On 3/22/2023 at 6:32 PM, merylinkid said:
I don't think Kathy Schroeder ever stopped believing David Koresh was the Messiah.
My eye roll when she said he fucked her for her godly soul, not for him, could be seen from the International Space Station.
The HRT guy is as delusional as the cult members. And, yes, that photo of him standing amidst the rubble with his gun confirmed everything I already felt about him.
The only people in this I feel sorry for are the children and the FBI negotiators who were the only ones making progress but kept getting thwarted by their own agency. (I just love the thinking that if you say something isn't an assault, it suddenly isn't one.) Yes, it takes time and costs money to resolve things properly, and you're getting scrutinized on live TV every day. Boo-hoo; lives matter more (yes, even those of his adult followers, whose actions have to be evaluated in the context of his abuses). Koresh was awful - more awful than this even bothered to detail - but then, as one congressperson said in that montage, everyone who touched the ball fumbled it. For it to end in an inferno, and then the government acts shocked so few came out?!
Oh, and the ATF guy who said they should abort the mission once Koresh got tipped off about the raid getting overruled was a sympathetic moment, but I don't think their original plan was all that great to begin with; they were always going to whip the followers into a frenzy by acting in a way that legitimized Koresh's "prophecy".
I also felt for the reporter who pulled over and threw up when she realized the connection between Waco and Oklahoma City.
It seemed to me like the producers thought it was really exciting to include the clip of Timothy McVeigh hanging out at the observation point selling bumper stickers, but American Experience aired that footage long ago. And this didn't get into how white supremacists took up for the Branch Davidians. They talked generally about anti-government gun nuts, but not how the Ruby Ridge types specifically so fervently embraced the Davidians as their own - even though the bullshit Koresh was spouting didn't include white supremacy - because they saw "jackbooted thugs" doing their thing again and that's all they needed.
Edited March 25, 2023 by BastetncG1vNJzZmien6fCrr%2BNqamipZWptq6x0WeaqKVfqbyxtcJoaGxvYmeBbsPAnKZmmZ2av6qvwKdkmqifmK6txc%2BsnGaflaOys63LZpuiq5OqwLS1zqdm