When Wars Come Home - the innocents are slaughtered

It is just short of remarkable to me how well some of my writing / ranting - against the perpetual wars by the uber-powerful U.S. military against the woefully weak civilian populations of third world nations - holds up in acuity, integrity, and predictability.

Monday, May 7, 2007

When wars come home

(MG) Over at the Counterpunch web site, Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman have written an article entitled Media Silence on Kent State Revelations. This takes me back a long time, to days when I was a slender and callow fellow, dating tinker belle, a member of the WIU golf team, and feeling kind of warm and fuzzy about life in the slow lane.

(MG) There were, however, MANY students far more politically aware, and quite active in the anti-war movement. If anything ought to have caught my attention at that time, the Kent State murders should have. But, I was comfortably numb, inured to the pain and suffering of others, and had found a reason to HOPE that I would not be drafted to go to Vietnam, to die in combat, like my Uncle, 1st Lt James Raymond Hockett had before me. Besides, I had started to smoke pot, and that mellowed one's outlook.

(MG) Just give me a reason to live,

You give me a reason to live,

A reason to live.

(MG) I have forgiven myself for my former shallowness. But I hate war. I hate war mongers. I hate the policies of this country's elected officials who have lied us into war after war since the last half of the 20th century. Proxy wars, wars of choice. What the hell did they ever fear? COMMUNISM?

(MG) What was to be feared from COMMUNISM? That ideologically communism would trump the corporate welfare state? And the people would rise up, en masse, as did the Russians in the early 20th century?

(MG) Well, actually .... yes, that is what the elites most feared. So much so, that they begrduginly let FDR implement the public works programs to get "the people" back to work, so "the people" might not rise up in anger, as the French had done more than once, in the 1400's and again in the 1700's. Of course, the wealthy elites never forgave FDR for his class betrayal, and for turning this nation towards a commie, pinko, socialist direction. My how quickly they forgot.

(MG) But there ain't no commie empire no more. And there ain't no Hitler, no more. And there ain't no Saddam, no more. So just WTF are we afraid of?

(MG) Fear always emanates from within. I submit again (and again, and again and again) that PROJECTION of so much of this nation's hatred towards peoples of color is motivated by fear, that one day, the oppressed ones WILL rise up and retaliate. Retaliate for the genocide of the Native Americans. Retaliate for the rapes and murders of the African Slaves. Retaliate for the wars we have waged upon the children, wives, sisters, daughters, husbands, brothers, sons, parents and grandparents of the Arabs, the Persians, the Asians. Retaliate for the brutal right-wing demagogic dictators we have stuffed down their throats.

(MG) Deep in my soul
I do believe
That the collective unconsciencenious
Of the American people
Understands full well
The moral implications
Of the war crimes this nation's
Elected (and sometimes appointed)
Leaders have committed
Upon the impoverished peoples
Of the world
In the name of freedom
In the name of democracy
In the name of Jesus Christ
In the name of
We the People
In the name of the
Great American Public.


Sometimes, it causes we to tremble, tremble, tremble
So ... kill them all before they kill you


But what of the innocents?
Kill them all. Kill them all.
There are no innocents.
There are no innocents.
Since there are no innocents,
They are all guilty,
And we can kill them all
Kill them all, with impunity.
Let the god of anger,Let the god of jealousy,
the god of wrath,
the god of vengeance
let THAT god, our father
(Who art in heaven?)
let THAT god sort it all out.


Kill even the white ones,
The bitches and bastards
The harpy daughters and quisling sons
Even of the white, silent majority
Those uppity spoiled rich brats
(who don't deserve to live anyway
(teach 'em some respect
(learn 'em who's the new boss
(damn 'em all to hell,
(freakin' 'murican haters


Those uppity stinking, smelly hippie freaks
Who would dare to take up the cause
Of the impoverished
Peoples of color
Of the world.
Because they so hate America,
Those long haired, girly boys,
and boyish girls with unshaven arm pits


Those degenerates,
Those intellects,
Those peaceniks.
(Those commies,
(Those pinkos
(Those jews


Kill them all.
It is our legacy.
Kill them all.
That the WORLD
shall come to see our power.
and understand our
Merciless Cruelty (the big MC).


Kill them all.
Kill them all.
Because ...
If we do not have the resolve
To kill them all
They might
Kill us all first.


And, as we all know
As we shall show (by our killing of them all)
We do reap as we do sow:
MIGHT MAKES RIGHT!


KILL THEM ALL!!
And watch them fry on CNN
Video Game Nation
Ah, we have become,
Comfortably Numb

The 1970 killings by National Guardsmen of four students during a peaceful anti-war demonstration at Kent State University have now been shown to be cold-blooded, premeditated official murder. But the definitive proof of this monumental historic reality is not, apparently, worthy of significant analysis or comment in today's mainstream media.

After 37 years of official denial and cover-up, tape-recorded evidence, that has existed for decades and has been in the possession of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), has finally been made public.

It proves what "conspiracy theorists" have argued since 1970---that there was a direct military order leading to the unprovoked assassination of unarmed students. ... (FOIA) documents show collusion between Ohio Governor James A. Rhodes and the FBI that aimed to terrorize anti-war demonstrators and their protests that were raging throughout the nation.
... The nation's campuses were on fire over Richard Nixon's illegal invasion of Cambodia. ...
...

... Spiro Agnew ... referred to student demonstrators as Nazi "brownshirts" and suggested that college administrators and law enforcement should "act accordingly."

On May 3, 1970---the day before National Guardsmen under his purview opened fire at Kent State--Rhodes echoed Agnew's remarks by referring to student demonstrators as "the strongest, well-trained militant revolutionary group that has ever assembled in America They're worse than the brownshirts and the Communist element and the night riders and the vigilantes. They are the worst type of people that we harbor in America."
Rhodes told a reporter that the Ohio National Guard would remain at Kent State "until we get rid of them" ...
...

Rhodes was the perfect messenger. Bumbling and mediocre, with a long history of underworld involvement, Rhodes was a devoted admirer of Nixon, and of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. Public records reveal that Rhodes was a virtual stooge for the FBI because of the agency's files tying Rhodes directly to organized crime.

...

... contrary to law, [the Ohio national guard] were supplied with live ammunition. ... not one of the numerous investigations and court proceedings involving what happened next has ever contended any of the students were armed, or that the Guard was under threat of physical harm at the time of the shooting.
...

Prior to the shooting, a student named Terry Strubbe put a microphone at the window of his dorm, which overlooked the rally. According to the Associated Press, the 20-second tape is filled with "screaming anti-war protectors followed by the sound of gunfire."

But in an amplified version of the tape, a Guard officer is also heard shouting "Right here! Get Set! Point! Fire!"

The sound of gunshots follow the word "Point." Four students soon lay dead. Two days later, two more would die at Jackson State University, as police fired without provocation into a dorm.

... massive volumes of research---including an epic study by James A. Michener and William Gordon's Four Dead in Ohio---strongly imply an explicit conspiracy to intimidate the national anti-war movement.
... Six months ago, Alan Canfora, 58, one of the nine wounded Kent students ... played it to a group of students and reporters at a small university theater.

The fact that the Guard got direct orders to set, aim and shoot flies directly in the face of the official cover story that they were responding in panic to a random shot fired at them, or that they were defending themselves from some kind of student attack.

In fact, it seems highly likely no shot ever rang out prior to the order to fire. Nor could the Guard, who killed a student as much as 900 feet away from the rally, say they were under any serious attack from the students.

The Kent State killings are now prominently featured in virtually every history book of the United States used in American schools. ...
But meaningful analysis of the implications of this tape has been mysteriously missing from the American media. ...

For we now know that a premeditated, unprovoked order was indeed given to National Guardsmen to fire live ammunition at peaceful, unarmed American students, killing four of them. The illegal order to arm the Guard with live ammunition in the first place could only have come from the governor of Ohio. The very loud, very public nod to shoot some "brown shirt" students somewhere in order to chill the massive student uprising against the Southeast Asian war was spewed all over the national media by the second-highest official in US government.

...

Alan Canfora intends to use this tape to re-open investigations into what happened at Kent State 37 years ago.

But the media's apparent unconcern about confirmation of the official order to carry out these killings may bear a simple message: that we should be prepared for them to happen again.