The whole 'eccentric religious community meets militant federal response and over eighty people die' thing that happened in 1993 in Texas (aka. 'The Waco Seige') holds personal significance for me. I'd been working a number of sales gigs—telemarketing, 'Billy Mays style' live product pitching, and more—over the preceding five years or so (after graduating High School) and it likely led me to be particularly conscious of 'spin' when I watched reports of the standoff on TV and read accounts in newspapers. Regardless, for whatever reason, at one point I noticed distinctly how narrowly limited and repetitiously phrased the various reports I was seeing were. Especially the exclusive use of the word "compound". Always "The Branch Davidian compound", never "community" or "center" or any other more neutral/less militant term. This led me to feel deeply concerned that something was dangerously amiss and in fact express such to some of my friends at the time. Well before the military tanks showed up and it all went up in flames. As the ashes cooled, I actually wrote some "I thought this sort of thing only happened in other countries" themed letters to some of my state legislators. A first for me.
While I'd been a card carrying Libertarian Party member for a year or two a few years earlier (something I've since grown out of) and read a few alternative 'zines on occasion, up until the Waco debacle I'd still held on to core patriotic beliefs that 'my' government was ultimately a largely trustworthy and positive force. The PR spin/smear campaign interlaced with excited federal agents leading the use of military hardware against civilians ... leading to ... flaming death ... left me achingly disillusioned. I had seen the fnord and having done so found that for me it could not be unseen.
With a sigh and a heavy heart,
—Kevin Jones—
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