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sabotabbySorry to post about the you-know-whats that happened you-know-where, but I'm doing so in the service of making a Margaret-Wente-is-an-asshat post. So there.
Wente has conveniently provided us all with The Definitive Link between the [Bad Dog-Eating Model Immigrants] and the [Bad Sand-People]*. That's right—Cho shot up VTech not because of mental illness, American gun culture, video games, or even Marilyn Manson, but as part of the jihad! (Even though he was a Christian, apparently.)
The link is here, but it requires a subscription.
His 15 minutes of fame
Monday's mass murderer styled himself a jihadist complete with martyr video, says MARGARET WENTE
Many malevolent influences have been cited in the twisting of the mind of Cho Seung-Hui, including violent video games, Quentin Tarantino movies and a 2003 South Korean splatter flick called Oldboy (which was much beloved of European critics).
That's a horrible sentence in pretty much every way. Does anyone edit these columns?
But it's obvious that Monday's mass murderer styled himself as a jihadist. He even left a martyr video, in which he posed with military garb and guns. In it, the holy warrior is supposed to explain his reasons for planning his attack on the infidel. The martyr video is meant to be an inspiration to others, and to publicize his heroic self-sacrifice.
Actual Cho QuoteTM "Thanks to you I die like Jesus Christ, to inspire generations of the weak and the defenceless people." Source.
Well, it sure did get him airtime.
I'm sure he appreciated watching it from the Big Flatscreen in the Sky, in between deflowering 72 Virginians or whatever.
Don't blame NBC for taking the bait. Any other network would have too. The CBC refused to touch it, claiming higher moral ground, but I think the CBC was wrong. The video had real value. It proved the killer really was a demented nut.
It proved that the CBC has class. <3 <3 <3
Not that NBC did not exploit its little scoop. Before it decided to "restrain" its video excerpts to no more than six minutes out of every hour, the network milked its exclusive video through the evening news cycle and slapped its peacock logo on every single frame, so that all the broadcasters and newspapers in the world (except the CBC) would have to run pictures labelled "NBC News." Now that's branding!
I can't figure out whether she thinks this is cool or not. Since she's an evil capitalist, though, I'm going to guess that she thinks it's cool.
By Thursday, the victims' families and the students at Virginia Tech had had enough. "VT stay strong, media stay away," said a huge handmade sign. And who could blame them? For them, the martyr video was a fresh assault -- and a trigger for the media hordes to descend all over again, like so many vampires bent on sucking the last drop of blood from the story.
Several psychologists (interviewed on rival networks) condemned the video's widespread play. One called it a "social catastrophe," and, like CBC editor-in-chief Tony Burman, warned that it might trigger copycat crimes. "If anybody cares about the victims in Blacksburg and if anybody cares about their children, stop showing this video now. Take it off the Internet. Let it be relegated to YouTube," the psychologist said.
Because no one watches YouTube ever.
Well, that would be the problem, would it not? So long as it's on YouTube, who cares who else does or doesn't run it? For that matter, who needs videos of murderers ranting at you when you can download videos of real beheadings any old time? Anyone with homicidal leanings doesn't need to go far for inspiration. Our culture sickeningly glorifies fictional sadism and death. But the wonders of technology have put real torture and real death at the fingertips of anybody with a modem.
Wente, however, has never glorified violence.
Any random massacre is like a Rorschach test. People use it to project a political or social point of view.
The difference is that Wente gets paid for it.
The Columbine murders were blamed on broken homes, lack of parent-child interaction, day care, sex and violence on TV, Dungeons and Dragons, spoiled children, abortion, school bullying, intolerance and marginalization of less popular students by more popular ones and, of course, gun culture.
Guess which of these theories were advanced by crazy people?
The Blacksburg massacre is no different. As you might expect, the British papers are full of stories about the aspirational U.S. culture (which allegedly punishes losers) and its trigger-happy ways. "Perhaps the pressure of being an outsider had become too much," guesses one journalist. "The son of South Korean immigrants who came to the U.S. in 1992 in search of the American dream, Cho was railing against the rich." Indeed he was. But the writer doesn't bother to explain how Cho's sister, also presumably an outsider, managed to graduate from Princeton and get a job with the State Department.
Your challenge is to name three women who've gone on shooting sprees by the time you hit the end of this article. And...go!
America's toxic culture also comes in for a licking from Bob Herbert of the New York Times, who claims the country is fundamentally misogynist and homophobic. "Violence is commonly resorted to as the antidote to the disturbing emotions raised by the widespread hostility toward women in our society and the pathological fear of so many men that they aren't quite tough enough," he opines. "The confluence of feelings of inadequacy, psychosexual turmoil and the easy availability of guns has resulted in a staggering volume of murders in this country." Actually, the murder rate has been in steep decline. But why let the facts get in the way of a good rant?
"Gosh, Margaret, I can't think of a single woman who's done that."
My own view is that America is not so bad a place to be a woman and/or immigrant and/or gay.
Hahaha hahah haha oh wait she's serious.
Mr. Cho appears to have suffered from a disorder that inclined him to act in bizarre and dysfunctional ways. The modern world offers such people a variety of ways to shape and justify their homicidal fantasies. He chose jihadism.
Um, no. He chose to shoot up a school.
Some of his video ranting even echos jihadist denunciations of the decadent West. "You've had everything you wanted," he raved. "Your Mercedes wasn't enough, you brat. Your golden necklaces weren't enough, you snobs. Your trust fund wasn't enough. Your vodka and cognac weren't enough. All your debaucheries weren't enough to fulfill your hedonistic needs."
Oh, speaking of vodka, is it TOO SOON to make Boris Yelstin jokes?
In some places, it doesn't take a madman to kill you for moral corruption. Perhaps it's sheer coincidence, but in Iran this week, the country's supreme court overturned the murder convictions of six members of an Islamic paramilitary force -- male vigilantes in their 20s -- who went around massacring people they considered immoral and debauched. (Among their victims were an unmarried couple who had been caught in public holding hands.) The killers put some of their victims in pits and stoned them to death. Some were suffocated. One man was buried alive, and the bodies of others were dumped in the desert to be eaten by wild animals. I have a feeling they're not that fond of homosexuals either.
So, are these the death squads we support, or the death squads we're against? I can never keep track.
Which is more frightening -- one insane young man with a gun, or an insane regime with an army of young men to do its bidding?
I agree, but if the Americans impeached Bush, they'd get stuck with Cheney.
Personally, I'd pick the one that wasn't on TV.
That doesn't even make sense.
mwente@globeandmail.com
So you can e-mail her to complain about her using the deaths of 32 innocent people as an excuse to bash Iran.
EDIT: It's unfortunate that I found Wente Watch only after it ended.
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lopukhov
Wente has conveniently provided us all with The Definitive Link between the [Bad Dog-Eating Model Immigrants] and the [Bad Sand-People]*. That's right—Cho shot up VTech not because of mental illness, American gun culture, video games, or even Marilyn Manson, but as part of the jihad! (Even though he was a Christian, apparently.)
The link is here, but it requires a subscription.
His 15 minutes of fame
Monday's mass murderer styled himself a jihadist complete with martyr video, says MARGARET WENTE
Many malevolent influences have been cited in the twisting of the mind of Cho Seung-Hui, including violent video games, Quentin Tarantino movies and a 2003 South Korean splatter flick called Oldboy (which was much beloved of European critics).
That's a horrible sentence in pretty much every way. Does anyone edit these columns?
But it's obvious that Monday's mass murderer styled himself as a jihadist. He even left a martyr video, in which he posed with military garb and guns. In it, the holy warrior is supposed to explain his reasons for planning his attack on the infidel. The martyr video is meant to be an inspiration to others, and to publicize his heroic self-sacrifice.
Actual Cho QuoteTM "Thanks to you I die like Jesus Christ, to inspire generations of the weak and the defenceless people." Source.
Well, it sure did get him airtime.
I'm sure he appreciated watching it from the Big Flatscreen in the Sky, in between deflowering 72 Virginians or whatever.
Don't blame NBC for taking the bait. Any other network would have too. The CBC refused to touch it, claiming higher moral ground, but I think the CBC was wrong. The video had real value. It proved the killer really was a demented nut.
It proved that the CBC has class. <3 <3 <3
Not that NBC did not exploit its little scoop. Before it decided to "restrain" its video excerpts to no more than six minutes out of every hour, the network milked its exclusive video through the evening news cycle and slapped its peacock logo on every single frame, so that all the broadcasters and newspapers in the world (except the CBC) would have to run pictures labelled "NBC News." Now that's branding!
I can't figure out whether she thinks this is cool or not. Since she's an evil capitalist, though, I'm going to guess that she thinks it's cool.
By Thursday, the victims' families and the students at Virginia Tech had had enough. "VT stay strong, media stay away," said a huge handmade sign. And who could blame them? For them, the martyr video was a fresh assault -- and a trigger for the media hordes to descend all over again, like so many vampires bent on sucking the last drop of blood from the story.
Several psychologists (interviewed on rival networks) condemned the video's widespread play. One called it a "social catastrophe," and, like CBC editor-in-chief Tony Burman, warned that it might trigger copycat crimes. "If anybody cares about the victims in Blacksburg and if anybody cares about their children, stop showing this video now. Take it off the Internet. Let it be relegated to YouTube," the psychologist said.
Because no one watches YouTube ever.
Well, that would be the problem, would it not? So long as it's on YouTube, who cares who else does or doesn't run it? For that matter, who needs videos of murderers ranting at you when you can download videos of real beheadings any old time? Anyone with homicidal leanings doesn't need to go far for inspiration. Our culture sickeningly glorifies fictional sadism and death. But the wonders of technology have put real torture and real death at the fingertips of anybody with a modem.
Wente, however, has never glorified violence.
Any random massacre is like a Rorschach test. People use it to project a political or social point of view.
The difference is that Wente gets paid for it.
The Columbine murders were blamed on broken homes, lack of parent-child interaction, day care, sex and violence on TV, Dungeons and Dragons, spoiled children, abortion, school bullying, intolerance and marginalization of less popular students by more popular ones and, of course, gun culture.
Guess which of these theories were advanced by crazy people?
The Blacksburg massacre is no different. As you might expect, the British papers are full of stories about the aspirational U.S. culture (which allegedly punishes losers) and its trigger-happy ways. "Perhaps the pressure of being an outsider had become too much," guesses one journalist. "The son of South Korean immigrants who came to the U.S. in 1992 in search of the American dream, Cho was railing against the rich." Indeed he was. But the writer doesn't bother to explain how Cho's sister, also presumably an outsider, managed to graduate from Princeton and get a job with the State Department.
Your challenge is to name three women who've gone on shooting sprees by the time you hit the end of this article. And...go!
America's toxic culture also comes in for a licking from Bob Herbert of the New York Times, who claims the country is fundamentally misogynist and homophobic. "Violence is commonly resorted to as the antidote to the disturbing emotions raised by the widespread hostility toward women in our society and the pathological fear of so many men that they aren't quite tough enough," he opines. "The confluence of feelings of inadequacy, psychosexual turmoil and the easy availability of guns has resulted in a staggering volume of murders in this country." Actually, the murder rate has been in steep decline. But why let the facts get in the way of a good rant?
"Gosh, Margaret, I can't think of a single woman who's done that."
My own view is that America is not so bad a place to be a woman and/or immigrant and/or gay.
Hahaha hahah haha oh wait she's serious.
Mr. Cho appears to have suffered from a disorder that inclined him to act in bizarre and dysfunctional ways. The modern world offers such people a variety of ways to shape and justify their homicidal fantasies. He chose jihadism.
Um, no. He chose to shoot up a school.
Some of his video ranting even echos jihadist denunciations of the decadent West. "You've had everything you wanted," he raved. "Your Mercedes wasn't enough, you brat. Your golden necklaces weren't enough, you snobs. Your trust fund wasn't enough. Your vodka and cognac weren't enough. All your debaucheries weren't enough to fulfill your hedonistic needs."
Oh, speaking of vodka, is it TOO SOON to make Boris Yelstin jokes?
In some places, it doesn't take a madman to kill you for moral corruption. Perhaps it's sheer coincidence, but in Iran this week, the country's supreme court overturned the murder convictions of six members of an Islamic paramilitary force -- male vigilantes in their 20s -- who went around massacring people they considered immoral and debauched. (Among their victims were an unmarried couple who had been caught in public holding hands.) The killers put some of their victims in pits and stoned them to death. Some were suffocated. One man was buried alive, and the bodies of others were dumped in the desert to be eaten by wild animals. I have a feeling they're not that fond of homosexuals either.
So, are these the death squads we support, or the death squads we're against? I can never keep track.
Which is more frightening -- one insane young man with a gun, or an insane regime with an army of young men to do its bidding?
I agree, but if the Americans impeached Bush, they'd get stuck with Cheney.
Personally, I'd pick the one that wasn't on TV.
That doesn't even make sense.
mwente@globeandmail.com
So you can e-mail her to complain about her using the deaths of 32 innocent people as an excuse to bash Iran.
EDIT: It's unfortunate that I found Wente Watch only after it ended.
* Both terms ©
lopukhov
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no subject
Date: 2007-04-24 01:05 am (UTC)That these people are almost all entirely white hetero males is probably a coincidence, I'm sure.