May 4, 1970 -- Four Dead in Ohio

[GeezerSteve]

May 4, 1970 really changed the town. Kent State enrollment dove by 30% in the years after the shootings. Last time I was there (1980), Kent was a nice town, fun college party scene and some lovely parts of town. When I was a kid, Dutch elm disease killed the elms lining some of the main streets. I enjoyed my years at Kent State and growing up nearby, although I have little interest in going back notwithstanding that I still have friends there.

[snowaddict91]

I enjoyed my years at Kent State and growing up nearby, although I have little interest in going back notwithstanding that I still have friends there.

I feel the same way about NE Ohio. Decent enough place to grow up. I actually think about moving back once in a while, but every time I visit I realize I can't do it. I always tell people it's a good place to be from.

[brutah]

If Nixon thought that, it didn't work. Indeed, it backfired. After the Kent State shootings, campus protests increased.

In hindsight, I'd argue the opposite. Protests may have increased but they didn't seem to accomplish anything. the Vietnam war continued for another 5 years. Nixon was re-elected in the biggest landslide election in 72. What exactly did those college protests accomplish? Did they stop the draft?

This generation (the college kids of 60s and 70s) I would argue is the most responsible for the loss of civil liberties in the USA and preventing universal health care in this country. I would argue that shooting those college kids resulted in the pacification of your generation just maybe not under the timeline you thought it would happen....

[skaredshtles]

I always tell people it's a good place to be from.

That's exactly what I tell people - I'm from Michigan. Nice place to visit, wouldn't want to live there.

[Benny Profane]

In hindsight, I'd argue the opposite. Protests may have increased but they didn't seem to accomplish anything. the Vietnam war continued for another 5 years. Nixon was re-elected in the biggest landslide election in 72. What exactly did those college protests accomplish? Did they stop the draft?

This generation (the college kids of 60s and 70s) I would argue is the most responsible for the loss of civil liberties in the USA and preventing universal health care in this country. I would argue that shooting those college kids resulted in the pacification of your generation just maybe not under the timeline you thought it would happen....

Daddy issues?

[brutah]

Daddy issues?

Is it hard for you and other boomers to come to terms with the failures of your generation?

I am interested in how a sitting president could actually more or less order the killing of college students and then win an election two years later. That is pretty baffling to me

[Tri-Ungulate]

4 white college kids killed. I wonder how many unarmed poor black kids and men were killed by police that month and never made the news.

Excellent article by Jill Lepore about exactly that.

In hindsight, I'd argue the opposite. Protests may have increased but they didn't seem to accomplish anything. the Vietnam war continued for another 5 years. Nixon was re-elected in the biggest landslide election in 72. What exactly did those college protests accomplish? Did they stop the draft?

This generation (the college kids of 60s and 70s) I would argue is the most responsible for the loss of civil liberties in the USA and preventing universal health care in this country. I would argue that shooting those college kids resulted in the pacification of your generation just maybe not under the timeline you thought it would happen....

The article I cited about also addresses this - how the backlash against college protests (and Nixon and the Repugnican's co-opting of this energy) set the stage for the culture wars we're still embroiled in today.

[old goat]

Sure there was a backlash against the protesters. Just like there was backlash against the civil rights movement, and backlash against Obama. Does that mean people should not protest immoral government policies--for fear of backlash?

One can argue about the role of the antiwar movement in leading to the US withdrawal (3 years later; the war continued without US troops for 2 years after that); more important was the fact that the US was unable to win the war and the continuing deaths of US soldiers was increasingly seen as in vain by the American public. Of course then and now the protest movement was blamed for the US being unable to win; that is reminiscent of Hitler blaming the Jews for losting WWI for Germany. Those in power will always find a scapegoat when things are going badly, rather than accepting responsibility.

As far as the loss of civil liberties, if in fact that has occurred as a result of the Vietnam War protests, if you are afraid to protest for fear of losing your civil liberties you've already lost them. In any case, it's hard to blame the protests for the Patriot Act.

One could argue that the antiwar movement was responsible for the divisions in today's society; I would argue that the division was a deliberate creation of the Republican party, beginning with Nixon, which, faced with the fact that its corporate friendly policies were increasingly out of step with the majority of Americans, chose to use social issues to drive a wedge through that majority. The war on (black) crime, war on (black) drugs, pro gun and anti abortion movements were not organic, grassroots movements, but the deliberate creation of the leadership and theorists of the Republican Party.

In any case, the anti war movement was 20% moral opposition to the war and 80% opposition to getting killed fighting it. And that seems to me to be an excellent reason to protest.

[galibier_numero_un]

Sure there was a backlash against the protesters. Just like there was backlash against the civil rights movement, and backlash against Obama. Does that mean people should not protest immoral government policies--for fear of backlash?

One can argue about the role of the antiwar movement in leading to the US withdrawal (3 years later; the war continued without US troops for 2 years after that); more important was the fact that the US was unable to win the war and the continuing deaths of US soldiers was increasingly seen as in vain by the American public. Of course then and now the protest movement was blamed for the US being unable to win; that is reminiscent of Hitler blaming the Jews for losting WWI for Germany. Those in power will always find a scapegoat when things are going badly, rather than accepting responsibility.

As far as the loss of civil liberties, if in fact that has occurred as a result of the Vietnam War protests, if you are afraid to protest for fear of losing your civil liberties you've already lost them. In any case, it's hard to blame the protests for the Patriot Act.

One could argue that the antiwar movement was responsible for the divisions in today's society; I would argue that the division was a deliberate creation of the Republican party, beginning with Nixon, which, faced with the fact that its corporate friendly policies were increasingly out of step with the majority of Americans, chose to use social issues to drive a wedge through that majority. The war on (black) crime, war on (black) drugs, pro gun and anti abortion movements were not organic, grassroots movements, but the deliberate creation of the leadership and theorists of the Republican Party.

In any case, the anti war movement was 20% moral opposition to the war and 80% opposition to getting killed fighting it. And that seems to me to be an excellent reason to protest.

I'm with Goat on this one.

We boomers take a lot of crap, and I get it. It sucks that the American Dream is dead/dying.

Just remember that the 60s were when the civil rights movement took hold, as well as the woman's movement, and Medicare.

Any move toward democratization will be met with a serious response from the power brokers, and membership in this elite club isn't generation-specific.

Pitting generations/groups against each other is a tried and true divide and conquer misdirection play.

About 13:00 in if you don't have time:
https://youtu.be/hZnuc-Fv_Tc

... Thom

[GeezerSteve]

+2

FTR, Nixon won in 1968 because he promised to gradually get out of Vietnam. Nam was LBJ's war, and HHH was LBJ's veep. Once in office, Nixon saw the value of keeping the war going, thus enabling him to drive a wedge between anti-war proponents from his "patriotic" supporters. It was a part of Nixon's strategy of division, ancillary to Nixon's Southern Strategy implemented in the wake of the Civil Rights Acts and Voting Rights Acts championed by LBJ. Add to that Nixon's "tough on crime" shtick. And, yeah, the pro-US in Nam vs. anti-war tribal division persist in today's politics.

Recall that the first big celebrity to publicly oppose U.S. involvement in Vietnam was Muhammad Ali, who said:

I got nothing against no Viet Cong. No Vietnamese ever called me a nigger. * * * Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go 10,000 miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on brown people in Vietnam while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs and denied simple human rights?

When I was a kid, Democrats called him Muhammad Ali and Republicans called him Cassius Clay.

[Benny Profane]

And he called himself The Greatest

[XXX-er]

So was Korea a war or was it just a police action ?

[riser4]

So was Korea a war or was it just a police action ?

Oh noes you d'in't!!!

[Tri-Ungulate]

Sure there was a backlash against the protesters. Just like there was backlash against the civil rights movement, and backlash against Obama. Does that mean people should not protest immoral government policies--for fear of backlash?

Um... that wasn't my conclusion. I'm gonna guess Lepore doesn't feel that way either. Can't speak for brutah, you'll have to ask him. My point is that Repugnicans have been exploiting anti-intellectual antipathy forever, since even before late-60s protests, and this is one of their main methods of staying in power. Which is what everyone else in this thread also seems to be saying.

[Ted Striker]

This happened exactly one week before I was born. I turn 50 on Monday.

Weird thread to say it in, but happy b'day!

[iceman]

Um... that wasn't my conclusion. I'm gonna guess Lepore doesn't feel that way either. Can't speak for brutah, you'll have to ask him. My point is that Repugnicans have been exploiting anti-intellectual antipathy forever, since even before late-60s protests, and this is one of their main methods of staying in power. Which is what everyone else in this thread also seems to be saying.

That brand of politics under different party labels goes back a lot further than that, back to the KNow-Nothing Party and even further back to that to Andrew Jackson and beyond. It's a constant in American politics. The dumbfucks are always with us.

[Buster Highmen]

The dumbfucks are always with us.

True, but now they have html to feed and multiply their delusions.

I guess it's quaint and all and certainly variety is the sign of a healthy ecology.

I guess I'll have to take responsibility for being in awe of the span of delusion to definition, the breadth of the freakshow, the depth of denial and the adherence to lies ages old.

You'd think they'd be a little happier and not so stewed in their cold and bitter hostility. A reignforest of undocumented feces.

Let's go and have some fun, like ski and get high and stuff.

[brutah]

Excellent article by Jill Lepore about exactly that.


The article I cited about also addresses this - how the backlash against college protests (and Nixon and the Repugnican's co-opting of this energy) set the stage for the culture wars we're still embroiled in today.

Thanks for sharing that article about the Jackson State and Kent State protests. I think that answered my question for how these protests set the stage for today's political environment. I'm not saying that people should not protest for fear of backlash, I was genuinely interested in what resulted from these protests, which to me seems like a restriction of civil liberties and a pacification of a generation. But maybe that was a little harsh of me to jump to pacification or maybe it strikes a cord with you all for a reason.

Just seems like the generation of hippies and civil protest vanished pretty quickly in the 70s and I've always wondered what happened to those voices that stood up.

I'm not trying to blame boomers, but I am interested in how we've ended up where we are today in American politics. And it seems like that was the point of the New Yorker article, it traces these protests to allowing Republicans to pit working-class americans against these protesters. Which republicans continue to exploit.

I'm also a little ashamed to admit this but I had no idea about the Jackson State protests until reading the New Yorker article, which I think says a lot about this country's history and how we've written our history books.

[brutah]

+2

FTR, Nixon won in 1968 because he promised to gradually get out of Vietnam.

And in 1972, he won the biggest landslide election in history after keeping the US in 'nam and shooting a bunch of college kids?! I think that election really pushed democrats to the right.

I'm with Goat on this one.

We boomers take a lot of crap, and I get it. It sucks that the American Dream is dead/dying.

Just remember that the 60s were when the civil rights movement took hold, as well as the woman's movement, and Medicare.

Any move toward democratization will be met with a serious response from the power brokers, and membership in this elite club isn't generation-specific.

Pitting generations/groups against each other is a tried and true divide and conquer misdirection play.

About 13:00 in if you don't have time:
https://youtu.be/hZnuc-Fv_Tc

... Thom

Thanks for sharing that video Thom. I look forward to watching it, I enjoy listening to Chomsky and his writings. One of the greatest minds of your generation no doubt.

[iceman]

And in 1972, he won the biggest landslide election in history after keeping the US in 'nam and shooting a bunch of college kids?! I think that election really pushed democrats to the right.

Not everywhere. I grew up in Massachusetts. My Dad had this bumper sticker on his car:

[I Skied Bandini Mountain]

"Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72" by HST is a very good look at the 1972 election machine (and the horrifying lead up '68-'72) and well worth a read/reread.

[iceman]

Mailer's "Miami And the Siege of Chicago" about the '68 conventions is another very good read. He really shows the fracture lines and disconnects. A short book and well worth reading imo.

[GeezerSteve]

And in 1972, he won the biggest landslide election in history after keeping the US in 'nam and shooting a bunch of college kids?! I think that election really pushed democrats to the right.

Nope, actually the opposite happened. The entire country had moved to the left, and NIxon exploited that. Nixon's landslide was the culmination of his Southern Strategy. For decades, states in the south and southeast voted Democrat because the GOP was the party of Lincoln, who freed the slaves. LBJ acknowledged that pushing through civil rights legislation would result in Dems losing The South. (LBJ predicted it would be "for a generation." He undershot by quite a bit.) As I stated above, Nixon weaved into his Southern Strategy other wedge issues, e.g., tough on crime, anti-war vs. "patriots" and the "Silent Majority" strategy. His landslide victory was the result of older white voters reacting to civil rights legislation and other progressive developments.

Re the nation moving to the left, remember that Nixon signed legislation creating the EPA, the Wilderness Act, the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act. Nixon negotiated nuclear arms deals and opened up relations with China. Nixon even proposed the notion of a guaranteed basic income.