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Northern Ill. University: Was the Killer Crazy, or the Campus Hopeless?

By Mark Ames, AlterNet. Posted February 16, 2008.


Bracket this massacre as the work of a lunatic on drugs, and you miss the chance to consider the horrors of life in middle America.
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Unlike Virginia Tech gunman Cho Seung-Hui -- a sullen misfit who could barely look anyone in the eye, much less carry on a conversation -- Kazmierczak appeared to fit in just fine. -- Deanna Bellendi, Associated Press

Why? Why did this rage massacre at Northern Illinois University happen? Why did Steven Kazmierczak, "armed with three handguns and a brand-new pump-action shotgun he had carried onto campus in a guitar case," step from behind a screen on the stage of a lecture hall at NIU and open fire on a geology class, killing seven, wounding many more?

The explanations are a repeat of the ones we hear after every other massacre, leading nowhere: gun crazy, evil perp (Nazi, anti-Semite), didn't take his meds, broke up with girlfriend ... none of them are satisfying, none of them lead us anywhere except away from genuine examination.

In my book Going Postal I proposed looking at these uniquely American and uniquely post-Reagan massacres without cheap moral blinders. Look at the setting of the crime, look at the people who live in that setting, and look at the genealogy of the crime.

These rage massacres began in the mid-1980s in post offices, one after another, all seemingly "senseless." Mass killings like the one in Edmond, Oklahoma postal massacre in 1986 which left 14 dead, were quickly transformed into water cooler joke material: The phrase "going postal" replaced "having a cow," and the clash between the Happy Days-era world of mailmen and dawning age of rampaging maniacs was too silly, and seemingly safely confined, to be spared this transformation into cheap black comedy.

But by the end of the 1980s, the water cooler crowd started getting shot as well: workplace massacres spread like a nasty virus from the postal service to wider private sector, and they haven't stopped. The jokes got more nervous. Workplaces transformed into little Atticas, with surveillance cameras, badges, armed rent-a-cops, along with snitches and mutual suspicion.

But the jokes about "going postal" didn't really end until rage massacres spread to the next logical place in Middle American life: our middle-class schools. Suddenly horror and revulsion overwhelmed the irony. Privately, in the safe anonymous world of the Internet, the Columbine killers have become heroes to untold numbers of America's kids, just as they'd set out to do. Like so many terrorists and insurgents, Columbine killers Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold set out on a suicide mission to "kickstart a revolution." And like many successful terrorist or insurgency movements, they succeeded by spawning an ever-growing supply of schoolyard killers.

Over the past few years, the killings leapt from the K-12 schools to universities. Not the top universities, which seems significant to me, but rather to obviously-second-rate universities, as well as the third-rate "vocational" schools. This is relevant, because in a culture so obsessed with being number one, and where the socioeconomic gap between the Number Ones and Everyone Else is growing so wide that it's starting to take on medieval dimensions, it's the ones stuck in the vast middle who face real existential terror.

We're just starting to learn a bit about the NIU killer, 27-year-old Steven P. Kazmierczak: he's been described as a "fairly normal, unstressed person," as well as a bright honors student. Before there was a photo and a name, he was described as a "skinny white guy" wearing all black and a ski mask. In other words, a caricature of evil. Now, one look at the photo of the pimply, pinheaded, goggle-eyed Kazmierczak, and it's hard to match the evil to the recognizably twerpy, sympathetic face.

A Northern Illinois law student told the Washington Post, "The person who did it is a loser. He doesn't deserve a name or picture reference. You're not Kurt Cobain if you do that."

Let's assume he's at least partly right: Kazmierczak probably was a loser, by the standards of Midwestern American winners. For now there's too little information to sort out. But judging from previous massacres, it's likely that Kazmierczak reached a point where life no longer was worth living. His medications are now being held up as a cause, but they just as easily could have been the effects of living the life he lived.

While most of the media focuses on the healing Christian spirit of Dekalb, Ill., home of Northern Illinois University, I've done some searching of what students wrote in anonymous forums, particularly studentsreviews.com, about NIU and Dekalb. Not what they're saying now, when the cameras are on and everyone's officially grieving and Wondering Why, but from last year to three years ago, when they were honest. What you find is an enormous amount of anger and regret -- the sort of regret you'd expect from a middle-aged Willy Loman looking back on a wasted life.

"NIU is a glorified community college," writes one former student. "Let's just say there aren't many Albert Einsteins on campus. If you got solid C's in high school and otherwise are destined for a career path that involves shoveling shit, then NIU is the right school for you. If you are a gang banger from the inner city who has just enough smarts to con a subsidized college education out of the system, then NIU is the right school for you. If your greatest career ambition is to one day be the assistant manager at GNC or Radio Shack, then NIU is the right school for you. If your dream mobile involves one day owning an eleven year old minivan with half the trim missing, then NIU is the right school for you. If you think Pabst Blue Ribbon is a "high end" beer, then NIU is the right school for you. If you like following a football program that hasn't been to a bowl game since 1983, then NIU is the right school for you. If you like following a basketball program that is lucky to draw 1,200 fans to a home game, then NIU is the right school for you. If you like going to a school that ranks as one of the butt ugliest campuses on planet earth, then NIU is the right school for you."


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Mark Ames is editor of the Moscow English alt weekly, The eXile. He is the author of Going Postal: Rage, Murder, and Rebellion: From Reagan's Workplaces to Clinton¿s Columbine and Beyond.

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Why doesn't it happen more?
Posted by: lamar on Feb 16, 2008 12:46 AM   
Current rating: 2    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
If this were a case of the horrors of the midwest and/or the campuses there, why doesn't this sort of thing happen more?

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

» RE: Why doesn't it happen more? Posted by: justaperson
» Medieval culture Posted by: Cathyc
» RE: Why doesn't it happen more? Posted by: madmax427
» RE: Why doesn't it happen more? Posted by: penobscotdziekuje@yahoo.com
» RE: Why doesn't it happen more? Posted by: setterwoman
» Because Posted by: fifthworld
» RE: Why doesn't it happen more? Posted by: newtype_alpha
Looking at it from a distance
Posted by: Lector on Feb 16, 2008 1:07 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
My comment is far from a comprehensive summary but I think the problem partly lies somewhere in the mixture between America’s violent gun and Jesus culture and the myth of the American Dream, where you’re told if you are determined, and regardless of your social class or ethnic background, you can gain a better life. Well, it seems the apparatus to make this happen has broken down. Now we’ve got a more complex socio-political world, the rise of monopolies, corporations squeezing the little man out of everything including his job, governments taking from the people and giving little in return except more rules and surveillance to live under. Add the population explosion, meddlesome religions, oil wars, higher cost of living, less security all around, and greed to the soup, and you have the American nightmare instead. Is it no wonder some people in a population of over 360 million more or less have this urge to start shooting. It is also a sign that Western civilization is dying.

Pointless

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

» American Hell Posted by: Richard House
» Very insightful comment Posted by: skoog5600
» Finally Posted by: Kcanadensis
» Reality 101 Posted by: nigelbest
» RE: Reality 101 Posted by: nigelbest
» RE: eality 101 Posted by: YogiBear
» Dear Nigel Best Posted by: Prairie Waif
» Hello Nigel Posted by: Cathyc
» RE: Looking at it from a distance Posted by: Prairie Waif
I'll be completely blunt
Posted by: andabottleof_rum on Feb 16, 2008 2:56 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
A Northern Illinois law student told the Washington Post, "The person who did it is a loser. He doesn't deserve a name or picture reference. You're not Kurt Cobain if you do that."

It's this kind of attitude toward the weak, awkward, and suffering that causes shooting sprees. Everyone can feel this deep down, but they don't like to admit it's the harsh, egotistical, judgmental, and small-minded attitude our culture promotes, as exemplified by this future lawyer's comment, that's rotting society.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

» As a sidetrack to a sidetrack Posted by: improperly_sedated
» RE: I'll be completely blunt Posted by: MyLeftFoot
» Oh, please! Posted by: pcushniesr
» Are you serious? Posted by: photon's feather
» RE: Oh, please! Posted by: donl51
» RE: Oh, please! Posted by: Prairie Waif
» RE: Oh, please! Posted by: madmax427
» RE: I'll be completely blunt Posted by: artemisia
» AGREED! Posted by: Prairie Waif
» RE: Are elephants really rageful? Posted by: Prairie Waif
» RE: I'll be completely blunt Posted by: andabottleof_rum
» RE: I'll be completely blunt Posted by: constitution, what constitution
» RE: I'll be completely blunt Posted by: GEM-592
» RE: I'll be completely blunt Posted by: Livemike
Why are the medications being kept secret?
Posted by: thoughtcriminal on Feb 16, 2008 3:18 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
The same thing was true in the case of the Virginia Tech shooting - no new media organization has ever published what drugs Cho had been taking or what the results of his autopsy was.

If the Northern Illinois shooter had been on medications, and then stopped taking them, and then snapped, then one would like to know what medications he was on. People coming off medication tend to have withdrawals - which could explain a lot. Tobacco smokers without their cigarettes, meth addicts without their speed - same deal.

While Northern Illinois might truly be awful, many other people survive it without going on rampages. At the very least, the public deserves to know what specific drugs were involved in this as well as in Virginia.

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» Excellent Question Posted by: Persephone8
» RE: xcellent Question Posted by: babs
Fish in a Barrel
Posted by: girlperson1 on Feb 16, 2008 4:03 AM   
Current rating: 2    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Gun Free Zones, it's like shooting fish in a barrel.

If the law requires that schools be "gun free zones" then the law should also require that schools should have proper security to protect everyone within those zones otherwise, well, we see a pattern developing here of suicidal persons who decide they want to end their own lives in a spectacular way so they shoot up these schools and then finally end their own lives.

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» RE: Fish in a Barrel Posted by: benzene
» RE: Fish in a Barrel Posted by: girlperson1
» RE: Fish in a Barrel Posted by: benzene
» RE: Fish in a Barrel Posted by: girlperson1
» RE: Fish in a Barrel Posted by: girlperson1
» RE: Fish in a Barrel Posted by: benzene
» RE: Fish in a Barrel Posted by: girlperson1
» RE: Fish in a Barrel Posted by: YogiBear
» RE: Fish in a Barrel Posted by: Livemike
» RE: Fish in a Barrel Posted by: madmax427
» RE: Fish in a Barrel Posted by: YogiBear
Knee Jerk Psychology Here
Posted by: iconoblaster on Feb 16, 2008 4:10 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
This article is way off base and just another example of unqualified folks offering simplistic explanations for unexplainable actions.
Student gripes about their campus, faculty, etc. = mass murderers? Please.

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» From limited experiences... Posted by: ABetterFuture
» RE: Knee Jerk Psychology Here Posted by: helenwheels
A bit unfair
Posted by: Mercury46 on Feb 16, 2008 4:15 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I certainly agree that chalking this up to some "crazy loser" is irresponsible, but the author's portrait of NIU is totally unfair.

I grew up in central Illinois, and now live in Chicago. After high school, I applied, and was accepted to NIU. After visiting a couple of campuses, I chose to attend Illinois State where I partied my balls off and ended up flunking out. My experience with the professors at ISU was that they were typically not there to help me out. I attribute that to the fact that I rarely attended class or did the work, and then, 2 weeks before the final and aware of my imminent failure, went in to ask if I could drop the course. Unsurprisingly - no dice.

I now (10 years later) attend a school with an awful reputation (all I could get into given my college history), and am having a very good experience. The professors are dedicated and the quality of instruction is great.

Anyone can find terrible reviews of any school by people who went there, but I suspect that anyone who is investing the right amount of time and energy into succeeding in college will find that most professors are willing to work with them.

Granted, the campus is pretty bleak compared to many other schools, but it's hardly a place in which most would feel "hopeless." I haven't been there since my sister graduated about 5 years ago (she had a good experience there, by the way), but what I saw was not rat-infested, inner-city project caliber facilities.

Even the mighty University of Illinois has negative reviews like the ones included in this article. Here is an excerpt from an NIU student who attended both NIU and UofI:

I would not trade my experience and colelge career at NIU for any other school. I have been to University of Illinois and other Illinois schools and i am still happy with my decision. There are a lot of organizations, clubs, fraternities/sororities, etc. for students to get involved with. I am constantly surprised with the level of knowledge and ability of teachers to teach classes in an interesting manner. NIU has a solid core of alumni in Chicago and the west suburbs of Illinois.

More reviews (and the ones the author included) can be found here

Anyway, while it's likely not the only factor, I think the kid definitely had a big chunk of "crazy loser" in him.

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» Crazy loser? Posted by: heid
» RE: Crazy loser? Posted by: Cooltruth
» RE: Crazy loser? Posted by: Mercury46
» Crazy losers Posted by: setterwoman
» RE: Crazy losers Posted by: hagwind
» Crazy Loser? Posted by: Cathyc
» Better known alumni... Posted by: brunowe
The Death of Community ...
Posted by: gazooks on Feb 16, 2008 4:43 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
... seems to coincide within a cultural vacuum in American divergence towards a life discounted simply as business. Burbs devoid of any authentic, reflective sense of history, creative expressions in art, architecture and the aesthetic influence of literature surely contribute to an epidemic of soulless self-centered anxiety and violent rejection.

Environmental organization overtly and exclusively influenced only by considerations of marketing efficiencies, commerce and revenue deliver nothing beyond the product for sale at the expense of our cultural psyche.

Boxed at home, in transit, at work and increasingly isolated at play, often exceedingly violent fantasy play at that, eliminates opportunity to interact in a thoughtful and potentially creative personal way.

Meanwhile, in the rush to cultivating always lower prices in a veneer of facsimile and aesthetic disregard, we cost ourselves our humanity and cultural soul.

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Wow, condescending, much?
Posted by: rwday@cox.net on Feb 16, 2008 4:54 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
So NIU isn't Harvard, it's a 'glorified community college.' So what? Community colleges have their place, as do 'obviously second rate universities' (I'm assuming that's where this author would place Virginia Tech - a sentiment, as a Virginian and a mom of a VT alum with which I can't agree). Even if we were to fix every problem in our schools so that every child got a quality education, there would still be a place for these 'lower tier schools' - not every student has the ability or interest in attending the top colleges. Lots of students derive great satisfaction from their attendance at these schools, far more than the number who find them hopeless and wastes of money and time, and infinitely more than take a gun and start shooting.

As this article points out, the NIU shooter wasn't even a current student at the school - he'd managed to use whatever he'd gained at the glorified community college to transfer into the University of Illinois (also no Harvard).

I'm not saying there's nothing wrong with American life and culture - there is, quite a lot, and we need to address the systemic problems, preferably sooner rather than later. But millions of Americans live in this author's 'very familiar, flat sort of American hell' and get along just fine, or if they have difficulties, they handle them without resorting to violence. The primary blame for this crime rests with the shooter, and with a culture that makes guns far too easily available. If, out of despair, he'd killed himself, I would be sympathetic. He lost any shot at my sympathy when he took his rage and frustration out on a classroom full of innocents.

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» RE: Wow, condescending, much? Posted by: CrystalD
» RE: Wow, condescending, much? Posted by: armswideopen
» RE: Wow, condescending, much? Posted by: Freethemind
» Ivy League "education" ... Posted by: Cathyc
» RE: Ivy League "education" ... Posted by: Freethemind
» RE: Wow, condescending, much? Posted by: newtype_alpha
» Everyone is Special! Posted by: lasarte-oria
» RE: veryone is Special! Posted by: armswideopen
» RE: veryone is Special! Posted by: Elmo55
This Article Says Nothing
Posted by: MTHarris on Feb 16, 2008 5:02 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
It appears for the sake of publishing something quickly on the shootings at NIU, Alternet has published this shallow, useless article. Obviously, a person's environment can have an impact on their mental health. But to write about the bleakness of the DeKalb campus as part of a possible explanation for what happened to this man is utterly ridiculous. By the logic displayed here, you might think thousands of desperately impoverished people in Mexico or Darfur or certain parts of the west side of Chicago would be routinely "going postal."

I know DeKalb well. It's hardly San Francisco, but it might be more productive to inquire into this man's specific life story, his family and childhood and psychiatric history. It's reported that he spent nearly a year in a mental health facility in 1999, so obviously there's a story there.

There is a larger social context to the issue of violence in America, of course. But in suggesting this specific act of violence might have something to do with the limitations of NIU or DeKalb is superficial nonsense.

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» RE: This Article Says Nothing Posted by: helenwheels
» RE: This Article Says Nothing Posted by: Luther Blissett
» RE: This Article Says Nothing Posted by: thealltheone
» RE: This Article Says Nothing Posted by: Livemike
» RE: This Article Says Nothing Posted by: MTHarris
epidemiological studies show that men with low social status in a hierarchical society
Posted by: Suzon on Feb 16, 2008 5:39 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
are more violent. The taunt of "Loser!" speaks volumes. The author of this article seems to me to be on the right track (see Richard Wilkinson's The Impact of Inequality for corroboration), even if other factors were involved.

Guess what? Education is a business in America. Educators thrive because of the empires they construct. Chomsky points out that newspapers exist to sell readers to advertisers. Similarly, colleges and universities can be said to exist by recruiting students to support teachers. In many fields, a degree is a tax paid by job applicants. It's a substitute for on-the-job training.

Perhaps the country would be healthier if degrees were only required in a few select areas such as engineering and medicine.

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» The THIRD TYPE OF TEACHER. . . Posted by: Prairie Waif
the Lake Wobegon effect
Posted by: war_on_tara on Feb 16, 2008 5:41 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I remember reading Mark Ames' analysis of Columbine awhile back & completely agreeing. High school is uniquely brutal. But this one seems like a lot of whining to me.

Must we have a multicultural Lake Wobegon, where all colleges are above average, all JOBS are above average, etc? How can that be accomplished? It's just a fact that most jobs are pretty boring.

And while I enjoy interesting architecture, can we really blame mass murder on bad architecture? Sounds like Ames is channeling Ayn Rand there!

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» RE: the Lake Wobegon effect Posted by: wittler youth
Make a effort to be kind to each other ~!!
Posted by: Kelli B on Feb 16, 2008 5:53 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I don't think that the result of allowing more guns per square mile is going to result in less lead entering human flesh. The article explores the back street of this persons life. Perhaps the disassociation and the resulting alienation of peoples connection with one another is resulting in these violent acts? Do you remember the day after 9/11. We looked strangers in the eye and told them we cared. Were there mass murders commited by Americans in the months following 9/11? Lets be kind to each other. Freak ourt the next stranger you see and let him./her you care, if just for a moment!

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Just a symptom.
Posted by: heid on Feb 16, 2008 5:58 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
These incidents are not isolated. They're the products of millions of people who are desperate, usually without realizing it, since everything around them says that they are supposed to be happy. So, they put on the show, like nearly everyone else - all of whom are miserably desperate, too, but cannot risk being labeled as different or somehow wrong. So, people continue on the treadmill to nowhere, trying and trying to be that happy image projected to them, falling further and further behind, feeling more and more like failures.

This is the problem. There are far more of these tragedies, but most of them take place under the radar. They end up as suicides, addicts, physically ill from their mental burdens. This is the American society today.

The saddest part is that it's being exported, often by force, to the rest of the world. Some places do better than others at ignoring it, but the glitter keeps sparkling, and more and more are sucked into this void.

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» RE: Just a symptom. Posted by: carlie727
» Educated and Wealthy? Posted by: Cathyc
» RE: Just a symptom. Posted by: liberalibrarian
Unrealistic expectations can be hazardous to your sanity
Posted by: hagwind on Feb 16, 2008 6:13 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
OK, in among the NIU bashing, the Midwest-bashing, and the rural/small-town bashing, there are some good points worth building on -- and one glaring omission.

As others upstream pointed out (esp. Mercury46 -- good post!), what you get out of college has a lot to do with what you put into it. What GWBush got out of Yale had less to do with professorial attention and well-maintained buildings than with the connections he had going in. In the last generation or so, college has been sold as this thing you have to have to "get ahead." The emphasis is on the diploma, not the educational process that leads toward it. The hard sell spawns unrealistic expectations; thwarted expectations sometimes turn ugly. Not to mention -- if you have to work full-time to put yourself through school, it's going to be much harder to discover and take advantage of the opportunities that your school offers. If everyone is working full-time, how much "campus life" is there going to be? How open to new people and experiences can most students afford to be?

About despair that leads to homicidal and suicidal rage -- well, here's the glaring omission. How many of those people who went postal, how many water-cooler killers and school shooter-uppers, were female? Where's the teenage girl who thinks she's going to kickstart a revolution by shooting up her high school? The author writes that "the Columbine killers have become heroes to untold numbers of America's kids, just as they'd set out to do" -- could we have a gender breakdown here? Are these "kids" mostly boys? mostly girls? mixed half and half? I don't know -- I doubt the author does either -- but I have this hunch.

I don't for a minute believe that this has much, if anything, to do with testosterone or the Y chromosome. I think it's about socialization, and especially about the expectations we lay on ourselves and the expectations that sometimes make it hard to see what we're looking right at. Which may be why the author didn't even mention what is so glaringly obvious to me.

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Why attack the university?
Posted by: lasb on Feb 16, 2008 6:22 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
As this is my first comment to Alternet, I had ideas in my head of how I wanted to respond. Then, in setting up my account I read this:

AlterNet will not tolerate:

personal attacks on our writers or readers
excessive profanity
racist, sexist or other discriminatory or hateful language
comments that are off-topic or irrelevant to the story or discussion at hand.

So, now my comment has changed to: Why would Alternet publish a story that seems to be mainly a one-sided rant on the quality of NIU? It reads as a personal attack, complete with hateful language. While kicking a mourning community, it offers no solutions to stopping this increasingly common societal problem.

Perhaps I am biased, as my sister attended NIU 20 years ago. And perhaps because I was on NIU's campus last fall for a student organization conference where I found the students to be as enthusiastic and forward-looking as on any college campus. Yes, it's not the prettiest campus on the planet. Yes, it is still in the middle of a cornfield...even 20 years after my sister graduated.

But...perhaps all of the hateful comments about the school the author cited were by students who really didn't put their all into their education and made choices while students there that did not enhance their opportunities.

This report was a totally biased, one-sided attack on an institution that is not responsible for the event. No institution is. Just as Westroads Mall in Omaha was not responsible for the killings there, neither is ANY university or school where shootings happen.

I would suggest it is our society that is responsible; that as a society we have come to a point where things are horribly wrong. We should be able to go to class, go shopping, do our daily business and not be in fear of this kind of "homegrown" terrorism.

Attacking the location of the incident is NOT the solution. I'm dissapointed that Alternet chose to print this story.

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» RE: Why attack the university? Posted by: thealltheone
» RE: Sure guns are not the problem. Posted by: thealltheone
» RE: Why attack the university? Posted by: Cooltruth
» RE: Why attack the university? Posted by: commonsense1
» Why attack? To peddle his book Posted by: allenjhist
» RE: Why attack the university? Posted by: ibtrippen
its the same in Nebraska
Posted by: zooeyhall on Feb 16, 2008 6:29 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Wow! What can I say about this terrific article? I haved lived 53 years in rural Nebraska and believe me people it is the same out here. Describing DeKalb is like describing the intellectual desolation and economic wasteland of rural Nebraska.

We have several community colleges in my area, and they are nothing but shills training for the local McDonald's and the factory hog farms in my area. The administration of these colleges are nothing but cynical whores to the local (low wage) manufacturing interests. The teachers at these colleges are largely local people who are expert at zeroing in on one of the few high-wage and safe jobs in rural Nebraska.

I also like how the author notes that this seemed to start in the mid -80s. Yeah, everyone around here thinks Reagan was the best pres since Lincoln. Just another symptom of the intellectual bankruptcy of people out here.

Yes rural America is declining because of economic reasons, but a large factor is that finally the "chickens are coming home to roost" of the pig-headed conservative knee jerk attitudes out here.

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Answers not so simple
Posted by: BST on Feb 16, 2008 6:32 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
None of us may ever know (he may not have known) why this man acted. But I'll forego demonizing -- as some will -- those who do crack, even in horrific manner, or hypothesizing from blogs.

As a human being and parent, my sympathies whenever one of these rampages takes place go to victims, families, friends, community. It may happen 1,000 miles away; it might as well be next door.

But it is a time to wonder, as we consider our own beloved circle, how a smart, apparently well-liked individual can also become a black-garbed shooter. What happens to prompt that transformation? Pre-existing mental health issues? Awful loneliness? Shame? Urges beyond control? Loss?

How well do we know one another?

The grip of mental illness in tandem with the isolation felt by many people in a modern world more enamored of technology than the human interaction that plants us at the dinner table with family, is a tough yoking. Consider the thesis of "Bowling Alone" by Robert Putnam.

As I said, my deepest sympathies go out to the survivors of the children who were killed and to those deeply injured in body and spirit.

But my heart also goes out to the father of this shooter, interviewed in his turmoil on TV begging reporters to leave him alone.

I would not be so quick, as this author has been, to use a few student postings to broad-brush the campus experience, implying that the answer may lie there. Every campus has critics.

True answers reside somewhere so deep in the human heart that a quick diagnosis/synopsis is seldom going to be on the mark, even though kernels of truth may be contained therein.

It is certainly well past the time when parents and schools began speaking very directly and early on about exactly how and where kids can get help when they're starting to feel overwhelmed.

I hope that any young people out there who are carrying around grief or anger or fear will, somehow, turn not to mayhem but to a parent or trusted adult, valued friend, teacher, doctor.

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» RE: Institutionalised Child Abuse Posted by: SatanicJamboree
» RE: Answers not so simple Posted by: GEM-592
Jesus Christ
Posted by: daveinchi on Feb 16, 2008 6:36 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
This campus and this community just endured a horrific and violent nightmare, and your reaction is to spend three pages talking about what a shitty town, and a shitty campus it is?

I've been to DeKalb, and yes, I'm sure it has its problems. Is THIS going to help it though?

How utterly inappropriate.

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» RE: Jesus Christ Posted by: Lycas7x