Russell
-----Original Message----- From: J. Barkley Rosser, Jr. <rosserjb at jmu.edu> To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com> Date: Friday, September 24, 1999 11:09 PM Subject: Re: Littleton: it's Adorno's fault
>Doug,
> I know that you are really into Beethoven. Does
>this mean that you are actually a Leninist? He went
>all squishy goofy soft over old Ludwig van.
> I have a good friend (an economist even) who
>makes baroque instruments like viola di gambi by
>hand from scratch. Even sells them for a pretty penny.
>He claims that Beethoven was the beginning of the end
>of western civilization.
> So there.
>Barkley Rosser
>(overquota again, darn it!)
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com>
>To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com>
>Date: Friday, September 24, 1999 2:33 PM
>Subject: Littleton: it's Adorno's fault
>
>
>>At 1:44 PM -0400 9/24/99, Carl Remick wrote:
>>>I tried posting an article yesterday from Salon that is supposedly
>>>based on leaks from the official investigation of the Columbine High
>>>massacre. One key finding is that killers Eric Harris and Dylan
>>>Klebold apparently hated *everyone* and made no particular effort to
>>>target minorities, the devout, et al. The post seems to have
>>>vaporized in cyberspace, perhaps because of its length. Anyhow,
>>>here is the URL for anyone interested:
>>><http://www.salon1999.com/news/feature/1999/09/23/columbine/index.html
>>> >http://www.salon1999.com/news/feature/1999/09/23/columbine/index.html
>>
>>Actually, Lyndon LaRouche, or more accurately an acolyte named
>>"Jeffrey Steinberg," explains Littleton in the issue of The New
>>Federalist I was reporting from the other day: it's pop culture after
>>all. Lyndon gives that tired explanation a fresh kick though: the
>>U.S. military's encouragement of video games was a crucial factor.
>>"In the 1980s and 1990s, the military spent enormous amounts of
>>money...in the computer industyr, to be able to develop training
>>simulators to get people into a situation, that without even firing a
>>gun, you can go through the experience of killing an object that
>>looks humans, thousands, hundreds of thousands of times, until it
>>becomes almost second nature." (That the Littleton killers used real
>>guns, not remote-controlled smart bombs, would seem to undermine this
>>thesis, but who's quibbling?) Further, the Marines Corps "recently"
>>hired Id Software to develop a military version of Doom.
>>
>>But that's not all. Columbine High School was a pioneer in "Death
>>Education," a mandatory course in the school. Rather than the stated
>>purpose of teaching kids that death was part of life, the real
>>intent, says The New Federalist, was, as with video games, to
>>desensitize: "issues that are fundamental philosophical and moral
>>issues cease to exist, and everything is one succession of sensory
>>experiences that all lead you to abandon that which is essentially
>>human in yourself."
>>
>>Further, Bertrand Russell, "the British royal family, the British
>>oligarchy, [and] factions of Wall Street were all involved. Russell's
>>guilt is that he was, as "Mr LaRouche has written...one of the most
>>evil people of the 20th century." His crime was that he was "fully
>>conscious of the goal of erasing that which is human among a majority
>>of human beings, in order to enable the oligarchy to enjoy its power.
>>Compounding this philosophical crime was the work of the Cybernetics
>>crowd - von Neumann, Wiener, Margaret Mead, Gregory Bateson - who
>>aimed to "disprove the idea that man was created in the living image
>>of God."
>>
>>But that's not all. Next influence in the creation of "the Littleton
>>culture" was "one of the most insidious of the rock groups of the
>>1960s, the Grateful Dead" - all of whom were alums of Bateson's
>>cybernetics experiments at the Palo Alto VA hospital. Working at
>>their side was Stuart Brand, ex of the Stanford Research Institute,
>>founder of The Whole Earth Catalog, who became an early propagandist
>>for the personal computer. But we're getting a bit ahead of
>>ourselves; it was the sex, drugs, and rock & roll culture that
>>destroyed the great classical music canon and led us down the road to
>>barbarism.
>>
>>Also guilty: The Frankfurt School. "Theodor Adorno was trained as a
>>Classical musician in the 1920s in Germany, but was recruited to this
>>project [of cultural and psychological warfare], in which the
>>conscious objective was to destroy that which makes Western
>>Civilization great, namely, the fundamental principles of
>>Christianity, and he wrote and collaborated with others specifically
>>on the idea that everything they did aimed to destroy Western
>>Civilization.... And they said explicitly there could never be their
>>kind of world-government revolution in the West until every aspect of
>>Christianity had been destroyed...." Adorno, no friend of pop
>>culture, nonetheless committed the earlier heresy of promoting
>>Schonberg, "a postmodernist composer" who showed that human beings
>>were irrational. Schonberg and Adorno turned people into murderers
>>and necrophiliacs. Adorno's everywhere - music departments,
>>Hollywood, everywhere.
>>
>>So there you go, that's how the Littleton culture came to be.
>>
>>Doug
>>
>>
>