by Jennifer Johnston
Photograph of Oklahoma City National Memorialby Dustin M. Ramsey, with Mr. Ramsey's stated permission
I had planned to write this post in April, because there were several dates worthy of commemoration and remembrance which fell during that month. But then Susan Boyle caught the imagination of the world when she sang on Britain's Got Talent, and inspired me to write Chances ... Choices ... and Phoenixes ... which was followed by posts from Raenell and Driscilla. So now we are in May ... but still, I think this post is worth writing ... and the dates worth commemoration and commentary. There are also certain assumptions which have been made, incorrectly in many cases, over the years since these events occurred, and I believe that the record should be set straight before falsehoods become fixed as misleading "truthiness" (to borrow a word coined by the wonderful Stephen Colbert of The Colbert Report).
First, April 19th marked the 14th anniversary of the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, which claimed 168 innocent lives, physically injured more than 800, and left uncounted numbers of families and friends devastated in the wake of a cowardly "statement" by American terrorist Timothy McVeigh and his accomplice Terry Nichols, although there may have been (were likely) others involved. After his arrest, McVeigh asserted that his evil act was itself a (perverted) commemoration of the Waco Seige which ended on April 19, 1993 when a lunatic would-be Jesus impostor named David Koresh, who had been defying the federal government since February 28 of that year rained death on his followers, including numerous children, in his warped version of Gotterdammerung, rather than submit to the laws, and law enforcement officers, of our country.
Prior to his execution for his heinous crime, McVeigh (a self-styled Libertarian, though he has been disowned by many who consider themselves Libertarian) made many statements which he apparently considered exculpatory of his deed. Surely one of his most reprehensible utterances was what he said with regard to his murder of children: "I didn't define the rules of engagement in this conflict. The rules, if not written down, are defined by the aggressor. It was brutal, no holds barred. Women and kids were killed at Waco and Ruby Ridge. You put back in [the government's] faces exactly what they're giving out."
Generally I am opposed to the death penalty because it is often inappropriately and prejudicially applied, and because we keep finding out years after an incident that DNA evidence now exonerates someone who was convicted on circumstantial or frequently erroneous eyewitness testimony (notoriously unreliable). However, in McVeigh's case, I believe it was entirely appropriate. And if there is anyone reading this who considers that McVeigh's actions were justified in any way, shape or form ... then I urge you to seek psychiatric help immediately.
April 20 was the tenth anniversary of the Columbine High School massacre of 12 children and one teacher by the psychopathic Eric Harris and the deranged Dylan Klebold, who weren't even sure themselves of any "statement" they might make by their actions ... they just knew they wanted to kill as many people as possible. If their plans had worked as they desired, the death toll would have been much higher.
In the immediate aftermath of Columbine, and in the years since, there are certain "myths" that have grown around both the killers and some of their victims. I've recently read a book, Columbine by Dave Cullen, a journalist who was present in the Denver area at the time of the occurrence, and who has since gained access to the available documents and witness testimony in the case. One of the myths is that Harris and Klebold were loners who had been picked on by their fellow students, primarily jocks, and that this was the reason for their killing spree ... if such a thing could be considered reason. But Cullen makes evident that was not the case. Both Harris and Klebold, despite being mentally disturbed, were actually well-liked and had quite a circle of friends. The explanation for this terrible occurrence lies quite simply in the psychopathy of Harris and the sycophancy and obsessive depression of Klebold. I think there may be a natural tendency in the wake of such acts to try to find some larger reason, some meaningful pattern ... but it just isn't so in this case. They (particularly Harris) were just crazy ... and vicious ... and filled with their own importance and sense of God-like justification for killing those they considered "inferior" to themselves. Talk about deluded....
Another myth debunked by Cullen was started by ABC News, which promulgated the theory that the Columbine killings were the result of dark plots by a subculture of "Goths." Again, not true. And yet it took the recent book by Cullen to actually call ABC to account and expose this canard.
One of the most widely bruited untruths about Columbine is the story of Cassie Bernall, a girl who supposedly stated unequivocally that she believed in God when one of the killers posed that question ... and that she was shot to death because of her answer. With all due respect to Ms. Bernall and her family, again this is simply not true. According to the testimony of witnesses who were present in the library during the carnage, including Emily Wyant who was crouched under the same table as Ms. Bernall and heard and saw everything, Ms. Bernall was not asked any question(s) and was not given a chance to speak. Eric Harris looked under the table, said "Peekaboo" and fatally shot Ms. Bernall in the head. For whatever reason, he did not shoot Ms. Wyant. The girl who professed her faith in God in response to a question from Klebold was Valeen Schnurr ... and Klebold walked away from her without firing and let her live. But despite the facts which have emerged over the years, there are some who cling to the ersatz portryal of the incident, perhaps because in some way it advances their own agenda.
The book is well-written, thoroughly documented, and is as clear an explanation for this tragedy as will ever likely be given. I urge anyone who is interested in the truth, in what actually happened at Columbine, to read it.
The Hall of Names at Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial, Jerusalem
April 21 was Holocaust Remembrance Day, Yom HaShoah, in memory of and mourning for the horrors of the Holocaust, which took the lives of an estimated six million Jews, as well as millions of Poles, Russians, gypsies, homosexuals, those with mental and physical handicaps and disabilities and others ... including hundreds of thousands of Allied servicemen who made the ultimate sacrifice to stop the madness brought upon the world because of the megalomaniacal, lunatic fantasies of "racial purity" spun in the sick minds of Adolf Hitler and his followers, including a large number of the German population.
About a week before Yom HaShoah, I received one of those pass-around, forwarded to millions e-mails that urged remembrance of the Holocaust because of all the Christians who were persecuted by Hitler for their faith. And again ... this is simply not true. Oh there were millions of Christians who were murdered by the Nazis ... but it was not as a general rule because of their faith. There was no wholesale persecution of Christians, and most of those who were killed were marked because they opposed the Nazi regime in one way or another. Further, a large number of Poles and Russians and others who were annihilated by the Nazi death machine were simply considered "sub-humans" by the Masters of the Third Reich, who envisioned a world dominated by an Aryan (read "white" and preferably blond and blue-eyed) super-race who would exploit, work and starve the vast majority of the untermenschen to death in furtherance of their "vision." It is worth noting that although the Nazis were shrewd enough to play upon Christians' fears of the Jewish religion, their attempt to totally eradicate the Jews was grounded on racial theories as much or more than on Jewish religious practice.
And yet ... after all the horrors, all the almost unbelievable scenes of the death camps and the children and families being taken to their deaths, there are significant numbers of people in this country who espouse Hitler's racist theories, and rant and plot and scheme against those who do not physically meet or otherwise measure up to their warped ideas of "purity." These people are despicable and dangerous. Period. Paragraph....
It is arguable that all of these milestones ... and the resulting commemorations of these unspeakable events ... were achieved primarily because of fear and loathing of those who are "different" or don't conform to some psychologically suspect idea of how the world should be. It also seems we have lived with one fear or another throughout our lifetimes ... some more justified than others perhaps, but fear nevertheless. We grew up with the fear of nuclear annihilation (remember "Duck and Cover"?), the Red menace, various flu and other health scares, with the most recent being the fear-mongering assault from a mostly over-heated media about the dangers of the swine flu (now H1N1, so as not to offend swine). Schools have been closed, proms have been canceled, people are panicking ... and panicky.... And fearful and fear-driven people do foolish and sometimes reprehensible things.
I honestly find myself wondering: Where does all this fear come from? Why is it such a motivating (and dividing) force? Why are so many of us so eager to believe the worst ... the end is near ... at the drop of a shibboleth? What does it say about ourselves, individually and as a nation, when the glass through which we are trying to "see" is so dark as to be almost opaque? At what point does genuine interest and concern for our future devolve into unreasoning, unreasonable fear? How did we let the horrendous and indelible events of September 11, 2001 drive many of us to abandon with unseemly haste long-settled Constitutional principles and rights? Why are so many so willing to be terrorized??? I wish I knew the answer ... but as the saying goes, that's apparently above my pay grade....
Scary Statistic: A recent survey by the Pew Forum on Religious and Public Life (as reported by CNN) found: "More than half of people who attend [church] services at least once a week -- 54 percent -- said the use of torture against suspected terrorists is often or sometimes justified. [emphasis added.] Only 42 percent of people who seldom or never go to services agreed...." Sort of begs the question: What Would Jesus Do??? Or better ... what would a rational, educated, compassionate, "involved with mankind" person do???
David Brooks, conservative op-ed columnist for The New York Times wrote in his column today (speaking of some Libertarians and far right-wing Republicans, although Democrats are certainly not without their own faults) that he believes the image of the self-reliant man has been warped and distorted over the past few decades, to our detriment. That the vision promulgated of a small-government, everyone for himself society has perverted the ideal of "John Wayne-style heroes who are rugged, individualistic and brave." Brooks goes on to say:
But the greatest of all Western directors, John Ford, actually used Westerns to tell a different story. Ford's movies didn't really celebrate the rugged individual. They celebrated civic order. ...Ford's 1946 movie, My Darling Clementine ... isn't really about the gunfight and the bravery of a heroic man. It's about how decent people build a town. ... [It's] really about ... education, science, culture, etiquette and rule of law -- the pillars of community.
Poster for John Ford's My Darling Clementine,
printed under "fair use" provisions of U.S. Copyright Law
Thankfully, it's not (it mustn't be) about the Timothy McVeighs, the Eric Harrises and Dylan Klebolds, or paranoid, inflated theories of ubermenschen and sub-humans. It is about community ... and the supportive, sustaining communion of ethical, compassionate, concerned men and woman who want to build a better world for themselves and their children through their own growth and enlightenment ... and not on the backs, or the lives, or the denial of rights of others. It is an idea with which we sometimes seem to have lost touch ... though I must say that I am beginning to see glimmers of hope out there amid the gloom. Truth and understanding can help those glimmers become bright rays of light ... but self-serving people (including much of the media and most of Fox News) must not be permitted to disseminate "truthiness" ... and poison ... to their own ends.
The great Viktor Frankl, himself a Holocaust survivor, wrote: Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.
So with great hope, but with profound sadness for all those whose hopes and lives were truncated in Oklahoma City, and Littleton, Colorado, and across Europe and Asia and the Pacific during the 1930s and the early-to-mid 1940s ... for all those who lost their dreams and their chances and their choices to caprice and/or evil in the years before and since...
A stone (Jewish tradition) and a candle (Judeo-Christian, Buddhist, atheist, agnostic and others) for commemoration and remembrance ... and prayers and wishes for their souls, and for ours, that we will learn from these atrocities and continue to seek and receive and build upon truth as we continue our journeys in this life....
)O(
No comments:
Post a Comment