Connecticut Elementary School Massacre

[8bitagent]

8bit, general agreement...

First off, with the exception of Great Britain, virtually every war has been brought to us by males.

That's just silly. The presence of a female who fought her way up against the males to the top of an existing war machine (let alone of one who happened to be born into the royal succession during a period of frequent warfare) does not suddenly make war a female thing. War is a masculine-gendered, overwhelmingly male activity, in almost all places and times. Women have certainly been among the cheerleaders and supporters and naturally home front workers, and very often among the fighters of last resort (as in my own mother region, the Mani). More recently a small proportion have broken in to regular national forces. Look at what it took, and the often violent treatment and resentment they've received from their own ranks. (Look also at the simultaneous disconnect in the pop culture, many examples of which might make you think the fighting female now rules and with her bare hands kills men three times her mass and in multitudes, just like Eastwood or Schwarzenegger. The fantasy image of female violence is almost 100% out of proportion to the reality, and highly sexualized, I wonder why that is. Or wait, did I just answer my own question? But still, why?)



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I'd agree, especially with the massive pop cultural disconnect.

Have you seen this trailer? I was literally shocked by this one, though not surprised


I was struck by how the GOP shot down Al Franken's bill in the wake of the KBR case of a female member locked in a crate and repeatedly attacked and raped by colleagues.

[chump]

Via Aangirfan:

[BrandonD]

Via Aangirfan:

That is pretty damning, IMO.

[Belligerent Savant]

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Wait -- so if he's an "actor", then where are the real parents of the victim? Or is the victim's name fake? And if fake, wouldn't other parents of the school immediately call it out as a fake name? If on the other hand it's the name of a real victim, wouldn't the other parents/school reps immediately call out the above person as an imposter? Or are they all on some absurd gag order?

Am I missing something here?

[dbcooper41]

he does seem to be "getting into character" before he speaks but maybe that is just his personality.
what is a bit strange to me is how quickly a "emilie parker fund" was set up on facebook.
it was created aboout 5:00pm on friday with pics of mr parker and his wife.
when were the victims publicly identified and when exaclty did this man become the public face of this event?
perhaps the times on my computer are wrong but could someone else take a look at the posting times.
https://www.facebook.com/EmilieParkerFund#!/EmilieParkerFund

also, concerning the phelps, couple, she has a long running association with a website called "expressing motherhood".
http://expressingmotherhood.com/how-fragile-we-are/
she seems to be a "professional mom".
here she is in 2009 doing a bit about calling her 8 year old an asshole. it doesn't really fit with the descriprion of her as deeply religious but again, maybe thats just her personality.
http://vimeo.com/15035510

what i find the most curious though is how these 2 couples got so much air time so fast.

[MacCruiskeen]

.

Wait -- so if he's an "actor", then where are the real parents of the victim? Or is the victim's name fake? And if fake, wouldn't other parents of the school immediately call it out as a fake name? If on the other hand it's the name of a real victim, wouldn't the other parents/school reps immediately call out the above person as an imposter? Or are they all on some absurd gag order?

Am I missing something here?

Thank you. This is what I keep wondering too.

But by god that video is disturbing. OK, people are strange, and grief & shock can sometimes take bizarre forms (an urge to laugh, for instance - I've experienced that, at the funeral of someone I loved.) But the guy looks positively radiant with good humour when he walks in there. It's not just his smiling face, it's his purposeful stride and his entire physical aura. He enters the room like a movie star, handsome and confident. Then that transition, exactly like a practiced Method actor quickly "getting into character".

[barracuda]

Am I missing something here?

Lucky for you, I don't think so. If you watch the entire statement given by Robbie Parker, it's pretty easy to see that he's an entirely real human being faced with a tragedy for which he hasn't got a prepared, perceptually normative set of facial expressions to offer in response. He's shaken, nervous, and devastated by the events which he is about to discuss before a cadre of news cameras. His smiling entrance comes at about the three minute mark:



I'm not sure I expect to recognize a proper response to such a thing. There simply may not really be one. His six year old child was pretty recently butchered in her first grade class by a half dozen hollow point rounds from a fairly high powered rifle.

It's become apparent that this killing, which is really a local news story, is now functioning as a sort of tarot card reading of its own distanced viewers. Each person is able to overlay their own, personal concerns and issues onto the event and derive a meaning which replicates and satisfies their own worldview in a highly fulfilling way. If you want gun control, it's a gun issue. If you're concerned about mental health, it's a mental health issue. If you're wary of video games, he's a gamer. If broken families cause you to fret, here's a divorced mother. If violence in movies is your nemesis, there's that. If you're worried about the state taking your weapons, here you go. If you sense a vast conspiracy manipulating the masses, there it is in the conflicting details. If you don't like rich people, here's a whole bunch.

Whatever you need, whatever concerns you, it's here for you in the complete lack of details that make up the little we know about this thing. And we'll will probably continue not to know much. Because most of the people who might have told us something, anything of substance, are dead.

[lupercal]

And let's not forget this:

The Second Most Powerful Gun Lobby in the Country is Located in Newtown, Conn.
Lydia DePillis | The New Republic | December 14, 2012 | 5:07 pm

Just across the highway from Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, in a stately white building with an American flag flying out front, is the headquarters of the United States’ premiere industry association for gun retailers. . . .

http://www.tnr.com/blog/plank/111148/th ... un-rights#

[MacCruiskeen]

Each person is able to overlay their own, personal concerns and issues onto the event and derive a meaning which replicates and satisfies their own worldview in a highly fulfilling way.

Please, spare us the crackerbarrel psychology. Such stuff is ten-a-penny* (that's its precise value, and it costs even less to produce). It does not "satisfy [my] worldview" in any way, least of all a highly fulfilling (!) one, to be baffled and disturbed by that video, any more than it "satisfies [my] worldview in a highly fulfilling way" to doubt the word of Dick Cheney about 9/11.

His six year old child was pretty recently butchered in her first grade class by a half dozen hollow point rounds from a fairly high powered rifle.

You appear to have missed the point that this is precisely the point.

*Google results for: "conspiracy theories" + satisfies + fulfilling + worldview

[barracuda]

What I don't understand is how someone could make a YouTube video about a vast conspiracy and misspell the word "fraud" in the title.



j/k, I actually DO understand that part.

[MacCruiskeen]

What I don't understand is how someone could make a YouTube video about a vast conspiracy and misspell the word "fraud" in the title.

Ho ho. Well, let's have a good think about this and see if we can't come up with some plausible answers... Because he's not good at spelling? Because he was in a hurry? Because he is a Typical Conspiracy Nut Posting From His Mother's Basement? Because he is one of those awful ill-educated plebs one hears so much about these days?

Questions, questions. I guess we'll just never know, and we'll simply have to man up and live with that fact.

What I don't understand is how someone as refined and well-educated and profoundly insightful as you can have missed the point that none of this is the point, and that the film itself was in fact made and broadcast by CNN. It can't be just because you have a habit of superciliousness. That explanation would be far, far too simple.

[barracuda]

Because he's not good at spelling? Because he was in a hurry? Because he is a Typical Conspiracy Nut Posting From His Mother's Basement? Because he is one of those awful ill-educated plebs one hears so much about these days?

I'm tending towards Answer Number 3.

What I don't understand is how someone as refined and well-educated and profoundly insightful as you can have missed the point that none of this is the point, and that the film itself was in fact made and broadcast by CNN. It can't be just because you have a habit of superciliousness. That explanation would be far, far too simple.

The original broadcast made by CNN was in fact edited by someone in order to make Mr. Parker appear to be a "fruad", whatever that is - probably some new deep politics trope - a perspective I personally find to be flat-out stupid. But I'm not even hoping to change anyone's mind about it, certainly not yours, especially after reading Aangirfan's post deeming this an Operation-Gladio-strategy-of-tension hit by the National Security Apparatus. I'm just my-two-centing, along with everybody else.

[JackRiddler]

I hate to be supercilious or a snob, or for that matter to agree with barracuda rather than you, but I also have an extremely low tolerance (to the point of it being an involuntary reaction) for spelling mistakes or typos in the titles of items intended to persuade me of something. I mean, seriously, why are you bothering with all that, just to flub it on the title? I'm talking about the title specifically, it's a courtesy to make your approach legible. And while I haven't counted I've no doubt of my lifelong impression that mistakes in titles correlate very highly with bullshit on the inside. Very unfair, I know. (Non-native speakers are an exception to this, but they also tend to make a different set of mistakes.)

And here we are with the fake victims narrative once again. Which, besides feeling like someone is intentionally trying to repel people, never comes with a reason. If monster planners are putting together MK-driven killers to assault civilians in a strategy of tension, why do they make their already daunting task so much more complicated by faking the victims? Why create seams and loose ends? (That can be divined so easily by viewers at a great distance?) What's wrong with having the MK tool just kill the real people and then himself, done?

[MacCruiskeen]

Just for the record, I had no intention of posting anything about this, much less of becoming Miss Marple about it. The last thing I want or need right now is yet another US "local news" yarn to doubt, care about, have to think about or even notice, much less (christ) actually post online about, least of all a news yarn about yet another horrific school massacre. I haven't even watched that global blockbuster Obama In Tears yet, but I haven't been able to avoid seeing giant front-page full-colour stills from the movie on every fucking newsstand in town, even here in Good Old Mitteleuropa. But, sue me, I did actually eventually read some news reports about it, both on- and offline. Mea culpa. So now I have a couple of questions, serious ones.

1. Has any survivor from that school actually postively identified Adam Lanza as the killer? Last I heard, the legal principle "innocent until proven guilty" had not yet been formally binned in the USA. Yet Adam Lanza has very quickly gone from being "the suspect" to being "the killer". Weird, that.

2. Is it plausible that this shy skinny hypersensitive "autistic" (sic) youth shot his mother to death without any neighbour hearing the shots? Is it plausible that he was then cool and competent and randomly-yet-choosily-murderous enough to drive to a school to which neither he nor she had any connection, to force his way in past the newly-installed security system, and then to massacre 25 children and adults before killing himself just before the cops arrived?

Also, were there any living witnesses to any of this who can actually identify him, Adam Lanza, as the perpetrator (and indeed as the sole perpetrator)?

Just asking. Because, y'know, it satisfies my worldview in such a highly fulfilling way.

[Project Willow]

It's become apparent that this killing, which is really a local news story, is now functioning as a sort of tarot card reading of it's its own distanced viewers.

FIFY
its - the possessive form.

A more generous view... people are traumatized by this event and want to understand it. Some wish to take preventative measures. Each is approaching it with her or his own limited life experience and knowledge base, myself included.

I also appreciate what this Canadian fellow said: Salutin: Sandy Hook and America's lethal self-absorption http://www.thestar.com/videos/article/1304346--salutin-sandy-hook-and-america-s-lethal-self-absorption