Patriots, Politics, and the Oklahoma City Bombing

Stuart A. Wright

06/2007 · Cambridge University Press

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This book explores social movements by analyzing an escalating spiral of tension between the Patriot movement and the state centered on the mutual framing of conflict as 'warfare'. By examining the social construction of 'warfare' as a principal script or frame defining the movement-state dynamic, Stuart A. Wright explains how this highly charged confluence of a war narrative engendered a kind of symbiosis leading to the escalation of a mutual threat that culminated in the Oklahoma City bombing. Wright offers a unique perspective on the events leading up to the bombing because he served as a consultant to Timothy McVeigh's defense team for eighteen months and draws on primary data based on face-to-face interviews with McVeigh. The book contends that McVeigh was firmly entrenched in the Patriot movement and was part of a network of 'warrior cells' that planned and implemented the bombing.

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Stuart A. Wright is the Assistant Dean for the College of Graduate Studies and Research and a Professor of Sociology at Lamar University. Dr Wright received his Ph.D. from the University of Connecticut in 1983. He is the author of Leaving Cults: The Dynamics of Defection and editor of Armageddon in Waco. He has published more than thirty articles or book chapters in scholarly venues and has become a widely recognized expert and legal consultant. Dr Wright worked with US Congressional subcommittees in 1995 investigating the government's role in the Waco siege and testified in House hearings. Following the highly publicized hearings, he was retained as a consultant by defense attorneys in the Oklahoma City bombing trial of Timothy McVeigh. Dr Wright has received numerous grants and research awards.