Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Peace to Blacksburg
If I were a resident college student, & two people were murdered on campus early in the morning, & the killer was loose, I'd want to be informed of that before I left the dorm. I'd want to know about it before I left my room. If it happened in my dorm, I'd want to know about it when the police arrived. Would it change my routine if there was no lockdown? I don't know. But it would definitely make me more aware of my surroundings, more cautious.
The networks treat the tragedy at Virginia Tech mainly as if the number of dead is what gives it the most significance; a perverse, record-setting "deadliest shooting rampage." So media flocks to Blacksburg. Stories of personal heroism & sacrifice are told, many true, some that will prove to be exaggerated as martyrs are sought to provide spiritual "meaning" to the senselessness. Survivors & prominent local citizens interviewed. The killer's insane motivations theorized. Campus & city police procedures placed under a spotlight. Gun laws scrutinized. For a brief while we will even know the victims, & mourn with families & friends. But it's Columbine all over, & the basic issues are the same: loner killers with grievances who signaled their inner rage well in advance; legal or convenient access to deadly firepower; a lack of security where it is possible to provide more; the illusion of safety.
One reporter last night compared it to having to report that 33 American soldiers had been killed in Iraq, that "the entire nation would grieve." I thought, as it is, we hardly know the names of our dead soldiers, because they die in ones & twos & their bodies sent home in silence & invisibility to families all around the country, a "Taps" here, a folded flag there. We understand now what happens to our wounded. Our grief is not deep enough to end the war. The fear thousands of American parents felt yesterday is what parents in Iraq feel whenever their children leave the house, & when they hear an explosion or gunshots in the distance or just up the street. For them & their dead, we grieve as a nation not at all. Peace to Blacksburg, Virginia Tech, & to everyone affected by the massacre.
The networks treat the tragedy at Virginia Tech mainly as if the number of dead is what gives it the most significance; a perverse, record-setting "deadliest shooting rampage." So media flocks to Blacksburg. Stories of personal heroism & sacrifice are told, many true, some that will prove to be exaggerated as martyrs are sought to provide spiritual "meaning" to the senselessness. Survivors & prominent local citizens interviewed. The killer's insane motivations theorized. Campus & city police procedures placed under a spotlight. Gun laws scrutinized. For a brief while we will even know the victims, & mourn with families & friends. But it's Columbine all over, & the basic issues are the same: loner killers with grievances who signaled their inner rage well in advance; legal or convenient access to deadly firepower; a lack of security where it is possible to provide more; the illusion of safety.
One reporter last night compared it to having to report that 33 American soldiers had been killed in Iraq, that "the entire nation would grieve." I thought, as it is, we hardly know the names of our dead soldiers, because they die in ones & twos & their bodies sent home in silence & invisibility to families all around the country, a "Taps" here, a folded flag there. We understand now what happens to our wounded. Our grief is not deep enough to end the war. The fear thousands of American parents felt yesterday is what parents in Iraq feel whenever their children leave the house, & when they hear an explosion or gunshots in the distance or just up the street. For them & their dead, we grieve as a nation not at all. Peace to Blacksburg, Virginia Tech, & to everyone affected by the massacre.
Labels: religion
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"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." Thomas Jefferson
And did you hear there was a lock down in North Brunswick high school this morning? Only thing worse than a tragic event are those who ride the coattails of such tragedy. Sick.:(
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