OK, it didn't happen in the Balkans? It happened in Oklahoma City. Here is another way the revolution can start.
While every public and private person will say it was the work of a small group of very strange people in the next breath some of those "responsible" people in government have started saying there will be raids on all suspect organizations. One interview with recent senior executives holds the government can not do such things. The morning of that same the Leon Panetta says it is going to happen.
I have no idea what the error rate on such raids might be overall. In this imperfect world there is a guaranteed error rate both by those conducting the raid and those being raided. These raids will be on armed people by armed people. People on both sides are going to die.
After that there will be more justification than Waco to bring the less extreme people into taking damn fool actions like Oklahoma. What these "stay calm" types are missing is that when they characterize these people as being different rather than being extreme. If they are all certifiably insane then they in fact different.
Everyone knows they have a breaking point on everything that irritates them, be it the neighbor's dog, a nagging spouse, or the proverbial boss. It is certainly correct to hold people this extreme with so little provocation should do such a thing. It is foolish to believe that with double the provocation there are not more than double the number people that would reach their threshold.
Why anyone would have this kind of threshold over Waco is another question. Most people interested in Waco are trying to force something like an independent prosecutor to look into the actions of the BATF and the FBI. That there are some that would choose this course of action is no more rational than people who spike trees to injure loggers. The only difference being an injured child plays better on the evening news than an injured logger, after all, the logger is damaging the environment.
That there are these kind of people can no longer be denied. Absent evidence of insanity they are simply the farthest out of the spectrum of provocation -- whether we see it as provocation or not, whether or not there is a better word for it than provocation. There is a next level inward from that extreme and the number of potential "revenge takers" increases faster than the number of things for which there is reason to take revenge.
If the saner heads are right then the Leon Panettas are wrong then we have nothing to worry about. It the Panettas are right then this is another way the revolution can start.
The people who can be provoked by such actions are completely convinced they are right just as much as those on the side of the government. On an interview aired on Sunday 4/23 Clinton when told that the militias were angry about Waco exhibited what might be the first true emotion he has shown in his entire public career. He actually appeared angry. But in his anger he recited "facts" about Waco that members of militias adamently and with equal emotion hold are lies.
It is not evil people we have to fear. What we have to fear is people who are acting with outstanding zeal for what they believe to be right. We have revolutions when two groups devoted to what they know to be right come into conflict.
Defusing this can not be accomplished by the government saying the opposition must stop saying things about the government. This is not a time for the government to close ranks. It can afford at the least to throw the parts of the BATF and the FBI involved in Waco to the wolves if necessary. All it has to do is appoint an independent prosecutor.
With that simple action the entire subject is defused. Granted it will continue as long as it takes for a special prosecutor to collect information and what he reports will be given more scrutiny than the investigation of Nixon and just short of Warren Commission report but it will work.
The future is a chaotic as the past. What will happen does not have to make sense in order to happen. Even if these people are tried and executed in record time, they can become tomorrow's heroes and by the same people who condemn them today. That is the way history works. That is the way people are.
Consider the Bill Clinton appeared to show real and true emotion. That and only that could turn around his fortunes overnight. Letting anger show as a means of popular acclaim has to be real and that would provoke the armed confrontations and we are in the same "revolting" boat.
On the other hand this concentration on Waco could result in all the TV tabloids running prime time investigations of everything the government did wrong and putting it in the worst possible light. That would lower the threshold of revenge for those with that bent and we are again in that boat.
We have been dealt a wildcard by this bombing. If the wiser heads will at least say "business as usual" it will change nothing. Of course no change by anyone is the least likely event. Even the Militia of Michigan has most likely started a near witch hunt to find anyone in their organization that even smells of being a bomber. That will create less than savory splinter groups and we are back on that boat.
We are finally living in interesting times. I hope we all can live to enjoy them.