Kent State Shooting Tape Aired

Today is the 27th anniversary of one of America's darkest moments - the shooting in 1970 into a crowd of students protesting the bombing of Cambodia, which was seen as an escalation of the Vietnam war. Since I'm about the same age as the victims, it is something that still sends chills down my spine whenever I think about it. Of the four killed, two were not even protesters, just students heading to class. Does it really matter, when those victims who were protesting were just exercising their right to free speech?

This post almost didn't happen, the very thought of soldiers firing on their own citizens is so sickening - every time I tried to write about it I cringed away from the brutally sad task. I have always blogged in support of public demonstrations against the Bu$hCo™ criminal cabal posing as government. It's hard not to ask "What If?" Could a similar protest today have such tragic results? This post from Station agent convinced me I couldn't let this one go. Like Neil Young asked in his musical tribute released only weeks after the event, "What if you knew her and found her dead on the ground?" As Station Agent points out today, "history continues to repeat itself on many levels." So what are the lessons learned?

Wikipedia: Kent State Shootings

What is really amazing is that, out of 67 shots fired over 13 seconds, there were so few students hit. Besides the four dead, there were nine wounded. Though charges were laid against some of the National Guardsmen all were acquitted. The day before the shootings, a confrontation resulted in a student being wounded with a bayonet. A fucking BAYONET!! The shootings were the culmination of four straight days of mounting friction, people back then had the balls to let the government know how pissed off they were about killing being done in their name, with their tax dollars. In a democracy, each person bears some responsibility for what their government does. Silence is not an option.

Oh, and the news from a couple of days ago; one of the protesters has released an audio tape made on that fateful day, which seems to include an unidentified officer giving the fatal command, "Get Set! Point! Fire!" I can't respond to that in any coherent way.

What If You Knew Her?

TAGS: Kent State Shootins, Tragic History, Neil Young, Ohio