May 4, 1970, 39 years ago, four of my peers were killed at Kent State by National Guardsmen as they peacefully protested the Viet Nam War. They were martyred for standing up for what was immoral activity on the part of our governemnt.
I was 24, married and had 3 kids. I was working at Rochester State Hospital as a Psychiatric Social Work Trainee II. I admired their courage then and I do not and had I not been married and a young father I would have stood in solidarity with them. History has proved their judgment correct and they must not be forgotten if our country is to have a future.
Here is the blurb from the Peace History web site.
Ohio National Guard troops opened fire on anti-war protesters
at Kent State University, killing four students and wounding nine others,
one permanently disabled. The previous day, President Nixon had announced a widening of the Vietnam War with bombing in neighboring Cambodia. There were major campus protests around the country with students occupying university buildings to organize and to discuss the war and other issues.
The American government was involved in an immoral war which killed 58,000 of my peers and millions of Viet Namesee, Laotians, and Cambodians for nothing.
I realized then and know now that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Nixon and his buddies were liars and crooks and with the complicity of the US congress and half the country engaged in war crimes and atrocities for nothing.
McNamara said years later in the documentary the Fog Of War that Viet Nam was a mistake, something the students at Kent State and others around the country were trying to tell him but arrogance, conceit, and power lead to death and destruction not only abroad, but to horrendous crimes right here at home.
I had hoped we, as a people, had learned from our sins, but golly gee didn't we elect George W and Dick Cheney and do it all over again 30 years later. I think people are stupid but none are dumber and more evil than Americans. What makes us so evil and dangerous is our power and our hubris.
Until we repent our evil ways there is little hope for our American civilization. We are doomed to die from our own toxic moral decision making from within. When are government slaughters our own children in broad daylight with no provocation, you got to wonder what makes this country tick.
Unfortunately, Americans love their guns, glorify in their illicit wars, and support militarism politically and economically. It does not bode well for our future.
This is article #1 in a series on Heroes Among Us.
First of all I absolutely deplore the killing and wounding of the Kent State students, but must take issue with your calling them martyrs. They were not put to death for adhering to a principle. They were horribly and tragically in the wrong place at the wrong time and in the case of Bill and Sandy they were not even active participants of the rally. Even the 2 who were somewhat active in the rally that day Jeff and Allison had no intention of dying they were simply caught up in the events on the campus that weekend. The other issue I have is your statement:"I think people are stupid but none are dumber or more evil than Americans. Pretty broad brush your painting with there isn't it? Maybe you should come with me to the some of the places I work like S.Sudan and refugee camps along the Thai-Burma border, you may come away with new definitions of dumb and evil people.
ReplyDeleteHi George:
ReplyDeleteI appreciate your comment and I agree that my statement about them being martyred is a bit hyperbolic and yet they were perceived by the troops as protesters I would guess because they were shot at and killed. What their intent was in being at that spot at that time has gone with them to the grave, and yet regardless of their intent they were perceived as being protesting and were killed for it, it appears.
Murder is murder, and killing in the guise of governmental power makes no difference to me whether it is in Ohio, the Sudan, Thailand, Rwanda, South Africa, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. We are all human beings and senseless killing especially when perpetrated by governmental forces against a civilian population is always wrong and evil.
Whether your evil is worse than my evil I don't think is the point. Evil is always evil regardless of where it takes place. The difference here is American's sense of exceptionalism, but we are not exceptional when you look at the atrocities our government has perpetrated whether at Kent State, at Abu Ghraib, at Guantanamo, My Lai, etc.
Again, thanks for your comments,
David Markham
Hi David,
ReplyDeleteRead your response with interest and I really appreciate the dialogue. Without trying to prejudge, make assumptions or pigeonhole and thereby marginalize (which is too often done in these sorts of scenarios), I am thinking you and I are probably at rather opposite ends of the political spectrum. That being said (or maybe assumed on my part) I appreciate the dialogue even more. Because whether opposite ends of political, social or spiritual poles there must be intelligent and reasoned discussion, dialogue and debate without succumbing to our lower nature and degenerating into name calling, wild assumptions and questioning of motives and values. For the most part I think the values that most people hold are deeply felt and believed. It does not of course rule out the fact that an individual or group of individuals can be sincere and yet sincerely wrong. I believe the foundations and principles of our country are intrinsically good, that is a core value of mine. It does not blind me to the fact that we have made some horrible mistakes and will probably make some more. Many of our mistakes have come from a naive belief that we can export democracy and freedom to countries that are not prepared for it. And so I would definitely take issue with your statement that, “people are stupid but none are dumber or more evil than Americans.” Because I am an American you are saying that I am dumber and more evil than the people of any other nation. As I said in my first post that is a rather large and wide brush you are painting with and I find that statement to be insulting, incendiary and polarizing and very much at odds with your mission statement of being devoted to the improvement of the quality of life of human beings in the universe. Are you speaking of all Americans back to the founding fathers or just the current crop, or maybe just the ones in the last 100 hundred years? If you are going to make that kind of statement you really need to define your group. By the way I am open to the possibility that you made that statement just to spark the sort of discussion that we are currently engaging in. At any rate my contention is that people are not dumb or evil based on their geographical location or the particular borders of their respective land mass. I would suggest that your statement and the belief system behind it are at the core of what causes racism and bigotry. ie: you are an American you must be dumb and evil, you are from Israel you must be greedy and parasitic, you are from Africa you must be ignorant and subhuman, you are from Asia you must be inscrutable and nefarious, and the list goes on and on ad nauseum ad infinitum. I have a question for you and then I will close this particular post. Is there ever a time or set of circumstances when the use of force by one nation or a group of nations against another nation or group of nations is justified? Again I really appreciate the dialogue and look forward to your response.
Hi George:
ReplyDeleteThank you for your further comment. I find it very interesting and clarifying, and I appreciate your desire for civil dialogue and continued discussion.
Your questioning of my comment that Americans are dumb and evil is a right calling to account and I think my thinking when I was writing it was the perceptions of the people in the world of our government's foreign policy and actions. I have already cited the examples in the previous comment of Viet Nam, Mai Lai, carpet bombing indescriminately in Viet Nam, Cambodia, Laos, and our interventions in central America, our recently disclosed secret CIA assasination team, the atrocities in Iraq, etc. I understand why people around the world hate Americans and it is not for our freedom as George W. Bush proclaimed disengenously especially when we have very little when you look are our incarcersation rates, the surreptitious eves dropping on Americans, the extraordinary rendition, Guantanamo, Torture, etc. The list goes on and on.
These things have been done in our name and not many Americans seem to care and those that do are quickly marginalized and called "traitors" and "unamerican", etc.
I am also thinking of the gospel statement that to whom much is given, much is expected. The United States is the most powerful country on the planet and what have we done with our power? It has been immorally misused and misspent as Eisenhower warned about and as the Popes and other religious leaders have spoken about.
I am angy that Americans have let their government do this in their name that's why I refer to us as stupid and evil. We seem to not care when we do nothing to stop it. Of course, people are frightened of being killed as was done at Kent State, stripped of their rightful status as was done to Muhammed Ali, and assasinated as was done to Martin Luther King, Jr., and Bobby Kennedy, and plenty of civil rights workers in the 60s in the south.
Americans like to think of themselves as good people and sometimes they are, but we also have a sordid past which we don't like to face up to of slavery, lynching, discrimination, oppression, and militarism. I don't expect that this will change in my life time but it is getting better. However, there is little hope unless Americans are willing to acknowledge their shadow side, their evil deeds, and repent.
Iraq could occured because we never reprented for Viet Nam, and because we have never repented from meddling in other countries' affairs whether it be Panama, Granada, El Salvador, Iran, etc.
Americans have done great things and we also have been the scourge of the planet. We elect our political leaders and they act in our name and the past few decades both democrat and republican have not demonstrated the best in America, but rather the opposite. I was born at the end of 1945. I was draft age during Viet Nam. My sons were draft age during Iraq and Persian Gulf War.
Something stinks in America and we need to diagnose it and treat it.
Is there any such thing as a good war, you ask? I doubt it. I prefer nonviolent methods which have been proven far more effective whether it was Gandhi and India's work with The British, the civil rights movement to end segregation in the United States, the truth commissions in South Africa.
We are living in a age when there should be no place for war.
Strictly speaking do we have a right to defend ourselves with weapons. Yes. I am not a total pacifist. But offensive use of weapons I think is always extremely highly questionable.
I am interested in your further thoughts and ideas.
All the best,
David Markham
Hi George:
ReplyDeleteAs I read my own comment to you and further recall the Napalming of Viet Nam. If you watch the films of that activity, it is pure evil in my estimation. The indescriminate destruction of whole geographical areas of humans, animals, vegetation. For what?
In watching "Shock and awe" at the beginning of the Iraq war all I could think of was "My God, it is like shooting fish in a barrel." It looked like a video game that adolescent boys play with an erection and they are not sated with the blood and violence until some perverse orgasm occurs.
When George W. Bush triumphantly flew down on the air craft carrier in his jump suit and declared "Mission Accomplished" it was a like a scene out of a bizarre science fiction movie except this is real life with real people being killed and injured and traumatized on a grand scale and for what?
It turns out for lies, all lies. It is pure evil not like some small regional conflicts along the Thai Border, or tribal wars in African countries which are bad enough, but this is the mightiest government in the world wielding its enormous resources and power in totally irresponsible ways. It that is not dumb and evil, I don't know what is.
And as Americans we pay for it. We elected the people who designed and implemented these policies and history will judge us dumb, and arrogant, and evil. There is no doubt in my mind.
Were we a totalitarian state we, as a people, would have an excuse, but we think we are a democracy, and we get, supposedly, what we deserve because we support it or at least tolerate it and so we have a collective guilt on our hands.
The inability to recognize it, to acknowledge it, to repent for it, I believe does not bode well for our future.
So the more I think about my remarks, the more I think they are not all that hyperbolic. I think, if anything, they are understated.
Americans, like spoiled children, have been encouraged by their leaders to think that we are exceptional, that the normal rules and ethics don't apply to us. As members of the Bush administration said, "We don't follow the rules, we make the rules." And American has tried to do this since 1960, and we have not done well by most assessments around the world.
As an therapist, I believe that Americans as a nation are narcissistic and grandiose and suffer under significant delusions. It is not hard to diagnose, if one steps back and observes objectively. Read the foreign press and see what they are writing about American justice, ethics, morals.
All the best,
David Markham
Hi David,
ReplyDeleteExcellent posts and you made some great points. It's obvious that you are a person who is passionate about what you believe and are able to intelligently and cogently articulate those beliefs. We may be poles apart politically but I sense with some of the terminology you use we may be on the same page spiritually. I always hesitate to express my faith in these sort of forums, not because I am ashamed of my beliefs but because some people tend to immediately label me a Bible thumper and a fundie. They then categorize me and arbitrarily put me in the "correct" pigeonhole and assume they then know what I believe about any given issue. As though every conservative christian is in lockstep. I know it looks that way at times and we probably see the liberal left in the same manner. Some folks seem to be of the opinion that there is no room in the marketplace of ideas and debate for faith. Honestly David I do not for the life of me know how to divorce my faith from the world, nor do I think it should be. Everything you and I have discussed so far has moral implications, whether we are talking about ONG with M-1's at Kent or the use of super toxic defoliants in civilian population areas of S. Vietnam. One of my core beliefs is that we live in a fallen and sinful world. That has an effect on how I look at the need for police, armies etc. Because we live in a fallen world filled with dictators, third world thugs and jihadists we must resort to force at times. It is a sad commentary on our world but one which we must face up to. There are times when the only thing which will combat naked aggression is naked force. Those who bear the sword do not do so in vain...
I could not agree with you more that America as a nation of people tends to be narcissistic
and grandiose and as you said somewhat like spoiled children. You mentioned in the earlier post some of our historical national sins, segregation, lynchings. I always think of the sins against Native American populations carried out under the banner of a truly hellish national doctrine called Manifest Destiny. I am not sure some sort of national repentance is even possible but there sure needs to be a knowledge and recognition of these events and a learning from a history that we seem hell bent on repeating time after time. I also believe we need to recognize what is great and good in this nation and follow after that. Of course my own belief is that would require people to turn to God. OK I may be starting to "thump the Bible" so I will cease and desist. Also David I may have been a bit harsh in my assessment of your statement about dumb Americans as being at the core of racism and bigotry. That was a little overblown my friend please accept my apologies. Once again I really and truly appreciate the dialogue. By the way would you rather I email as opposed to taking up all this space on your blog with my long winded diatribes!
Your unapologetically conservative(but not pigeonholed) friend George
Hi George:
ReplyDeleteThanks for your further comment.
I agree with what you have written and I suspect that we have similar values.
My email address is david@davidgmarkham.com if you would prefer to carry on this conversation off the blog. On the other hand feel free to leave any comments on the blog which you like.
I don't always find it helpful to divide the world up into red and blue, conservative and liberal, religious and non-religious, etc.
I believe it is perfectly possible for people to have similar values and not share the same creeds. As I get older, I find I care less and less about what people believe and more and more about what they value. Knowing what people value is much more informative than what they believe. If you want to know what people value watch what they do and the choices they make.
As Gandhi said, "I love Jesus and I would convert to Christianity if I ever found a church that actually followed his teachings."
I have never found one in my 63 years. I have found people who value what Jesus valued but they are few and far between.
Thank you for a wonderful exchange and I hope that it continues if you are interested.
All the best,
David Markham