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04-19-2006 04:33 AM |
Remembering Government Mass Murder, part one
One of the worst attacks against civilians in America in the history of the US government, certainly the worst post World War Two, was against the Religious order, the Branch Davidians near Waco, Texas. I hope each of us has a moment of silence and prays for those that died and those that are still prisoners of the federal government whose crimes were they defied government power.
An excellent article this morning is by Anthony Gregory, currently living in Berkeley, CA.
Quote:
Waco and the Bipartisan Police State
by Anthony Gregory
Every year around this time, I find it worthwhile to reflect on the siege at Mt. Carmel, just outside of Waco, Texas, which began on February 28, 1993, when an ATF publicity stunt went awry, and ended 51 days later on April 19 with about 80 civilians killed.
Waco is still important, because it illustrates the violent nature of the state, the fact that political power flows from the barrel of a gun, and the scary truth that the U.S. government is ultimately no different from all others in this respect. Many people, including many libertarians, would just as soon forget the debacle. But we must remember.
Thirteen years ago the federal government of the United States ended its altercation with a group of peaceful religious separatists - a conflict the government had initiated - by driving a tank through the Branch Davidians' home and church, pumping the interior with poisonous gas, and keeping the fire engines at a distance while the building and the people inside burned.
For many Americans, Waco represented the nightmare their government had become. In those days, it was the right that spoke out against unchecked government power, erosions of the Bill of Rights, and the imperial executive. Such criticism was tempered in its radicalism over the next decade, for a variety of reasons. The most dramatic was probably the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah building in Oklahoma City, which occurred on Waco's two-year anniversary, saving the Clinton presidency from a populace becoming wary of government power as its partisans successfully blamed the terrorist attack on anti-government attitudes. We were to believe that even the mild criticism of government heard on mainstream conservative radio was aiding the terrorists. In more recent times, as I discussed a year ago in my article Waco, Oklahoma City, and the Post-9/11 Left-Right Dynamic, we have seen a similar trend going in the opposite direction, with the right siding with the omnipotent state and accusing the left of siding with those who want to destroy America.
Yet Waco is neither a leftwing nor rightwing issue. It is instead an issue that transcends such political categories and cuts to the most profound of questions as to what kind of country this is, what kind it should be, and the very meanings of liberty and tyranny.
At Waco, the U.S. government treated the Branch Davidians as any total state might treat its most alienated subjects. It broke into their home aggressively, shot at them recklessly and mockingly defiled their graves. It blocked off their water and their communications with family, counsel and the press. It waged psychological warfare on them. It showed no mercy on the little children that it gassed. It imprisoned the survivors, including one man who wasn't even in the building during the siege. The Davidians were effectively dehumanized by the central state's lapdog press, and so all too few voices, even on the hyper-sensitive left, came to their defense when Clinton and Reno's federal police stampeded them under their weight.
There are always groups that receive less sympathy when they go head to head with the state, and the ruling class knows it and thrives off it. During the 1990s, there was more hatred of the militia types and more fear of the rightwing separatists. Nowadays, the scapegoat is Arabs and Muslims. For years, in different ways and to varying extents, it's also been illegal drug users, non-citizens, foreigners, gun owners, home-schoolers, prostitutes, tobacco smokers, divorced fathers, and independent entrepreneurs among others. It can be one group that endures the jackboot today and a seemingly opposing group that suffers tomorrow.
But the primary concern for a free society is not which kinds of people should have their freedom smashed. The real concern is liberty for all. The capacity of the state to divide peaceful people into groups and set them against one another is its capacity to oppress. When anyone is victimized by the state, all who believe in and love the universal values of freedom, as well as the finer principles on which America was founded, have a moral obligation to oppose it.
A government than can get away with what it did at Waco is essentially unleashed, constrained only by its own whim. Waco is a reflection of a greater problem. Look at the many laws and policies in America leading up to Waco, and Waco shouldn't be any surprise. Look at Waco, and Bush's fascist policies all fall into place.
The continuity between the Clinton and Bush presidencies on issues of civil liberties demonstrates something that many people don't want to wrap their minds around. America's police state is utterly bipartisan. It is designed to persist and indeed extend its reach with each administration, no matter the party in charge. In fact, the political party illusion serves to distract people from the real issues, the state's trampling of our liberties, and instead devote their hopeful attention and energy to getting one dictatorial gang elected rather than the other.
Both Clinton and Bush have gotten away with massive prosecutorial abuses, federal police brutality and dramatic attacks on due process for the accused, all while the people have argued over which side is the worse liar and central manager and not how best to restore liberty in America. So Bush's Patriot Act is condemned by the left while Clinton's assaults on privacy were ignored or encouraged. The right called Clinton's seizure of Elian Gonzalez tyrannical, but think Bush has the inherent authority to detain and abuse people without trial or due process. The left laments how loyally the mainstream media toed Bush's line on WMD in Iraq, but wasn't nearly as critical when the media parroted Clinton's Kosovo war propaganda. Clinton's gun grabbing was decried as totalitarian by the right, whereas the Bush federal government got away with door-to-door gun confiscations in New Orleans after Katrina. (The federal response to Katrina alone should have lost Bush all of his support among those who found Waco unacceptable. Or is the militarization of domestic policy and law enforcement only a nuisance if its instigator is a known liar about his past with sex and drugs?)
The worst of this problem of the bipartisan police state is seen in the they did it, so why can't we? form of argument. How many times in the last four or five years have we heard Bush's defenders cite something horrifying that Clinton did or said as evidence that Bush's actions aren't as beyond the pale as his critics claim, after all? This is a disingenuous line of argument coming from those who lambasted Clinton last decade. But it is effective so long as Americans care more about their team winning the electoral championship every four years than about the fact that the whole game is fixed.
(end part one)
April 19, 2006
Anthony Gregory send him mail is a writer and musician who lives in Berkeley, California. He is a research analyst at the Independent Institute. See his webpage for more articles and personal information.
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