We Are Failing Our Youth

[looooob]

Originally Posted by Bobblehead

Dance over to the WEST SIDE and listen to cowperson's STORY.

(although the discussion is the '50s and cow pulls a reference to a '61 movie)

adaption of a 1957 musical!

kids nowadays

[JimmytheT]

Originally Posted by Burninator

True. But I should have elaborated that America's enemy today is almost an invisible one. It was easy to put a face on everything war related back in the day. Just point to one of those countries. You can't put a face on the war on drugs. They've put a face on the War of Terror (Bin Laden) but that got all mixed up with Iraq and Saddam Hussein so it's almost a moot point. The paranoia of terrorism I would say is pretty high. See now obviously I wasn't alive in the 1950's so I have no idea what the life was like, nor did I claim to. It was just merely my take on American today as I see it. Perhaps the government manufactured the propaganda in that time, but I would argue that today it's the 24 hour news stations are that are making the propaganda.

Um, 1950s, Hydrogen Bomb, Cold War, McCarthy-ism. Lots of propaganda at that time, and tons of paranoia of the evil communists. The only thing they didn't have back then that we do today is 24 hour news channels.

[Cowperson]

The paranoia of terrorism I would say is pretty high.

You think so?

In the days after 9/11, stock markets collapsed, not just for that reason but that was part of it, a fear that terrorism would be prevalant and economic activity would be disrupted. Everytime there was a terror attack somewhere in the world, the dive would happen again. Stock markets are an excellent gauge of mood, of fear and greed.

Immediately after 9/11, generational holders of New York Giant season tickets were talking about cancelling them given the prospect of a mass murder event by terrorists. There was talk of cancelling the Oscars in 2002.

In about mid-2003, we began to see that pattern disappear . . . . markets generally don't care when an attack happens, even in London and Madrid, and sport stadiums, logical targets of attack, are packed throughout the world again. Film Festivals are packed. Travel statistics are returning to pre-9/11 levels.

I'd say people are wary and attentive but the word paranoia is probably not part of the description . . . . and cynics might say that in turn is part of the reason for the declining popularity of the current American administration as well, the critics arguing the administration relied on paranoia and fear.

Lastly, America is directing about 1% of GDP towards Iraq/Afghanistan right now versus the 9% it directed at Vietnam.

America's population is about three times the size it was in the 1950's.

Cowperson

[Language]

It's very easy to sit back and analyze in hindsight what this whacco wrote in school plays or the strange actions that he took, but it would be even more of a crime to start policing people based on their thoughts than their actions. Besides warning the students initially after the first shooting, there's not too much the university could have done. You never know when things like this are going to happen and when they do it's much easier to look back in time and say, "well now this answers that."

Regarding why this seems to be happening more and more, I don't have the numbers and I don't have the time to look this up (I should be studying for an exam right now), but why these shootings seem to be happening more and more to me stems from the fact that accountability has gone from something that used to define a person to something that can be blamed on others.

Whereas before if you did something wrong you were grounded for it or punished, today, if you say something or do something wrong the media or the parents or the kids act as if they have no responsibility over their actions and look to someone else to blame.

And this isn't just about kids doing bad in school and acting out on their parents, or a teacher punishing a kid in school and having the kid's parents go bersirk on the teachers, but it's the new "blame game" that's taking over this society. Let's not blame the shooter, but let's blame the video games, the movies, the authoritative figures, etc. Even this guy that just shot up the school, it's all about blaming the "rich kids" and whoever else he mentioned that caused him to do this. Please.

I honestly don't think these shootings occur because of a lack of gun laws or politics or feminism or today's entertainment or anything else. People all over the world watch American movies and eat McDonald's fries, but you don't see this kind of stuff happening as much as it happens in the U.S., and I don't even think it's about gun laws either. Face it, if someone really wants to kill someone they'll find a way to get a gun, one way or another.

The more acceptable it is to blame others for your own problems is the more these kinds of loners will go unnoticed, because everyone will be too concerned with who to blame for turning him into a loner than they will be concerned with what to actually do to help him.

I'm just rambling on and I don't know if what I just said makes sense but my main point is that people are less accountable today than they were 50 years ago, and if you're not worried about being held accountable then there's no problem with killing a bunch of people and then killing yourself as well.

[Cal-Gal]

I think that when massive tragedies happen, like the events at Virginia Tech., human nature dicates that people will look for a 'reason' or 'meaning'.

In the days following September 11th, one of the most frequent Google searches was "NOSTRADAMUS". People wanted this event to have been predicted. They wanted to believe that there is order to the universe. There is nothing more frightening than a lack of control, and when a catastrophe occurs - the last thing we want to believe is that it was random. We need there to be a motive, root causes, warning signs, and immediate action towards rectifying 'what went wrong'.

For this 18-year-old girl, her frame of reference for understanding the events of Columbine were confined to her own limited education, her experiences, her belief-structure, her world-view.

Its easy to criticize her, but really - how do the rest of us strive to make sense of these events? Do we not all use the same tools - our personal understandings and interpretations of how the world 'should work' based on our own limited experiences, our own limited education, our own limited understandings of historical, political, economic, and social affairs?

My parents generation struggled to answer the question of how and why a beloved President could be shot dead while riding in a car in Dallas. They tried to grasp the concept of nuclear war, and why they had to practise 'duck and cover' drills.

My generation struggles to understand why someone would walk into a school and begin randomly shooting people, why someone would fly an airplane into a building, why hundreds of children continue to die every day because of war, famine, disease, and poverty.

And so we study these questions, we reasearch, we debate.
We argue: civil liberties? enhanced security? gun control? tougher sentencing? racial profiling? prayer in schools? military occupation? foreign aid? affirmative action? equal opportunity? pro-life? pro-choice? capitalism? socialism? tax cuts? social programs? democrats? republicans?

Perhaps this girl's writings are fool-hardy, and perhaps we disagree with all or portions of her assessment - but she is simply trying to express herself and explain her own understanding of a larger problem; one that is far too complicated and grandiose in scope for her, or any of us, to make sense of.

None-the-less, I'm glad young Sarah took a stab at it. Without a vast diversity of voices included in the discussion - even those of naiive teenagers - the potential for achieving a solution to our society's grand questions is severely reduced.

[Daradon]

^^^ That is a brilliant post Cal-Gal! Good job.

[Dion]

Originally Posted by Cal-Gal

None-the-less, I'm glad young Sarah took a stab at it. Without a vast diversity of voices included in the discussion - even those of naiive teenagers - the potential for achieving a solution to our society's grand questions is severely reduced.

I agree. Gotta give the gal credit for making an attempt at finding a solution.

Excellent post btw!