Show Page 2 January 27 1994 America's fear: protecting itself from the protector by Joshua E UUbarrl viewpoint editor It is a very cold day in hell when I criticize the federal government I am often in support of an active government that protects its citizens Recently though that has not been the case The Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms has become an absolutely abusive group of government-funde- d bandits The election of the Clinton Administration has not changed the trend that started Bringing criminals to justice should be the goal of the bureau creating criminals should not be That however is what is now occuring The law enforcers are now the law entrappers No longer do they wait for a crime to happen before catching a criminal they are now trying to actually cause individuals to create a crime Nobody conservative nor liberal is safe trend of creating rather than capturing crimianymore All must be on edge by the nation-wid- e nals US Attorney General Janet Reno has taken full responsibility for the incident that took place in Waco Texas in the summer of 93 True Reno was the one who gave permission to start the final confrontation but the BATF was in total blame The situation was mis handled from day one Secretly watching the compound and following David Koresh and his followers was wrong Never had Koresh been convicted of a crime Having religious beliefs that are out of the mainstream do not independently make someone a criminal at least not in legal theory Neither does the ownership of ammunition There were definite allegations of child abuse but if this was truly the concern of the government then why the BATF? Koresh was not an easy man for authorities to deal with He was a man with strong religious beliefs The handling of the Waco incident greatly brings into doubt the ability of the BATF to handle complex situations Mishandling a complex situation is not the sole shortcoming of the BATF The primary motive of the bureau seems to be entrapment of suspects The most glaring and public example is the Randy Weaver experience This is a clear example of the bureau's abuse of power Not only did they have to talk Weaver into breaking the law but they also forced him into barricading himself into his own home for an siege The controversy began OcL 24 1989 Weaver sold two guns that measured 14 of an inch shorter than law allowed The guns were therefore illegal What many people still do not know is that Weaver was set up Gus Magisono (Kenneth Fadley) was the man Weaver sold the guns too Magisono was an undercover ATF agent Weaver at first refused to sell the guns and Magisono had to seek out Weaver a second time Finally Magisono offered to pay Weaver $300 for two sawed-of- f rifles Weaver agreed and the ATF had their man Eight months later two ATF agents approached Weaver about becoming an informant for the government He was to spy on the Aryan Nation Weaver again refused and the ATF decided to go public with their charges It is clear that the ATF created the fiasco It is reprehensible that the government would ask and eventually persuade someone to break the law Randy Weaver wu not left alone On Jan 17 1991 the agents again harassed Weaver This time his family wu involved Two ATF agents were posing a couple having problems with their vehicle The Weavers stopped to offer help When Weaver looked under the hood an agent put a gun to his head and told him he wu under arrest More shocking Mrs Weaver wu thrown face down in the snow Again the agents disregarded the theme of American Justice: innocent Reagan-Bush-Quay- le -- 11-da- y u Weaver wu released on $10000 bond That altercation began the next step in the Weaver tragedy Weaver wu given a court date The original date wu set for Feb 19 1991 but wu subsequently changed in the convenience of the ATF Weaver wu never notified of the changed date Weaver subsequently does not show up for hide-ou- t in his cabin home in the Northern Idaho court at any time and begins an Mountains During this year and a half of waiting the ATF surrounded the Weaver home with undercover informants and hidden cameras On Aug 21 1992 the AFT moved in This is where two different stories begin to develop: the son Sam and family friend Kevin Harris Weaver's and the ATF's Randy Weaver his go out to stroll the family's property when their dog notices something The party splits up and is ambushed by the federal agents The Weavers claim the ATF fired first The ATF claim they fired in Gun wounds to the dog's behind prove otherwise also Sam wa shot in the back In the subsequent fire Harris shoots and kills AIT agent William Degan Back at the house Mrs Weaver wu yelling for her husband to return home At that moment Mrs Weaver is shot dead A child fragments bullet enters her face and she dies instantly She wu holding her Weaver and For Harris the 10 next him from the bullet hit Harris injuring along with days badly his remaining three children remain prisoners in their home On the 10th day of the siege Harris surrenders and on the 1 1 th the rest of the family comes out indictments and tried separately It took the jury 20 days Each man wu charged with to deliberate and find the men innocent of the most serious charges Harris wu found innocent in the murder of Agent Degan Ironically Weaver wu found innocent of the original charge of until proven guilty th self-defen- se 10-cou- nt selling illegal guns In the trial of the men many unbelievable facts came to light Defense lawyer Gerry Spence lead the ATF to admit to many wrong doings Bullets from the shoot-ou- t between Harris and back from later and photographed Photos also showed the scene brought Degan were removed tank like tracks on the dead body of the family dog The defense wu also able to prove that it wu not easy getting Weaver to sell the illegal guns Again proving that the agents knew Weaver had no inclination to break the law Disappointing isn't it? We often here about the corrupt governments of other countries Comparatively sure our government is belter but compared to what? Two wrongs do not make a right especially when you consider the group commiling the wrong Defense Lawyer Gerry Spence stated "What happened to Randy Weaver can happen to anybody in this country" Indeed this evidently is true when you consider the same situation hu happened twice in this young decade In both regions of the country with far from the same intentions the ATF harassed two different men The only common thread wu their religious beliefs and their possession of weapons These are far from convincing reasons to attack and hold hostage men womyn and young children Apparently the government is not concerned with convincing evidence remember they manufacture their own Who will be next? It may be you but probably not I mean what do you do that is a threat to the government STOPI We should not live in fear of our government but ironically we do The great philosopher Voltaire stated that “ It is better to free the guilty than to punish the innocent" It may not yet be true for you But think about it what do you have to hide? off-cent- er The year is 1 994 and Karl Marx is far from dead Ryan Hoglund Viewpoint writer of capitalism st the time when the Industrial Revolution wu flourishing in Europe and America and Upton Sinclair's book describing the horrendous work conditions in American factories The Jungle wu published In his book Das Kapilal Marx saw in capitalism the seeds of man's destruction Marx focused on the economical structure of capitalism because he felt it fed the alienation and dehumanization of humans from themselves and others in society and because he thought the way a person earns his living defines who that person is "As individuals express their life so they are Political and economic philosopher Karl Marx critiqued the flaws What they are therefore coincides with their production both with what they produce and how they produce The nature of individuals thus depends on the material conditions of this production" Capitalism's central focus Marx wrote wu the product and not the producer This misdirected focus caused three forms of alienation in humans: alienation from self alienation from the work proceu and alienation from others Alienation from self occurs in the wage system because the worker creates in their work an objectification of themselves and when this product is exchanged for wages a person loses a bit of themselves because they do not receive the full value of what they have created in return This increase in material wealth causes the individual to become poor and distant in respect to their inner self and identity The alienation of the worker in his product means not only that his labor bpfomei an object usumes an external existence but that it exists independently outside himself an autonomous power The life which he hu given to the object that it opposed to him lets itself against him an alien and hostile force" The second alienation from the work proceu occurs when the worker no longer feels at one with or pride for their work Capitalism uses the producer a means to the end product and it is this them to despise their work and Mthe worker therefore separation from one's work that causes at home only during his leisure time whereu at work he feels homeless" K vl Marx feels him to the level of an wrote They mutilate the laborer into a fragment of a man degrade and turn it into hated toil work his in charm of remnant appendage of a machine destroy every u u u they estrange from him the intellectual potentialities of the labor proceu" The final and most serious form of separation is the alienation from others and it is this pitfall of capitalism in which humankind will see its demise It is in this breaking of the unity of life that individual is pitted against individual and we find the class struggle Marx called this exploitation of dehumanization Even though Marx's critique of capitalism wu published nearly a 100 years ago his observations have become frightfully fact American capitalism hu truly succumbed to a strong mentality in which the elite continue a vicious cycle of treating the working clus an object whose potential is merely a bolt in the machine capital ticking precisely from 9 to 5 To you who think I'm embracing a strong portion of the communist philosophy of Marx I am His writings were truly genius and revolutionary for his time and his theories of human relations were very insightful It is important to remember that Stalin's application of Marxist philosophy wu distorted and side but not an excuse to completely dismiss the idea of community good and equality introduced by Marx Marx himself believed that the end of communism wu true democracy a society of one person one vote Capitalism is still a wonderful form of government but people do not completely posses the ethic to evolve peacefully and keep the competition involved in a laizze fain market in check structure guarantees that there will always be a lower class Capitalism and its while communism in theory gives to the community for equal community distribution All forms of government are feuible in theory but application is a different story As we enter a future of complex social and environmental problems we need to evaluate all political options along the governmental dialectic and strive for those ideals Marx in the Communist Manifesto wrote "Communist society will abolish the class division of society ie simultaneously with the abolition of anarchy in production it will abolish all forms of exploitation and n oppression of consist no win of Society longer antagonistic cluses in conflict with each other but will of labour For the first time in its history mankind will take its present a united common-wealt- h fate into its own hands Instead of destroying innumerable human lives and incalculable wealth in struggles between classes and nations mankind will devote all its energy to the struggle against the forces of nature to the developing and strengthening of its own collective mighL" man-by-m- an dog-eat-d- u Socul-Darwmis- m man-by-ma- |