Review by Riff Fenton
Rural Culture – March 1998 – Colorado Central Magazin
Harvest of Rage – Why Oklahoma City is Only the Beginning
by Joel Dyer
published in 1997 by Harper Collins / Westview Press
ISBN 0-8133-3292-3
THERE HAS ALWAYS BEEN a huge gap in my understanding of the conservative movement in America; so it goes without saying that the radical, violent conservative revolution that spawned the Oklahoma City bombing totally escaped me.
How is it that people can be so convinced that there are national and international conspiracies to subvert our Constitution, take over the United States, and enslave us all? I can understand the relatively benign anti-government attitude that results from the ridicule and distortions disseminated daily by the likes of Rush Limbaugh and the rest of the conservative-dominated media, but what motivates people like the Freemen, Timothy McVeigh, or the violent militias? What is the nature of these movements? Are they a threat to us average Joes? Should we worry about them or waste our time learning about who they are and why they believe what they believe? Harvest of Rage is an excellent primer on this subject.
Part One dwells (somewhat redundantly) on the farm crisis of the 80s. It is a very sympathetic look at the economic destruction of the small farm and the resulting personal tragedies that proliferated throughout the Midwest. I had no knowledge of the epidemic of suicides or the dislocation of families that were the results of the increasing numbers of farm foreclosures. I knew that farmers went through some tough times in the 80s, that foreclosures were more numerous, but I never learned how deeply and profoundly the loss of “the land” affected the mentality of the farm community.
Dyer does an excellent job of portraying the state of mind of the nation’s interior, its heartland. Still, the farm crisis does not explain 4,046 pipe bombs between 1991 and 1996. It does not explain the Republic of Texas standoff, nor the Branch Davidians. The farm crisis alone cannot account for Dominionists, Tribulationists, Sovereigns, or the vast spectrum of angry anti-government movements forming throughout America in the 90s. Who are these people, what do they believe, and why?
About the time I began thinking Harvest of Rage might not answer these questions I came to the end of Part One. The rest of the book is devoted to an over-view of the anti-government movement in America: its background, its leaders, its philosophies and activities. Dyer sorts out these different organizations, and goes a long way in providing an explanation of their beliefs.
The author pulls no punches when it comes to our own government’s culpability in these matters. It is disheartening to be reminded of how big money interests work in concert with our elected representatives to protect the interests of multinational corporations to the detriment of the very people who faithfully return to the voting booth in hopes of making America a better place.
This “grain of truth” is important. As Dyer puts it: “it’s only after our lives have been affected by something real that we set out to explain it with a conspiracy theory.” The desperate need for campaign reform screams from these pages.
Dyer, however, does not sugar-coat or excuse the hate-filled rhetoric that spews from the literature and mouths of the leaders of the antigovernment movement. Religious and racial bigotry are prime motivators here, and must be addressed. Harvest of Rage is well documented, and can be used to further understand the variety of beliefs that drive antigovernment movements: from the international banking conspiracy to the Illuminati, from Pretribulationist theory to Post Tribulationist thought, from the emergence of the AntiChrist to the “ZOG” or Zionist Occupied Government. (A to Z so to speak).
Dyer argues convincingly that this is a dangerous time in our history, especially with the approach of the millennium.
After all, we are within the last 1,000 days. Didn’t you know?
–Riff Fenton