Remembering Kent State Shooting Victims
Kent, Ohio - The shooting deaths 38 years ago of four Kent State University students by the Ohio National Guard need to be seen as a gift, ‘a lesson’ to the entire United States, a former United Nations weapons inspector said yesterday.
But if the May 4 commemoration continues to have low attendance (the event was attended by about 400 people) and Americans refuse to read and understand their U.S. Constitution, then those lost lives will have been for nothing, keynote speaker Scott Ritter said.
The retired Marine is a former U.N. weapons inspector in Iraq and a critic of the U.S.-led war in Iraq. At one point in his career in the 1990s, he sounded alarms about possible hidden Iraqi weapons. He later said the U.S. government failed to make a case for going to war in Iraq.
Ritter, 46, said in his half-hour talk that he wanted to know why more people didn’t turn out on Sunday afternoon.
“While I applaud those who are here today, I have to ask, why isn’t this hillside covered with the citizens of this country?” Ritter asked. “Where are the students of Kent State? Where are the citizens of this community? Where are the citizens of Ohio? Where is the media?”
The program in which Ritter and others spoke started at noon on the campus commons, near the university’s memorial and markers that show where four students were killed and nine wounded on May 4, 1970, as they protested the Vietnam War and presence of the National Guard on campus. William Schroeder, a native of Lorain, was among those killed.
While the event is based on the shootings 38 years ago, many of the attendees also were protesting the ongoing war in Iraq.
Ritter said whatever their feelings about the Iraq war, people should never denigrate the service provided by the Americans fighting there because they are willing to die for us.
“These are men and women who have taken an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic,” he said.
“Have we done everything we can to ensure the sacrifice that they are prepared to make is in a cause worthy of the sacrifice?” Ritter said. “And I will tell you, no, we have not.”
The rights of American freedom of speech and assembly were trampled ‘on this very spot,’ shortly after students buried a copy of the U.S. Constitution near where the memorial stands to protest their government’s actions, Ritter said.
Those protesters were defending the Constitution, he said.
U.S. citizens need to read their Constitution, he said. “You cannot defend that which you do not understand.”
The students who were killed on May 4 gave the nation the gift of their lives, he said.
“What are we doing to honor this gift, if we cannot understand that their sacrifice screams out for a responsible citizenry, then we have shamed them, shamed them,” Ritter said. “The gift that those who died on May 4, 1970, gave us, was the gift of self-introspection.”
Ritter said most Americans no longer function as citizens.
“The problem is not the president. The problem is not the Congress. The problem is not the judiciary,” he said. “The problem is we, the people of the United States of America. We aren’t doing our job, therefore they aren’t doing their job.”
For next year’s 39th commemoration, the hills and walls around the campus commons must be filled with people and the entire nation involved, Ritter said.
“Because otherwise, this event has no purpose other than to commemorate the deaths of four Americans,” he said. “This isn’t about the deaths of four Americans. This is about the death of a nation.”
Katherine Pershey, 27, a Kent State graduate who is now pastor of a church in California, returned to the campus for the May 4 events with her husband, Ben, and their 3-month-old daughter, Juliette.
Pershey said she thought Ritter made a good point about the responsibility of U.S. citizens.
“I appreciate hearing that perspective,” she said.
Rebecca Vujanov, 51, said she tries to make it to every May 4 commemoration.
She said Ritter didn’t mince words.
“He cut right to the chase,” she said. “I’m just saddened as a community member that more community members weren’t here.”
The weekend’s events included a silent candlelight march on Saturday and a silent candlelight vigil in the Prentice Hall parking lot. Speakers at Sunday’s program included Emily Kunstler, daughter of Bill Kunstler, a lawyer who represented the families of the May 4 victims, and Dean Kahler and Joe Lewis, former students who were shot and wounded.
© 2008 The Akron Beacon Journal
Scott has it right.
The ‘Sheepies’ can’t be bothered to think or do.
When it happens again, people will remember. Too bad it takes a blood sacrifice.
Scott Ritter: “whatever the feelings about the Iraq war, people should never denigrate the service provided by the Americans fighting there because they are willing to die for us”. Yes I agree that the soldiers are brave and patriotic and I would say: LOVE THE WARRIORS,BUT HATE THE WAR,but having said that,it is a shame that their bravery and patiotism is being used for nefarious reasons and not to protect the average American.
The Kent State Massacre is almost certain to be repeated.
Especially when it is revealed by NON-mainstream media that the mainstream Media is complicit in the violation of the very Constitution that grants the MSM a ‘right’ to free speech and freedom of the press.
The MSM of the 21st century is silent on the very valid questions that need to be raised about what really happened on September 11. Questions about why evidence of a crime was removed and destroyed before it could be forensically examined. Questions about why the FBI has refused to release the very tapes that would prove the official story that a Boeing 757 hit the Pentagon.
The MSM should be screaming their heads off over the utter falsehood of WMD’s in Iraq. Should be calling for politician’s heads on plates over the criminal misappropriation of Iraqi reconstruction funds, not to mention that the so-called reconstruction has been abandoned.
The MSM should be hot on the heels of Donald Rumsfeld for using Corporate mercenaries (Blackwater, Aegis Group, Erinyes Security) in Iraq.
The MSM should be howling with outrage over the 8 MILLION DOLLARS Dick Cheney has made in stock dividends on Halliburton since the start of the Iraqi occupation.
Instead….
Silence.
The MSM in America is nothing more than the Bushco version of ‘Pravda’.
Isn’t “love the warriors, hate the war kind of patronizing, in the same way fundamentalist chrstians tell gay people taht they “love the sinner hate the sin”? Alternatviely, doesn’t it rob the solders of moral responsibility of their actions?
The Iraqi and Afghanistan invasions and occupations are illegal. All orders that follow are illegal. All members of the military engaged in Iraq and Afghanistan are following illegal orders in violation of the constitution. They are all war criminals. But, not to worry. Their non-existent “god” will sort it all out in the end.
The public is still waiting for our corporate-media to confirm for them that this was open warefare on these anti-war students and not something accidental.
If I recall correctly, it pretty much ended protests at colleges as parents sought to keep their children safe by
reigning them in — ?????
‘The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.’ -Kaiser Soze in ‘The Usual Suspects’.
Why will the vast majority of the US population not acknowledge that they have been living under an increasingly dictatorial fascist government since the CIA assassination of JFK?
Once upon a time, we could have had change, then came 1968 . . .
Tin Soldiers and Nixon’s coming
We’re finally on our own
This summer I hear the drummin’
Four Dead in Ohio
I remember the people, even my parents who critized the protesters, full of outrage when this happened. This changed them, and made them anti-war.
If this were repeated (and it, no doubt, will) will the people be outraged again? Or will they just change the channel so they can continue their mind buzz into mental oblivion?
Ritter is right. Most people in this country are not practicing citizenry.
Gonna get down to it soldiers are cutting us down, should have been down a long time ago, gonna get down to it ….someday.
Where has America gone? No, really. Where has it gone?
Greatbear215, America has gone shopping and to the movies and onto their video games. Oh, and also to their churches which tell them to obey the President… Very few have a clue what it is to be a citizen or practice democracy.
I was a student at ohio state when this happened. Shortly after this we had trrops on our champus also using live amunition. Marshall was declared for 4 days in the university area. I had armed soldiers on the corner outside my house. I had to have proof of residence to leave and return even if I was just walking to the corner store.
I went to the grocery and when I returned with my arms full of two bags they asked for my id. I put the bags down and showed them the id. I was allowed back into my house. One of the soldiers asked for some food, maybe a sandwich. I brought out a can of dog food with a spoon and went back in the house.
There was a curfew from 6 pm to 6 am. There were notices posted on utility poles and store fronts describing marshall law indicating that the soldiers had orders to shoot if these rules were broken. That is what happens in amerika if you protest too much to suite the powers that be.
I joined SDS after that and the protests continued.
REASONS WHY KENT STATE STUDENTS WEREN’T THERE.
1) They didn’t hear about it. Typically KSU students get email messages about big events and routinely get a weekly BS message from KSU President Lester Lefton rambling on about whatever crap is on his mind. There were no flyers around town about it. Everyone knows the event happens every year, so it is easy to blow off. But NOTHING about Ritter being the keynote speaker was around downtown. Instead, there was some advertising for a free concert at the Kent Stage that evening, but that flyer didn’t mention Ritter or where he was going to speak.
2) Instructors are not passing on the information to the students or don’t know about the event themselves.
3) Students at KSU typically carry 5-6 courses to be ‘full-time’ and a part-time job to fend off debt. Zero free time that doesn’t come at the expense of coursework.
4) Most of them get their news from the corporate media, just like everyone else. The REC center gym has racks of TVs with the worst crap you can imagine for students to watch while they are on the treadmills, so to speak.
Here is the web site for the campus group that gets funding from the Undergraduate Student Senate to pay for the events–the May 4 Task Force. How much money did they get for advertising? And where did it go? My guess is they didn’t have much money to spend on advertising?
http://dept.kent.edu/May4/
I can remember hearing the news of that massacre as clearly as if it were yesterday. It says much about this nation that the vivid events, the ones that stand out are that day, so long ago now and the deaths of JFK, MLK and Bobby Kennedy.
The events of Kent State were the tragic result of scared children with weapons, and I will believe that until the day I die. Yet the use of such troops against a civilian population signalled, to me and many others, the true death of our image of this nation. No longer could one believe our government answered to the people of this nation, no longer could one smugly continue to believe in democracy or true freedom of expression. Unleashing the National Guard, poorly trained in crowd control, and with live ammunition against college kids was an act of such idiocy, of utter indifference to the laws of this land as to forever shatter my idyllicism.
I have engaged in many demonstrations, some far from peaceful, some outright riots as the several anti war protests in San Francisco, with overturned police cars and burned buses might attest. I have been two steps in front of charging TAC squad cops with long clubs. Yet that was a completely different scenario that those children faced at Kent State, unleashing military with no regard to the Posse Comitatus statutes.
Why our nation is asleep is a question I cannot answer. I might conjecture that we are slaves to credit and afraid of losing our employment. I might note that we have been bought off with cheap plastic crap from China and fear upsetting the applecart and losing our Ipods and Blackberries. But I simply think that things are going to have to get worse until we arise as a nation the way our founders arose to found this nation. Things will certainly continue to get worse and sooner or later we will have to deal with that.
I’m coming in late, so maybe someone already mentioned this, but students who had no part in the protest - who were minding their own business, going to class, or break, or whatever - were among those shot. How could kids just walking to class be mistaken for protesters? I understand the ugly incident regarding firing on the actual protest group - I didn’t say approve, mind you - but to fire on so many innocents? Isn’t this exactly what’s going on in Iraq, Palestine, and Afghanistan today? Maybe that’s why so many people have their blinkers tightly screwed to their heads. Maybe nobody wants to know - because then they might have to do something about it, and that would be messy.
According to the thinking of Brotoburger and AngstOfThepeople, both posters in other forums here on CD, I would surmise they would accuse the Kent State shooting victims of being illegally in the way of the National Guardsmen who were practicing a live fire drill…
the NG troops were given 2 orders prior to the shooting: both of those orders key a soldier up for imminent violence
1) “fix bayonets” this order is usually followed by ” charge ” ( a GOOD officer would say ‘follow me’ )
2)”lock and load” this order is only given on 2 occasions A)on the rifle range prior to target practice and B) as the soldiers leave the safety of their base and enter “Indian country” both of these facts make the NG CO guilty of manslaughter at the very least
I, too, remember where I was; flat on my ass in a hospital bed slowly bleeding to death
and lets not forget what happened several days later when 5 were killed at Jackson State, some of them IN their dorm rooms!!!!
I wasn’t there because I didn’t hear a dam thing about it. Until after Sunday?
Many may not know this, but Ritter was a Reagan Republican, though I do not know if he still is a Republican. He knows that it was lies that got us into the mess in Iraq. Thus, I thoroughly commend the man for standing up for our nation before any backing any political party.
Being the chief weapons inspector in the 1990’s, he was privy to the information of all those working on WMD’s whether it was nuclear, chemical, missile, etc. So he came to realize there were no weapons and saw the push for war as crazy.
He spoke in Columbus a few months back along with PDA advisory board member Jeff Cohen, found of F.A.I.R., and at a pre-event breakfast said that after meeting so many people on the left during his speaking tour, he has come to have a much different opinion of those on the Left and respects what they are trying to do to save and repair our nation.
In short, I like and respect the guy. He is smart and speaks his mind based on factual information.
By the way, four people where arrested in a Peace March after the event, one gal having her arm broken, though I do not know the details.
‘”…people should never denigrate the service provided by the Americans fighting there (Iraq) because they are willing to die for us.”‘… - Scott Ritter
Part of being a “good citizen” is to challenge those in the military on the wars they take part. ESPECIALLY, officers and the higher the rank, all the more so!
I look at the bomber pilots and crews and the mass murder and destruction that they do, with almost complete impunity in B-2 and high flying planes. They are career mercenaries that are willing to bomb any city be it in Viet Nam, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan or Iraq, and if ordered, they are going to bomb Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Venezuela, and as likely Cuba.
Yes, I will not only denigrate them war criminals, I would like to see them hung. And where were they on 9/11 and what have they ever said about it afterwards to the public? 9/11 is as transparently an inside job even for civilians to grasp, so where are the patriot officers of the US Armed Forces, especially the pilots who know absolutely the official story is utterly fallacious and smacks of High Treason, and still say nothing!
Respect has to be earned, and putting on the uniform of a member of the US Armed Forces, does not garner respect, especially of lifers and field-grade officers. The enlisted ranks have an youthful innocence, but in group think they are more like Lt. William Calley, than Sp4 Thompson who stopped him committing mass murder in My Lia, Viet Nam.
To support the troops, is tantamount to supporting the illegal wars of aggression, which constitutes a war crimes, even for a civilian.
I would make the point about unlawful orders, but I see that has been well done by Kent Shaw - thanks.
We all need each other, to get and keep out heads screwed on right, all us get frustrated, infuriated, and have ghost to purge from a brainwashed world.
On Kent State, I recall the words of one of my college instructors, “It broke the back of the student antiwar movement” and perhaps that was the purpose, a psyops (psychological warfare operation) and those Ohio National Guardsmen, I am sure suffered only so long in denial, until their conscious kicked-in. Were any of them there, to say how sorry they were?
BTW, it was a general who ordered the guardsmen on campus, and the Ohio Governor Rhodes stood trial three times and got off on hung juries I suppose. Attica, Wounded Knee, Kent State, Jackson State, and 3,000,000 people in Indochina. No, Scott I do not blame the people, but those holding office, the white house, congress and courts. The guardsmen are their to repress us, and kill us. Look at what happening in New Orleans, the troops came back and aimed their weapons at the victims in the streets, just like in Iraq and Afghanistan. ya, let’s blame the people, and not belittle those posed to kill us.
foreverhippie:
Muchos gracias for mentioning the Jackson State 5 KIA. Their deaths throughout the intervening years haven’t been given much relevance compared the Kent State killings.
BTW: Anyone recall what happened to Gary Bittner who had been in charge of KS campus security at that time?
Clemsy:
No, they won’t remember even when it happens again….and again…. and again….
The vast majority of (U.S.) Americans are in a fugue state; they’ve become infanticided aka learned helplessness!
Remember, most people have relied on mainstream media over the past 38 years. This is the news and the history that they know. I think the general public is starting to catch on to the fact that they’ve been drowning in right-wing/reactionary propaganda since the Reagan admin. America went brain dead in the 1980’s, and during this period, the “Reagan/Republican Revolution” happened. The media told people what to think, what to believe. My own perception is that people ARE waking up, perhaps momentarily numbed by the realization of just how far we have fallen, and how much danger we’re in, but waking up all the same.
Of course history repeats, and this is precisely why
it’s so important for people to learn history, studying the mistakes (and achievements) of the past. The people really do take a lot of abuse from government, but only as long as government can get away with it. Our greatest danger: Assuming a Democrat (i.e., “Republican Lite”)replaces Bush, people will assume that everything will be alright, they no longer need to be vigilant, and they sink right back into complacency (as happened during the Clinton admin.). Who knows, maybe Obama will be another FDR, but don’t count on it.
Life is an on-going power struggle between the few rich and powerful, and the rest of us. Periodically, our survival depends on putting restraints on those in power. When we do this, when we restrain corporate control and restore fair and decent social policies, living conditions improve for all. When people become complacent, power moves in for the kill, and the cycle is repeated.