http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/12/27/movie.shooting/index.html
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29553666/
Students Post Videos of Brawls Online
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29516920/
11 year old Murder Suspect was a 'Typical Boy'
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29582081/
Reverend Killed at Church Shooting in the middle of Sunday services
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29618496/
"Fight Club" probed at home for disabled
http://www.ktla.com/landing_topstories/?Man-Beheads-5-Year-old-Sister-in-Front-o=1&blockID=253042&feedID=1198
23 yr old man beheads his 5 yr old sister in front of her birthday cake
There is a form of cancer, unknown to the medical community, which is the most silent and deadly destroyer of all life. It mutates and spreads faster than any scientific equipment can track, and yet it is something no one even realizes poses the most looming threat to our society: denial.
Whether in the hushed horror of sexual abuse in the home, or children full of simmering fury whom adults pat on the head and hope for the best; in teachers that consistently display inappropriate behavior but no one wants to rock the boat and draw attention towards, or the sister/brother that is always expertly scheming to get whatever they want irrespective of how it impacts all the lives around them... it is all fundamentally the same issue.
We close our eyes and entertain a form of sophisticated cognitive dissonance, fixating on anything and everything else in order to avoid what we do not want to face. Can't we all just get along? Can't we at least pretend to? Well sure we can, at least until the build up from not dealing with the truth is so extreme that there is no other option left but implosion. And... well, here we are. Mass shootings, school shootings, the Santa massacre--people are coming undone right and left, in road rage and even simply in the act of walking down the street and bumping into each other. People have become human landmines.
Darkness does not happen in a vacuum. There are always signs. The question is, who has the open eyes to see them? If you read the above referenced articles, you will notice that the kids filming their fights to post on the internet, set the fights to music and subsequently rated the brutality. Read that last sentence again. Please. Now, do you truly think those kids became that aggressive and violent overnight? And that no one in their lives seemed to notice the erosion and slow boil? Or what about the guy who went to see the movie The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button and was upset by the father and son in the seats in front of him, talking. He proceeded to throw popcorn to quiet them down. When that didn't work, he got up and shot the man. On Christmas Day. Or the pastor preaching his Sunday morning sermon entitled, "Come on, get happy!" as a churchgoer walked down the central aisle and shot him and then stabbed himself, in front of the altar and congregation.
The real issue is that these things are happening every single day in every single city in this nation---and really, around the world. It is no longer isolated incidents of violence, but a global reality where all the pots are now boiling over. Our way of dealing with this has been a frantic method of running around and putting out fires, but we are perpetually behind the 8-ball. We never see these tragedies coming until they combust in front of our eyes, and then there is only the slow motion shock of incomprehension that invariably follows.
This project Generation IG is dedicated to introducing to the world new paradigms that deal with the roots of violence, hatred, and human suffering.
This story, entitled, "Has America Become Numb to Tragedy?" on 4/04/09
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30046195/
I ask you to read it.... and then know THAT IS WHAT THIS PROJECT IS ALL ABOUT. Fourth estate, now is truly your chance to rise to the occasion.
There ARE solutions (that, by the way, do not involve ideology, dogma, belief systems, sales pitches, cults, or agendas). Life can be so incredibly different than the world we are now traumatized by every time we walk out of our front door, or walk into it.
Call Out: Every newscaster that shows up to report on these stories and then goes out and has a drink afterwards.
Talk About It: What are your observations on the roots of violence in human beings? What role do you see denial playing in the people around you?
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SO very true. I will be having some conversations with people in my family that I have been putting off, after reading this.
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Watching from the sidelines yet in the heat trying to reason with some one seeing red is one of the harder aspects at least in the case of fights trying to prevent what occurs next it is even harder as you become invisible to the contenders.
Hubris or blindness.
I see it all the time in my neighborhood worst yet between friends, words are dangerous weapons and far worse the candlelight vigil's that litter the corners, another xeroxed flier for a funeral in the grocery store. And I always feel the weight of passing the first set of doors the pavement stained with blood washed away leaves me feeling heavy even more so since I knew those who had their last breath in that spot.
My nearest corner store has a window of shame and window of greatness the community is screaming inside and out. the window of shame overflowing while the window of greatness is
but a few news paper clipping's that never make the front page.
It is so much what people bury in themselves lashes out without thought of their actions knowing still that anger is retracted back in like waves.
This is just one perspective.
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