KentNewsNet.com

Well, this is certainly an interesting article, but where's the Stater's coverage of the May 4 march? I saw nothing about it in the paper, nothing about it in the online article on May 4, nothing. It's like 60 people didn't march in the campus area waving signs and placards and suchlike.

I'm a bit perplexed about this article. Did we actually have a bonafied bomber speak at this memorial? Was there a 14 year old girl at the 1970 riots? I used to only believe in the horror of students dying at the hands of the National Guard that were ordered in by the government and still do; but I can't seem to shake that I'm learning these were a bunch of young kids basically out of control burning shit down and looting and rioting. Is that to be commendable? Should we hand out awards for such actions? There is right and there is wrong. I don't know, something about all of this just doesn't seem to sit well with me to raise actions of such civil unrest up as if it is to be rewarded. Of course, I can understand the increased adrenaline and motivation toward "battles" between the government and students considering there was a draft that forced people to go when some didn't believe in what they were doing.
I guess I will have to read up a bit more on the events that led up to this tragedy to get more insight into all of this.


I also have to mention that I'm not very proud of the 1970's "students" and communities at large, who treated soldiers with contempt when they returned home from Vietnam either. This is one other lesson I believe this country seems to have learned and I am glad; because it seems like the majority of US citizens treat our soldiers with the due respect they deserve. I do know there are a small minority who have no respect for any soldier but they seem to have a utopian world mapped out in their heads with no religions, wars, governments, countries or borders!

Mary Jo - Sorry to have taken so long to get back to you. Hope one day you read this.
"...there are many students today who don't strive to be rich." Well, that's good to know. Do you think it's a majority of today's KSU students? Personally, I don't think its been the case with a majority of graduating students nationwide for the past 20 plus years.
The honorable goal was to end the killing in Vietnam, to end the war. I also wasn't "proud," as you put it, of the actions of certain people. In fact, back then I wasn't "proud" of a lot of the actions that a lot of people were taking. Yes, as I wrote earlier we had hypocrites and phonies in the ranks of our generation. We also had more groups and splinter groups, etc. then you could shake a stick at. Sometimes it seemed as though every one was trying a differant way, at the same time, to achieve the same honorable goal - to end the war. A lot of things were done that were wrong, but, there was a lot that was done that was right. There wasn't a rule book on how to do it.
I believe still believe there's some positives about my generation - we not the ones who started the illegal war in Vietnam, we're not the ones who started sexism, we're not the ones who started racism, we're not the ones who started poverty, we're not the ones who polluted American rivers to the point that they could catch on fire. We are the first generation, imperfect as we were, who tried to change it. Yes, people in earlier generations tried to change it, but it was the first time that a majority of one generation held a basic, similar viewpoint that change had to be made. We're not done. You're just beginning. Know this Mary Jo - my generation knocked down a doors for you, as a woman. My generation didn't smash the glass ceiling over your head, but we're still working on it.