Eight years ago while I was a member of a struggling hard rock band in Sacramento called Planet X, I wrote a song called Silent Rage (which can be downloaded from the MySpace Page for my Live365 Radio Station) about the rash of School Shootings which had been occuring at that time.
(Note: You'll have to click the pause botton on the station just above the embedded JFK video so that you can listen to the "Silent Rage" track by itself)
The song was written from the shooters perspective at the moment of his execution after years on death row looking out at the survivors and victims of his rage - which is undimmed - and seeing it reflected back at him, having spread like a demented virus.
Now do you hear me? Now do you care? Now you hear my voice screaming through the air?
Yeah, I told you - told you this day would come. The killing fields are festering in your mind, this rage has made you blind.
At the time I was making a comment on capital punishment and the cycle of violence, which was likely to continue and grow IMO. But just a few weeks after we had finished recording the song, the shootings at Columbine High School in Littleton Colorado occured. I don't know if I can accurately describe what it was like to sing that song during our next gig. Surreal doesn't really cover it, because I had essentially predicted that this violence was going to escalate.
My head was swimming then, but today as I watch coverage of the Virginia Tech shootings - my head is shaking. It seems we've learned just about nothing in the intervening years, but there are some things we should have learned long ago...
Many of the nightmarish killings of recent memory, especially the bizarre family tragedies which seem to be occurring with increasing frequency, have been scientifically linked to a sleep disorder caused by commonly-used, but dangerous and addictive anti-depressant medications.
Dr. Ann Blake Tracy, executive director of the International Coalition for Drug Awareness and author of Prozac: Panacea or Pandora? - Our Serotonin Nightmare is an expert consultant in cases like Columbine in which anti-depressant medications are involved. Tracy says the Columbine killers' brains were awash in serotonin, the chemical which causes violence and aggression and triggers a sleep-walking disorder in which a person literally acts out their worst nightmare.
Shortly before the Columbine shooting, Eric Harris had been rejected by Marine Corps recruiters because he was under a doctor's care and had been prescribed an anti-depressant medication. Harris was taking Luvox, an anti-depressant commonly used to treat patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder.
On May 17th, 2000 the United States House Sub-Committee on Early Childhood, Youth, and Families looked into reported problems with Ritalin. There are problems with over prescribing, giving samples without proper diagnosis, stealing, and selling Ritalin in the school yard! Ritalin is an SSRI (Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor) in the same category as Prozac, Luvox, Zoloft, and Paxil. With just a little investigation there is a definite relation between School Violence and kids taking these drugs!
And here....
Journal of the American Medical Association shows 50% increase in Prozac with Preschoolers. 2/23/2000
The Journal of the American Medical Association released a study that shows that there is a tremendous increase in prescribing anti-depressants to preschoolers aged 2 to 4 years old! The "Terrible Twos" are just that! If you start throwing these drugs at preschoolers, what are we going to do for them when they hit their teens? There has been a connection between school shootings and the shooters having been on these drugs!
Born and Bred in South Central LA. I spent 12 years working in the IT Dept. for federal contractor Northrop-Grumman on classified and high security projects such as the B2 Bomber. After Northrop I became an IT consultant with the state of California in Sacramento and worked on projects with the Dept of Consumer Affairs and CalTrans, as well as projects for Kaiser Permanente in Oakland. Now living in Los Angeles with my own independant web design company where I operate the Truth 2 Power Online Radio Station.
