In Memorium



Remembering the fallen,
never forgetting who removed their rights as Americans,
and in so doing,
ending their pursuit of the
American Dream.

quote Originally posted by FieroMojo: In Memorium Remembering the fallen, never forgetting who removed their rights as Americans, and in so doing, ending their pursuit of the American Dream.

I remember this very well.

Nixon what an ass.

I was a sophomore in high school.

Made me think about

Life

Liberty

and

The Pursuit of Happiness

CSN&Y did the song that still brings Goosebumps every time I hear it.

------------------
technology is great when it works
and one big pain in the ass when it doesn't.
Detroit iron rules all the rest are just toys.

Thanks guys. I was a sophomore as well and had been active in the Vietnam protests, one of which caused a virtual shutdown of East Lansing/MSU in 1969. This isnt so much a protest of war, but out of that came this inconceivable, unforgivable carnage.

[This message has been edited by FieroMojo (edited 05-06-2006).]

Now I gotta buy more ribbons. ...

happened before I was born, Only knew a little bit about it, thanks for the informative link.


So, who do you think was to blame, Canterbury?

Terry Norman seems to be a VERY suspiciouse character. One of my theories is that he fired the first shot that startled the guardsmen and triggered the 13 seconds thereafter.

You can blame Nixon if you like, but he got us the hell out of there. It was Johnson that was really to blame for the continuation of Viet Nam. One of the things we'll never know is what Kennedy would have done over there. I'm sure it wouldn't have been the same as Johnson.

John Stricker

quote Originally posted by 84fiero123: I remember this very well. Nixon what an ass. I was a sophomore in high school. Made me think about Life Liberty and The Pursuit of Happiness CSN&Y did the song that still brings Goosebumps every time I hear it.

I didn’t blame Nixon for the war.

Just this particular day in Ohio.

He sent the National Guard in if I remember correctly, didn’t he?

------------------
technology is great when it works
and one big pain in the ass when it doesn't.
Detroit iron rules all the rest are just toys.

Nixon was elected because he clamed to have a secret plan to end the war.

His secret plan was FIVE more Years.

He gets no credit.

Actually, Ohio Gov. James Rhoades called in the Guard after the Mayor of Kent declared a state of emergency. Nixon did not send in the guard. Pretty good synopsis but some of what is here doesn't agree with my memory, but since I was just 13 and change at the time, my memory might be in error. Shortly after that, though, the Kent State shootings were a debate topic so I had researched it fairly well 2 or 3 years after the fact, but even that's been 30+ years ago so I'm certainly not going to jump up and down and claim I remember the actual facts either.

It's hell to get old and lose some memories, isn't it Steve? Not being a smart aleck, but did your stroke cost you any of your memory?

John Stricker

quote Originally posted by 84fiero123: I didn’t blame Nixon for the war. Just this particular day in Ohio. He sent the National Guard in if I remember correctly, didn’t he?

quote Originally posted by 84fiero123: CSN&Y did the song that still brings Goosebumps every time I hear it.

NEIL YOUNG

"Ohio"

Tin soldiers and Nixon coming,
We're finally on our own.
This summer I hear the drumming,
Four dead in Ohio.

Gotta get down to it
Soldiers are cutting us down
Should have been done long ago.
What if you knew her
And found her dead on the ground
How can you run when you know?

Gotta get down to it
Soldiers are cutting us down
Should have been done long ago.
What if you knew her
And found her dead on the ground
How can you run when you know?

Tin soldiers and Nixon coming,
We're finally on our own.
This summer I hear the drumming,
Four dead in Ohio.

quote Originally posted by jstricker: Actually, Ohio Gov. James Rhoades called in the Guard after the Mayor of Kent declared a state of emergency. Nixon did not send in the guard. Pretty good synopsis but some of what is here doesn't agree with my memory, but since I was just 13 and change at the time, my memory might be in error. Shortly after that, though, the Kent State shootings were a debate topic so I had researched it fairly well 2 or 3 years after the fact, but even that's been 30+ years ago so I'm certainly not going to jump up and down and claim I remember the actual facts either. It's hell to get old and lose some memories, isn't it Steve? Not being a smart aleck, but did your stroke cost you any of your memory? John Stricker

Mostly just short term memory.

Didn’t take it wrong hell half the time when I post here now I have to write it in works and go back to what I’m replying to just to refresh my memory.

Hell it was 36 years ago anyone’s memory could have problems.

But if my memory is right I thought it was Nixon who sent them in in this case.

You may be right John hell I cant remember what I just read on Wikipedia less than 2 seconds ago.

------------------
technology is great when it works
and one big pain in the ass when it doesn't.
Detroit iron rules all the rest are just toys.

quote Originally posted by FieroRumor: So, who do you think was to blame, Canterbury?

Canterbury was a squid to be sure But I think the meddeling of the FBI with this this norman snitch may have left the pot handle over the edge for the baby to grab.


I feel bad for the gaurds. But still hold them accountable.

quote "I didn't want to shoot anybody that day," says Shafer. "But that's what we were trained to do. We should never have been on that campus."

The FBI surely supplied this gun and Smith and wesson supplied it to the FBI and When the **** hit the fan Smith and Wesson bugged out quik. Cop from akron my ass.

quote Authorities also discovered that Norman's gun had been reported stolen by the manufacturer, Smith & Wesson. Norman claimed he purchased the weapon from an Akron police officer.

no kidding... Four shots out of a 5 shot revolver leaves one easy math.

quote After the firing ceased, the Guard marched back to their original position around the burned-out ROTC building. Within minutes, a young man carrying a gun, a camera, and a gas mask ran over the hill, pursued by another person, yelling, "Stop that man. He has a gun. He fired four shots."

quote In his haste, did Norman replace a bullet with one that did not match those already in the weapon?

So many things the same today as back in 70. Same old arguement.
The only real truth is we learn nothing ever and
Four died in Ohio

no pig ever convicted of this crime
so much for law and order

note a civil trial was held and $$$$ was paid
for wrongfull death at the hands of the state
but thats not the same a criminal conviction for murder
which is what this was pure and simple

but the pig is allmost never convicted of their crimes

------------------
Question wonder and be wierd
are you kind?

You have to remember who was head of the FBI at the time.

J Edgar Hoover.

http://www.geocities.com/northstarzone/HOOVER.html

How the man ever got away with all the illegal things he did is just beyond anyone’s wildest dreams, ( or Nightmare ).

------------------
technology is great when it works
and one big pain in the ass when it doesn't.
Detroit iron rules all the rest are just toys.

Not in the manner it used to be done back in the late '70's early '80's.

The programs you guys are remembering were "diversion" and "set aside" programs which aren't in existence any longer and haven't been for over 20 years, yet that's still what people remember when they hear about government programs. to explan better about my "not in the manner" comment, to an extent some is still done. For example, there is the Conservation Reserve Program that is not unlike the "soil bank" programs after the depression. Crop land which is highly erodible or has other detriments can be bid into the CRP program for a set amount per acre for about 5 years at a time. While in the program, native grasses have to be planted and the land has to be maintained to minimize erosion.

This program is highly political as they constantly change the rules. When it first came out, they took almost anything that was bid into it to get the acres up. While it does help with environmental issues, it was also to take cropland out of production. After they hit their "target" acre numbers, the rules changed and for awhile, no more land was being accepted. As it came out of CRP the regular farm programs were changed that made land broken out of grassland (that had been grassland for more than "TADAAA" 4 years) ineligible for any price supports. IOW, you could break it out of grass and farm it, but without any government payments at all. Very little of it was taken out of grass even though there were no more CRP payments. As land came out of CRP, they loosened the standards again and accepted more. It's been fluctuating like that for the last 5 or 6 years depending on the current climate of thinking. The CRP now is primarily an environmental program and the requirements for new entry are fairly high with regards to the amount of soil erosion potential

The CRP program is going to come back and bite us in the butt someday. In the first place in western KS, if you've ever travelled here you've noticed that there are miles and miles of nothing but miles and miles. In the past, this was broken up with quarters and sections of fields. There are now areas where you might have contiguous areas of CRP for 50 miles or more in any direction full of native grasses and their dead undergrowth. It's been very dry here the last few years and this year appears to be going to be quite dry as well. One of these days we are going to have a prairie fire that will be whipped by some of our 40 mile per hour winds and there will be nothing to stop it. We saw a little of this in TX last year and we're going to see more of it in the years to come.

There is a "farm program" but frankly, the payments aren't worth really dealing with for the most part when you consider all the paperwork and compliance issues. Most people do participate though as a matter of survival. For example, in a normal year, the $$ from the government help, but won't make or break you. In a BAD year, though, they might be the difference. In a REALLY BAD year though, there is usually some type of disaster program for low yields that unless you have participated in the program, are not available to you.

The commodity credit corporation does play one role that I think they should and that is they put a "floor" on the price of the commodities. They do that by offering commodity "loans" to producers at a set rate. For wheat, in 2002-2003, that was $2.80/bu. For 2004-2007 it was dropped to $2.75. What this means is that if when I get ready to sell my wheat the elevator is paying less than that amount, I can get a "loan" secured by a warehouse receipt for my grain for that amount. At the end of 9 months I can either pay the money back and keep my grain, to do with as I like (+ interest, but at a very low rate) or I can just give them the grain. At the time of the loan I have to pre-pay the interest for the 9 months and I can't extend the time. If when the loan comes do the price is higher than what I got, then I'd be ahead to redeem it and sell it on the open market. Otherwise they can have it.

As you can tell, what this does is put a floor on the market in that once the price drops below that point, almost no private wheat is sold, but that doesn't keep it from dropping below that. Regardless, with this part of the program, the producer is not paid for "not growing" something, you have to have the commodity to take the loan. It really is the only part of the farm program that does do what the programs were set up to do, which is stabilize prices to a certain extent.

There are also direct payments that are based on the acres you have planted averaged out over the last 5 years. Theoretically, I could get paid and not plant anything, but it would reduce my acres for the next year, and the next, and so on. There are two components of this. The direct payments are strictly a cash payment, guaranteed, and are (get ready) 85% of 19% of the % of the crop you raise if it's grown on shares. Let's say I farm on a 1/3 2/3 crop share with a landowner and the loan price is $2.75 and my yield as determined by the government is 32 bushels per acre (which has nothing to do with production history or what I *CAN* grow, strictly a formula based on soil type). I would get $2.75 * 19% * 85% * 66.7% * 32 = $9.48. Now in reality, I generally raise about 40 bushels per acre of wheat so if I can sell it for, say, $3.25/bu, that means I have a crop worth about $130/acre so the payment amounts to about 7%. By the % involved, you can see this isn't enough to matter much in a normal to good year, but it can make the difference between surviving or not in a bad year. This is supposed to be guaranteed, but it is not. They guarantee they'll pay you that, but not that you'll get to keep it.

There is another component to this called the "counter-cyclical" payment. That is calculated based on the difference between the "target price" (a % of the loan price that is substantially higher, currently $3.92) and the local price, called the "posted county price" and is an average from all the local markets taken all during the year. In a year prices are low, you may get an additional payment depending on what that difference is. In a year that prices are high, you *MIGHT* have to pay the government back the difference if it's the other way. For instance, currently the wheat price locally is about $4.11, or 19 cents higher than the target price. If it stays that high and there is no declared (by USDA) disaster in the county, we may be required to pay 85% of that difference back. So far that has never happened because the only time prices have averaged above the target price was also a year the county was declared as a disaster.

I've barely begun to touch all the considerations involved in all this and the programs are different for different crops. For small grains the program is about the same but the amounts and yields and such vary. The programs for dairy, cotton, peanuts, tobacco, etc., are radically different.

FWIW, talking just about the wheat programs, since 1998 there has been a steady decline in total payments from $1.5 billion to $1.0 billion dollars or about 1/3 of what was paid just 8 years ago. The most they ever paid for the wheat program was in 1986 with almost $3.5 billion and that was due to a new farm program that the bean counters simply dropped the ball on and grossly underestimated what it was going to cost. To put that in perspective, that means that where as now they pay about 7% of the crop value, they were paying 25% of the crop value and, adjusted for inflation, it was actually more like 47%. IOW, the payments would amount to about $61/acre in today's dollars.

The whole purpose of the farm programs are to 1) stabilize prices and 2) enhance soil and water conservation. Both of these goals were the guiding principles of the original farm programs back in the depression years when it was actually called the "ASCS" office which stood for Agriculture Stabilization and Conservation Service. As most things in a beauracracy, it has been perverted beyond anyone's wildest dreams and should probably be disbanded in total. The consuming public wouldn't like that much, though. If it was, there's a very real chance that you would see prices of food at the markets swing wildly and we all know they go up 3 times faster than they come down. Back in the '30's the US Government made a conscious decision to NEVER have food lines and a repeat of the environmental disaster we had then. To that goal, they've been successful in that we've actually been drier the last 3 years in KS than they were in the depression era, but still had plenty of food and few dust storms or other ecological issues WRT farming.

John Stricker

quote Originally posted by 84fiero123: PS To John My wife and are were talking about when the government used to pay farmers not to plant corn. I know you must remember this, well maybe with our memory’s getting worse. But didn’t they used to do that? I remember something way back when I was in school but haven’t heard much about it since. Anyway are they still doing it? I know if anyone on here knows about crop incentives it would be you.

quote Originally posted by jstricker: I don't think these students should have died but I also don't think that they were all innocent lambs either. Two of them certainly were as they were just walking between classes, but the other two were not. Had the mob not followed the guardsman back up the hill when they retreated, the event would never have happened. John Stricker

A very good point.
More than one veiw point seems to be a hard thing for most of us.

quote Originally posted by jstricker: Not in the manner it used to be done back in the late '70's early '80's. There are also direct payments that are based on the acres you have planted averaged out over the last 5 years. Theoretically, I could get paid and not plant anything, but it would reduce my acres for the next year, and the next, and so on. There are two components of this. The direct payments are strictly a cash payment, guaranteed, and are (get ready) 85% of 19% of the % of the crop you raise if it's grown on shares. Let's say I farm on a 1/3 2/3 crop share with a landowner and the loan price is $2.75 and my yield as determined by the government is 32 bushels per acre (which has nothing to do with production history or what I *CAN* grow, strictly a formula based on soil type). I would get $2.75 * 19% * 85% * 66.7% * 32 = $9.48. Now in reality, I generally raise about 40 bushels per acre of wheat so if I can sell it for, say, $3.25/bu, that means I have a crop worth about $130/acre so the payment amounts to about 7%. By the % involved, you can see this isn't enough to matter much in a normal to good year, but it can make the difference between surviving or not in a bad year. This is supposed to be guaranteed, but it is not. They guarantee they'll pay you that, but not that you'll get to keep it. John Stricker

You should start yourself a good Farmer's Union John. All the farmer's go on strike and the Union will get you all that and more. And you'll get to keep it-and you'll never have to start your tractor again--unless you just want to. The money will just roll in and all will be right in the world.
(We're not in Kansas anymore--are we Toto?"

Thank for the info John. Dam that was way more than I wanted to know, LoL.

But it did answer the question. Thanks again.

Back to topic.

I don’t think anyone was totally in the right or totally in the wrong in this case, Kent State.

It is a bad part of the history of this country that we need to learn from.

But it is a part of the history of an era of crocked politicians, Nutty FBI and CIA investigations and covert operations. That I can only hope, (And I know it’s just a pipe dream), that are going away.

The government is now taking away our freedoms with the patriot act, and wire taps on any American they feel is a threat. I don’t like the government invading my privacy anymore than anyone else, in some cases it’s a good thing, but most are not.

------------------
technology is great when it works
and one big pain in the ass when it doesn't.
Detroit iron rules all the rest are just toys.

While I agree in part with what you have said I STRONGLY disagree with the use of deadly force.

You say that Ray should return to reality yet the privilage of reality was denied to four individuals by a few overzealous "pigs" who decided their fate. With power comes great responsibility and need for control. While those who protested demonstrated a lack of control it was those who exerted deadly force that demonstrated an even greater lack of control. A rock or bottle will not go any further that maybe 60 feet and an encounter in all likelyhood is not going to be leathal. However, a bullet fired from an M-16 IS deadly for up to 8703 feet.

quote Originally posted by jstricker: Ray, How many people were arrested and convicted for the burning of the ROTC center? Or for throwing rocks, bricks, and bottles at the firemen trying to put out the fire? I don't think these students should have died but I also don't think that they were all innocent lambs either. Two of them certainly were as they were just walking between classes, but the other two were not. Had the mob not followed the guardsman back up the hill when they retreated, the event would never have happened. Take off your "pig" mentality and rejoin reality, Ray. John Stricker

John... the 'mob' didnt follow. There are 2 diagrams on that site depicting the shots and one pinpoints each person where they were dropped. You should check that out. While I agree that the kids weren't angels, they weren't a threat either... not at that time nor at those distances.

quote Originally posted by jstricker: Ray, How many people were arrested and convicted for the burning of the ROTC center? Or for throwing rocks, bricks, and bottles at the firemen trying to put out the fire? I don't think these students should have died but I also don't think that they were all innocent lambs either. Two of them certainly were as they were just walking between classes, but the other two were not. Had the mob not followed the guardsman back up the hill when they retreated, the event would never have happened. Take off your "pig" mentality and rejoin reality, Ray. John Stricker

sorry but you bought a pack of lies
here are a few true facts

cops burned the ROTC center

students did try to set fire to the ROTC building
but it was quickly put out

''the ROTC fire was set by agents provocateur. Charles Thomas, who worked at the National Archives and obtained the separate FBI report on the ROTC fire through the Freedom of Information Act, says those documents prove "the police had been deliberately held back" and "the building was apparently burned while it was intact and in the hands of the police." '''

students left the area and 2 hours later the building burned
when the cops were in control of the building


nobody was shot at close range in the next day shooting or charging the troops
or even throwing anything
some of the victoms were over a 100 yards away from the troops
""The closest fatality, Jeff was standing 265 feet from the guardsmen when a bullet slammed into his mouth and killed him instantly.""
''Allison Krause, who had taunted the Guard at the Pagoda, was 343 feet away when the shooting broke out. She and her boyfriend, Barry, hid behind a car. After the shooting ended, Barry thought everything was OK until Allison whispered, "I'm hit." The bullet had entered her armpit and ripped through most of her major organs. She died en route to the hospital.'' she was targeted!!!!
''William Schroeder, who was attending Kent on a ROTC scholarship, was shot in the lower back when he was 382 feet away. The bullet exited his shoulder. Bill survived the trip to the hospital but died as he was being wheeled into an operating room. Sandra Scheuer, walking to her next class, was 390 feet from the guard when a bullet severed her jugular vein. She bled to death in the parking lot.''Robbie Stamps, about 500 feet away, was shot in the right buttock. Donald Scott MacKenzie was 730 feet away when a bullet struck him in the neck and exited his cheek.

''Photographs refute this argument. Although Troop G, responsible for most of the gunfire, was guarding the right flank, they ignored the largest group of student on that side - those in front of Taylor Hall. Instead, they fired on the much smaller, more vocal, and more distant students in the Prentice Hall parking lot. The most compelling evidence to refute the claim of self-defense is the distances at which the victims fell. ''

some were closer but unarmed and not throwing anything but a ''bird''
''Joseph Lewis, Jr., standing some 60 to 70 feet away, was shot in the abdomen and lower leg. Joe would admit later that he had been giving the guardsmen the finger when they shot him. As he lay wounded, the second shot him in the leg.'' he was targeted!!!!!!

''Alan Canfora, who had taunted the guard with his black flag, was 225 feet away and hiding behind a tree when a shot ripped through his wrist. he was targeted!!!!!!
Dean Kahler was lying prone 300 feet away when he was shot in the back and permanently paralyzed.''
''Douglas Wrentmore, 329 feet away, was shot in his knee. ''


if you look at the photos there was no mad mob attacking the troops
the only gun found was in the hands of an FBI informant

there is good reason to call them pigs they shot people for gestures and waving a flag
and a girl for taunting them
and charges should have been filed
the bigger pigs didnot allow that to happen
what happened to the rule of law ????

------------------
Question wonder and be wierd
are you kind?

Ok, let me get this straight. this is the first time i ever heard about this. people where protesting, they got violent, stuff got broken. people broke into places, they told them to leave. the protesters didn't instead they threw rocks at the national gaurds or cops. the cops shot at them? 4 died?
where the 4 innocnet people? or where they the protestors who where told to leave and did not?
I don't feel bad at all if they where throwing rocks at cops or the miliatry and they got shot. if cops shot everytime there was a riot. there wouldnt be any more riots or this rodney king bullshit that innocnet people get traped in. they wanna protest fine. if there told to leave. don't start ****ing throwing rocks at military and cops and expect not to get shot. this happend 13 years before i was born so if i have this inocorect someone tell me what really happend.

Read and familiarize yourself with the facts of what happened before you jump in with both feet.

Fact 1
The people who were shot were "bystanders" standing well away from the guards position. Clearly not threatening them (the guardsman) in any way.

quote Originally posted by 84fierotrevor:

quote Originally posted by 84fierotrevor: Ok, let me get this straight. this is the first time i ever heard about this. people where protesting, they got violent, stuff got broken. people broke into places, they told them to leave. the protesters didn't instead they threw rocks at the national gaurds or cops. the cops shot at them? 4 died? where the 4 innocnet people? or where they the protestors who where told to leave and did not? I don't feel bad at all if they where throwing rocks at cops or the miliatry and they got shot. if cops shot everytime there was a riot. there wouldnt be any more riots or this rodney king bullshit that innocnet people get traped in. they wanna protest fine. if there told to leave. don't start ****ing throwing rocks at military and cops and expect not to get shot. this happend 13 years before i was born so if i have this inocorect someone tell me what really happend.

First if you know nothing about it read the story in the first link.

Second this was a lot different than what is going on now in that it had been going on for many more years and no one wanted the war, except maybe a few wasted individuals in the government.

Third talk to some people in your area our ages around 50, it was a very turbulent time for everyone.
I personally lost some good friends over in Vietnam, many years after they came back.

From what you say you are only thirteen so read a little history, learn what we are talking about. Here is a link to a CNN story about it, probably the most reputable.

http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/views/y/2000/04/tuchman.kentstate.may4/

Here is a link to the original link

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/5/3/162910/0623

Here’s another story.

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

Read it is history.

Not trying to put you down, at least you asked.

It was a shitty time to say the least, and when you done read the lyrics to the song that Boondawg was kind enough to have written. As I said before every time I hear it I still to this day get Goosebumps.


------------------
technology is great when it works
and one big pain in the ass when it doesn't.
Detroit iron rules all the rest are just toys.

Sorry 23 years old

[This message has been edited by 84fiero123 (edited 05-04-2006).]

Ok Bill, I'll play................

"a few overzealous pigs". No, they weren't. These weren't some cops out to teach someone a lesson. They were guardsman, most of them not more than kids themselves, that were put in a situation they probably shouldn't have been in, and were scared to death of an angry mob that was throwing rocks, bottles, and anything else they could find. The retreated the scene to try to defuse the situation and were followed in their retreat. One or more of them panicked, either for no good reason (just out of panic) or because they were fired upon. One medical examiner's report said that one of the dead victims was NOT shot with military issue rounds.

Do you honestly believe with the reports of bikers and others inciting the mob there were NO other firearms in the crowd? I don't. Although there's no way to prove it, it wouldn't surprise me if a shot WAS fired from the mob, even if just into the air. That's all it would take to escalate things to the tragedy it became.

I agree with you guys, it was a tragedy that I wish would not have occurred, but in this case, there is plenty of blame to go around and to be honest, the guardsman that were there would be way down on the list. I'd start with the mob itself that had no self control. Then I'd go to the mayor that declared a state of emergency, then the governor who, by all accounts, had the attitude "I'll show those damn kids".

Plenty of blame, and the "pigs" only get to shoulder part of it.

John Stricker

quote Originally posted by 84Bill: While I agree in part with what you have said I STRONGLY disagree with the use of deadly force. You say that Ray should return to reality yet the privilage of reality was denied to four individuals by a few overzealous "pigs" who decided their fate. With power comes great responsibility and need for control. While those who protested demonstrated a lack of control it was those who exerted deadly force that demonstrated an even greater lack of control. A rock or bottle will not go any further that maybe 60 feet and an encounter in all likelyhood is not going to be leathal. However, a bullet fired from an M-16 IS deadly for up to 8703 feet.

Flowers & Bullets, by Yevgeny Yevtushenko
(English translation by Anthony Kahn)

Of course:
Bullets don't like people
who love flowers,
They're jealous ladies, bullets,
short on kindness.
Allison Krause, nineteen years old,
you're dead
for loving flowers.

When, thin and open as the pulse
of conscience,
you put a flower in a rifle's mouth
and said,
"Flowers are better than bullets,"
that
was pure hope speaking.

Give no flowers to a state
that outlaws truth;
such states reciprocate
with cynical, cruel gifts,
and your gift, Allison Krause,
was the bullet
that blasted the flower.

Let every apple orchard blossom black,
black in mourning.
Ah, how the lilac smells!
You're without feeling.
Nothing, Nixon said it:
"You're a bum."
All the dead are bums.
It's not their crime.
You lie in the grass,
a melting candy in your mouth,
done with dressing in new clothes,
done with books.

You used to be a student.
You studied fine arts.
But other arts exist,
of blood and terror,
and headsmen with a genuius for the axe.

Who was Hitler?
A cubist of gas chambers.
In the name of all flowers
I curse your works,
you architect of lies,
maestros of murder!
Mothers of the world whisper
"O God, God!"
and seers are afraid
to look ahead.
Death dances rock-and-roll upon the bones
of Vietnam, Cambodia -
On what stage is it booked to dance tomorrow?

Rise up, Tokyo girls,
Roman boys,
take up your flowers
against the common foe.
Blow the world's dandelions up
into a blizzard!
Flowers, to war!
Punish the punishers!
Tulip after tulip,
carnation after carnation
rip out of your tidy beds in anger,
choke every lying throat
with earth and root!
You, jasmine, clog
the spinning blades of mine-layers.

Boldy,
block the cross-hair sights,
drive your sting into the lenses,
nettles!
Rise up, lily of the Ganges,
lotus of the Nile,
stop the roaring props
of planes pregnant
with the death of chidren!
Roses, don't be proud
to find yourselves sold
at higher prices.
Nice as it is to touch a tender cheek,
thrust a sharper thorn a little deeper
into the fuel tanks of bombers.

Of course:
Bullets are stronger than flowers.
Flowers aren't enough to overwhelm them.
Stems are too fragile,
petals are poor armor.
But a Vietnam girl of Allison's age,
taking a gun in her hands
is the armed flower
of the people's wrath!
If even flowers rise,
then we've had enough
of playing games with history.

Young America,
tie up the killer's hands.
Let there be an escalation of truth
to overwhelm the escalating lie
crushing people's lives!
Flowers, make war!
Defend what's beautiful!
Drown the city streets and country roads
like the flood of an army advancing
and in the ranks of people and flowers
arise, murdered Allison Krause,
Immortal of the age,
Thorn-Flower of protest!

John None of us were there and will probably never know the whole story because of the decades that have past and the twist of the media reports

But I have to agree it was terrible and to say the least a tragedy.

Can we say it was a mistake by all involved?

That doesn’t bring those kids back so how about not arguing about who is at fault and just remember those who lost their lives in a bad situation from the past and remember them as human beings that died for no good reason.

PEACE.

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technology is great when it works
and one big pain in the ass when it doesn't.
Detroit iron rules all the rest are just toys.

Not sure where you got that info. A lot of what happened that day is utter confusion, but one of the accepted facts is that they were followed as they retreated. From the FBI report:

"...just prior to the time the Guard left its position on the practice field, members of Troop G were ordered to kneel and aim their weapons at the students in the parking lot south of Prentice Hall. They did so, but did not fire."
"...the Guard was then ordered to regroup and move back up the hill past Taylor Hall."
"...when the Guard reached the crest of Blanket Hill by the southeast corner of Taylor Hall at about 12:25pm, they faced the students following them and fired their weapons. Four students were killed and nine were wounded."

This is from the Kent May 4 Center and is a pretty unbiased look at what happened that day.

John Stricker

quote Originally posted by FieroMojo: John... the 'mob' didnt follow. There are 2 diagrams on that site depicting the shots and one pinpoints each person where they were dropped. You should check that out. While I agree that the kids weren't angels, they weren't a threat either... not at that time nor at those distances.

I need not say anything else... the picture tells the story better than any FBI report.

There is NO excuse for them to have fired upon unarmed people that were NOT charging after them. They needlessly took lives that day and the government covered it up. In the end they simply wrote a check and said sorry. You could say the same for 9/11. Guess history did repeat itself.

quote Originally posted by jstricker: Ok Bill, I'll play................ "a few overzealous pigs". No, they weren't. These weren't some cops out to teach someone a lesson. They were guardsman, most of them not more than kids themselves, that were put in a situation they probably shouldn't have been in, and were scared to death of an angry mob that was throwing rocks, bottles, and anything else they could find. The retreated the scene to try to defuse the situation and were followed in their retreat. One or more of them panicked, either for no good reason (just out of panic) or because they were fired upon. One medical examiner's report said that one of the dead victims was NOT shot with military issue rounds. Do you honestly believe with the reports of bikers and others inciting the mob there were NO other firearms in the crowd? I don't. Although there's no way to prove it, it wouldn't surprise me if a shot WAS fired from the mob, even if just into the air. That's all it would take to escalate things to the tragedy it became. I agree with you guys, it was a tragedy that I wish would not have occurred, but in this case, there is plenty of blame to go around and to be honest, the guardsman that were there would be way down on the list. I'd start with the mob itself that had no self control. Then I'd go to the mayor that declared a state of emergency, then the governor who, by all accounts, had the attitude "I'll show those damn kids". Plenty of blame, and the "pigs" only get to shoulder part of it. John Stricker

In the 1960's and early 70's the National Guard was pretty much a good-old-boy social club or a place for people with connections to hide their kids from the draft (G.W. Bush for example). Those units weren't likely to be activated for anything short of WWIII.

After Vietnam, the military was restructered under the "Total Force" concept. The idea was to make it impossible for the country to fight a war without using the National Guard. This was partly to make sure that the politicians couldn't take the country to war without the support of the populace (seemed like a good idea at the time).

Since then, the National Guard has been involved on a large scale in every operation since the Panama invasion.


facts to counter you BS John
bikers??? pure invented BS
outside agitaters yes PAID BY THE FBI
one guardsman was treated for injury TOTAL [minor cuts]
and that happend 15 min BEFORE the SHOOTING
none of the photos show injured guardsmen or flying rocks

link to photos http://aztlan.net/kentstate3.htm
no bullets were found to be nonguard fired in any injured or dead student

Kent State Police Detective Tom Kelley gave an interview to the Akron Beacon Journal, published on August 8, 1973, in which Kelley admitted speaking with an NBC camera crew on the afternoon of May 2 as they were preparing to leave campus.

"Don't pack your cameras,” Kelley told them, “we are going to have a fire tonight."

Troop G – green guardsmen or experienced "death squad"?

A May 18, 1970 story in Time magazine on the shootings reported, "Though the units had served in riot situations before, most of the lower-ranking enlisted men had no war experience. The Guardsmen at Kent had apparently not paid much attention to whatever training they had been given. 'Some in my platoon,' said one of the troopers, 'have never handled a rifle and hardly know how to load it.'"

This information is contradicted later in the article by then Kent State journalism professor Charles Brill, who said the Guard looked like a firing squad.

"An Army veteran who saw action in Korea, Brill was certain that the Guardsmen had not fired randomly out of individual panic," said the Time article. "They were organized," he said. "It was not scattered. They all waited and they all pointed their rifles at the same time. It looked like a firing squad."

Alan Canfora corroborates this view with what he has learned about Troop G, the ones who fired the shots on May 4. Canfora cites an anecdote he didn’t learn of until years after the incident.

"In 1987 or so, I met a guy who was in the Ohio National Guard in the '60s," says Canfora. They struck up a conversation about May 4 and the former guardsman asked Canfora if he had ever heard of Troop G. "Of course,” Canfora remarked, “that was the death squad!"

Canfora's new acquaintance confessed to being a former member of Troop G, who was kicked out of the Guard in 1969. But the man told Canfora that he was a part of Troop G during the ghetto riots in the Hough and Glenville areas of Cleveland in 1965-66.

"The same guys that shot you guys at Kent State were the ones that shot the people in Cleveland," said the ex-guardsman. "They were experienced killers."

The fact that Troop G had controversial involvement in quelling the Cleveland riots is corroborated by a quote from U.S. Senator Stephen Young in the Akron-Beacon Journal on July 27, 1966 where he referred to the Guardsmen involved as being, "trigger happy." Troop G's presence at the Cleveland riots was confirmed in a sidebar story noting they had been dispatched for the assignment.

another piece of little known evidence comes from Charles A. Thomas, who worked for twelve years at the National Archives and was selected to study films of the Kent State shootings. In "Kent State/May 4", edited by Scott L. Bills (KSU Press), Thomas reported that, "it looked very much as if someone had doctored the evidence to minimize any impression of the Guard's brutality and to plant the spurious notion that the soldiers had been confronted with a raging student mob."

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Question wonder and be wierd
are you kind?

Tell me, does "charging" mean the same thing to you as "following"? No? It doesn't to me either. Where did I ever say that the students were "charging"? I said repeatedly that as the guardsmen retreated, they were FOLLOWED up the hill. Look at your own diagram. The guard WAS in the practice field. Since they retreated up the hill to the point in your diagram where the shootings occurred, and some of those that were hit were within 60' of their position, how is it they were NOT followed? One has to assume that if they were retreating, they were moving AWAY from the crowd, correct? If not, then they would have been ADVANCING.

Look at your diagram again. When a bullet is fired from a high powered rifle it follows a declining trajectory in a more or less straight line. Bullets that don't hit anything continue along that line until they run out of energy. Is it not POSSIBLE that the guardsman fired in the general direction of the crowd, or even if they aimed, missing some of those in front and hitting people that were at the rear or perhaps not even involved in the disturbance? You don't know (as I don't) how many people were in that crowd and how they were distributed. It's clear by the bystanders that were injured that it wasn't a small crowd though.

I don't condone this or say "they had it coming". I've never said that. Get mad all you want, it won't change anything. The guard shouldn't have been there, I agree. Terrible things happened, I agree. This BS that you're portraying that they seem to have gone there to fire wantonly into an unarmed crowd is just that, BS. To a man I'll bet you that NONE of the members of the guard that was there wanted any such thing. You wouldn't. Neither would I. For whatever reasons, it happened.

To me, blaming the guardsmen in this case is like blaming the gun for doing a murderer's killing. The guard didn't show up there voluntarily, they were ORDERED THERE by the governor and their commanding officers. Period. Covered up? What are you talking about. There has been more written about this than anything of it's type in this country's history. The actual minute by minute, blow by blow events are not clear, but that's understandable. The whole thing only lasted about 20 seconds or less of firing time. People were diving for cover. They weren't putting down golf tees to mark their postitions. Of course things are unclear as to what exactly, precisely happened in all of that confusion.

I don't like it. You obviously don't like it. But it happened and your anger solves nothing, particularly anger at me. Better to look at why it happened to begin with. How did the crowd get that far out of control days before when the state of emergency was declared? What was happening that the mayor thought a state of emergency was required and later, that the governor would call out the guard? Why were guardsmen with little or no training in riot control put on the front lines? There's a lot of things we can learn from this but a blanket condemnation of just one factor is something that won't help it from ever happening again.

John Stricker

quote Originally posted by FieroMojo: I need not say anything else... the picture tells the story better than any FBI report. There is NO excuse for them to have fired upon unarmed people that were NOT charging after them. They needlessly took lives that day and the government covered it up. In the end they simply wrote a check and said sorry. You could say the same for 9/11. Guess history did repeat itself.