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Liz Michael for United States Senate

Waco-Rules of Engagement (1997)

What happened at the Branch Davidian compound in Mt. Carmel, Texas, in 1993? Why did 4 federal agents and 86 civilians lose their lives? The powerful documentary Waco: The Rules of Engagement asks these and many other difficult questions, and the answers are deeply disturbing, even for the most cynical. Using interviews, news footage, testimony before Congress, and infrared photographic analysis, the film relentlessly chips away at the government's story that David Koresh and his followers were a dangerous cult involved in strange sex and drug practices who were preparing to slaughter their neighbors and that they immolated themselves à la Jonestown, rather than give themselves up peacefully. Nearly every element of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms' and the FBI's cover-up is exposed as fraudulent and the viewer is left wondering when, if ever, justice will finally be served. Warning: There are a few minutes of extremely graphic footage of the burnt bodies of the Davidians; though this is sickening, it seems less so than the tragic mistakes made by law enforcement officials. --Rob Lightner

by Dorothy Anne Seese

Most folks have at some time in their lives awakened from a nightmare, relieved to find out it was only a dream. Others have awakened from pleasant dreams of former times only to find that they are in one form or another in a prison.

One day Americans, who still think they are a free people under law, are going to wake up and find out they indeed do live in a socialist state, the liberties they thought they had are gone, and they are serfs to the power elite. Confused, bewildered and frustrated, they will wonder how it all happened.

Then those who tried to warn them will have to say, "we were trying to tell you, but you believed the major media instead."

Americans may not trust used car dealers with a $2,000 great deal on a rickety wreck, but they are trustful of a media they can't believe would lie to them. It's this trust of major media that is the key to the takeover by the socialists, because journalism is geared not to reporting news for information, but to reporting such a biased view of the news as to influence opinion. That is sheer propaganda, the kind we Americans thought the USSR was guilty of back in the 50's and 60's.

It's the major media that tells the busy average American that what liberals are doing is good for them; that corporate interests are always bad for them (and all the major media are owned by large corporations and in that instance, they are indeed bad for America); and it is the media that glosses over the injustices, demonizes the concept of religion and morality, and makes constitutional rights appear dangerous to life and health.

Facts are only the skeletons on which major media builds up its journalistic defenses of what I choose to call The Agenda. We have a constitutional framework that would work if our elected representatives were honest, had the good of the American people at heart, and firmly reminded each citizen of their personal responsibility for the continued freedom of the nation.

That is diametrically opposite of what The Agenda wants to accomplish and is accomplishing in major proportions. There was no greater proponent or executor for The Agenda than former president Clinton, yet with media assistance and the ability to lie with charismatic impact, this ex-president garnered public support for the public hangings of the very public he charmed.

And we thought the Pied Piper was evil!

This is the recipe for taking freedom from the people, the agenda for The Agenda:

.  Make the government so large that no average citizen can keep up with what is going on. They will trust the news media to tell them.

.  Hide every loss of freedom behind such a worthwhile cause that the people will nearly beg to have their liberties taken from them.

.  Use the law to terrify people of the authorities so that rather than "to protect and to serve" the people, the laws protect and serve The Agenda.

.  Let the representatives of the people become detached so that they are inaccessible, and all attempts to contact them seem futile. That way, people will realize "you can't fight city hall."

.  Distract them with toys and entertainment so that they have no idea what's happening outside the theater or arena.

.  Dilute major population centers with such cultural diversity that the old power base of established citizens is diminished and a new power base beholden to the state replaces it.

.  Take control of the children through mandated education and keep the parents uninformed as to what is happening in the schools. If parents question school authority, make their lives miserable and keep them under the threat of having their children removed by the state.

.  Repeat, repeat, and repeat again that the old ways were bad and intolerant and the new ways express greater opportunity for all (do not describe opportunity for what).

.  Cheapen the value of life in the name of science promoting the betterment of life.

.  Keep control of the media and take every measure necessary to eliminate the opposing journalists who see what is happening; expose them to ridicule and discredit.

.  Rename everything so that no two people can agree on what one term means. For example, there are no longer any socialists in America, just "reformers" ... but reformers for what?

.  Make heroes out of turncoats and flakes if they serve the purpose of The Agenda.

.  Preserve the outward appearance of freedom even though the substance of it has been replaced by statism. Keep average folks too busy to notice or to care as long as they can shop the best bargains at the mall.

.  Entertain the people all the way to the gulag.

It is when even the semblance of freedom is gone that people wake up and find out that their most pleasant dreams have evaporated and the present reality is, they have awakened to find themselves in prison.

Or to put it in my grandmother's words, "those who can't be told can be shown."