NCJ Number
176678
Date Published
Unknown
Length
0 pages
Annotation
This is a discussion of domestic terrorism in the United States.
Abstract
This discussion of domestic terrorism involves Edward J. Shaughnessy, a member of the John Jay faculty who is an expert on terrorism and counter-terrorism and David J. Halperin, MD, a psychiatrist and John Jay faculty member with an interest in cult activity. In many cases, domestic terrorists are people who feel powerless in their personal lives and seek to find their identities through membership in a group. Some groups coalesce around a belief that the Federal Government has lost its legitimacy through actions such as participation in the Vietnam War, Watergate, and other government scandals. Another theory suggests that the growth in domestic terrorism is a result of the decline of the US middle class. Workers in the Midwest and Northwest who have lost their jobs, and who see themselves slipping down and out of the middle class, oppose the Eastern establishment and the Federal Government for imposing taxes, environmentalists who seek to take over land they regard as theirs, and politicians who impose quotas and set-asides that benefit some groups at the expense of others. Government must seek to reunite with the citizenry and not be, or appear to be, at the beck and call of political action groups and lobbyists.