Revolutionary history of America bears potential to be repeated

By Mark Wassberg, Staff Writer

The Oklahoma City bombing that occurred in 1995 were not the first terrorist attacks on American soil. Some revolutionary groups labeled Timothy McVeigh, one of the people that carried out the attack, as a hero.

But attacks could be seen throughout American history long before this, after the murder of JFK that opened the door for the most corrupt politicians in U.S. government.

This led to the 1960s being the most revolutionary decade in American history.

In 1966 two Oakland, California residents, Huey Newton and Bobby Seale, founded the Black Panther Party.

Their cause was for social change among the black community and it spread like wildfire across America. Their means to achieve this change were by any they deemed necessary, including violence.

Their main reason for revolution was to overthrow the U.S. government. In 1968 Bobby Hutton was killed and Eldridge Cleaver was wounded in a shootout with the Oakland Police Department.

The FBI, with its covert harassment operations, finally put an end to the Panthers. In sympathy for the Panthers, Bernardine Dohrn and Bill Ayers, attending University of Michigan at the time, started the “Weather Underground,” an underground extreme leftist movement, to declare war on the U.S. government. In March of 1971 they bombed the U.S. Capitol and several banks. They then robbed a Brinks armored car in which a black police officer, Waverly Brown, was killed.

In 1969 Los Angeles was rocked by one of the most gruesome murders in its history.  Sharon Tate, a young, beautiful Hollywood actress, was murdered at her home by Tex Watson, a follower of the lunatic cult that leader Charles Manson had created, known as the Manson Family.

As the killers ran through Tate’s home she pleaded for her life and for that of her unborn baby, eight months in the womb. Watson stabbed her 16 times, nearly ripping out her baby from her body. He then wrote on a wall in Tate’s blood the word “Pigs.”

Abigail Folger, heiress of the coffee company Folger’s fortune, was stabbed 26 times.

On Feb. 4, 1974, Patty Hearst, heiress of the Hearst newspaper fortune, was kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army.

She was held for ransom for a massive food giveaway to the poorest people in Los Angeles. Randolph  Hearst, Patty’s father, could no longer afford the giveaway and Patty, after experiencing extreme amounts of fear and brainwashing techniques, joined the SLA.

She became a fugitive wanted by the FBI for bank robbery. Six members of the SLA were killed in a military style shootout with hundreds of L.A. police with automatic weapons blazing and tear gas canisters smoking in 1975. She was captured later that year.

With all the violence happening today against African-Americans and the corruption in law enforcement, could a revolution be just around the corner?