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Dick Reavis, journalist and author of book, The Ashes of Waco, comments on events skince the massacre.
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take a quick vote everybody who thinks
0:02
you need a break raise your hand
0:06
all right i'm already through
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no right
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there are four people
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i'm dr evans
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i
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am a texas journalist
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essentially exiled in north carolina now
0:22
though it ain't bad
0:24
i've been teaching in north carolina for
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the last 10 years teaching journalism
0:32
i think they wanted me to speak because
0:35
i wrote
0:37
the book that has become the primer
0:39
on what happened in 1993
0:43
by the primer i mean
0:45
where you begin the study of it
0:47
almost everybody begins there
0:50
and then goes into other things
0:53
the book is still in print 20 years
0:55
later
0:57
that speaks
0:58
for its value better than i could
1:02
clive was mentioning methylene chloride
1:05
in
1:06
the fire and so on
1:08
i think the first time those ideas
1:12
hit the print
1:14
in the mainstream media
1:16
work with my book which was published in
1:19
1995.
1:22
and
1:23
i don't claim that those are my original
1:25
ideas i don't even remember where i got
1:27
them
1:28
i remember the experts i talked to but
1:30
at that time a lot of people were doing
1:33
a lot of thinking
1:35
i think that mike mcnulty has been the
1:38
man at the center
1:40
of the forensic work
1:43
done since my book came out
1:48
i've got some notes here
2:07
the conditions under which i wrote my
2:10
book were not favorable
2:14
what happened was that i was a sign
2:16
assigned to the dallas observer
2:19
to come down here
2:21
and write something during the siege
2:24
i came down here and found out there was
2:27
only one source of information the atf
2:30
and fbi press conferences
2:34
they reminded me of those i had attended
2:36
in mexico which at that point had a
2:39
one-party government
2:42
you got all your news from the
2:44
government and what the government said
2:45
was true period
2:48
the big difference was that in mexico at
2:50
the press conferences they serve far
2:52
better food than they did here
2:55
and
2:57
so i attended a couple of them and went
2:59
back and told the observer we can't get
3:01
this
3:02
story while all the davidians who have
3:06
left are in jail and are
3:09
being kept away from the press illegally
3:12
essentially
3:14
we've got to wait until the thing is
3:17
over and maybe there'll be a story and
3:19
maybe there won't
3:22
when it was over
3:25
a guy from soldier a fortune jim pate
3:27
had done the best job that i think was
3:30
done during the 51 days
3:33
call me and told me all the survivors
3:36
who were not in jail or staying in one
3:38
hotel
3:39
and wake up
3:42
so i came down checked into the hotel
3:44
and tried to talk to people
3:47
and they said you're the press
3:50
you all have given us a bad way to go
3:53
we're not talking
3:55
but i noticed something
3:58
none of these people had cars because
3:59
the fbi had flattened all their cars
4:04
i heard rutherford insurance company
4:07
trying to claim
4:10
and he said he asked for replacement of
4:12
the car and they said well what happened
4:13
to your car
4:15
if we have flattened it
4:17
i'm sure that the person on the other
4:19
end of the insurance company still
4:21
remembers that conversation
4:24
and i had a little volkswagen beetle so
4:28
i sat in the lobby
4:30
and began offering people rides
4:34
and they took them because they didn't
4:36
have cars and they didn't have money for
4:38
taxis
4:39
and little by little we began to talk
4:44
i knew i'm not a religious person
4:48
and at the time i smoked very heavily
4:52
and i began to notice that none of you
4:54
had asked me when i was going to accept
4:57
jesus christ as my lord and savior
5:01
so ask them why don't you ask me that
5:03
question
5:04
and they said we can't explain our
5:07
religion in 15 minutes
5:12
and
5:13
it occurred to me
5:15
that there were two stories here one the
5:18
government's story and the other the
5:20
story of the believers
5:23
and then i didn't understand anything
5:25
the believers said
5:28
what the press said is that everybody in
5:30
that building was crazy
5:32
i didn't believe you could have 130
5:35
people living in one building who were
5:37
schizophrenic
5:39
without having great disorder
5:43
so i had to start learning what these
5:46
people believed
5:47
and i think that because i did not have
5:50
a religion
5:52
i was not prejudiced against them
5:57
i
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clowned and sheila helped me
6:00
and for weeks livingstone fagon called
6:03
me every saturday morning gave me bible
6:07
scriptures to read
6:09
and then we discussed the ones i had
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read
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in the prior week
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and i read ellen white
6:18
and i did my homework
6:20
it took about six months
6:23
and finally i began to see
6:26
how the davinians as
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it's a misnomer but as we call them
6:32
saw what was going on
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and why they did what they did
6:39
it was pretty obvious to me that the fbi
6:42
and the atf
6:45
were not speaking this is what made my
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research hard we're not releasing any
6:52
documents
6:54
we're among
6:56
it was pretty obvious to me from their
6:58
behavior during the ride in the siege
7:03
that they were guilty
7:06
of three things
7:08
ignorance
7:09
arrogance and negligence
7:13
by ignorance i mean they were attacking
7:17
what amounted to an enemy
7:20
without knowing anything about the enemy
7:24
they sent robert rodriguez in as an
7:27
undercover agent to find out what the
7:30
davidians believed
7:32
and when he started telling them they
7:34
said robert
7:35
you've been influenced by them when
7:38
calm down come back to the rule of the
7:41
world
7:42
which itself is a religious concept
7:47
and when he told them
7:50
they know you're coming
7:52
and they'll resist
7:54
they blew it off
7:56
they thought he was speaking as a
7:58
sympathizer
8:00
because he knew something
8:02
all right that they did not think could
8:05
be knowledge
8:08
so they had a policy
8:11
which preferred ignorance
8:14
and their right was based on that
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ignorance of many many things
8:21
the other thing is that they were
8:23
arrogant
8:24
they lied to us during that siege
8:27
about the milk negotiations
8:30
and many other things
8:33
and when quresh told them
8:36
that he wasn't leaving on march the 2nd
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i believe was the day he was supposed to
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be leaving
8:42
he told his followers and they told the
8:45
fbi that god had spoken to him
8:48
and told him not to surrender
8:51
or not to leave at that point
8:56
the fbi said david torres thinks god
8:59
told him that
9:01
and then laughed
9:03
the spokesman did
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as if we all know god didn't tell him
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that
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with my agnostic perspective i said i
9:13
wasn't there
9:15
i don't know if god told him that or not
9:18
you would have had to have been there to
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know
9:21
unless you are certain
9:24
about what god is
9:26
fortunately i was not
9:29
so i kept studying the subject
9:33
the other thing is and clive has just
9:36
mentioned it at a minimum the fbi was
9:40
negligent
9:41
in shooting those ferret rounds and that
9:45
methylene chloride into that building
9:48
i cover all of that in my book
9:51
you don't pour gasoline on a man
9:55
and then when he burns up
9:57
blame him
9:59
especially if you're a smoker and you've
10:01
just lit a cigarette
10:04
the fbi threw all the blame on everybody
10:07
else and to this day to my knowledge is
10:11
not admitting any itself
10:14
the same goes for for the atf
10:19
so i felt
10:21
that whether or not
10:24
the davidians set the fire which is
10:26
their charge and i could not
10:28
substantiate that
10:31
whatever caused that fire
10:33
the fbi may have helped it and there's a
10:37
whole series i ran across it is what
10:40
would amount to
10:42
my research
10:43
incidents in which you shoot tear gas
10:46
into a place and then it burns
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i think the last one may be this guy
10:51
what was his name dorman
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out in california
10:56
why did his place burn down well they'd
10:58
shot some tear gas into it right before
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it
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and
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i did not charge
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and this is what clive's talking about
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now
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the fbi was murdered which would mean
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that they intentionally killed me
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my feeling was they were so ignorant and
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arrogant
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and negligent that they were
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responsible that they owed at least an
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apology
11:33
my book came out in 1995.
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i was at the memorial service here at
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mount
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carmel i mailed it in that morning on my
11:44
way to that memorial service
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we get to the memorial service and find
11:49
out what tim timothy mcveigh had done
11:52
the murrah building blew up
11:56
and that i have to admit helped make my
11:59
book because
12:01
the american people had pretty much
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forgotten
12:04
about what happened in 1993
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mcvay reminded them i don't say that in
12:11
mitigation am he shouldn't have done it
12:14
but
12:15
that that established the importance of
12:18
it i was called to congress to testify
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and the one era that i know i made in my
12:25
book was pointed out to me in congress
12:28
i said that mr john the prosecutor in
12:32
the trial was a short man
12:36
the government had him stand up
12:38
and they said mr john have you read mr
12:41
revis book yes i have
12:44
do you think it's an accurate book
12:47
he stands up
12:49
he says well
12:51
i am six feet tall six feet one and used
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to play football
12:56
mr revis says that i am a short man
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it's a mistake i made as a reporter i
13:02
sat in a courtroom with him for six
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weeks
13:06
and i wound up writing that it was short
13:09
when it's me and short
13:12
but the other thing is he's real wide
13:16
and that's what i saw not his height
13:19
other than that no one has
13:22
to my knowledge has disproved anything i
13:25
said in my book
13:28
i think it tells the truth
13:30
some people would say the minimal truth
13:34
meaning i do not accuse the government
13:36
of murder
13:37
but at least what i say you can rely on
13:41
rely upon
13:42
that's why it became the primer
13:46
now then i want to say a couple of other
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things
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because i am was the only one in the
13:53
press who went through what amounts to
13:56
theological investigation
13:59
learning what the davidians thought
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i was famously called in the press
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famously in a gathering of reporters
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was memorably called a grumpy of the
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davidians
14:14
by lee hancock the reporter for the
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dallas news
14:19
who is the establishment's
14:22
expert about wipeout
14:26
i confess to having been a student of
14:29
the davidians
14:30
i still don't believe any of it
14:33
that puts to rest that charge i never
14:36
did believe any of it i remain agnostic
14:42
second thing i want to bring up is the
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gun control issues
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most of the support
14:50
that came to the dominion oh let me
14:53
first get into
14:54
freedom of religion
14:58
assault on the dominions was charged is
15:01
a violation
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of
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freedom of religion of the first
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amendment
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when i look at it
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i see
15:13
and actually my wife told me this
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i said this is a violation of freedom of
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religion and she said
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who defines freedom from religion church
15:24
for
15:24
state i said well the state does the
15:28
government does
15:29
now you know what kind of freedom of
15:31
religion you have she said
15:35
if you look at the law and last week
15:37
after a discussion with clive i looked
15:40
at ellen white to see what she believes
15:44
she saw it the same way
15:46
the constitution allows you to believe
15:49
anything you want
15:52
now tell me how can they enforce a law
15:55
against belief
15:57
i may believe there's a martian stand
16:00
standing at the back door and how do
16:01
they know
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it allows them to say that there's a
16:06
martian standing at the back door
16:09
it allows you to profess but it does not
16:12
allow you to practice
16:16
if for example david was trying to have
16:19
24 children by virgins
16:23
and some of these children were born to
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underage women
16:27
by our laws he committed statutory rape
16:33
and that is not a violation to have
16:36
arrested him for that for which the
16:38
federal government had no authority by
16:40
the way
16:42
but had he been arrested for that by the
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state authorities
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that would not have been
16:48
a violation of
16:50
freedom of religion
16:53
because we don't have freedom of
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religion we have regulated religion
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the example i give you points it out
17:04
the same thing goes for gun control
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we americans say well that's a that's a
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right we have
17:14
if you look at it it's not quite that
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simple
17:18
the british before the american
17:20
revolution freely owned guns
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no one to this day
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has ever questioned the right of a
17:28
farmer to own a shotgun to kill snikes
17:31
or for a hunter to own a rifle
17:35
but like with religion
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we have regulated it
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the regulations started with the
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regulation against a machine gun
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i don't know where they will end
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i don't know i'm agnostic about this i
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don't know
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what to make of it
17:55
when the founding fathers wrote the
17:57
constitution they gave us
17:59
freedom to own firearms because that
18:02
freedom had existed under the british
18:04
and the american revolution wasn't about
18:07
depriving people of british liberties
18:10
it was about increasing
18:14
they did that because they did not
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believe in a standing army or many of
18:19
them did not they feared a standing army
18:22
they associated it with the british
18:24
standard standing army
18:27
it was a feature of tyranny for them
18:31
what they foresaw
18:34
was a government how do you say a people
18:37
which defended themselves through
18:39
militias
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and the constitution says in order to
18:45
have a well-regulated militia
18:47
you can have guns
18:51
i want to mention here that that the
18:53
militia provision was put in
18:56
at the suggestion
18:59
of
19:00
senators from the slave holding states
19:04
because those militias were used to
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catch runaway slaves and suppress slave
19:10
rebellions
19:12
so that the secular movement in which a
19:14
lot of people take great pride and point
19:17
to for american freedom
19:19
has also been touched
19:22
by the theme that runs through all our
19:24
national life which is white supremacy
19:27
we can't be entirely proud of the second
19:31
amendment
19:33
in any case
19:35
when the british when the
19:37
founders wrote the second amendment
19:40
they were
19:42
allowing americans to own any weapon
19:46
that an army or a government might have
19:51
because you needed those weapons to
19:53
resist tyranny and foreign conquest
19:57
what are you going to do with missiles
19:59
and drones and smart bombs
20:05
the founder's principle was if the
20:07
government can have it the people can
20:09
have it
20:11
because they need to be able to defend
20:13
themselves against tyranny
20:16
i don't know anybody who thinks that
20:18
their next door neighbor ought to have a
20:20
missile silo
20:22
i think drones would make us
20:24
uncomfortable if they have guns
20:27
so if we believe in the second amendment
20:31
we have to choose
20:35
should we have the right to own any
20:37
weapon the government does
20:39
and if it does
20:41
there are two ways to go
20:43
everybody gets a missile silo and a
20:45
drone
20:46
or the government gets rid of those
20:49
weapons
20:50
of mass destruction
20:55
and what are the chances of our
20:57
government getting rid of its weapons of
21:00
mass destruction
21:03
we now have a standing army
21:06
that can impose tyranny
21:10
and we're talking about little
21:12
regulations over civilian ownership of
21:15
guns
21:17
which cannot resist the army we've got
21:20
now
21:22
firearms will no longer
21:25
help us make a revolution
21:28
or intimidate tyrants
21:30
they've got us out gunned
21:33
so i don't know what to do about that
21:35
issue i did not write my book to please
21:38
the nra
21:41
it's that simple when the nra comes to
21:44
me i ask one question i say well
21:48
i don't think if everybody carried a
21:50
pistol it'd be a bad idea
21:54
because i've worked in factories
21:57
the superintendents and the foreman were
21:59
awful abusive
22:02
and i think that if all the workers had
22:05
guns
22:06
they'd be more polite
22:10
right
22:11
and they're going to have out them pink
22:12
slips and tell you they don't want you
22:14
back on monday
22:16
it'd be a little more polite
22:18
and the nra people tell me oh but that
22:21
would conflict with property rights
22:25
and i said wait a minute which one of us
22:27
here is for gun rights me or you
22:30
you're saying property rights i'm saying
22:33
gun rights which one of us is the
22:35
the real nri
22:39
so i think that
22:41
we run into with the first and the
22:43
second amendment insoluble riddles
22:47
if the constitution was divinely
22:50
inspired as some of y'all believe
22:53
it's just like the bible it's subject to
22:56
human interpretation
22:58
and we're still arguing about the bible
23:01
hundreds of years after it came into
23:03
being
23:04
i don't see simple solutions to these
23:07
things
23:09
now then
23:11
as a reporter i've watched how the
23:14
countries dealt
23:18
with what happened here in 1993.
23:22
and i believe that the fbi
23:26
after the standoff the standoff of the
23:29
friedman in montana showed this to me
23:34
has adopted better behaviors
23:37
i don't think
23:39
if another mount carmel comes up
23:41
tomorrow
23:43
you're going to see people killed in the
23:44
way they were here
23:47
the fbi changed its procedures in
23:50
montana
23:51
it did not hold press conferences every
23:54
day
23:55
whose purpose during the waco affair
23:58
was to stir the american people into a
24:01
lynch mob mood that's what they did with
24:03
their press conferences
24:07
in montana they let relatives visit
24:10
the people who were older
24:15
and the relatives told them i don't care
24:17
what you believe you're my son you're
24:18
getting out of here
24:20
long and short
24:22
but they saw that standoff without
24:25
killing anybody
24:29
and they haven't returned to waco style
24:32
tactics in any event i know of since
24:38
but that funny thing happened to me when
24:40
i was writing the book
24:42
about two or three days after mount
24:44
carmel burned
24:46
i brought my wife down to see it
24:50
she's a venezuelan national national
24:52
born and raised in venezuela
24:56
we were walking from the ruins where
24:59
everything was charred
25:02
and she looked at me and said
25:05
i never thought i would see a chance
25:09
to witness what you all did to the
25:11
american indians
25:15
and i said the american indians what's
25:18
that got to do with anything
25:21
and she says
25:22
don't you have a different religion
25:25
if you have different sexual customs
25:29
and if you have weapons
25:31
this government is going to wipe you out
25:36
and i thought what the hell is this
25:40
and then i did some research
25:44
there was a guy called sitting bull
25:47
with them militarily defeated
25:51
and took up a new religion called the
25:53
ghost dance religion
25:56
the ghost dancers call themselves
25:58
christians
26:00
and i have no way of knowing whether or
26:02
not they were because
26:04
i'm not the pope
26:09
and they believe that when jesus came
26:12
back he was going to cover the earth
26:14
with no soil
26:16
and bury all the white people underneath
26:21
and they had guns
26:24
and the cavalry went out
26:26
to a rest sitting bull
26:29
and a shootout developed
26:32
long and shorter that there were no more
26:34
sitting bull
26:35
fortunately they didn't kill a bunch of
26:37
women and children along with him like
26:39
the fbi did
26:42
but i dedicated my book to sitting bull
26:44
because i saw in his death
26:48
a trend
26:50
that led us to narrow for the mormons
26:54
to a dozen invasions to animals in
26:57
panama
27:01
what's this like noriega
27:05
a pattern of behavior where if you
27:08
differ enough
27:10
from
27:12
the ideas of the people who run this
27:14
country we're going to invade you
27:18
and i'm afraid to tell the truth that i
27:21
began to my interest in waco began to
27:25
dim
27:28
when a guy came up in iraq
27:31
who had a different religion
27:34
who was sexually abusive
27:36
and who had
27:38
as the davidians had
27:40
weapons of mass destruction
27:43
of course he didn't have any any more of
27:45
the people here's
27:47
and what did we do
27:50
we say we're going after him
27:53
and we count somewhere between 100 and
27:55
300 000 people
27:57
in the process
27:59
big wake up grand scale wake up
28:06
i think people should pay attention to
28:08
what happened here in that light
28:12
because we could have a norwaiko in
28:14
syria
28:15
iran
28:17
north korea
28:19
tomorrow
28:20
we have leaders who are ignorant
28:24
arrogant
28:25
negligent
28:27
and we know in some since waco may be
28:30
one of them i have never said it was a
28:33
true
28:35
murderous
28:39
so all of us should worry about that
28:43
this country is corrupt
28:46
its laws
28:48
all our loopholes its tax code has
28:51
loopholes
28:54
and the people who defend it
28:56
have guns
28:58
you and me lucky
29:00
that we can gather here
29:04
guess that's about all i have to say
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