Harvest Of Rage: Why Oklahoma City Is Only The Beginning
Dyer (editor, Boulder Weekly) discusses the connection between the farm crisis of the 1980s and the rise of the antigovernment movement of the 1990s. Encouraged by the federal government to plant "fence row to fence row" during the 1970s, small farmers have since witnessed declining markets, falling prices, and the rise of multinational food companies, which brought massive foreclosures and bankruptcies among small farmers during the 1980s. This led to a rise in suicides and murders among individuals faced with the loss of their land. Other farmers turned to racist ideologies and conspiracy theories, seeing the crisis as part of a plot by Jews, international bankers, or the federal government to control the world's food supply. Dyer sees many of these same people as fueling the militia movement, harassing government officials in parts of the West, and threatening continued domestic terrorism similar to the Oklahoma City bombing. The author also blames the government for this situation, citing its lack of support for farmers, cuts in funding of rural mental health programs, and the widening distance between the heartland and Washington. This well-written book updates James Corcoran's Bitter Harvest: Gordon Kahl and the Posse Comitatis; Murder in the Heartland (LJ 4/15/90) and complements such works on the militia movement as Kenneth S. Stern's A Force on the Plain (LJ 1/96) and Richard Abanes's American Militias (Intervarsity, 1996). Recommended for all academic and public libraries.?Stephen L. Hupp, Univ. of Pittsburgh at Johnstown Lib.Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.