Originally published at: The 1970 Kent State Shootings Show Danger Of Trump Plan To Deploy Troops To Crush Legal Protests
This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis. It was originally published at The Conversation. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has expressed his intention, if elected to a second term, to use the U.S. armed forces to suppress domestic protests. The New York Times reports that Trump’s allies are marshaling legal…
Just so important for people to be reminded of this episode, which is still in living memory for millions.
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The danger in Kent State was no one paid a price for it. The 4 were murdered in violation of the law and the Constitution. In the end the cause they died for was proven right. The Kent State 4 died protesting the war in Vietnam. They said it was wrong and nothing could be won there. They were prescient. Years later most of America agreed with the “dirty fucking hippies” and we pulled out of that meat grinder.
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Nonetheless, Rhodes — who was trailing in an impending Republican primary for a U.S. Senate seat — struck the pose of a take-charge leader who wasn’t going to be pushed around by a long-haired rabble. “We’re going to put a stop to this!” he shouted, pounding the table at a press conference in Kent on May 3.
And the willingness of republican politicians to sacrifice the lives of others for personal political gain has in no way diminished in the past 70+ years.
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What Rhodes meant by “this” was the Constitutionally protected right to political protest. He didn’t like what they were saying and being devoid of anything American moved on that.
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The mostly young troops who participated in Kent State were not trained in crowd control. They used the only training they had. Training to kill. We were lucky more student’s didn’t die. The nation was horrified.
Of course, with Trump horror is the goal. Killing a few white college kids is sure to scare the shit out of everybody.
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This will cause Trump to lower the standards to enter the military so his gun happy scum may have their way with who ever they please in our Country.
Russia, China or any other jerkoff will be free to do as they please like the EU.
Our Guards will be used to mow down their hometown friends and neighbors.
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This will not start with the whites.
This will start with the minorities to make us white folk feel safe.
Then the white college kids.
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If the State starts prosecuting their agents of violence, pretty soon it will find itself without them. Its an implicit assurance the State give their forces of repression, you do our dirty work, we will look away if you over do it.
This is as true for totalitarian regimes like the Soviet Union and Iran, as it is for democracies. This the same reason that the few that were actually convicted from the My Lai & Nisour Square massacres were later pardoned.
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Don’t be so sure it won’t start with the whites. Trump will have his people shoot anyone if it terrorizes the rest.
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If we have learned anything from history on these matters it is that the protester are always right.
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I don’t know why everyone is so gloom and doom on this subject. If TCF manages to cheat his way into a second term, then surely he will realize how lucky he was and will change his ways. THE PIVOT WILL BE UPON US!!11!!1
/s
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Was coming to say exactly that - those older than 55, for the most part, remember that day very clearly. This is the contingent that tends to turn out to vote.
How can the Dems ensure that this message gets out to the voting population, so that it isn’t ignored as a ‘hair on fire’ moment? Maybe ‘[Four Dead in] Ohio’ played a few times a day?
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At that time I lived in Ohio about 20 miles away. I am in my 80s and the horror of it is still strong in my memory.
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As an old(er) white man, I feel compelled to remind folks any time the Kent State shooting comes up that there was another–similar, but far less publicized–incident at an HBCU (Jackson State) only about two weeks later.
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And at South Carolina State, another HBCU, two years before, involving police.
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Nobody imagines the anti-protestor sentiment at the time. Long hair would get you killed in the wrong neighborhood.
Those soldiers hated the protestors because they were taught to.
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One of the students killed was a hundred yards away, not part of the protest crowd. One of the pictures taken at the time of weapons discharge shows an officer discharging his handgun.
ETA. And two weeks later two students were killed at Jackson State.
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BS!
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This.
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