CBS News reports after days of unrest over America’s….”
I wonder what people who were born after the 1970’s think when they read that sentence. I wonder what those same people think when they read the title of this essay. I wonder what 50 years has taught Americans about what happens when intolerance and fear strike with deadly force against our own citizens?
I don’t need to wonder. I saw it. Kent State. May of 1970. Students protesting the invasion of Cambodia. Protesting a conflict that will kill 58,000 soldiers. 300,000 wounded. President Nixon wanted law and order. The Ohio National Guard was called to the Kent State campus. No one gave the order to shoot, but shoot they did. It was inevitable. Four students lay dying. Another gravely wounded would soon succumb to the bullet.
And for the first time, “the war had come home” Newsweek proclaimed. We were killing our young. Historians say that day turned public sentiment against Nixon and the Vietnam Conflict. The “great silent majority” had turned away from the bloodshed in the heartland saying, “How could it come to this?”
And here we are exactly 50 years later. Racial injustice and the murder of George Floyd have finally brought out the masses — people of all creed and color. Mothers. Soldiers. Young and old. It’s not just in happening in Portland (although that is where the cameras are most ubiquitous), but BLACK LIVES MATTER protests are pounding the pavement in cities across the land.
The inevitable ‘twitching finger’ is already scripted unless someone stops a president determined to repeat history. The president is provoking the violence much like the National Guard’s presence provoked the students at Kent State. The Guard back in 1970 was made up of mostly just young adults, close to the same age of the protesters. They were just doing what they were told. Tear gas was thrown at students who in turn threw the gas canisters back at the Guard, who were hit with rocks and bottles. They cracked. It happens. It is terrible for all. Hearts break.
The generations that followed may not be aware that this nation has been here before.
Those not around in the turbulent 60’s have no memory of Vietnam protests and civil rights demonstrations, of riots following assassinations, of police and protesters clashing in Chicago at the Democratic National Convention, of police being called ‘pigs’, of young people being called ‘long haired freaks,’ of Jim Crow, of Vietnam Veterans coming home hearing that they were ‘baby killers’. The generations that followed may not be aware that this nation has been here before. The question becomes obvious to some: have we learned anything in 50 years.
Nixon knew when the dirty tricks had cost him the presidency. Republican senators told him so in 1974. It took time. However, this president has enablers (foreign and domestic) and unchecked (and unconfirmed by Congress) accomplishes ready to act on the whim of a president with total disregard to the Constitution to do everything to keep power and vilify all who cross their path. This president operates on the premise ‘divide and conquer.’ He relishes a house divided and has a television network at his disposal. Nixon never came close to that authority because there were people of integrity standing in his way.
The next 100 days can bring Americans together, but I fear that it will be darkest before the dawn. What will it take to move even the most hardened supporters of this current regime to realize that the incompetence, the cruelty, and the unabashed ignorance of this president and his minions has stained this nation so badly that our great democracy is threatened? Will it be another four dead in Ohio, or Portland, or Minneapolis, or Los Angeles, or Brooklyn?
If you want change, then vote for it.
And what should the protesters do? Both sides seem to be unable or unwilling to back down for fear that they will be ‘giving in’ to either the racial injustice or the unending nightly protests. At what point is all this becoming counter-productive?
Frankly, I must say that the criminal element taking advantage of the peaceful protests is unfortunately making the case for intervention, despite the fact that looting and damage to buildings is the exception to the rule. Perhaps the point has been made and underlined twice; police reform must be acknowledged and codified into law. Systemic injustice must be rooted out. Those who violate these reforms must be terminated, not just in one state but nationally.
True legislative reforms may only happen if Joe Biden and a his administration takes control of the Department of Justice. That should be the real focus in Portland and other cities. If you want change, then vote for it.
After Kent State, the great American writer James Michener tried to explain what happened there and why so future generations could take heed. His final sentence is a warning and a clarion call: “Tolerance. God how we needed it then.”
And now.
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