School shooting in Kauhajoki - Eleven dead, many injured; Where are we heading?

Eleven people, apparently all students, have been killed in a shooting incident and fire at a vocational school in Kauhajoki in Western Finland. Several others have been injured. Details are still sketchy, but apparently a 22-year-old man dressed in black and wearing a ski-mask entered the school carrying a large bag, and opened fire on students at around 11 a.m. on Tuesday morning. An eyewitness spoke of many rounds of automatic fire in a ground-floor classroom containing adult students taking an exam. Police at the scene immediately reported several fatalities, but the true death-toll was only made clear some hours after the incident. The building has been evacuated, and the gunman - thought to have acted alone - shot himself in the head after his killing spree.

The man, named as Matti Juhani Saari, was rushed to hospital in Tampere, but died at around 5 p.m., so becoming the 11th fatality of the incident. It is believed that Saari shot nine people, and that one other fatality may have succumbed to carbon monoxide poisoning following a fire that broke out during the shooting. At least one person with gunshot wounds remains in a serious condition in hospital. Most of the injured persons suffered only minor injuries, in many cases while trying to make their escape from the school building. Around 150 students and staff-members were in the building at the time of the shooting. Part of the school caught fire, possibly through the actions of the gunman, but firefighters put the blaze out.

As noted above, the fire may have been the cause for at least one fatality, and police have not completely ruled out the possibility of further casualties coming to light. The tragic incident is bound to re-open wounds from last November's hugely traumatic shooting at Jokela High School, when a deranged youth killed eight before turning his gun on himself. It is also certain to prompt discussion of firearms and their availability - the country has one of the highest levels of gun ownership in the world but has hitherto been spared the sort of firearms mayhem more traditionally associated with the United States. Equally, given the close proximity of the Jokela shootings, and the memory of the similar death and destruction wrought by another troubled young man in 2002 at the Myyrmanni shopping mall bombing, it will almost inevitably provoke analysis of what is wrong with Finnish society in general and its young males in particular, and a search for ways of preventing the kind of marginalisation that can lead to mind-numbing acts such as these.

In a grim reminder of what happened in Jokela in November last year, reports are already surfacing of videos on YouTube allegedly depicting a young man from Kauhajoki firing pistols at a shooting range. As is now all too well known, a similar connection was made with the young man who opened fire at Jokela High School. Members of the Finnish government have met in special session to assess the situation. The Finnish Broadcasting Company YLE reports that Education Minister Sari Sarkomaa, Minister of the Interior Anne Holmlund, and Minister of Health and Social Services Paula Risikko are meeting to discuss the shooting in Kauhajoki. The chairs of the various parliamentary groups as well as police and other officials are also to be present. (Adapted from Helsingin Sanomat News)

Everyone accepts that this news is very tragic and unfortunate, but it is the time to think about why such incidents are recurring all over the world time and again. I was in Finland when last year, a similar incident took place in Jokela, a nearby town of Helsinki. For me, the shooter did not seem like a maniac, but a depressed philosopher. I was stunned when I read that letter by him. I am posting that letter again here, so that you can read it and see how a person with such intellectual insight could turn to be a suicide attacker. It is a question that perhaps we as sane people should start answering.

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Jokela_High_School_Massacre

Name: Pekka-Eric Auvinen

Age: 18Male from Finland.

I am a cynical existentialist, antihuman humanist, antisocial socialdarwinist, realistic idealist and godlike atheist.

SI VIS PACEM, PARA BELLUM! JUSTITIA SUUM CUIQUE DISTRIBUIT! SIC SEMPER TYRANNIS!

I am prepared to fight and die for my cause. I, as a natural selector, will eliminate all who I see unfit, disgraces of human race and failures of natural selection.

You might ask yourselves, why did I do this and what do I want. Well, most of you are too arrogant and closed-minded to understand... You will proprably say me that I am"insane", "crazy", "psychopath", "criminal" or crap like that. No, the truth is that I am just an animl, a human, an individual, a dissident.

I have had enough. I don't want to be part of this fucked up society. Like some other wise people have said in the past, human race is not worth fighting for or saving... only worth killing. But... When my enemies will run and hide in fear when mentioning my name... When the gangsters of the corrupted governments have been shot in the streets... When the rule of idioracy and the democratic system has been replaced with justice... When intelligent people are finally free and rule the society instead of the idiocratic rule of majority... In that great day of deliverance, you will know what I want.

Long live the revolution... revolution against the system, which enslaves not only the majority of weak-minded masses but also the small minority of strong-minded and intelligent individuals! If we want to live in a different world, we must act. We must rise against the enslaving, corrupted and totalitarian regimes and overthrow the tyrants, gangsters and the rule of idiocracy. I can't alone change much but hopefully my actions will inspire all the intelligent people of the world and start some sort of revolution against the current systems. The system discriminating naturality and justice, is my enemy. The people living in the world of delusion and supporting this system are my enemies.

I am ready to die for a cause I know is right, just and true... even if I would lose or the battle would be only remembered as evil... I will rather fight and die than live a long and unhappy life.

And remember that this is my war, my ideas and my plans. Don't blame anyone else for my actions than myself. Don't blame my parents or my friends. I told nobody about my plans and I always kept them inside my mind only. Don't blame the movies I see, the music I hear, the games I play or the books I read. No, they had nothing to do with this. This is my war: one man war against humanity, governments and weak-minded masses of the world! No mercy for the scum of the earth! HUMANITY IS OVERRATED! It's time to put NATURAL SELECTION & SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST back on tracks!

Justice renders to everyone his due.Country: FinlandOccupation: Unemployed Philosopher, OutcastCompanies: Human Race (evolved one step above though)Interests and Hobbies: Existentialism, Freedom, Truth, Misantrophy, Social / Personality Psychology, Evolution Science, Political Incorrectness, Women, BDSM, Guns (I love you Catherine), Shooting, Computer Games, Sarcasm, Irony, Mass / Serial Killers, Macabre Art, Black Comedy, AbsurdismMovies and Shows: The Matrix, A View To A Kill, Falling Down, Natural Born Killers, Reservoir Dogs, Last Man Standing, Full Metal Jacket, Dr. Butcher MD (aka Zombie Holocaust), Saw 1-3, Lord Of War, The Deer Hunter, True Romance, The Untouchables, 28 Days Later, 28 Weeks Later, Idiocracy, They Live, Apocalypse Now, End Of Days, The Shining, The Dead Zone, Dr. Strangelove, House MD (TV), Monty Python, TV Documentaries Relating To HistoryMusic: KMFDM, Rammstein, Eisbrecher, Nine Inch Nails, Grendel, Impaled Nazarene, Macabre, Deathstars, The Prodigy, Combichrist, Godsmack, Slayer, Children Of Bodom, Alice Cooper, Sturmgeist, Suicide Commando, Hatebreed, Suffocation, Terrorizer

Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams: A Video Watched By Millions within a month

If you want to download his book with transcript of his more than 2 hours long lecture, please visit: http://amazing-books.blogspot.com

I Have A Dream

"I Have a Dream," Address at March on Washington

Probably the most famous speech of our time.

"I Have A Dream" is the popular name given to the historic public speech by Martin Luther King, Jr., when he spoke of his desire for a future where blacks and whites among others would coexist harmoniously as equals. King's delivery of the speech on August 28, 1963, from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, was a defining moment of the American Civil Rights Movement.

Delivered to over two hundred thousand civil rights supporters, the speech is often considered to be one of the greatest and most notable speeches in history and was ranked the top American speech of the 20th century by a 1999 poll of scholars of public address. According to U.S. Congressman John Lewis, who also spoke that day as the President of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, "Dr. King had the power, the ability and the capacity to transform those steps on the Lincoln Memorial into a modern day pulpit. By speaking the way he did, he educated, he inspired, he informed not just the people there, but people throughout America and unborn generations." Here is the text as well as video of that poweful speech!

I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation. [Applause]

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.

But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. [Audience:] (My Lord) One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, (My Lord) [Applause] the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. And so we’ve come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.

In a sense we've come to our nation’s capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, (Yeah) they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the "unalienable Rights of Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness." It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds." [Sustained applause]

But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. (My Lord) [Applause. Laughter] (Sure enough) We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so we’ve come to cash this check, (Yes) a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom (Yes) and the security of justice. [Sustained applause]

We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time (My Lord) to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. [Applause] Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. (Now) Now is the time (Now) to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time [Applause] to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time [Applause] to make justice a reality for all of God’s children.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro’s legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. (Right) Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. And those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. [Applause] There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

But there is something that I must say to my people, who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice: in the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. [Applause] We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force. The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. [Applause] And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.

And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" (Never)

We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied [Applause] as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. [Applause] We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro’s basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating "for whites only." [Applause] We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. (Yes) [Applause] No, no, we are not satisfied and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream. [Applause]

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. (My Lord) Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution (Yes) and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive. Go back to Mississippi, (Yes) go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. (Yes) Let us not wallow in the valley of despair. [Applause]

I say to you today, my friends, [Applause] so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. (Yes) It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day (Yes) this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal." (Yes) [Applause]

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, (Well) sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream (Well) [Applause] that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. (My Lord) I have a dream today. [Applause]

I have a dream that one day down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, (Yes) with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of "interposition" and "nullification," (Yes) one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers. I have a dream today. [Applause]

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, (Yes) every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, (Yes) and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together. (Yes)

This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. (Yes) With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith (Yes) we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. (Talk about it) With this faith (My Lord) we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day. [Applause] This will be the day, [Applause continues] this will be the day when all of God’s children (Yes) will be able to sing with new meaning:

My country, ’tis of thee, (Yes) sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing.Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim’s pride, (Yes)From every mountainside, let freedom ring!

And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true. So let freedom ring (Yes) from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania. (Yes. All right)Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado. (Well)Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California. (Yes) But not only that: Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia. (Yes)Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee. (Yes) Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. [Applause] From every mountainside, [Applause] let freedom ring.

And when this happens, [Applause continues] when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, (Yes) we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:
Free at last! (Yes) Free at last!
Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! [Applause]