Columbine Shooting : Ten Years Later

The story of one survivor on the Columbine High School shooting Ten Years Ago, Today.

Gingrich blames "Liberalism" for Va. Tech Killings

Yes, that's right - following in the dark path of Laura Ingraham's ex-boy toy Dinesh D'Souza (who this past January began his his whirl-wind tour of blaming the left for 9/11) disgraced former House Speaker Newt Gingrich appeared on This Week with George Stephanapolous and proceeded to blame elite liberals for the massacre at Virginia Tech.

Almost ten years ago Gingrich originally laid the blame for Columbine at the feet of liberals.

July 20, 1999

"I want to say to the elite of this country - the elite news media,the liberal academic elite, the liberal political elite: I accuse you in Littleton, and I accuse you in Kosovo of being afraid to talk about the mess you have made, and being afraid to take responsibility for things you have done, and instead foisting upon the rest of us pathetic banalities because you don't have the courage to look at the world you have created."

Today Stephanopolous quoted those words back to him, and asked them if he would apply them to Virginia Tech. He said...

Yes.

I think the the fact is, when you look at the amount of violence we have in games that young people play at 7, 8 , 10, 12, 15 years of age, if you look at the dehumanization, if you look at the fact that we refuse to say that we are infact endowed with (sic) our creator, that our rights come from God - if you kill somebody you're committing and act of evil.

First of all, there's a Rating System for Video Games which is intended to give parents the option control over exactly what kind of material their kids are exposed to. If 8-year-old little Johnny is up all night chasing down ho's and blowing up police cars at 3 am playing Grand Theft Auto: Babylon that's a failure of parenting, not "liberalism."

That is of course unless they're too busy playing "LEFT BEHIND: Eternal Forces" where they act as members of the Tribulation Force intent on either converting or using paramilitary equipment and tactics to kill all non-believers (y'know Catholics and Jews and Muslims and Buddhists and Gays and stuff) who refuse to accept the teachings of the one and only true JEEZus CHrisT into their hearts and join their brethen in the glory of the Rapture ™ .

The game revolves around New Yorkers who are "left behind" after the rapture. Players scour the streets for converts, training them into a work force to feed, shelter and join a paramilitary resistance against the growing forces of the Antichrist.

Left Behind Games CEO Troy Lyndon, whose company went public in February, says the game’s Christian themes will grab the audience that didn’t mind gore in "The Passion of the Christ." "We’ve thought through how the Christian right and the liberal left will slam us," says Lyndon. "But megachurches are very likely to embrace this game." Though it will be marketed directly to congregations, Forces will also have a secular ad campaign in gaming magazines.

You suspect that was the kind of video game which recognizes we are "endowed by our creator" that Gingrich was talking about?

Now, it might have been fair to note that Kleibold and Harris - the Columbine killers - were hard-core Doom addicts, and that one could make the argument that what they did was essentially create a live action version of that game at their high school - but at the same time you'd have to ignore the fact that despite how popular that game has been over the last 15 years NOBODY ELSE has ever attempting anything so insane or heinous since that time. Well, 'til now.

Similarly, one could argue that they were trying to create a real-life version of the film "The Matrix" - with it's flashy gunplay and big black trench-coats - but that doesn't make such rank speculation neccesarily true either.

Of course at the time people were much too busy incorrectly blaming singer Marilyn Manson (whom Kleibold and Harris didn't like or listen too) to really pay attention to the issues of over-prescribed anti-depressants which seems to have had a marked tendency to promote suicidal and dangerous behavior particularly in young people.

It's odd and interesting that in Gingrich's original statement he tied Columbine to Kosovo, considering the fact that the Republican Congress which had been under his control opposed the efforts of President Clinton to bring that genocidal conflict to an end. From Salon.

"Instead of Theodore Roosevelt's 'talk softly and carry a big stick,' we have yelled and carried a toothpick." -- Ever-pleasant former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, breaking his silence this week to address a group of Republican women, on what he terms Clinton's "pathetic" Kosovo policy

History has shown that Clinton's efforts in Kosovo were ultimately successful and saved the lives of countless thousands - while Gingrich would have had the Congress tie his hands behind his back and add unneccesarily pork-barrel projects to his supplemental funding bill.

WASHINGTON (AllPolitics, April 28) -- In order to "maintain our military readiness," President Bill Clinton urged Congress Wednesday to quickly pass his $6 billion emergency appropriations request to pay for the U.S. operations in the Balkans without doubling the funding amount.

"Let me stress that my request fully funds our military and humanitarian needs in Kosovo," Clinton said. "Congress should resist the temptations to add unrelated expenditures, even important ones, which could delay the process, because that would undermine the very goals that this funding is intended to meet."

Gee, that's sounds awfully familiar doesn't it?

To his credit Stephanopolous refused to give Gingrich a pass on his comments and pressed him.

Stephanopolous: But what does that have to do with "Liberalism"?

Gingrich: Well, who has created a situation - ethics - zone of not being able to talk about any of these things?

Gee, I give up - the All Powerful and Might Easter Bunny?

Gingrich: Let me give you another example...

"Another", where was the first one?

The Grinch: I strongly supported Imus being dismissed.

Thank Jehova for small favors.

Grinchman: But I also think the very thing he was dismissed for - which is the use of language - which is stunningly degrading of women -

Ok, I'm with you so far... and?

Grinchigan: The fact is that one of the Halloween Costumes this year was to either be a prostitute or a pimp at 10, 11, 12 years of age, buying a costume...

Ah, the new Britney and K-Fed Line © is out I see. Oh, and yet again technically that was mommy and daddy buying their little sugar-lumps the prostitute couture, I think.

Grinchmiester : Ah, and we don't have any discussion of what's happening to our culture because we're restricting political free-speech under McCain-Feingold...

We're What!?? Have you seen the Swift-Boat Ads!??? How about the Harry Ford "Call me, Mandigo" Ad that the RNC did - or maybe didn't - approve and pay for?

Grinchit: It's impossible to restrict vulgar, and vicious and anti-human speech, and I would submit that that's a major component of what's happened to our culture over the last 40 years.

Wow. Ok, who was it that went absolutely ape-shit over Janet Jackson's right nipple on broadcast TV and proceeded to up the FCC fines by 10 times? Who fined Howard Stern for $495,000 and forced him off terestrial radio? At the same time who is it that refuses to use the already existing prohibitions in the FCC regs against Vulgar and Profane speech to give a little financial pause to the vicioous bile spewing from the likes of Neal Boortz, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin and Dennis Prager?

Hint: It aint those damn dirty Liberals.

Gingrich of course has history of playing the blame the Liberal game. From Thinkprogress.

- In 1994, after Susan Smith confessed to drowning her two children in South Carolina, Gingrich quickly blamed liberals, saying the only way to avoid similar future incidents was "to vote Republican."

- After former Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL) was forced to resign over his sexually inappropriate behavior towards House pages, Gingrich declared that conservatives didn’t act to stop Foley because they "would have been accused of gay bashing" by liberals.

- At the Conservative Political Action Conference earlier this year, Gingrich blamed the residents of New Orleans’ 9th ward for "a failure of citizenship," by being "so uneducated and so unprepared, they literally couldn’t get out of the way of a hurricane."

Instead of looking at the fact that according the FBI Uniform Crime Reports the rate of violent crime in the United States has been on a steady decline since 1992.

Murder has dropped from 757.5 incidents per 100,000 people down to 469.2 in 2005. A reduction of 39% over a 15 year period.

Looking back over the last Ten Years the average reduction in the rate for all violent crime is down 26%. Murder and Non-negligent Homocide is down 24%. Forcible Rape is down 12.7%. The Robbery Rate is down 30% and Assault is down 25.5%.

Instead of looking at these facts, and the failures in mental health-care supervision and followup which after diagnosing Cho as "a danger to himself and others" clearly failed to help prevent the mass murder he commited at Virginia Tech, Gingrich - oppurtunistic vampire that he is - prefers to play partisan political games with the lives and memories of our lost friends and loved ones.

That, in my opinion, is what I truly think is profane and obscene speech.

Vyan

Silent Rage: From Columbine, Virginia Tech to Iraq and Back

Eight years ago while I was a member of a struggling hard rock band in Sacramento called Planet X, I wrote a song called Silent Rage (which can be downloaded from the MySpace Page for my Live365 Radio Station) about the rash of School Shootings which had been occuring at that time.

(Note: You'll have to click the pause botton on the station just above the embedded JFK video so that you can listen to the "Silent Rage" track by itself)
The song was written from the shooters perspective at the moment of his execution after years on death row looking out at the survivors and victims of his rage - which is undimmed - and seeing it reflected back at him, having spread like a demented virus.

Now do you hear me? Now do you care?
Now you hear my voice screaming through the air?

Yeah, I told you - told you this day would come. The killing fields are festering in your mind, this rage has made you blind.

At the time I was making a comment on capital punishment and the cycle of violence, which was likely to continue and grow IMO. But just a few weeks after we had finished recording the song, the shootings at Columbine High School in Littleton Colorado occured. I don't know if I can accurately describe what it was like to sing that song during our next gig. Surreal doesn't really cover it, because I had essentially predicted that this violence was going to escalate. In nearly al these cases, the shooters are suicidal, perfoming an elaborate and desperate act so heinous they couldn't possibly be forgiven and either forcing law enforcement to take deadly action, or finally working up the courage to do the deed themselves.

My head was swimming then, but today as I watch coverage of the Virginia Tech shootings - my head is shaking. It seems we've learned just about nothing in the intervening years, but there are some things we should have learned long ago...

From American Free Press 2006

Many of the nightmarish killings of recent memory, especially the bizarre family tragedies which seem to be occurring with increasing frequency, have been scientifically linked to a sleep disorder caused by commonly-used, but dangerous and addictive anti-depressant medications.

Dr. Ann Blake Tracy, executive director of the International Coalition for Drug Awareness and author of Prozac: Panacea or Pandora? - Our Serotonin Nightmare is an expert consultant in cases like Columbine in which anti-depressant medications are involved. Tracy says the Columbine killers' brains were awash in serotonin, the chemical which causes violence and aggression and triggers a sleep-walking disorder in which a person literally acts out their worst nightmare.

Shortly before the Columbine shooting, Eric Harris had been rejected by Marine Corps recruiters because he was under a doctor's care and had been prescribed an anti-depressant medication. Harris was taking Luvox, an anti-depressant commonly used to treat patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder.

From CNN:

On May 17th, 2000 the United States House Sub-Committee on Early Childhood, Youth, and Families looked into reported problems with Ritalin. There are problems with over prescribing, giving samples without proper diagnosis, stealing, and selling Ritalin in the school yard! Ritalin is an SSRI (Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor) in the same category as Prozac, Luvox, Zoloft, and Paxil. With just a little investigation there is a definite relation between School Violence and kids taking these drugs!

(Note from comments: Technically Ritalin is not an "SSRI")

And here....

Journal of the American Medical Association shows 50% increase in Prozac with Preschoolers. 2/23/2000

The Journal of the American Medical Association released a study that shows that there is a tremendous increase in prescribing anti-depressants to preschoolers aged 2 to 4 years old! The "Terrible Twos" are just that! If you start throwing these drugs at preschoolers, what are we going to do for them when they hit their teens? There has been a connection between school shootings and the shooters having been on these drugs!

Gun violence in schools has actually gone down since 1992, while violence in general has gone up in schools! If a majority of the school shooters were on (or had abruptly stopped taking) anti-depressants then it stands to reason that most of the other violence in schools may be related to these drugs as well! I have read a lot about the Oregon shootings and how Kip Kinkle had been on prozac. I had heard that, but now a Vermont Outdoors writer has said that "Just about every massacre that occurred anywhere in the U.S. and Canada over the last decade has involved an individual using a prescription drug called Prozac or one of its relatives."

As has already been well reported, the shooter at Virginia Tech had been diagnosed as suicdal and had been taking anti-depressants. He had been interviewed by police twice in the previous two years for apparently harrassing young women on campus, as was referred for a psychiatric evaluation which in turn led to the prescription.

Although Tom Cruise has been almost literal run out of Hollywood on a rail and turned into a laughing stock by Keith Olbermann for his comments against the over dependance of anti-depressants by doctors, it's high time that we stop this runaway train and take a serious look at these kinds of mental health issues, as well as the deadly backlash they seem to be creating.

Many have pointed out how deeply felt this tragedy has become to the people of America, while noting that we seem unable to have a similar outpouring of simpathy for all those American families who've lost children to the Iraq War even when were talking about 100 Times as many people. We're losing as many of our sons and daughters in Iraq as we lost on Tuesday every ten days. The Iraq people are losing that many people Every. Single. Day.

Sometimes more, like today...

CBS News: "A parked car bomb detonated in a crowd of workers at a Shiite marketplace in Baghdad on Wednesday, killing at least 82 people, police and hospital officials said. The attack was one of four bombings in Baghdad on Wednesday afternoon, which killed at least 127 people in total, officials said."

That death toll eventually rose to 157.

I understand, as many of us should, that their is a known risk in going into war, the risk of being killed, maimed and permenently injured is well known to our troops and their families - hence they are far better prepared for the worst if it should happen than the Virginia Tech students and families. But there is another risk and danger that is often overlooked, that of becoming mentally injured by the stress that soldiers have to endure. The fact is that repeated deployments and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, as well as the prescription of anti-depressants to active duty soldiers, are leading our troops into record breaking levels of suicide.

Twenty-two U.S. troops committed suicide in Iraq last year, accounting for nearly one in five of all non-combat deaths and the highest suicide rate since the war started, the newspaper said.

Some service members who committed suicide in 2004 and 2005 were kept on duty despite clear signs of mental distress, sometimes after being prescribed antidepressants with little or no mental health counseling or monitoring, the Courant reported. Those findings conflict with regulations adopted last year by the Army that caution against the use of antidepressants for "extended deployments."

"I can't imagine something more irresponsible than putting a soldier suffering from stress on (antidepressants), when you know these drugs can cause people to become suicidal and homicidal," said Vera Sharav, president of the Alliance for Human Research Protection, a New York-based advocacy group. "You're creating chemically activated time bombs."

What's going to happen when these troops finally do come home damaged and drug-addled with Luvox and Proloft? I'm sorry but I for one have to again state what I was screaming back in 1999 which might not seem quite so obvious: What we've just witnessed in Blacksburg is NOT GOING TO BE THE LAST MASSACRE WE'RE GOING TO EXPERIENCE over the next few years.

Watching 10,000 students all shouting "HOKIES!" together was truly moving. Yet, I can't help what might happen if we could put together a similar vigil for those who've needlessly died in Iraq, and for those who've yet to succumb to the sucking chest wound that this pointless and unneccesary War has left on our nation's integrity, common sense, good name and youth.

Vyan