Tin Soldiers-n-Nixon Comin

[senorsalvia]

Tommorrow marks the 40th anniversary of that terrible day when 4 unarmed students were slaughtered on the campus of Kent State.  I can remember that day in stark clarity..  I'd been up all night with a double dose of purple;  had the t.v. on with the sound turned off, as I grooved on the Stones...  I glanced at the tickertape style newsfeed showing on the screen.  My eyes got even more wild and dilated (assuming such is possible), as the historic words "4 dead in Ohio" scrolled by.  I jerked off the headphones and turned up the volume as I began yelling for the sleeping household to wake up...  The tribe at the house made hasty plans, and two days later, we found ourselves on Kent campus quad..  The collective agony of an AmeriKKKa run amok was overwhelming..  The bloodstain where the girl famously cradled the dead fella in her lap (made front page of Newsweek) was still fouling the sidewalk... Heavy and Headtimes...  Keep those barricades manned dear peeps, if only now, in 'da psychological sense........

[judih]

forty years ago. like a shock to the system - complacency slips away in that full body memory.
everything else melted away in the impact of that image. The song that keeps the feeling close at hand.
i was too young to even think of making that trek - but i sat in my parents' suburban living room in deep ponder
and when the CSN&Y song came out, i was pounding the chords on the piano and singing and crying from the pain and outrage
and ultimate sadness of system v.s. victim.


thnx, senor, for bringing this to mind today, 40 yrs later

-judih

[senorsalvia]

It's not like I make a studied effort to bring such things to rememberance.  It's more of a truism to tell you that such socio-politcal shenanigans / historic histrionics are never very far from my day to day conciousness...  By the luck of fate, I grew up amidst all that stuff.  It's strange that my folks generation belived so fervently in USA all the way:  Freedom: all that, and yet, I could see racism/bigotry/religious intolerance/political pandering while insulting the constuencies intellect, yadda yadda...  Ha,  I had a friend ten yrs my junior that used to complain that I drew the lucky card for growing up in the early genlte 50's, and yet graduated H.S. and came into my own in the late 60's.  He said he was jealous by default....   I can remember seeing CSNY later on the summer of the Kent fiasco....  When the band went into 'OHIO', there was such a palpable feeling of futility and rage.  People were looking at one another and slowly nodding to the tempo of the words; there faces stern with passion..  The energy level got so intense, that I truly thought the 30 thousand of us were going to go flowing out into the streets and have a replay of the Chicago days of rage...  The band could feel the tension...  They did the logically thoughtful thing...  They encored with a mellow acoustic 'Suite Judy Blue Eyes'....  Those were certainly the times.......

[judih]

it's a political world - every minute, and it's perhaps the biggest continual source of soul-angst that i was born to the culture of meditation, non-attachment on one side and do something, anything, make it better on the other.  Do i run off to a monastery on a lone mountain top, or do i renounce the pilgrim's way and actively pitch in with all my heart.

daily balancing.
outside it stinks. armies, self-centered corporations, greed and commercialism.
outside it's beautiful. community caring, working the land, questioning the direction.

events like kent state recur again and again. always reminders that life is a series of conflicts. can there be resolutions? do we have a choice but to search for them?

[senorsalvia]

Ah Sis; as always your penchant for finding that silver lining shows ever so brightly...  'Can there be resolutions' ?  'Have we any choice but to search for them' ?  What an uplifting outlook... Guess that's called grace under fire eh?

[laughingwillow]

Order to fire on students now audible on enhanced audio...

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/art ... AD9FISQG81

quote from the article: Experts re-examine audio from Kent State shootings
(AP) – 18 hours ago

CLEVELAND — A new analysis of a 40-year-old audio recording reveals that someone ordered National Guard troops to prepare to fire on students during a deadly Vietnam War protest at Kent State University in 1970, two forensics experts said. The recording was enhanced and evaluated by New Jersey-based audio experts Stuart Allen and Tom Owen at the request of The Plain Dealer newspaper. Both concluded that they hear someone shout, "Guard!" Seconds later, a voice yells, "All right, prepare to fire!"

"Get down!" someone shouts, presumably in the crowd.

A voice then says, "Guard!..." followed two seconds later by a booming volley of gunshots.

[judih]

hearing it is horrendous.
'we were only following orders' isn't that how it goes?