And Now Isla Vista

And now Isla Vista.

After, Columbine, Virginia Tech, Aurora and Newtown.

Six young people, between 19 and 22 years old, gunned down by a mentally ill young man who had absolutely no problem buying three semi-automatic hand guns and 400 rounds of ammo.

The killer’s 141 page “manifesto” reveals a monumental sense of entitlement, an obsession with clothes and “looking good”, being accepted by the “cool kids”, playing World of Warcraft  and getting a “hot” blond girlfriend for sex.

He was the well off son of the media; his father a Director of “The Hunger Games”.  His mother also works in the industry.  His step-mother appears in the French version of “Housewives”.  He was also the product of divorce, spending several alternating weeks with mom and his re-married dad.  He never wanted for cool clothes, game boxes, computers, a BMW.

He walked red carpets, flew “Upper Class” on Virgin Atlantic to London and France, Malaysia and Morocco.  He was obsessed with World of Warcraft, masturbation and porn.  He wanted a “hot girl” for sex.

He never got one.  He began to rage on Youtube about how those “blond bitches” threw themselves at “jerks” and not at him.  He began to buy guns.

Elliot Rodger really was alone.  His parents shuffled him off to summer camps, overseas trips; moved him around to different schools when he cried that he was unhappy.  He took up skate boarding just to fit in with the “cool kids” but that only worked for awhile.

He did not fit in – and nobody cared enough to get him the help he needed.  Toward the end his mom began to worry, concerned about his Facebook rants.  She called the cops, who came to his apartment to check him out.  He was polite and seemed fine.  The guns and ammo were in the closet.  Nobody checked.

Just before the killings he made a video – a movie – which seemed scripted, even with planned laughs between his promise to kill “sorority “bitches”.  He made a movie just like his dad.

Remember Aurora?  Yes, I know.  That was after Columbine and Virginia Tech, before Newtown and now Isla Vista.   That too was life imitating art – a “brilliant neuro-scientist” dressing up like the Joker.  The Columbine and Newtown killers all dressed in black – ninja style.

The media will quickly get into their hot  tragedy cycle interviewing the crying teens, local police, neighbors and of course the “expert” profilers.  I’m so tired of that Van Zant guy.

Soon we will see the funerals, kids marching with candles, make shift memorials, therapists with tables set up in for those needing “someone to talk to” and help “getting through this”
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Then will come the  talk of “healing” and “moving on”. As is usually the case the vast majority of those professing to need help and support will know no one who was hurt, lost no one; but they will need help anyway.  Perhaps they just have trouble handling the fact that this could happen in “their town” – the nice, suburban, Southern California town where they live in nice houses with nice lawns. Maybe it’s kind of like guys who wear military combat decorations they never earned.

Perhaps it’s a way to connect to something without really being connected – to belong.

The media will search for “reasons”. There has to be a reason.

There are lots of them I guess and in some finite place in space and time they all come together in a college town, a movie theater, an elementary or high school.

The availability of guns – especially assault weapons which no one uses for deer hunting.  Chemical weapons and combat gear readily available on the internet, the latest in new guns and armor glorified on the AHC (American Heroes Channel).  No pol dares mention the word “guns”;  too chicken shit – all of them. Only the father of one of the victims had the balls to call out the NRA.

“Violence in the media” will scream others; when a movie is violent the theater is packed, especially when the movie is comic-book exceptionalist bullshit violence.   Our kids are exposed to it from a very early age – in movies, TV, video games, porn, bullies in school.

No one will say how desensitizing constant images of violence are to the humanity of others.  No one.

Hollywood pulled back temporarily after Aurora on the all out marketing of several movies not wanting to appear “insensitive”. All they were worried about was the money. There was a movie coming out where a bunch of gangsters with tommy guns, 1930s style, take to the stage of a movie theater and blast the audience. We never saw that trailer.  Now it’s back to business as usual.

Sure, tens of millions of kids play video war games – the winner is the one who kills the most and accomplishes “the mission”.  Our most recent killer was addicted to World of Warcraft.  Tens of millions however wouldn’t even consider joining the military; that is for “other people”  Less “cool” people.  It’s so much easier to play the game.  Besides, the vast majority of games are highly eroticized – plenty of bare naked babes to blast.  Hot fantasy.

As for porn, all the women are “hot”, pliant, submissive, shaved and available.  Every kid loves porn, especially when she does exactly as she’s told.  Our most recent killer watched plenty of porn by his own admission.  He wanted a hot blond babe – and felt entitled to one – like she was a hot car or cool clothes.

Were the killers mentally ill?  Finding our killers  mentally ill neatly solves all of our problems. We don’t have to address the sense of entitlement, gun violence, media, video games, bullying, the eroticization of violence, loneliness and isolation.

He must be mentally ill otherwise he would be just like us.

We can’t seem to admit to ourselves that he is us.  He is our son, the native son of a 21st Century America where we don’t care about anybody but us.

This is the “exceptional” society in which we live. We hear the cries of no one. We see the loneliness of no one. Most of us do not know nor care to know our neighbors living three houses away. It’s our dog eat dog, every man for himself country. We judge our communities by the quality of the lawns.

We don’t give a rat’s ass if people are hungry, children die of malnutrition, veterans are living in our streets, most of the homeless are schizophrenic, that people die because of a lack of health care, or that we have spent a decade waging unjustified war against a couple of third world nations and have killed millions of Iraqis and Afghans.  Not to mention what we do elsewhere.

Our killer drove by those homeless folks in his BMW, doing his best to look “cool” so he could have sex with a hot blond sorority babe.

Our killer’s complete lack of empathy, his feelings of entitlement, of  exceptionalism, like the others before him at Columbine, at Virginia Tech, at Newtown are the symptoms of our societal illness.

As usual our “representatives” will do nothing but wring their hands while taking NRA money.  I’ll bet we’d hear more from them if our killer had gunned down 7 Congressmen in the House of Representatives.  But hey, the dead are someone else’s kids.  The CDC estimates some 32,000 people die by guns each year in America.  Just last month the GOP opposed further funding for CDC research into gun violence claiming “it only funds propaganda”.

Did you watch the Kimye wedding? OMG!