#Non-fiction Bring The War Home

• Author: Kathleen Belew
• Title: Bring The War Home
• Published: 2018
• List of Challenges 2021
• Monthly plan

  UPDATE:  17 May 2022

1. It felt like the right time to ‘highlight’ this book about the White Supremacy Movement in USA.
2. Not an easy read, but a necessary one. #AmReading
3. “Not everything that is faced can be changed,
4. …but NOTHING can be changed until it is faced”. James Baldwin

 

Introduction:

1. The white power movement in America wants a revolution.
2. Returning to a country ripped apart by a war they felt they were not allowed to win.
3. A small group of Vietnam veterans and disgruntled civilians
4. concluded that waging war on their own country was justified.

Conclusion:

1. This was not a “joy” to read….not at all.
2. The writing was hard-boiled and gave just the facts.
3. If I was reading the book I probably would have stopped halfway.
4. But I had an #audiobook and just put on the earphones every day
5. …and continued on my bike rides.

Good news:

1. The book did make me aware the white power, Aryan Nation
2. and militia threats that are in the USA.
3. Imagine reading how pervasive the movement was in 1970s-1990s
4. …and stop and think how much more these groups are organized now.
5. They are not always in the headlines but since 06 January 2021
6. …I was curious what is going on underground or in the woods in different states.

Bad news:

1. The book was depressing….
2. I did notice Ms. Belew pins a surge in contemporary violence
3. on the sorely abused Vietnam veterans.
4. I think this is not a fair argument.
5. It’s not the military or the military experience or the hellish fog of war
6. … it is the environment in which they were raised
7. …before ever getting to the military that leads to this kind of hatred.
8. They (the vets) were not born with it and they were not brainwashed
9. …into it when they became military.
10. They were raised into it by the society from which they come.

Last thoughts:

1. This is a book that is not a great read….but a necessary one.
2. Sometimes you just have to tackle books that don’t appeal
3. …to educate yourself about this domestic terror threat.
4. Here are some of my notes after my daily bike ride:

 

March 18, 2021 – page 80 22.73%

 

1. While riding my bike in the morning I’ve been confronted with: Seadrift, Texas, Vietnamese fishers vs KKK Nov. 25, 1979,
2. Greensboro NC massacre Communist Workers Party vs KKK/NeoNazis Nov. 03 1979
3. and now frustrated Vietnam vets are off to cause havoc in Central America as mercenaries.
4. Book is depressing…but US is still in the terrible grip of white-power movement. Just 6 hr 55 min…I will finish the book, ugh.”

 

March 19, 2021 – page 112 31.82%

 

1. You don’t want to mess with The Aryan Brotherhood….ever!”

 

March 20, 2021 – page 156 44.32%

 

1. 1984 Aryan Nation (Louis Beam) discovers the internet….members flock to invest in $2000,– Apple computers.
2. We read names, robberies of armored money transports to fund the movement, attacks on Jews,
3. paramilitary training camps and federal raids on prominent figures.
4. Not much analysis..but just the fact that this is all going on in 1980s is scary.
5. Just imagine White Power, paramilitary militia are doing now!!

 

  March 22, 2021 – page 187 53.13% 

 

1. The book’s seventh and best chapter is about White Power’s devotion paid to women as wives,
2. mothers, and martyrs of the movement. White power submitted itself to a blinding
3. cult of faith and family centered on the female body.
4. The race must remain pure:
5. “…the birth of a white baby was an act of war.”
6. Louis Beam (Arayan Nation) marries 4th wife Sheila Toohey…she is devoted to him.

 

March 23, 2021 – page 209 59.38% 

 

1. The act of writing requires a constant plunging back into the shadow of the past
2. where time hovers ghost-like. We return to Ruby Ridge, Waco Texas and
3. the Oklahoma City bombing… Now we have 2 mass shootings in USA in ONE week!
4. UPDATE:  17 May 2022  –
5. 200 MASS shootings in the months of Jan-Feb-March-April-May 2022!!
6. This is insane!

 

1. Thoughts and useless prayers now being rushed to the scene
2. …to this soon-to-be-forgotten and then-repeated story.
3. #NeedGunLegislation.
4. #NeedToCallOut  
5. US politicians and
6. TV talking heads for what they are
7. …racists, White Supremacists