ok. i've been reading Lord of the Rings: Fellowship last night (I mean "seriously" reading it). It has some hilarious *and many more to come i'm sure* moments. How they think the Bagginses (at least Bilbo and Frodo) were "cracked" (or "touched" in the head).
Anyway, I found this very "interesting" article written by one called CyberWolfman. It's about the Columbine Shootings (as you can probably see). I have a copy of TIME Magazine's "The Monsters Next Door" issue (although I found most of the articles there "controlling", not really pinpointing the truth about "why it happened?" & complete with all that "manipulative" montages - as if people suddenly "snap" without reason). Ok, so here's the article (it's a bit "funny", if you like "black humour")
But first here's a little "argument" / "equation" that has been "rolling around my head" for a very long time (since time immemorial in fact). Suppose a group of "humans" are harassing some random person. These group of humans happen to be the "prototype" by which all people should be patterned (think PHALANX) - you know "everyone" thinks they're "rad" and all. On the contrary, Random Person is deemed "weird" and therefore the said "humans" continue to harrass Random Person day in and day out. Random Person endures (meaning he does every technique at his disposal - ignoring the said "humans" and going to the "proper authorities" - to no avail, because the said "humans" have a Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde persona and so impossible to implicate) for a time. But then Random Person suddenly realize that "there is NO ONE coming" (and don't get me started on "God"...please!) and so Random Person decides to take matters in is own hands (i.e. retaliate - which is of course "evil" in the eyes of the said "humans" who think that trying to prevent yourself from being a "bloody corpse" is wrong). I mean here's the thought pattern behind this:
"The guy's weird, so we the "healthy", "well-adjusted", "normal" ones reserve the right to beat him up (or psychologically abuse him, by teasing, calling him names). And he can't fight back, no sir, he's weird, he doesn't have those rights! Isn't that what's "normal"? If he wants us to stop, HE should be the one adjust, because 'majority rules'! We don't have to respect his rights, because his being "weird"/"different" took those rights from him!"
Wow! The end of civilization as we know it!
Here's the article BTW:
The Columbine Shootings, April 20th, 1999:
Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, two members of the TCM (Trench Coat Mafia) at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado felt so outcast and harassed that they needed to shoot their tormenters. This, according to the media, is labeled a 'hate crime'. I guess the media is sending a message that it's okee dokee for kids to harass others, but it's a 'hate crime' to hate people for doing that to you.
The Trench Coat Mafia was just a bunch of students who wore trench coats to school. And, as usual, whenever there's a group of people that doesn't fit in with what society considers to be 'normal', that is, a good little biological robot marching in perfect lock-step, acting the same as everybody else, a name is put on them by other people. In this case, a jock, in 1998. They had a right not to have to conform to what other students thought of as normal. Or at least I think so. Of what use is a robot, or somebody who thinks, dresses, acts and talks exactly like everybody else? Just another cog in the machine, not an individual. If you eliminate all the people in your society who are different, you're going to be getting rid of most if not all artists, writers, fashion designers, or anybody else who thinks differently from the social norm. If you succeed, in time, everybody will be wearing the same clothes, there won't be any new TV shows or movies, nor artwork or anything creative.
The members of the Trench Coat Mafia weren't racist, nor were they into Nazism.
These students put up with years of abuse and harassment by fellow students. In the begining, it was mostly the jocks, but more of the students joined in the harassment. They had drinks poured on them, were called names, among them words intentionally hurtful like the slang name for a gay person, that starts with an F which I won't repeat here. The football players did body blocks on them, shoving them hard into lockers. They also had rocks, bottles, and cans and cups filled with soda pop thrown at them from the jocks who drove by in cars as they tried to ride home on their bicycles. The jocks also hit them with their cars while they were riding their bicycles.
In the cafeteria, they'd throw food at them.
One of them described it as being "Pure hell."
An actual quote by a 255 pound football player at the school:
“Columbine is a clean, good, place except for those rejects.” He added, “Sure we teased them. But what do you expect with kids who come to school with weird hairdos and horns on their hats? It’s not just the jocks; the whole school’s disgusted with them. If you want to get rid of someone, usually you tease ‘em. So the whole school would call them homos.’”
Gee, intolerance seems to be the norm at a lot of these schools, and is still going strong even after the shootings. Guess they didn't learn, and probably never will. What? You have a different haircut and you wear a hat that's different and the other students have a right to attack you?
This kind of thing happened a lot in front of teachers and students, but nobody did anything to stop it.
Most adults wouldn't put up with this kind of treatement, but this was done to children. Children who had enough problems trying to grow up in this cruel and sadistic world and trying to get an education without the added agravation of harassment, bullying, bodily harm, and possible death. And they wonder why children don't learn in school. Maybe they're more concerned with surviving another day than school work? When you're in survival mode almost every hour of every day at a school, math and all that other stuff doesn't matter. Making it through another day is all that matters. But, of course, the schools, parents, and teachers don't really care.
Then, of course, something snapped, and the events of April 20th, 1999 happened.
Okay, I realize that the news stories are just a little slanted, but this is open manipulation: They've published a video tape showing footage of the after-effects of the Columbine shootings, and with kids running out of the school, crying, all complete with emotionally manipulative music to control your emotional response. What's the deal? Are people really sheep? They like being led? Maybe we should just call them all sheeple, and be done with it.
It seems odd, really, that all the video tapes that were done by the two guys involved before the shootings telling why they were so upset isn't published, but the emotionally manipulative stuff is...
They should've put what they wanted to say on the Web, or made .avi files using a hidden video camera, possibly of kids teasing and bullying them, then shared it with others through file-sharing programs.
And what about Daniel Rohrbough? Was he shot and killed by Jefferson County sheriff's deputies as some claim? His parents say that he couldn't have been shot by Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris in the chest and gut because witnesses saw him running away from them. There seems to be a lot that's not being told...
For those thinking there was a third student shooting people, there wasn't. Eric Harris took off his duster after shooting a few rounds. Then continued wearing his white T-shirt. He even stopped for a few seconds to drink something in the cafeteria. Dylan Klebold took off his own duster in the school library. He wore a black T-shirt underneath his duster.
Btw, for any reporters reading this, Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris weren't wearing real trench coats. They wore dusters. Try getting the facts straight, for just once.
And yes, I've heard about the Nazi stuff in some diary the cops 'confiscated'. Odd how things that are taken by some people the stuff is considered to be stolen, but when it's done by another group of people, it's called 'confiscating'...
More than likely, Dylan and Eric wanted to shock anybody reading it. Their actions prove that they weren't racist. You'll note that only two minorities were killed during the shootings, and I think at least one of them was a jock. That should tell you who their real targets were. Judge people by what they do, not by what they say. What people say in public or what they've written in diaries where they think snoopy people will read them shouldn't be taken for their true self. Otherwise, you'd have to believe everything a politician says. Frankly, I'm not that gullible.
Let's put it this way: Who would you consider to be more intolerant of somebody who was different from them either by the way they dress, or the color of their skin? A group of people who like being different, or jocks who openly admit they harassed them merely because they had different style of haircuts and wore different kinds of hats from them?
After Columbine, the students who were in the Trench Coat Mafia were silent, not wanting to tell their side of the story for fear of being attacked, again. Not only fearing for themselves, but for their families.
In August of 1999, the school district decided to start an anti-bullying program. Many people think that it's because it took the Columbine shootings to convince them that something was wrong. But I think it's because they wanted to make themselves look better in the public eye. Otherwise, they would've done something a lot sooner, knowing that this level of harassment was going on. But personally, I think it's just PR. The kids will act politically correct while in view of any teachers that they don't think they can get away with anything in front of, but once out of their view, they'll revert to their usual intolerant and sadistic ways, especially for anybody that's even slightly different from them. The quote by the football player above tells the real story. This is the way humans are.
What people have to realize someday is that they need to treat others as they themselves want to be treated. Not alienated, or made to feel like an outcast. Not ridiculed, not attacked. Nor assaulted with soda pop, rocks, bottles, or cars. Otherwise, those they hurt will hate them for it. Some will want hurt.
One of the final insults to Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold came when some guy destroyed the crosses that were left in memorial of their deaths, but left the remaining 13 alone. Even in death, they're made to feel as outcasts. :-(
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