Here comes the blame...

[Pastore]

I would have posted this in the other ANOTHER School Shooting thread, but that is getting long, and I wanted people to see this... I just woke up about an hour ago, and flipped on the TV... NBC was interviewing the two friends of the kid that shot up the school... Can you guess what the third question asked was? You got it, "Was there one particular song that Andy listened to that could have had some influence on his decisions of late?" The two kids were like, "Umm, he listens to Linkin Park a lot, but I have never listened to the lyrics"...

I understand that this will always be the case with the media, but it just absolutely disgusts me to no end... Will it ever end?

 

[Nimloth]

no

 

[skywhr]

Atleast they arent blaming Marilyn Manson this time.

Why not blame it on the kid who did it, f'n scapegoats!

 

[GL]

Yeah...I would've said "The Star Spangled Banner"...that would throw the news reporters for a loop

-GL

 

[Pastore]

LOL, GL, yeah that would have been amusing to say the least... What would have been really good is if the kids got all offended because the guy asked about the music, and they started yelling about how music has nothing to do with people muredering each other, but oh well, one can only hope

 

[Elledan]

I do listen to Linkin Park sometimes, and to Black/Death Metal reguarly.

Does that make me violent? Will I become the next guy who totally loses it and starts shooting people at random? Nope, not a chance.

There are hundred of thousands children listening to 'violent music', but not even 1% of those will become a murderer.

Violent/agressive music can, however, stimulate those desires such a guy already has.

 

[Double Trouble]

Gather round kids, we will all play "The Blame Game"!! With your host "The Media"! . We know a terrible act was committed, but can you decide where to put the blame?? You too can win cash and prizes if you can correctly assign blame.

Let's start with our contestants. Contestants, can you tell me who's to blame??

Bob: uh... why yes, I heard on TV the other day it must be the bad music that did it. It must have been those lyrics.
Jim: uh....I was at a Gore in '04 rally when it happened, so I don't really know what went on, but it has to be guns. We need more gun control.
Jenny: Like, totally! It has to be those violent video games the guy was playing! Ban violent games. Ban all games that are not about Barney!
Mary: Blame society of course! Everyone is equally responsible because we foster such hatred.
Steve: He had low self esteem because he got low grades. We must stop assigning grades and truly make every student the same, so we can all have high self esteem.
Andy: Blame the perpetrator. He was emotionally disturbed and something set him off. It would have been hard to predict when, but at some point he was going to snap. Perhaps if the parents had been a little more involved in his life instead of both working 14 hour days to afford that extra Lexus, they might have noticed.

Sorry Andy, everyone advances to the next round but you. We all know that you can't blame the person that did it!

 

[GoldenTiger]

It's a favorite media past-time: Bash targets, boosts ratings, boosts money! They will never stop so long as it boosts ratings and attracts you to watch whether you like it or hate it because it gets them money from advertisers!

 

[GoldenTiger]

Right on, tagej . No one EVER will blame it on the fact that the kid was just a nut in the first place .

 

[Tauren]

Good one GL!

 

[Elledan]

Good one, tagej

So true, so true...

 

[StageLeft]

There are a few obvious and simple things to blame, none of which include listening to crappy music or playing Quake:

1) probability of an inadequate upbringing
combined with
2) crappy environment in school
combined with
3) probabaly inherent psychiatric problems
All of these with the ability to
4) get access to weaponry
caused
5) school shooting

 

[Corn]

*pats tagej on the back*

Well said.

 

[Double Trouble]

Perhaps I shouldn't be making light of a serious situation, but it's just really sad that it's come down to this -- the media feeds us this BS, and we (as the general public) just buy into it without giving it critical thought.

 

[Pepsi90919]

i saw that just before i walked out the door this morning. it was something like...

nbc: "so was he listening to any music blah blah blah?"
kid: "yeah he listened to linkin park..."
nbc: "so is that a song?"
kid: "well it's uh.....................punk rock....er.....punk"
nbc: "can you name a line from that song?"
kid: "....................................................not really, i don't listen to it much..."

no doubt the kid would've done himself in if:

- me mentioned linkin park was a BAND that had a song 'one step closer'
- he mentioned 'one step closer' was a song about just getting ready to snap and blow up.

well anyway, they shouldn't have asked the question.

 

[kuk]

<sarcasm> Latter this week, reporters get a hold of the kid's PC, and look into the data on his hard drive. Then they see that there's Napster, and 2GB+ of music on his C:\MP3 drive. Most of those songs are rap, black metal and whatnot.


Next week, we'll take a look at Napster's brand new lawsuit. </sarcasm>

:|:|

 

[Pastore]

kuk... You might have thought what you were saying was sarcastic, but I think that it is very true...

 

[thraashman]

Haven't you realized guys, this is America. In America it's never the person who commits a crime who's responsible for it. I'm just glad I was out of high school before the columbine shootings happened. I would have gone through some real crap because of how I was in high school.

 

[fobbman]

Also in the news today, shock rocker Marilyn Manson held a press conference to take full blame for the shooting in Southern California.

Manson said that &quot;while others have been quoted saying that this beast had been listening to Linkin Park, he was actually really into MY music and we corresponded through email a lot.&quot;

Manson went on to say that stories of his having to go door-to-door to shock people were greatly over-exaggerated and that he only &quot;stopped by a couple houses on the way to his concerts by request of the Fallen Angel&quot;.

 

[Emos]

tagej, couldn't have said it better myself!

 

[Raspewtin]

poor, poor musical artists, they're just trying to spread the joy of music. now, those poor musicians will have to deal with a skyrocketing musical base that will listen to them just to hear the music the shooter listened to.



<< Gather round kids, we will all play &quot;The Blame Game&quot;!! >>



the target for today's blame game will be the media as a whole (we'll pretend it's one entity today). the media can blame someone, we can blame the media, let's see how long the chain can get!

 

[MajesticMoose]

I believe tagej's friend andy said it best. The kid, and all of the others, probably have pre-existing psychological conditions that were not recognized until it was too late.

I'm still senoir in high school. After columbine eveerbody was scared it would happen again, and so the adminstrators HAD to do something. To keep this kind of thing from happening at our school they had all of the doors except the main one locked, like that's really going to stop someone from getting in if they want to. It can be such a bitch getting into the main building if you have to go into the gym or band rooms. It's not like they put a guard at the unlocked door, not even an administrator, there's noone.

m00se

 

[Elledan]

<<Also in the news today, shock rocker Marilyn Manson held a press conference to take full blame for the shooting in Southern California.>>

Shock rocker?! C'mon... this guy is as innocent as a young lamb, and so are his songs. Compared to what I use to listen to, the lyrics of Manson's songs are those of some regular love song...

You must be really easily influenced if you commit a shooting after listening to Manson's songs

 

[fobbman]

I can think of far other musical artists whose singing would send me into a violent outburst, but it would likely be targeted at that artist in particular.

 

[Double Trouble]

<<the target for today's blame game will be the media as a whole (we'll pretend it's one entity today). the media can blame someone, we can blame the media, let's see how long the chain can get! >>

heheheheh Hey, I wonder if someone's already patented &quot;The Blame Game&quot;, I'm sure we can come up with a good board game

I forgot one of the potential blame recipients on my list ... I heard it on the news last night, some phycho-babbler was saying that the kid felt ostracized by his classmates -- obviously, we should add the class/school-mates to the list of people we can blame. :|