Reflections from May 6, 1970 - READ 'EM AND WEEP

I posted this over on "General Discussion" also, but I'm putting it here, too, because I think it's very worth noting how much history repeats itself.

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Peace Patriot got me thinking this afternoon about events of the '60s and '70s and how they relate to today. I have pulled out a letter I wrote to my parents on May 6, 1970 (I was 23), at the time of Kent State, which I'll quote here. It's sad how little things have changed....

"It's very hard for me to write or do much of anything right now after the tragedy at Kent State and the U.S. involvement in Cambodia and southeast Asia in general. As you know, we have all been involved in the movement for peace abroad and especially here at home, and I can't help but feel that it could've been any one of us as easily as those four students at Kent State. I deplore violence on campus, but then so did Allison Krause, and look where it got her. It is impossible to predict whether a rally will turn violent, but my God! do we have to fear for our lives each time we gather together to voice our dissent? They are trying to frighten us into submission.

Why shouldn't we protest against a war which everyone acknowledges is a big mistake, but in which our brothers have to die every day? You don't see Nixon or Agnew or Mendel Rivers over there fighting and dying. A few more lives may be expendable to them, but they certainly aren't expendable to the wives and families and friends of those who die. The war is ripping this nation apart. It is turning concerned young people into radical revolutionaries -- and more becoming radicalized with each instance of police or national guard repression. Cities lie in squalor because of lack of funds while billions of dollars are wasted on the war. I believe the scientists have the technology right now to stop air and water pollution and clean up the environment, but their hands are tied because our national priorities place war before survival. And in such a time of crisis, we come up with a madman for a president.

I really fear for the future of this nation, and it makes me so very, very sad because no one loves this country more than I do. And we must stand by and let our frustration build because all our peaceful protests have fallen on deaf ears and the violent protests only increase the repression. Innocent students die at the hands of the "national guard." I've always believed in evolution, in the "dawning of the age of Aquarius;" I've believed that once we were old enough to govern this country that perhaps we could correct some of the inequities and that this great nation could set a peaceful and benevolent example for the rest of the world. But I am increasingly fearful that we won't survive as a nation long enough to realize these dreams.

I don't want to die, but I would almost rather die than live under a Fascist government. "It can't happen here," they say, but recent developments have certainly shaken my faith. I don't believe I could ever take up a weapon against another human being. I don't believe I could even throw a rock through a window, but we are headed toward either a revolution or such massive repression that our democracy will no longer be recognizable as such. We are just so perplexed and shocked and practically at the end of our hopes.

It is a great blow when you've been taught all your life that America is the greatest, kindest, best country in the world and then you're confronted with all the realities that they never teach you about. And then Nixon says we're "bums" and the conservatives wail about anarchy and violence on campus, etc. etc. etc. without even stopping to think that the violence on campus is like a grain of sand compared to the violence being perpetrated by the government in the name of peace and freedom and "honoring our commitment."

Are they BLIND!? They pat themselves on the back and rave on about saving three astronauts from destruction in space. Are three astronauts more important than 50,000 dead American soldiers, half a million dead Vietnamese and countless more who risk their lives every day?"


How sad, how very sad, that we do not learn from our past.....

with more wisdom than many.

Especially the "It can't happen here". People need to realize that we are not immune to facism just because we are the United States.

do you think we ever will?

This war makes no sense to me!

students took over the campus at my university in response to the bombing of Cambodia and the Kent State murders ...

we erected barriers all around the campus to keep out the police and the national guard ... the barriers were made from everything and anything we could find ... chairs and desks, coatracks and an endless supply of fencing and other construction materials that were "borrowed" from the many buildings under construction all around the campus ...

close to a thousand students spent the night in one of the main buildings in the center of the campus ... we did not expect to be able to "hold" the campus without a major battle ... the revolution had begun and peace signs and marches were no longer going to suffice ... if we wanted power, we were going to have to take power ...

my job? i volunteered to stay up all night with my roommate to guard the main entrance to the campus ... even in May, it was damned cold out there ... by morning i was so stiff i could barely move ...

at the crack of dawn, things started to happen ... first, we saw just a lone police car drive by the main road just off the campus ... then, another ... then 3 or 4 together ... we discussed whether we should wake everyone up and call them to the front lines ... not yet ... we had to be sure ...

then, a couple of police cars with a large dump truck drove by ... cops inside? national guard? ... and then, a large enclosed truck with a university emblem turned into the main campus road and stopped before it came up to where we were ... this was it ... we had no idea how many were inside, but we couldn't allow them to breach our barrier at the main gate ...

we ran to the building where most were still sleeping and woke everyone up ... they're coming; they're coming ... you could hear the same cries repeated by others throughout other floors in the building ... literally within a minute, maybe two, we had a force of almost a thousand headbanded revolutionaries carrying pipes, tree branches or whatever they could to hold the campus ...

the truck still sat motionless ... perhaps 75 yards from us ... were they waiting for a signal? waiting for backup? we had no idea what to do ... and then, the truck, slowly, very, very slowly, started moving towards us ...

man, this was it ... this time we're not backing down ... the Kent State murders were very fresh in our minds ... but if we had to die, this was going to be the place and this was going to be the time ... we knew this was happening on every campus all over the country ... if enough of us stood our ground, maybe we would prevail against all that power ... the truck pulled right up to us and stopped ... we waited for the back door to be thrown open ...

one guy, the driver, wearing a campus uniform, stepped out of the truck and approached us ... are you FBI someone challenged him? did you kids have some kind of party here last night, he responded ... who's in the back of that truck? it's equipment for cleaning up this mess ... yup, we had successfully fended off two of the friendliest guys from the school's maintenance department you'd ever want to meet ....

every word was 100% true ... ahhh, the good old days ...

i always wish i could do a better job conveying what "the revolution" felt like ... there are so many stereotypes of "the sixties" floating around that the real experience has gotten a bit muddied in cliches ...

for a time, some of us believed we were prepared to die for the cause ... we felt like we were part of a nationwide revolution and that we would finally seize power ... how incredibly wrong we were ...

check out the lyrics to this old Moody Blues' song ... the lyrics are amazingly insightful ...

this part was the hope we had:
We're part of the fire that is burning
And from the ashes we can build another day

and this part forecast our inevitable defeat:
That the live that we are living is in vain
And the sunshine we've been waiting for
Will turn to rain


"The Story In Your Eyes"

I've been thinking about our fortune
And I've decided that we're really not to blame
For the love that's deep inside us now
Is still the same

And the sounds we make together
Is the music to the story in your eyes
It's been shining down upon me now
I realize

Listen to the tide slowly turning
Wash all our heartaches away
We're part of the fire that is burning
And from the ashes we can build another day

But I'm frightened for your children
That the live that we are living is in vain
And the sunshine we've been waiting for
Will turn to rain

Listen to the tide slowly turning
Wash all our heartaches away
We're part of the fire that is burning
And from the ashes we can build another day

But I'm frightened for the children
That the live that we are living is in vain
And the sunshine we've been waiting for
Will turn to rain

When the final line is over
It's certain that the curtain's gonna fall
I can hide inside your sweet sweet love
For ever more

and especially difficult to convey to the kids because the history books write it up like we were just a "blip," the lunatic leftist fringe, not that we were a massive movement that brought down two presidents and ultimately ended the war. I always tried to talk to my kids when they were teenagers about what it was like, but I don't think they ever really "got" it until I took them to see "Born on the Fourth of July." My daughter, who was about 16 at the time, was crying and crying, and she said, oh, my God, Mom, was it really like that?? I always thought you were just a hippie out on the edge, that there were only a few kids like you." This past season, this same daughter, who is now a hockey mom and not particularly interested in politics, was awakened again -- this time by Fahrenheit 9/11. Michael Moore deserves all the praise, just as Oliver Stone did with BOTFOJ.