PLATTSBURGH CITY, NY -- Saturday 12/15/12
5 PM. Trinity Park, downtown Plattsburgh. Brought together by People for Positive Action, people gathered to hold a candlelight vigil for the school shooting victims in Newtown, Connecticut. Yesterday a man armed with semi-automatic weapons entered the Sandy Hook Elementary School. Twenty children and six adults were killed.
The vigil was a time for heartfelt prayers, songs about peace, individual expressions of grief and sympathy. A moment of silence. Against the cold darkness parents held their children close for a moment.
Never having participated in a candlelight vigil, I am baffled by what might motivate someone to involve themselves in another's grief and loss; when neither of these persons knows or can possibly care about the other? Why do people put flowers at the Buckingham Palace gate? Were these folks personal friends of Princess Di? Was the Royal Family expecting something from people they refer to as "subjects? Do the families of dead kids in Connecticut see public sympathies as replacements for the children they lost? The answer to all questions of this sort is a resounding "NO".
ReplyDeletePublic grievers are narcissists who are compelled to make themselves part of the event, no matter how awful, hopefully shifting some attention to their own pathetic existences. While school shootings are bad, insult is added to injury when these "Please, Look At Me-Look at How Sad I Am" hanger-on types do their grief dance for the community. Yes there are some very sick people in the world...people who shoot up movie theaters and schools undeniably are ill beyond comparison. Very close to these destructive sickos are the people who thrive on the tragedy, who turn out on with candles in their hands, alligator tears in their eyes, and love every minute of it.