Today marks the forty-second year since the National Guard fired on a crowd of unarmed students, killing four. The deaths were the result of the students protesting the war in South East Asia which had escalated with an invasion of Cambodia and this culminated the third day of protests at the campus. The killings marked a decided reversal of support for the War in Vietnam. Now the overwhelming majority of Americans were against our role in the war, wanted it over and wanted us out. And now there were dead students to add to the outrage.

As well as the news from Kent State, also came news from Cambodia, the Vietnam War as well as a report on the sale of the Prop Department at MGM Studios. Run of the mill news for an otherwise unremarkable day.

Somehow, the rest of it really didn't matter. What mattered was how the spirit of protest was met with violent resistance by, of all people, our own National Guard. And how something went terribly wrong.

As reported by David Brinkley on The NBC Nightly News for May 4, 1970.

(The Teach-Ins - 1965 - a decided lack of shrillness)

May 15, 1965 started the first large scale Teach-In on the Vietnam War. Basically it was a debate with pro and con sides arguing various points on our foreign policy and what was our purpose in Southeast Asia. The debate originated in Washington D.C. with a group of 3,000 students and professors and the proceedings were broadcast via closed circuit to over 100 college campuses throughout the U.S. McGeorge Bundy was scheduled to represent the Johnson Administration, but canceled at the last minute citing "official duties". Professor Ernest Nagel of Columbia University presented premise for the debates.

Prof. Ernest Nagel (Columbia University): “This meeting has come into being because of widespread doubts among many academic communities as well as elsewhere concerning the wisdom of current United States policy in Vietnam. It needs to be emphasized however, that the meeting has been sponsored by University teachers throughout the country, and organized by the Inter-University Committee For A Public Hearing on Vietnam, on the basis of two assumptions: The first is that, whether or not those doubts are well founded there has been insufficient responsible debate in public of the grave issues raised by our actions in Southeast Asia. The second assumption is, since a thorough airing of these issues by competent students is a condition for an enlightened public opinion on them, in a liberal democracy such as ours in which governmental policies require the ascent of its citizens, students who possess knowledge pertinent to those issues have a special duty to discuss them openly and critically. In short, the primary aim of this meeting, an aim that surely merits the strong endorsement of all who are committed to the ideals of liberal democracy, is to contribute to public enlightenment through responsible discussion of a serious problem confronting all of us.”

History has been rewritten of late to portray the Antiwar movement of the 60s as violence based, that it was all about avoiding the draft and turning college campuses into battlegrounds. That is completely false. There were those elements, to be sure. Every movement, however noble, is going to have its fair share of malcontents whose only purpose is to stir up shit and destroy in order to derail the original message.

Objection to the War in Vietnam was legitimate, and by 1965 it was growing.

(Neda Agha-Soltan - the face of repression's shame)

I don't usually post current items, or late breaking news. I leave that to Crooks and Liars to do, because they're a whole lot better at it than I am. But today I was listening to To The Point, the excellent news review program hosted by Warren Olney and broadcast here in Los Angeles on KCRW. Olney was interviewing Robin Wright, the broadcaster/journalist who I have been a fan of for years, ever since her days with CBS Radio, covering the Middle East and Southern Africa during the apartheid struggle. Wright has always been a source of good, solid information, truthfully presented without bias, and hearing her assessment of the current state of affairs in Iran and the significance of the tragic death of Neda Agha-Soltan, the 26 year-old philosophy student gunned down on Saturday made me want to share this on my site. I do however urge you to sign up for the podcasts currently available at KCRW of To The Point and to check out Olney's companion show "Which Way, L.A.?", as well as support KCRW, a station doing what most stations don't these days; performing a service - Olney has been a mainstay in broadcast journalism for many years in the Los Angeles area. He is without flash, hysteria or gimmicks - something we are desperate for right about now.