Jack wrote this in August, 2005:
Black helicopters, et al.
Chewie made an amusing reference to black helicopters on one of the threads recently, though I doubt he intended to be amusing. It got me thinking about them and a lot of other matters I usually don’t give much thought to.
I don’t know much about black helicopters. I recall there was a considerable flap about them on the Art Bell show during the late ‘90s, I think it probably was. But I was never clear about why anyone cared what color a helicopter was painted.
Along about that same while there was a lot of talk about aliens of various sorts, some other things about chupa-somethingorothers, critters that kill goats, I gather. And people who believed they’d been abducted by aliens. All in all, the usual fare to keep truckers and graveyard shifters alert.
I don’t do much thinking about black helicopters and aliens. I don’t know how a person could know enough about it to form an opinion without personal experience. I saw some things at various times in my life that might have been UFOs, but they also mightn’t. Whether there are aliens or black helicopters, I don’t see where there’s anything I can do about it, anything almost anyone can do about it, provided something needs to be done. Not much point in devoting the energy to forming an opinion.
However, Chewie’s reference to black helicopters was more of a blanket condemnation of matters going a lot further. It was a rhetorical trick to sweep the US government murder of a lot of people at Waco and the Ruby Ridge debacle into the same category as aliens and black helicopters.
I’d imagine Chewie is probably a generally honest man. He probably is just ignorant. The facts of Ruby Ridge and Waco are too readily available for it to be anything other than a lack of interest on the part of Chewie to learn anything about a matter that might disturb his carefully structured notions about how things are. I’m fuzzy on the details since it’s been several years since I’ve read anything on either event, but as I recall, the US government acknowledged what happened at Ruby Ridge, including killing Weaver’s wife and son, and the State of Texas has generally disavowed what the government did at Waco, including Feds being involved at all.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not upset, not angry about the Federal law enforcement people entrapping Danny Weaver into cutting a shotgun barrel an inch shorter than was legal, then setting up an ambush raid on his home, killing his wife and son. I never knew Weaver. It’s a tough gig, but things happen. Not my affair.
As for Waco, I’m not upset, not angry about that, either. The US government murdered all those people fair and square. I didn’t know any of them, probably wouldn’t have liked them if I did. Too bad, but such things happen. I couldn’t do anything about it if I wished. It’s none of my affair.
To my way of thinking, the important thing about Ruby Ridge, Waco, and a fairly large number of other things I have personal knowledge of, is the recognition that this sort of thing can happen. The acknowledgement that this isn’t the Pollyanna nation we might wish it was.
And in so acknowledging that fact, conducting our affairs in ways calculated not to bring that dark side of reality to bear on our own lives. To me, that’s the only good that can come of it all. Chewie’s in no danger of having anyone kick his door down…. If anything, he’d be back cheering the kickers. But there’s a poster here from Whyoming or some such place who seems to me to need to do some thinking along these lines.
Jack
So Far From Heaven 