Well…as I do every year, I do a short one on the anniversary of the  Kent State massacre where 4 student exercising their constitutional rights were murdered by the Ohio National Guard and 12 other students were shot and injured .I’m going to keep this one short as just a memorial, but we just need to look around at what’s happening to women’s rights to see that this is a deeply flawed country, and it is not by accident…this is the design that the repubs have been working for since before Kent State…that no one has any rights except those granted by the white men who run the country and they can be taken away on a whim so don’t cross them…I’ve lived too long through too much of this shit…I’m tired…

Well….May 4th 1970….four dead in Ohio…four students killed at Kent State University for exercising their first amendment rights to protest the actions of their government…this one hurts every year…as a 16 year old kid staring down the very real possibility of going to Vietnam to die for whatever reasons, these murders shattered what was left of the innocence and pride that I felt to be an American…I mean, how can the government send soldiers to kill students who did nothing but assemble and protest? Until that point I believed that the government of the US operated in good faith but that naivete was only the safety blanket that had insulated a 16 year old who only thought of 16 year old things til that day….but the thought of kids who were just a little older than I was being killed just because they pissed off Nixon and the others who were running the government really shocked me and took away the safety that I felt…I still feel that day even 50 years later…and seeing the archival footage  shows me how we haven’t progressed as a nation at all in that 50 years…and I still think Neil’s song says it best…just substitute trump for Nixon….”tin soldiers and Nixon comin, we’re finally on our own…” RIP…..Allison, Sandra, Jeffrey, and William…

Well…just a short one of remembrance for one of the terrible days from my youth…49 years ago today, 4 students were killed by the Ohio National Guard on the campus of Kent State University for doing nothing more than exercising their constitutional rights to protest the Vietnam war….this was a changing moment for me at 17 years old with the spectre of going to Vietnam hanging over my head and the blind allegiance to our country beginning to be questioned every day with the revelations of what was happening in our names. This may seem trite but Neil’s song still distills the event to me…”what if you knew her and found her dead on the ground?” The sad thing is this crap is still going on today in our communities of color….and I still feel the despair of that day…if these 4 students could be gunned down, then no one was safe anymore…

Well…just a short one on one of the darkest days in this nation’s history…48 years ago today, 4 students were killed at Kent State University while exercising their first amendment rights to protest the actions of their government…I was 16 at the time and was staring down the barrel of the draft with the real possibility of getting sent to Vietnam….that’s all I have to say right now….just listened to “Ohio” by Neil Young and it still sends chills down my spine…..

Well….some years this day goes by with no recognition at all, but this year I think we need to remember what happens when the government turns on it’s citizens…especially in these days of trump. 47 years ago today, National guard troops opened fire on protesters on the campus of Kent State University…after 13 seconds, 4 young people lay dead on the ground for exercising their constitutional rights to assemble and protest….to this day, I still remember it coming over the news and Walter Cronkite reporting it…and as a 16 year old kid quickly coming up on draft age, I was still trying to understand the Vietnam war and why we were fighting there….I do remember the walkouts at my high school that followed Kent State and it did enter my mind that there may be danger there…I think Kent State was my turning point, where I went from the naivete of supporting the country no matter what to understanding that we as a country could be wrong…and those words from Neil Young’s song still bring a tear to my eye every time I hear them “…what if you knew her and found her dead on the ground…how can you run when you know?”  Peace…..

Hmmm…40 years ago today, 4 students were killed by the national guard that were called in to keep order on the campus of Kent State University. Being a 17 year old kid at the time (and one who generally supported the government) I didn’t know what to think about our government killing people who were not much older than I was and whose only crime was to exercise their constitutionally protected rights of assembly and protest. I think that day opened my eyes and set me on the path that has led me to where I am now…believing that government can be good or evil; it depends on the humans that are making up that government….

No citizen, or no human should have to pay that high a price for his or her beliefs…but I know that’s how change happens; and it’s cost is sometime almost unbearable. Thank you to those who have had the courage to bet it all on making this country and world a better place.

I still get chills whenever the first notes of “Ohio” by CSNY come on the radio…

“What if you knew her and found her dead on the ground?”