Kent State Shootings: 36 Years ago Today
 

The Kent State shootings involved the shooting of students by the Ohio National Guard on Monday, May 4, 1970. The altercation killed four students and wounded nine others.

The shootings were the culmination of four days of increasingly agitated demonstrations by members of the student body. The students were protesting the American invasion of Cambodia which President Richard Nixon launched on April 25, and announced in a television address five days later.

This was a major event in recent American history. You can almost see something happening like this in today's policitcal climate.

best not speak u p in this climate...or you will be carted off to nowhereville town

Playing the neil young song now.

Love the song "find the cost of freedom" crosby, stills, nash, & young. Great guitar on there. :)

four dead in ohio they made great protest songs back then. almost cut my hair, please come to chicago.

So your brother's bound and gagged
And they've chained him to a chair
Won't you please come to chicago just to sing
In a land that's known as freedom how can such a thing be fair
won't you please come to chicago for the help that we can bring
We can change the world rearrange the world
It's dying - to get better
Politicians sit yourselves down, there's nothing for you here
won't you please come to chicago for a ride
don't ask jack to help you `cause he'll turn the other ear
won't you please come to chicago or else join the other side
We can change the world rearrange the world
it's dying - if you believe in justice
dying - and if you believe in freedom
dying - let a man live his own life
dying - rules and regulations, who needs them open up the door
Somehow people must be free I hope the day comes soon
won't you please come to chicago show your face
From the bottom of the ocean to the mountains of the moon
won't you please come to chicago no one else can take your place
We can change the world rearrange the world
It's dying - if you believe in justice
dying - and if you believe in freedom
dying - let a man live his own life
dying - rules and regulations, who needs them open up the door

Almost cut my hair
It happened just the other day
It's gettin kinda long
I coulda said it wasn't in my way
But I didn't and I wonder why
I feel like letting my freak flag fly
Cause I feel like I owe it to someone

Must be because I had the flu' for Christmas
And I'm not feeling up to par
It increases my paranoia
Like looking at my mirror and seeing a scar
But I'm not giving in an inch to fear
Cause I missed myself this year
I feel like I owe it to someone

When I finally get myself together
I'm going to get down in that sunny southern weather
And I find a place inside to laugh
Separate the wheat from the chaff
I feel like I owe it to someone

Ohio
lyrics by Neil Young

--------

Tin soldiers and Nixon coming,
We're finally on our own.
This summer I hear the drumming,
Four dead in Ohio.

Gotta get down to it
Soldiers are gunning us down
Should have been done long ago.
What if you knew her
And found her dead on the ground
How can you run when you know?

Gotta get down to it
Soldiers are gunning us down
Should have been done long ago.
What if you knew her
And found her dead on the ground
How can you run when you know?

Tin soldiers and Nixon coming,
We're finally on our own.
This summer I hear the drumming,
Four dead in Ohio.

that was a pretty crazy incident

They'd be pelted with rubber bullets now. Which reminds me of the poor girl from Boston who lost her life due to the misuse of rubber bullets by Boston Police during a RedSox riot.

My mom was on the campus. She wasn't a student there but at another university in the Erie area of PA. She had been sent to Kent State for the week for a science conference. She has told me many times about being very scared by the chaos around her.

American conservatives have been treating non-conservatives like shit for a very long time. But that seems to be the way America wants it (one can conclude by looking at the voting record). Better to kill the odd innocent here and there than to appear weak, so the logic seems to go.