on how to recapture the political debate.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Nonfiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.