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Topic: Tin Soldiers and Nixon's Coming
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Américain Égalitaire
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 7911
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posted 04 May 2006 10:43 AM
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
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Américain Égalitaire
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 7911
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posted 04 May 2006 11:49 AM
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
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Banjo
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 7007
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posted 04 May 2006 06:49 PM
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
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Fear-ah
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 6476
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posted 07 May 2006 04:32 AM
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
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Michelle
Moderator
Babbler # 560
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posted 11 May 2006 08:42 AM
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
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