April 17th, 2007 by Dan Gillmor (Note: This will appear tomorrow as an op-ed piece in the Washington Examiner newspaper.) Once again, horror has given us a glimpse of our media future: simultaneously conversational and distributed, mass and personal. The killings Monday at Virginia Tech brought to the forefront the remarkable evolution in media over the past few years. And as we move into a time in which we will be saturated with data, we need to be clear on some of the implications of democratized media. We've had any number of glimpses already in this new century. On Sept. 11, 2001, we read blog postings and watched citizen videos of planes smashing into the World Trade Center towers. During the Asian tsunami, tourist videos showed waves smashing onto shores. A man in the London underground, wielding a mobile phone camera, took the image we all remember best from that day. The scope of the media shift was clearer again on Monday. Some of the most widely viewed images came from a mobile phone camera aimed at the police response by a student, Jamal Albaughouti. His video made its way to CNN and other media, and was seen by millions. But others on and off the Blacksburg, Va., campus were also using conversational media in highly visible ways. Social network communications, blog postings, email and a host of other technologies were brought to bear by people who were directly and indirectly part of this huge event. The students' words were achingly poignant. They were straight from the source, not pushed through a traditional-media funnel as they'd have been in the not-so-distant past. They brought to mind a blog post I spotted after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks by a young man in Brooklyn, N.Y., across the river from the World Trade Center. He wrote, "Now I know what a burning city smells like." The democratization of media is not just about creation, though that has been the most notable aspect so far. Putting the tools into everyone's hands has produced an explosion of media creation, as blogs and sharing sites such as YouTube and Flickr show us. Traditional media think of distribution: making journalism or movies or programs and sending them out to consumers. This is inverted in a democratized media world, where we all have access to what we want, as well as when and where. I didn't turn on my TV yesterday except in the evening, to watch a national network's news report. I wanted to see a summary of what a serious journalism organization had to say about what it knew so far. Instead, during the day, I used the online media — including the major news sites — to get the latest information, sifting it, making judgments about credibility and reliability as I read and watched and listened. That, too, is the future in many cases. It's also worth noting that the citizen media component of this terrible event is not a new to the digital era. When President John F. Kennedy was gunned down in Dallas back in 1963, Abraham Zapruder caught the gruesome killing on a home movie camera — footage that became an essential part of the historical record. But the difference between then and tomorrow is this: In 1963, one man with a camera captured the event on film. In a very few years, a similar situation would be captured by thousands of people — all holding high-resolution video cameras — and all of those cameras would be connected to high-speed digital networks. That is different. Remember, too, that the passengers aboard the airplanes on Sept. 11, 2001, were making voice calls to loved ones and colleagues with mobile phones. What if they'd been sending videos to the world of what was happening inside those doomed aircraft? We will still need journalists to help sort things out. But the "burning city" words from 2001 revealed something. We used to say that journalists write the first draft of history. Not so, not any longer. The people on the ground at these events write the first draft. This is not a worrisome change, not if we are appropriately skeptical and to find sources we trust. We will need to retool media literacy for the new age, too. This entry was posted on April 17th, 2007 at 1:12 pm and is filed under Citizen Journalism -- General, News. -- Original Source: Center for Citizen Media Blog http://citmedia.org/blog/2007/04/17/virginia-tech-how-media-are-evolving/ Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0.
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Virginia Tech: It's Not About Gun Control, and You're a Fool or a Monster If You Say It Is
Apr. 18th, 2007 at 12:02 AM Virginia is, if memory serves, one of the states that had a particularly malevolently horrible 2004 national election, one marked by substantial Republican chicanery and vicious suppression of the minority vote, so the last thing on earth that I could ever have imagined myself doing was cheering for Virginia's Republican governor, Tim Kaine. But Tuesday afternoon I not only cheered out loud over something he said, I was so glad he said it that I was waving my fist over my head and very nearly jumped out of my chair. And it wasn't just what he said, but how he said it; I wish I could find a way to show it to you. But at the end of the Tuesday press conference, some sleazebag in the audience, knowing how pro-gun Kaine is, tossed him what he probably thought was a softball question, namely, did the governor think that some of the deaths could have been averted if Virginia Polytechnic students had been allowed to carry concealed firearms on campus? Instead of the reaction the so-called "reporter" was expecting, what happened was that governor Kaine's face twisted up as if he had bitten into a bug. And with disgust dripping from his voice, he said something to the effect that the only response he had to anybody who would try to use this tragedy to make any kind of a point about gun control was "total loathing." And he's right. So I don't feel good that I've let some of you prod me into having to defend my statement from last night that neither more guns on campus, nor fewer guns, would have made things any better. That some of y'all are sliming up this horrible but essentially random tragedy, that some of you are dragging your muddy political bootprints all over this while the corpses aren't even yet in the ground, that so many of you are so sick as to seek to twist this massacre into proof that your side should win in the literally pointless debate over gun control before even one family can bury their dead in peace, both sickens me and lowers my opinion of some of you. It lowers my opinion of your collective intelligence, too, because both arguments are so trivially disposed of that I'm having to struggle to maintain my faith in your sincerity -- or even your basic decency, your humanity. If you're one of the people who's been doing so, whether pro-gun or anti-gun, you should be ashamed of yourself. Fewer Guns Wouldn't Have Prevented the Massacre. I'd like to thank xiphias for being the first to point out to me, in the replies to somebody else's journal posting, that while the Virginia Tech massacre is the worst school shooting in American history, it is only the second worst school massacre. The worst school massacre in American history was in Bath Township, Michigan, and its murderer used no guns at all, but instead a pair of bombs. It was in 1927, before the Depression even really began, when a farmer about to lose his farm because of rising property taxes decided to vent his wrath on the community by destroying the public building they were taking his farm to pay off, the local school. With the students still in it. He then waited at the scene, and made history as the first ever suicide car bomber, blowing up the first wave of would-be rescuers who rushed to the scene. This is probably also a good time to remind you that it is, perhaps, a good thing that Eric Harris and Dylan Kleibold had guns. They had not planned to shoot up Columbine High School. They had planned to level it, and to that end had planted two ill-designed propane bombs. Their original plan was to use the guns only to pick off any survivors of the blast that escaped the rubble, before killing each other. Had they not had guns, they might have come back another day with better bombs instead of wandering around shooting at random, and the death toll would probably have been substantially higher. I know that Seung Cho didn't do anything at Virginia Tech on Monday that he couldn't have done just as easily and even more effectively with a machete or a good kitchen knife and a couple of ordinary pipe bombs. England's got pretty strict gun control, you know. During the Troubles, this caused neither the Irish Republican Army nor the Ulster militias any difficulty whatsoever whenever they got the urge to slaughter a large number of people in British-occupied Ireland, either. Oh, once in a rare while they used guns smuggled to them (depending on which side they were on) either from the British army or from sympathizers here in the US. But more often, they used explosives. It's also worth pointing out that, since we destroyed their government, Iraqis have had a Virginia-Tech-sized school massacre at least once a month for the last four years. Even though the Iraqi people are some of the most heavily armed in the world, even more heavily armed than your average American, none of their school massacres have involved guns, either. When al Qaeda wants to slaughter high school or college students, they use suicide bombers, just like at Bath Township, just like the Columbine killers tried to do. For that matter, when Timothy McVeigh decided to slaughter a ton of federal employees in Oklahoma City in revenge for the Waco massacre, he didn't need any guns to do it, either, remember? Just some ammonium nitrate fertilizer, a couple of barrels of diesel fuel, and a few blasting caps. Throughout history, we've been lucky when the sickos take up guns rather than bombs; the bombers were the ones that produced the truly horrific death tolls. So you should count yourself lucky that Seung Cho had decided to buy two handguns when he was indulging his violent fantasies to himself over the last month or so, one of them a weeny little .22 that he probably didn't manage to kill anybody with, rather than the dynamite or pipe bombs or other improvised explosive devices he might have bought or built if he hadn't had guns. More Guns Wouldn't Have Prevented the Massacre, Either. I grant that this case is a little harder to make, but the only reason that this isn't obvious is that too many of you have failed to think through what would have happened if some armed student had tried to use his own handgun to overpower Seung Cho. So let's roll back the clock to Monday morning, or roll it forward to the next school shooting, and pit Rampaging Killer against some hypothetical John Q. Student, both of them armed with handguns. It's 9:45 on a Monday morning, and it has slowly dawned on John that that banging noise down the hall isn't construction, but some guy with a gun and a ton of ammunition working his way from classroom to classroom. Or maybe John gets a text message on his phone from someone who tells him that there's a pistol-wielding maniac in a bullet-proof vest full of ammo heading his way. John, being a responsible type, draws his weapon, pulls the firing pin out of his wallet and resets it, removes the safety, chambers a round, and somehow miraculously gets this all done in time to draw a careful bead on the door, waiting for Rampaging Killer to enter. We will even give him the unlikely credit for having thought to look for the flak jacket and the gun, so he doesn't accidentally shoot any of his fellow students who are fleeing from the shooter into this room. So the door bangs open, and John Q. Student sees a flak jacket and a gun, and then one of only three possible things happens: 1. Remember that John Q. Student has not just spent the whole morning practicing shooting at real human beings. On the contrary, shooting at an actual human being is something that he's never done before. In fact, the odds against his having ever fired a pistol at any moving target are astronomical. Also, we know that John Q. Student has at least some humanitarian impulse, at least some urge to not shoot at people. I say this because, frankly, if he's been carrying this gun with him everywhere he goes for long enough that he happened to have it on him when he needed it, if he didn't have that hesitation to shoot another person, he would have shot somebody by now and would be in jail, not in a classroom waiting for Rampaging Killer. So I flatly guarantee you that he shoots late, and that he jerks the weapon when he shoots as his body reflexively tries to stop him from shooting someone, and the round goes completely wild. How can I guarantee this? Because this situation has come up over and over again since the invention of the gun, and it is what everybody except for a few combat veterans has done, the first time that they've fired a gun at a criminal. And that's if he fires the gun at all. In example after example, we have seen that what John Q. Student is much more likely to do is the stupidest thing he could possibly do: shout "drop the weapon" or yell "stop or I'll shoot" or fire a warning shot, wanting to give Rampaging Killer a chance to surrender. All that this achieves is to tell Rampaging Killer, now a practiced shooter, exactly where to aim. If Rampaging Killer hadn't made up his mind whether or not to shoot up this particular room, he does now, starting with emptying his clip at John and thereby gunning down everybody between John and the wall behind him, and everybody for three feet on either side. 2. Or else, when John Q. Student sees a flak jacket and a gun come through that door, he's thought of this possibility. Or maybe he's a combat veteran himself. So knowing better than to try to get Rampaging Killer to not shoot, he immediately opens fire the instant he has a target, and let's give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that he shoots improbably accurately. Only guess what? More doors were banged open by the SWAT team, who covered more of the building looking for Rampaging Killer, than were banged open by Rampaging Killer. So the odds are that John Q. Student shoots Officer Friendly, and now we have at least one more corpse. And at least one more killer. 3. Or else maybe this particular John Q. Student is a combat veteran, and an Olympic quality pistol shot, and has faster reflexes than your average Olympic athlete and thinks faster and more clearly than any college aged student you've ever met in your life or that you ever will. So in the 1/10th of a second between when the flak jacket and gun crash through that door and when he would need to pull the trigger, he recognizes Officer Friendly's police uniform, and therefore holds his fire. Officer Friendly makes his combat entry into the room, sweeping his weapon across it in a practiced move, knowing that if Rampaging Killer is in the room and waiting for him then he absolutely must get a shot into Rampaging Killer fast or he's going to die. Officer Friendly sees John Q. Student's gun barrel, mistakes John Q. Student for Rampaging Killer, and empties an assault rifle into the area where John Q. Student is sitting, killing John, everybody within 3 feet either side of him, and everybody behind him for at least two rooms. Alas, Rampaging Killer was two floors away. Now we have an entire roomful of more victims. No other outcome is even vaguely humanly possible. Frankly, if he had any impulse to fight the Rampaging Killer rather than to jump out a window or bar the door, John Q. Student would have been safer and just as effective if he had used his bare hands. And to again draw the parallel to Iraq, I've read that virtually every adult male Iraqi owns an assault rifle, and has since long before Saddam was overthrown. If "more guns" are the solution to school violence, then why are the Iraqis having at least one Virginia-Tech-sized school massacre every month? So What Are the Politicians Supposed to Do? Voters in a democracy are prone to an obnoxious fault: when something truly awful happens, they demand that every elected official do something about it, right now. It doesn't matter whether or not there is anything that elected official can do that would be at all useful. All that matters is that the voters see every politician prove that he or she cares about the same things the voters care about by doing something, however futile or counter-productive. So in a way, while it's sick and tragic and pointless and futile and stupid and inhumane to the families of the victims that we're having a gun control argument now, I suppose it is sadly inevitable. So what do I think the politicians should do to prevent the next massacre like the one at Virginia Tech instead of arguing about gun control? Nothing. Let's face facts. One third of the nation is mentally ill. Of that hundred million people, there are probably at least 10,000 who are sick, twisted loners who are total losers with their preferred sex, prone to stalkerish behavior, and altogether too fond of really sick violent imagery. Heck, I've known at least two of them personally. Every eight years or so, one of those 10,000 people goes off. And there is still no way to predict which of those 10,000 people are going to go off, and no way to coral or herd or manage or contain or even disarm those 10,000 sickos without setting even more of them off than already go off. Learn elementary first aid, practice building evacuations, live a good and loving and full life, and if you have dependents pay your life insurance. Not because every eight years or so you have a one in 10,000,000 chance of being the victim of a rampaging mass murderer, but because you run a much higher probability of at least once in your life of being involved in some kind of random disaster, whether from dangerous weather, or other natural disaster, or a building fire, or an act of war, or any of a long long list of things that can go wrong in this life. Sometimes death just comes at random. Sometimes there just isn't anything useful we can do about that other than to do what you political carrion eaters aren't allowing us to quietly do instead of getting dragged into your pointless argument, and that's to comfort the survivors and rebuild. * Mood: aggravated -- Original Source: http://bradhicks.livejournal.com/328865.html licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution, NonCommercial, ShareAlike 2.5 License.
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Karen Harper 22 Apr 2007 There will be a lot of blame dished out in the aftermath of the Virginia Tech massacre. But one element will be missing and that is the system itself. Capitalism and the society it nurtures will remain unscathed in the big business press. In the aftermath of another school shooting in the US, many will be asking why and some will be trying to lay blame. The shooter's parents will be blamed for how they raised him; the school will be blamed for how it dealt with his mental illness; and his schoolmates past and present will be blamed for how they teased and ostracized him. However, the blame will mostly not be laid where it appropriately belongs; on the head of capitalism and the social values that it has nourished. No individual can be looked at out of context of the larger society, and this young man and what he became cannot be understood without first looking at the society he came from. Unfortunately, the "angry loner" type that has done these sorts of shootings in the past is not the product of an isolated genetic mutation that happens unpredictably and that cannot be prevented. Such people are a real product of their environment and the direct result of capitalism's impact on personal development and mental health. This society promotes individuality, self-absorption, and competition over solidarity and collective struggle. Is it any surprise that some young people are so incapable of not only identifying with the group and its larger good, but also of even, in severe cases, forming any kind of meaningful relationship with another individual? These people after years of painful experiences can come to the conclusion that they are completely unloved and unlovable. Because we are social beings, this conclusion makes life difficult to continue. Capitalism is daily bombarding our self-esteem; we are never good enough under capitalism. There is always some drug to make us happier, some surgery to make us thinner, some car or house or job that will make us more respected. The inevitable consequence of this pressure is that some people will consider themselves failures when they judge themselves up against the values of this society. In some cases this will only further increase some individual's isolation and anger. This terrible brutal crime is an ugly, warped but nonetheless, direct product of big business'‚ value system. Capitalism will continuously attempt to encourage an obsession with money, fame and the worship of individualism. This in turn will inevitably be accompanied by what we saw at Virginia Tech this week. This will not be the last individual so void of solidarity as to massacre his classmates. The outpouring of empathy towards the victims of this crime is a sign of the enormous human and working class solidarity that exists in this society. The crime itself is a consequence of the corrupt and rotten values of those who are in control at the top. Related http://www.laborsmilitantvoice.org -- Original Source: http://chicago.indymedia.org/newswire/display/77317/index.php Licensed under Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication.
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Virginia Tech: Los hechos a centímetros de distancia
Publicado por Jose Kaulen C. 19th Abril 2007 Collin Goddard estuvo a centímetros de Cho Seung-Hui durante la masacre del lunes, y escuchó cómo el asesino terminaba con su vida después de haber matado a 30 personas, dice su madre. Después de que las balas fueron disparadas a su alrededor dentro de la sala de Norris Hall, Goddard, un estudiante de 21 años de Estudios Internacionales, jugó con la muerte tal como Cho, dice su madre, Ann Goddard. Esto lo contaba mientras su hijo herido estaba en una cirugía. La terrible experiencia de Goddard comenzó durante su clase de Francés, cuando él y sus compañeros escucharon los disparos desde la entrada. La profesora Jocelyne Couture-Nowak dijo a sus alumnos que llamaran al 911, solo segundos antes de que Cho entrara a la sala y comenzara con la balacera, hiriendo a Goddard en la pierna. "Cho primero fue a través de la primera fila y comenzó a disparar aleatoriamente" dijo. Cho abandonó la sala y regresó momentos después. Colin estaba tendido en el piso de la sala, enfrentándose a la muerte cuando "Él giró la cabeza y vió los zapatos del atacante viniendo hacia su cuerpo". "El atacante estuvo parado junto a él", dice la madre. "Él estaba totalmente asustado de morir", dice, "mantuvo la inteligencia en todo momento, pero estaba muy asustado de morir". El atacante disparó otra vez contra Colin, alcanzádolo en el hombro y en una nalga. Después caminó hacia el frente de la sala, explica Ann. Dos disparos fueron seguidos de silencio. La policía rompió ese silencio gritando "shooter down!, black tag!" ha dicho Goddard, lo que aparentemente son códigos policiales indicando muertes en el lugar. Los policías revisaron los cuerpos en la sala de clases. Couture-Nowak no sobrevivió. Mientras los cirujanos trabajan para curar a su hijo, Goddard dice que ella nunca hubiera querido que la tragedia hubiera sucedido en un momento "de definición en la vida de mi hijo", refiriéndose al último semestre en la carrera de Collin. En cambio, ella hubiera querido un momento de definición de su hijo como "que fuera algo positivo, con una gran celebración en su vida". La cirugía de Collin fue un éxito. Otras nueve personas permanecen heridas en el hospital. Otras tres personas heridas del tiroteo del lunes fueron dadas de alta el hoy. Una de esas personas está recuperándose en el Lewis-Gale Medical Center, cerca de Salem, Virginia. Otros dos pacientes fueron dados de alta desde el Montgomery Regional Hospital en Blacksburg, quedando seis, tres hombres y tres mujeres, todos "estables", de acuerdo al CEO del hospital, Scott Hill. "No tengo palabras para describir la fortaleza de esos estudiantes", ha dicho Hill. "Ellos están trabajando muy duro para recuperarse". Dos pacientes que sufrieron heridas de bala están en buenas condiciones en el New River Valley Hospital, cerca de Radford. En el Roanoke Memorial Hospital, en Roanoke, Virginia, un paciente se mantiene en condición crítica por sus heridas de bala. Otro herido que estaba siendo tratado en Roanoke ha sido transferido a otro hospital, según el portavoz Eric Earnhart, quien se negó a dar el nombre del hospital por un pedido de los familiares. -- Fuente Original: Realidades Varias a.k.a El Blog de Jose Kaulen http://josekaulen.wordpress.com/tag/virginia-tech/ Licencia de uso: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported.
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Virginia Tech: The Challenge of Instant Communication in a Crisis
Wednesday, April 18, 2007 I have been percolating some ideas about how to better integrate technology into a crisis plan I am currently working on. My work with the Red Cross over the years has sharpened my senses and I do have some idea of how to successfully communicate during a crisis. However, this week's events at Virginia Tech have given me some further ideas. I don't want to start getting clinical about this before I say that I am deeply moved by the tragedy this week. Having lived in Virginia for many years I feel close to the tragedy, and moreover, because we have a dear friend who is a professor in the engineering department in V-Tech. I heard from him Tuesday night and am grateful that both he and his freshman daughter are okay. That expressed, there are many lessons to start learning, especially as we prepare for the unexpected and communicating to large groups in crisis. There was a great story in the Wall Street Journal today that (registration req.) discussed the use of disseminating information via texting in a crisis. I have pulled some of the information about services from that article. My main takeaway from this event is the need for redundancy of communication. There need to be both high and low tech layers of communication to be most effective. First and foremost, an organization has to have a strategy to get in touch with all of the stakeholders and employees that need to be reached. A good start is a list of employee cell phones and home phone numbers that are ready to use in an emergency, as well as emergency contacts. Having a crisis communication plan is essential to get the most out of our communications, but here is an incomplete checklist of tactics to consider: High Tech Strategies Have a service set up to send instant text messaging (SMS), one such service is run by Omnilert and costs about $9,000 per year, another for schools is and opt in service run by Mobile Campus Set up redundancy in the servers to handle any increased load Set up and Instant Communication Platform, something my friend Ike Pigott calls the Situation Room. Running this on a blog platform is a really handy way to control the speed of getting the message out. Immediate updates on the web page that could be pulled from a blog platform E-mail blasts Harness the culture of Facebook and MySpace and maintain profiles there for instant communication, especially in the aftermath of events Make the online information you share easily viral so that it can be passed on via blogs and other social media without diluting the message Use YouTube to distribute video responses to a wider audience which includes advertisements High Touch and Lower Tech Equip employees across the areas that might be affected in a Paul Revere-like system of notifications. Distribute pagers and give training for instant response in disseminating messages across wide geographic or spread out operations. Consider a service to deliver mass phonecalls to cell and home numbers Employ an audio warning system, like the siren system installed at UT Austin after the shootings there in 1966, or better yet, one with audio voice warnings, as by this video it seems they used at V-Tech Have good relationships with bloggers and mainstream media to get messages out fast This is just a start of the list and it will be governed by the needs of an organization and budget. However, these kind of "incidents" could happen anywhere and we need to be prepared to meet the challenges. Do you have anything to add to the list? posted by Kami Huyse at 1:41 PM -- Original Source: Communication Overtones http://overtonecomm.blogspot.com/2007/04/ambulances.html This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License.
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Virginia Tech: un análisis ideoléxico de una tragedia
Publicado por Jorge Majfud viernes, abril 20, 2007 La mayoría de las medicinas que se venden en forma de píldoras, recubren una determinada droga, químico o compuesto con una capa de color atractivo y gusto dulce. En español, la sabiduría popular usa esta particularidad para construir una metáfora: "tragarse la píldora" tiene una connotación negativa y expresa la acción de consumir una cosa con la forma o el gusto de otra. Es decir, creer o aceptar una verdad como hecho incuestionable sin ser conscientes de las verdaderas implicaciones. En la tradición literaria, este fenómeno epistemológico se entendía con la metáfora del caballo de Troya, también usado hoy en día para designar virus informáticos. Un ideoléxico puede entenderse como una pastilla que el discurso hegemónico prescribe e impone con seductora violencia. Por ejemplo, el ideoléxico libertad viene recubierto de una plétora de lugares comunes y dulcemente positivos (la libertad, como precepto universal lo es). Sin embargo, dentro de este recubrimiento dulce y brillante se esconden las verdaderas razones de las acciones: la dominación, la opresión, la violencia de los intereses sectarios, etc. El recubrimiento dulce y brillante anula la percepción se sus opuestos: el contenido amargo y opaco. La tarea del crítico consiste en romper la envoltura, en des-cubrir, en des-velar el contenido de la píldora, del ideoléxico. Claro que esta tarea tiene resultados amargos, como el centro de la píldora. Los adictos a una droga no renunciarán a ella sólo porque alguien descubra las graves implicaciones de su confort momentáneo. De hecho, se resistirán a esta operación de exposición. Analicemos un ideoléxico común en el discurso dominante del capitalismo tardío: la responsabilidad personal. De entrada vemos que su cobertura es del todo dulce y brillante. ¿Quién sería capaz de discutir el valor de la responsabilidad de cada individuo? Un posible cuestionamiento sería rápidamente anulado por una falsa alternativa: la irresponsabilidad. Pero podemos comenzar problematizando el nuevo falso dilema observando que el mismo adjetivo —personal— de este ideoléxico compuesto anula o anestesia otro menos común y más difícil de apreciar por los sentidos: no se menciona la posibilidad de la existencia de una "responsabilidad social". Tampoco se habla o se acepta —en base a una larga tradición religiosa— que puedan existir "pecados sociales". Vayamos más al centro de un caso concreto: la trágica matanza ocurrida en la Universidad de Virginia Tech. Quienes pusieron el dedo acusador —tímidamente, como siempre— en la cultura de las armas en Estados Unidos, fueron criticados en nombre del ideoléxico de la responsabilidad personal. "No son las armas las que matan gentes —comentó un amigo del rifle en un diario— sino la gente misma. El problema está en los individuos, no en las armas". La píldora muestra un alto grado de obviedad, pero lleva nuevamente otros problemas: nadie cuestionó cómo podría hacer un desquiciado para matar a treinta personas con una piedra, con un palo o, incluso, con un cuchillo. Esta lógica se expresa cubriendo una contradicción interna del discurso. Cuando se habla de drogas, se culpa a los productores, no a los consumidores. Pero cuando se habla de armas, se culpa del mal a los consumidores, no a los productores. La razón estriba, entiendo, en el lugar que ocupa el poder. En el caso de las drogas, los productores son los otros, no nosotros; en el caso de las armas, los consumidores son los otros; nosotros nos limitamos a su producción. El discurso hegemónico nunca menciona que si no existiese el consumo de drogas en los países ricos no existiría la producción que satisface la demanda; si no existiera esta calamidad en la ilegalidad tampoco existirían las mafias de narcotraficantes. O su existencia sería raquítica, en comparación a lo que es hoy. Pero como los otros (los productores de los países pobres) son los responsables individuales, nosotros (los productores de armas, los responsables administradores de la ley) estamos legitimados para producir más armas que los otros deberán consumir, para respaldar la ley —y para quebrantarla. Si alguien, como el asesino de Virginia Tech compra un par de armas con más facilidad y cien veces más rápido con que uno puede comprar un auto, y comete una masacre, toda la responsabilidad radica en el desquiciado. Entonces, se llega a una trágica paradoja: una sociedad armada hasta los dientes está a la merced de los desquiciados que no saben ejercer correctamente su responsabilidad personal. Para corregir este problema, no se recurre a la responsabilidad social, combatiendo las armas y el sistema económico y moral que lo sustenta, sino vendiendo más armas a los individuos responsables, para que cada uno pueda ejercer con más fuerza su propia "responsabilidad personal". Hasta que vuelve a aparecer alguien excepcionalmente enfermo —en una sociedad de santos los demonios son excepciones muy frecuentes— y comete otra masacre, esta vez más grande, ya que el poder de destrucción de las armas siempre se perfecciona, gracias a la alta tecnología y a la moral de los individuos responsables. - Jorge Majfud, escritor uruguayo, es profesor de Literatura Latinoamericana en The University of Georgia, Estados Unidos -- Fuente Original: Blog Vamos a Cambiar el Mundo Sin Tomar el Poder http://jbcs.blogspot.com/2007/04/virginia-tech-un-anlisis-ideolxico-de.html Licencia de uso: Creative Commons Reconocimiento-NoComercial-CompartirIgual 2.5 España.
Creative Commons Reconocimiento-NoComercial-CompartirIgual 2.5 España
A panoramic shot taken at the Virginia Tech candlelight vigil. Original source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:2007_Virginia_Tech_massacre_candlelight_vigil_4.jpg/ This file has been (or is hereby) released into the public domain by its author, anonymous. This applies worldwide.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:2007_Virginia_Tech_massacre_candlelight_vigil_4.jpg This file has been (or is hereby) released into the public domain by its author, anonymous. This applies worldwide.
VirginiaTech: 32 muertos, 4.3 millones de cómplices y 6.000 millones de víctimas
Creado por Santiago Bustelo April 17th, 2007 La masacre estudiantil en Virginia Tech ocurrida ayer (lunes 16 de abril de 2007) ha vuelto a instalar la discusión de algunos de los valores de la sociedad norteamericana y del resto del mundo... de una manera tan estéril como en ocasiones anteriores. Los cómplices, o el lado correcto de la mira En el tema de la regulación de armas, las opiniones en Norteamérica son opuestas. Básicamente, porque dependen de qué lado de la mira esté -o crea estar- quien opina. La Asociación del Rifle Americano (NRA) cuenta con 4.3 millones de miembros, lo que la convierte en la ONG más grande del mundo. En esta ocasión, al igual que en todos los casos anteriores, sus miembros y autoridades están preparados a expresar sus condolencias... y a dejar claro que no creen que la facilidad con la que se pueden conseguir en EE.UU. armas diseñadas para matar a una gran cantidad de gente en poco tiempo y con un mínimo esfuerzo, tenga algo que ver con que alguien haya decidido -nuevamente- ponerlo en práctica. Claro que no sólo en EE.UU. ocurren masacres de este tipo. En el resto del mundo, cada tanto algún Don Nadie se siente inspirado por quienes pasaron a la historia atentando gratuitamente contra la vida de los demás. Que las armas no estén al alcance de cualquiera, impide a la mayoría pasar a la acción. En el caso de la masacre estudiantil de Carmen de Patagones, Argentina, el perpetrador era el hijo de un policía: le bastó con abrir un cajón para pasar a los hechos. Los miembros de la NRA creen que portar armas garantiza su seguridad personal. O sea, que tener un arma les asegura mágicamente estar del lado correcto de la mira, y que otros no los consideren como un blanco posible. Mientras que la realidad es que en el momento en que alguien nos está apuntando, tener un arma (descargada y prolijamente guardada en un lugar seguro para evitar que nuestros hijos se vuelen la cabeza por accidente), difícilmente haga una diferencia. Sería preferible que otro no nos esté apuntando en primer lugar. En la mentalidad de la NRA, la portación de armas es más que un derecho. Tratándose de la "segunda enmienda", se lo compara en importancia a la primera (la que garantiza la libertad de expresión). Veamos qué dice la famosa Segunda Enmienda: A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. En castellano: Siendo necesaria una milicia bien regulada para la seguridad de un Estado Libre, no debe ser vulnerado el derecho del Pueblo de poseer y portar armas. Esto es, el derecho a portar armas tiene para la Segunda Enmienda el propósito de garantizar la seguridad nacional. La seguridad personal no está contemplada como finalidad. Sin embargo, teniendo el ejército más poderoso del planeta, la posibilidad de que EE.UU. sea víctima de una invasión extranjera es prácticamente nula. Más bien, su ejército tiene la costumbre de invadir "preventivamente" todos los países que puedan suponer una amenaza política o económica. El mantenimiento de la Pax Americana debe poco a los más de cuatro millones de miembros de la NRA, a quienes no vemos formando filas quilométricas para partir a Medio Oriente. En lugar de ello, el grueso de las tropas se compone de clases bajas e hijos de inmigrantes. Para ellos, alistarse y arriesgar la vida, es la única manera de obtener una educación y una posición social. Las víctimas, o la cabeza de turco del loco del gatillo ¿Por qué alguien puede alimentar deseos de matar a diestra y siniestra y, peor aún, llegar a hacerlo? Calificar a los perpetradores de estos actos como locos y desquiciados, es la mejor manera de no responder a esa pregunta. Están locos, punto, fin de la discusión. Una veta de "respuestas" aún "mejores" que enuncian algunos norteamericanos, busca culpar al ateísmo (la separación de la Iglesia y el Estado en la educación) o a una "posesión demoníaca", que para esta gente viene a ser más o menos lo mismo. El perpetrador abandonó a Dios, fuente de toda razón y justicia, así que todos sus actos estaban desprovistos de ambas. Y ahora arde en el infierno, fin del problema. De estas maneras, se evita tocar el problema de fondo: cómo una sociedad que valora a sus individuos sólo en base a lo que pueden tener o producir para que tengan los demás, termina alienándolos y convirtiéndolos en Nada, al punto en que pierden el amor a sí mismos y por extensión, al resto de la especie humana. Los alienados y desesperados de clase baja merecen todos los días las páginas de policiales, por su capacidad de asesinar a otro para sacarle dos pesos. El hecho de que en ello no valoren su propia vida (a diferencia de la mayoría de la humanidad, que vive con menos de US$ 1 por día y enfrenta dignamente la pobreza sin matar ni exponerse a morir), queda oculto bajo el motivo de una satisfacción material. Que es la más valorada por la mecánica capitalista: como el capital genera capital, se erige como un fin en sí mismo y como fin último. El Hombre queda desplazado de este círculo, cumpliendo meramente el rol de fuerza laboral necesaria para que la rueda siga girando. El caso de quienes empuñan un arma contra sus compañeros de clase, en cambio, no admite una desesperada necesidad material como explicación. Pero nadie parece dispuesto a analizar qué tienen en común los ricos y los pobres que salen a matar o morir (o ambas cosas). Conclusión Quienes dedican su vida a cualquier rama de la ciencia -tanto exactas como humanísticas-, saben que no existen casos inexplicables. En todo caso, hay casos que los puntos de vista y teorías actuales no contemplan. Y que requieren ampliarlos o reformularlos. Ante las masacres estudiantiles, podemos atrevernos a analizar los valores que nuestra sociedad considera normales y enfrentar las causas de nuestra propia alienación (y las del resto de la humanidad)... o concluir rápidamente que "hay gente muy loca", cambiar de canal y seguir en nuestra cómoda ignorancia. -- Fuente Original: santiago bustelo - detras de las pantallas blog. http://www.bustelo.com.ar/index.php/es/2007/04/17/virginia_tech_shootings_aftermath/ Licencia de uso: Creative Commons Atribución-NoComercial 2.5 Argentina.
Creative Commons Atribución-NoComercial 2.5 Argentina
Por Jesús Dávila Corresponsal Publicado el 04-23-2007 San Juan — El féretro con los restos del ingeniero Juan Ramón Ortiz, muerto en la masacre de virginia tech el pasado día 16, fue transportado ayer sábado a Puerto Rico, pero su viuda, Lizelle Vega, y demás familiares pidieron a la prensa que les dejen en paz para poder comenzar el "proceso de sanación" luego de la tragedia. Vega hizo el llamado en una rueda de prensa en la que indicó que el velorio será en una funeraria de Bayamón, ciudad natal de su esposo, y el entierro tendrá lugar el martes en el cementerio católico Porta Coeli, del mismo municipio. La también ingeniero, quien junto a su esposo cursaba estudios avanzados en la universidad de Virginia, expresó agradecimiento para todos los que le han apoyado ante el dolor -tanto en Virginia como en Puerto Rico- además de hacer reconocimiento de la labor que han realizado los medios noticiosos. Pero, pidió que durante los próximos días se permita a la familia su espacio de intimidad y que no se hagan entrevistas en la funeraria o el cementerio. El pedido de Vega coincide con las instrucciones emitidas por la dirección de virginia tech de que a partir del lunes estará prohibido que los reporteros o fotógrafos entren a los edificios universitarios ni camiones de transmisión televisada podrán estar en el campus para dar espacio a que comience "el proceso de sanación". Las instrucciones especifican además que cualquier pedido de entrevistas a personas en el campus universitario respete los sentimientos de las personas. Vega dijo que no quería hacer declaraciones sobre lo que pasó y que sólo quería limitarse a recordar a su marido por su alegría. Sobre su futuro, indicó que todavía no ha tomado una decisión pero especificó claramente que no piensa demandar a la universidad, ni ahora, ni nunca. Entre las alternativas que ha ofrecido la universidad a los estudiantes afectados por la masacre está obtener la nota de fin de semestre con los trabajos realizados hasta el momento en los cursos. El día de los hechos, Vega se encontraba en el edificio donde cursa estudios en geotecnia, mientras Ortiz asistía a clases de hidrología avanzada en el edificio del frente, donde se produjo el segundo tiroteo. Según había narrado previamente, no escuchó los disparos y sólo vio el movimiento de los policías, luego de lo cual se enteró que su esposo era una de las víctimas fatales. © EDLP -- Fuente Original: Diario La Prensa - Chicago http://www.laraza.com/news.php?nid=43410&clave=a%3A1%3A%7Bi%3A0%3Bs%3A13%3A%22virginia+tech%22%3B%7D
Jorge Mederos Executive Editor La Raza Chicago Inc. jorge.mederos@laraza.com August, 13 2007
It was a tragic day for everyone the day of the shootings on Virginia Tech. I remember coming home and being told that something was going on at Tech. I got worried because I knew so many people who were going there. I had been the campus a number of times because of track and when they were showing the locations of where the shooting took place I recognized it and almost felt as if I was there. I did not know anyone that was hurt or killed but many of them had lived in the area I grew up in. It was a very emotional day and I did not know what to think. I was hardly able to keep my eyes off of the TV and hearing that the death toll was going up I had to stop. I will admit I was afraid that someone I knew would come up but fortunately they did not. I felt for all the families and friends of the victims and even I find it hard to forgive the shooter but I know that we are all strong and will be able to. My heart and prayers go out to the VT community.
VT aftermath continues; SU reflects with speak out
By: A.J. Donatoni Posted: 4/26/07 Seung-Hui Cho took the lives of 32 Virginia Tech students and faculty in a senseless act of violence April 16. On Wednesday, 32 Syracuse University students and area residents came together in the Panasci Lounge at the Schine Student Center to participate in the Speak Out Against Violence in response to that act. The speak out, sponsored by the Greek Council and the Student Association, was a forum designed to commemorate the victims of the shootings and give those in attendance a chance to voice their opinions on what occurred that morning. One by one, several participants walked up to the podium located at the back of the lounge and addressed the rest of the group by either sharing a personal experience or simply giving their perspective on what transpired on the campus of Virginia Tech. Senior Amanda Torres helped organize the Speak Out and has coordinated several events around the campus in honor of the Virginia Tech community. "When I was in high school, 9/11 happened and I was going to school in New York City," said Torres, entrepreneurship and emerging enterprises major. "That's the reason why I decided to become in involved in this." Torres spoke of her own personal experience in New York City when the World Trade Center was attacked but said that the shootings had a similar feel to them, which motivated her to do whatever she could to help out. "I was watching it on the big screen in Schine, and I stood there in disbelief, like I couldn't believe this was happening at a college that was comparable in size to us," said Torres of the shootings. "I can't imagine the fear that was going through the families and friends there." Junior Jacqueline Cho said the shootings touched her personally because she is Asian American. Because she shares the same last name of the shooter - Cho - she said the events have affected her on a deeper level. "My sister lives in London, and the day after it happened, when she went to work, she got backlash from her co-workers about being an American citizen," said Cho, television, radio and film major. She also said the workers joked to her sister about coming into work that day with guns to shoot them. Cho said she had not received any verbal backlash personally, but she has read blogs and other postings from student groups that have been "pretty upsetting." "As a student of color, my main concern was that when this happened, why would I have to carry the burden about how I or my (Asian Pacific American) community would be represented in the media because of one individual?" she said. "After the incident I became very self-aware." Roy Baker, director of fraternity and sorority affairs at SU, is originally from Richmond, Virginia, and attended the University of Virginia. He said he has many ties to Virginia Tech and that the news hit home hard. "I saw the news and witnessed the things that were happening on that campus, and I started thinking about all the people that I knew that worked there," he said. "I wasn't sure if I should reach out to them or just leave them alone." Baker said he eventually contacted those whom he knew and that they were going through something "unimaginable" and "incomprehensible." "What if something like that could happen here?" he said. "I would hope that we as a community would appreciate what we have at this great institution, and come together and do the things that could have prevented this by supporting one another and making one another feel like we each matter." Once the open forum portion of the event was finished, the Speak Out concluded with a moment of silence by the 32 SU community members for the 32 victims, whose names were read by the event volunteers. -- Original Source: The Daily Orange - April 26, 2007
A reflection of the balloon ceremony that was held on the first day of class. Orginial Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/spector1/sets/72157600104116028/ Photo courtesy of Roger Gupta
Permission: Roger Gupta http://www.flickr.com/photos/spector1/sets/72157600104116028/
A ceremony held on the first day of class after the tragedy in which balloons were released in remembrance of the 32 victims. Orginial Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/spector1/sets/72157600104116028/ Photo courtesy of Roger Gupta
What started as a simple VT leaning by a tree became a major focal point of reflection. President Bush signed this VT and a shelter was placed around the VT and other memorabilia. Taken Saturday 21 April.
Candlelight vigil held on one year anniversary of 4/16. On the drillfield with Burruss Hall in background. Photo by Roger Gupta. -- Original Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/spector1/2419674035/
After April 16, plastic daisies have regularly been laid down at various places on the drillfield in the shape of the VT logo, near the temporary memorial in front of Burruss Hall. This photo was taken on Thursday, June 14. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0.
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0
A message board from the Drillfield Memorial. Photo by Roger Gupta. -- Original Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/spector1/467361779/in/set-72157600104116028/
VT flowers on the drillfield near the Burruss memorial. Photo taken Friday, April 20.
Prior to Virginia Tech's candelight vigil for NIU, an attendee signs a message board on display along alumni mall. Photo taken Monday, February 18, 2008. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0.
All eight placards sent by UVA Students in support of Virginia Tech now displayed in Squires Student Center Original source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/killfile/499326674/in/set-72157600298230023/ Photo Courtesy of Chris Thomas
Permission: Chris Thomas http://www.flickr.com/photos/killfile/499326674/in/set-72157600298230023/