We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Thursday, May 19, 2011

Obama Officials Refuse to Investigate New Evidence in National Guard 1970 Kent State Shootings

Click here to access article by Linn Washington Jr. from This Can't Be Happening.
 During that late 1960s and early 1970s, the FBI was involved in COINTELPRO, secret and blatantly illegal campaign to disrupt the anti-Vietnam War movement as well as the Civil Rights and Black Power movements, including through violence and assassinations. COINTELPRO actions involved not just the FBI, but also the CIA, Defense Intelligence Agency and other secretive government units, as well as Nixon's own secret and illegal "Plumbers unit" run from inside the White House.
It is no surprise to me that the Justice (sic) Department refuses to look at more evidence about the murder of Kent State students by the Ohio National Guard. This incident was only one among so many attacks on US citizens by government authorities during the Civil Rights/Vietnam War era. 

This was a period when Americans experienced one shocking incident after another--assassinations of Jack Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Robert Kennedy, Malcom X, numerous Black Panther party members, and many other militant activists. All these crimes were covered up.

It was a time when the anti-war and Civil Rights Movement was coming together to challenge the ruling class, and the latter made it clear that they would brook no opposition to their rule. That is when the naked fist of fascism, always hidden behind capitalism's facade of "democracy", was brought out to smash the jaw of American militants. It was a shocking and dreadful time for activist citizens who thought they had some rights to oppose their government's crimes against humanity. 

For me, it was even more disturbing that so many of my fellow Americans, those who were not activists, believed all the cover-up stories reported in mainstream media.