Gould,

You need to take a long breath and calm down, tell me where I used any vile
or hateful words in my discussion of the Kent State tragedy? When did I say
the Guardsman were acting in self defense? I said a bunch of scared

kids
made a tragic mistake. that is not vile, hateful or inaccurate.


Your exact words we
*
Harry are you talking about those bunch of scared kids who were surrounded
by 1000's of anger protestor throwing rocks and bottles? Unfortunately a
small group of the guardsmen feeling in danger of their life, freaked out
and shot into the crowd trying to disperse the angry students.

*
There are no "vile words" in the paragraph, only a vile distortion of the
truth. The statement "surrounded by 1000's of angry protestors throwing rocks
and bottles" is by no means ambivalent, nor is it open to
subjective intepretation. You have stated there were at least 2 x 1000
protestors, surrounding the guardsmen, and throwing rocks and bottles.

The statement is hateful in that it dismisses an entire class of people (the
protestors) based solely upon the isolated actions of a very few. Thousands of
protestors throwing rocks and bottles is a far different scenario from one or
two people in a generally peaceful crowd throwing a rock, or a bottle, or even
tossing a fuming gas cannister back at the
cops. (That was SOP in the 60's. had to happen 1000 times in the space of a few
years, and nobody else felt that it required
shooting Americans for exercising their first amendment rights).

It would be equally hateful for one of my liberal brothers to say, "The KKK
lynched a guy down in Alabama, and thousands of local conservatives turned out
to cheer that justice had been done." Maybe *a* conservative turned out to
cheer......but exaggerating the number for effect or to distort reality would
be a hateful act placing political rhetoric above any attempt to live
harmoniously with folks holding different opinions.

You implied the Guardsmen were acting in self defense when you stated they were
surrounded by thousands of rock and bottle throwing protestors. Any reasonable
person would agree, that had thousands of
protestors surrounded the squad and proceded to pelt it with rocks and bottles
some sort of response would be justified in self defense. *If*. But that's not
the way it happened.

I appreciate that you have acknowledged your mischaracterization of the events
at Kent State. As I said, a real man would do so- so congrats. :-)

Sorry if I reacted strongly. There's still a scab on a few wounds from that
era. If you lived through it, you can understand why so many people are nervous
about the current tone the divisive rhetoric is taking in America at this time.
A busted country is serious schlitz, and extremist positions
from either side saying "it's my way or the highway", "you either support the
president or you're a traitor", or "conservatives all think money is more
important than life or justice" won't do.
The situation is different now that it was this time last year. We are more
polarized. The country is ready to come apart.

Now, about that "armed FBI informant" that the Guard Commander mentioned in the
letter to the senator......coupled with the tough talk from the governor the
night before I suspect the FBI was hoping to incite just the sort of incident
that developed. "We'll show these liberal traitors that it doesn't pay to
question the president!" Kent State helped galvanize opposition to Nixon and
to the war in Viet Nam, so I guess somebody showed somebody something.

We're lucky there weren't a lot more incidents of this kind. I can tell you for
a fact that during some anti-war protests
in Seattle at that time, the FBI had snipers
on rooftops. Just in case, apparently. (My father had a job at that time that
required him to provide the FBI access to the roof of some publicly owned
buildings.)

As two antogonists say at signoff.....

"peace be upon you"

and

"peace on you too" :-)