Yesterday, May 4, was the 50th anniversary of the horrific massacre at Kent State University in Ohio, where the National Guard fired live ammunition at anti Vietnam War demonstrators, killing 4 and wounding 10 students.
Many of the victims had not even been engaged in the rock throwing demonstration, but there has never been any justification for using live ammunition against students.
The Ohio Governor, James Rhodes, and the individual National Guardsmen were never held accountable legally.
Now, we have a situation in which gun toting Trumpites stormed the Michigan Legislature to protest the lockdown ordered by Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, in reaction to the CoronaVirus Pandemic, which is still surging in that state.
Apparently, it is legal for people in Michigan to come into government buildings with firearms, and that should be changed.
Are we going to allow hoodlums to invade government buildings and terrorize government officials doing their duty to protect citizens from a pandemic?
Rightfully, the law enforcement authorities should have prevented the invasion, and ordered everyone out, and if they did not comply , then use force against those who have firearms.
One can be certain that if the gun toting terrorists had been African American or Latino, they would likely have been shot dead.
This is another example of the ongoing racism going on in America, and the growth of Fascist Trumpite followers, who endanger public safety!
As You have told me on more than one occasion: “Ronald, You really need to take Your medicine. LOL!!! [smiley face emoji]”
RF: “Apparently, it is legal for people in Michigan to come into government buildings with firearms, and that should be changed.”
i would suggest that if You want it changed, that You move to Michigan and work to change it.
RF: “Rightfully, the law enforcement authorities should have prevented the invasion, and ordered everyone out, and if they did not comply , then use force against those who have firearms.”
Given the fact that apparently no law was broken, on what grounds should law enforcement authorities have taken those steps? And particularly to have used force?
RF: “One can be certain that if the gun toting terrorists had been African American or Latino, they would likely have been shot dead.”
One can be certain, eh? Again: if it was a legal activity, why would or should anybody be shot dead, white, black, brown, yellow, or red? And were these “terrorists” or “protesters”? Or, because they were “Fascist Trumpite followers,” there then is no difference?
RF: “This is another example of the ongoing racism going on in America, and the growth of Fascist Trumpite followers, who endanger public safety!”
The argumentation logical fallacies that You employ could fill a volume, Professor Feinman. Because ~ in Your estimation ~ it is “certain” that If the “gun-toting terrorists were not white,” that they would have been killed; that, then, is an example of “the ongoing racism in America.”
That statement, in itself, is certainly an example of Your breed of racism that is also widely and deeply ongoing in America. But more significantly, it is an example of the fogged-in [or -out] thinking that drives much of the political chatter of Americans today, be it on the Left, the Right, or in the Muddled Middle.
Also: So where are all those big, bad, brave Anti-Fas everybody on the Left was so excited to see showing all them racist, sexist, xenophobic, nationalist, tribalist, fascist Trumpatistas a thing or two, not so long ago? Probably hiding at home in their parents’ tv room, would be my guess. Observing the lockdown like the good, law-abiding citizens they are.
Be that as it may: My biggest complaint about Your latest rant is Your use of the 50th anniversary of Kent State to make a totally erroneous, if not ridiculous, if not inane point. You wrote:
Yesterday, May 4, was the 50th anniversary of the horrific massacre at Kent State University in Ohio, where the National Guard fired live ammunition at anti Vietnam War demonstrators, killing 4 and wounding 10 students………and the individual National Guardsmen were never held accountable legally.”
May 4, 1970 was The Day The War Came Home, as the day’s Casualty List included for four college students in Ohio. That was the day Sam got his guns up, and the rest is history. That day marked the death of anti-War and pro-Peace activism and actionism in America; and it has never come back.
The American a-W/p-P movement, community, and meme died that day forever, as evidenced by the a-W/p-P folks’ complete and total failure to do anything of any use to anybody about the First Gulf War, the invasion of Afghanistan, the “liberation” of Iraq, and the whole rest of The Forever War, right up to the present day. [And don’t claim it ended what the Vietnamese People call “The American War.” That War ended five years later on April 30, 1975, when North Vietnam seized Saigon; not when Americans ground forces left in 1972.]
Now that You’ve offered Your six-month-out prognostication on how the Presidential, Senate, and House races will turn out in November, how about a piece on the Prospects For Peace for The Peoples, Lands, Countries, and Nations of Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Libya, Somalia, Yemen, Syria, Iran, and elsewhere under a Biden White House, with its ideology of the same corporatist, crony capitalist, neo-liberal/neo-conservative, interventionist, global Empire-wannabe persuasion that saw Obama so successfully carry to new heights the work begun by Cheney/Bush the Lesser.
Maybe he can bring back The Hillary as Secretary of State, just to get the ball rolling.
But here’s something to think about. What if those armed protesters weren’t there to simply protest, but to overthrow the government of Michigan, and to declare its secession from the United States? And what ~ with the help of elements of the Michigan Army and Air National Guard, and the State and City Police ~ what if they succeeded?
Howz that for a reality-tv show episode of “The Age of Trump, Year IV” that would set world-wide streaming records?
On the 50th Anniversary of the Kent State Massacre: An Open Letter/Request for Consideration to Neil Young, re “OHIO”
Dear Mr Young:
i have been listening to ~ and hearing ~ You
for more than 50 years, now.
Thank You.
This is a request that You permit an adaptation of “OHIO,”
as applied to Year 4 of America’s favorite reality-tv show:
“The Age of POTUS Maxximmuss XLV.”
It goes like this:
Robo-Soldiers and Drones are coming,
Trumpatistas and anti-Fas too.
This summer i hear the drumming.
When will they come for You?
About time to let’s get to it,
that show is coming to town.
Coulda, shoulda happened long time ago.
What if You knew America,
and found Her dead on the ground?
Where would You run to;
Where would You go?
Na nananana…..Na na na na
Na nananana nana noo
Yabadaba yaba daba,
Yabadabba yaba daba doo.`
About time to let’s get to it,
that show is coming to town.
Coulda, shoulda happened long time ago.
What if You knew America,
and found Her dead on the ground?
Where would You run to;
Where would You go?
Robo-Cops and Face Rec’s coming,
armed gangs and militias too.
This summer do You hear the drumming?
When will it come for You?
About time to let’s get to it;
That show’s already around.
Coulda, shoulda happened long time ago.
What if You knew America,
and found her dead on the ground?
Where You gonna run to;
Where You gonna go?
Big Brother and MiniTru’s comin,
Rooms One Oh One are too.
This summer, dare You hear the drummin,
When does it come for You?
Past time for gettin to it;
That nitemare’s about here.
Gonna happen not too long from now.
What if You knew America,
and found Her dead on the ground?
Where You got to run to?
Where d’You think You’ll go?
[Whistling to fade.]
The video will be modeled after this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qs6aaaJBAv0 .
Thank You for Your consideration. Stay Safe.
Jeffrey G Moebus
Master Sergeant, Retired [US Army]
Veterans Against War [Sitka Platoon]
Sitka, Alaska
Agreed, Professor. Toting their AK47s around sends a message of intimidation.
Follow-up Video from al-Jazeera re “On the 50th Anniversary of the Kent State Massacre”
Fringe Protests Can’t Distract from Trump’s Failures
https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/fringe-protests-cant-distract-from-trumps-coronavirus-failures
New polling shows that Trump’s approval rating has fallen to the low 40s and his disapproval rating is in the 50s and that most people don’t think that salons, movie theaters, gyms, etc. should be reopening right now and that measures by the federal government to slow the spread of the virus have not gone far enough.
Exactly, Pragmatic. Most Americans don’t agree with these Trumpanzees who are “protesting”.
God has good sense of humor. Live and Let Die blared as Trump (who is still refusing to wear a mask) visited a mask factory.
Good twist on Reagan’s 80s ad. Perfectly relevant for what we are facing. Got Trumplethinskin rage tweeting.
Do Republicans Have a God-Given Right to Infect You?
The “Open-Up-Now†crowd’s flawed constitutional reasoning.
https://washingtonmonthly.com/2020/05/06/do-republicans-have-a-god-given-right-to-infect-you/
Writing at the Washington Times, Cheryl Chumley makes the argument we’re hearing a lot these days from those who are protesting against the measures being used to slow the spread of the coronavirus. She is particularly upset about any requirement for people to wear protective masks.
[Major U.S. airlines have announced that as a condition of riding their friendly skies, passengers must all put on a face mask.
Let the muzzling of America commence.]
After noting that some state governments are requiring people to wear masks under certain conditions—like working in a restaurant—Chumley writes this.
[This seems a blatant violation of an individual’s right to choose — of an individual’s right to self-govern. America, after all, isn’t a nation founded on collectivism, but rather individualism — on the right of individuals to exercise their God-given authorities, absent government tinkering and intrusion. What gives government the authority to order citizens to cover their faces?]
My immediate reaction was that she could make the same argument against things like speed limits, carrying explosives on airplanes, or even smoking in public places. After all, those laws restrict an individual’s right to self-govern. What gives the government the authority to order citizens to limit how fast they drive?
The answer, of course, is that we have always had laws that put restrictions on individuals to limit the damage their behavior could pose to others. Honestly, the kind of “individualism†Chumley describes is more akin to anarchy than anything our founders envisioned. They actually wrote a kind of collectivism into the Preamble to the Constitution.
[We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.]
In our modern-day two-party system, the traditional argument has never been that “freedom†gives the individual the right to do anything they please. Instead, it has been to disagree about how far the government should go in intervening for the common good.
At the Democratic Convention in 2012, President Barack Obama laid out that tension as he focused on what citizenship means in a democratic republic.
[We honor the strivers, the dreamers, the risk- takers, the entrepreneurs who have always been the driving force behind our free enterprise system, the greatest engine of growth and prosperity that the world’s ever known.
But we also believe in something called citizenship — citizenship, a word at the very heart of our founding, a word at the very essence of our democracy, the idea that this country only works when we accept certain obligations to one another and to future generations…
We, the people — recognize that we have responsibilities as well as rights; that our destinies are bound together; that a freedom which asks only, what’s in it for me, a freedom without a commitment to others, a freedom without love or charity or duty or patriotism, is unworthy of our founding ideals, and those who died in their defense.
As citizens, we understand that America is not about what can be done for us. It’s about what can be done by us, together through the hard and frustrating but necessary work of self-government. That’s what we believe.]
There is a reason why Obama focused his speech that year on the importance of citizenship. During a campaign appearance in Roanoke, Virginia, he had talked about the fact that economic growth is driven by a dynamic of both individual and collective effort.
[If you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own…somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business—you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.
The point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together. There are some things, just like fighting fires, we don’t do on our own. I mean, imagine if everybody had their own fire service. That would be a hard way to organize fighting fires.]
Republicans, and their presidential nominee Mitt Romney, zeroed in on two sentences: “If you’ve got a business—you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen,†claiming that Obama attacked the very foundation of our free enterprise system. They even went so far as to dedicate a whole day of their convention to a rebuke of those two sentences taken out of context.
This battle between the individual and the collective has been the defining difference between Democrats and Republicans for years. It is important to recognize that when conservatives talk about “freedom†these days, it is most often in the context of freedom from any form of government action or intervention. The claim, as Chumley notes, is that self-government no longer refers to our collective responsibilities as citizens of a democratic republic, but “an individual’s right to self-govern†themselves. That is one of the more dangerous arguments that Attorney General William Barr made during his speech at Notre Dame.
[In the words of Madison, “We have staked our future on the ability of each of us to govern ourselves…â€
This is really what was meant by “self-government.†It did not mean primarily the mechanics by which we select a representative legislative body. It referred to the capacity of each individual to restrain and govern themselves.]
What makes that argument so dangerous is that it wasn’t being made to promote anarchy or even libertarianism. Instead, it is a way to advocate for the idea of “religious liberty,†or the right of conservative Christians to impose their beliefs onto others via government intervention. In other words, it is all about freedom for me, but not thee.
That is precisely why we see the irony of people protesting the coronavirus restrictions carrying signs that read: “My body, my choice.†These people seem to believe in their freedom to threaten the lives of others during a pandemic, but the government should decide what a woman does with her body.
Even more dangerous is the kind of attitude on display with the protester who carried a sign that replicated the one on the gate of Auschwitz, translated “work will set you free.â€
[This was one of the signs at the “Re-open Illinois†event today. She assured those that she was not a Nazi, and stated, “I have Jewish friends.†Thank you for representing yourself and your “movement†for what it is. pic.twitter.com/CcIX2SVu6s
— Dennis Kosuth, RN (@Dennis_Kosuth) May 1, 2020]
What I would observe is that the Republican Party has completely lost touch with concepts like “freedom†and “liberty†in an attempt to deny the collective responsibility of citizenship.
About wearing masks –
I have a gag reflex, so wearing masks can be physically uncomfortable. Paper masks do better for me than cloth masks. I can adjust the pleats a bit, which helps to ease my gagging.
Biden is ahead with women by 20-something points.
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/495482-biden-leads-trump-by-8-points-in-new-hampshire
Monmouth poll includes a three way contest. Biden still beats Trump even with Amash in the mix.
https://twitter.com/MonmouthPoll/status/1258049055525154816?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1258049055525154816&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.dailykos.com%2Fstory%2F2020%2F5%2F6%2F1943017%2F-Joe-Biden-Expands-His-Lead-In-New-Monmouth-National-Poll-Beats-Trump-50-41
Gee….. . Whatever happened to #MeToo ?
Ahhhh….. . That’s it: MoveOn.org has been reincarnated.
And now that Trump vetoed the War On Iran bill, what does Congress plan to do next?
Of course, a President Hillary would have vetoed it, as well. But then, if it was her proposed war, tho, it wouldn’t be an issue with the Democrats, would it?
Inexperience and cronyism slowed Kushner-led efforts to procure medical supplies.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/06/politics/jared-kushner-white-house-volunteers-coronavirus/index.html
Mysterious illness hits at least 15 children in New York City; possible link to COVID-19 suspected.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/5/5/1942779/-Mysterious-illness-hits-at-least-15-children-in-New-York-City-possible-link-to-COVID-19-revealed