On May 4, 1970, four students at Kent State University in Ohio were killed by Ohio National Guardsmen at an on-campus march to protest Nixon’s invasion of Cambodia five days earlier. Those of us who remember Kent State first hand (I was in first grade, the daughter and granddaughter of KSU professors) know the “order to fire” did not come from some commander. The contempt for the life of the “dirty f**king hippies” came from Ohio Governor Rhodes, J. Edgar Hoover, and Richard Nixon. In 1970, the Vietnam war was going horribly wrong, the public that was waking up incredibly quickly, and the President and his administration’s reaction was not only to stay the course but to dig in their heels and question the patriotism of anyone who did not go along.
We do not need anyone to tell us that there is an “Iraq-Vietnam Link.” The “Vietnamization” of this war is happening before our eyes.
Update: Great minds think alike. Here’s what Howie Klein had planned for Late Night Music Club before this post appeared (we’ve swapped out the original youtube for Howie’s:
The publisher of Thrashers Wheat, the best of the many Neil Young fan sites, put together a post with pictures and videos over at DownWithTyranny. Tonight’s song, predictably, is “Ohio” by CSNY, the song Neil wrote when he read about the shootings– and saw the horrifying and galvanizing photos in Life, a spread that pretty much set the course for a crumbling of any support left for Nixon and his agenda. CSNY released a single immediately and included a live version on an album the following year but it wasn’t until 1974, when they put out So Far that a studio version was available on LP. There are few songs that I can remember in my life that had as profound an impact on politics. So… why aren’t students protesting the war in Iraq? Is it because they like the war– or don’t care about it (since there is no draft right now)? Or is it because they’re afraid Bush will do to them what Nixon did to the four dead in Ohio?
No Trackbacks To “Today is 38th Anniversary of the Kent State Shootings“
I remember.
And two of the four students were simply walking to class when they were shot.
It’s still unspeakably tragic.
The next time forces shoot at American Students/Citizens it may be much much worse, since this administration has seen fit to bring Foreign Mercenary forces to American soil.
Blackwater would have no conscience.
Then I remember, we had library class, and I used to get all the “Life” and “Look” magazines from the rack, and look at the horrible pictures from Vietnam. I remember rivers of blood, and napalm, and destruction, and misery. Those memories are etched in my mind. They don’t show that now; they were so vivid.
I was eight years old, in fourth grade, and I was horrified by this massacre. My parents, who had been happy Nixon supporters up to this point, were deeply shocked and angered by this horrible incident. It was one of many life-changing events during a very troubling time in American’s history that forever set my own political course.
May they rest in peace and may we never forget what unchecked presidential power, especially in the hands of a Republican, can do to damage the very fabric of our country and threaten the lives of our citizens who exercise their constitutional right to disagree….
DFH forever….
4 dead in O HY O
Now,let’s deal with “GITMO”
I remember so distinctly the moment I heard this news. I was a junior at American University in Washington DC, and was active in the anti-war movement, like the majority of college students at that time were. I had seen plenty of students beaten, had been tear gassed on campus and I remember the sheer hatred of the so-called Civil Defense Unit which would be brought on campus to control student protest. When I heard the news from Kent State, I was stunned, and I remember just putting my head in my hands and crying.
And for those of you too young to remember, nine more students were wounded. The 8 National Guardsmen who fired on American students on an American college campus all had the charges against them thrown out. Food for thought when dealing with the presence of Blackwater, BushCo’s powers to declare Martial Law, the College Republicans, and hate rhetoric used by the right against all who don’t accept their decrees. Vietnam, Iraq, how did we end up falling down this rabbit hole again?
From Wikipedia:
Legal action against the guardsmen
Eight of the guardsmen were indicted by a grand jury. The guardsmen claimed to have fired in self-defense, which was generally accepted by the criminal justice system. In 1974 U.S. District Judge Frank Battisti dismissed charges against all eight on the basis that the prosecution’s case was too weak to warrant a trial.[13]
In May 2007, Alan Canfora, one of the injured protestors, demanded that the case be reopened, having found audiotape in a Yale University government archive allegedly recording an order to fire (”Right here! Get Set! Point! Fire!”) just before the 13 second volley of shots.[15]
According to recently released FBI reports,[citation needed] one part-time student, Terry Norman, was already noted by student protesters as an informant for both campus police and the Akron FBI branch. Norman was present during the May 4 protests, taking photographs to identify student leaders,[28] while carrying a sidearm and wearing a gas mask.
In 1970, FBI director J. Edgar Hoover responded to questions from then-Congressman John Ashbrook by denying that Norman had ever worked for the FBI, a statement Norman himself disputed.[29] On 13 August 1973, Indiana Senator Birch Bayh sent a memo to then-governor of Ohio, John J. Gilligan, suggesting that Norman may have fired the first shot, based on testimony he received from Guardsmen who claimed that a gunshot fired from the vicinity of the protesters instigated the Guard to open fire on the students.[30]
Throughout the almost 40 years since the shootings, debate has continued on the events of May 4, 1970.[31][32]
Shooting Students was bad but many students had been throwing large Rocks and drink bottles at and hitting them for days. Finally some troops lost their cool and returned fire.
I, too, remember.
And I have only seen rememberances posted on two blogs.
Both posts by the same person.
What’s that tell us?
The next time this happens will be much worse. The police and the army are being trained to a razors edge. We’re not people to them most of the time. We are all just troublemakers who are costing the corporations money. The people who are supposed to serve and protect still do, unfortunately they serve and protect our masters interests instead of our. We’re all just so much fodder for the machine.
There’s a saying about being loneliest when you’re in an unhappy relationship. And the consequences of a past war are hardest to face when you are in another mindless, endless war. I suppose we should (try to) prepare for another “saddest day” when we leave things worse than we found them.
Donaldd @ 9:
So now it’s OK to SHOOT kids if they dare to question authority. Bullets equal cans?
Back under the bridge troll.
I was 18. I’m Canadian…lived in the States at that time.
I remember, vividly, as well. I also remember wondering what would happen to friends, with the draft looming. I remember watching ‘the war’ on tv…surreal, yet real.
I’m still stuck on where the outrage has gone. We seem to have become so jaded, or distracted, or de-sensitized…I really don’t know.
The young people who gave their lives for their country, both in that war & at home in protest, must be turning in their graves now.
What will it take???
Donaldd @ 9:
I bet you would have enjoyed the Third Reich too. Jeebus!!
Donaldd @ 9:
You freaking moron. Let’s see… rocks… bottles… vs M1 Carbine assault rifles… YEAH!!! That’s the way! A completely asymmetrical response! Fight minor assault and general dickheadedness with MURDER BY HIGH POWERED RIFLES. YEAH!!! That’s the AMERICAN WAY!!!
Donaldd - you’re an idiot. Stop wasting precious oxygen. Kindly get a clue or at least crawl back under your rock.
I was a sophomore in High School. To me the sad part is that not much has changed since 1970. If we had a draft today, the exact same thing would be going on except instead of the National Guard (who is busy elsewhere) it would be some hot shot employee of Blackwater shooting college students. He of course would get off scot free just as the Guardsmen did back in 1970. Politics as usual.
I remember far too well.
I was a senior at Oberlin College not far from Kent State. I was also a Viet Nam combat veteran who had returned to college to complete my degree. From my perspective, the events of May 4, 1970 were not that different from March 4, 1770, the date of the Boston Massacre. I traveled to Washington for the protests that followed and became active in Viet Nam Veterans Against the War. My parents, both DOD employees, saw all four of their children attend the rally. Two of their sons were were Viet Nam veterans.
I will never forget listening to Phil Ochs singing a modified version of one of his classics with the line “Richard Nixon find yourself another country to be part of.” When I graduated from Oberlin a few weeks later we held a silent vigil in memory of those who died at Kent State. My parents joined the protest. The Tet offensive started the shift of public opinion, Kent State solidified it.
Roket @ 17:
I wouldn’t write off a draft just yet. If Cheney succeeds in bombing Iran (and even if he doesn’t, most likely) the draft will be back on the table as soon as the November election is over with if Republicans keep the White House. There doesn’t seem to be any other way to maintain their war without end blood for oil machine….
I was in the eighth grade. I was beginning to entertain the idea that my parents, my community (all heavily Republican) and my country was just flat-out wrong about the necessity of that ugly atrocity of a war. When I heard about the massacre, I realized that the U.S. government was SHOOTING students not too much older than myself just for voicing their opposition. For the first time I understood that not all authority is legitimate and that many who I had trusted to provide answers were instead part of the problem. I had irrevocably become radicalized. This event in American history shaped my political outlook for the rest of my life.
NEVER AGAIN.
Donaldd @ 9:
Something tells me that conservapedia is your main source of information. I’d just like to point out that your take on the situation, as with most articles on that site, is bullshit. There is not the slightest evidence that any of the students killed had attacked the National Guard Troops on campus. It would have been nothing short of a miracle for the troops to volley fire, as they did, without an order to do so or a conspiracy among the troops to do so.
And sorry, but my comment at #8 should read “12″ more students were shot. My memory is fading on the details but I will never ever forget those years and what they did to my beliefs about America, democracy, freedom, and governmental checks and balances.
what is it with you damn dirty hippies?
why won’t you just give up?
urkel for president? are you kidding me? shaggy for veep? how about a high-level cabinet position for dickey betts?
it’s like george wallace said, “you like four-letter words, here’re two for ya:
WORK and SOAP!
Tin Omen by Skinny Puppy is also a good choice for this event. As for conservapedia I saw a fun article hammering it on The American Conservative of all places. It was in the blog section.
I was only four when it happened. As for the people who remember this, Is the atmoshere in Washington as bad as it is now? I feel like we are standing at the obyss.
*”
Thank you, I was starting to think it had been forgotten - even chastized a couple of “anti-war” dem bloggers…
Donaldd @ 9:
What a smart comment! Throwing rocks and bottles at soldiers should garner the death penalty, for anyone who happens to be on campus at the time!
BTW, shooting at rock and bottle throwers does NOT equal ‘returned fire.’ It is initiating fire.
Dirty Fucking hippies!
I was a senior in high school, getting ready to graduate and go off to college. I had applied for “CO” status for the draft but was ignored and given a 1A. With and lottery number of 286, I wasn’t too worried about the draft, only the damage our country would suffer from this brutal and unnecessary war.
Now, 37 years later, with a son of age and friends in Iraq, I realize we are in a far worse position than even then.
Four dead in Ohio!
Also I was 16 at the time and that week WE (thousands of marchers) closed down the I-5 going through Seattle that week. My group marched 13 miles to join the protesters.
♠Bangkok-Bob♠ @ 3:
Just a few minor corrections for your post Bangkok-Bob
Students did protest. The University of Texas at Austin, for one, had a huge walk out before the war even started, protesting the build up to it and how the evidence supporting it wasn’t being examined. But, unlike in the 60’s, the media didn’t cover them, so they petered out as the participants realized that the boomers didn’t give two tits about the protests or the rightness of the war.
Has this been on MSM? I decided to take a break from MSM watching this weekend, because I was fearing for my sanity.
This was one of three events that truly made me understand that the government is not to be blindly trusted, as they tell us in elementary school.
The first was in 1969 or so, when watching Walter Cronkite explaining the number of troops we had lost that day. I thought a “troop” was something like a “jeep” — a piece of equipment. My sister explained that a troop was a soldier, like her long-term boyfriend who was in Vietnam at the time. At 6, I understood that war meant killing people… But Nixon kept explaining that it was needed, because the Vietnamese were evil, and we had to help them be like us.
Then came KSU. I moved to NE Ohio, not far from Kent State, right after it happened. I saw the stories hitting the local news, the questions coming from students, parents, teachers, government officials. I understood that my own government had just gunned down a bunch of unarmed students because they disagreed with Nixon…. even as I was learning American history and the premise of Constitution.
And then came Watergate.
I started reading more about people like Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and found new heroes in people like Arthur Miller after that.
it seems that the closer you look at what our govt actually is,
the farther it moves away from what really democracy is.
we have buried our heads in the sand for far too long.
the bush administration MUST be the last embarrassment
to our nation and the freedoms we feel so entitled to have.
we do not deserve what we are not willing to guard and
protect with the fortitude of honor and of truth.
Galvanizing moment?
Police in NYC unload 50 rounds into an unarmed black man and are let go and nothing happens there except long lines to purchase GTA IV?
What’s it going to take?
We’re in much deeper trouble than we thought.
At least the stoners are speaking out and taking to the parks and streets this past May Day weekend.
~Nyc
I don’t remember really, being just seven years old. But I do remember all the parking lot scenes at Dead shows, and with friends around the campfire, when we would play OHIO on our guitars, and not really realize, until the daze lifted, what we were singing about. What a tragedy that we can’t muster the outrage today!
Oh, fer…. Yeah, let’s all blame the _students_ for the continuation of this war. “Why don’t they get off their duffs & _do_ something???”
The simple fact is that there _have_ been protests & they’ve amounted to 100% diddly-poo. Bush is the most unpopular president _ever_ & the US continues it’s insane policy. In 1970, there was some political will among Democrats to reverse things in Viet Nam, and 38 years later there is even less. The Dems in Congress caved in to everything that Bush wanted because they felt that it would make him (& by extension, the Reps) look unelectable in ‘08. Yeah, Nancy, thanks for all the support…
I am not downplaying political support, but the days of where protesting will change things are past, if they ever really existed. Back in 1970, at least there was a neutral media in which to broadcast such activities. We no longer have that luxury, as the current media is now an arm of the corporation state, and incredibly powerful. It’s true, we have the internet, which is a saving grace, yet it hasn’t been used yet to take the place to _true_ social/political action.
The main problem is that EVERYONE in the U.S. are feeling frustrated with their choices in opposing the war. The ILWU has a great idea: the organized strike. Not forever, but for a day. And one day isn’t enough, either. It has to be a continuing threat. So why not every 15th day of the month everyone who is against the war strikes. It wouldn’t matter either if the day is on a weekend, as those who do their shopping on those days can find out how many of the service-industry folks are against the status quo. Imagine it: every month, the US stops, no longer willing to let the Re-thuglicans & the Lay-me-Down-a-crats choose the agenda.
tweakerbell @ 16:
“M1 Carbine assault rifles”? ROTFLMAO!! If you can’t properly identify the weapon, don’t bother trying. And I’m happy that someone has pointed out that this wasn’t a love-in that was suddenly attacked. The students had been throwing rocks at the ONG troops. Doesn’t excuse the actions of the soldiers, but, as Heinlein pointed out, throwing shit at an armed man is freaking stupid.
I also always love seeing the alleged pro-peace, pro-liberty folks who cannot tolerate actual facts and demand that anyone not following the Progressive Party line shut up. some of us are as bad as the Bushites.
Sorry the reality of the events surrounding the Kent State incident doesn’t jibe with your preferred version, tweakerbell, but the students had been provoking the National Guard for days at that point. Throw rocks at the guy with the rifle, don’t be surpised when he uses the rifle.
Now, can someone explain how throwing rocks is supposed to be part of a peace demonstration?
well things could have been worse for this country , in 1954 we the us 7th fleet were pulled from korean waters under ikes orders , and sent to subic bay in the philippines along with troop ships loaded with infantrymen , we were held on the base and told we were about to inter the war that was going on in indo china on the side of the french who were engaged in action against the viet min , as luck would have it the french were defeated at dien bin phou before we were commited to the war, just a bit of history thats not in your history books! maby kent state wouldnt have happened because of it maby not! whos to say?
I was at Michigan State University, In East Lansing. We had been protesting before Kent, after that, any doubts about why we were protesting were gone, we had to continue.
Kent State was the moment when the moral imperative reached a tipping pont, if you understood what Kent State was; the slaughter of innocents by bullies determined to hang onto the powers they granted themselves - not the least of which was their certainty that they had the RIGHT to kill whomever they felt might be a threat - then there could be no backing down from the fight.
You had to live through it to understand it, live through the draft lotteries, live with friends seriously debating how to avoid Nam, not out of fear - although there was fear, and how could there not be? By 1970, we were all starting to see friends or relatives return from Nam totally fucked up, or in a box. And we knew it was all bullshit. Just like today, they were being sent to die for lies. Only then, there was the draft and if you weren’t George W. Bush rich and connected, there were limited choices for avoiding it. So every draft lottery was a nightmare and a big decision, all randomly based on your birth date. It ripped families apart, it ruined lives. All for the lies of the powerful war profiteers.
Right after Kent, we marched in the streets of East Lansing, by MSU, and at one point I looked up at the rooftops of the buildings we were marching past, and I saw armed soldiers, rifles pointed down at us as we passed. And I thought, will I die here tonight? Will they shoot us too? And what happened to my America? The land of the Bill of Rights and the Constitution.
The last few years I have again been wondering what happened to my America. But maybe I was fooling myself. Maybe this corrupt, bloated, power-obssessed killing machine parading as a democracy IS the real America, and what we were marching for never really existed.
Maybe we weren’t really supposed to believe all that crap about freedom and rights, we’re just supposed to wrap ourselves in it and feel all warm and patriotic when they tell us they need us to go die in some foreign place for their profit margin again.
Or maybe not, I don’t know anymore. I just feel sick at what they do.
bullfrog @ 23:
I think George Wallace used six letter words. Which makes quoting him even more awkward than those who you try to mock…
Another west Texan was US President in 1968 when the Ohio State National Guardsmen fired in fear at Kent State. These killings went reported that day as justified shootings in first press reports, that famous picture statrted to tell the world another whole story.