BS: Kent State

Subject: RE: BS: Kent State
From: Whistle Stop
Date: 04 May 00 - 01:45 PM

I have often felt that the racial and class element was a big part of the reason the Kent State incident made such an impression. Do we hear of anyone marking the anniversary of the Jackson State killings?

Subject: RE: BS: Kent State
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 04 May 00 - 01:16 PM

You've got to be aware of the possible consequences of your actions, that's true enough. Challenging the system involves taking risks, and there's a duty to do your best to ensure that those risks are carried by people who understand them and accept them.

And there's an element of provocation in many, perhaps most demonstations, including the most non-violent. Sticking a flower in the barrel of a soldier is for some soldiers a very provocative thing to do.

The thing with Kent though was that the action of the "National Guard" was not something that had precedents. All right there may have been examples in American history where the National Guard had shot down striking workers, or black people - but white middle-class teenage students? Noone could have expected that, any more than anybody could have expected the Paras on Bloody Sunday to be allowed to murder 14 unarmed people in Derry a couple of years later.

Subject: RE: BS: Kent State
From: catspaw49
Date: 04 May 00 - 11:35 AM

I appreciate your clarification Whistle. Thanks.

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Kent State
From: Whistle Stop
Date: 04 May 00 - 10:57 AM

Just for the record, I wasn't attempting to be humorous in saying that a gym is likely to provide more benefits than a memorial. I'm just not all that big on memorials in general -- sometimes I feel like we as a society go overboard in our well-intentioned desire to remember things that we feel are are worth remembering. But I certainly don't spit on the memories of the people who died. I believe their cause was just, and their deaths were tragic (although, as GUEST,Jack correctly pointed out, not all who were shot were part of the protest).

As for Neil Young's "Ohio," I think it rates among his better works musically, but falls short lyrically -- it's sort of a generic "down with government thugs, up with the little guy" anthem to my way of thinking. More importantly, it reduces a complex story to cheap slogans and crude characterizations (these were not "tin soldiers," but real flesh and blood human beings), and fosters misunderstandings about what actually occurred and why. I don't think he did anyone any favors by doing that. "What if you knew her and found her dead on the ground/how can you run when you know?" What is he advocating here -- that the students should have honored the dead by staying to fight the Guard, thereby increasing the death toll? Sorry, but I don't buy it, and don't consider it one of Mr. Young's finer moments.

I do think that GUEST,Jack raises another interesting question about the responsibility of the protesters. I believe in the right to protest, and to a certain extent in civil disobedience when all else fails (of the sort practiced by followers of Gandhi and Martin Luther King). But I don't believe that anything goes in the name of protest, and I do think that people who intentionally create or promote an out-of-control situation -- particularly one that has the potential to turn violent -- bear a certain responsibility for what happens as a result.

Subject: RE: BS: Kent State
From: catspaw49
Date: 04 May 00 - 10:19 AM

I don't know George.......But there are now a lot of people in the business of analyzing it. Even VH-1 had an interesting program discussing the year 1970 and how it was the pivot point of the movement, and the role of Kent State. David Crosby made an interesting comment to the effect that "when you escalate with the government, they can 'out-escalate' you clear up to nuclear weapons." The premise of the show was true in my mind though.....Things were never the same after Kent State.

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Kent State
From: GeorgeH
Date: 04 May 00 - 10:01 AM

Catspaw . . have to agree with you about "Ohio" . . though the entire 4-way Street album is (musically, politically and socially) a wonderful encapsulation of those optimistic times. And is much less one-dimensional than those who scorn those times and movements would have us believe.

Where did it all go wrong?

G.

Subject: RE: BS: Kent State
From: GUEST,Mrr
Date: 04 May 00 - 09:15 AM

I agree wholeheartedly with "The important thing is to remember. Too many terrible things have been forgotten" - but most of y'all know my take on tragedies by now... I am all for memorials. Better that than the alternative (Oh, was there something here before this gym?) of oblivion.

Subject: RE: BS: Kent State
From: GUEST,The Yank
Date: 04 May 00 - 07:44 AM

From: Whistle Stop= Date: 03-May-00 - 03:08 PM==

...My guess is that these folks would get more of a benefit from a gym than they will from another memorial....==

I'm assuming that this is an inept attempt at puerile humor, and not "spitting on" the memories of those that died in this senseless tragedy. Wasn't only VietVets that were spit on--and I don't reacll returning vets being tear-gassed, beaten bloody with tactical batons and arrested for exercising their constitutional rights during this period.==

Subject: RE: BS: Kent State
From: GUEST,Jack
Date: 03 May 00 - 07:54 PM

McGrath,

Some of the students were just walking to class, not protesting at all, which makes it a little more complex. In fact, a lot of the students weren't protesting the war as much as they were the presense of the guard. And a large portion of the crowd was there just to watch.

To my mind this raises questions about agitated and confrontational protests and whether its OK to do something that might get a bystander killed (no matter what side of the confrontation you're on--protester or guardsman).

Subject: RE: BS: Kent State
From: GUEST,Jack
Date: 03 May 00 - 07:38 PM

Yep, 30 years ago.

Hollowfox, Have to correct you on the gymnasium thing. The tent city protests were broken up by the police, the gym was built pretty much without modification, exactly as planned. Truth is that it was never planned to be built on the actual sites from which the guardsman shot or the students fell. You can still walk unencumbered across commons from where the burned ROTC building was and where the National Guard made their camp, to the bell where the students buried the Constitution in protest, up the hill past Taylor Hall to the Pagoda. You can still stand where the guardsman stood with a clear view of their field of fire, and put your finger into the hole an M1 round made in a half inch iron plate from an abstract sculpture. You can stand on every site where a student died.

There's even a memorial of sorts now, although I found it singularly lacking in effect when I finally saw it. I would have preferred the originally commissioned Segal sculpture that the University rejected after he showed them what he'd made. The Trustees wanted something emotionally neutral to help foster a sense of reconcilliation and healing. Somehow they felt a statue of Abraham sacrificing Issac fell a litte far of that mark. Most of the wounded students and the family members of those slain disagreed, and felt it sounded just the right tone.

Subject: RE: BS: Kent State
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 03 May 00 - 07:10 PM

The important thing is to remember. Too many terrible things have been forgotten. Memorials just become part of the background, and we forget why they are there, but they stand as witnesses that can speak out and awaken people's curiosity about what really happened.

The Memorials for the Great War and World War II, in every village and town in countries in Europe, with their lists of local people with local names, whole families sometimes, still speak to us, if anything even more clearly.

The students at Kent died because they protested at what they saw as a cruel unjust and illegal war (and most people around the world would agree with that judgement, I believe). As Whistle Stop points out, some of them weren't too cool and collected in their protest. After they died they were libelled and insulted by a lot of people. It's something that needs to be remembered.

Subject: RE: BS: Kent State
From: Lanfranc
Date: 03 May 00 - 07:09 PM

I'll revive Harvey Andrews' "Hey Sandy" for the occasion - to my mind the most powerful song about Kent State.

"They will not grow old, as we that are left grow old Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn ..."

Was it really thirty years ago?

Subject: RE: BS: Kent State
From: catspaw49
Date: 03 May 00 - 06:24 PM

...and WS, just as you were stating about the book on another thread, it is important to learn from history. No, Neil wasn't there, but if a song's writer has to be there to tell of an event, then we are going to be short a lot of songs around here.

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Kent State
From: Hollowfox
Date: 03 May 00 - 06:18 PM

No, Whistle Stop, I wasn't there either. I wasn't trying to do a black/white hat thing at all. My point is that whatEver happened there, it hasn't been swept under the carpet. That's a good thing in my book.

Subject: RE: BS: Kent State
From: Whistle Stop
Date: 03 May 00 - 03:08 PM

Gee, I don't know. I understand and respect people's feelings about the tragic deaths that took place that day, but I kind of think we're overdoing this memorializing bit. We've got memorials for just about everything under the sun, and more going up all the time. My guess is that these folks would get more of a benefit from a gym than they will from another memorial. But it's their campus, so I guess it's their business.

As far as "a government killing its own citizens while they exercise their constitutional rights," I think that's a bit of an overstatement. I wasn't there, but I read Michener's book, and various other accounts. Basically, as far as I can tell there were a bunch of college students demonstrating against our government's incursion into Cambodia, which is entirely legitimate in and of itself. But there was also a good bit of violent, destructive behavior during the demostration (which had been going on for a couple of days) -- including the burning of the ROTC building, followed by attacks on the firefighters who showed up to put out the blaze. They didn't have a constitutional right to do those things -- they were breaking the law (not just laws relating to where and when they coulod assemble, but "real" laws relating to such things as arson and assault and battery), and putting people at risk of serious injury.

On the day in question, there were a lot of students who were intent on harrassing the National Guard as much as possible, hoping to goad them into doing something irresponsible. And they were pretty stupid about it. The Guard was made up of kids about the same age as the protesters; they were hot, not very well trained, couldn't see well because of the gas masks, and they felt besieged. Apparently nobody ever told the students that it's not smart to throw rocks and insults at stressed-out people with guns. Not everyone who was shot was guilty of these things, and in any event the shooting was certainly an overreaction that a better-trained and better-led force wouldn't have committed. But there was a lot of bad decision-making that day, and trying to make it into a "black hats vs. white hats" story after the fact is unfair.

As I said, I wasn't there, but probably most of the rest of you weren't, either. And neither was Neil Young.

Subject: RE: BS: Kent State
From: BlueJay
Date: 03 May 00 - 02:21 PM

'Spaw- Not to mention his other great Vietnam protest song, "Hey, hey, My Lai".

Subject: RE: BS: Kent State
From: catspaw49
Date: 03 May 00 - 01:35 PM

I'm sorry I won't be there, but I will be listening and will be there in spirit.

...and for all of my jokes about Neil Young, "Ohio" is still his best work.

Spaw

Subject: Kent State
From: Hollowfox
Date: 03 May 00 - 01:06 PM

I'll be going over to Kent (Ohio) for the thirtieth anniversary rememberence of the May 4th shootings. For those of you that are interested, WKSU will be broadcasting a radio documentary program at noon (Eastern Time), and repeating it at 7:00 PM, and again Sunday, May 7, at 7:00 AM. The WKSU website (see a former thread) can lead you into the university's May 4 website. Say what you will about what happened there that day, one good thing is that the whole thing hasn't been censored or ignored into historical oblivion. Not that the university hasn't tried, on occasion. But they were unable to build a gymnasium on the shooting site, etc. Still, I can't think of any other examples of an annual memorial gathering to commemorate a government killing its own citizens while they exercised their constitutional rights. This memorial gathering is permitted and publicized.