I honestly don’t know what to say or feel about the recent shooting. I am over on the west coast and when I heard about it I felt so distant. It seemed like a story that would come from some distant country in some distant war… not ours! I was about to start asking basic WHY questions but I will refrain from that. I thought I’d just put up this thread and people could discuss their thoughts on this developing tragedy.
God save us. God help the families involved in this terrible tragedy.
Cho Seung-Hui, a student from South Korea who was identified as the gunman who killed 32 people at Virginia Tech University, in a police handout photo.
I sat around all day watching the news both on and off of the TV and let me say that it’s a shitshow.
If a coherent story can emerge out of this obvious black ops project that any of the Alphabet news devotees themselves even believe I’ll honestly be surprised.
Then again, I should stop being surprised at the utter incompetence for anyone to look into ‘news’ events for themselves. God forbid we’d do that.
Go back to your American Idol or whatever the fuck it is you all do.
Investigators are still looking for Cho’s motives, but Cho left a discursive note in his dorm room that offered some explanations, authorities told ABC. The only quote released so far is this cryptic line: “You caused me to do this.”
The Va. Tech Gunman: Well Prepared
time.com/time/nation/article … 69,00.html
prisonplanet.com/articles/ap … killer.htm
I don’t totally agree with this article, but it has a few points – namely that if a teacher had access to a gun these types of attacks by MKids could be combated.
This black ops was set up for the usual fear reasons, but also it’s part of an increasing line of attacks on the American people’s right to own a firearm.
An armed populace is the very last defense before full on tyranny breaks through. Usually the will of the people is the last defense, but as you see now the people’s will has been far too atrophied to do or think about anything outside of the usual TV brainwashing, except in the wake of major events like these ones.
Though similar things have happened in Germany and Scotland in the last ten years or so, I would say these are typically American circumstances. Indeed, when a student killed a teacher a couple of years ago in Holland, that was exactly what they were called. What is also typical is encountering Americans who are jolted out of their pleasant dreamworld by such events: “How could such a thing happen in our country!”; or also: “Why should anyone hate America!”…
And then there is the desperate appeal to a God who is long dead. Indeed, that is the explanation, and the basic effect of such events: the nihilism underlying your society is exposed.
Almost everyone suffers from bouts of depression one time or another in their life just as all of us get colds every now and again. But just like it is not normal for one to go through life with a constant cold, it is not normal for us to be constantly depressed either. Living an unbalanced life really contributed to my depression. Stress and depression go hand in hand, then we get sick from the stress and the depression and stress just gets worse and it becomes a death spiral. We can define stress as “a state that evokes effort on the part of the individual to maintain or restore equilibrium.”
The 2 R’s are important to remember when it comes to stress management. They are Reduce stress and Relationship to stress. Reducing stress is the number one tool at our disposal. After we reduce what we can then we must work on how we relate to stress that cannot be reduced or eliminated. A life of voluntary simplicity has helped me greatly in this area of stress reduction. In terms of relating to stress, my Buddhist and Taoist practices as well as my 12 step work support me in this area. They help me accept or change the problem…then it is solved either way. Tired of being angry? Just relinquish control and anger will be diminished. Anger and control go hand in hand. I discuss this topic in an earlier post “Justified Anger”
Meditation and mindfulness helped calm my mind. A constantly busy kind cannot heal itself. Joining the simple living movement help make time for me to meditate and relax. Without time for contemplative practices and relaxation I am sunk. This is an almost top necessity for me.
Some information on zazen meditation:
mro.org/zmm/teachings/meditation.php
I tell those that say they have no time to relax to get into voluntary simplicity. In a nutshell, voluntary simplicity reminds us that if you can’t keep up, you need to scale back until you can keep up, if you desire to live a life at peace. I need to eat right and sleep right and exercise right as well. Many foods help trigger crazy thinking, disturb sleep and can lead to depression, especially the salty and chemical rich, artificial factory foods. This is much easier to see once we clean up our diet and our thinking. I discuss a technique I sue in an earlier post ‘Star System’ to help support this foundation of balanced basics that lead to a flourishing life.
A good forum to support a life of voluntary simplicity is:
Sleep is also a problem with me as well as many health related stress produced problems. My sleep has improved, but I have to keep a watchful eye on my lifestyle as it can be back to problematic living in short order. I also found that my depression and stress sickness was greatly helped when I started to work on repairing the wreckage of the past that was constantly being fueled by my various addictions. From years of practicing these addictions I had dug a deep hole for myself and my family. The bigger mess I made, the more stress I created for myself and the more depression and hopelessness arose from my wrong lifestyle.
Once I started to restructure my life in the direction of recovery, the benefits started showing up at my door. One thing was certain, I could not keep my old sick life and get better as well. Something had to go. I was now on track and the problems my earlier life were being cleaned up and I was not added new problems daily to add to the list of old problems.
Some books on the subject of sleep. You can order any of these books for free from a public library.
seoipac.seo.lib.oh.us/ipac20/ipa … arch#focus
Besides nutrition and getting the proper vitamins I have to work in spiritual areas as well. I need a balanced way to live right - not 100% spiritual and not 100% physical, but need to blend the two seamlessly for proper recovery. 12 step work as well as personal religious and spiritual studies helped me in this area. We are spiritual beings in a physical body living in a physical world so we are governed by both spiritual as well as physical or natural laws. So, we must never forget to work in both areas. In short, we have to live right and not work against the natural laws as well as spiritual laws that govern us if we want hopes for a new life.
Some of society do not think much of spiritual or divine laws. Even if you are an atheist, you still must serve 2 Gods whether you like it or not. If you claim you do not serve these Gods…then you must be the God.
See:
jesusneverexisted.org/jne/forum/ … opic=342.0
I am lucky to be able to recover in these areas using natural methods. But other persons suffering from depression might have a chemical imbalance in the brain and need medical advice and special medications. If this is the case, it is a matter of doing the footwork in all these medical areas to find out what can be done. Depression can stem from many areas but once thing is for sure, If we dedicate ourselves to work on getting better and making a better life for us we can almost always improve our life in a positive direction and make progress…but it takes work on our part to make these changes happen.
A couple of book lists for dealing with stress.
Please edit your post and make tinyURLs of those links:
Tragic. Another Manchurian candidate, like at Columbine, Dunblane, Port Arthur, etc. etc. ?
It seemed to me a number of people (interview in the media) had immediate responses of “Why didn’t people have guns to shoot back!?” It is interesting that some jump very quickly to the conclusion that the solution to psychos, like the guy in this Virginia Tech incident, is to put arms in the hands of every man, woman, student, and child! “MORE GUNS! THAT’S WHAT WE NEED!”
I personally don’t think there is anything we can do about psychos that are gun hobbyists. If they decide to show up in any public circle, guns blazing, there isn’t much we can do but wait for armed forces to arrive.
Another side thought;
I lived in Oxford UK for three years during high school (A levels age in UK). Being an American, I was shocked at what a joke the Bobbies (cops) were. I knew kids that actually when out and tormented and bullied cops! I’ve heard of them beating up cops! The law enforcement in the UK don’t carry guns and in general seemed miserably out of shape. Granted cops in the states are famous for being doughnut eating beer-bellies, but at least they carry guns around!
Anyway, It is interesting how different cultures really are different on so many levels. The people handle incidences different and different incidents arise due to the unique nature of each culture.
I believe that violent crimes are much higher in the states than UK, yet theft is ridiculous in UK!
04.17.07.2200
This is indeed tragic. 
Should we not learn to not lock our pains inside until they blow up at the innocent?
Granted this is a terrible thing to have happen. For the students, the teachers, the countries (both the USA and S. Korea), the families and for Cho himself.
There is nothing so important that this sort of thing need happen. And yet it does happen and it keeps happening.
There is a social disease in much of the USA, and much of the EU from what I can see as well. It comes in different flavors but none-the-less it is there regardless.
I read an article about Cho being upset about rich kids or something like that which says to me, besides his obsession with his a woman, he apparently felt very isolated by the wealthy students he encountered.
This is a common theme throughout the world the leads to a lot of lashing out is various ways. In Scotland, England and Ireland you have entire subcultures of Neds (Chavs, Townies, whatever you want to call them) - Anti-socials who thrive and go out of their way to make life miserable and as dysfunctional for everyone else as possible. Granted their are no mass murders, but there is the occasional murder, but regardless they are a serious issue and cause tremendous economic damage, social unrest and all kinds of issues.
There are serious social issues not being addressed in many countries. As long as the governments, the elite and so forth do not address the social disease instead of continually addressing the social symptoms then these sorts of things will continue to happen.
Cho, obviously unstable, must have felt very isolated and alienated or something to react in such a rash way. Why would be feel isolated? Why would he be alienated?
As far as the media coverage of the event…I would trust the media to give a decent story about as far as I could throw the media. They are completely useless and worthless. They will stereotype the people involved and the event and suck it dry for every once of ratings they can get then drop it and move on to the next shocking story to drive ratings and sell advertizing space.
Thank you.
Given that America makes guns readily available to pretty much anyone, the majority of which are oppressed by the Country, I’m surprised we haven’t seen more incidents like this. Anyone at anytime, can at any public place do pretty much the exact same thing with little to no resistance.
Guns don’t kill people – SSRIs kill people – In this case, both directly and indirectly.
Another shooting…on my campus.
news10.net/display_story.aspx?storyid=26774
The problem is that the news focuses too much on crap like this. Sure, it is a tragedy, don’t get me wrong. But yesterday 34 people got killed in Baghdad, and today was one of the worst days ever (in excess of 100 people). And that pales in comparison to the two people per minute that die of Malaria.
The news is, indeed, focusing on the wrong thing. And this is another example of that trend.
It’s pretty wild that he sent the media package with videos and photos to NBC!
The news is going to focus on whatever gets the highest ratings. They will focus on what people will watch, not what people think is ‘most important’ or the right thing. The ‘wrong thing’ according to what or whom?
Certainly this was a tragedy, but it’s garnering more attention than the Tsunami that killed many thousands. You couldn’t see the latter from American homes, so that’s in a sense understandable. It’s interesting that as soon as the shock wears off, people begin the masturbatory work of trying to assign blame, usually blaming the tool used instead of the person using it. Stupid but typical.
I first want to say that what happened in Blacksburg is not only sad but senseless and demented. My heart goes out to the families and friends of those who were lost and who are trying to move past this.
It is even sadder to see how the press tries to capitalize off of tragedy by making it seem like Virginia Tech school officials and police did not do all they were capable of doing at the time. It was almost like the media was playing off the initial feelings of anger of those who were most effected soon after this took place. The natural progression of emotions went from shock to fear to anger and then to saddness.
I’ve followed this since the first day and you kind of have to think to yourself how convenient it is to look from the outside looking in and to pass judgement.
It is troubling, though, to know that police were called twice on him but that he was still able to purchase two guns legally. He waited a month as the law requires in Virginia to purchase the second but with all the problems he had at school I think that the school, at least, should be able to report his name to some caution list or something of that nature.
It would have saved lives but again, hind site is 20/20.