THE HAUNTED Frontman Comments On Virginia Tech Massacre

THE HAUNTED frontman Peter Dolving has posted the following message on his MySpace page:

"Seems like the another dude lost it. The tragedy at Virginia Tech gets to me. But it gets to me on many levels.

"Certainly the death of teachers and students is hard to grasp, 30 something people murdered in cold blood. The loss for friends and family is immeasurable. The tragedy, however, doesn't end there. It grows every day as the news broadcasts like pigs in a troth, feast on vilifying the killer, creating a monster out a fucked up kid, while wallowing in the pain and tears of the victims families.

"Then there's that son of a bitch George Bush Jr. and his repulsive entourage using the whole fucking filthy mess as a PR platform for his sickening spectacle.

"The shame of it all is that noone really bothered with all the signs of mental unhealth and emotional pain from the kid with the gun.

"Interviews with witnesses portay him as a weirdo. 'Weirdo.' A word used in preschool...

"He was human, OK? Mentally ill, but still human. A human being in absolute despair. Broken. Not right.

"I feel so much for all the families involved. Nothing but time can heal their loss. But I feel for that kid and his family too. The anxiety, pain, rage, fear, distain and alienation he must have carried, to finally make that choice is something no exploitive horror flick could ever do justice. The fucking nightmare in his head finally exploding.

"I've carried hatred, a lack of trust, and paranoid delusions at the very core of me, wrapped around my heart like a wet acid blanket for a large part of my life. Believe me, it burns like a mutherfucker.

"Yeah, I'm one of the lucky dudes who found help in people around me. This kid, and as a result; the humans he murdered, and their families — didn't.

"It comes down to this; we need an end to the patronizing, self-sufficient groupings we get into as people. We need to see each other, not constantly simplify others and magnify our own happy go lucky bubbles. Superior, utilitarian elitism, the constant glorification of the well-adjusted, the 'normal,' the successful, the rich and the beautiful. Everything quantified, with a broken measuring stick.

"There is no boogeyman in all this. Only tragedy.

"I got myself into a heated discussion with a girl whose grandparents were victims of the Nazi extermination camps. It's one of those discussions where two people really have a hard time getting the point of what the other person is saying. She tells me there's no way I can understand what it's like growing up with the stories from her parents and her grandmother. That one has to know where you come from, and that war is a natural thing.

"I disagree with those statements.

"I come from a small family of forest farmers in the north of Sweden, those are my roots. Sweden is a place the size of Texas with 9 million people, we were at war for more than 800 years until about a hundred years ago, when the war-making had just about irradicated the nation totally and sucked us dry of our assets. We just about destroyed ourselves.

"My family has been in the same place for 400 years. In the first two years of the '90s the goverment of Sweden went through a financial crisis as a result of their own financial speculation and a few of the largest private corporations of the country almost went bankrupt. The goverment covered for them.

"To finance it, they raised interest rates and taxes at a rate that economists today all agree was directly irresponsible, perhaps even deliberate. Directly striking out small land owners, and farmers and as a consequence destroying hundreds of years of traditions all over the country. It looked like calculated financial rape and pillaging. Ending with thousands of families losing what had been theirs for hundreds of years.

"To put it short; it was madness, and it was shameful. I was severed from what I had considered my birthright. My mother was already a wreck from addiction and the disfunctions my family has carried, and her sister and her husband who had become my 'step parents' were more or less driven out of their homes by local goverment, media accusing them of being tax evaders. In Sweden that equals CRIMINAL. Eventually I saw other humans, people I grew up respecting, people I thought were friends, rub their hands and buy up pieces of my home and sell it off with a sly grin.

"Did I feel bitter? No, I wanted to murder them all. Really subtle...

"Now almost 20 years have passed. I have a family of my own. Two beautiful children and I'm working my ass off with the things I love.

"So my basic set of values have changed.

"I used live in this queer notion of me having nothing, finding nothing but grief and a trail of disfunction, long lost illusions of what once was and misery, when looking back at my family history.

"What's changed is really pretty simple; Fuck the past, I know what was. But I don't know what can be, and making that change is up to me. Right here, right now. If nothing else I think carrying grudges and old hate is just going burn me further. I'm sick to death of that. I want my kids enjoying life, and their kids too.

"This is my base ground, my slab, in how I look at things.

"So from my point of view the whole thing with walking around carrying wrong doings and identifying with the victims of another age is just counter productive, giving further air to the actual creepzoids out there RIGHT NOW.

"I'm the first to admit; Yes, I pity, and to some extent loath white supremascists, fascists, ethnic separatists and homophobes of every kind. But religion and cultural history easily becomes a nasty tool for those very people. Because; what was, was. What is, is not that.

"I don't consider Sweden or the Swedes to be my people. I was born here, that's all. Swedes are no more MY people than the average dude or dudette in Toronto, Jerusalem, Beirut, Baghdad, East L.A., Lima or Sao Paolo. I'm human. We all share the same basic DNA structure and on a clinical level calling other people anything else than brothers and sisters is, well, not quite OK, if one is to be honest.

"Rabbis and priests don't have any real answers as far as I'm concerned, unless they accept and support the notion that ALL humans are equal.

"Holy books? I don't see the logics, the reason and I don't believe in the basic fascism that is what constructs most organized religions — that vague idea of one people under one god.

"I believe in people.

"In a historic sense we've all been mistreated. The rich, and the cruel have abused their powers for the last 5000 years. One way or the other, on every single part of the planet.

"Whenever conditions have been changed it's because PEOPLE have stood up and said; OK, we're not taking this bullshit anymore.

"Even when revolutions have failed, they've inspired others to make the things happen later.

"Fascism, powertrippin', or whatever one wants to call it, is always the result of fear and a sense of powerlessness and how to fight it is clearly found right down the aisles of history.

"We don't need war, it hasn't worked so far to create any sustainable creative changes, simple refusal to participate and a LOUD public, and private debate on things like humanism, capitalism, equality — are however things that work.

"As far as carrying the pain and resentment over generations, like we humans so often do, I say, LET IT GO! Ask yourself; Was I a victim? Am I a victim? Do I want to be a victim? What do I want? Then move on. Forward, with creativity. Not to destroy those you resent, but to built yourself and strive for a positive attitude. Before we turn our rage and sorrow outward, look inside to see what changes I can make within myself. If you loath capitalism; don't buy anything but the essentials or things to help point out how you feel. If you loath sexism; practise treating yourself and those closest to you fair. If rascism enrages you; be honest, humble and straight forward about it.

"As far as free speech goes I say; Let those who feel they have something to say speak up. Listen to what others have to say, whether you agree or not. Personally I think it's only fair, fascists also have the right to speak - though they might not think you do. In order to have a fluid and creative common grounds, and flow of public thought; OUR EMOTIONS CANNOT BE COMPROMISED OR CENSORED.

"No matter how matter of fact, or how much logic one applies, change is never made unless it is felt."