A Case Study In Media Delusion, Denial, Myopia And Lies-- Implications; Trump's First 2024 Campaign Rally Coming In The Week Of His Indictment Is In Waco Texas--
A Case Study In Media Delusion, Denial, Myopia And Lies--
Implications; Trump's First 2024 Campaign Rally Coming In The Week Of His Indictment Is In Waco Texas
As of 8:43 a.m. on Monday, March 20, 2023, not one media outlet that I know of has addressed a reality which sits there, filling the landscape with a vision large as a 500 pound Gorilla riding an Elephant into Times Square at lunchtime on a Friday. Donald Trump is giving his first official 2024 campaign speech on the road in Waco Texas, in the week he is about to be indicted in New York and possibly Atlanta.
Yes, Waco.
Incredulously, this is being covered as though Waco has no history, that nothing significant has ever happened there, and that Trump is going in order to back GOP candidates, and in turn receive their endorsements and pledges of loyalty.
https://www.texastribune.org/2023/03/17/donald-trump-2024-presidential-race-waco/
Waco was the location of a guarded compound organized by cult leader David Koresh for his heavily armed members, the "Branch Davidians." From Wikipedia--
["The Waco siege, also known as the Waco massacre,[5][6][7][8] was the law enforcement siege of the compound that belonged to the religious cult Branch Davidians. It was carried out by the U.S. federal government, Texas state law enforcement, and the U.S. military, between February 28 and April 19, 1993.[9] The Branch Davidians were led by David Koresh and were headquartered at Mount Carmel Center ranch in the community of Axtell, Texas,[10][11][12] 13 miles (21 kilometers) northeast of Waco. Suspecting the group of stockpiling illegal weapons, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) obtained a search warrant for the compound and arrest warrants for Koresh as well as a select few of the group's members.
Waco siege
Mountcarmelfire04-19-93-n.jpg
The Mount Carmel Center engulfed in flames on April 19, 1993
Date
February 28 – April 19, 1993 (51 days)
Location
Mount Carmel Center, Elk, Texas, U.S. thirteen miles from Waco.
31°35′45″N 96°59′17″W
Caused by
Suspected weapons violations[1]
Goals
Attempt to serve search and arrest warrants by the ATF
Attempt to end the 51-day siege by the FBI
Resulted in
Fire destroys compound: 86 dead in total
Parties to the civil conflict
United States
ATF
FBI
Texas Rangers
TXMF
ANG
Branch Davidians
Casualties and losses
4 ATF agents killed
16 wounded
Total: 4 killed
6 killed on February 28
76 killed on April 19
11 wounded
Total: 82 killed"]
The incident began when the ATF attempted to raid the ranch in order to serve a search and arrest warrant. An intense gunfight erupted, resulting in the deaths of four ATF agents and six Branch Davidians. Upon the ATF's entering of the property and failure to execute the search warrant, a siege lasting 51 days was initiated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Eventually, the FBI launched a tear gas attack on April 19, 1993, in an attempt to force the Branch Davidians out of the ranch. Shortly thereafter, the Mount Carmel Center became engulfed in flames. The fire resulted in the deaths of 76 Branch Davidians, including 25 children, two pregnant women, and David Koresh.[13][14]
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waco_siege
Even more significant however, in my view, is that one of the persons who traveled there to watch the confrontation unfold was a 24 year old Gulf War veteran named Timothy McVeigh, who during his service and after his discharge became indoctrinated in a white supremacist and openly Nazi religious cult called "Christian Identity." McVeigh swore revenge against the US Federal government and agencies he saw as responsible for the Branch Davidian tragedy, which in fact was being celebrated as patriotic martyrdom by various of these armed Nazi cults, much like that of the previous deaths of anti-government militia members at Ruby Ridge Idaho.
McVeigh, an Army trained demolitions expert, working as part of a white supremacist terrorist cell blew up the Alfred P. Murrah Federal building in Oklahoma City deploying a truckbomb packed with fertilizer on April 19th, the two year anniversary of the Waco siege. This caused the death of 168 people, many of them children at their day care facility.
Also it is foolish to disregard the fact that these events came on the day before Adolf Hitler's birthday on April 20, widely celebrated by white supremacists and violent anti-goverment cults.
What McVeigh did thereafter was not the action of a loner. He had accomplices (Terry Nichols) and was given logistical support by his cult compound called "Elohim City." Our current Attorney General Merrick Garland is more than familiar with the far ranging nature of this conspiracy because he led the DOJ investigation and prosecution of McVeigh and Nichols. There are no factual debates involving who or what launched the attack on Oklahoma City.
Now, rather than rehash the entirety of that tragic incident, and second guessing the entire process of decision making that led to it, let us visit the more fundamental questions.
1) What does it mean that Trump has decided to launch his 2024 campaign there?
2) Why on Earth would there be literally zero attention paid in mainstream press to the historical significance of Waco and the symbolism of Trump going there?
3) What, in the name of all we hold dear or holy should we do about this?
The answer to question one is what I've been writing about since day one. Trump is deranged. He has a deep psycho-sexual erotic obsession with violence, and especially that which is racially motivated. The group of people he is courting are the legacy of Waco, emphatically the heavily armed militias, neo-Nazi extremists, QAnon, and pseudo-Christian cults he is rallying to his own person. He wants a civil war, he wants to fuel a violent rebellion, and he, like David Koresh is likely planning an armed standoff with his supporters against Federal law enforcement to resist being taken into custody, tried, jailed, with all or one of the above as possibilities. For him, watching others commit violence, get injured, or die on his behalf like Ashley Babbit is his primary source of self-gratification, and it is his addiction. There can be no other symbolic significance for him going there. At all. And for those who are consciously following the path toward race war and rebellion, symbolism is almost everything.
Second question, why the total absence of any media reference to this? Also easy to figure. Editors are being told by their board to not cover this angle, because "talking about it will talk it into existence...if we don't talk about it then we, the media, can't be blamed for inflaming the public's passions and making it happen." That, according to this logic, would be bad for business.
Additionally, you have the problem of the age demographic of many leading commentators, who are generationally self-defined as "existential." This doesn't mean they are manic-depressive suicidal pessimists who question the ultimate purpose of human existence. It simply means that to them, real history has occured only within their lifespans, not before they were born, and not so much after they die. What happened before they ventured into this world is just not that important for a generation that "lives in the moment" to enjoy their pleasurable experiences, or to avoid bad ones. So, believe it or not, many writers just won't make the connection mentally as to the significance of Trump's appearance there. And if they do have a vague understanding, it is something unpleasant they'd rather avoid so as not to sound "extreme" or be a "downer."
And not to be left out, you have the vast right-wing media propaganda apparatus which aligns with both MAGA and Russian intelligence, which is consciously fueling the violence and threats, but wants "plausible deniabilty"for when they make it happen. They don't want to tip their hand and wind up like Alex Jones, or Fox after they lose the Dominion suit. For them, stoking volence serves their ends, both politically and commercially. Blood in the streets means ratings.
In any event, this particular moratorium on thinking will only last until after Trump's speech. Have no doubt he will invoke the memory of the Waco siege to fire up his audience of fascist zombies with horror stories about the DOJ, and how they are murderers who plan to do the same to him. He will be putting down his "dogwhistle" in favor of a foghorn, and it is the Michael Flynns and Sean Moons (the "Rod Of Iron Ministries" AR-15 cult leader) on the receiving end.
Then the press will have a green light to address it, after the fact." And this is what is rotten about our mainstream media.
So, the main question is, "what do we do?" My suggestion is to first wage a war against our own timidity. We each have our own braking mechanism, the point at which we say, "what I do amounts to nothing, a waste of time and effort, will change nothing, is not worth the risks, and will complicate my personal life, so it's time to bail." Even those who are politically active have a psychological version of an electric dog collar which delivers a shock when we venture past our boundary markers. It is self-defeating to even try to convince ourselves we don't have this limiting factor, since we all have it.
Realize that the MAGA cult members have no such boundaries, just as the Nazi's Brownshirts didn't because they are fanatics. That doesn't mean we become like them to resist them. It means that in certain circumstances that to overcome evil, we need to come out of our own internal battle between "flight or fight" on the right side.
Concretely, we all have devices. Let's say we pick up a news story like the AP wire linked above covering Trump's trip to Waco with 10 paragraphs of empty meaningless drivel. You see what is missing, deceptive, misleading, or an outright lie. What is stopping you from writing to the author, or the editorial staff, or whoever and reading them the riot act? Why not demand an accurate accounting? "Oh, it will be ignored, nobody cares, I'm just one person, (an old standby) or, I'll get in trouble with my spouse, my boss, my Pastor," (add your own list 1 through 50) ad infinitum.
Not that we should limit ourselves to criticizing the media. There are many theaters of battle upon which to engage the enemy. But taking the first steps to engage our primary adversary is the most important, whatever we decide.
Timidity. Fear, pessimism, cynicism. Fatigue. All of these factors are what limits us, or gets us to accept certain things as beyond our reach, and therefore actually are our primary adversaries. None of us is doing enough, therefore we need to change what we are doing. Not enough on social media, not in local politics, or on national policy. The proof of that is what you are likely to see unfold in the coming months, which for lack of a better word will be chaos.
Why all of this focus on one speech before it even happens, and how the media ignores or distorts it? Because it is a nearly perfect methodological example of how we let things get to this point. Our silence is consent. This is why to many people's great annoyance, there are certain things I just won't shut up about. Which is why what you'll be getting from here will be different from what you read elsewhere, as my respect for "convention" is a ship that sailed 50 years ago.
