Mark Rickling, indicating an astoundingly low comprehension level asks:
>>Can you refer me to the exact passage in which someone either implicitly or
>>explicitly states that race was *the only* factor leading to the Columbine
>>shootings, *to the exclusion of all other explanations*?
Jim Heartfield corrects
>But Emma already quoted Maggie
Thank you. Those of you who equate fascism, nazism, or even neo-nazism with some sort of necessary connection to hatred of jews, black, etc are utterly ignorant of history. Firstly, history has demonstrated that Nazism wasn't just about targeting Jews, but also about Catholics, Communisits, gypsies. How ignorant for anyone here to assume that contemporary forms of Nazism *must* and only *must* be about racism which is then magically defined as hatred, oppression, slurs, bigotry against people of color and Jews. Very interesting how race is essentialized in this kind of talk. Utterly astounding. This is what I hear you say, because they wore Nazi symbols and admired Hitler, then obviously they were racists and hated blacks and Hispanics and, I guess, Jews, though no mention has been made of that. Let me just remind you that Nazism or Neo-Nazism does rest on what can be called racism in so far as it's an attempt to cleanse the world of groups seen as threatening to the purity of the honored and valorized group. Your reasoning here is dangerous. It demonstrates a complete ignorance of history. If we've learned anything, then we should have learned by now that racism operates in such a way as to socially construct certain groups as if they were a separate race that has identifiable physical and social characteristics. However, there is no necessary connection as Angela demonstrates when she speaks of "genticizing" white trash and rednecks in the film Gummo. The truly scary thing is, some of you on this very list stereotype rednecks and yahoos and don't even see how you do it or see the problem with it.
>From the Denver Post.....More to suggest the horrible possibility that this
act was motivated by a complex set of factors.
They hoped to kill more By David Olinger Denver Post Staff Writer
April 26 - The two students who carried guns and homemade bombs into Columbine High School wanted to kill at least 500 classmates, murder people in the neighborhood and - if they survived - "hijack an airplane and crash it into a major city," Jefferson County Sheriff John Stone said Sunday.
Their intended destination was New York City.
In an interview at home, Stone divulged frightening details of the terrorist plans hatched in a suburban bedroom by two high school seniors who felt like outcasts.
Plans were "cold-blooded" Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold had been making "calculated and cold-blooded plans for a long time," Stone said. He said they deliberately started shooting at 11:15 a.m., when the maximum number of students would be eating in the high school cafeteria or studying in the library, and hoped the homemade propane bomb they assembled would destroy the school.
"Once they burned the school down, then they were just going to start ravaging the neighborhood, killing as many people as they could." Many details of their plans were kept in what the sheriff described as a year-long ledger that outlined their daily efforts to acquire guns and make bombs for a suicide mission that they dreamed would climax with a disastrous plane crash.
While some have criticized police for taking four hours to get victims and terrified students out of the high school, Stone contended the first exchange of police gunfire with the suspects forced them to retreat and may have saved many students.
Within 15 minutes there were four or five Jefferson County SWAT team members at the school, who joined with a Denver SWAT team and "made our initial assault and did engage" the shooters, he said. "I think that is what saved the rest of these kids. I firmly believe the killings were done before we got there." The sheriff also lashed out at gun manufacturers such as Intratec, which made the banned TEC-DC9 assault weapon the pair brought to the school.
He said he supports the right to own firearms, "but that's not a hunting gun. All that is, is a military type of thing. It's meant to kill people. Most of these cases where we've had drive-by shootings, that seems to be the gun of choice. Where do you draw the line - bazookas?" While Harris and Klebold's homemade bombs, taped with nails and BBs, injured at least one student seriously, it was their guns that killed people.
Three counties shared autopsy duties. Dr. Michael Doberson, the Arapahoe County coroner, said he understood gunshots killed all 15 people who died at the school. Eleven survivors remained in Denver hospitals Sunday with gunshot wounds.
Stone also verified that at least one other person is under investigation - an 18year-old female friend of Klebold, who helped acquire one of the guns brought to the school. Judging from the ledger, he said, the guns were acquired well before Tuesday's massacre.
A search of their homes turned up explosive devices "in both homes, from what I understand," he said, as well as a silencer, gunpowder and the sawed-off barrel of a shotgun, sticking up in plain view from a container on a bedroom dresser.
Denver Post staff writers Kit Miniclier and Marilyn Robinson and The New York Times contributed to this report.
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