Study this event, I believe it's more of a Tragedy than a Massacre. Likely caused by a few scared National Guardsman reacting badly to the possibility of getting brained by a rock.

I suppose there is some solace to be taken from the idea that at least the American government hasn't started shooting people in its own country, although whether that should be put down to a lack of will on the part of the government to quell dissent with armed troops, or whether it is more because fewer people see the point in protesting any more to become targets is a point worth discussing.

I keep hearing comments by people around in the 60s to the effect that "We'd have been protesting events in Iraq long before now", and there is a sense that the younger generation (and I speak as part of it) are probably more socialised than that generation was. More prepared to accept infringements of civil liberties for fuzzily defined aims such as the 'war on terror' and more apathetic and withdrawn into the culture of reality television to escape the 'real reality' that we feel disenfranchised from.

But also in the 60s there was less media awareness on the part of the ruling class. On the commentary to the Hearts and Minds documentary, the director mentions that the Vietnam War was the first and last war to be totally played out in the public eye. So we have beautifully filmed images of death and destruction in Vietnam and miles of news footage of the reaction in the US, because the government didn't realise that seeing the victims gave them a face (the napalmed girl running down the road, skin peeling off her becoming an indelible image of that war)

They've learnt their lesson. No more beautiful images of war. Whatever the public is shown now is much more managed, edited, chosen for its impact on the audience. Now we have fuzzy pictures of smart bombs or films with poorly defined targets shown in gunsights being obliterated with a push of the button.

Strange that as computer games become more realistic reality is presented in a way more reminiscent of a computer game.

When reality does sometimes break through the micro-managed images we are fed, it comes through on even more grainy, poor quality images - Saddam Hussein's execution for example.

This 'managing and manipulation' of images through the media might also show how protests such as that at Kent State might never happen now. First, the people would not see the images of horror that would lead to a mass protest. Second, the protest would never get the kind of coverage, even if people were killed as a result, in today's media.

I agree with Wingoguy - it just takes one nervous guy with the safety off to accidentally shoot someone.

Very interesting to hear Nixon's speech about anarchy and keeping values by suppressing his countrymen - similar to Bush's pronouncements today. And it is always frightening to hear someone talk about their 'belief' that what they are doing is right and that sense of belief overrides everything else. That type of person can do anything, because they know that they are right, and nobody can tell them they are wrong.

That was sad with Nixon, but it becomes yet another layer of hypocrisy when I hear both Bush and Blair talk about their beliefs, or Blair talk about 'only being judged by history'. Surely the main aim in their 'war on terror' is to attack and destroy religious fundamentalists who feel that their 'beleifs' override the freedom of others. In that sense, how can we be blamed for equating Osama Bin Laden, George Bush and Tony Blair as one and the same?

Anyway, sorry to get onto a rant about current events in a comment about a video of a past tragedy. I just feel sad that I'm looking back at such disturbing footage as almost a relic of a more innocent and naive time.

yeah-massacre used as a tag-divisive
drama remembered and compared to an event as wee, that has nothing to do one with the other....a cheapsot to stir some irrational emotional response-pathetic, really

a newspeak trick performed by willing dupes and sympathizers to their own demise......

The Kent State School shootings was approved by the Government.

I have to say this isn't quite accurate. The National Guard were called in by the government (the state of Ohio's government, if I understand the US system correctly) with the intention of controlling the protestors. When shots were fired, the decision to do so was made at a low level, then and there, in the heat of the moment.

As far as I can tell from my reading, nobody in a leadership position gave the order to fire. Speaking as a reservist infantryman myself I am sure that the guardsmen that day had never been trained for crowd control or for anything other than straight combat. I am equally sure that they were nervous, and when the first guardsman chose to pull the trigger (possibly aiming at the dirt or the sky in a warning shot, as many of them said they did) that prompted numerous others to do so as well, some of whom fired into the crowd.

In no way should the above be taken as an excuse for the Kent State tragedy; things went horribly wrong that day and the guardsmen were at fault. That said, I do want to point out that the soldiers, to my knowledge, were not at all trained to act like riot police, and did not know how to disperse or subdue an angry crowd without causing undue harm.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_State_shootings

*history *military *dark

Adding video to channels (Dark, History, Military) - requested by calvados.