THE KENT STATE MASSACRE
It is May 4, 1970 - minutes after the Ohio National Guard opened fire on a peaceful antiwar protest at Kent State University. A horrified Mary Ann Vecchio crouches over the body of Jeffrey Miller.
That’s me on the right with a white arm band. I am watching a freaked-out fellow art student jumping in the blood of Jeffrey Miller.
Four were killed and nine wounded, protesting against the invasion of Cambodia. Days later came massacres at Augusta GA and Jackson State MS.
The shootings at Kent were choreographed at the highest levels of government. Inflammatory comments by President Nixon and Governor Rhodes of Ohio provided a framework for the shootings. Actions reeking of the work of agent provocateurs preceded the murders. In the May 4 protest was an armed FBI agent - photographed holding a gun.
For 55 years, there has been a diligent cover up of the events by politicians of both capitalist parties. KSU has attempted to airbrush the mass anti-war movement of thousands of students out of existence.
Official May 4 commemorations were placed in the hands of Stephanie Danes Smith, a former top official of the CIA - testimony to the moral bankruptcy of the KSU admin. Former “radicals” of SDS, having carved out careers as “experts” and “survivors,” have embraced Smith - a sad testimony to failed ultra-left/liberal politics.
Now, Trump officials are again making inflammatory statements and threatening students with the National Guard. Like Nixon, they believe that deporting, jailing or killing some students will put an end to the anti-war protests. They are doomed to failure.
Those of us who went through the experience of building the Vietnam antiwar movement learned this: when millions of people join in direct action in the streets, we have enormous power.
The most important way to prevent state violence is to build a mass, independent defense of civil liberties.
Together with the Vietnamese people, we defeated the war makers in Southeast Asia.
We can and must do it again.
Stop the assaults on democratic rights!
End the genocide in Gaza!
War machine off campus!
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#KentState #students #demonstration #protest #freespeech #massacre #vietnam #cambodia #antiwar #solidarity
#May4 #Alewitz #RedSquare
