Everything you’ll need to know about Richard Cohen’s latest WaPo column is to be found in the first paragraph:
I still ride a bike. I do 12 miles, several days a week, and as I do so I listen to music — the Pandora service on my iPhone. I have created a station that plays folk rock. Lately, it has repeatedly played the Neil Young song “Ohio”: “What if you knew her and found her dead on the ground?” On the bike, I have to repress a tear.
Do you grok how green Richard Cohen is, riding his bike several days a week? How technologically hip, listening to Pandora? How gosh darned mournful he remains for that long lost summer of endless love? Before the National Guard fired live bullets into a crowd of peaceful dissenters expressing the highest form of patriotism?
Before the specter of AIDS clapped a stopper over the whole party?
Do you get how golly gee sensitive he is, repressing his tear? (We will assume that the columnist is talking about the lachrymose singular, rather than a wardrobe malfunction in his spandex. The alternative being rather too painful to contemplate.)
Stop reading right there and let Ann Althouse pick up the tale:
I’m supposed to have the right image of the Tea Party so I can just swallow that assertion whole. But I’ve been to Tea Party rallies — and heard about them from my husband — and the people seemed pretty nice and normal. To me, Cohen’s attempt to smear ordinary people is what’s ugly.
Or maybe Darleen Click:
I get why Cohen is to desperate to wallow in the past, to invoke the lyrics of Neil Young song, shut his eyes and pretend to grasp the dead students to him as his own. He needs to slander the Tea Party members; the millions of people who have admitted more than once to anyone honest enough to ask that they have never participated in any kind of protest before.
It is Obama vowing to “kick ass”, it is Pelosi calling for investigations into people raising questions about a mosque within the footprint of Ground Zero, it is Max Baucus calling on the IRS to investigate opposition groups, it is Alan Grayson dealing in hate-filled rhetoric and it is Democrats over and over again beating the drum, amplified and disseminated by their poodle media, of how evil and treasonous are conservatives, libertarians and Tea Party participants.
Richard Cohen doesn’t catch the irony: The dissent of Kent State protesters, he thinks, was met with deadly force because of rhetoric that “otherized them,” that turned them into a domestic enemy. Pretty much exactly what Richard Cohen is doing to the dissidents of the Tea Party movement. But he disagrees with those people, so…
Poor, pitiable stuff really. Risible too.
Dunno what Cohen is earning these days. Reckon it’s at least six figures too much for this kind of pap.
i gotta admit, hearing Neil Young on the radio brings a tear to my eye as well. but then i just hit the tuning knob and it all clears up.
and i hope Neil Young will remember, a Southern man don’t need him around anyhow…
If Cohen is being paid anything then then the amount of overpayment would be the result of division by zero. People like Cohen give “knee jerk” a bad name.
Virtually every “journalist” who writes about the Tea Party phenomenon misses the key to understanding it.
It’s the middle class.
For the first time in a very long time, the middle class has felt compelled to go beyond merely casting votes every two or four years to have its concerns heard.
Politicians of all stripes, and any political commentators would do well to realize that.
Middle Class? What Middle Class? The Middle Class has been decimated.
The rich have gotten richer; the poor have gotten poorer; and the middle class is disappearing. The Tea Party is holding on to the last centrury’s beliefs. But times have changed.
BTW, it was the rise of Post War Unions that gave rise to our widespread middle class. And it was the middle class that fueled our economy. With the loss of the middle class, our economy suffers, and will never be as robust without a new, middle class.
Those are some very interesting statistics. I like how there are several related to employment and housing wealth when we’re in the middle of a weak economy caused by massive disruptions in the housing market. Of the statistics that might not be the result of short-term disturbances there’s no vector information. We’re told that the top 1% own 50% of the wealth, but we’re not told how that number has varied in time.
Like I said, interesting. Interesting is a synonym for useless, right?
Here’s a story my mother told me. Right after I was born (so around 1980) my parents moved to Ohio. They were the only two people on the street with degrees (both Army officers) and they drove the worst car. How unskilled labor came to be considered middle class is beyond me. If you want a good life you should learn a skill other than installing bolt #34335 on a Chevy. The labor unions are the reason American industry is dying. Even if we did keep our industrial jobs here somehow the Germans or the South Africans wouldn’t, and American companies would simply lose customers and go out of business. You can no more disregard the laws of economics than you can hold back the tide.
There’s something to these statistics about the middle class that do not ring true. How can corporations be making billions if there’s no middle class with disposable income to purchase their products? The guy in Cambodia earning 22 cents an hour isn’t buying those iPods. Heck, at $1.76 a day pre-tax he’s buying under a half-bushel worth of corn or a quarter-bushel worth of rice, which I’m guessing he’s not eating lunch at McDonalds and gulping down a Mountain Dew during his coffee break.
Another that strikes me as odd is 83 percent of all U.S. stocks are in the hands of 1 percent of the people. That’s flat-out ludicrous. With all the mutual funds, all the 401K’s and 403B’s and those IRA’s and such, amounting to several trillions of dollars, add in the hedge funds which are massive enough to be blamed for market corrections whenever convenient, load in the stocks owned by companies as they bought shares during the market downturn, this one doesn’t even pass the smell test.
Don’t believe me? Back in 1993 Alicia Munnell had proposed that the government add a 15% tax on 401K’s to help spread the retirement wealth. She’s still doing the same thing, her professional gig is to worry about how people can afford to retire. But, why would you propose taxing 401K’s which would annoy the electorate rather than hedge funds the electorate isn’t invested in? Soaking the rich is the game, and it works until the rich are the majority of the electorate. My conclusion is hedge funds didn’t have enough money, so private savings had to be taxed.
Then there’s the claim that 36% of Americans don’t contribute to retirement savings. Why should they, when every attempt to keep social security solvent has been shouted down as trying to abandon Grandma, and politicians all say social security will always be there? Only an idiot would save when promised their contributions would give them all they’d need to retire.
Compared to that guy in Cambodia working for 22 cents an hour I’m not middle class, I’m a titan of finance. Why, I should be building libraries in his country or something, like that evil rich guy Carnegie did. Compared to Carnegie or Buffet I’m not even a mote in his eye. The rest of it, the amount of stock I own or if I rent or own a house or have over-extended my credit and declared bankruptcy or even if I fall below some declared “poverty line” (when Lee Iacocca took over at Chrysler with an annual salary of $1 did he live below the poverty line and qualify for food stamps and such?) is more of the same.
I’ve seen enough of the world to know I have it pretty good. I’m better off than most, not so well off as some. Only somebody with an axe to grind would conclude that Carnegie earning and owning 400 times what I do is a problem that needs to be corrected. Presumably with a tax collected at the point of a gun. By somebody else, of course.
It’s funny how the better off we become, the more we think we deserve rather than should earn.
– Max
Max, your phrase “with a tax collected at the point of a gun” reminds me of the phrase used by a guy who I run into here and there on the blogosphere who calls himself “PersonFromPoorlock” who coined/stole the phrase “marched to virtue at bayonet-point” to describe the approach our intellectual and moral “bettors” from the left side of the aisle seem to invariably chose when rectifying the social defects of we mere Hoi Polloi. lol. When the phrase “by those who possess Thomas Sowell’s ‘Vision of the Anointed’ ” is tacked on to PFPs phrase, the equation is pretty much complete..
* “choose” viz “chose” Gaak!
And my Barbancourt-soaked mind just realized that I’ve not even been spelling my name correctly as of late…i.e, XenOphon…lol!
BS, Flit, I’m middle class and I’m a long damn way from disappearing. And as someone who has had to deal and work with union workers, unions SUCK. Unions SUCK the life right out of a job and will at least double the cost of it. I’ve managed quite well for myself without ever having a union SUCK the money right out of my wallet to guarantee me NOTHING. I can bargain for myself, I can tell the boss that if he doesn’t treat me with respect I’m either going to walk or bust him in the chops and if I don’t like the pay then this isn’t the only company out there. What’s killing the economy is stupid Democrats trying to appease the LOWER classes by tossing out bread and circuses and paying for it with OUR money.
Ah Flit, you disappoint me today. Instead of your usual thoughtful discourse, today you decide to just throw bombs.
“The Tea Party is holding on to the last centrury’s beliefs. But times have changed.”
At least last century every child born didn’t immediately inherit 35 to 40 thousand dollars worth of national debt.
At least last century they still had checks and balances in the political system working instead of government by executive and bureacratic decree.
At least last century they had industry not crippled by exorbitant union wages and demands.
At least last century they didn’t have to worry about looming unfunded union and public sector pensions.
At least last century entrepeneurship was celebrated, not attacked.
Do I need to go on? It’s ironic that despite your honorable service, as soon as someone waxes nostalgic for the good old peace, love, dope days, you fall into demagoguing lockstep with the extremist left in your rhetoric. Shame on you Flit. I expect a higher standard from you.
Flit managed to, for once, tell the truth, albeit inadvertently. “The Middle Class has been decimated.” Reduced by 10% sounds about right. Of course, the rest of what he wrote implies that it has been eliminated.
And, like a good leftist, he believes that values are relative: “The Tea Party is holding on to the last centrury’s beliefs. But times have changed.” Yes, maybe to the leftists/liberals/progressives like Flit, values and mores do change. Integrity, honour, duty mean nothing. This is why the left can scream about racism while dividing people into small, hyphenated cubbyholes. Rail about “freedom from religion” (which phrase is nowhere in the founding documents), while working hard to eliminated the free exercise clause from the First Amendment. Everything is relative to what will help the lefts grasping, greedy attempts to grab from those who produce to redistribute to those who don’t in an attempt to assuage their misplaced and self inflicted guilt.
XBrad, the “middle class” and its values and and concerns has been terra incognita to the “Atlantic Coast Provincials” who constitute the bulk of the mainly east-coast based MSM for going onto half a century now…
Since Edward R Morrow died…imho..Grandfather, lol
Apparently Mr. Cohen is completely ignorant of what actually happened at Kent State, including rioting, burning down the ROTC building, and assaulting firefighters in pursuit of their jobs, including hacking at the fire hoses.
Let’s not spoil something as transfixing as his fantasy with the ugly truth…
Glad somebody else remembers in context. While not completely exonerating the trigger pullers, nonetheless, it presents BOTH perspectives. But leave Mr. Cohen alone. After all, everyone deserves to have their acid trip come out nice.
The Hippies were delusional. They were rejected by America then because they had no clue as to how far off the reservation their beliefs were and the utter lack of common sense displayed as their “norm” – it wasn’t pretty.
Now, Cohen & others are the retiring hippies – they are nostalgic for what they thought was something special but the rest of America saw as lacking in anything special…
The problem I have is many of these idjits raised kids & taught them the SAME VALUE SYSTEM…or lack thereof…
The whole PC, everyone is special, let’s not offend anyone, everyone gets a trophy, let’s not keep score Bull-shite comes from this very same group….
Cohen needs to get a grip. I want these idiots called out for the idiots they are – they have caused damage to our country and should not be held up as anything other than what they are – clueless.
Mr. Casey,
I live in Kent. I know people on both sides of what happened in 1970. Thank you for noting what so many MSM types never do – downtown Kent was destroyed by the “peaceful protesters”.
My MIL was on duty at the local hospital that day. From what she told us those “peaceful protesters” weren’t big on hygiene, amongst other things.
Sad thing is the large percentage of the troublemakers were NOT KSU students.
virgil dear … The “middle class”, of which I’m a proud member, has been terra incognita to the East Coast and West Coast snobs for a lot longer than fifty years. Apparently, Mr. Cohen knows very little of the history of the century just ended, the century I was born in. Back then, we were both humbler and more clever with our hands and inventions than he can imagine, evidently. And we were proud of “doing it ourselves.” When we were moved, we cried, and after World War II we had a lot to cry about. And we didn’t go find a ‘grief counselor’ to tell us how to grieve. We did it by ourselves, or with our families who were grieving too. We helped each other through it and then we pulled up our socks, and went on with our lives, and learned, slowly, how to laugh again, out of respect for the more than 141,000 Americans who died to give us a chance to do so. Because it’s a beautiful world, in spite of all the ugliness that sometimes dominates it for awhile. And those brave boys who died then, and in Korea, and Vietnam would expect us to do the very best we can.
They did, bless them forever.
Marianne
Only the rich can afford to be socialists… The rest of us don’t have the money or power to survive in a socialist society.
“Dunno what Cohen is earning these days.”
I’ve a fairly good idea what he might be smoking and reading.
I believe whomever Richard Cohen is or how “sensitive” he may be, to be mostly irrelevant. I don’t know the man. I don’t think I would like him either. But he is not the issue. Attacking this Cohen messenger misses his point.
Under arms at the time, I disliked the protestors. But I fought for their rights to protest, without fear of being shot to death! And I was too busy then to reflect upon this massacre.
Cohen I believe sees some parallels between the debilitating divisions and hatred of opposing views of that time, with today. I sadly tend to agree.
While it was the anti-war Left of the ’60s that threatened the stability of our Republic, it is a fringe far and growing Right today, encouraged by the Tea Party and certain media that are stoking the flames of hateful revolution.
It smells familiar, and does not bode well for our country. Just as it did in the sixties, but from the opposite political spectrum.
[PS: I still love CSN and sometimes Y. And while I loved Young's "Southern Man," I equally loved Skynyrd's "Sweet Home Alabama" rebuttal.]
“encouraged by the Tea Party and certain media that are stoking the flames of hateful revolution.”
Names Flit, I want names and dates, specifics if you please.
And speaking of “hateful revolution”……..
http://www.zombietime.com/zomblog/?p=612
What say ye Flit?
The guardsmen fired 67 rounds (30.06 rounds I believe) over a period of 13 seconds into a bunch of young American kids
OOOHHH….30.06! And, what difference would that make? Would 47-70-405 been better? Maybe 50-70 would suit you better? Pure emotionalism.
Let’s see, there were calls from the left to “bring the war home” – that is bring violence into our streets.
There was rioting, looting, wanton, mindless destruction of private and public property.
And you have 77 young, scared Guardsmen facing a mob of +/-2000 rioters. 26 of those fired an average of about 3 rounds each. I can’t really blame them. I think that they showed good discipline and fire control when more of them didn’t fire, and that they fired so few rounds.
Jeebus, Flit, that’s over the top, even for you.
First I have to ask if you are even aware of all the facts with respect to the Kent State riots which preceded the shootings? Are you aware there were riots in town, that demonstrators had burned down the ROTC building, that they had assaulted the firefighters, and chopped up the firehoses? Did you know that Kent mayor Satrom had declared a state of emergency? From Wiki: “More than a thousand protesters surrounded the building and cheered its (the ROTC building) burning.” Does that sound like a bunch of innocent flower children to you?
BTW,nice red herring by throwing in My Lai.
As for the “fringe” Tea Party “stoking flames the flames of hateful revolution,” you are completely full of BS. First, stop mindlessly swallowing whatever the MSM tells you about the Tea Party; second, please provide specific evidence of Tea Party acts of hate, or encouragement of hate. SEUI bully-boys beating up on Tea Party demonstrators? Democratic Party faithful hanging Sarah Palin in effigy before the election? Everybody & their brother (including the wretched Olbermann and the pathetic Grafalo) calling the Tea Party racist for (God forbid!) criticizing the sitting president!!? Oh, wait, my bad; those are all evil leftist behaviors…
Feel free to mention folks comparing Obama to Hitler, ‘cuz then I’ll have an excuse of unloading evidence of the previous EIGHT FRACKING YEARS of Democratic lefties doing the same for the Bush administration.
Don’t even think of trying to tell me about how hateful the Tea Party is, after all the mud the Progressive/Liberals have slung since the year 2000.
Just in case you still don’t get it, Flit; compare the behavior of those at the Beck DC rally of 8/28/10 to the 10/02/10 “People’s Republic” rally funded by unions such as SEUI. The former were quiet, peaceful, law-abiding, and neat. The latter literally left trash all over Washington, DC. I suppose I should cut them some slack, as they weren’t nearly as bad as the rioters in Chicago, back in ’68? Riot, burn, pillage, and destroy. That’s the true heritage of the anti-war demonstrators, from Chicago to Kent State. And you have the effrontery to compare those savages who not only peacefully obey the law, but pick up after themselves?
Try another brand of Kool-Aid, holmes, this one isn’t doing you much good.
Flit, I don’t suppose you read the following:
http://www.cleveland.com/science/index.ssf/2010/10/analysis_of_kent_state_audio_t.html
Mr. Cohen’s memory is a bit selective: he remembers Kent State vividly, but can’t remember the Dems shouting about “taking back our country” just two years ago (that’s just Tea Party rage).
A really funny, sharp, commenter at Althouses going by name “Pogo” (he’s a physician in Minn, I believe) linked to a photo of Cohen, commenting that he ” looks like Letterman going incognito.” LOL!
Casey/Stephen
Remember that pic on the cover of Newsweek of the girl leaning over the wounded KS Student screaming for help? She was no student, but a for very real “outside agitator” (to use the phrase of the day) from, IIRC, S. Carolina who had traveled to KS to protest/riot. Further, I don’t think she was enrolled in ANY institution of higher ed., but was basically a semi-hippy street person who supported herself as a part-time prostitute/drug-dealer. Ah “progressive” youth, the future of our country….
Thanks Virgil, I had almost forgotten that girl. I read that two weeks after the shooting she was indeed arrested for prostitution down in the Miami area.
Ah. The power of imagery in the media. Good thing that doesn’t happen anymore huh?
Um, VX, Mary Ann Vecchio was a 14-year-old runaway at the time. Doubt she was any kind of “professional” agitator, or anything more than a foolish child. That’s not to say some outside pros weren’t around, but I’m purt shure she wasn’t one of ‘em.
I can’t have a real-time dialogue with anyone if I’m in moderation all the time. Sorry, Casey, Stephen. Come back later. (sigh)
The “middle class” definition is highly elastic–and a lot of it is determined by what a person thinks or says he or she is. It’s partly income and education, it’s partly values. But whether the middle class is disappearing or not, you ask your average Tea Party attendee what they think they are, and they’ll tell you “middle class”. If you do the demographic statistics on them (instead of saying like poor addle pated Mr. Cohen “eek a fascist mouse”) when confronted with a Tea Party attendee, you’ll find that they skew a little bit older, better educated and slightly higher income than average. They are generally polite and well spoken; a small, but not insignificant number of them (at least in the Tea Party crowds I’ve been in) are black.
What has happened is that Obama/Pelosi/Reid et al have overcooked it to an extent that these folks finally woke up and said, “I’m Taxed Enough Already and I’m not going to take it anymore”. That inchoate unease (see Tea Party types can use big words when they’re not dragging their knuckles on the ground) can, in extremis, turn into incoherent sputtering and rage from white haired 70 year old geezers. [I've seen that happen; the fellow could barely get the words out, but he didn't hit anybody with his cane.] But mostly they just want this “progressive” stuff to stop.
The idea that a substantial–and growing–number of people can look at the buffoons in the Beltway and say “Stop” frightens the bejabbers out of columnists for the Washington Post. So like monkeys flinging poo, they invoke Kent State, claim the Tea Party folks are haters, racists, homophobes, Astro Turfers, Nazis, tools of the rich etc.
The problem with monkeys flinging poo is that they frequently spatter themselves.
We’ll see how it all shakes out in a month or so. Mr. Cohen will have to get used to what will be, at least, a partially revised world order. He’ll survive–but if he keeps writing poo flinging columns like this, his reputation won’t.
flit, you’ve outdone yourself tonight, sir. Can you POSSIBLY paint with a broader brush or tar the Tea Party protesters with more over-broad, platitudinous language? A “hateful revolution?” LOL, so this is what those who Constitutionally gather to petition their government for “redress of grievences” are labeled as starting these days. Funny, I haven’t noticed any bricks being thrown, windows broken, political opponents physically pummeled. Oh, wait, that’s what happens to Tea Party members when SEIU thugs throw them to the ground , beat and kick them and thuggishly attack them swinging wooden counter-protest sign stakes–all caught on vids shown on You Tube. But I’m sure all these things are totally new news to you, right? And EXACTLY *how* are Tea Party members encouraging “fringe elements” of the “far” right? And who, exactly is/are these “fringe elements” you refer to? Could you please describe them to me in some detail? Are they age Fifty-plus overweight white middle-class female small business owners? Conservative Black musicians like “The Crack Emcee” who posts over at Ann Althouses’ place? Please, point out these thoroughly dangerous people to me–inquiring minds want to know…
Virg
You forgot that those revolutionaries are all funded by the “vast right wing conspiracy”. the Koch brothers actually PAY them to protest donchaknow? And they even miss-spell werds on those signs on perpose to make them look stoopid.
The idea that a few blacks a few latinos and a bunch of whites could seriously consider things like a “revolution” with violence is absurd. The violent ones will those that have been spoon fed by the government for their entire life (and probably the lives of their parents). They will be the ones with bricks and knives when welfare, food stamps, free housing, free bus transportation, free medical care go kaput. Us hard working stiffs will figure out a way to work for what we need, but I am damned tired of lugging a few imbeciles that don’t produce sh_t and give them their “fair” portion of my earnings. The Bible teaches us to care for the poor. It doesn’t say they need to drive a Cadillac with spinning rims and day-glo lights.
And flit – the “hateful revolution” has been developing for years. Just rewind and view some of the protests against Bush. Having been to several tea party events I have not seen one sign advocating harm to Obama other than voting him out – legally and constitutionally. But it is sad to see the lack of decorum on both sides of the aisle.
“While it was the anti-war Left of the ’60s that threatened the stability of our Republic, it is a fringe far and growing Right today, encouraged by the Tea Party and certain media that are stoking the flames of hateful revolution.”
Flit you have outed me, lol..I am a Navy veteran..life long Republican..First worked for Barry Goldwater.and on every Republican campaign since then..and now I belong to the Tea Party, because the party has moved, and I have not..in my seven decades..I have never been so scared for my country, and it’s Constitution..since folks of your persuasion have come to power..”Enough, we say”
Flit’s “stats” are just more reinforcement bias. Start with the “83%” number which Max correctly calls out. If you
Flit’s “stats” are just more reinforcement bias. Start with the “83%” number which Max correctly calls out. If you drill down, you find a link, courtesy of “theeconomiccollapseblog.com” to a net worth by income class table. No mention of stocks, house equity, whatever. No mention of stock ownership by pension funds, etc. So much twaddle.
For a guy who bragged just this week about his cynical refusal to take anything on face value, one has to ask: Grape, or cherry?
It seems as though Mr. Cohen took a break during one of his bike rides to view a double rainbow. Luckily, it was caught on video…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQSNhk5ICTI
Very witty linkage Padre. The vid that just keeps on giving. Or in this case, call it a comedic multiplier.
Um, did he need a cigarette later? No, really, from the er, ecstatic tone, I have to wonder.
I just about lost it when he started sobbing. Yeah, the Lord provides us with all sorts of natural wonders, but that’s no reason to cry over a freakin’ rainbow.
Or am I just naturally shallow?
Furry faced fuzzy thinking twit then, furry faced fuzzy thinking twit now. The beard turned white, the brain just as befuddled as usual.
“This is a brain on drugs. Any questions?”
Hey, hey, hey there! Let us not make nasty remarks about “furry faced.” It’s the clean shaven ones that make the trouble.
Thank you Padre. It’s apparent that Cohen saw a double rainbow while riding his bike and, in the ecstacy of his appreciation, fell off the bike and suffered a concussion of some sort. Only way to explain the scrambled egg nature of his thoughts.
I’ve come to a conclusion…filterman does not exist….he is Lex’s creation his alter-ego his doppleleganger…an evolved more literate Casca…(my old new best Bud)… whose sole purpose is express wildly contrarian views… stur the pot, promote lively discussion all in the hope of preventing the blog from devolving/degenerating into a forum for old fart vets exchanging war stories/lies about how much harder it was in the old… insert service here…days…so far it appears to have worked. Best
Snake Eater:
Close but no cigar. Lex just contracts it out.
You blow my cover and Lex is gonna cut my pay. So, shhhhhhhh!
Naw! I think it’s VX! Note that he pointed out the mis-spelling of his own name. Why would you have to re-enter your name?!?!?! Hmmmmmmm????
The tipping point for me was filterman’s/Lex’s impassioned rebuttal to the Tit for Tat analysis of Anglo Irish relations Curtis made in the “Don’t Mess wirh Ireland” thread…something about it smacked of vintage Lex…of course I don’t expect the devious Scallywag/Pecker-Wood to respond or out himself…so I will remain vigilant. Best
PS,RE: VX… a unlikely alter ego …that Gomer spills his guts with depressing regularity.
I am not a fan of the Wonkette, though after seeing that she named Richard Cohen “The Worlds Worst Writer”, I may have to revisit my opinion.
http://bit.ly/9zq1PU
Interesting news on Kent State:
http://www.cleveland.com/science/index.ssf/2010/10/analysis_of_kent_state_audio_t.html
SJBill – Thanks for the link. I was aware of the new audio information, but I hadn’t seen this informative article. I read it with great interest. It does shed new light. But there seems to be a gap between the .38 fire, and the Guardsmen fire. Also, this guy Norman is a strange dude, later went to Federal prison, and remains silent.
I think the wounded victim, who also unearthed the new evidence, Alan Canfora, probably said it best: “”I think it’s premature to make any conclusions at this point.”
It is amazing to me that no thorough investigation has ever been held, and no one was ever held accountable, Guardsmen, students, or even Norman.
Nothing justifies firing at young unarmed students and killing them. That is why non-lethal weapons are used – tear gas, riot gear, rubber bullets, etc. The ’60s and early ’70s were rife with civil rights and anti-war protests on campuses, nation wide. Always a dangerous and volatile situation.
But Kent State was the only instance that had this extraordinary, tragic result and deaths.
A hunter knows well enough to identify and be sure of what he is aiming at before he pulls the trigger. So does a LEO. The Guardsmen for whatever reason were firing multiple rounds upon unarmed students including women, at a distance, who posed little immediate threat to them.
Despite what all transpired, it was still unjustifiable, excessive force in my book.