Reclaiming April 19th as a
Day of Resistance by Ordinary People
by J. Neil Schulman
jneil@pulpless.com
I write this on April 5th, two weeks before April 19th.
Every year since the events where we saw the tragic death of innocent
children in a burning church in Waco, Texas on April 19, 1993, and the tragic
death of more innocent children at a daycare center inside a federal building in
Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995, the media has made April 19th into a day of
shame for America, a day to be thought of only when remembering another tragedy,
on April 20th, 1999, the high-school massacre at Columbine High School in
Littleton, Colorado.
Part of this yearly media focus of April 19th and 20th, as days to remember
the tragedies at Oklahoma City and Littleton, is the media vilification of civilian
militia: the idea that private individuals play any important part in the
resistance against terrorism and tyranny. The media want Americans to forget
that armed civilians, not just organized armed forces, were crucial to the
success of the American Revolution, which is — and not just for Americans —
the most important turn toward enduring liberty in human history.
April 19th has two important meanings which have been buried in the rubble of
Oklahoma City since that anniversary was hijacked by skilled anti-self-defense
propagandists during the Clinton administration.
April 19th, 2002 is the 227th anniversary of the day in 1775 when, in the
Massachusetts towns of Lexington and Concord, the American Revolution began in
earnest with armed resistance by the American militia against the occupation
troops of King George the Third.
April 19th, 2002, is the 59th anniversary of the day in 1943 when the Jews of
the Warsaw ghetto began armed resistance against the Nazi occupation forces, in
a militia action that denied the Nazis their homes and lives for weeks longer
than all of Poland had been able to hold out.
President George W. Bush has said repeatedly that the most important event
which took place on September 11, 2001, was not the evil mass murder of
civilians by terrorists, but the heroic resistance of civilian passengers on
United Flight 93, who, having learned that other commercial jetliners were being
used by terrorists as weapons of mass destruction, resisted the hijackers on
their own flight and denied it to them, at the cost of their own lives.
It is likewise important that the true importance of April 19th not be a
remembrance of tragedy but a remembrance of heroes who resisted evil. Terrorists
and tyrants should not be celebrated with holidays; the heroic civilians who
resist them should be.
This year, once again, the American television networks and local news shows
will probably, on auto-pilot, schedule segments on April 19th focusing on the
bombing of the Murrah Federal Building. They will probably once again link this
with the April 20th anniversary of tragedy at Columbine High School.
This is your heads up to put pressure on the producers of the TV networks,
and your local news directors, reminding them of the real importance of April
19th — not as day of terror but as a Day of Resistance by ordinary people.
Here's your chance to resist evil, yourself, by using your telephones, fax
machines, email, and even old-fashioned pens and paper to remind
our media not to forget.
J. Neil Schulman Aprl 5, 2002
— "Aslan is on the move."
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