The Delaware County Daily
Blame for Littleton lies with killers
April 22, 1999
By RICHARD ROEPER
Members of the so-called Trench Coat Mafia - who reportedly had a thing for
Swastikas, spoke German phrases to one another and
executed their horrific mission on Adolf Hitler's birthday - were said to be
devoted fans of the veteran German techno band KMFDM.
That's an acronym for Kein Mehrheit Fur Die Mitleid, which can be roughly
translated into: ''No Pity for the Majority.''
You could call Chicago the second home of this band. They recorded the CDs
''XTORT'' and ''ANGST'' here, and at least one band member lived here in the
early 1990s. Their Chicago fans are fiercely devoted to their infectious
music and their violent, profanity-filled lyrics.
Teenage gunmen Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold were also big fans of the
now-disbanded group, which released its farewell album, ''Adios,'' on
Tuesday.
With the help of an operator of an unofficial KMFDM website, I was able to
tap into a copy of what has been reported to be the Internet home page of
one of the gunmen. (It's no longer accessible on America Online.)The page
features KMFDM lyrics such as:
I have come to rock your world
I have come to shake your faith
Anathematic Anti-Christ
I have come to take my place
As I type these words, I've got the headphones on and I'm listening to other
efforts from KMFDM, e.g., ''A Drug Against
War.''
Kill everything, kill everything
Bomb the living bejeepers out of those forces
Kill everything, kill everything
Bomb the living bejeepers out of those forces
Great. It's not that hard to picture Harris and Klebold and maybe a couple
of their outcast buddies hanging out in a basement
or a garage, wearing their black dusters and applying their dark makeup and
their black fingernail polish as they nod their heads in
time with KMFDM.
Maybe their favorite tune was ''The Problem,'' which includes these lyrics:
If there is a problem, it's a problem with the system
The system of home and family, of school and community ...
We acknowledge not all kids fill our ancillary desire
And when they don't fit, they become the problem
Expel the problem
Make it go away
Expel the problem
Make it go away...
If KMFDM truly was the favored band of the Trench Coat Mafia, how much
responsibility should be placed on the violence-caressing, blood-lusting,
fist-pumping music?
Well, none, of course.
Within hours of the shootings, the blame game was in full effect, on TV and
on the Internet, where literally thousands of comments were posted well
before the true death tally was known or the gunmen had been identified.
Just some of the people and things cited as negative influences, or at least
enabling factors:
The parents of the gunmen. Marilyn Manson. ''The Matrix.'' MTV. Bill
Clinton. ''City of Angels.'' (Sure, it was a love story, but death was the
dominant theme and the angels all wore black trench coats.) Charlton Heston
and the NRA. Race relations in America. The world wide web.
Witchcraft. ''The Crow.'' The media. School officials. The music of KMFDM.
''Natural Born Killers.'' Violent video games. The ''Goth'' movement.
Society.
It's impossible - and unfair- to point to a band or a movie or a TV show and
say ''That was the cause,'' and then turn to a slaughter and say, ''This is
the effect.'' If that's the way it worked, how can it be that hundreds of
thousands of fans the world over have been exposed to the heart-thumping
music of KMFDM without turning violent?
''The Catcher in the Rye'' didn't shoot John Lennon, and Ice-T didn't kill
any cops, and the members of KMFDM didn't storm a school in Colorado and
start shooting. Granted, there's much of pop culture that, like cigarettes
and alcohol, should not be targeted toward young people, but human beings
with good hearts and rational
minds can absorb pop culture - even if it's subversive, pornographic or
hate-filled garbage - without allowing it to corrupt their value systems.
We should investigate why these strange kids were not considered dangerous
by their community. We should find how and where they got the guns. We
should continue to study ways to make schools safer.
And we should accept two realities: There is no answer to the question of
''Why?'' and the blame for the shooting rests squarely within the rotting
souls of the killers.
Richard Roeper is a syndicated columnist. His column appears Sunday and
Thursday.
