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After
completing 'When Headlines Lie' the box kept up its sycophantic praise for
every aspect of these victims and their families. However, buried in the
drivel and the somberly delivered lines were several grossly exaggerated
contradictions that beg to be identified.
The Decider read some lines that
someone thought were reverential, and each of the college figureheads
chimed in with all the positives that each could find to praise. But there
was a 'ghost-presence' that overlaid the entire charade. There have been
so many 'opportunities' for this country to show its true colors in a time
a crisis, especially under the Decider, that one has to wonder at the
contrasts that were on display this morning.
Where were the Bush
Administration and FEMA before, during, and after Katrina in New Orleans?
Where was all this compassion and concern for human life struck down in an
instant - since the 'killer' then had partially been the storm itself, did
that not require the state to act decisively and immediately to save the
lives of hundreds of thousands that still might have been saved, had there
been any response at all? The questions surrounding the 'Before' have been
found and disseminated: the dykes were flawed, and the White House knew
that they would fail: yet there was no warning. The plan developed to
evacuate New Orleans was ignored, and a new agency was hired without a
plan at all. And 'After': there was no effort to save or even help the
thousands that were dying of thirst and exposure - and of course there
were no eulogies for the plight of those who did not matter in that
crisis. In the aftermath, that still continues, hundreds of thousands of
even more survivors are being cheated out of what was once their homes and
they've been scattered to the four winds, instead of getting the promised
government help to recover. It was weeks before the Decider could bring
himself to even show up on the ground - still with no apology - much less
to even ask for providential interventions.
The gatherings on the campus of
Virginia Tech were solemn and determined to strike the proper note and yet
one could not forget those earlier reports: the ones that said that the
shooter had managed to disfigure his own face so badly that not even his
race could be determined. No matter what kind of 9 millimeter shell he'd
chosen for that task, he alone could not have destroyed the bone structure
of the entire face with a single shot. But as we know from previously
convenient suicides, sometimes despite the literal impossibilities of such
events - several individuals have managed to shoot themselves, in the head
more than once: if the government experts are to be believed. Gary Webb,
and Hunter Thompson come to mind: so maybe this was just another of those
physics defying laws of nature, being used to support the government cover
story?
In addition when one listens to
the tape of the shots being fired they were methodical and paced, yet
apparently the shooter spent three shots on each of the thirty in the
classrooms: 90 shots all told? The pistols shown were small and their
magazines could not have held a large number of rounds each. Even with two
guns the shooter would have had to reload very frequently and without a
flaw. Possible maybe, but suspect none the less. (*)
Regarding all those deaths of the
faceless multitudes: Accurate 'recent' numbers are hard to come by however
in 2000 the Harvard University Gazette said:
"Recent accounts of young
school students shooting each other has sent a shiver through the nation;
journalists call the killings an 'epidemic' and legislators have begun
debates on new gun control laws. As tragic as these homicides are,
however, they represent only the tip of an iceberg of gun deaths in the
United States. Every year, more than 30,000 people are shot to death in
murders, suicides, and accidents. Another 65,000 suffer from gun injuries."
"The total number of school
shootings each year is typically far less than one day's toll attributable
to firearms in the United States," notes David Hemenway, director of
the Harvard Injury Research and Control Center. "Defective Firestone
tires may have killed 103 people over a number of years, but firearms kill
about 85 people every day in this country."
Compare the probably one-hundred
a day that die every-day now, with the 33 that died yesterday. The real
difference in 'America' is between those who matter and those who do not!
No other nation' even comes close to this kind of abomination, except of
course today's Iraq, Darfur and of course Palestine!
As the supporting cast droned on,
one couldn't help but remember the near total denial of public sentiment
for the maimed and dead returning from our wars-of-conquest in the world
at large. Are those who wear our uniforms so unimportant that their very
lives are forfeit to the needs we see, as basic, to this fantasy we seem
to hold so dear? The students killed at Virginia Tech yesterday might
represent a counter-balance to the thousands that we've sent into that
buzzsaw of the wars designed by the Decider and his henchmen. But where is
the national outrage over those lives lost or merely those that have been
put on-hold for the better part of eternity?
'America' has a very warped sense
of the values involved in life and death situations. And whatever the
actualities of this event may finally turn out to be, the one thing that
today's pantomime has truly clarified: has to be the hypocrisy and scorn
with which this nation tends to treat all those who have not been born
into the world of 'special people.'
So many crimes, so many shallow
wasted lives of privilege marooned upon those darkly turbulent seas so
packed with frustration, with desperation and with the sterility of
national silence for the plight of so many of those whom this nation once
claimed as its own. Men and women are measured by how well they keep their
word, and to whom or to what they will remain loyal. Nations are measured
by whether or not they honor their promises. But the new USA has a
tendency to laugh at the suckers that still believe in those 'quaint and
outworn values from another time - entirely.'
Ultimately we are now alone with
ourselves in an echo chamber of failures unrivaled, in a world that has
taken our measure and turned away in disgust. It's a good thing that so
many of us have our cell phones, because if we ever have to have a
conversation with those we seem to delight in smashing, then that might
not go too well-much easier if we can just delete the message, and get
back to our very busy little worlds. . .
Jim Kirwan
NOTES:
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