Tin soldiers and Nixon coming

[Danmel]

Forty years since the Kent State massacre.
Rest in Peace.

[Dappleganger]

1. Our son said they were studying Nixon in school yesterday...

and Kent State. I love his AP American History teacher, he made them all read Zinn. The teacher is constantly is telling the kids about how Congress and SCOTUS is eroding our rights away from the Constitution.

[Omaha Steve]

2. A very deadly day in US history

May 4

Haymarket massacre. A bomb is thrown as Chicago police start to break up a rally for strikers at the McCormick Harvesting Machine Co. A riot erupts, 11 police and strikers die, mostly from gunfire, and scores more are injured - 1886

And this: May 4, 1886 - A day after police killed four striking workers, protesters gathered at Haymarket Square in Chicago. As the peaceful event drew to a close, a bomb was thrown into the police line. One officer was killed and several were wounded. Police responded by firing into the crowd, killing one and wounding many. Eight anarchists were later framed for the bombing; four were hanged, one committed suicide and three were pardoned by Illinois Gov. John Peter Altgeld. The Haymarket affair was a seminal event in U.S. history, providing the pretext for many government officials to crack down on “radical” elements and ending the meteoric rise of the Knights of Labor, an organization that professed solidarity among all workers, regardless of race or ethnicity.


May 4, 1931 - Gun-toting vigilantes attacked striking miners in Harlan County, Kentucky. Coal miners were among those hardest hit by the Great Depression. Some families survived on a diet of dandelions and blackberries.

Labor history found here: http://www.unionist.com/today-in-labor-history & here: http://www.workdayminnesota.org/index.php?history_9_05_...

[zipplewrath]

3. I can remember

My olders sister was livid. It was a common condition for her, but that day it was particularly intense. She keep screaming, "They're killing us now. They're shooting us right on campus". Few choice words about Nixon too.

[Catshrink]

4. We got in so much trouble over that song!

We had the sheet music for "Four Dead in Ohio" sitting on the piano and my Dad saw it and read the lyrics. We was pro-Nixon, pro-war and was mighty pissed off at us. I was in about the 8th grade.

[Loki]

5. I was just 19 years old

like two of the victims. All we wanted was an end to that ugly war and our government shot us. I was called a dirty, stinking hippie commie and those people are still at it today, they call themselves "teabaggers" they were ugly and racist then, and they are ugly and racist now. I still think about those who died because one of them shared my last name.......William Schroeder, he was only 19. May they rest in peace.

[karynnj]

7. I was 19, almost 20 and at IU in neighboring Indiana

Throughout that spring, there had been rallies in a giant meadow in the center of campus. But, we all felt the safety of being inside the cocoon of our beautiful campus. That National Guard could be called onto a campus and shot people protesting - or simply walking to classes was stunning and frightening and a huge shock. At IU the university itself organized a candle light march because many students were afraid to leave their dorms.

In retrospect, trying to see things from a more removed perspective, it seems so much of the anger that you speak of directed towards the students was because the Nixon administration was able to demonize us. Looking back, how did we go from the generation that was designated the "man of the year" by Time - as the creative, motivated, well educated hope and future of the country to all of us being "stinking hippie commies" in their eyes? Could it be that same push to learn science and the challenge we were given to think and question things led us to questioning our government? This was a breath of intellectual creativity and energy for kids coming out of the rigid 1950s where the right answer was the one you memorized. That we then questioned the government, may have made many previously proud of us wondered what had happened to their bright, wonderful kids.

There seemed to be confusion on both sides. Unlike later generations, we, the first post WWII generation, had pre- college (or at least pre-high school) had believed in all the American mythology that we were always a force for good in the world. I felt and sensed in others I knew a real sense of betrayal in seeing what we were doing in Vietnam. There was also a huge amount of idealism and optimism that it didn't have to be that way and that we could change it. Where now the internet provides places where the left and the right respectively are validated, then I think our perceived cohesion and our validation came from our music. We saw ourselves as caring, idealistic, moral and non-violent.

For others, who still had the 1950s belief in the good of our country, the mass protests were not seen as people, who deeply identified with the American values that we were taught, trying to right a government gone wrong, but almost as if we had turned into a strange alien force with long hair and values they didn't understand. I was fortunate to have parents able to see that my siblings and I were still the people we had always been and realized that the same was the case with our peers.

The deep chasm, that still likely impacts the country, might have been caused by the people who given the choice of accepting hard truths rather than comforting myths about the country or demonizing the people telling the truth (often stridently), choose to cling to their myths. I think you are right that the current divide between us and the tea party might have roots in those times.

[Danmel]

6. I was 10

But even then fully engaged. I remember it distinctly. Hard to believe it was that long ago. Now I have a child in college . Hope I can believe it wouldn't happen again.

[FailureToCommunicate]

8. DU Link to another Kent State discussion here...

link:

<http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=8263889&mesg_id=8263889>