#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
- It felt like the right time to ‘highlight’ this book about the White Supremacy Movement in USA.
- Not an easy read, but a necessary one. #AmReading
- “Not everything that is faced can be changed,
- …but NOTHING can be changed until it is faced”. James Baldwin
Introduction:
- The white power movement in America wants a revolution.
- Returning to a country ripped apart by a war they felt they were not allowed to win.
- A small group of Vietnam veterans and disgruntled civilians
- concluded that waging war on their own country was justified.
- This was not a “joy” to read….not at all.
- The writing was hard-boiled and gave just the facts.
- If I was reading the book I probably would have stopped halfway.
- But I had an #audiobook and just put on the earphones every day
- …and continued on my bike rides.
- The book did make me aware the white power, Aryan Nation
- and militia threats that are in the USA.
- Imagine reading how pervasive the movement was in 1970s-1990s
- …and stop and think how much more these groups are organized now.
- They are not always in the headlines but since 06 January 2021
- …I was curious what is going on underground or in the woods in different states.
- The book was depressing….
- I did notice Ms. Belew pins a surge in contemporary violence
- on the sorely abused Vietnam veterans.
- I think this is not a fair argument.
- It’s not the military or the military experience or the hellish fog of war
- … it is the environment in which they were raised
- …before ever getting to the military that leads to this kind of hatred.
- They (the vets) were not born with it and they were not brainwashed
- …into it when they became military.
- They were raised into it by the society from which they come.
- This is a book that is not a great read….but a necessary one.
- Sometimes you just have to tackle books that don’t appeal
- …to educate yourself about this domestic terror threat.
- Here are some of my notes after my daily bike ride:
March 18, 2021 – page 80 22.73%
- While riding my bike in the morning I’ve been confronted with: Seadrift, Texas, Vietnamese fishers vs KKK Nov. 25, 1979,
- Greensboro NC massacre Communist Workers Party vs KKK/NeoNazis Nov. 03 1979
- and now frustrated Vietnam vets are off to cause havoc in Central America as mercenaries.
- 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%
- You don’t want to mess with The Aryan Brotherhood….ever!”
March 20, 2021 – page 156 44.32%
- 1984 Aryan Nation (Louis Beam) discovers the internet….members flock to invest in $2000,– Apple computers.
- We read names, robberies of armored money transports to fund the movement, attacks on Jews,
- paramilitary training camps and federal raids on prominent figures.
- Not much analysis..but just the fact that this is all going on in 1980s is scary.
- Just imagine White Power, paramilitary militia are doing now!!
March 22, 2021 – page 187 53.13%
- The book’s seventh and best chapter is about White Power’s devotion paid to women as wives,
- mothers, and martyrs of the movement. White power submitted itself to a blinding
- cult of faith and family centered on the female body.
- The race must remain pure:
- “…the birth of a white baby was an act of war.”
- Louis Beam (Arayan Nation) marries 4th wife Sheila Toohey…she is devoted to him.
March 23, 2021 – page 209 59.38%
- The act of writing requires a constant plunging back into the shadow of the past
- where time hovers ghost-like. We return to Ruby Ridge, Waco Texas and
- the Oklahoma City bombing… Now we have 2 mass shootings in USA in ONE week!
- UPDATE: 17 May 2022 –
- 200 MASS shootings in the months of Jan-Feb-March-April-May 2022!!
- This is insane!
- Thoughts and useless prayers now being rushed to the scene
- …to this soon-to-be-forgotten and then-repeated story.
- #NeedGunLegislation.
- #NeedToCallOut
- US politicians and
- TV talking heads for what they are
- …racists, White Supremacists