Dark Lord Rob's DarkForce

God's Little Hostages

     Well, I'd have loved to have found out exactly what he meant by that; what, did he think that the ATF wanted to launch a preemptive strike on Hell? But things were happening too fast; another aide came in and spoke swiftly and (too) softly to Brother Woodbine, and, motioning to us to stay put, he left the room.
     We had a pretty good vantage point from where we were, though there wasn't much to see. A lot of people pointing guns over the wall, that was about it. On the plus side, there was a TV, so we were able to get a good look at what was going on from a vantage point that I personally would have preferred: outside the compound.
     "This is Martha Graves for CNBS. I'm standing outside the headquarters of the religious organization called the Brotherhood of Guardians, a group that some in the government are calling a dangerous cult. With me is Special Agent Fred DeMille of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. Fred, some commentators are already making comparisons with this standoff and the one in Waco, Texas a few years back. What are the similarities?"
     "Well, Martha, there are quite a few. Once again, we have a well-organized group of crazies with an enormous stockpile of what we believe to be illegal weapons; once again, there are children inside the compound, which makes the matter both urgent and delicate. But let me stress that this will not be a repeat of that tragedy; we are prepared to negotiate, we will not go barging in guns blazing. There are too many lives at stake."
     "Some say that the real reason for your caution is that the Brotherhood are better organized and better armed than the Branch Davidians were. Is that the case?"
     "I can't comment on that."
     It went on like this for a while. We learned that there had been a warrant issued for Brother Woodbine, with the expected charges of illegal firearms and child endangerment (the same charges leveled against David Koresh, don't ya know), but, unlike Koresh, Woodbine never left the compound and so the warrant had to be served on the premises. Expecting trouble, the government had brought in the big guns right away, with a calculated plan of attack (though no one would say what it was); unlike Waco, where competing agencies had turned it into a fiery fiasco (or deliberately and meticulously turned it into a patch of scorched earth... which scenario is true depends of whether you subscribe to the "X-Files" or "Three Stooges" theory of Government Conspiracy)(I recline to the latter myself, nyuck nyuck).
     It was interesting and, I suppose, eye-opening to compare the picture given by the media (fed by the government) of Brother Woodbine's operation with what Nathan and I had seen first-hand... not meaning that we had succumbed to propaganda, simply that we were readily able to pick up the slant of the "buzz" being generated. The picture that the media presented was that Woodbine was a redneck psycho and his followers a bunch of illiterate slobs... whatever Br'er Woody's mental state, what we'd seen indicated that both he and his followers were well-read, if not well-educated. And very clean.
     "The process of demonization," Nathan observed. "Pretty ironic, considering all the gates of Hell stuff, huh?"
     "Oh yeah, real funny," I said.
     "What we see here is the re-creation of Brother Woodbine into a sort of epitomization of evil," Nathan said, condescendingly repeating himself in case I didn't get it the first time (why couldn't I have been stuck in a room with Shana instead? Preferably one outside the war zone here).
     "And why do that?" I asked, knowing he'd tell me anyway.
     "Simple. If this all blows up and they come in with the tanks and level the place, then they can blame it all on him."
     Not a picture I relished considering, but "Don't worry," Nathan continued, grinning sarcasticallly, "Woodbine has an insurance policy to keep big bad Big Brother at bay."
     "What insurance policy?"
     "Hostages. Us."

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