Yup, when even Lauren Bobert sounds reasonable, you know that today's university students have drunk some pretty serious Kool-aid.
A truly original and uncommonly rational account of the madness on today's campuses in the U.S. and Canada. Having, like you, a personal interest in mass shootings and violence in schools, I had a horrifying thought when you quoted Jerry Ruben: "Yippie Jerry Ruben spoke at Kent State a few weeks before the shootings and urged kids to ‘kill your parents’, as the first part of the ‘Yippie program’. “They are the first oppressors,” he added. It was a remarkably callous and wildly irresponsible remark nine months after the brutal Manson murders."
Why did this strike a personal chord with me? Because my grade nine history teacher taught a unit on the Kent State massacre in 1975. Yes, you read that right; a short five years after Kent State, a guy in Brampton, Ontario was teaching about it in a freshman history class (right after a unit on the Lincoln Assassination).
What was my horrible thought? That this wonderful teacher, who had me hanging on his every word as an ignorant 14-year-old, might have inspired a mass shooting in his own school.
Right after the February 13, 2022 mass shooting at Michigan State University, (where my husband was teaching), I wrote an article on my Substack comparing it to the May 28, 1975 shooting at Brampton Centennial Secondary School (where I was a student in grade nine).
How might that history teacher have inspired a student to shoot up his own school? Here's how I'm putting it together in my mind: Michael Slobodian was a junior at BCSS when I was a freshman. He had probably taken the same course when he was in grade nine. Possibly with the same charismatic teacher that I had. I didn't know Michael, but I have read all about him in the intervening years. He was a spoiled, narcissistic loser seething with resentment against everyone: his teachers, his fellow students, basically anyone whom he felt had wronged him in any way.
On May 28, 1975, he took out his anger on his high school by killing a young teacher, a fellow student, and himself. He also wounded fourteen other students, some of them seriously.
Reading this quote, I'm just wondering if Michael heard that same statement from Jerry Rubin in history class. I know he felt oppressed, although not by his parents, who gave him a rifle for his sixteenth birthday which he used to kill his victims, but by his teachers and fellow students, who apparently didn't recognize his inherent greatness.
Like I say, it's a horrible thought. But the 1970s were a violent decade. People were just beginning to justify using violence to settle personal scores and make political statements.
I sincerely hope that teacher has not spent the last fifty years agonizing about what he might have inadvertently taught to an unbalanced student.
But you are right: this obsession with blaming Israel for its own trauma by self-righteous, ignorant know-it-all students could lead to more violence. And that would be horrible.
I'm not sure how well-known that quote by Rubin is (I think I misspelled his name!). I don't think I'd ever heard of it before; I found it while researching May 4th last week. Did this guy even mention it?
How easily could someone access a gun in Canada at that time? It's not that easy *now*, how was it in 1975? What's interesting about this is it happened *before* the mass shootings craze, which in the US I date to James Huberty's 1981 MacDonald's Massacre (Huberty was from Massillon, OH, not too far where I lived at the time in Alliance. There had been public shootings before but they were pretty far between. Now, in the US at least, it's a daily occurrence.
I don’t remember the teacher saying anything about Rubin, but he might have. And he could also have said it two years before when the shooter would have taken grade 9 history. It’s pure speculation, but it might have given that boy the idea that he was a victim of oppression and that he could settle his grievances with violence in a spectacular show of egotism.
Guns were easy to get in Canada in 1979 as long as they were for hunting or farming purposes. After the 1989 Montreal massacre, laws became stricter.
College students were (largely) exempted from being drafted during the Vietnam era. They were thus free to protest the war while under no threat of being forced to fight in it. Many families of those who for one reason or another were or expected to be drafted chose instead to flee to Canada until the war ended whereupon they returned to the USA.
Yup, when even Lauren Bobert sounds reasonable, you know that today's university students have drunk some pretty serious Kool-aid.
A truly original and uncommonly rational account of the madness on today's campuses in the U.S. and Canada. Having, like you, a personal interest in mass shootings and violence in schools, I had a horrifying thought when you quoted Jerry Ruben: "Yippie Jerry Ruben spoke at Kent State a few weeks before the shootings and urged kids to ‘kill your parents’, as the first part of the ‘Yippie program’. “They are the first oppressors,” he added. It was a remarkably callous and wildly irresponsible remark nine months after the brutal Manson murders."
Why did this strike a personal chord with me? Because my grade nine history teacher taught a unit on the Kent State massacre in 1975. Yes, you read that right; a short five years after Kent State, a guy in Brampton, Ontario was teaching about it in a freshman history class (right after a unit on the Lincoln Assassination).
What was my horrible thought? That this wonderful teacher, who had me hanging on his every word as an ignorant 14-year-old, might have inspired a mass shooting in his own school.
Right after the February 13, 2022 mass shooting at Michigan State University, (where my husband was teaching), I wrote an article on my Substack comparing it to the May 28, 1975 shooting at Brampton Centennial Secondary School (where I was a student in grade nine).
How might that history teacher have inspired a student to shoot up his own school? Here's how I'm putting it together in my mind: Michael Slobodian was a junior at BCSS when I was a freshman. He had probably taken the same course when he was in grade nine. Possibly with the same charismatic teacher that I had. I didn't know Michael, but I have read all about him in the intervening years. He was a spoiled, narcissistic loser seething with resentment against everyone: his teachers, his fellow students, basically anyone whom he felt had wronged him in any way.
On May 28, 1975, he took out his anger on his high school by killing a young teacher, a fellow student, and himself. He also wounded fourteen other students, some of them seriously.
Reading this quote, I'm just wondering if Michael heard that same statement from Jerry Rubin in history class. I know he felt oppressed, although not by his parents, who gave him a rifle for his sixteenth birthday which he used to kill his victims, but by his teachers and fellow students, who apparently didn't recognize his inherent greatness.
Like I say, it's a horrible thought. But the 1970s were a violent decade. People were just beginning to justify using violence to settle personal scores and make political statements.
I sincerely hope that teacher has not spent the last fifty years agonizing about what he might have inadvertently taught to an unbalanced student.
But you are right: this obsession with blaming Israel for its own trauma by self-righteous, ignorant know-it-all students could lead to more violence. And that would be horrible.
I'm not sure how well-known that quote by Rubin is (I think I misspelled his name!). I don't think I'd ever heard of it before; I found it while researching May 4th last week. Did this guy even mention it?
How easily could someone access a gun in Canada at that time? It's not that easy *now*, how was it in 1975? What's interesting about this is it happened *before* the mass shootings craze, which in the US I date to James Huberty's 1981 MacDonald's Massacre (Huberty was from Massillon, OH, not too far where I lived at the time in Alliance. There had been public shootings before but they were pretty far between. Now, in the US at least, it's a daily occurrence.
I don’t remember the teacher saying anything about Rubin, but he might have. And he could also have said it two years before when the shooter would have taken grade 9 history. It’s pure speculation, but it might have given that boy the idea that he was a victim of oppression and that he could settle his grievances with violence in a spectacular show of egotism.
Guns were easy to get in Canada in 1979 as long as they were for hunting or farming purposes. After the 1989 Montreal massacre, laws became stricter.
I really hope my theory is wrong.
College students were (largely) exempted from being drafted during the Vietnam era. They were thus free to protest the war while under no threat of being forced to fight in it. Many families of those who for one reason or another were or expected to be drafted chose instead to flee to Canada until the war ended whereupon they returned to the USA.