Author Topic: Cho's home video, Knute's prediction  (Read 3766 times)

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Michael Tee

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Cho's home video, Knute's prediction
« on: April 18, 2007, 10:58:47 PM »
I was watching Cho's last tape on CNN.  Those are some really iconic poses there.  Memes, to use a word I picked up right here in this group.

Not really surprising that a nation which venerates death-dealing supermen in uniform, now has to deal with the outer  fringes of the cult, where some really strange worshippers have taken root.  Knute's prediction that the killer would turn out to be a Marine wasn't too far off the mark - - this guy seems to have been drinking from the same militaristic Kool-Aid vat that the Marines drink from, and the Navy SEALS, and the Rangers and Delta Force, etc., etc.  The cult of the macho killer has created a genie that just won't stay in the bottle.

Gun control is only part of the answer.  As some of the posters here have pointed out, Switzerland has minimal gun control and yet its citizens seem to have no problem in restraining themselves from abusing the firepower entrusted to them.  Where the real problem seems to lie is in the never-ending supply of fresh young psychos who gravitate towards the sound of the drum that a power-worshipping militaristic cult with powerful media allies seems determined to sell to the country as a whole, with ostracism and worse in store for anyone who refuses to join in.

larry

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Re: Cho's home video, Knute's prediction
« Reply #1 on: April 18, 2007, 11:31:28 PM »
There is something the media does not want to talk about. The fact that Cho was forced into a mental health treatment center a few years ago. Police used the Baker Act and I would like to her what Cho wrote about that. I have harped on this many times, because I have seen what that does to people. I have talked to many people in the psych ward and they feel they have been slandered and unlawfully imprisoned. That is why I quit my job, I was afraid one of those enraged people might come to the hospital and do the same thing Cho did at VT. There is much more to this story than what is being reported. The news reports are saying the police talked Cho into signing himself into a mental health facility. That is not how it happens.

Mucho

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Re: Cho's home video, Knute's prediction
« Reply #2 on: April 18, 2007, 11:41:12 PM »
Cho's insanity is severe and tragic, but it is less severe & tragic than what happens in Iraq daily. 187 people died in Iraq today which is 6 times worse that VT and it happens continually. That is why the Iraqis hate US. We brought a worse hell than they already had there. VT x 6 almost daily.

Michael Tee

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Re: Cho's home video, Knute's prediction
« Reply #3 on: April 18, 2007, 11:48:34 PM »
<<Cho's insanity is severe and tragic, but it is less severe & tragic than what happens in Iraq daily. 187 people died in Iraq today which is 6 times worse that VT and it happens continually. That is why the Iraqis hate US. We brought a worse hell than they already had there. VT x 6 almost daily.>>

Yeah but my point was that they are related.  The same sickness that permits punks and rootless psychos to search for their "manhood" in a socially approved ways by joining the Marines or other elite killing groups is the sickness that grips fringe elements like Cho and the Columbine killers, who are too marginalized even to make it into the Marine Corps.

larry

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Re: Cho's home video, Knute's prediction
« Reply #4 on: April 18, 2007, 11:55:23 PM »
Tee, I think you are right. The authoritarian mindset is a product of the times and violence is the teacher.

Mucho

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Re: Cho's home video, Knute's prediction
« Reply #5 on: April 18, 2007, 11:58:20 PM »
>>who are too marginalized even to make it into the Marine Corps<<

Ya have to be pretty marginal to not make it as a Marine. Those guys are cuckoo beyond redemption. You might go in normal, but the way you come out is fubar.

larry

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Re: Cho's home video, Knute's prediction
« Reply #6 on: April 19, 2007, 12:02:26 AM »
I wonder, in the end if Cho considered himself a terrorist and a martry?

Lanya

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Re: Cho's home video, Knute's prediction
« Reply #7 on: April 19, 2007, 12:17:08 AM »
I was disgusted that the television station played his tapes over and over.  Out of respect to the victims, they should not have.  Now I'm afraid of copycat killers thinking he looked tough or cool and wanting to emulate him. 
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Plane

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Re: Cho's home video, Knute's prediction
« Reply #8 on: April 19, 2007, 12:22:01 AM »
If he had wanted to join the miltary , he would have had to straighten up a lot.


I think it is very reveiling on you that you think that this guy is a military type.


He seem smore lke the sort of guy that can't take orders at all.

Amianthus

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Re: Cho's home video, Knute's prediction
« Reply #9 on: April 19, 2007, 12:33:12 AM »
I think it is very reveiling on you that you think that this guy is a military type.

Don't forget - Mikey thinks the military is composed of the "low hanging fruit."
Do not anticipate trouble, or worry about what may never happen. Keep in the sunlight. (Benjamin Franklin)

Amianthus

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Re: Cho's home video, Knute's prediction
« Reply #10 on: April 19, 2007, 08:19:04 AM »
Actually, Mikey, with all of Cho's rants against wealthy white guys, he sounds a lot like you and XO.
Do not anticipate trouble, or worry about what may never happen. Keep in the sunlight. (Benjamin Franklin)

Michael Tee

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Re: Cho's home video, Knute's prediction
« Reply #11 on: April 19, 2007, 10:13:30 AM »
<<Actually, Mikey, with all of Cho's rants against wealthy white guys, he sounds a lot like you and XO.>>

I've got nothing against wealthy white guys.  George Soros and Bill Gates are first-rate human beings.  What you heard from Cho was the voice of a tragic mental illness paired with an inability to fight it on his own, and a total failure of the meagre resources dedicated to public health in a nation that can spend hundreds of billions on murdering and torturing its way into oil fields that belong to other people.

Michael Tee

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Re: Cho's home video, Knute's prediction
« Reply #12 on: April 19, 2007, 10:28:29 AM »
<<I think it is very reveiling on you that you think that this guy is a military type.


<<He seem smore lke the sort of guy that can't take orders at all.>>

I don't think I said he was a military type and if I did, it certainly was not what I meant to say.  All I meant was that he and the military worship at the same shrine and drink from the same well.  Your country is in love with violence - - not only as the solution to all problems, but as an end in itself.  You not only revel in the awesome destructive powers of the military, but even fantasize about how much more destructive it could be.

That's why some people can argue that gun control probably wouldn't make much difference in general, although it's obvious that it probably would have made a big difference in this one case.  There are too many sick minds fed on violent fantasies and deprived of any real power in the real world - - and those sickos will get guns legally or illegally.  The real problem is the glorification of the military even in such civilian areas as talk shows, by civilians, let alone the fawning coverage they receive on TV and in the movies.  Cho was just acting out his sick fantasies.  He had plenty of models on which to base himself.  The same society that can afford the Iraq War and the Vietnam War before that, can't afford one-on-one counselling, mental health clinics, and research that would resolve problems like this.

Incidentally, I recall some ways back in this group a really good exposition of memes and I was kind of hoping that someone here more familiar than I am with the meme concept would analyze Cho in terms of American memes.  I unfortunately am not very familiar with the concept but it struck me that Cho's pose with the black, turned-around baseball cap, the black gloves, the guns and the ammo vest, was a meme.  A very well-known meme.  Am I wrong on that?  Is meme the right term to use?  I could have said "iconic" but "meme" seems to imply more.  (I think.)
« Last Edit: April 19, 2007, 10:38:23 AM by Michael Tee »

The_Professor

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Re: Cho's home video, Knute's prediction
« Reply #13 on: April 19, 2007, 10:57:21 AM »
If he had wanted to join the military , he would have had to straighten up a lot.


I think it is very revealing on you that you think that this guy is a military type.


He seem more like the sort of guy that can't take orders at all.

Well, I can tell you from personal experience that the finest fighting force on the planet, the United States Marine Corps, would NOT have accepted him!

Plane

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Re: Cho's home video, Knute's prediction
« Reply #14 on: April 19, 2007, 12:25:17 PM »
<<I think it is very reveiling on you that you think that this guy is a military type.


 All I meant was that he and the military worship at the same shrine and drink from the same well.  Your country is in love with violence - - not only as the solution to all problems, but as an end in itself.  You not only revel in the awesome destructive powers of the military, but even fantasize about how much more destructive it could be.




I still do not agree with your premise.

The US has had the power to end life on earth for fourty years , more power is not the aim .

For quite a while the military has been intensely interested in more finely directed power , getting more done with less, that is why we have a military 30% smaller than fifteen years ago. This idea was central to the changes Rumsfeild wanted.