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.

42 Years Ago

You protest an unjust war, you watch your unarmed friends shot down, and you go home to hear your parents say: "If you were there, you deserved to be shot."

Proof of Cold-Blooded Massacre, 40 Years Too Late

It's what we always suspected, but could never prove. You have to wonder how much of the political hatred that grew out of May 4, 1970, could have been avoided if we'd had this proof then. Or maybe it would have made it worse.

Susie Madrak at Crooks and Liars:

I'm trying to think if I can remember a time we could accept the official version of anything without question. Now we can add another to the list of revised histories with this explosive story:

The Ohio National Guardsmen who fired on students and antiwar protesters at Kent State University on May 4, 1970 were given an order to prepare to shoot, according to a new analysis of a 40-year-old audio tape of the event.

"Guard!" says a male voice on the recording, which two forensic audio experts enhanced and evaluated at the request of The Plain Dealer. Several seconds pass. Then, "All right, prepare to fire!"

"Get down!" someone shouts urgently, presumably in the crowd. Finally, "Guard! . . . " followed two seconds later by a long, booming volley of gunshots. The entire spoken sequence lasts 17 seconds.

The previously undetected command could begin to explain the central mystery of the Kent State tragedy - why 28 Guardsmen pivoted in unison atop Blanket Hill, raised their rifles and pistols and fired 67 times, killing four students and wounding nine others in an act that galvanized sentiment against the Vietnam War.

The order indicates that the gunshots were not spontaneous, or in response to sniper fire, as some have suggested over the years.

"I think this is a major development," said Alan Canfora, one of the wounded, who located a copy of the tape in a library archive in 2007 and has urged that it be professionally reviewed. "There's been a grave injustice for 40 years because we lacked sufficient evidence to prove what we've known all along - that the Ohio National Guard was commanded to kill at Kent State on May 4, 1970."

Click here for the video and audio clip.