FOUR DEAD IN O- HIO

I wanted to get this posted yesterday. Unfortunately, I had to contend with another episode of a slipped lumbar disc which causes much pain and requires chemical intervention that leaves me a bit fuzzy – not a good time to post to a public forum. So, here I am, a day late, but better late than never.

May 4, 2010 marked the 40th anniversary of this tragic event that would change the course of history of this nation and of my generation. While most of us continued to support peaceful protest and organized civil disobedience, the violence perpetrated against unarmed college students by fellow Americans would spawn a more violent subculture that would include the formation of Black Panthers and Weather Underground.

For anyone too young to remember this event, there was a protest organized at Kent State University; not unlike similar protests taking place at college campuses across the country. The protest was in response to then President Nixon’s announcement of the invasion of Cambodia, thus escalating the war in Asia. In the days leading up to the May 4th protest, there had been an incident in town which involved breaking of windows and starting a fire. It was determined that only a few participants were Kent students; mostly the crowd had been townies and bikers. On May 4th the students gathered on school grounds in a central location. The governor declared a state of emergency and called out the National Guard. Soon, four college students would lay dead, all unarmed, all shot with deadly precision. Not just an attempt to simply stop them; they were all kill shots.

Watching the news that day as the black and white images were repeatedly broadcast, there was a sense of horror and disbelief – “They’re killing us for speaking out!” It was the point where a generation collectively concluded that “our” government wasn’t ours at all. They became the enemy.

I find it interesting that those today who would call Bill Ayers a terrorist are some of the same people encouraging police and military to refuse any order to shoot at other Americans and have vowed to take up arms if such a thing were to occur. I wonder how they cannot see the ironic contradiction of their own words. I imagine they would spin the scene in Ohio in 1970 as different because those kids were loud, angry hippies as opposed to loud, angry, “moral, Christian, patriots”.

As Americans, we have the right to peacefully assemble and protest. As human beings, we have a duty to peacefully assemble and protest unfair laws and practices which would probably be referred to as civil disobedience. (Think Martin Luther King and the civil rights struggle).

What Americans do NOT have a right to do is murder or incarcerate or oppress any person or group that does not agree with them. Change comes slowly, sometimes painfully, but usually, in hindsight, the changes are good. To those who believe they have a right to violent actions to enforce their beliefs – you are wrong. You are as wrong now as those fringe groups from the 70s were wrong then.

And this is why:

THE DEAD

Jeffrey Glenn Miller; shot through the mouth - killed instantly
Allison B. Krause; fatal left chest wound - died later that day
William Knox Schroeder; fatal chest wound - died almost an hour later in hospital while waiting for surgery
Sandra Lee Scheuer; fatal neck wound - died a few minutes later from loss of blood

Tin soldiers and Nixon coming,

We're finally on our own.

This summer I hear the drumming,

Four dead in Ohio.

(lyrics by Neil Young)

Soldiers aren't the only people who have paid the ultimate price for freedom.