I am with the Belgians in spirit and solidarity, praying for those who have had to bear such an unbearable loss.
It is difficult to imagine, but unfortunately, no longer impossible, to contemplate a 20 year old man painting white face with black eyes, telling a child creche minder he "had a question," and then slashing and murdering tiny babies with a 12 inch knife. One victim was six months old. One was nine months old. A 54 year old woman died protecting the infants. The assailant sought out every baby to slash and attempt to kill, though leaving aside some of the "older ones," toddlers. My God in heaven, this is what the world has come to.
And here in the USA the Screen Actors Guild is full of themselves, handing out to each other awards, especially praising the late Heath Ledger's performance as "The Joker" in the Batman movie "The Dark Knight." The Joker had a question too, "Why so serious?" That question was parlayed for months on the Internet as the "promo" for that film, and specifically for that knight of chaos and nihilism performance. When the warning signs were there, when the role began to haunt him, disturbing his sleep, did anyone wonder why people should see this? No and instead, the narcissists praised Ledger's brilliant and intense "commitment" to "acting," until the morning he no longer woke up and they could not praise him, except, of course, in now seemingly endless "tributes." I suspect Mr Ledger's soul has quite a different perspective about how "inspirational" his performance is on the world today. But not Hollywood and not the media. There is no downfall like one that is wilfully in perpetual motion, driven by hubris and greed, and a lack of understanding of simple and good life, not one filled with angst and self inflicted pain.
Who could out joker The Joker? Someone who slashed the throats of babies in a creche, I guess.
People, as Belgians mourn and wonder how their peace of mind could be so ruined by such a deed, I must remind everyone that nihilism, violence, and contempt of children is viral. No country, no culture, no small town like that sad place in Belgium is safe from the viral culture of dark nihilism, one that amplifies and distorts the increasing neutrality if not even disdain that much of the culture has for infants, for innocence, for the helpless, and for the pure.
How can you not all see that, as New Agers like to parrot, "it's all connected," except unlike them I am not speaking of airy-fairy "karma" and "coincidences?"
I am talking about empty people, those who are impoverished of the spirit of life, who then, vampire like, fill that emptiness with imagined or real notoriety, fueled by Internet and media magnification of the freak show who then, with ready access to knives, guns and other forms of mayhem, frighten, wound and kill the most innocent, in order to create the most "shock value" in a society with less and less values and more and more shock.
In the Columbine school massacre one of the shooters asked a teenage girl, as he pointed his gun at her, "Do you still believe in God?" When she said yes, he drilled her with his bullet.
It is all connected. Those who fall into the pit of nihilism, one that is widened, deepened and honored by the media culture, whether they are considered "insane" or merely "depraved criminals," look ever increasingly for innocence, which is harder and harder to find. So they kill those who still believe in God, they kill children, and then, to find those who are the purest of all, they kill the babies.
The youngest of these nihilists grew up in a society where abortion is not only normal and was always legal in their memory's time, but also a "right" to be "fought for." Not a sad and regretful reality, but something to be praised, to be fought for like Lara Crofts wielding a suction equipment and scalpel.
So the nihilists are confused, but certain in one thing. There is no innocence, but for the greatest shock value, one must kill the innocents, so where do you go? To the Internet to kill them visually, to video games to kill them at play, and to the creche to kill them in reality.
"I thought these things only happened in the United States," one mourning Belgian said. This is what I am trying to tell you, what I have been warning about for years. It is a viral horror that has not only been unleashed on the world but is glorified by the media mandarins who actually profit and praise each other's artistry as the world falls into nihilism, one tragedy, like a dripping faucet, at a time.
I am reminded of how Britain is reeling from so many youth knife murders and I recall how years ago, Britain was astonished when a crazed man murdered little school children in Scotland. What did people say then? "I thought these things only happen in America." I remember watching, with horror, the news coverage. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunblane_massacre
These days the Britons, who are excelling at a whole generation of nihilistic yobs all on their own, know what the Belgians do not yet know. It may have at one time been "only in the United States," but no longer, no longer. The United States may not have Islamic terrorism but it sure enough has its own terror export, cultural nihilism combined with violence.
Some Americans say, "Why do they hate us?" Well, if things do not change, be prepared to wonder that some more, because unless the world has totally lost their basic ability to see and to reason, more and more will start to wonder about America media's unique mixture of nihilism together with violence-much of it targeted toward children, as both victims and consumers-and they will start to connect the dots.
I am praying that everyone will come to their senses and climb out of the dirt soon.
In the meantime, there is the usual infant murders here in the United States. One "father" asked to see his toddler only once, so he could kill him and not have to make child support payments (allegedly). This was a few weeks ago. Every day, however, there are beaten and dead infants reported in the paper, usually by "the boyfriend of the mother." Today we read that the ex girlfriend of a pro basketball player was found shot in her apartment. Oh yeah, and her nine month old infant girl was shot dead too.
Young people in particular, I can only assure you that there was once upon a time, not all that long ago, but it seems a galaxy and a century away, when it was not just "news as usual" that a tiny baby is murdered, at all, for any reason. It was absolutely unthinkable to murder a baby as recently as fifty years ago, with very few exceptions. The worst dirt bag and thug in the world might do something dreadful to an adult (again, nothing like these days though) but would never harm the baby, never touch the child.
Young people, I beg you not to accept this murderous nihilistic culture that you have been fed for the last generation and worse, you actually pay for and enrich those who are perpetuating the downfall of culture and society.
However you feel about a woman's "right to choose," for example, understand one thing. A culture such as that of the United States cannot have three thousand pregnancy terminations A DAY and have a populace that is unscathed emotionally. You are not the same people as those who lived when terminating a pregnancy was an unthinkable agreed cultural prohibition, reflecting the value of the innocent baby's life. You can still believe in a "right to choose," but be intellectually honest enough to recognize the truth of what I am saying that like post traumatic stress disorder, you survive the violence but you are not the same. This society is unrecognizable and you, young people, have been cheated of peace of mind, whether you realize it or not. Worse, you've been taught to applaud those who cheat you of your peace of mind, to honor them, to admire them, and to give them money and your precious attention and time.
When, young people, will you explode not in violence, or a frenzy of attention deficit behavior, but in an explosion of righteousness? When will you all finally bust loose and demand decency and peace of mind based on loving genuine life, not a nihilistic love of artificial existence? When, when, when?
You must stop drinking at the dark water fountain of nihilism and narcissism and say "no" to it, and instead, fill yourself with goodness, no matter what the stresses are in life, again. The cure for the hardship and stresses of life is not nihilistic behavior or "entertainment," as that not only increases stress and alienation, but it is the rapid road to ruin, despair, and ultimately the loss of one's soul for all time.
You must not only stop yourself from going to that dark and dank water of nihilism, but you must take a family member, a friend, or a member of your community by the hand and lead them away from it too. You will not change society if you only take care of yourself; you must also partner and buddy system someone else who is at risk away from the nihilistic side and back to the light of normal life.
Fight to get genuine and uplifting entertainment and shun the darkness of the violence and depraved genres, and wean your friends away from it too.
I was at a mall where there was a display of student computer graphic artwork. I was so saddened to see much of what was on display as kind of half human half cyborg visions of self and society. Young people, you have been so brainwashed and deprived that, as I've written about before, you seem to have such a dark agenda behind all of your scripts, your art work, your creativity, your advertisements, everything that you produce. It is like you no longer can think of just drawing a landscape or a tree, without having a leering robot face or demon in the clouds. Don't expect your art teachers to point out your options, because we all know the older generation, the "teachers" are the problem, because they are the ones who have taught despair and nihilism as "speaking 'one's truth.'" What a lie that is.
I never thought I'd see a time where an entire village in Wales is suffering through youth after youth killing themselves because they think they are achieving some sort of solidarity of Internet immortality! Yet, there you have it. I am in my fifties and I think about the extra cool classes I could have taken in university, but didn't because I was eager to go to work, and here young people who have not even started to work or go to college are killing themselves to be "immortal on the Internet."
I spoke to a young woman who is a college major in advertising and I loved hearing about her classes and her potential thesis topics. The world is so good and so filled with wonderful things that people can enjoy, yet so many do not even try, opting instead for some bizarre quest for supernatural "fame," which simply does not exist. Without sounding like a mother hen, or at least trying not to be obvious, I encouraged her to think of new and more positive and wholesome (and yes, one can still be daring and "edgy" without being depraved) ways that she can contribute to the advertising field. I worry about all of you because like I said, I have seen the changes in your art, your creative production, and your mindsets.
So try to find your way back to a place where you have a peace of mind and a love for the core and potentials of life, even if things are dismal in specific problems. Avoid substance abuse at all cost because "even a little" tarnishes greatly one's ability to ever have genuine peace of mind and fondness for life and fellow human beings. I live next door to a man who often thinks about with great regret of how he raised his children in his previous drug using lifestyle, and how they all paid prices for that. Mend yourselves and take someone by the hand and using buddy system mend them too.
Avoid gangs and cults and help a friend to avoid their temptations too.
If you can't have a baby, help someone out who has one. God knows that today we can't even trust anyone as a babysitter, with sitters doing unspeakable things to infants and the helpless. If you are of honor and integrity, give up some of your dark and bull crap Internet surfing and volunteer to work with infants and children in need. And take along a reliable friend.
If you do these things then in some larger picture the deaths of these innocent people in Belgium, and elsewhere, will not be so in vain.