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Author Topic: Tin Soldiers and Nixon's Coming
Américain Égalitaire
rabble-rouser
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posted 04 May 2006 10:43 AM      Profile for Américain Égalitaire   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
It was 36 years ago today, about 15 miles from where I was growing up. . .

Why Kent State is Important Today

quote:
My generation can't ignore the lessons of Kent State. The same mindset and failure in leadership that led National Guardsmen to fire at students of the same age and from the same Ohio hometowns is similar to what led US soldiers to torture detainees in Iraq.

Kent State should remind us of what happens when a grossly misguided war divides a country. If we can speak candidly and openly about our history and our present -- even the worst elements of it -- then we can ensure that the lives lost on May 4, 1970, were not in vain.



From: Chardon, Ohio USA | Registered: Jan 2005  |  IP: Logged
Overqualified Underachiever
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Babbler # 11578

posted 04 May 2006 11:08 AM      Profile for Overqualified Underachiever     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Thanks for bringing this up, it soooo important to not lose sight of this event. I was a hippy-in-high-shool went this went down, and I can still remember the shock and disgust when the news broke. It was an unbelievably low point in US 'civilization', with all due respect, AE.
From: PEI | Registered: Jan 2006  |  IP: Logged
N.Beltov
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posted 04 May 2006 11:11 AM      Profile for N.Beltov   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I was surprised by a local (Winnipeg) journalist who knew all the "official line" talking points about how getting shot was all the (unarmed) student's fault and so on. It's amazing the lies that are told about such events; it's like an innoculation against learning the history of a particular social justice struggle.
From: Vancouver Island | Registered: May 2003  |  IP: Logged
Fear-ah
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posted 04 May 2006 11:19 AM      Profile for Fear-ah        Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
The lesson was well learned--the National Guard hasn't shot any Americans since then--so mission accomplished.
From: Vancouver | Registered: Jul 2004  |  IP: Logged
Boom Boom
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posted 04 May 2006 11:19 AM      Profile for Boom Boom     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I was finishing exams at Fanshawe College back then. Watched it on the news. Horrifying.
From: Make the rich pay! | Registered: Dec 2004  |  IP: Logged
Overqualified Underachiever
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 11578

posted 04 May 2006 11:23 AM      Profile for Overqualified Underachiever     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
... so mission accomplished

Mission accomplished, but 4 innocent students murdered. High price to pay, what?


From: PEI | Registered: Jan 2006  |  IP: Logged
N.Beltov
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posted 04 May 2006 11:38 AM      Profile for N.Beltov   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Yea, using a phrase popular with Dubya in relation to his lies about the invasion and war in Iraq seems a poor choice of words, to say the least.
From: Vancouver Island | Registered: May 2003  |  IP: Logged
Américain Égalitaire
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posted 04 May 2006 11:49 AM      Profile for Américain Égalitaire   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Overqualified Underachiever:
Thanks for bringing this up, it soooo important to not lose sight of this event. I was a hippy-in-high-shool went this went down, and I can still remember the shock and disgust when the news broke. It was an unbelievably low point in US 'civilization', with all due respect, AE.

Heck no apologies necessary - you're absolutely right. In my next rabble column I go into this a little - it was a message sent to those who would protest vigorously against the government.

My father, for one, pretty much wanted the students dug up and shot again to make sure. That was the environment I was raised in. My mum talked alot about "outside agitators" as if that excused the murders. Both my parents were Kent State grads from the late 50s.

If I wanted to get them mad at me, I just had to bring it up, especially the fact that all the dead were registered KSU students including an ROTC cadet.


From: Chardon, Ohio USA | Registered: Jan 2005  |  IP: Logged
N.Beltov
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posted 04 May 2006 12:02 PM      Profile for N.Beltov   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Américain Égalitaire: My father, for one, pretty much wanted the students dug up and shot again to make sure. That was the environment I was raised in.

Sounds familliar. The Toronto I grew up in had a hippie or more radical area near Yorkville. My father told me that if I went there then I shouldn't bother coming home because I wouldn't be welcome back. Sheesh. Mum calls him "Archie Bunker" at times like that, now.


From: Vancouver Island | Registered: May 2003  |  IP: Logged
jeff house
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posted 04 May 2006 06:26 PM      Profile for jeff house     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
The Kent State killings should be remembered. So, too, should the killing of four black students ten days later at Jackson State College in Mississippi.

quote:
According to the FBI report on the incident, over 460 rounds hit the building and an unknown number were fired directly into the crowd. When the order to stop shooting was finally given, two young men were dead. One of them was Phillip Lafayette Gibbs, 21, a junior pre-law major and father of an 18 month-old son; and the other was 17 year-old James Earl Green, 17, a senior at Jim Hill High School in Jackson, who was walking home from work at a local grocery store when he stopped to watch the action. Twelve other college students lay on the ground wounded.

http://www.counterpunch.org/jacobs05142005.html


From: toronto | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
Banjo
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posted 04 May 2006 06:49 PM      Profile for Banjo     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
We in the peace movement in Toronto then, immediately went to the US consulate on University, and took part in one the biggest demos we could recall. Then the sense of outrage empowered a huge group of us to head to Yonge Street where we shut it down for a time.

We thought that when they were starting to shoot our fellow students, the establishment must be desperate, to go this far. We thought the revolution must be coming soon.

Actually is was merely retrenchment of the establishment, and the rebellious spirit of the sixties would soon be as dead as the four students in Ohio.

RIP


From: progress not perfection in Toronto | Registered: Oct 2004  |  IP: Logged
Fear-ah
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posted 07 May 2006 04:32 AM      Profile for Fear-ah        Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Overqualified Underachiever:

Mission accomplished, but 4 innocent students murdered. High price to pay, what?


oh...and a lot more people have been killed since then by 'cops', the State and bad ideas, but don't let me interrupt the 'boomer' circle jerk as they remember...

OR

    "The Toronto I grew up in"...."Mum calls him "Archie Bunker"

    "We in the peace movement in Toronto then..."

    Or mischaracterizes Jacob's piece about liberal hypocrisy: Counterpunch

    ...Through no fault of the Kent victims, the nature of US society is that white deaths count for more than those that occur to darker-hued individuals...

    ...In fact, it was Mississippi-a state that was still fighting the Civil War in 1970.

    As one can well imagine, these murders only exacerbated the state of crisis in the country. In fact, Nixon curtailed his war plans and, under heavy pressure from his more pragmatic advisors and antiwar liberals in the Congress, promised to withdraw US troops from Cambodia in sixty days.

Nixon didn't and the piece is ironic...nothing was learned by Americans or people in Canada that find memories in searching for answers from 35 years ago...


From: Vancouver | Registered: Jul 2004  |  IP: Logged
Overqualified Underachiever
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Babbler # 11578

posted 07 May 2006 06:01 AM      Profile for Overqualified Underachiever     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Fear-ah: it is difficult to determine from your mostly incoherent post, exactly what you are trying to say. It's probably best to ignore such ramblings, but curiosity is my downfall.

We were discussing events from history, real events that had an impact on a large number of people. Are you denying that these are important events? Are you suggesting that we ignore history, and only look at the the now? What exactly is your point, and your reason for posting anything on this thread?

Just askin', you know?


From: PEI | Registered: Jan 2006  |  IP: Logged
Michelle
Moderator
Babbler # 560

posted 11 May 2006 08:42 AM      Profile for Michelle   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
I'm writing this on the eve of May 4, not a day that Canadians or many Americans for that matter, think of as very significant. But on May 4, 36 years ago, as historian William Manchester once wrote, having sown the wind, America reaped the whirlwind. On this day, Ohio Army National Guard troops opened fire on unarmed (unless you count rocks) students at Kent State University, killing four and wounding nine others. It was the day America killed its children, and many parents cheered.

Keith Gottschalk


From: I've got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell. | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged

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