“Alienation Nation.”
It has been decades since two school boys in Colorado unleashed deadly havoc on a school called Columbine. In what justly seems a lifetime ago, Columbine, which shocked the nation when it happened in 1999, has since receded into a red river of blood and memory.
Today, 20 years hence, school shootings have become so common in America that it only fleetingly makes news. It is, sad to say, a yawner. What is also is. It’s a window into the troubling minds of young Americans. They live their lives of youth in a kind of emptiness, unfeelingness, and they express this alienation with havoc, rage at lost tomorrows. They see no hope in this country, no future. And they also do so at a time when politicians have no idea of how to answer this threat to American youth. After children were slain in New England and teenagers were killed in Florida, no solution seems on the horizon. America, which wants to order other countries around, has no real idea how to keep schools safe for their own children and their own bland
From imprisoned nation, this is Mumia Abu-Jamal.
These commentaries are recorded by Noel Hanrahan of prison, radio.