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Michael Moore to Broadcast Kent State Truth Tribunal for 1970 Campus Shootings of War Protesters
Kent State Tribunal is First American Truth-seeking Initiative to Livecast on the Internet
KENT, Ohio - April 23 - On May 1-4, 2010 filmmaker Michael Moore will livecast the hearings of the Kent State Truth Tribunal, streaming in real time the accounts of participants, witnesses and family members of the 1970 Kent State shootings that left four students dead and nine injured. The livecast is the first real-time broadcast of a truth-seeking initiative of this kind and will air on www.MichaelMoore.com from 10am-7pm daily eastern.
The Kent State Truth Tribunal was convened by family members of students killed at Kent State in order to record and honor the stories of those directly affected by the shootings. The Ohio National Guard who opened fire on the protesters has never publicized the findings of its investigation of command responsibility for the shootings. And there has never been a public inquiry to hear, record and preserve the stories of those directly impacted by what happened on May 4th, 1979 at Kent State.
“It is an honor to work with the families of the victims and the participants in the May 4, 1970 protest at Kent State University to bring you their stories, beamed in from the Kent State Truth Tribunal through my website. We have never been told the whole truth about these killings and we deserve to hear that truth,” said Mr. Moore.
The Truth Tribunal will generate a comprehensive historical record of the Kent State massacre. Interviews will be recorded by award-winning filmmaker Emily Kunstler and will be simultaneously livecast on the home page of www.MichaelMoore.com. The footage and mementos collected by the participants will then be archived and available for viewing by the public. The archive will be preserved as part of the permanent collection at the renowned Tamiment Library at New York University.
The tribunal will take place on four consecutive days, May 1, 2, 3 & 4, 2010, marking the 40th anniversary of the events of 1970, and held at Franklin Square Deli Building, at the corner of Water & Main Streets, 110 S. Water Street, in downtown Kent, Ohio. Organizers are asking for all original participants and witnesses of the 1970 Kent State shootings to pre-register at www.TruthTribunal.org
On May 4, 1970 the Ohio National Guard opened fire on unarmed students protesting America’s bombing of Cambodia during the Vietnam War. In a day that changed America, four students were killed and nine were wounded as they protested against the war. The incident triggered national outrage in a country already divided. In response to the Kent State shootings, more than four million students rose up in dissent across 900 campuses, generating the only nationwide student protest in U.S. history. Fearing civil unrest, President Nixon was taken to Camp David for his protection. No one has been held criminally responsible for the deaths and injuries that resulted from the shootings.
10 Comments so far
Show AllFor the best eye witness accounts of the Kent State shootings by various Kent students and national guardsmen who shot students, check out the Emmy Award winning documentary, "Kent State, The Day the War Cam Home." It was just released on DVD for the upcoming 40th anniversary. In its review of the program, The Hollywood Reporter stated, "This extraordinary hour long doc is so good, so well constructed, that it can't help but leave viewers feeling as if they themselves were on the bloody scene of the Kent State carnage..." for more go to kentstatedvd.com
I remember well the comments that were published after the tragedy. The right wing crazies (today's Republican conservatives) were all shouting how the dead kids were dirty little perverts, how they deserved to die, how patriotic parents produced children for the "good" purpose of killing geeks in Viet Nam and dying for their exceptional country. It went on and on. The gross sociopath who was the governor at that time also had his say about the "dirty" kids. Of course the person who wound the country into a tightly coiled spring ready to snap at any moment gets whisked off to Camp David. Typical elite justice!
Today, Obamabots would call war protestors "unpatriotic."
Oh wait, the M$M doesn't tell the truth about the war--they're not paying attention. It was *war* under Bush, but somehow Obama has sanitized the meaning of war.
Today on The Huffington Post it was stated the wars/occupations are "democracy building" but expensive so we should just worry about "democracy building" here at home.
Nothing was mentioned about the deeds of Obama wars/occupations being every bit as ugly and evil as Bush--the fact is, in his first year, Obama has "out-droned" Bush.
I was not around during the Kent State shootings--though I admire the anti-war effort back then.
How I wish we had such a movement TODAY.
No draft no protesters. It's as simple as that. The draft, as bad as it was, was a great equalizer and even democratic in a certain back hand way. You had all the various and sundry elements of society (except woman), and this had a balancing effect on the super gun-ho macho types. Now we mostly have class war jobless mercenaries doing out sewer work (killing) who are paid peanuts (like in Cracker-Jacks) and are rewarded with a little trinket medal at the bottom of the box, while everyone else just keeps reaching for those MBA degrees and going to the mall.
The sellout of our industrial base to China began with Nixon when he went to play Ping-Pong with the Chinese. The rest is History with Ragon and Poppy Bush promoting the Cheap labor
in China to convince the inexperienced Slick Willie Clinton to give us Nafta.
tin soldiers and nixon.
we're still on our own.
Not all the students killed by the ohio state national guard were protesters.
not all the National Guard were murderers, but they were part of the machine.
The sociopathic elites who are behind all our wars showed their true colors when the Kent State shootings occurred. Any pretense of democracy was stripped away. Of course the media gate keepers of empire had then and have now, no intention of telling the truth.
The European money changers took this country back from its revolutionary founding at the meeting on Jekyll Island in 1913 which established the Federal Reserve without democratic consent.
I wish the makers of this film and Michael great success with this project. We must all continue the struggle for justice in every way we can find.
I was 18 years old, active in the anti-war movement in San Antonio. I will never forget the horror of that day. The fact that soldiers could gun down unarmed protesters is shameful, but it happened and justice has yet been served!
In this country our military has a long history of killing innocent civilians beginning with the American Indians. The fact that no one from the White House down in our government cares about this is a clear indication of what kind of country we are living in.
What's next? Incarcerating those who criticize our government's policies? Perhaps mass cremations on the line of Auschwitz and other nazi concentration camps? There are those who profess to be God loving christians who have always supported lynchings, shooting and incarceration of those of us who don't fit their idea of "decent, law abiding Americans!" What they obviously have failed to comprehend is that the good Lord will be holding them accountable for their inhumanity.