Machismo and the new masculinity
Published April 07, 2005
Today I watched Waco: The Rules of Engagement.
This seems appropriate since we're coming up to the 12th anniversary of what some deem to be one of the most tragic events in America's already spotted history.
(And, by the by, I'm not ashamed to admit that we have a thang for docos these days, especially since La Boîte Noire offers a two-for-one jobbie. We habitually find ourselves grabbing a no-brainer new release, and then heading over to the documentary section in an attempt to mitigate our absolute lack of class.)
I was flabbergasted to realise that the whole Waco incident happened way back in 1993. Now that makes me feel old, because I remember it like it was yesterday. (If by 'remembering' you mean a vague recollection of some whacko torching himself and his followers in a church basement. Or something.) But I remember the burning building. I remember the images.
I suspect I was like most people at the time: aware of some kind of bizarre stand-off between the United States government and a group of crazy cultists. The media — hamstrung and drip-fed by the FBI — played up this angle for all it was worth, and there was little sympathy accorded the religious group known as the Branch Davidians or their leader David Koresh.
Next thing you know, four federal agents and over 80 men, women, and children are dead. The church building in which the original stand-off took place is razed to the ground.
The idea is propagated, by both the FBI and the press, that the Branch Davidians started the fire themselves in an act of group suicide.
This is what I had always believed.
Waco: The Rules of Engagement was made in 1997. It is still possible, however, going by the impact this film had on me, to experience the sadness, indignation, rage and disgust — even from this distance — at the way this tragedy was allowed to happen.
What is perhaps more frightening, is the way recent events ripple across your consciousness while you're watching the movie, creating unsettling echoes and an odd kind of inversed déjà-vu.
For those of you who have trouble remembering the exact sequence of events, or for those who are too young to remember (curse you for reminding me of my decrepitude), here's a quick run down:
The Branch Davidians were a group with some interesting religious beliefs (this is not necessarily a crime in itself. At least, it didn't use to be.). It was fronted by a charismatic and controversial leader. They were allegedly stockpiling weapons. (Technically they were "stockpiling" firearms, but as part of a perfectly legal retail trade.)
A flailing and image conscious government agency — The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) — decided to go after the group, in what they intended to be a preemptive strike in order to prevent the Davidians from becoming a danger to the local community. The ATF organized a full-scale raid of the group's church centre. Complete with press reporters and TV cameras.
- Machismo and the new masculinity
- Published: April 07, 2005
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- Section: Culture
- Writer: Kirsten Cameron
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Yep. But thanks for correcting me on the whitehouse website...I should've known it was way too suspect. I'll go correct it (wonders of the interent).
You must be positively apoplectic about what goes on routinely in the Middle East (esp. re: women's issues), China, North Korea, and South America, right? If I cruised over to your blog right now, I'd see post after post complaining about the patriarchal abuses of human rights in those countries, right?
But that's exactly it: the system that promises protection in exchange for economic or political or sexual submission...whether it be in America, China, The Middle East, South America. The US is simply the biggest bully on the block.
I was just pondering whether it might time for a new paradigm...?
The US is the biggest bully on the block? Don't get out of the country much, do you?
With regard to this:
"Another thing to note: CS gas is flammable. During the investigation of the Waco tragedy, the FBI repeatedly claimed that they never fired a single shot. Infrared footage taken by a plane circling overhead on the day, however, shows flashes of brilliance that look suspiciously like machine gun fire."
Yes indeed, there was gunfire!
The FBI fired an explosive flare into the compound igniting the CS Gas which had settle as dust and coated everthing.
Needless to say there was a tremendous fireball!
And to finish the peoples off, the government exploded a mini-nuke on top of the bunker where the women and children and were hiding; this accounts for the fireball seen at the end of the episode.
Talk about war crime-- it was indeed a war crime committed against the Davidians.
whitehouse.org is not the official website. it's a spoof.
Add your comment, speak your mind
(Or ping: http://blogcritics.org/mt/tb/27886)
Let's see what we've got here.
1. A lesson on the perils of masculinity which takes as its prime example a raid that was ordered -- famously -- by a female Attorney General.
2. A photo of George W. Bush which you claim comes from "the official White House website" but which in fact comes from a notorious left-wing political site called WhiteHouse.org. Go read the first paragraph of the fake bio at the link you provided; see anything there that might make the reader suspect that he/she's not at the real White House site?
Here's Bush's bio from the real official White House site, WhiteHouse.gov.
3. An assertion that Bush "likes to be photographed in army fatigues." Bush was photographed once, before his "Mission Accomplished" speech, in an airman's flight suit; to my knowledge, he's never been photographed wearing fatigues. Ever. Not one time.
4. Expressions of shock and dismay that young men in the middle of a war zone might tend to behave a wee bit aggressively.
As for the rest -- the sophomoric references to "the machine," the wonder that civil order might occasionally require the use of force, and most especially the bit about "[i]ndividuals who just happened to have some deeply held beliefs that were a little different from the norm," which has some mighty interesting implications given the analogy you've drawn between Waco and the war on terror -- I don't know whether to take it at face value or as broad satire of a cartoonishly dopey liberal.
Let me ask you one question, Kirsten. If America makes you feel this outraged, you must be positively apoplectic about what goes on routinely in the Middle East (esp. re: women's issues), China, North Korea, and South America, right? If I cruised over to your blog right now, I'd see post after post complaining about the patriarchal abuses of human rights in those countries, right?
Right?
In closing, if I could construct a new masculinity it would involve (a) tender hugs, (b) massive wealth redistribution to anyone who's angry for any reason, and (c) sternly worded international condemnations of rogue regimes backed by no enforcement mechanism whatsoever. I think it just might work.