Now I’m reading people chiding NBC for showing this Cho video. I say show it over and over. Maybe it will alert people to the fact that people with his illness do exist as they always have, and that ignoring them is no way to deal with them. Paranoid people run from care. They see health professionals as torturers, while they’re psychotic. It’s part of the illness. But that doesn’t mean we should run away from them.
In former times, Psychiatrists were called "Alienists" pointing to the "alien" appearance people with this illness. I say, show Cho’s video as long as anyone wants to watch it. Maybe some good will come of this horrible event and we’ll have more attention paid to the need for readily available care for such people. Maybe we’ll stop pretending they don’t exist and will relook at how to manage the cases that don’t either find their way in to, or respond to, our existing systems.
I’m afraid that showing the video like that, esp. when the notoriety was so clearly what Cho wanted, will just inspire more wackos to create killer theater. Look how Cho felt about Columbine. Would he have had that particular excuse/catalyst if the media had not covered that event the way it did?
While I agree with what you’re saying about the mental health system, maybe only legislators and mental health professionals should be seeing this film. For the general public, it’s too much like bear baiting, gladiators, and other sick forms of “entertainment”.