Waco and the Lesser of Two Evils

Rob Schaap rws at comserver.canberra.edu.au
Sat Aug 28 20:44:01 PDT 1999


The Waco thing was aired on Oz TV a few months ago (non-commercial telly here is terrific between about 11.00 and 2.00am - which suits non-sleepers like me - and our least-funded station (SBS - multilingual, soccer, world movies, more soccer, and often surprisingly radical stuff) goes in for lots of those relatively cheap US video-docos (there was a beauty on the Panama slaughter, too) that don't make the technical grade for US networks (or are just not gonna get on - as per those filters Chomsky and Herman outline in chapter one of their terrific *Manufacturing Consent*).

Anyway, a wholly convincing show on yet another of those episodes that gives meaning to that 'only in America' slogan. That big-time murder went on (those twisted little charred corpses of kiddies killed by cyanide fumes shall stay with me forever) seems beyond doubt to me, but the thing we never got to hear was what *really* caused the trouble in the first place. In a landscape dotted by charismatic would-be christ-figures and armed-to-the-teeth 'citizens' militias', what was it about Koresh's mob that stood out to the authorities? I never really understood that.

Cheers, Rob.


>I just saw the Waco video last night. Interesting/frightening. One of
>the preachers that plays basketball with me at the gym, an ex-druggie
>musician has a similar way of looking at the Bible as Koresh. Both are
>smart, but go off in wierd directions.
>
>The video made a pretty convincing case that the government was (almost?)
>entirely wrong. In the congressional hearings, the people who sounded
>the most rational were Wacco Repugs, such as Bob Barr.
>
>In fact, as Clinton pushes for more and more of a police state, only the
>repugs resist him where cyber freedoms (wiretapping, getting access to
>personal computers are concerned), although they may still outdo Clinton
>in being tough on "ordinary" crime and terrorism (real and supposed).
>
>
>--
>Michael Perelman
>Economics Department
>California State University
>Chico, CA 95929
>
>Tel. 530-898-5321
>E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu



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