Hey, Bush was right! If we don't stop the terra-ists in Eyerack they will come here.

[yellowcanine]

We didn't stop them in Eyerack and they are here!

[Waya]

1. ...................

:eyes:

[panader0]

2. It's a big "what if", and it's too early to speculate, but what if this is

a terrorist act? The implications would be huge.

[yellowcanine]

3. Not likely. Sounds like good old 'merican gun play to me. Different time and place. Same old

story. Unknown male gets a gun and walks into a school and starts shooting people. Stop. Rewind. Repeat.

[Chemical Bill]

13. Freeps are already blaming terrorists.

I saw it in another thread. Why should a freeper care about the truth?

Bill

[yellowcanine]

17. What a surprise. No doubt it is somehow Bill Clinton's fault also. Or Nancy Pelosi's.

Wait! Didn't she just consort with the Syrian terra-ists!

[Rocknrule]

27. You forgot videogames

According to Jackoff Thompson they are responsible for every school shooting, 9/11, the Beltway sniper shootings, the Holocaust, AIDS, cancer, and Adam eating the forbidden fruit

[yellowcanine]

29. You forgot impotence - video games cause impotence as well.

And possibly premature ejaculation.

[Rocknrule]

30. Videogames are Thompson's "Clenis"

[dipsydoodle]

4. It would appear

that a guy looking for his current or ex girlfriend shot 2 students and then went to what he believed was her class and opened up on all of them. That's not off the news. My daughter here in the UK is one of the IMDB Lost groupies and friends on the spot have posted that - they were on the case just a soon as DU was.

[uppityperson]

6. Define "terrorist act" first.

Is it "them" coming to get "us"? Is it politically motivated? Is it murdering a bunch of people and causing terror?

[yellowcanine]

11. Bingo. A point I have been trying to make in an (apparently) obtuse way.

What I call "good old 'merican gunplay" is indeed terrorism, imo. It is absurd for Bush to talk about stopping the terrorists in Iraq when we have plenty of homegrown terrorism.

[uppityperson]

14. Got it. Perhaps you should edit your OP , add "homegrown" to clarify

[yellowcanine]

16. Eh. No thanks. I think more is gained by pointing out the irony, even if some miss it at first.

On the other hand with this administration there is so much irony that maybe people are suffering from "irony fatigue."

[renie408]

15. Ok, I get it. I didn't understand what you were trying to say. n/t

[yellowcanine]

12. dupe post

[renie408]

5. You know, I hate Bush as much as the next person, but stuff like this doesn't seem right under

the circumstances.

[yellowcanine]

9. Why? It shows the inanity of his statement. People are terrorized by this. It is real, unlike the

made up reality of pronouncements by Bush. I am sorry. I consider it completely appropriate to point this out at this time. If not now, when?

[onenote]

7. this kind of "logic" makes DU look bad

you realize that, don't you?

[yellowcanine]

10. Really? To whom? People are terrified. What does it matter what "people think" of DU?

You worry what people think and the terrorists win. I actually mean that.

[onenote]

18. If you want progressive thinking to be taken serious it ought to reflect serious thought

And if you think the public in general (or for that matter, any rational person) equates a crazed gunman, apparently (and we still don't know everything) without any political agenda, but emotionally unhinged, with politically-inspired acts of violence committed against Americans because they are Americans, you really need to worry about yourself.

[yellowcanine]

20. Oh I am serious. It is called irony. I never take irony lightly.

And I worry plenty about myself - but not on that account. It is about time we start "connecting the dots" of the cost of obsessing on terrorism acts around the world while essentially ignoring the terrorism occuring in our own neighborhoods. I don't know about you, but I find the latter kind a lot more terrifying. So who gives a piper's peep WHAT reason people have for killing lots of people? They are just as dead and I for one, am just as terrified. I have been all over the world in the last thirty five years - Africa, Asia, Central America. I never felt scared as an American of being harmed for no reason other than that I was an American. The only time I felt really scared (and that includes 9/11, by the way) in the last thirty five years was JOGGING about a half mile from my house in suburban Washington, D.C. Why? Because some nut was shooting people with a sniper's rifle. Now you tell me whether I should give a rat's ass what people equate with what? Another way of saying this is - I'll be damned if Bush and his ilk is going to tell me what I should be afraid of.

[onenote]

21. I don't disagree with a lot of what you say

But the fact is that its not our obsessing on terrorism around the world that is allowing "terrorism" (if that is what you want to call the VA Tech shooting -- and I don't call it that) to occur in our own neighborhoods. Mass killings didn't just start happening in this country after we invaded Iraq and trying to link the two is just poor logic.

[yellowcanine]

23. That is a very linear approach that unfortunately feeds into the "terra"

agenda of the Bush administration. Of course it is not a cause and effect relationship. But the fact is, as many demagogues have done before, Bush and the neocons would have us focus on the external threats and ignore the far far greater threats that exist here in our own country. And I reject the notion there is NO connection. The massive military spending that is Iraq (and all the Patriot Act nonsense as well) takes resources away from us - resources that could be used for better health care, for example - maybe better and more timely mental health care that could benefit some of the troubled people before they commit their senseless acts. Also I am not convinced that the "War on Terror", Abu Graib, Extraordinary Rendition, torture at Gitmo, etc. have not had a corrosive effect on the national psyche - maybe enough of a corrosive effect to kick some individuals over the edge. Of course there were outrages before Iraq and before 9/11 for that matter - but doesn't it strike you that these outrages are happening more frequently and seem to be getting more outrageous? Violence begats violence. I don't think we can begin to know how. There are sociologists who speculate that the gun culture of the United States is partially a result of the Civil War. I think they may have something. Is it truly a historical accident that the gun culture is most ingrained in the states that made up the old Confederacy and in the Western states where many of the Civil War veterans made their way to during the 1870s and 1880s, the years of the "Wild West?" Yes, much of the Wild West is Hollywood hyped stereotype, but there is often some truth in a stereotype.

[onenote]

24. "these outrages are happening more frequently and seem to be getting more outrageous"

I'd be curious to see the evidence that backs up that claim. Today's horrific mass shooting is the worst in history, but mass killings have been going on in this country for a long time and, no, I don't see any evidence that they are getting "more outrageous". There is a long list of horrifically outrageous mass killings dating back to long before 9/11, the iraq war or chimpy. In 1966, Charles Whitman climbed to the top of the tower at the Univ. of Texas and shot and killed 15 students. Back in 1927, a guy named Andrew Kehoe blew up the Bath Middle School in Michigan killing 45 and injuring 58 (because he was upset about a property tax increase imposed to fund the school's construction). In the late mid to late 90's there was not only Columbine, but also the LIRR shootings, the Westside Middle School shootings, the Wedgewood Baptist church shootings.

This country hasn't done enough to address mental health issues and the ready access people have to guns for a long time, not just recently.

[yellowcanine]

25. You are determined not to see any connection. Ok. So be it. But saying so doesn't make it so.

Just wanted to demonstrate there is a logic to it. You don''t have to accept it. As for the "more and more", well it was an observation. Yes I know there have been outrages before. I just don't remember them coming this thick and fast. Suburban snipers in the Washington D.C. area randomly executing people, Amish (AMISH!) girls singled out and executed; and today's VT shootings. It is one thing to leave a bomb somewhere. It is quite another to look a random person you don't even know in the face and execute them. I am sorry, you aren't going to convince me that this epidemic isn't getting worse.

[onenote]

26. if you are insistent on ignoring facts there is nothing I can do.

Mass school shootings:

Feb 2. 1996: Moses Lake WA 3 dead
Oct.1 1997: Pearl Missippi 2 dead, 7 wounded
Dec. 1, 1997: W. Paducah, KY 3 dead, 5 wounded
March 24, 1998 Jonesboro AR 5 dead 10 wounded
May 21, 1998: Springield OR 2 dead 22 wounded
April 20 1999: Columbine 15 dead, 23 wounded

And then there are the all too frequent mass shootings that have occurred
at workplaces and restaurants, such as the 1991 Luby's Cafeteria shooting that
left 23 dead (plus the shooter) and 20 wounded.

Go ahead and make up your own facts if you'd like, but don't expect me to ignore the reality, which, as I said, is that this country has long ignored the dangers posed by inadequate mental health care and easy access to guns. Its a failure that can be ascribed to any one party or any one administration.

[Rick Myers]

8. If the shooter ends up being a Muslim, we are FUCKED!

The Reich will go crazy! So far, I've only seen one reference that the shooter was an 'Asian male.' I know the scene there is still total chaos, but law enforcement should be keeping the media more informed.

If this loon turns out to 'fit the profile,' the Right will play this out and we will lose ALL of our RIGHTS!!!

[dragonlady]

19. A wounded student said the shooter was "Asian"

MSNBC interviewed the student on the air.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

22. yes I wonder

[drp146]

28. If they can come here when we leave Iraq..........

What a load of crap! If they can come here when we leave Iraq and have most of our soldiers home, then they can come here now while most of our soldiers are away! So what Bush doesn't seem to realize is that what he is really saying is that he can't stop terrorists from attacking us here, but he wants everyone to think he's the only reason they haven't attacked us here lately.