GUEST BLOG: Pat O’Dea – In the shadow of Kent State
The Charge: Deprivation of rights under the color of law
“Laws change. Conscience doesn’t.” — Sophie Scholl
War especially cruel and unjust wars, inevitably change the societies that support them. For a society to be able to continue supporting such wars, the first thing to change are the civil liberties of those who oppose War. This loss of civil liberties and repression will inexorably spread through all aspects of that society.
In the shadow of Kent State, MAGA fascism waits in the wings.
Pastor Martin Niemöller’s famous poem warns us all, that once repression starts against one group, it will spread throughout society.
Arrested and suspended students spoke to Spectator detailing Barnard’s harsh suspension policies
‘Breathtaking in its inhumanity’
Unlike suspended peers across Broadway, all suspended Barnard students were evicted from their campus housing.
….students who were formally suspended prior to their arrest or their return to dorm buildings have been formally evicted and were given 15 minutes to retrieve personal belongings.
Najam Haider, professor of religion at Barnard, said the college’s suspension policies are “far more draconian” than Columbia’s.
“Barnard is being far more aggressive in its policies against its own students. It almost feels personal, coming from the Barnard administration. It feels vindictive, it feels malicious and mean,” Haider said. “I mean, there’s no reason to give a student 15 minutes to gather up their possessions. … If you want to suspend them and you want to go through process, it’s one thing, but the lack of humanity that is embedded in the way that this is being done is, I mean, it’s breathtaking in its inhumanity.”….
At Kent State, what the Johnson Democrats started the Nixon Republicans finished.
What the Biden Democrats have started at Barnard, the MAGA fascists are waiting in the wings to finish.
Trump: College protests are a ‘disgrace’ and all ‘Biden’s fault’
BY BRETT SAMUELS – 04/23/24 10:03 AM ET
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4614906-trump-college-israel-palestine-protests-disgrace-bidens-fault/
GOP Sens. Josh Hawley (Mo.) and Tom Cotton (Ark.) called on Biden on Monday to deploy the National Guard to colleges, particularly Columbia….
We remember Kent State (May 4, 1970), Jackson State (May 15, 1970), and Orangeburg (February 8, 1968).
https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/kent-state-massacre/
At Kent State University, the Ohio National Guard shot unarmed college students — some who were protesting the war and others who were passing by. The guards fired 67 rounds over a period of 13 seconds, killing four students (Allison Krause, Jeffrey Miller, Sandra Scheuer, and William Knox Schroeder) and wounding nine others….
….A photo flashed around the world showed an unarmed young woman, her face anguished, bending over the body of one of the dead students.
On television I saw the father of one of the victims, Allison Krause, barely able to control his grief, pointing to the fact that President Nixon had referred to student protesters as “bums.” He cried out, “My daughter was not a bum!”
Pat O’Dea is a staunch unionist and activist
The detail is upsetting as always, people acting in solidarity with a significant oppressed group will be attacked by their “own” ruling class machine, but this student led fightback will also likely open up the prospect of wider support for Palestine in the US.
And…that is the key…turning off the US Imperialist money and arms flow to Israel. A big ask but one way or another it has to happen. And the only prospect it will happen is if the ordinary working class people of the world keep showing massive solidarity–because Western Govt.s and the cowardly EU are certainly not going to move to wind up Israel’s butchery.
“Pastor Martin Niemöller’s famous poem warns us all, that once repression starts against one group, it will spread throughout society.”
This, to me, is thee fight.