BTW, David Duke has also picked up on this obnoxious claim of Falwell's that Harris and Klebold were gay. I suppose that the reports of Klebold having a girlfriend who helped him get guns were just a cover or that maybe he was bi... Barkley Rosser -----Original Message----- From: W. Kiernan <WKiernan at concentric.net> To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com> Date: Friday, April 30, 1999 7:06 PM Subject: Re: Littleton: "Geek" Witchtrials
>Charles Brown wrote:
>>
>> Ironically, by not focussing on the Nazis/Hitler fetish of the
>> Littleton Two, and focussing on their geekness/Gothness, a much wider
>> range of youth are now under crackdown than if the diagnosis were
>> confined to their Nazi/Hitler fetish.
>>
>> Charles Brown
>
>Not to mention that when you hear "Goths" you think Bauhaus and Robert
>Smith, that is, musicians, whereas you associate "Nazis" with Auschwitz
>and the Blitz, that is, mass murder. So if you think about a teenage
>murderer who is both a "Goth" and a neo-Nazi, it seems like you'd focus
>more on the Nazi aspect than the "Goth" aspect, unless you had a
>particular axe to grind...
>
>But TV preachers, values-spouting talking heads, and their like can make
>lots and lots more money whining about Marilyn Manson and KMFDM, "Quake"
>and "Matrix" than they can attacking Nazis. Or racists in general, for
>that matter. The focus of all their blather is making money, selling
>advertisements and gathering votes, not at all trying to actually
>understand what was the cause of this mess. I'll bet if you find the
>guys spouting off against "Goths," etc., get them good and drunk and
>confidentially ask them "What's the real cause?" they'd answer, "Those
>two were plain nuts, beyond that it's incomprehensible."
>
>For an extreme example, that idiot Falwell's going around saying, with
>no rational evidence whatsoever, that Klebold and Harris were gay, and
>that's why they did it! Because his imbecile followers really get
>worked up emotionally about homosexuality, particularly in the sense
>that it somehow negatively affects straight society, so they get their
>checkbooks out.
>
>Suppose Falwell were to take on neo-Nazis, he won't get so good
>(lucrative) a response, because there are so few out-and-out Nazis on
>the street that his viewers don't feel like Naziism is likely to affect
>them personally. While most nervous fundamentalists never see anybody
>wearing a swastika, every day they see their own kids playing
>shoot-em-up video games and listening/watching unfamiliar pop music
>(being performed by weird looking characters who, gasp, shudder, might
>be gay!). So if Falwell bloviates against pop music and video games,
>his listeners feel it is sufficiently relevant to their lives that they
>should contribute some money.
>
>On the other hand, Falwell's problem with blaming racism would not be
>that there are too few racists in society to interest his listeners, but
>instead that racists of varying virulence probably make up a sizable
>fraction of his audience. (Here I'm not using the word "racist" in the
>universal sense that Carrol Cox uses it, meaning someone whose
>perceptions are affected by the ubiquitous racism permeating U.S.
>society, but instead in the sense where you might say, for example,
>"David Duke is a racist, whereas Ralph Nader is not.") Same problem
>with blaming the U.S. gun mania. Like pro wrestling fans, Falwell
>listeners love hearing him pound on this bunch and that, but only on
>groups to which none of them belong. I'd bet Falwell's never in his
>career delivered a radio or TV sermon on Matthew 7:1-5.
>
>If Falwell were ever to point an accusing finger at the pews, in the
>style of Jonathan Edwards, and mount a concerted public attack against
>racism in general, I'll bet he'd instantly lose permanently about a
>third of his audience.
>
>Yours WDK - WKiernan at concentric.net
>