Today, May 4, marks the 37th anniversary of the Kent State massacre. On this date in 1970, four Kent State University students were killed, and nine were wounded, when members of the Ohio National Guard opened fire on a group of kids who were protesting the U.S. invasion of Cambodia. Four dead in O-hi-o.
Today we are fighting a similarly unpopular war. We haven't seen Iraq war protesters gunned down like those at Kent State. (Knock on wood.) But maybe that's because the National Guard is so busy in Iraq, following George W. Bush's orders to "liberate" (read: "destroy") that country, and killing and maiming innocent Iraqi men, women, and children in the process. Certainly the Bush administration is no less arrogant and agenda-driven than the Nixon administration.
Why does this kind of history have to repeat itself?
Why do we keep putting greedy crooks and liars into the highest positions of power in this country?
Will peace, sanity, and human rights ever prevail for the long term?
Will we ever have a world in which those in charge value mankind more than money, people more than power, reason more than revenge, and kindness more than killing?
Thank you for this post. I was 18 years old on that day and was attending university classes.
ReplyDeleteThe massacre of young persons who advocated an end to 'war culture' leaves a bad taste in my mouth to this day.
Again, thank you for remember May 4th.
leftdog
You stated it perfectly - we have to turn the corner and it's not by saying "god bless" or "have a blessed day" or acting out the trappings of organized religion. We have to really mean it and not use it for self aggrandizement. We need to take the money out of the campaign process by going back to publicly funded elections and leveling the playing field.
ReplyDeleteBasically we need to shut the oil companies down - get our electric cars and start putting up windmills instead of blowing the tops off mountains for the coal.
The phrase "conflict of interest" has to be reintroduced to our politicians and we need to hold them accountable. The press has a real job to do here. The SEC should step in and break up the media conglomerates - "conflict of interest" and free our reporters back up to doing hard core investigative journalism and reopen bureaus nation wide.
The parents of those slain in Iraq should be in front of Exxon/Mobil protesting not their puppet White House.