Netflixs Waco Documentary Is Government Propaganda

➡ The text discusses a Netflix series called “Waco American Apocalypse” which explores the controversial Waco incident involving the Branch Davidians and the ATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives). The series includes interviews with ex-ATF agents, FBI negotiators, and Branch Davidian survivors, providing a detailed account of the events. It presents the official narrative of the incident, including claims of the Branch Davidians converting semi-automatic weapons into fully automatic ones and possessing grenades. The series also humanizes the ATF and FBI agents involved, offering a different perspective from previous documentaries on the subject.
➡ The text discusses a tense situation involving the ATF, FBI, and a group known as the Branch Davidians. Initially, the authorities expected a quick resolution, but things went wrong, leading to hostility towards the media. The text also highlights internal conflicts between the ATF and FBI, who were not working together effectively. The situation escalated when the leader of the Branch Davidians, David Koresh, refused to surrender, leading to a prolonged standoff and the eventual use of force by the authorities.
➡ The text discusses a conflict between two groups, with one group led by a man who sees himself as a hero, disregarding negotiations and taking matters into his own hands. This leads to a power struggle and a tug of war situation, with the leader of the opposing group, Koresh, realizing that the situation is out of control. The text also delves into Koresh’s backstory, revealing his troubled past and how he came to lead his group. The situation is compared to a poorly managed shift change at a fast food restaurant, highlighting the lack of communication and coordination between the groups.
➡ The text discusses a documentary about the Branch Davidians, a religious group in Texas, led by David Koresh. The film paints Koresh as a violent, manipulative leader who married underage girls and ruled with an iron fist. It also suggests that the FBI and ATF mishandled the situation, possibly destroying evidence and using intimidation tactics. The text questions the documentary’s portrayal of events, suggesting it may be biased or incomplete.
➡ A negotiation situation turned violent when tanks were used to inject tear gas into a building, despite the authorities announcing it wasn’t an assault. The situation escalated when the building caught fire, leading to a debate about whether the inhabitants or the authorities started the fire. One survivor denied any plans to self-immolate, contradicting the authorities’ claims. The incident ended with the building burning down, and Bible pages, including one opened to the Fourth Amendment, floating in the air.
➡ This text discusses a Netflix documentary about the Waco incident, where the viewers’ opinions are divided. The documentary includes upgraded footage and exclusive interviews with the FBI, ATF, and Branch Davidians, providing different perspectives. However, the documentary is criticized for its lack of concrete evidence, reliance on personal accounts, and its portrayal of the events. Despite its engaging content, the reviewers feel that the documentary fails to acknowledge the government’s mistakes and leans towards a biased narrative.
➡ This text seems to be a commentary on a Netflix series about Waco, suggesting it might be biased. It also promotes various websites and products, including comic books and merchandise from Paranoid American. The writer also shares some personal thoughts and feelings, using metaphoric language to express their views on life, creativity, and societal issues.

Someone’s like punching you in the face. Like, I’m not punching you right now. This is not assault. Under the docks. Yeah, under the docks. Under the docks. Under the docks. Yeah. Under the docks. Welcome back to under the Docks. Paranoid American and Sean. Chris. Hey. Today we’re going to get to the bottom of Waco. Finally, some truth. We had to sit through a whole bunch of crazy conspiracy theories implying that the government overstepped its boundaries and didn’t act within the bounds of the law. That’s crazy. And finally, some justice, some actual truth. Today is the official story of Waco as told by Netflix.

This is a series called Waco American Apocalypse. It was a miniseries, three episodes long, 2023 by director Tiller Russell. And this one’s unique in that it’s got lots, and I mean lots of interviews with ex ATF agents, FBI, the negotiators, just all across the board, including some Branch Davidian survivors. So it has lots of unaired footage, lots of unaired interviews that we haven’t seen anywhere else. And like I said, this is the superior one because it’s the official story, which is the true story, the only story. Right. There is no other tale that they’re telling. This is the way it goes.

And Netflix knows how to tell a story. Thank you, Obama. Plot in the course. Well, since this one is three different episodes, let me just break down it episode by episode and then we’ll talk about all the different claims made. So in part one, we get a bunch of these original interviews and here’s what the official story claims are against the Branch Davidians. First, that they were converting semi automatic weapons into fully automatic weapons. That was where ATF gets involved. Next, that there was a report that when they were being delivered a package, a package fell and broke open and grenades fell out.

So that was another reason that the ATF said that they needed to get involved. And then when they were asking them, well, how, how much artillery do you think these Branch Davidians have? One of these ATF in the interviews mentioned that they thought they had about 40 to 50 machine guns and about 80 hand grenades. So this is the reason that the ATF originally gets involved, or so they say to this point. We have some reports of a. A girl that was nine years old that came running into the room and, and saw David Koresh’s wife run up to a window and point a gun out a window and then just fly back out of the window.

So she’s saying, like, here I am, a nine year old girl and I’m Seeing Koresh’s wife run to get into this gun shootout and then get blasted back and that she hasn’t been able to erase that in her mind. This is the kind of direct interview eyewitness account that we haven’t really seen in any of these videos up to this point. So it, it definitely paints a completely different picture than the first couple. And it gives you this point of view that you think starting out that you’re going to get a very unbiased story because you do have not only, like you said, ATF agents, the actual interrogators, one of the snipers.

Right, right. You. But you also have like, what you think the other side is, where you have some of the Branch Davidians, you know, trying to tell their side of the story and that’s. It gets shaky because they kind of back up some of the real story and they, they, they add a little bit of like, maybe they are on, like going to tell you the truth and then they reel you back in. Yeah. And let me just drop some of the sarcasm. I don’t, don’t think this is the, the most accurate version, but this is the only one that we’ve seen so far that sort of takes the ATF and the FBI’s stance in this and they kind of reinforce it.

So here, for example, the, the first couple Waco documentaries we watched, which were a big lie, the first one hyper fixated on these guys on top of the roof that are breaking into this window and talking about like, let’s break it down and here’s all the different bullet points. Well, they actually have one of the guys that is on the roof. We talked to about six different people in this documentary series. We’ve got Bob Ricks, who’s the FBI special agent in charge. We talked to Jim Kavanaugh, who was the original FBI negotiator that was talking directly to David Koresh.

We got a guy named Chris Whitcomb, who’s the FBI sniper. We’ve got Gary Nosner, who was the second FBI negotiator that took over whenever Jim Kavanaugh needed to take a pee break. Lee Hancock, who was. She was a reporter for the Dallas Morning News. And then one of the Branch Davidians, David Thibodeau. So. And there’s lots more in this, but the reason I mentioned some of these guys names is that one of them actually mentions. He’s like, I’m that guy. Like in that footage in the window, the one that like throws the grenade in the window and like blast inside.

He’s like, that’s me. That’s me with the red stripe on my helmet. And this one has much better digitized footage of that exact same thing that we saw over and over again. So when this scene came up, I was like, I. I’ve. I’ve seen this before. I know what this happens here. So he tries to describe what happens outside that window on that roof. And he says that there was a guy in the room when he peeks inside, that there’s a Branch Davidian with an AK47, and that he ran away down some hallway. So he jumps into the window, FBI jumps into the window and chases this guy down the hallway with his 9 millimeter sidearm just blasting at him.

And he said that when that was happening, they were shooting from the inside of the building to the outside. He’s like, they’re shooting through the walls at us. So again, this is that official narrative. And here he is describing exactly what he thinks was happening. And this part one, part two, and part three, the one thing that they do is they humanize the ATF and the FBI agents in a way that we didn’t see in any of the previous ones. And I did have to take a step back. It’s like, okay, these are also human beings.

Even if they’re working for Babylon, right? Even if they’re working for the inside the belly of the snake and they’re perpetrating all these horrible injustices on American people, I guess they’re still human. Maybe deep down. A few of them are probably reptilian shapeshifters, but we do get, like, a humanistic look for them, which was lacking from the first few that we. We watched so far. I would even go on to say more empathetic, right? They want us to have some compassion for them. Like, oh, poor guys. Especially how it drags on, right? As you get into the deeper episodes, it’s like, dude, I’m just a guy trying to live my life.

Like, that’s how you get. Like, some of them come across at times where they’re just like, hey, man, you know, we were fighting for our lives. Like, one of the funny scenes, to me, I think it’s in episode two, though. They’re talking about, like, the tanks, right, Coming in. And he. Like, we had to bring some Bradley’s in. But you don’t understand. These guys had 50 cal, like, you know what I’m saying? Like, he was talking about, like, they could take out these tanks easy. Like, bro, they’re not. They don’t have a military like, the way that he was like, we’re.

We’re actually kind of putting ourselves in danger by bringing these tanks in. You’re like, okay, man. Like, I get it. Like, you are human. You. I would get it if you were like, yeah, we made mistakes. They were just, like, trying to justify a lot of what they did. Well, and also, when they bring that up, they never use the word tank. He says, Bradley fighting vehicle. And when he says that, I’m like, my dude. Like, I know. I know a tank when I see one. You can call it whatever you. As an audio podcast or if you’re listening this interview, you’d be like, oh, they didn’t even send tanks, and they sent in Bradley fighting vehicles.

I mean, there’s lot of word smithery going around in these ones. And. And another one that was in part one that was kind of telling is that when the ATF originally is going to do this first raid, right. We heard in the previous documentaries that the PR person for ATF was like, calling up reporters and was saying stuff. I’m going to paraphrase same stuff, like, hey, you might want to show up a little early tomorrow with lots of cameras. Something big’s going to go down, right? Like, kind of like leading this. So they make a point in part one that the ATF is more than happy to accommodate all these different camera crews to come in and film stuff because they thought this was a slam dunk.

They were like, we’re going to be MVPs. We’re going to look so badass. It’s going to be in and out 20 minutes, and we’re gonna have this whole thing wrapped up. So when the cameras and the news crews show up in the morning, it’s all like, come on in, guys. Yeah, here, let’s set up your lighting. Let’s get you some good shots. After everything goes sideways and ATF guys are getting taken out and they’re having to retreat now, all of a sudden, they are incredibly antagonistic towards these camera guys. It’s like, give me your camera. They’re getting in their way.

They’re harassing them. So you can see on, like, in real time, this shift of, hey, we like the media go ahead and film to, like, what are you doing with that camera? Do you have, you know, authorization to be here so you can see the frustration and everyone involved there, including the camera guys. Yeah, they thought that this was going to be so easy and, like, they were going to be holding them and then getting the snapshots and bonuses and moving on up. You know what I mean? Like, all right, man, we’re about to get cash in.

And then. Then the army of Branch Davidians, you know, the Marine division, just, like, took him out, bro. Like. And this one, too, in part one, they kind of described the interaction between ATF and FBI. And you obviously get the sense we’re getting a very simplified version of events here. But he says that after the initial ATF raid goes sideways and they lose, I think, four different ATF agents in that initial raid because a federal agent lost their life. Now it becomes FBI jurisdiction, and that’s why FBI comes in. This is kind of like the official reasoning.

And then there was an explanation of, okay, well, ATF and FBI weren’t exactly synergistic here. They weren’t like, working in tandem together as a cohesive unit. They were sort of red team, blue team working against each other, even though they’re both going for this common cause. And one of the guys makes this interesting observation. He’s like, look, the f. The ATF and the FBI are like brothers. Like, they’re going to fight with each other, but when it comes down to it, they got each other’s back. And, like, I can think of some pretty toxic families that have got, like, you know, like, siblings that are just throwing punches and doing the worst things to each other.

But if one person’s like, hey, check yourself, now all of a sudden, both brothers are on you. That is kind of a great analogy for ATF and FBI. Like, they’re screwing up. They’re breaking the law on their own. But if you call them out now, both of them are coming after you. And I found it interesting. I think one layer of truth we did get in this film, not the only one, but there was some, you know, kernels of truth and stuff, is when you hear them talking about, like, you know, the tactical teams, you know what I mean? They’re like, hey, the.

The tactical teams that the. That are rescuing the hostages, they’re, like, pretty aggressive, man. You know what I mean? Like, we wanted to just take our time and, you know, work it out. We were trying to get them out of there, but they’re. They’re. They’re more. Tactical teams are. They’re aggressive, and they want to get in there. So, you know, you just kind of deal with that. Like, they wanted to push the blame without pushing the blame. I saw a lot in this where they’re like, you know, I wouldn’t have done it that way, but, you know, that’s just how they are kind of thing.

The, the cliffhanger that we end on for issue one or episode one is they’re basically saying that they came to an arrangement that David Koresh said, look, we got a deal as long as you broadcast this hour long sermon. And, and he wanted it to be put out on like religious TV networks and religious radio networks. And they did it. They actually gave him an hour to broadcast this message. And then it was like, all right, thank God this was resolved peacefully. When are you going to come out? And then David’s like, hold on one second.

I’m getting something in from God right now. What’s that? God? Oh, oh, God says he doesn’t want me to come out. My bad. He’s like, sorry, God’s running the show, not you. So even though we had a deal, God says that he doesn’t want me to come out just yet. And the second that happened, the guys that were running at least the, the hostage response team in the FBI are like, screw this, we’re going in. Like, we’re not, we’re not waiting for this guy to wait for God to tell him that it’s okay now. So this, they at least present that, like, here’s the defining moment when everything could have been resolved peacefully aside from some ATF agents and Crush’s wife dying and yada yada and getting shot.

But. But that it could have resolved then instead of 51 days later after this, like, long extended sort of standoff. Yeah. Because they even talked about they were hoping that he would get out. Remember that, like after he had gotten shot, that they were like, well, we’re trying to put it in his head that, hey, man’s going to get infected. You’re. You might die. Like, you might want to get that treated. And they were either hoping he died or that he was so scared that he would give himself up. So. So this is what we start talking about in part two again, three part series.

So in part two, they talk about the Bradley fighting vehicle. And they said the reason that they needed the Bradley fighting vehicle, it’s a freaking tank. The reason they needed tanks was because they wanted to take over a garage that was on the opposite end of the property. And they were going to basically set up like a command unit there. And in order to get there, they had to go in front of the actual compound, the Mount Carmel compound. And since there, this had been the focus of this big shootout previously, they said that while putting people in the Bradley was the only safe way to get them into the side of the compound.

So here, that’s the, the original justification of why were there even tanks on the property? It was just to transport safely a group of FBI guys to take over a building on the property. They weren’t supposed to use it as tanks. They were just using it as a protective shell to get from point A to point B. That, that’s the official story. Gary Nosner, who was the second FBI interrogator as this is all happening, the guys inside the compound, they’re like, Gary, the, the guys are creeping up on us. They’re, they’re making moves. And NAR has absolutely, he claims he has absolutely no idea what’s going on.

He doesn’t know if it’s the ATF moving in, he doesn’t know if it’s the FBI moving in. And, and now we kind of see that in addition to FBI and ATF being on the scene and not coordinating with each other, even within the FBI, you’ve got the negotiation team and then you’ve got this hostage response team and they’re not coordinating with each other and they’re almost working on opposite teams. So now we’ve almost got like a three way love triangle of death right between ATF FBI negotiators and FBI hostage response teams. None of these are communicating with each other and in fact are often doing the exact opposite as what the other teams are doing is sort of like a manufactured chaos.

And I just thought that was, it was revealing that just here even the FBI negotiators, like I had no idea what was going on. Another interesting thing that came out of issue two was that they’re implying that some of the Branch Davidians had a suicide pact. And one in particular, they talked to Kathy Schroeder and, and said that she was given a grenade and instructed to kind of stand in this room and if anything went sideways that she was just going to pull this pin and take out everyone in the room. This one isn’t as substantiated, but it’s a very bold and very specific claim building towards this idea that the Branch Davidians were a doomsday cult and that they had this apocalyptic end planned out.

That’s sort of the, the official narrative that they start to trickle in is that hey, even if we did everything right, this wasn’t going to go well because the Branch Davidians were hell bent on dying and becoming martyrs. That becomes this narrative. There’s also this, this dynamic between the three different groups I mentioned the negotiators, the hostage response team and the atf. We talked to Chris Whitcomb. Who’s the sniper, he’s part of this hostage response team. And there’s this one. He says a lot of. Lot of charged things throughout the course of the series, but the way that he simply.

He, like, breaks it down, and he’s like, look, we’re here to kill the bad guys and save the good guys. That’s it. And the way that he was able to just, like, there’s no nuance here. There’s no maybe there’s some people doing right on this side and wrong on this side is just like, I’m a good guy. I’m the superhero. Kill bad guy, save good guy. The end. Which seems a little bit scary, but again, he’s. This guy’s not necessarily in charge of anything, but he’s making the calls. He’s the one that’s creeping up behind the compound that’s freaking all the Branch Davidians out to where they’re calling negotiator.

And they’re like, hey, they’re moving in on us. He’s the guy moving in. And he’s like, I don’t care what these freaking negotiators say. They’re desk jockeys. They’re sitting behind a safe desk, and they’re talking about wants and needs, and I’m out here putting my life on the line. So you can see the absolute dichotomy between these two different approaches. And then that’s where they emphasize it a lot, you know, because the. The. There’s some irritation coming from the negotiator side of it, where he’s kind of like, dude, he feels that he’s talking him down, and they’re kind of pushing his buttons.

That doesn’t quite out and go and jump and say that. But you could tell he’s kind of like, yeah, I got him where I want him. And then they would do something that would bring him back, like, you know, push him. I get five steps forward, they push him three steps back. And it kept in this tug of war back and forth. And to go back to the picture they were painting about them being basically a death cult, when she’s talking about the grenade, she was like, I was just ready to pull that pin, and we were all going to get exploded and died.

I’m like, dang, this lady’s kind of great. The another thing, too, is that they’re showing how, as the FBI negotiators are maybe getting some goodwill, they got the. The sermon out on the air, like, they’re making some progress in their minds. But Koresh Is sitting back and like, okay, like, I think I’m making move with you guys, but now there’s these guys creeping up on me, and you’re saying you don’t even know what’s going on with them. So at a certain point, Koresh is like, you guys aren’t in charge of this. It’s. It’s the hostage response team.

So let me talk to them. Like, I don’t even need to talk to you guys anymore. This is kind of a waste of my time. And the FBI negotiators, they start to spin this. It sounds sloppy. None of this sounds like it was surgically executed with strategy. But the FBI negotiators, they feed into it, and they start playing good cop, bad cop. Well, it’s like, well, we’re the good guys. Like, we’re. We’re trying to resolve this peacefully, and we’re going to get you what you need. And those are the bad cops. You don’t want to deal with the bad cops.

So if you can just resolve this with us, then it won’t resort to them. And this doesn’t necessarily help anything, but it’s interesting how the. This doesn’t seem planned. It was almost like the negotiators really did see themselves as, like, a force of good, and. And that the hostage response team was this, like, chaotic evil or like a. Like a necessary bad. And they start playing into this. And I think that’s essentially when everything falls apart. Because Koresh, even if you think he’s absolutely crazy, he doesn’t come across as a complete idiot or a bumpkin. He’s smart enough to be like, I can see what’s going on here.

No one has any control. He probably realized this was not going to end well. Yeah, I think at that point, for sure. I think even the hostage negotiators started to know, like, this is not towards the end where they’re explaining of, like, man, the sniper’s moving. This guy’s. How come you’re doing this? And then they. Even when they switch over and everything, they kind of just go, yeah, we gave. You know what I mean? Oh, we had it. And then. Not our fault. We did our. Everything right on our end. But when they transferred the power over, you know how that goes? Nothing we could do.

Like, everybody was kind of washing their hands. But I was sad to hear that none of them were actually, like, claiming or owning up to the sloppiness. Like, I could have actually believed that more like the narrative. It would have been more believable if they’re like, yeah, you know, we were just sloppy and, like, disconnected. Bad communication. No one on the same page. I might have bought that narrative more than anything else. Right. You’re like, oh, I’ve been at work. I know how that goes. Yeah. And, like, the manager comes in and overrides everything the previous shift manager just said.

And you’re just like, who’s running this company? That was the vibe. It was a shift. Shift change at the Burger king at, like, 2am is how they were running this. This operation. For the rest of issue two, we start to get a little bit of a backstory on Koresh, which we got, I think, a much better version in one in the Rules of Engagement. But this one does bring up a couple points that, since this is the official narrative, they bring up points that are. That sort of feed into, like, the ATF and the FBI’s portrayal of how all this went down, for example.

Well, one of the things you mentioned is that the FBI negotiators, they were, like, waiting and hoping that Crush would just die. And. And I think this is accurate. They’re like, hey, if Koresh dies, there’s no one else inside this compound in the Branch Davidians that, like, take over his place. And, like, all right, well, now I’m running the show. Like, as soon as he dies, the entire event is over, and they can just move in and I get, quote, unquote, save everybody, whatever that would have ended up meaning. So then they start doing a deep dive on David Koresh himself.

So they start Talking about how 1979, David Koresh was kind of a normal person, and he had a complete nervous breakdown that included visual and audio hallucinations. He starts thinking that he’s talking to God, and then this folds into. I guess he had been really obsessed with reading the Bible, specifically Book of Revelations, and even more specifically, the whole Seven Seals thing. Like, he had been fixated on that even as a kid. So after he has this mental breakdown in 79 that he kind of locks into this, like, biblical view of the world. It talks about how he.

He was born to a teenage mom, and his dad was kind of like a career criminal. He was just some petty thief that he was subjected to abuse when he was an altar boy, that he dropped out of middle school and ran away as a middle schooler to join the Branch Davidians. So, like, he. Early on, he was going to be a Branch Davidian and that he was a carpenter and that they. They clearly. I don’t know if it’s not the documentary that says this, but people that are interviewing about him and they’re like, yeah, he wasn’t very bright or attractive.

He was just kind of like this, this weird guy that showed up one day. So he ends up getting close to Lois Roden. And Roden was the wife of the guy that originally was running the entire Branch Davidian compound. Not, not back to the 30s, I don’t think. But like over time she ends up outliving her husband who ran it, and then she kind of becomes like a de facto leader. Well, Koresh gets really close to her. I mean, they use the word seduce that he seduces Lewis Roden. He’s in his 20s right now, and Lewis Roden is 67.

So this 20 year old seduces the 67 year old leader of the Branch Davidians and when she dies, she passes all the power on to David instead of her own son. And then this becomes this like inner heat in between Lewis Roden’s son and David Koresh. They have a freaking gunfight. They have a full blown shootout and, and David Kesh gets arrested for attempted murder for shooting at Lewis Roden’s son. But the jury was hung on whether or not this was a self defense case. And instead of bringing the case back, they just let it lapse.

So technically he was arrested for attempted murder, did get into his shootout, went all the way to trial, and the court was just like, h, it’s not worth bringing this back again. We might just get another hung jury because these Texas jurors are all about their guns and standing your ground. So we don’t know how, how much to push this. So this, this kind of begins the entire trajectory of David Kesh running this whole compound. And then they, as the episode winds down, they show that a year prior in 1992, that a current Affair news program from Australia, they went and visited Waco because there were so many Australians that were leaving to come and live with the Branch Davidians.

And so they were like, why? Why are these Australians going all the way to Texas to live with these guys? So they have interviews with Kash, they’re walk around the compound. It’s surreal seeing such an inside look, knowing that everyone that they’re interviewing essentially is going to die in a fire within a year from that footage. And you’re right, this is where they kind of started painting the mainstream narrative even more of who David Koresh was. Right. Like, not that there was a truth. I think that’s one thing that’s really done craft. This is a really crafty film.

Where they’re able to give you truth, but they wrap it into their narrative and it’s kind of like it gets murky because they’re telling the history of it, but they want to point out, like, hey, he started as a violent leader, right? He took this over as a. Like, it’s like a dictator. Like, he took over the country, man. Like, he. Now they’re all following. He’s a ruthless guy. I thought that was important for them to tell in this piece where, like, he was in a gunfight, man, he almost killed. And then when you hear them talk about, they’re like, it’s Texas.

Like, you know what I’m saying? And another part of that it’s Texas is that towards the end of episode two, they start going in on, like, the young girls that Koresh was marrying and they really hone in on this. So, for example, they talk about how in the late 90s, Koresh marries a 14 year old and then again, someone comes in like, well, technically that’s legal in Texas. 14 was the age of consent with parental sort of approval. So if the entire family brings their kids to this compound, then, yeah, they probably have this approval. So on paper, yeah, he did marry this 14 year old.

And then they go on and say, okay, on some of his other wives or wives to be were 10 years old, 11 years old, 13 years old. And that whenever they misbehaved, that David Koresh had a big paddle and he would just spank them like every day, all day. So we don’t have any direct accusations in this series. We’re like, and here’s what he did with that 10 year old. They’re just like, and here’s a room of girls that are gonna be David’s wives. And it is super creepy. And they’re all talking like, yeah, David’s gonna be my husband one day.

You know, it’s like, it’s absolutely creepy. However, I went back to the previous documentaries we watched, and one of them made this claim about, hey, they’re gonna bring up all of these, like, child bride things, but they’re not going to make direct accusations because it’s here just to sully the character of David Koresh. So now when people are like, well, maybe he deserved to die in a fire with all these people. And. And you can kind of see that happening here because they don’t make the direct accusations that anything specific happened, just that he had these, like, child brides lined up to marry him in the future.

And the, the final cliffhanger of this one Is they go back to Chris Whitcomb, the FBI sniper, and he’s like, I had David Koresh in my sights at under 300 yards. There was no wind. My finger was on the trigger. If I sneezed, I would have taken him out clean and this whole thing would have been over. And then it’s like, to be continued. So you get the idea that, like, again, this guy’s like, I’m a good guy. I’m here to kill the bad guys and save the rest of the good guys. And he lives that part to a T.

I want to, like, lift up what you were saying before that about the kids part, because I saw this film a year ago or two years ago before we did this series, and I had a different take because now that we watched the films before this, it gives you more because it does get you that emotional. Like, oh, man, what is he doing to kids, man? It’s. It does muddy the waters. I’m a critical thinker. But when you start getting the kids involved, it does muddy it for me as well. Right? Like, I was like, man, kind of weird.

And then they even have that part where one of the members is talking about, like, her going to sleep with David Koresh, and she was like, yeah, it’s like sleeping with God. Like, it’s not like you’re really, like, having sex with them. You know, you’re. It’s God. And you’re like, whoa, bro. Like, this lady’s kind of crazy. Like, you know what I mean? But were painting that picture of that there was all these devout. Completely different from what we saw in the other films where maybe, like, you’re like, yeah, there they believe in stuff we don’t believe in, but it’s maybe not as creepy and as weird as they’re trying to make it be.

So it’s. I think there’s more of this middle area. But in this film, they really want to show that not only is he, like, a crazy, fearless leader that’s just like, rules with the iron fist, he’s also like a pedo. Like, you know what I mean? They don’t say it, but they’re basically saying because they have that other girl that’s like. Like you said, all the Niners. She’s like, yeah, they’re nine year olds and they’re all just wishing to go be with David. And like, she was like, I was the one that he beat the most.

And this is the part that bugged me about that. She was just like, that he was attacking her. And I’m like, well, then why did he give you up first? Like, why would he let you leave if he. You were his favorite and he wanted, like, and he was doing all this weird stuff, why would he let you be one of the kids to leave? Yeah, well, maybe that was punishment. That was her punishment, was like, you suck. Get out of here. Yeah, maybe the third part, and this is the final part in the Netflix series now we start getting into where everything goes wrong.

And it. And it starts out showing how they take this tank, which, or, sorry, Bradley fighting vehicle, Definitely not a tank. Take these Bradley fighting vehicles. And now they’re just straight running over people’s cars and just like causing mass damage. And David Kesh and everyone else is sitting there like, did they just run over my truck? Like, what are they doing out there? So here is the catalyst. Here’s where they are clearly antagonizing everyone inside this building and kind of overstepping bounds a little bit. It’s. You can almost see the frustration in everybody as they’re just running over all the cars outside the front.

Then they’re saying one of the. The Branch Davidians is like, how can they do that? That’s all evidence. Like, these. The cars that they’re running over were riddled with bullet holes from the FBI and the atf. So these cars that are getting crushed, not only was that evidence of how. How much firepower the FBI was like shooting into this compound, but now as they crush them, that evidence is gone. Just like the front door ends up disappearing. And that was such. I don’t know if they intended to include that little snippet and lead, leave a little room open for you to kind of speculate on this, but that happens in.

In this episode. And that was the first thing I thought of too, was like, damn, they are kind of destroying evidence by running over all these different cars. And then this is also when Koresh realizes as they’re rolling everything over, these negotiators had absolutely no power and that he was right the entire time that Koresh knew that they had no power and this was going to go sideways. So as. As soon as the. This, like, frustration starts to rule the tactics of the FBI, I think that was like the key indicator that none of this is going to turn out very well.

And to get rid of, like, also torturing them, right? Like, not only getting rid of evidence, but like torturing them with loud speakers and. And different music’s playing. Like, this was gonna end bad. Like you said from the get go. And I think they were Covering their tracks. That’s my opinion, a little bit different from, like, the film. But I was surprised as well that they left it open. But I think that they didn’t feel like viewers. I think they just had it to. There’s so much other stuff that the regular viewer would probably miss it.

And. And as a regular viewer, they don’t necessarily spell it out to you like, hey, we didn’t know what the hell we were doing. This got sloppy in a way. They don’t say that, but there was one part that kind of shows this, and it’s. And it’s when we’re talking to the negotiators, and the goat negotiator is frustrated because to the outside world, everyone’s watching these tanks run over all these cars and intimidate people in the building, thinking that, oh, this is part of the negotiation tactics. They’re kind of putting the square squeeze on. And negotiators are like, this was not a negotiation tactic.

This was destroying any power that the negotiations might have had. And this is essentially when negotiations stopped. As soon as those tanks come out and start running over everything and then we hear about this. This part was surreal to me, right? So the hostage response team, they make a move. They. They run up to the building, and they start putting tear gas inside the building using the tanks. They just ram, like. They say, quote, punching holes, really? They just did, like, took down walls. Like, the tank is now inside your living room that’s punching a hole through the wall, and they start injecting tear gas.

But as they’re doing this on a loudspeaker, they’re literally saying, we are entering tear gas into the building. This is not an assault. I repeat, this is not an assault. And I don’t know, man. This is like someone’s, like, punching you in the face. Like, I’m not punching you right now. This is not assault. So they’re saying one thing while the exact opposite is happening. And I. I guess there’s no coming back from this part, right? Like, once the government’s like, I’m not hurting you, as they’re hurting you. Like, you know that there’s no more negotiation.

Negotiations have stopped at this point. That’s where you could tell the tactical team took over. And they even allude to that, like you said, with the FBI negotiators and all the negotiations breaking down, like, they’re like, okay, this is over. And they. They take what it sounds like. They take over and say, we’re ending this. That’s how I took it, they’re like, it’s over. No more of this game. We played your little game. Now the military tactical guys that are like, we just go in there, bad guy dead. Like, that’s it, right? And they’re like, everybody’s a bad guy to them in this situation.

Like, you’re not listening to me. You’re a bad guy. You’re going down. And you know, this an army threat. This is a terrorist threat. They even made it seem that way. Like these domestic terrorists, like, I’m doing what’s right for the country, you know that. I think they really believe that. In the interviews with the sniper, you really get that feeling as you described earlier, not only like, he’s a good guy and he’s the hero and these are all villains. He’s like, I am doing this for my country. You know, that guy just has an 80s like, hair metal playlist, just jamming in his head 24 7.

Like, no matter where he goes, he’s like this badass. And there was, when they’re doing this, they kind of explain the sniper was explaining what the official intent was. And the official intent was they load this entire building full of tear gas and then they start issuing commands to leave. And then I guess the, the part that they don’t say is the dot, dot, dot, or else, right? If. If you’re buildings full of tear gas and they’re like, come out with your hands up, yada, yada. Well, what happens if they don’t and that’s doesn’t get set? Well, we find out what happens is that everyone dies in an inferno, right? That’s essentially what happens.

But that the official reason to do this was like, we’re just going to smoke them out and they’ll come out peacefully, which I don’t know what, what logical steps they went through to get to that end where it didn’t. It didn’t seem like anyone was coming out of this building, tear gas or not, but that was the original intent. And then the fires start, right? And I guess that the. I don’t even know if this is the official story. I think this is not the official story, but what we see happen is that the tanks run up, they.

They poke some holes through some spur certain parts, and they unleash this tear gas. And then I guess this tear gas in close proximity can catch fire. So the tear gas catches fire. Now the compound’s on fire. Well, in this Netflix series, they have one of these FBI analysts showing some FLIR footage, which is like an infrared footage, and he’s like, look, right when the fires start, here’s three separate places in which fire spontaneously erupts at the exact same time. And they go on to say that the Branch Davidians had been hoarding these huge canisters of fuel, and that once they realized that there was no way out, they started dowsing everyone and everything in gasoline and then lit that on fire, and that it had nothing to do with the Tang sliding the fire, that it was the Branch Davidians that did this to themselves.

And eventually, they’re sitting here watching the building in flames, waiting for, like, a wave of people to come out, and that wave just never happens. And. And they only realize that, no, like, everyone’s dead when the entire building collapses. And you can see full, like, all the way across to, like, the backyard, and there’s no one there. The whole place is leveled. And this was kind of like, oh, I guess we. We didn’t expect that to happen. And part of it was them saying, like, look, it’s the Branch Davidians that did this to themselves. They burnt themselves alive.

And I think this is probably, like, one of the most contentious points of this entire thing is, did the Branch Davidians set the fire or did the FBI set the fire either on purpose or not on purpose? Like, tho. Those three options all have very different ramifications. And conveniently, all the people that are interviewed that were Branch Davidians were pretty much, like, got out before the fires. Except the big guy, right? The one where his mom, I think. Is he the only one that was there during the fire? Yeah. So someone. This is David Tibble. Tibble.

His mom sees this on tv, and she’s like, not my baby. And she rushes, she drives to the scene, and David Tybalt’s even like, man, my mom’s gonna show up to this thing. And she does. And miraculously, her son does survive through this whole ordeal. And it’s like, mom, come on, I’m having a shootout with the FBI. You’re embarrassing me in front of my friends. Right, But. But again, like, it’s this very humanistic sort of view that you don’t see. Like, if you go by the official story, you just imagine that David Tybalt’s inside the compound.

He’s got bandoliers. He’s holding, like, basically like a. Like a.50 caliber, you know, mounted gun in his hands, and he’s just going after the atf, and this is not the case, man. He’s just like, I just want my mom. I want to get out of here. And. And that’s what’s interesting to me is there’s nobody that’s saying, like, oh, they were. I just saw him just dunking in and gasoline and then lighting themselves on fire. Like, he kind of pushes the narrative more like, I don’t know, man. I think they. They started the fire. Well, he says the opposite.

He’s like, there was no one was dumping fuel on anything, that there was never a plan to do it. He almost is kind of countering even the. The grenade. The lady that said that she had a grenade and she was going to pull the pin. He’s even sort of saying, like, no, that was never in the plans. And none of that was discussed. I didn’t see any of that happening. I didn’t see anyone light the fires. And then they cut to one of the FBI negotiators, and you can. They don’t ask him, like, what do you think of David Tibble? But you can tell that they asked him that, and he’s like, david Tibalt’s a goddamn liar.

Like that. That’s the eventual response that the guy was just lying. So here again, it’s. It’s like a he said, she said. Do you believe the crazy death cult, or do you. Or do you believe the Branch Davidians? Because. Because ATF and FBI are a death cult. So it’s like you don’t know which one of these two to believe. Then this one ends out on. It gets a little bit, like, poetic and dramatic. So they go back to Chris Whitcomb, who’s this FBI sniper, the guy that’s, like, putting the moves on the compound and saying that he’s got Ksh in his scope, and he’s talking about that he hears a bullet whiz by his head and that it was David Koresh himself that was like, as he’s burning, as there’s no way out, that he goes down in, like, this blaze of battle, like, trying to shoot at him.

And then he talks about how it was raining Bible pages that, like, through the fire, I guess all these Bibles that were in the compound are, like, lighting up. So as you’re standing there, Bible pages are floating down out of the air with, like, embers and fire still on them. And the last thing that they. They got a shot of was the Fourth Amendment. Someone had a constitutional book opened up to the Fourth Amendment, which is against unreasonable search and seizure, and that the page was all, like, crusted on the edges from the fire, and it was just kind of like the centerpiece.

So they end out on this like poetic thing about raining Bible pages and the fourth Amendment. And it sort of just like leaves the rest of it up to you. This is clearly the official narrative, but it does at least get you to think a little bit of everyone involved as a human. Hidden treasures and Overboard moments. What do you got? My Hidden treasures. I really like the upgrade of the footage. Like because we saw these other films, not that there’s not kicking the films because obviously it was the technology of the time. You see a lot more of the footage.

And because we were able to see those other documentaries, we can place, even if it’s not the actual information that we want, we can kind of get a better scope and have a better thought process over what’s going on with this footage. Yeah. And that for me, the hidden treasure was that cleaned up video and just the fact that we get exclusive interviews that haven’t been repurposed from other sources. This was Netflix team going out and interviewing FBI, atf, Branch Davidians one on one and even getting them to call each other liars. Like they’re not in the same room or anything.

But they are somewhat showing both sides of the story, which isn’t something we’ve seen in any of the documentaries so far. It’s usually all government or all Branch Davidian. And this is the first time that we get to see both of those and even edited together where you get the official response, then you get the Branch Davidian response. That was really kind of incredible to even see that for the Overboard Man. This one, it was the longest, I think so far out of all the ones that we watch. It’s like three different roughly hour long episodes.

So it’s kind of on, on par with the first Waco, the big lie 1 and 2 combined. But this one, man, there’s really no concrete evidence that gets brought up. Pretty much everything that gets brought up in this entire three part series is just people’s own accounts. What they thought they saw at the time, what they were feeling at the time. We don’t necessarily like in the previous documentaries. And here’s the official paperwork and here’s the official report that says this and here’s the Blue Book Report. It’s pretty much just everyone’s word and their subjective experience, which I think is also what makes this one unique.

But it also is like, I don’t know how much of this to take. Like, do I just accept that this FBI sniper is just Captain America killing Nazis and saving Americans, or is there more nuance to it? You don’t really get any of that nuance unless you put it in there yourself. Stats similar to my overboard moments. My overboard, especially when they’re, like, talking about, like, they’re insinuating, trying to paint the picture. Like it’s. Some of it doesn’t seem natural. Like, maybe it’s, like, rehearsed for years from them, right? I’m sure they’ve told a lot of these lies, but where they’re sticking to, like, hey, man, this guy was an arms dealer, gangster, mafioso, pedophile.

And they really, like, hone in on that. They don’t. And you have to focus on that so you can’t see any of the blundering moves of the ATF or the FBI, right? Like, they’re like, hey, don’t look over here. Look at this guy. And even some of the interviews, like, the young girl that said, you know, that was her favorite. And also overboard moment showing the, like, hey, you want to hear your dad talking on the. The hostage line? Hey. Where he’s like, I love you. Like, dude, like, she’s, like, nine years old. He’s. They’re replaying the.

The audio of that. I just thought they dramatized it a lot. I know that’s part of what you do. I’m. I’m just not a big fan of that. When we’re trying to especially. You’re comparing it with the other Wacos, right? I’m getting information. Information they had. I like the backstory about David Koresh and getting involved more, but I was like, oh, again, you’re spinning it so I can see him only as a villain. Like, they had nothing else. It’s either he’s villain, they’re bad. We did the best we could. The only reason it went bad is because David Koresh didn’t do this.

And maybe we didn’t communicate perfectly. You know what I mean? They’re like. That’s their only, like, fault that they give themselves. Only accountability they hold is like, maybe we could have done a couple things different. You know what I mean? But they don’t really acknowledge any of the errors that they made. And I got one really good example of how this movie kind of falls flat compared to some of the other ones. So in one of the previous movies, I think it was Waco Rules of Engagement, they show this aerial footage of the Bradley fighting vehicle, right? The tank.

And it’s like, okay, let’s freeze frame. Look, here’s the tank shooting. And you can see the heat signature of it clearly coming out of the end of this tank. Right. And they show that like three or four times, and then they zoom in and then they do it again in slow motion. And then here’s another view of it. So there in those movies are like, hey, look, here’s a claim we’re making now. Let’s analyze video footage for 15 minutes over and over again so that I can pinpoint this out to you. In the Netflix series, when they’re talking about, oh, well, we’ve got this, this FLIR footage that shows that the Branch Davidians lit these different canisters on fire and that they’re the ones that started the fire.

As he’s saying that they show a clip of the, the infrared footage for all of like a second and a half and then never again. There’s no like, okay, let’s freeze this frame and let’s, let’s show you in detail. Okay, let’s rewind it. They don’t do any of that. It’s just like this guy’s like, yeah, yeah, we saw it on video. It was clear as day. They set the fires themselves. You see it for a second and a half, and then it never comes up again. And when that happened, I was like, I want to kind of go into more detail on that.

You’re, you are making a very specific claim that they set the fire and they killed themselves in this fire. Like, I think it’s worth at least a 30 second deep dive into this footage that you keep referencing. And we don’t even get to see it. So that I think that’s a, a perfect example of things people are saying. But we don’t really get any sort of concrete proof or evidence or anything that would even back it up. So if you don’t believe them at their word, you don’t get anything else to base it on. All right, Waco.

American Apocalypse. Sink or swim. Gonna have to give it a sink. And not that it’s not a good watch. It’s a good watch. It’s entertaining, well put together as there’s hidden gems in there. Good stuff to take, but I just don’t like the narrative. I don’t like the story they’re telling. It just falls apart. To me, it’s like there’s no middle ground. At first, it makes it seem like you’re gonna get this, like, okay, I’m gonna get the atf, you know, the official side verse, like maybe a couple different thoughts from, like the Branch Davidian. You get a couple kernels of, of truth in there or like their other thoughts.

But then predominantly it’s painted as like, yeah, David Koresh was gonna drink the Kool Aid. He was gonna Jim Jones, everyone. It was the plan from the beginning. And that’s annoying to me. I gotta give it a sink. Same here. I think this one gets a sink mainly because I didn’t really learn anything new from it. And part of that, I guess, is a little unfair because we’ve seen so many Waco documentaries at this point. I don’t know how much more I was expecting to learn from it, but they don’t really do a great job. They do a great job of adding drama, of kind of stirring up some, like, thoughts without actually putting their stance anywhere.

And I think that this particular documentary series, even if they didn’t go full on defend the Branch Davidians or full on defend the Government, they could have emphasized the absolute disarray and sloppiness that occurred between the FBI and the atf and that kind of gets brushed under the rug and. And in its place is you get these, like, heroic tales of the sniper and this like, badass guy. And then I was just, I was hoping and praying like, hey, isn’t that the same guy that was at Ruby Ridge that also went sideways? Let’s hear more about that.

And of course, we don’t really hear anything about Ruby Ridge in this one because it’s specifically about Waco. But I feel like that’s the extra kind of detail that would have made this short series worthwhile. If anything, this feels more like it was created just to further perpetuate the official narrative so that in 50 years or a hundred years when AI is scraping all the different content about Waco, they come across this Netflix series and they’re like, oh, this, this was always going to go sideways. Branch of Idians were crazy. Koresh was a lunatic cult leader.

The end. And this, this just kind of helps. Put a nice little bow around that. And you know how you do it. Go to paranoidamerican.com get you a comic book right now. Go to killthemaki birds.com support subscribe share thanks. This is under the docks Peace. Under the ducks. Just buy something Just buy something from Paranoia American Just buy something Just buy something from Paranoia Miracle get some merch Buy some art Click that link Add to car say it back need that print Nod your head give consent Buy a comic three or four Think this thought I want more Buy a sticker from the store Think this thought I want more Just buy something Just buy something from Paranoid American Just buy something just by something from Paranoid American paranoid.

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