America the Fucked: Kent State Re-revisted

The anniversary of the Kent State Massacre gives baby boomers pause to ponder the decision fifty years ago of a unit of the Ohio National Guard to turn and fire scores of .30 caliber rifle rounds into a loosely assembled group of university students armed with flowers.

To a fifteen going on sixteen year-old man-child struggling to understand America's incursion into SE Asia at the expenses of those lives just slightly more lived than his own, this was an outrageous act of martial law gone apocalyptic. This single event branded Richard Nixon and his operatives criminals and galvanized many millions against whatever was to come from Washington DC henceforth; yet, a majority of voters was convinced by CREEP that Senator McGovern's first 1972 running mate was mentally ill.

In 1970, my very furious retired Air Force, Republican father wrote the Sioux Falls Argus Leader after it ran a photo during the Vietnam War. Dad cited Senator George McGovern with what he believed was the unforgivable offense of a civilian wearing a USAF flight suit. In '71, after using Mom's Singer to sew an American flag upside-down on the back of a fatigue jacket from Korea that Dad had given me, he threw it into the burn barrel, poured gas on it and set it afire. That he didn't throw me in there too is testimony of his love for my mother.

Until the Vietnam War school shootings were rare and scattered but after commercial teevee brought the carnage into every American living room something changed. School shootings spiked to seventeen in the 1960s. There were thirty school shootings in the 1970s, 39 in the 1980s, 62 in the 1990s, 64 in the 2000s and 180 in the 2010s.

In assessing blame for the Kent State shootings, 36% believe the National Guard was responsible, 13% said the students were responsible, 9% said Ohio Governor James A. Rhodes was responsible, and 8% hold President Richard Nixon responsible. Among those under 60, 45% think the National Guard was responsible, as compared to 23% over 60 who hold the Guard responsible. Among those over 60, 19% think students were responsible, and 26% do not know. [50 Years After Kent State: Americans Who Lived It See It Differently]

Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young released ‘Ohio’ just days after the Kent State massacre in May 1970. It spoke to struggle of the anti-war generation — and helped save a band on the brink https://t.co/y2PU9JcXgL pic.twitter.com/CMLOg7CCR1

— Rolling Stone (@RollingStone) May 3, 2020