The 1970 congressional report on violence in America revealed that we have always been a violent country, and our nation's birth was one of the bloodiest on record. In the process we killed off millions of American Indians, thousands of slaves and there are a multitude of Chinese corpses buried under the tracks of our extensive railway system. There was also the carnage of one of the world's most savage Civil Wars, added to our war with our southern neighbors to secure a good portion of Mexican land.. Nor should I forget to mention the gang violence in our streets during the Prohibition era.

Most of this killing was carried out by our core majority population as we grew America and, during the Civil War, by two set factions of our general population separated by national disunity of purpose. As of late, however, the killing has turned inward toward our communities and is being perpetrated by our youth. This is an entirely new factor and a very disturbing one, for there seems no end in site to the mass-homicide trend, and its increasing frequency. Unfortunately, the Blacksburg Virginia carnage of April 16, 2007, may not be the bloody beginning of an escalating and deadly train of events.

Much of the blame behind this new wave of violence has to be attributed to the rapid growth of unabated hate in this country, that appears to be a newly defined national political state of mind. And, if the trend holds, will probably continue well into its foreseeable future. But allow me to digress for a moment, and expand the limits of this discussion from within its national roots to encompass the issue from the vantage point of a global perspective.

American Politics: Our Violent Expression of Differences

I was in Paris France in April of 1986 when American Jet bombers struck Tripoli, in a strike ordered by President Ronald Reagan, aimed specifically at Libyan dictator Mommar Kadafi. The surprise raid was in retaliation for what the United States believed to be Libyan involvement in a terrorist bomb blast at a West Berlin discotheque that killed two U.S. GI's. The French government in place at the time denied the U.S. flyover access to reach Libya via the shorter more efficient route, because they wanted to remain neutral. That refusal forced American aircraft to resort to the longer and more treacherous approach to Libya. Despite the setback the assault was successful, but one American craft was shot down, and the pilots burned and mutilated bodies, in macabre fashion, were put on display by the Libyan government.

At the time, I was amazed at the sense of outrage openly expressed by the French citizenry toward what they considered to be the cowardly actions of their government. Newspapers printed maps detailing the route American planes took to liberate France near the end of World War ll, and the route they were forced to take in their attack on Libya. The French press referred to it as - "the route of shame", and everywhere I went people apologized for the actions of their government. In about 3 months that government collapsed, having fallen under the French equivalent of a no confidence vote..

Yet in spite of this notable event having taken place back then, today blistering cartoons and jokes abound on the internet and in American printed media, all aimed at the French. So what happened to the camaraderie between the two nations in the intervening two decades? In simple terms, as a direct result of 9-11 we in America changed, not the French. Our politics now reflect the people we have become since the attack - not only historically prone to violence, but now exemplifying vindictiveness as well - especially toward each other and - any - who oppose us.

Americans no longer simply disagree, they hate. They no longer have friendly vigorous political discussions, but instead engage in nasty verbal combat. We no longer 'think', but instead take sides. We build irreconcilable walls of differences and callous indifference as well, and wear them like partisan cloaks to keep out any truth we don't want to hear or believe. As a result they have come to 'thoughtlessly' hate the French because they have had the audacity to openly disagree with the present American foreign policy; particularly as practiced by the Bush administration.

Americans, led by their elected government, bolstered by a cadre of Right and Left Wing extreme factions, have come together to hate just about every other country, sect and nationality in the world, with particular emphasis by the Right toward non-Christian ones.. And if we don't express hatred toward them, we regard them with deep suspicion at the slightest hint of disagreement on international policy because - "America knows what's best for everyone." This hatred and distrust is paraded about in the guise of a strident malignant national Patriotism, fanatically practiced, .that respects no viewpoint other than an American one.

Under this new American mantra, Muslims in general are not to be trusted, be they born and bred in this country or are naturalized citizens. It is quite common to hear them referred to in public discussion as 'camel-jockeys', and the term 'Arab' has become the new dirty word. We have no admirers in the world community any longer, but instead are left diplomatically hostile creditors and the occasional loyal dependent - like Israel.

The Bush administration has squandered the world support we had on 9-11 when the Syrian government cooperated with us as we went after al Qaeda, and even the PLO supported our actions. All of this international goodwill ended when an erstwhile president made a right turn from Afghanistan into Iraq, and led us into a repeat of the Vietnam debacle - this time with no way out.

The Global Fish Tank

"...Why would anybody want to eat fish anyway? They eat, drink, make love, give birth and go to the toilet all in the same place."

Quote from a comedy routine by the late comedian, Gilda Radner, on "Saturday Night Live"

We in America have come to a juncture in our history where, in general, we feel that we can totally ignore the opinions and insights of the European community. We must however, sooner or later, come to the realization that they occupy another part of this planet, not some far off part of the universe. In fact, we live in the same fish tank we call Earth.

Most Americans regard the Europeans as cowards who would rather have others rescue them when they are threatened by potential enemies, then to pick up arms and defend themselves (or join us in an unnecessary war - Iraq). To be completely truthful, a great deal of this criticism holds water, because the European community has always been reluctant to come to arms in defense of themselves - or anyone else for that matter. This attitude is simply because they do not possess a preemptive defensive culture, preferring to negotiate even in the face of eminent threat. And this attitude, strictly adhered to over the centuries, is probably the reason they have been the unwelcome recipients of multiple invasions and occupations..

By the same token, this cloistered viewpoint allows them to regard Americans as gun-happy and, prone to the rejection of negotiation as diplomacy; choosing instead to react preemptively to even a suspicion of eminent threat. We view them as politically naive cowards, and they us as somewhat politically insane cowboys. But in the final analysis all of this doesn't matter, for we are all stuck in the same damn fish tank called Earth. Like it or not, we have to take into consideration what the other side or sides think, and we have to take them seriously. We no longer have the option - not to talk with them, or our adversaries, simply because we don't like or respect them or they're part of the "axis of evil."

A Middle East Oil-War Is Not Our Greatest Crisis

"How inappropriate to call this planet Earth, when clearly it is ocean."

Scientist and Science Fiction writer of renown, Arthur C. Clarke

We now live in a world that is coming apart at the seams, politically, socially and, of immediate critical importance, environmentally. Still many choose to politicize their viewpoints as to the validity of facts they prefer not to face. For those individuals or groups, it is not whether there really is a serious crisis in global warming, but the political identification of those who make the claim. Truthfully, we really don't have the time for this suicidal non-survival state of mind, our world has serious escalating problems that are not going to go away - but it is possible that we, humans, may go away..

Very few Americans fully understand that 30 - 40 percent of our oxygen is produced by the Brazilian Rain Forest: This is the same rain forest that wealthy Brazilian landholders are cutting and burning away every day to make room for more farming land to make more profit. Shouldn't U.N. forces be there stopping them - even at gunpoint if it becomes necessary? And how many are aware that the small plant life called 'Phytoplankton' that is abundant on the surface of our oceans (70 percent of our planet) produce the bulk of the remaining Oxygen we breathe?

Arctic glaciers are melting away at an alarming rate, exceeding the predictions of scientists just 20 or so years ago. The world's weather patterns have shifted dramatically in the past three decades. Polar bears are drowning as they attempt to swim impossible distances in search of game on diminishing ice flows, on which they have hunted for centuries. At the same time hundreds of others starve to death because there is no game to hunt and feed upon on the ice flows in existence.Now there is clear evidence that many are, in the desperation to survive, turning to cannibalism.

Bees necessary to maintain our food chain are mysteriously disappearing, as is the world's population of frogs and turtles for reasons that, at the present time, we are at a loss to explain. In defense of our own survival we have to ask ourselves, how many other ongoing species extinctions are taking place that we have as yet to note? And most important of all, where in this deadly cycle do we as a species fit into nature's new plan?

Caught in the Winds of a Deadly Cycle

By now you are probably wondering what has all this to do with the Blacksburg Virginia student massacre. Everything.

What happened in Blacksburg did not take place in a vacuum. It has been coming for quite some time and the only people who seemed to even recognize the eminent social possibilities were the Science Fiction writers.To an unnerving degree they have been predicting in literature, with incredible accuracy, just such coming events.

At Virginia Tech we saw the carnage brought about by a mentally disturbed young man, who was more at ease with the technology of a computer than with people. But the trend started long ago on August 1, 1966 when a another young man, Charles Whitman, took to a university tower in Austin Texas and began shooting people. As an anonymous merchant and witness to the event remarked for the press, "He was our initiation into a terrible time."

It should be noted however, that such events are no longer just happening in America. The terror of random violence is happening in all of the developed countries around the world at different but distinctly increasing levels. The Russians, British, Spanish, Italians and South Americans are beginning to experience, with slight variation, these same deadly patterns of abnormal social behavior in their own societies - which seem to correlate to the rapid 'technolization' of their society. Is there a true correlation or is it simply chance happenings? We need to know.

We cannot expect to endlessly dump pollutants into our oceans and atmosphere, nor massive amounts of technology into the hands and onto the fertile minds of our youth population, without giving serious consideration to the resultant effects these forces may bring about. Even a technology as simple as a cell phone or violent video game system, multiplied by millions of users in developed and even semi primitive societies has the potential to incur, over time, serious social consequences. In short, there is much going on in our environment, both environmental and social, that we need to tend to - and we are not doing so.

Instead we are bogged down in a war with no end, in the land of a culture we have never come close to understanding. And like a deadly whirlpool this war is increasingly sucking in the attention and intellectual resources of the entire international community to this one - oil rich - region of the world. Meanwhile, elsewhere and everywhere, the world is coming apart on many critical levels and few seem to notice.

In the Twilight of Democracy

As for America, let the record show that George Bush Jr. didn't do anything to us as a people or a nation. We did it to ourselves. We committed the 'Bush Imperial Presidency' upon ourselves. And we committed this act in the same way the Germans inflicted Adolph Hitler upon themselves, the Russians Joseph Stalin, the Cubans Fidel Castro and the Venezuelans Hugo Chavez. In moments of severe economic strife, military attack, or sudden release from suppression, as a society, we humans tend to seek out heroes to 'save us,' but more often than not we end to end up with demigods.

Still in all, during these troubling times, layered on so many complex social, political and technological levels, we do need to rid ourselves of the Bush-Cheney factor; the architects of chaos and death at the center of this indifference. They most certainly have to go and, hopefully, without attacking Iran on the way out. This country and this world can no longer afford the lax luxury of entertaining the leadership of wholly incompetent heads of state; too much is at stake.

So be it with George Bush Jr., but keep in mind, the finality of his reign represents a far more ominous new beginning. One where day to day nightmares like the massacre at Blacksburg may become the norm.. At that point in time and history, the new danger is that we may have resigned ourselves to being "Creatures of Crisis." And to those out there who do not comprehend the lethal implications of the adoption of such a national pragmatic viewpoint, the title of the philosophy is - The Beginning of the End!