Four Dead in Ohio

Surely, we all thought, this would make everybody wake up and pay attention: four unarmed, unthreatening students shot dead in cold blood by National Guardsmen.

Who were, by the way, never prosecuted. Nor the officers who gave the orders, or the college president who thought armed soldiers was the appropriate response to non-violent protests.

The biggest lesson of Kent State turned out to be that in the name of preserving order, uniformed gun-toters can murder anyone they goddamn well please.

Eric Loomis at Lawyers, Guns and Money:

Today marks the 44th anniversary of the National Guard murders of 4 students at Kent State University in Ohio who were protesting Nixon’s invasion of Cambodia. Horrible events spawn new cultural phenomena. In this case, Devo. Jerry Casale was among the protestors that day and explains its impact upon him and his philosophy of the world:

VR: Going back to your early days. You were present at the Kent State shootings in 1970. How did that day affect you?
JC: Whatever I would say, would probably not all touch upon the significance or gravity of the situation at this point of time? It may sound trite or glib. All I can tell you is that it completely and utterly changed my life. I was white hippie boy and than I saw exit wounds from M1 rifles out of the backs of two people I knew. Two of the four people who were killed, Jeffrey Miller and Allison Krause, were my friends. We were all running our asses off from these motherf&*$#ers. It was total utter bullshit. Live ammunition and gasmasks – none of us knew, none of us could have imagined. They shot into a crowd that was running. I sopped being a hippie and I started to develop the idea of devolution. I got real, real pissed off.