Gathering Storm : America's Militia Threat

Rating:
Summary: This is more of a diatribe than a book
Review: Dees has a desire to emasculate those who have reacted to what they see as unfair. We have a very sad state of affairs where people lose what they have and no one fights for their rights and assists them to keep what they have.

Can Dees look at those with a sincere need to recoup losses and regain a sense of dignity? As we lose more individually owned farms and ranches to the big corporate comglomerate who buys at a discount from themselves, further dissenfranchising the farmer, what do we do. If you want to understand the struggle of those in rural America read Harvest of Rage.

Rating:
Summary: Well written, a great book - but overzealous.
Review: Morris Dees is obviously a driven man. He has spent a good portion of his life legally defending those persecuted against by racist organizations. "Gathering Storm" is a powerful book, it provides valuable insight into the "Milita" movement of the mid-90's, but it looses some of it's strength when Dees' attempts to illustrate that virtually ALL Militas have racist undertones. Obviously the radical right is closely tied with the white power movement, but Dees ignores, (or perhaps was unaware of?) the significant portion of Left wing militas that were so prominently associated with the recent WTO demonstrations in Seattle, (and possibly the DNC in California too?) and chooses to instead vent some of his own political philosophy. By demonstrating some blatent opinions as fact , ( like that the 2nd ammendment never was intended to apply to the public), "Gathering Storm" suffers from what otherwise could be a very accurate picture of a portion of the Milita movement of five years ago. I would also reccomend "Harvest of Rage" as a more appropriate view of the Milita movement as a whole, along with the reason they have come into such prominence.

Rating:
Summary: Well researched, detailed book about the militia phenomenon.
Review: This is one of the best books I've read about the militia movement. It's extremely well documented and so neatly detailed it can be overwhelming. I was personally appalled by learning about the degree of paranoia displayed by most so-called "patriots" believing seriously deranged and illogical conspiracy theories. The part of the book that interested me most was the one where Dees details the connections between the militia movement and white supremacism and anti-Semitism. Same old hate in a new dress.

I would also like to point out that I found most of the reviews in this section to be extremely biased, paranoid and absolutely demeaning. Most of the previous reviews are nothing but rants attacking the person of Morris Dees. I wanted to balance those subjective views by pointing out that Mr. Dees is the person responsible for putting the KKK out of business by legal means, a hero of Human Rights. It's no surprise that most pro-militia readers automatically dislike Dees. As I said before, same old hate in a new dress.