Monday, May 04, 2015

Kent State: 45 Years Ago Today



When you call out the National Guard
to suppress demonstrations, do not expect the American people to forget.

As in Baltimore, the actions of authorities at Kent State, over several days, served to increase tension, not reduce it.

As with Baltimore, there was a lot of hot rhetoric by conservatives seeking to rationalize illegal actions; in this case the illegal and secret bombing of Cambodia.

At a news conference in Kent, the day before the shootings, Ohio Governor Jim Rhodes said of campus protesters:

"They're worse than the Brownshirts, and the Communist element, and also the Night Riders, and the vigilantes. They're the worst type of people that we harbor in America."

Actually, Governor, these were America's young adults; people who simply thought we could do better than the secret murder of innocent people 9,000 miles away.

And guess what?  They were right.

1 comment:

Dog Man said...

The Crosby /Stills song about this incident still makes me mad even today.

Having grown up in this era I cannot for the life of me understand how anyone that lived in that era can trust any government or authority, yet they do. How easy to forget as time marches on.