I decided to start another thread to leave the "other" thread in a more positive vein and not disrespect anyones feelings and what not.

Please stop reading if you cant approach this with an open mind and the ability to see things from the "other side". No, I am no pro death or any such nonsense, but am intrigued with hows peoples reactions can be pulled from their hat.


In case you are confused, I am being vague on purpose......if you dont get it, good. If you do get, please us some restraint in your comments.





Honestly, it is getting quite ridiculous how we are giving so much attention to this. Did anyone watch the news last night? This sort of thing happens in Iraq everyday, yet no one cares about it. Its only because it happened in a first world country that its receiving this sort of attention. Maybe its because this thing doesnt happen every day in America that we care so much, but are the people who died here any less than the people who get killed in Iraq?

 

People in America are understandably more concerned with events that happen in America. You have to understand that the majority of Americans are very oblivious to world affairs.

 

Is it right to say that the events in Iraq are too American affairs?

 

Of course. However the average American puts little to no effort into learning about things that don't directly concern them. The only reason this is different is because the media is shoving it down our throats.

 

My view is that the ppl already know that when these troops go to war there it th chance of death and are some wat mentally able to prepare to hear about it. this event was more out of no where and caught ppl by suprise. thses ppl were at school, where most normally dont expect some thing like this to occur. The troops are fighting and can die, the students were learning and were killed. Thats how I see it. Its not that we dont care about the troops, its just that we already know to EXPECT death

 

I know where you're coming from. I think it has a lot to do with desensitization. I'll use myself as an example. When I heard about Columbine, I was devistated. It almost made me physically sick to hear what happened and to think about those poor kids. Now here we are...a few years and several similar type shootings later. As hard as this is for me to admit, when I heard about VT it didn't impact me anywhere near as hard as Columbine did. I feel horrible for those people, but it just didn't bother me in the same way. Why? Because after hearing about this kind of thing multiple times it kind of looses it's shock value. The events that take place everyday in places like Africa or the middle east have stopped shocking me a long time ago because it's so common. Does that mean that I don't care? No. I care. I'm just too far away and I've heard it too often for it to bother me the way it should.

 

good point: to both posts above

 

Iraq is a warzone.
VT is an educational campus.

 

I don't see why you are so surprised. A murder in a city far from yours is not going to interest and concern you as much as a murder in the house next door. Same concept, larger distances. It' only human nature. And yes, there are Americans dying in Iraq too, but they are mostly soldiers, which take an assumed risk (not that it doesn't suck too).

And yeah, Virginia tech may be getting all the media attention, but the war is going to have a far greater impact on the country ( in foreign policy, election results, economic policy). Plus people already KNOW about Iraq... It's old news. Nothing has really changed out there, yet. That's why they call it NEWS. This event and tragedy is something NEW, this they report it. If they just reported the same story everyone has heard before, they would call it OLDS.


... In other olds today, money rocks, death sucks, and I like women's ta tas.

 

Typing on a blackberry makes me type slow.

^what they said already

 

The media simply encourages this type of behavior from other psychopaths who compete with each other to out "psycho" the next guy….a sickening amount of attention is placed on the gunman in the name of "news", "information" and a "better informed public"…..blah! Its voyeurism at its worst!

The media plays a big role in these types of events and even have a vested interest to report in the manner that they do to keep their ratings above the next guys ratings…..disgusting.

It is no surprise that Americans exhibit the apathy they do when you look at common herd mentality traits that lead this country.

 

^dude, of course, and I agree. But I still don't understand why you are at all surprised.

I don't really watch TV for this very reason. The news media is THE worst medium of information. Unfortunately, it's convenience and well packaged product makes it the only resource for most folks. It's about weeding out good and bad info, checking their sources, taking "facts" with a grain of salt, and knowing when to turn the TV OFF.

 

I don't think that the media encourages this type of behavior. The psycos that do these things are no different from terrorists who try to out do their predecessors with bigger bombs and more destructive tactics.

The media is a business. Like any other business, they have an audience to capture and ratings to achieve. In a free press environment, there is competition and obviously there is the extensive coverage that we see.

If we didn't have this competition, or freedom, we'd have state controlled news agencies and I think that's the last thing we want. (IE: China, Cuba, Russia)

The fact of the matter is: We are captured by events like these. We are captivated by these tragedies and want to know all of the details. True some of it is voyeurism but most of it is out of fear of it happening to them one day.

 

I agree. I was glad to see the media quoting one of the survivors who called Cho a coward. He said he was "weak" and "not a man". To me, that's the ONLY type of press he should get. Maybe these psychos would stop looking up to each other as some type of hero if they knew most people would remember them as weak cowards for doing such a thing.

 

Right now there are crazies out there who are getting off to the attention this wacko got. did anyone hear how many threats schools got throughout the country after the shootings??? its ridiculous.

and you know who's to blame for this beside the media?? that idiot dr. phil and his stupid "video games are the cause" qoutes (no not really but I do really hate the fVcking idiot).

 

F NBC and how they aired the video and photos. first they shouldnt have open a package sent by the ummm KILLER. Did they ever think it could be something dangerous. Then they show the pics make him look like some action movie type of person. Twisted ppl are gonna view this as some cool $hit and want in on this stupidity. I think that NBC messed up hadcore with how they handledwat was delivered to them and they are now using it for RATING NOT NEWS. Its messed up.

 

yeah, everyday some headline occurs about iraq "50+ innocent civilians killed today in truck bomb". and it lasts for 4 hours in the media.

"32 people killed in virginia tech" and we're going to hear about it for 2+ weeks. On 4.16.08, there will be candlelight vigils and another day+ of news reporting on it.

Logically, why should I care more about 32 people dying than thousands?

in america, we only care about americans.

Most all of us hate sending our jobs overseas, when it means I don't live quite as good, but 5+ families in india are now able to eat food everyday.

personally I'm a horrible person, and really don't give a **** about foreigners. I'm pretty much a nationalist, a real american patriot if you ask me, and believe we should fix our country's citizens to the best of our ability before we even give a penny to other country's that put themselves in these bad positions. We're supposed to be a capitalist society, but instead we are just supporting the richest 1% get richer off the rest of the world. Really, we should be spreading that wealth amongst our citizens.
I think most of our natural born, non-hispanic citizens feel that way, but wouldn't dare let those words slip out of their mouth.

We used to care about individual soldiers dying when the war was new, and it had alot more support.
But then we changed the term "soldier" to "troops" and now troops became "an american fighting force who probably shouldn't be there anyway" instead of "the soldier Billy Joe from Iowa, father, brother, fireman"

 

The media most definately does. They should have never put his videos, pictures, or manuscripts on the air. That is exactly what he wanted. They should have just left it to the police and the psychologists to go through. I would be even more outraged if it was my family and friends that got killed and the killer was getting all this airtime. That is just wrong.

 

You people are missing the point, jesus.

Iraq is a warzone!
Virginia Tech is a friggin educational institution.

There is a MAJOR difference between violence occurring in those two places.

 

I think you are missing my point. I do not have sympathy for our soldiers. I have sympathy for the innocent iraqi civilians.

soldier sign up to kill or be killed. that's their choice.
the 1000s of totally innocent men, women and children we're killing in iraq, or helped kill are as innocent as those 32 students.