Where I Stand -- Brian Greenspun: Don't let them die in vain

Brian Greenspun is editor of the Las Vegas Sun.

THOSE WORDS, uttered almost 136 years ago by President Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg, have been etched in our national psyche. They are taught to our young people and remembered from time to time by the adults in society who need such recall. They were uttered again Friday in Littleton, Colo.

There is no question that this is a time to remember President Lincoln's words. At the same time, it is probably more apt that we remember his deeds. What happened at Columbine High School in Colorado last week is nowhere close to the carnage that was inflicted by brother upon brother and friend upon friend during the bloody Civil War. The reason for the recent rampage, if ever it can be known, will never rise to the emotional level and country-splitting fever pitch that the desire to enslave fellow human beings engendered throughout our young nation. How could it?

But something terrible did happen which caused those two -- and maybe more -- teenage boys to turn their sullenness and anger toward their classmates into what has become a national tragedy. And, in that regard, the massacre at Columbine High is not dissimilar to the carnage at Gettysburg so many years ago which caused Mr. Lincoln to give a speech that he claimed "the world will little note nor long remember ..."

So, when Jefferson County District Attorney Dave Thomas gave his press conference Friday morning, he invoked the words of Lincoln by pleading with the people of Littleton, of Colorado and throughout America to not let the 13 innocent deaths be in vain. If you listened closely, he even included the two suicide deaths of the murderers when he said that what happened at that high school must mark the end of this national slide we are taking toward more and more Columbines.

As I listened to the district attorney lay out the areas he believed needed to be addressed, I was somewhat disappointed because he didn't have the answers to the many questions he proposed. Disappointed, not in him, for what he has started may be the beginning of a national effort to stop this needless and inexplicable violence. But disappointed because he, like many others among us, have only the questions to ask and not the answers to give.

In his effort to focus attention on the need to "fix" what is wrong with society, Thomas spared no one. Clearly, the media was center stage for its role in giving light to the darkness that pervades such a large segment of our national life. He gave ample credit to the video game industry for its ability to desensitize our young people from the horrors of violence. And he spared no criticism for the growing Internet, which makes access to everything ugly a mere button-touch away from the most crazed among us.

His was not the talk of a zealot. There was no fire and brimstone and no preaching. There was probing, however, for the answers that will allow us to move forward from Littleton with the knowledge needed to stop such violent acts long before they begin. While there was not zealousness in his speech there was a lot of parent in his pattern.

For he placed a large part of the problem squarely where it belonged. On the shoulders of parents, family, friends and associates of young people in our society in whom evil lurks so close to the surface but for whom and to whom nothing is done until the bodies are strewn across national television and we wring our hands, once again.

How could, for example, the friends of those two boys say that they knew such a massacre could happen but the relatives and families of the boys not even have a clue? How could the school authorities, who knew that trench coats on a warm day were not the clothing of choice or comfort, allow a group to flourish without so much as a question or psychological intervention? And how could teachers, who saw the anger and frustration on the faces of those who were shunned by the larger student population, do nothing when something needed to be done?

There are good and reasonable answers to these questions and all of them have a lot to do with fear. On the part of teachers and administrators it is a fear of being sued by families who think schools should butt out or a fear of being terrorized by the very students they think they should help. On the part of families it is a fear of further alienating a teenager and risking a loss of contact that could result in exactly what happened last week. And on the part of friends it may be something as simple as a fear of becoming uncool for trying to befriend the outcasts or a fear of contemplating the impossible out of concern that reality really can bite.

The district attorney sought not a federal program or even a local one. He did look toward some kind of partnership to focus on these issues. Whatever the politics of the moment, the fact remains that at times only the federal government can bring the resources to bear on a particular problem and, at times, only parents and teachers can take charge when action must be taken. In between those times, there is a lot that can and must be done but only if the politics is removed from the equation.

For example, Mr. Thomas says one of the best ways for us to prevent another Columbine from happening is for parents to stay in closer touch with their children. That means be with them when they are needed and have the time to spend when circumstances require it. Well, it is no secret that the Family Leave Act was one of the most partisan efforts to come out of the U.S. Congress in the last decade. What has worked so well since its passage to bring families closer in times of need was hurled around as a political football for partisan gain.

That kind of games playing must stop if we are to find the solutions that are so desperately needed. The mere fact that D.A. Thomas led his remarks with by nixing the need for a "federal program" speaks volumes for the fact that we have a long way to go. If a federal program will do the trick, do it. If a local one is needed, do that. In short, we need to do what works and not what sounds good for political advantage to one group or another.

President Bill Clinton announced Friday morning that he was authorizing funds to pay for the medical bills and funerals for the children. He also made $17 million available to help authorities better understand and deal with the issues which led to Columbine. It will take a lot more money and effort to solve the problem but what the federal government did Friday is a good first step. Local school districts, forever strapped for cash, will have to do the lion's share of the work along with police and local mental health officials.

Where will the money come from for that effort? Will we in Nevada, for example, continue that old saw that there isn't enough money in the budget and there won't be any revenues raised for that purpose, or will we do what the Jefferson County district attorney and President Abraham Lincoln pleaded for on different battlefields in different centuries?

Will we commit ourselves to an effort to understand and deal with the kinds of problems that led to the destruction of so many young lives and so many young dreams? Will what we do from now on be "long remembered" or "little noted?"

In short, will we do what is necessary so that those students at Columbine High School, like the Civil War dead at Gettysburg, will not have died in vain?

archive