The Greatest Massacre
By Mitch Berg
While outrages like Columbine and the Virginia Tech massacre are all fresh in our minds as depressing reminders of man’s depravity, it’s useful to remember that whenever one is tempted to ask “can it get any worse”, the answer is usually “it already has been”.
The most horrific schoolhouse massacre in American history took place eighty years ago today in tiny Bath, Michigan, as a deranged farmer, Andrew Kehoe, arranged the most cold-blooded mass-murder of children in American history.
Kehoe arranged not one but three explosions:
- The first, at his farm, served to draw firemen and rescuers away from the Bath School.
- The second bomb – 500 pounds of dynamite – obliterated the north wing of the school, killing dozens of children and teachers.
- The third bomb was in Kehoe’s car; he drove to the scene of his first blast, and detonated it, killing himself and several would-be rescuers.
It was a plot worthy of the most verminous Ba’athist. And it could have been worse; 500 pounds of dynamite under the other half of the school misfired and failed to detonate.
As bad as things get, remember; it’s probably been worse.
May 18th, 2007 at 10:40 am
From Wikipedia: “The perpetrator was school board member Andrew Kehoe, who was upset by a property tax that had been levied to fund the construction of the school building.”
Typical Republican.
May 18th, 2007 at 10:47 am
I WIN! I WIN!
I bet $1,000,000 that you’d leave precisely that comment!
The bet was with myself – so I’m paying me right now.
May 18th, 2007 at 11:26 am
Wait, is that one o’ them “clearly satire” things? Or the swear-to-Jesus truth that comprises the rest of your public utterances?
May 18th, 2007 at 11:51 am
The Bath Massacre? Not satire.
My bet with myself? I wrote this piece the day after the Virginia Tech massacre and banked it for today – and I remember telling myself “Vobo is going to hop up and down like a poo-flinging monkey over that “tax protester” thingie”.
Strooth.
May 18th, 2007 at 1:03 pm
At least I can’t disprove it.
May 18th, 2007 at 5:42 pm
A snide comment = poo-flinging monkey? (need some higher caliber monkeys)
But with McVeigh & Rudolph it does seem the bombers are mostly from the Right – last lefty bomb that killed someone was the Weather Underground in about 72 (they thought the building was empty). Unless you consider major anarchist Kaczinski a lefty – but his Manifesto was mostly against the left.
In terms of #s killed, no question.
Sad to say if the deluded lefties in those buildings just had their Glocks or SIG/Sauers loaded, they’d still be dead.
May 19th, 2007 at 2:50 pm
I wouldn’t exactly call McVeigh or Rudolph right wing. If anything they would be facist or religious mutants having disregarding the constitutional rights of others and respect for life in their actions. Shit, I can’t call them any wing at all. I think they were both just plain narcissistic nuts wearing helmits of hubris. They shouldn’t be affiliated with anyone.
May 20th, 2007 at 9:20 am
But with McVeigh & Rudolph it does seem the bombers are mostly from the Right
Carmellitta’s right, and then some.
McVeigh was a neo-Nazi, and Naziism takes from the fringes of both the ultra-right AND ultra-left (Hitler borrowed HEAVILY from Lenin). Rudolph? Carmellitta pretty much got him.
May 21st, 2007 at 12:25 am
Fascism is almost always seen as on the right side of the spectrum – certainly was in the ciountry and time that defined the term.
Same with Nazisim. Hitler may have borrowed tactics from Lenin (I guess?) but his twin targets from his earliest speeches were communism and Jews. “The main plank in the National Socialist program is to abolish the liberalistic concept of the individual and the Marxist concept of humanity…” Adoph Hitler.
McVeigh was anti-Federal government (obviously) so can hardly be called a political fan of either Naziism or Fascism, both highly authoritarian.
Rudolph a religious nut – hard to argue against that. He certainly did not see a constituional right to abortions.
But if you have to put them on the spectrum, they land on the right based on what drove their extreme hatred.
May 21st, 2007 at 9:42 pm
I think it horribly convenient to slander ones political opponents as the brethren of inhuman monsters. It saves actually having to argue the case for your own political positions. It is so efficient, one might even classify it as lazy.
May 24th, 2007 at 12:42 am
Troy:
I have never thought of McVeigh or Rudolph or their “brethren” as my “political opponents”. Sheeesh.
It must be horribly convenient to dismiss an observation with a charge of slander. Let’s see; analysis equals slander? Must be a Bill Oreilly fan (those left wing radicals who post my broadcast video of me saying untrue things are slandering me).
However, I do think it is a fair question to see where that politically driven hatred that expresses itself in overt violence comes from. as a trend. Don’t you? How many times have you asked your brethren what part of the political spectrum – at least in their region – the Islamic Jihadists are on? Hint, they are not leftists.
November 8th, 2013 at 10:18 am
[…] Interpretations: Last year, Minnesota Second Amendment activists hailing from a variety of groups got together and pulled off an amazing feat; in a state government completely controlled not only by Democrats, but dominated by extremist, gun-hating Metrocrats, managed to completely shut down a concerted anti-Second Amendment attack, in the wake of one of the most horrific school massacres since the 1920s. […]
May 20th, 2019 at 6:36 am
[…] I wrote at some length about it a few years back. […]