[A-List] Workers World Editorial: Why Virginia Tech killings happened

["Charles Brown" <cbrown@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

EDITORIAL


  Why Virginia Tech killings happened

Published Apr 17, 2007 11:36 PM

Yet another rampage has occurred at a school, this time leaving 33 
people dead at Virginia Tech-the worst such incident ever at a U.S. 
college campus.

The news media seem stunned and surprised, yet their coverage sounds so 
similar to the stories about Columbine eight years ago. They dwell on 
the personality of the young man the police say did the shooting, before 
killing himself. They talk about him being a "loner," depressed, perhaps 
angry at women.

But aren't there lonely and depressed people all over the world? Many 
countries have high suicide rates. Why is it that here some become mass 
murderers?

The U.S. is the world leader in seemingly random acts of violence by 
individuals. Why?

President George W. Bush rushed to Virginia to speak at a large 
convocation the day after the killings and tried to set the tone for 
what could be said about them. "It's impossible to make sense of such 
violence and suffering," he said.

Don't ask why, don't try to understand. It makes no sense. "Have faith" 
instead, was Bush's message.

But there ARE reasons these things happen here, and they are pretty 
clear to the rest of the world. It's just in the United States that no 
one is supposed to talk about the reasons.

What distinguishes this country from the rest of the world? It is 
neither the most affluent nor the poorest. It is neither the most 
secular nor the most religious. It is not the most culturally 
homogeneous nor is it the most diverse.

But in one area, it stands virtually alone. It has the biggest arsenal 
of high-tech weaponry in the world, way surpassing every other country. 
It has military bases spread all over; most countries have no troops 
outside their borders.

It is conducting two hot wars at the moment, in Iraq and Afghanistan, 
and has sent hundreds of thousands of troops abroad over the last few 
years. Every day, the public here is supposed to identify with soldiers 
who burst into homes in Baghdad, round up the people and take them away 
for "interrogation"-which everyone knows now can mean torture and 
indefinite detainment.

It also sends heavily armed "special ops" on secret missions to 
countless other countries, like the ones who just facilitated the 
invasion and bombing of Somalia, or the ones who have been trying to 
stir up opposition in Iran. This is documented in the news media.

The immense brutality of these colonial wars, as well as earlier ones, 
is praised from the White House on down as the best, the ONLY way to 
achieve what the political leaders and their influential, rich backers 
decide is necessary to protect their world empire. Do lots of people get 
killed? "Stuff happens," said former war secretary Donald Rumsfeld. 
"Collateral damage," says the Pentagon.

At home, the U.S. has the highest rate of incarceration in the world. 
Over 2 million people are locked up in the prison system each year, most 
of them people of color. When commercial armed security guards are also 
taken into consideration, the U.S. has millions of employees who use 
guns and other coercive paraphernalia in their jobs.

In the final analysis, the military and the police-the "armed bodies of 
men," as Marxists used to define them before women were added to their 
ranks-exist to perpetuate and protect this present unjust system of 
capitalist inequality, where a few can claim personal ownership over a 
vast economy built by the sweat and blood of hundreds of millions of 
workers.

And the more divided, the more polarized the society becomes, the higher 
the level of coercion and violence. Assault weapons are now everywhere 
in this society, as are Tasers, handcuffs, clubs and tear gas. They most 
often start out in the hands of the police, the military and other 
agents of the state, and can then turn up anywhere.

Violence is a big money maker in the mass culture. Television, films, 
pulp novels, Internet sites, video games-all dwell on "sociopaths" while 
glorifying the state's use of violence, often supplemented by a lone 
vigilante. By the time children reach their teens, they have already 
seen thousands of murders and killings on television. And these days 
even more suspense is added in countless programs that involve stalking 
and terror against women-and increasingly children.

As the Duke rape case and so many "escort service" ads show, women of 
color are particularly subject to exploitation and have little recourse 
to any justice. And as the murders along the border show, immigrants of 
color are fair game for racist killers.

The social soil of capitalism can alienate and enrage an unstable and 
miserable person who should be getting help but can't find it. If, as 
reports are saying, the young man accused of these killings was on 
anti-depressant medication, it is all the more evidence that, at a time 
when hospitals are closing and health care is unavailable for tens of 
millions, treating mental health problems requires more from society 
than just prescribing dubious chemicals.

Many liberal commentators are taking this occasion to renew the demand 
for tougher gun laws. Yes, assault weapons are horrible, but so are 
bunker buster bombs, helicopters that fire thousands of rounds a minute, 
and the ultimate-nuclear weapons. Disarming the people is not the 
answer, especially when the capitalist state is armed to the teeth and 
uses brutality and coercion daily.

The best antidote to these tragedies is to build a movement for profound 
social change, for replacing capitalism with socialism, so that people's 
energies can be directed at solving the great problems depressing so 
much of humanity today, whether they be wars or global climate change or 
the loneliness of the dog-eat-dog society.

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