Posted on 06/24/2009 7:35:55 AM PDT by Pyro7480
On Tuesday’s Newsroom program, CNN correspondent Carol Costello harkened back to the 1970 incident at Kent State University, where National Guardsmen shot rock-throwing protesters and bystanders, and made it a possible equivalent to the recent murder of Iranian student Neda. Costello pondered the effect of the Neda murder video on the Iranian protests, and flashed a famous photo from the 1970 shootings [audio clips from the report are available here].
Anchor Kyra Phillips introduced the overall theme of Costello’s report: “By now, you’ve probably heard about Neda, the young Iranian woman that was gunned down in Tehran. Well, in death, she’s become quite a symbol of countless Iranians demanding new elections. The question now: will the memory of Neda help make that happen?” After giving some details into the college student’s death, the correspondent described the international reaction to it: “It seems the whole world now knows Neda and aches for her- and why not? It watched her die.”
Costello subsequently played a clip of Iranian author Azar Nafisi’s reaction to the Neda death video. She then proposed her question about the impact of the video: “It’s difficult to say right now, though, if this image of Neda will change everything. We know that pictures sometimes do. Many believe this shot taken at Kent State of a student gunned down after a Vietnam War protest helped end the war, yet this video of a lone student standing up to Chinese tanks did not end communism in China.”
(Excerpt) Read more at newsbusters.org ...
B.S.
That Marine also told me how those "innocents" would replace a lightbulb in a targeted building with a 100 watter that had been filled with fine black gunpowder. Whaddaya do when you first enter a darkened room?
I'll take the word of a guy who was there over somebody who doesn't look like he was even born then.
My father told me never to argue with a fool, and it’s time I took his advice.
I’d take a slightly different tack as to the reasons why the Left fought in the streets during Vietnam, but not during any of the more recent conflicts. It comes down to the Draft. We had it then, we haven’t had it since. The Left simply cannot gin-up for a street confrontation with authorities because the immediate physical stakes are too high compared to potential political gain.
Tell that to the guy who was walking to class and was gunned down by a scared, overzealous national guardsman.
Tell that to the guy who was walking to class and was gunned down by a scared, overzealous national guardsman.
And why was that N.G. guy scared? Did the "peaceful" campus surroundings freak him out?
As to overzealous, well it's my turn to say "B.S."
In my opinion, you should take the thoughts of Reagan to heart instead of Abbie Hoffman, Tom Hayden, Bill Ayers, and the New York Times.
Since you think the unarmed students were using deadly weapons, why didn’t you suggest that we just drop a nuclear bomb on Kent State? What is the difference in our troops killing our own citizens and the Iranians killing theirs? That was Carol Costello’s point, unfortunately you are so convinced that our unarmed citizens deserved to be killed. Shame on you. Toss out the Constitution, you are no different than the Marxist in the White House now.
I would add, however, that urban riots did not result from the military draft. We don't see many of those any more either. A key factor in the disappearance of anti-military violence and urban riots is the demonstration of government force to put down both. If the government does not demonstrate an eager willingness to crush unacceptable behavior by its enemies, it forfeits its right to exist. Marching into the teeth of the national guard, throwing rocks and chunks of concrete at the guard, etc., are the sort of activity that must be crushed.
AND we should never tolerate a draft again. Nor should we tolerate the back door draft of holding reservists and national guard in combat long after their terms have expired. Our military men and women must be respected and are at least as entitled to fair treatment as anyone else.
\ What makes you think that the national guard were not prepared??? They behaved rationally and effectively and put a stop to leftist campus violence at Kent State and elsewhere by making the pukes realize that they and the governments of the US and of Ohio were deadly serious and it was time for the little leftwing revolutionary romantics to stifle themselves and their cause or face the music physically. The guard helped them to translate their puffed up revolutionary rhetoric into fatal reality. Catholic martyrs took satisfaction in their opportunity for martyrdom, likewise the Dietrich Bonhoeffers. Of course their respective causes were something and Someone worth dying for. There is a lot of buyer's remorse on the radical left among its "martyrs" because Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, Kim Whazzisface (who led North Korea against the US sixty years ago), Kim Whazzisface's descendants, Ho Chi Minh and his political descendants are not so much worth dying for especially when you are an atheist and don't believe in an afterlife.
As to the dead punks and the collateral damage, you are wrong. Aggressively marching against the national guard is not a First Amendment right of any sort and neither is it constitutional. It is utterly amazing that anyone would have the gilt-edged nerve to call him/herself conservative while being a partisan of the Marxist-Leninist campus Cong of yesteryear. Many of the cc are now dead and a good thing too. Good riddance! Hopefully they repented first and hopefully you will too.
The fact is that leftist college punks and their agitators were killed revolting violently against our nation. The fact is that the government of Iran lacks moral legitimacy and deserves to be overthrown. If some Iranians die in the streets or in combat trying to make that happen, they are far more noble folk than the communist trash that threatened the guard at Kent State. Nixon wasn't much but he was infinitely superior to the mullahs.
Somehow our increasingly sissified upper middle class sees nothing as worthy of the deaths of their children regardless of the evil alternatives guaranteed by their non-actions or by their half vast "revolutionary" pretenses.
As far as the Constitution and First Amendment are concerned, buy a clue. You certainly don't have one. I graduated a top ten law school and practiced law for 25 years. You probably did neither. In the unlikely event that you think you did both, I will tell you that you would have to go a long way to grasp the meaning of the Constitution and First Amendment based on what you are posting here. You are simply enthusiastic in favoring the enemies of our nation and our civilization and our people cynically using alleged freedoms to deprive everyone else of those freedoms.
There is no moral equivalence between activist communist scum threatening the troops sent to control them in order to widen the spread of actual tyranny and genuinely oppressed Iranians battling the tyrannical mullahs to establish a foothold for freedom. It was another spineless spoiled guy named Jimmuh Cahtuh who created most of this middle East mess in the first place by destabilizing Iran. If Reza Pahlevi's son had succeeded him, Khomeini and Khameini would have been blood-soaked history in short order, making Iran a far more pleasant place for its citizens.
Do you whine about the martyrdom of St. Peter or St. Paul or so many others? If not, is it because they were Christians rather than communists??? Libertarianism is NOT conservatism.
No cigar, Willy!
\ What makes you think that the national guard were not prepared??? They behaved rationally and effectively and put a stop to leftist campus violence at Kent State and elsewhere by making the pukes realize that they and the governments of the US and of Ohio were deadly serious and it was time for the little leftwing revolutionary romantics to stifle themselves and their cause or face the music physically. The guard helped them to translate their puffed up revolutionary rhetoric into fatal reality. Catholic martyrs took satisfaction in their opportunity for martyrdom, likewise the Dietrich Bonhoeffers. Of course their respective causes were something and Someone worth dying for. There is a lot of buyer's remorse on the radical left among its "martyrs" because Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, Kim Whazzisface (who led North Korea against the US sixty years ago), Kim Whazzisface's descendants, Ho Chi Minh and his political descendants are not so much worth dying for especially when you are an atheist and don't believe in an afterlife.
As to the dead punks and the collateral damage, you are wrong. Aggressively marching against the national guard is not a First Amendment right of any sort and neither is it constitutional. It is utterly amazing that anyone would have the gilt-edged nerve to call him/herself conservative while being a partisan of the Marxist-Leninist campus Cong of yesteryear. Many of the cc are now dead and a good thing too. Good riddance! Hopefully they repented first and hopefully you will too.
The fact is that leftist college punks and their agitators were killed revolting violently against our nation. The fact is that the government of Iran lacks moral legitimacy and deserves to be overthrown. If some Iranians die in the streets or in combat trying to make that happen, they are far more noble folk than the communist trash that threatened the guard at Kent State. Nixon wasn't much but he was infinitely superior to the mullahs.
Somehow our increasingly sissified upper middle class sees nothing as worthy of the deaths of their children regardless of the evil alternatives guaranteed by their non-actions or by their half vast "revolutionary" pretenses.
As far as the Constitution and First Amendment are concerned, buy a clue. You certainly don't have one. I graduated a top ten law school and practiced law for 25 years. You probably did neither. In the unlikely event that you think you did both, I will tell you that you would have to go a long way to grasp the meaning of the Constitution and First Amendment based on what you are posting here. You are simply enthusiastic in favoring the enemies of our nation and our civilization and our people cynically using alleged freedoms to deprive everyone else of those freedoms.
There is no moral equivalence between activist communist scum threatening the troops sent to control them in order to widen the spread of actual tyranny and genuinely oppressed Iranians battling the tyrannical mullahs to establish a foothold for freedom. It was another spineless spoiled guy named Jimmuh Cahtuh who created most of this middle East mess in the first place by destabilizing Iran. If Reza Pahlevi's son had succeeded him, Khomeini and Khameini would have been blood-soaked history in short order, making Iran a far more pleasant place for its citizens.
Do you whine about the martyrdom of St. Peter or St. Paul or so many others? If not, is it because they were Christians rather than communists??? Libertarianism is NOT conservatism.
No cigar, Willy!
Got along without you before I met you and I'll get along without you now.
BTW, the 14 year-old posing for holy pictures apparently earned her "living" prostituting in the dorms at Kent State. She went to Kent State as part of her "revolution" against her parents' authority. Via the photo, she was identified, apprehended and sent back to mom and dad, IIRC. Hopefully, she is grounded to this day if her rationality and choice of friends has not improved since she was 14.
Also, Jimi Hendrix quoted in the top photo about how the old have the guns but the young have the numbers and would take over, died in 1970 of an overdose of sleeping pills which Eric Burden then told the press was a suicide. Suicide is the sincerest form of self-criticism and Hendrix had a lot on which to base his self-criticism. He did not take over. If he were still alive, he would be older than I. He was an idjit with musical talent.
Great post!
What is the difference in our troops killing our own citizens and the Iranians killing theirs?
Now you're falling into the sucker/moral equivalency mode the liberals have set up - making the tragic shooting (which lasted 13 seconds) of some violent students with days-long protests of people who have been screwed out of an election.
Check out the full timeline at Wikipedia. Here are some educational snips about the "innocent" students [my emphasis]:
(snip)When the National Guard arrived in town that evening . . . a large demonstration was already under way on the campus, and the campus [ROTC] building (which had been scheduled for demolition) was burning. More than a thousand protesters surrounded the building and cheered the building's burning. While attempting to extinguish the fire, several Kent firemen and police officers were hit with rocks and other objects by those standing near the fire. More than one fire engine company had to be called in because protesters carried the fire hose into the Commons and slashed it.
(snip)On Monday, May 4, a protest was scheduled to be held at noon . . . University officials attempted to ban the gathering, handing out 12,000 leaflets stating that the event was canceled. Despite this, an estimated 2,000 people gathered. Fearing that the situation might escalate into another violent protest, [the National Guard] attempted to disperse the students. The dispersal process began late in the morning with campus patrolman Harold Rice riding in a Guard Jeep, approaching the students to read them an order to disperse or face arrest. The protesters responded by throwing rocks, forcing the Jeep to retreat.
(snip)Just before noon, the Guard returned and again ordered the crowd to disperse. When most of the crowd refused, the Guard used tear gas. Because of wind, the tear gas had little effect . . . and some began a second rock attack with chants of "Pigs off campus!" The students lobbed the tear gas canisters back at the National Guardsmen; however, they had put on gas masks upon first throwing tear gas at the students.
(snip)When it was obvious the crowd was not going to disperse, a group of 77 National Guard troops . . . with bayonets fixed . . . began to advance upon the hundreds of protesters. As the guardsmen advanced, the protesters retreated up and over Blanket Hill, heading out of The Commons area.
They had cleared the protesters from the Commons area, and many students had left, but many stayed and were still angrily confronting the soldiers, some throwing rocks and tear gas canisters. At the end of about ten minutes, the guardsmen began to retrace their steps back up the hill toward the Commons area. Some of the students on the Taylor Hall veranda began to move slowly toward the soldiers as the latter passed over the top of the hill and headed back down into the Commons.
(snip)At this point . . . a number of guardsmen at the top of the hill abruptly turned and fired . . . at the students. The guardsmen directed their fire not at the closest students, . . . but at those on the grass area and concrete walkway below the veranda, at those on the service road between the veranda and the parking lot, and at those in the parking lot. Bullets were not sprayed in all directions; instead, they were confined to a fairly limited line of fire leading from the top of the hill to the parking lot. Not all the soldiers who fired . . . directed their fire into the students. Some soldiers fired into the ground, while a few fired into the air. In all, 29 of the 77 guardsmen claimed to have fired their weapons, using a final total of 67 bullets. The shooting was determined to have lasted only 13 seconds . . . The question of why the shots were fired remains widely debated.
That last is still going on to this day, but note the word "debated" - not ranting.
Thanks for the interesting info on the 14-year-old and Hendrix. If you get a chance, read David Horowitz’s “Destructive Generation”. That whole bunch was screwed up to the max.
Hendrix was a former paratrooper and, from I understand, was not opposed to the Vietnam War.
There was some leftist fantasy movie of that era which centered around a rock group known as Max Storm and the Troopers who were using a slogan "14 or fight" to expand the franchise to include all 14 and older and particularly the gummint edjumacated and brainlaundered liberals among them to speed the transfer of power to their adored celebrities. They got the Senate to vote a constitutional amendment by pouring LSD into the DC water system and physically holding up the arms of tripping Senators to approve their amendment. It has always been a fantasy of the left ever since that the necessary revolution will consist of attending entertaining rock concerts, smoking dope, copping cheap feels and yelling and screaming that will show THEM (us) who is REALLY the boss from now on!!!!
Blather and pretentions indeed. I was in my 30s then and remember their oh-so-noble pretentions and their blather "Don't trust anyone over 30" and their anti-war protests. They tended to quiet down when college students were no longer drafted and got REAL quiet when they hit 30.
I was in programming school in '67 and we had a bunch of "free spirits" who railed against "the establishment". They wore the "individualistic" uniform - sandals, shorts and beard. Came graduation day and we had to look for a job, they showed up clean shaven and wearing suits - and got pist when you pointed out their hypocrisy when Reality stared them in the face.
“Also, Jimi Hendrix...”
Uhm - it was Jim Morrison. But the rest of the comments remain almost exactly the same.
Correction gratefully noted.
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