Re: May 4, 1970

[Ptah]

The Kent State shootings—also known as the May 4 massacre or the Kent State massacre—
occurred at Kent State University in the U.S. city of Kent, Ohio, and involved the shooting
of unarmed college students by the Ohio National Guard on Monday, May 4, 1970. The guardsmen
fired 67 rounds over a period of 13 seconds, killing four students and wounding nine others,
one of whom suffered permanent paralysis.

Some of the students who were shot had been protesting against the Cambodian Campaign,
which President Richard Nixon announced in a television address on April 30. Other students
who were shot had been walking nearby or observing the protest from a distance.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_State_shootings

[Cooley Hurd]

1. Kick and Rec - NEVER forget!!!

[Faygo Kid]

29. +1. The week before was the first Earth Day. . .

Extraordinary, unforgettable week. I was finishing up my freshman year at Wayne State University in Detroit. The first Earth Day was beautiful - Frisbees, Golden Retrievers in their bandanas, the faint smell of pot in the air, good vibes everywhere.

The next week, it was cold and cloudy, and the campus shut down. A definite cultural turning point.

Out of curiosity, I went over to see what the anti-government FReepers are saying. Of course, they are mostly happy that the kids were gunned down by the government. As you would expect.

[Cooley Hurd]

32. ...and the freeper Karma will come back to haunt them.

It's gonna knock them right on the head!

[thatgemguy]

2. I will never forget...

Nor will I forgive those responsible.

[MrMickeysMom]

3. Never forget.... and of course...

NEVER give up...

[rhett o rick]

4. IMHO, sadly this event woke up the American public and helped end the war.

This war taught major corporations a valuable lesson that the 99% has been paying for ever since. Big profits can be made via war.

[mountain grammy]

43. Yep, guns and butter! War's more profitable than ever now.

[tblue]

47. Why do people have to die

to be taken seriously? Sad sad tragic moment in our history. For no freaking reason they shot those kids.

[Ezlivin]

5. That photo meant little to me until

I married a woman who had dated the brother of the man lying face down.

While I knew about Kent State, I was a bit younger and so it didn't impact me as much. Years later I married a woman from Ohio and one day we were both looking at the photo and I said something about how horrible it was and she says, "That's Jeff Miller. I dated his younger brother. The family took it very hard."

I was astonished. All these years I had looked at this photo and didn't have a connection. Now I'm married to someone who lived near and knew the family very well.

Now when I look at the photo I feel a great pity for Jeff Miller and his family. What a damned shame.

[indepat]

34. Was not the Kent State massacre big brother's message that anti-war protest is neither protected

speech nor will such be tolerated?

[lastlib]

39. it pretty much drew the line in the sand for the corpofascists--

their message is clear: cross that line and interfere with their profits at your peril.

[leveymg]

64. Those responsible for state-sponsored murder were never punished. One thing never changes in the US

[Boomerproud]

74. Yes.

All of my cousins went to Kent State and it's an open wound to me.

[tblue]

48. A personal tragedy and a national disgrace.

The four who died are very much mourned as individuals, as they should be, but they are also immortalized for what they represented. You don't have to know anyone from Ohio to be appalled that free speech was gunned down by the gov't on a public college campus.

[livetohike]

6. One month before my high school graduation. Allison Krause graduated

from a rival high school less than 10 miles from my own. We will never forget this.

[markiv]

60. a very pretty girl

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Allison_Krause.jpg

i remember that day as an 8 year old kid

the older i get, the less sense it makes, and it didnt make sense then

the idea of national guardsmen, shooting pretty coeds on campus, because they dared care about young soldiers getting sent off to slaughter in Vietnam is beyond my comprehension

[MoreGOPoop]

7. K & R

Seems like just the other day...

[WillyT]

8. K & R !!!

[rickyhall]

9. Forever

Part of me

[marble falls]

10. And lets not forget the students shot up at Jackson State at around the same time.

[malthaussen]

63. You beat me to it.

15 May 1970, not two weeks later. Granted that Kent State stepped on Jackson State's lead, I still find it odd that this episode is largely forgotten.

-- Mal

[marble falls]

65. Mal - well, they were black after all. It has always bothered me we kinda forget them...

I really don't want to believe there's a racial component. Then again there have been no compelling photographs or songs about Jacksonville, either. Thanks for remembering with me.

[malthaussen]

66. Yeah, that has always been my thought, too.

In fairness, though, the fact that they happened so closely in time probably has more to do with it. Or anyway, so I prefer to think.

-- Mal

[burnodo]

11. K&R

nt

[Wolf Frankula]

12. Bloody Butchery

By the National Guard.

Wolf

[WCGreen]

13. My mom was going to Kent to get her Masters Degree at the time...

I was in 7th grade and on the weekends would go down to the campus with my mom and just look up stuff in the library. All that reference stuff. I was really a nerdy kid.

When they shot the kids I was home sick with my dad and he was visibly upset, but more so about the protesting. It was a defining moment for the two of us.

Two years later when I was in ninth grade, I organized a walk out at 11:00 am and a five minute of silence protest. Almost 1/3 of the people walked out that day and everyone got a detention but I was suspended because I was the first one out.

The radicalization of Christopher Green.

[Archae]

14. When we look back at that event...

Most of the time I read or hear people condemning the National Guard.
And they deserve it, they were not in danger.

BUT...

The protestors deserve part of the blame as well.
It was not a peaceful protest, it was a riot.

The ROTC building on the Kent State campus was set afire by rioters.

There was violent actions in other places by students and other rioters.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_State_shootings

[AnotherDreamWeaver]

16. Some believe "Agent Provocateurs" burned the ROTC

Word I have heard from folks who were there.

[Archae]

19. Some believe flying saucers set the fire.

This old "agent provocateur" story has no evidence to back it up.

After the Rodney King beating trial, was it "agent provocateurs" who set those fires in Los Angeles?

[cliffordu]

20. Fuck me. Look up COINTELPRO

[Archae]

21. No.

YOU made the claim, YOU back it up.

[cliffordu]

27. Too lazy to use the google, eh?

Don't want to learn anything?

Groovy.

[Archae]

31. Thanks for proving you have nothing.

[prairierose]

72. Cointelpro was real....

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=cointelpro+101+documentary&oq=cointelpro+101&gs_l=youtube.1.1.0l3.137.3670.0.7363.14.6.0.4.4.0.291.913.2j3j1.6.0...0.0...1ac.1.11.youtube.Pr-Dy2bRAsY

[Archae]

73. Except now where is the evidence COINTELPRO started that Kent State fire?

Guess what.

There is none.

That fire was started by rioters.

No, the rioters didn't "deserve to be shot."

But they didn't have to riot and burn down the ROTC building.

So like I said before, BOTH sides were in the wrong.

An editorial cartoonist put it best, showing a National Guard trooper and a hippie, and the hippie is saying "Not only did they take away your medals, they took away my halo!"
Can't remember the cartoonist's name, but he has that tiny penguin that makes snarky comments in the corner.

[AnotherDreamWeaver]

75. What you say isn't true, check http://truthtribunal.org/testimonials

I was looking for the testimonial of Elaine Wellin who reported about guys with walkie talkies, which was mentioned on KPFA this morning between 8 and 9, the reason I came back to this post...

[Eleanors38]

76. Respectfully, check out Cointelpro. It's an eye-opener.

[zeemike]

24. Love it...No evidence...

And it is always that way....no evedence....none....nada....zip.

But the FBI had no interest in Rodney King...but they were knee deep in stopping and harassing the peace movement...but I can't present any evidence for it cause there is none....zip, nada and all that shit...
And don't bother to search Google ether...it is all a bunch of lies...The FBI and the cops would never do that.

[heaven05]

25. you

are pitiful

[marble falls]

67. Nope. And even if so the crowds did interfere with putting it out. Folks were...

were pissed that the old barracks used as by the fine art dept was slated to be torn down a few weeks later for a parking lot and not be replaced. The fire happened two days after Nixon's Cambodia announcement and a day after the sheriff cleared out the downtown. The troops showed up a day after the fire.

[AnotherDreamWeaver]

77. There is a "Truth Tribunal" http://truthtribunal.org/testimonials

This is the home page: http://truthtribunal.org/

[Stainless]

22. You're Foolish Yet

Unarmed college students deserved to be shot because "it was a riot"? I was in the Army Reserve at the time and we were given riot control training at our weekend drills. We were instructed to never, ever fire our weapons at unarmed people. We had sheathed bayonets mounted on our rifles and we learned to perform defensive maneuvers to maintain control. The Kent State massacre was a criminal act carried out by ignorant morons. Richard Nixon had his bloody hand prints all over this. The shit that was going on in America during the time convinced me that Democratic Socialism is far superior to right-wing Capitalism.

[Archae]

23. As I said...

The National Guard got a lot of blame.
Deservedly so.

BUT...

The rioters were not peaceful angelic marchers.

[cliffordu]

28. So naturally they needed to be shot

[Archae]

30. No. They didn't need to riot, also.

[Hissyspit]

37. What nonsensical apologia.

[lastlib]

41. When the Guardsmen turned and fired, the crowd was dispersing....

the "riot" you claim was long over. A few rocks got thrown at them. Blaming the protesters is utter bullshit--take it to your garden and fertilize it.

[KansDem]

49. Not just "shot"...

Executed.

[Dyedinthewoolliberal]

52. That is still not a justification for killing

citizens protesting the actions of the government..............

[Archae]

53. I never said it was.

And that crowd was rioting.

Burning buildings, throwing rocks, the works.

[Ptah]

55. I conclude that you are so young that you will never understand.

Your loss, son.

[Archae]

56. There is right and there is wrong.

And sometimes BOTH sides of a conflict can be in the wrong.

The US stopped the fascist takeover of the world by Germany, Italy and Japan.
Yet we locked up people just because they were Japanese in origin.

[Dyedinthewoolliberal]

70. You are correct

except in the Kent State situation, the Guard fired without provocation. The response to the crowd was not in line with the actions of said crowd.

[Hissyspit]

35. Order to fire.

http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2010/05/new_analysis_of_40-year-old_re.html

"The President's Commission on Campus Unrest avoided probing the question of why the shootings happened. Instead, it harshly criticized both the protesters and the Guardsmen, but it concluded that 'the indiscriminate firing of rifles into a crowd of students and the deaths that followed were unnecessary, unwarranted, and inexcusable.'"

[Ptah]

36. Yes, other rioters:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968_Democratic_National_Convention#The_riot_by_Chicago_police

[lastlib]

40. throwing rocks and yelling shouldn't be met with gunfire from high-powered rifles.

The National Guard should not have even been there!! I place the blame for the massacre squarely on the shoulders of Governor Rhodes, who ordered the Guard in to further his political agenda, which was pretty much identical to Nixon's.

[orleans]

61. not everyone killed was a protester...

Sandra "Sandy" Scheuer
"Victim of the Kent State University shooting. She was an honors student in speech therapy, and did not take part in any of the demonstrations. She was killed when the bullet struck her in the throat while she was walking to her next class."
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?GRid=6438665&page=gr

William Knox Schroeder
"Victim of the Kent State University shooting of May 4, 1970. Ironically, he was attending Kent State University on an ROTC scholarship, and was only going to class when he was killed. He had avoided all demonstrations. He was killed when a bullet entered below his left shoulder and exited his chest."
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSvcid=125019&GRid=6438623&

[Tuesday Afternoon]

15. DU Rec.

[DhhD]

17. 2 Republican Peas in a Pod, Nixon and Governor Rhodes, in a 2nd Amendment Militia State-Ohio.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/politicaljunkie/2010/05/03/126474013/40-years-after-kent-state-remembering-ohio-gov-james-rhodes

[MotherPetrie]

18. Tin soldiers and Nixon coming...

[cantbeserious]

38. Ohio - CSNY

[aristocles]

26. The day it became clear that the United States is a fascist state. n/t

[whathehell]

62. Bullshit.

One incident does not a "fascist state" make. Were it so, virtually every country in the

world could be classified as such.

[aristocles]

68. I counter with

Last edited Sun May 5, 2013, 11:11 AM - Edit history (1)

The Boston Marathon lockdown

[link:?w=640&h=565|

[whathehell]

71. Ask those living in the Boston area if they felt vicimized by "fascism".

especially since the lockdown was lifted immediately after the police zeroed in on the bomber's location.

[rug]

33. What caused the demonstrations:

https://sites.google.com/site/nam2011ap/cambodia

[Ptah]

44. Exactly.

[mountain grammy]

45. Exactly! Cambodia!

[midnight]

42. K&R

[Mkap]

46. Important part of our history

When are own government turned against us. It should be remembered; the peace movement as a rights struggle the same way Seneca Falls and Stonewall are remembered for the womans rights and LGTB movement respectively as stated by the president in his inauguration speech. Only then when we have a new kind of way of thinking about peace will we stop the war machine from claiming more lifes.

Speaking as a kent state student, what i love about kent state may 4th is that it brings all of us together. Students, facility, alumni to remember those who were lost and to continue the fight for justice no matter how long it takes.

[PlanetBev]

50. Those kids were all my age

I was 19 and in college. It's all we discussed that day in Mr. Siskin's anthropology class.

[Ptah]

51. I was a freshman at Northwestern University.

I was all like WTF!

[DesertFlower]

54. i was 28 years old and working

as an administrative assistant at ketchum, McCloed and grove.

[blkmusclmachine]

57. .

.

[burrowowl]

58. I was in France at the time

and all the French were asking me how could this have happened?

[markiv]

59. one girl killed, wasnt even part of the protest

not saying that those who were part of the protest knowingly took a risk, but the fact that a young woman just going to class getting shot PROVES how reckless this was - how could anyone possibly claim she was a 'threat'?

[faye]

69. Disbelief

I read about the Kent State massacre in the Stars & Stripes newspaper while taking a break on a mountain top overlooking the South China Sea in South Viet Nam. It still causes me pain .

[riqster]

78. May the mass murderer Jim Rhodes burn in Hell

Signed, someone who never ever ever applied red paint to the hands on his statue on a May 4th anniversary.

Nope, never did that.