jf noonan wrote:
> On Wed, 6 Oct 1999, Charles Brown wrote:
>
> > Charles: What's so special about Waco ? The day to day
> > operation of police agents from feds to the city departments
> > suppresses individual freedom en masse. Is there a member
> > of the executive branch anywhere in the country, from city
> > to state to feds, that shouldn't be in prison by this ?
>
> What makes Waco stand out, is that they surrounded the place,
> played at negotiating a way out, then when they got tired of
> waiting the made up an excuse (typical Clintinoid "it's for the
> children") and blew the place up. The coldly calculated
> premeditated nature is what some find so revolting.
I think that there is a racist element in this emphasis on Waco (just as
there has always been a racist element in the way Kent State stands up so boldly in memory (and the news at the time) while many such assaults in the south were virtually ignored. It is not an "active" racism in the sense of people saying (even to themselves) "White lives are more important than black lives." Rather somehow instances of police violence against blacks are simply not remembered as vividly.
Surely the murder of Fred Hampton and the bombing of MOVE headquarters were more shocking and cold blooded than the attack on WACO. Or the shooting of black students at Jackson State the same week as the the Kent State events. And there were several other events in the '60s which I am embarassed to say I can't remember the "names" of, but all involved a coldblooded police attack on blacks followed by the arrest of the blacks. (One I think occurred in North Carolina, one in Delaware.)
Carrol