COMMON CRIMES

We live in a violent world. America was founded on racial violence against
Native Americans and Africans. Hollywood grows obscenely rich by selling
a steady stream of violence as entertainment. Sexual violence is sport.
Emotional violence is cool. Economic violence is elite. Military violence is
blindly patriotic...How dare we question the collective fallout of this violence
upon American children! 

The recent bloody massacre at Columbine, Colorado is nothing new. It has
happened many times before. And, it will happen again. These are the
violent realities of a violent world.

Many seek healing and understanding by posing questions about the
shooters, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. But the questions most often
posed are severely incorrect. Rather than question “The Trenchcoat Mafia”,
we should be questioning the staff that allowed them to exist. Rather than
question how one killer learned to make bombs, we should question why
his parents never heard him doing so. Rather than ask why these killers
had no respect for life, we should ask how their wealth may have made
their lives dangerously bleak. Rather than question how a child can be
allowed to transform a family garage into a bomb factory, we should
question how any child can be allowed so much privacy under one roof.
Rather than question alleged conspiracies against cruel bully athletes, we
should question the random nature of this slaughter. In the grisly aftermath,
among 15 corpses, only one was Black and most were not athletes.

Teenagers are uniquely cruel humans. Those who are jocks and
cheerleaders are often allowed to be ruthlessly evil to those they deem
“uncool”. This abuse is both physical and mental. Most persons endure
such abuse. Increasingly, more persons do not.

Cruel teenagers grow up to be cruel adults. They abuse subordinates in
corporate America just as they once abused outsiders in high school. They
continue to murder spirits and souls in different fashions and arenas. Some
of the hatred that teens display does trickle down from the principles and
politics of hateful parents.

Clearly kids who massacre their schoolmates suffer from far more than
typical teen angst or typically poor parental role models. Millions of kids
who are teased or beaten or detached from their parents do not become
mass murderers. It is said that the Columbine killers loved violent films,
racist computer games, Hitler and his Nazism, and psychotic websites.
Yet, millions of other persons enjoy those same twisted passions and never
ambush their schools or offices.

It is transparently treacherous that the same media which dare to claim that
movies and imagery have no power to fashion killers, are the very same
media that rake in billions of dollars of advertising revenues via movies and
imagery that fashion consumers.

It is said that “The Trenchcoat Mafia’s” slogan was “Insanity is Healthy!”.
How is that slogan any different from Wall Street’s leading advertising
agencies or national news editors? Do we not adhere to that same maxim
daily as we accept anorexia as healthy, toxic poisons as medicine, synthetic
chemicals as nutrition, sex as loveless sport, CIA crack dealers as above
drug laws, emaciation as model chic, mentacidal noise as music, white
supremacy as multiculturalism, neoconism as reality, racism as a fossil,
etc...
 
It is very easy to dismiss these two killer kids as somehow uniquely warped
or evil. It is equally difficult to admit that the violence they unleashed at
Columbine is loosely chained inside other persons everywhere. Truthfully
and tragically, that same racism, rage, apathy, and aberration, all brew just
beneath the surfaces of millions of Americans.

Eric and Dylan were rich kids. One left bombs in his own BMW on the day
of the massacre. Both lived in big beautiful homes. Who paid their Internet
bills. Who bought all of their costly toys? Who bought their guns? Perhaps
if they had been given as much spiritually as they were given materially,
then they, and those they slaughtered, might still be alive. 

Children who have everything have something very evil in common with
children who have nothing: Neither feel that they have anything to live for.
Nothing is more deadly than someone who does not value their own life.
Rest assured, such a person will also never value your life.

Children must be treated as humans. It is not enough to treat them as
investments or puppies. They must be fed, literally and figuratively. They
must be nurtured spiritually, emotionally, and physically, with equal passion 
and vigor. Anything less is inhumane and breeds monsters.

It is not enough to pay bills. Parents must pay attention. They must spend
quality time in deep and diverse conversation with their children. They must
get inside their lives, minds, hearts, souls, bedrooms, closets, and dreams.
Only then can they save their sanity, spirits and souls. 

Violence will continue to be the victor in a world where we allow any hatred
to be regarded as harmless. Children will always reflect the world that they
inherit. We can never fix our broken children until we fix our broken world.

There is so much work to be done globally. You can begin doing your share
today. Just be nice to someone. Even if they are different, unattractive,
homeless, etc. Remember: In the midst of murderous madness, even Eric
and Dylan allowed the kids they liked to live.

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