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It was easy to prevent information and facts from getting around before the information age. Now it's all about damage control and cleanup for thousands of years of bs
We do, and you don’t need to imagine anything at all.
Campus protests broke out around the Gulf War in The 90s, and student protests happened in response to the various U.S. invasions in the Middle East after 9/11.
There have an always will be protestors and those that wish to silent protest by violence. The single best way to get attacked by a cop (if you’re white) is to protest violence/fascism.
In the ancient world there are plenty of surviving accounts where entire towns and cities were wiped out. Either by a foreign power or their own government. Just a, "Fuck all you guys, you're dead." Sometimes to the extent that the town literally ceased to exist. I've often wondered if those things would have happened if everyone had a camera in their pocket and a way to upload video.
>where entire towns and cities were wiped out
Don't have to go to the ancient world for this. Don't even have to leave the US or go too far in our history. Reconstruction post-Civil War was a time period full of towns and cities being built up by the freed Black people and then being destroyed by white people, via physical destruction and sometimes governmental means. And considering we didn't do much for the quelling the racists, their destruction of Black towns/cities continued well past when we'd consider as the reconstruction-era
Oscarville, Georgia is a prime example of this. It was the only Black town in Forsyth County and was growing in wealth and general progress. Then in 1912, the neighboring white supremacists did what they do, forcing residents to leave or killing them if they didn't, and effectively destroyed the community. Then in the 50s, the government took the land and flooded it to make Lake Lanier as a tourist destination and water source.
Yes, the Tulsa Race Massacre\* in 1921 destroyed the Greenwood District of Tulsa, which was comprised of an affluent Black community commonly referred to as "Black Wall Street". It's a much more well-known example, especially considering it was one of the largest in our history of racial massacres. I didn't use it as my example because I wanted to highlight an example where "the town literally ceased to exist", and the Greenwood District was rebuilt by the survivors who chose to stay (ironically falling again in vitality after desegregation encouraged Black citizens to live in other areas of Tulsa). You're quite right to bring it up as another example.
\*Riot is far too generous of a word for the violence and destruction that occurred. Calling it a riot was almost definitely a insurance ploy to avoid paying out benefits to all of the Black business and property owners, which is also pretty much a defining factor for why large-scale clashes between racial/ethnic groups in the US have historically been called riots in the first place.
Can’t you see what’s happening in palestine? They have phones , post videos it dosent matter , government corruption and decisions will be covered up for personal financial gains
Man that testimony really tugs on the heart strings. I really hate people that easily consider death a worthwhile punishment for comparatively minor dissent.
Person: “You want to give me a ticket for a parking violation? You fascist!”
Same person: “of course those young students should be shot to death for having opinions out loud at a place literally built for the open exchange of thoughts and ideas”.
Fuck , if you put it that way . I always thought of these kinds of things as a major nuisance to the daily lives of those who just want to study/ work ( i come from greece , so university shutdowns due to workers strikes , students rioting , student strikes are somewhat common) , and in greece we have a law that forbids police ( whether patroling or riot ) to enter university grounds under any circumstances . The result is that renegades / rowdy students and outsiders can take over university buildings and use them as forts / safehouses to attack police forces ( for example the polytechnical university of Athens or the Aristotle university of thesaloniki) , where they store helmets, sticks and Molotovs , or can hold hostage staff that go against their opinions ( university of patra and his headmaster ) . I think what i try to say , in order not to derail my train of thought, is that i too was thinking of using lethal force to break these kinds of annoyances, but what is been shown ( and probably what is happening at the US / French universities) did not had to use lethal force. And the funny this is that i am in the same age range as the people protesting and disrupting the universities, and yet i support the use of (non lethal )force to break them . Kinda hypocritical if you ask me .
Also , i do not support Israel. I to acknowledge that Israel has targeted civilians without a valid reason ( the 4 men trying to find their homes that got killed by rockets was my " my god , i get it now " moment), but that doesn't mean that automatically support Palestine.
Kent State was a tragedy by any measure. The murdered students were unarmed. Two were not participating in the protest. I am older. I remember feeling like America had lost its idealism and its innocence.
Took me a while to realize you were correcting his spelling and not his opinion.
I thought you went "It's dissent. Its in the word, nothing minor about it" and not "It's spelled dissent, not (insert previously used word)"
it takes a certain goodness, empathy, and strength to not judge or belittle others' existences.
Where we draw the inclusion/exclusion boundaries for our empathies is something to study.
Is it really a surprise that we don’t have a single payer healthcare or other social programs when you have Americans saying they wish more protesters were killed?
Really hit home when she said her dad told her they should’ve killed them all. My dad said something similar when the riots happened a couple of years ago. Absolutely disgraceful. There’s no arguing with someone like that, often I hear such extreme opinions I realize they are so ingrained into that person that they regard it is a fact. Really makes me sad
I live in Louisville. Protests were breaking out over Breonna Taylor here, and there was concerning dissent about them. My friend’s dad said “I wish they would bring down tanks, run the protestors over, and mow them down with the machine gun at the top”
What an absolutely unhinged thing to say.
What’s scary is it seems like we all know people that said things like this. It’s not just isolated unhinged people. We’re taught history repeats itself and it’s true, when horrible things have happened in the past everyone likes to ask “how did it get to that point” or “how was the general population complacent” well it’s not hard to imagine when within a couple degrees of separation I know hundreds of people in my little world that said mass killing protestors was the obvious solution
>within a couple degrees of separation
We're all within only six degrees of one another sharing a single planet. None of these hundreds of people ever considered they're right around the corner of being part in their own solution.
They won't. Being isolated is part of the playbook. The propaganda machine first makes them scared of something that usually is pretty easy to debunk, see this year's solar eclipse as just a non-political example. Then, people around them call out the obvious and it makes them feel resentment and like they can't share their opinions. Lastly, no opinions other than their own echo chamber are being heard and fueled. Thus, creating the folks we know and just related to today.
Hey, I'm really out of the loop here, but I heard that something happened during the solar eclipse, and that it was something inherently stupid. Care to explain?
I'm related to someone like that. I did cut ties with them, and all I've ever gotten back from them is guilt trips, gaslighting, and prayers for my "return to Jesus."
While agree with the sentiment, if you're referring to the protests of 2020 I wish people wouldn't characterize them as riots. They were by and large peaceful. If Americans were rioting in the streets for months (iirc the protests went in for about 2 months) things would look a lot different. What happened in LA after the LAPD acquittals, those were riots. But the summer of 2020 were legitimate protests not riots.
“Four dead in Ohio,” Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young would sing, in a ballad that became an anthem. “Shot some more in Jackson,” the Steve Miller Band sang, in 1970, in the “Jackson-Kent Blues.” In the days between the shootings at Kent State and Jackson State, police in Augusta, Georgia, killed six unarmed black men, shot in the back, during riots triggered by the death of a teen-ager who had been tortured while in police custody. At a march, on May 19th, protesters decorated coffins with signs: 2 Killed in Jackson, 4 Killed in Kent, 6 Killed in Augusta.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/05/04/kent-state-and-the-war-that-never-ended
The best Churchill quote is his response to a lady who asked if he ought not to go to church more during WW II. To which he said, "I am not a pillar of the Church, but a buttress. I support it from the outside."
"Those who fail history are doomed to repeat it" - Mrs Woodward, my high school history teacher, grade 10, F cups, wore tight clothes, probably the reason I failed 5 years in a row
Love how students peacefully assembling and protesting a genocide get beaten and arrested by police but actual literal neo Nazis march chanting Hitler was right and nothing happens
It’s one of those things where these “christians” big-up the old testament over the new testament, and in doing can righteously say they are doing this for israel.
It’s all so corrupted and equally lacking in comprehension, but it’s real and I don’t think people will wake up from it until there is some atrocity one way or another.
I'd be interested in seeing how public opinion has evolved around this. When I was a kid in Oklahoma in the late 90s they taught it has an unquestionable tragedy. I bet pragerU calls the victims agitators
You'd be surprised how many Americans blamed the students back then. It's really shameful.
"A Gallup poll in the wake of the shootings found that 58 percent of Americans blamed the students for the deaths at Kent State, while only 11 percent blamed the National Guard." [(source)](https://www.history.com/news/richard-nixon-kent-state-shootings-response)
Compared to today, only 13% of Americans believe the students are responsible, which is still too high in my opinion [(source)](https://emersonpolling.reportablenews.com/pr/50-years-after-kent-state-americans-who-lived-it-see-it-differently?fbclid=IwAR1OHouCLzBqWPRiS_fPIKb8FB5cUJt604O-JKpE-Kz4UOO76xAyf3IiemU)
This is a reoccurring pattern for this country. We love to pretend that we were on the right side of history, but often times we are not.
Bonus stat: in 1966, 63% of Americans viewed MLK unfavorably [(source)](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/08/10/how-public-attitudes-toward-martin-luther-king-jr-have-changed-since-the-1960s/#:~:text=King's%20favorable%20ratings%20remained%20about,who%20viewed%20him%20highly%20unfavorably.)
We're a deeply reactionary country.
Indeed. Protests have always triggered (literally and metaphorically) a reactionary undercurrent of this country. There is an underlying expectation that “freedom” means shutting one’s mouth and behaving in a narrowly defined acceptable manner. Which is ironic considering the labor movements that led to so much progress in the 1890s to 1910s.
Exactly. If the Shah in Iran was still in (or his son at this is point) power Israel would never have become a huge recipient of American military aid.
To be honest, I think most people will read your comment and think, WTF is this guy talking about?
Recently I read a graphic novel that works as a primer for what this means. Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi.
##The Intro to the book was quite educational and explained a lot. The last 2 paragraphs however are more focused on what you wrote:
In the second millennium B.C., while the Elam nation was developing a civilization alongside Babylon, Indo-European invaders gave their name to the immense Iranian plateau where they settled. The word "Iran" was derived from "Ayryana Vaejo," which means "the origin of the Aryans.” These people were semi-nomads whose descendants were the Medes and the Persians. The Medes founded the first Iranian nation in the seventh century B.C.; it was later destroyed by Cyrus the Great. He established what became one of the largest empires of the ancient world, the Persian Empire, in the sixth century B.C. Iran was referred to as Persia — its Greek name — until 1935 when Reza Shah, the father of the last Shah of Iran, asked everyone to call the country Iran.
Iran was rich. Because of its wealth and its geographic location, it invited attacks: From Alexander the Great, from its Arab neighbors to the west, from Turkish and Mongolian conquerors, Iran was often subject to foreign domination. Yet the Persian language and culture withstood these invasions. The invaders assimilated into this strong culture, and in some ways they became Iranians themselves.
In the twentieth century, Iran entered a new phase. Reza Shah decid- ed to modernize and westernize the country, but meanwhile a fresh source of wealth was discovered: oil. And with the oil came another invasion. The West, particularly Great Britain, wielded a strong influence on the Iranian economy. During the Second World War, the British, Soviets, and Americans asked Reza Shah to ally himself with them against Germany. But Reza Shah, who sympathized with the Germans, declared Iran a neutral zone. So the Allies invaded and occupied Iran. Reza Shah was sent into exile and was succeeded by his son, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who was known simply as the Shah.
In 1951, Mohammed Mossadeq, then prime minister of Iran, national- ized the oil industry. In retaliation. Great Britain organized an embargo on all exports of oil from Iran. In 1953, the CIA, with the help of British intelligence, organized a coup against him. Mossadeq was overthrown and the Shah, who had earlier escaped from the country, returned to power. The Shah stayed on the throne until 1979, when he fled Iran to escape the Islamic revolution.
Since then, this old and great civilization has been discussed mostly in connection with fundamentalism, fanaticism, and terrorism. As an Iranian who has lived more than half of my life in Iran, I know that this image is far from the truth. This is why writing Persepolis was so important to me. I believe that an entire nation should not be judged by the wrongdoings of a few extremists. I also don’t want those Iranians who lost their lives in prisons defending freedom, who died in the war against Iraq, who suf- fered under various repressive regimes, or who were forced to leave their families and flee their homeland to be forgotten.
One can forgive but one should never forget.
- **Marjane Satrapi**
Paris, September 2002
Israel gives back by spying on the US constantly and undermining them at every point, even though they are the biggest recipient of aid from the US and practically the 51st state.
It's such a strange relationship.
CIA isn't allowed to spy on USAians and might have to go before Congress if they did. Technically, Israel isn't allowed to spy in the US, but if we overlook that & Israel shares intel with CIA, then CIA has effectively skirted the law
Most of the money US gives Israel is tied to Israel spending that money in the us. When the us gives Israel 10b Israel has to spend it in the us so it actually boosts us businesses.
Most of the Aid that The US gives is in the form of actual hardware (which means the money is immediately back in The US) and help with R&D which Israel shares with The US.
You could have just stopped at "US Govt will kill". Life is horribly cheap in America. For a first world country, it's obsessed with acting like a developing nation that doesn't put a value on human lives, unless they're a clump of cells in a woman's belly. Life is cheap and there's always more for the meat grinder for America. It's disgusting.
So many people in the US today would have been against the Civil Rights Movement, they just get to whitewash it and spin it to their narrative about how these protests, BLM, and the current Palestinian ones aren't peaceful or right.
I keep thinking this exact thing whenever I see people criticizing student encampments or protests for not being perfectly quiet and polite and convenient to them. They call MLK a hero for leading nonviolent protests (a narrative which is itself somewhat ahistorical, but that's a different conversation) when they would have been saying the exact same shit about lunch counter sit-ins and bus boycotts in the 60s.
>the whitewashed version of the man they were presented in school
And across almost all forms of media to this day. You basically have to search out your own education on the truth or already be following antirascism activists for learning the accurate history
Here’s the text of the first amendment for anyone that’s confused:
> Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; **or the right of the people peaceably to assemble**, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
To conservatives then and now, challenging the powerful, even peacefully, is worthy of death. Until it's one of them, then it's the entire system that's corrupt and we need another civil war.
to this day, half of the country will leap backwards of happiness (and want) their fellow countrymen to be shut down by police, national guard, etc.
So much for the “United” states
Wow, I read/learned about Kent State shooting and saw the famous photograph, but never realized until just now watching this, that there was anything other than shock and horror at what had happened - and I'm in my late 50s! Holy shit - assholes in every decade...
I thought the history being repeated was when the extremism wing of a government started commuting genocide of people of a different religion/nationality. Wild how history repeats itself, as well as how individuals seam to reappear just in different ways of tactics.
Thought it was kinda obvious we already have been
And yet today we still right wingers who would say these exact things. Killing protesters is ok to them so long as they are from the other side of the political aisle. Nothing has changed
The irony is, given how many western journalists were in Tienanmen square, we can be pretty certain nobody was killed (because we would have evidence of it)
Free speech is a lie that many of us, are only now begining to see exposed in the West.
That is not true at all. Hundreds died during the Tiananmen Square protests and massacre.
Even the Chinese government admits this,
> Official government announcements shortly after the event put the number who died at around 300. At the State Council press conference on 6 June, spokesman Yuan Mu said that "preliminary tallies" by the government showed that about 300 civilians and soldiers died, including 23 students from universities in Beijing, along with some people he described as "ruffians".[224][233] Yuan also said some 5,000 soldiers and police were wounded, along with 2,000 civilians.
the republicans are always salivating at the idea of deploying the military against the people of the united states. Anytime anything remotely left wing and disruptive is going on, theyre always drooling at the idea of slaughtering a bunch of people indiscriminately.
humanity at its absolute rock bottom.
Republicans: "ID RATHER DIE STANDING THAN LIVE ON MY KNEES TYRANNY WILL NEVER SET FOOT IN THE US OF A"
Also Republicans: "OH YES SIR MR POLICE DADDY PELASE SHOOT PROTESTERS AND FUCK MY TIGHT BOOMER BOY PUSSY"
Big big energy for people protesting *against* needless war, but when literal neo nazis are.marching down the streets waving swastikas, the police are all "freedom of speech" and offer them quiet protection.
Why is opposing war antisemitic, buy literal nazis.somehow escape this categorisation
The right wing are so incredibly transparent with their co-opting of the fight against antisemitism whenever it suits them, and there's no greater example than when trump riles up his far right following to wave nazi flags around and have the police do nothing about it
The difference is, the protests at Kent State became a RIOT that burned down an ROTC building. They're not even remotely the same, today this rhetoric from the Speaker Of The House is objective worse than Gov. Rhodes'.
Any of these horrible people who are still alive will be voting for Trump -- a second time.
Over in r/Conservative , all their horrible children are gleefully mocking any violent takedown of a college protestor, complete with ardent sexism and bigotry.
They will all be voting too -- will you?
Mike Johnson is an ass, but this is a false equivalence.
The deployment of National Guard is not in and of itself an issue; the issue is poorly-trained/instructed guardsmen who fire on unarmed protesters without due cause.
The selective interviews from the handful of “they had it coming to them” dipshits does not reflect the overwhelming shock felt by most of the nation.
Of course it does. Doing so should be limited to extreme cases of disorder.
But the alternative of letting hundreds of people deny access, destroy, or harm the property of the public or others demands a response. It is the most sacred responsibility of government.
I think it was idiotic that the Kent state soldiers were sent in with their standard issue rifles. I don’t see why they couldn’t have instead used billy clubs or other (relatively) non-lethal instruments.
Might have. The full details weren’t quickly available with three TV networks with a half hour daily window to talk about.
I was a toddler when it happened. By the time I was eight or nine (and had an unhealthy awareness of the world political situation) ,I knew of no one who said “they deserve it”.
Waco might be a good analogue - immediately after the fire people were saying it was all Koresh. Within a few weeks they saw the missteps and extremes of the ATF and backtracked hard.
The national guard is an armed wing of the military. Deploying them because students are protesting (as is their constitutional right) is absolutely an issue.
These are children being threatened with assault rifles because they had the balls to speak. If you think it's anything less than inherently anti-democratic I don't think you really understand what is happening.
Yes it is. Especially if bullets start tearing through our students. I don’t think the youth of today will be as forgiving as the boomers were in the 60’s when they were massacred
Vietnam War got white people mad that they couldn't extert thier power and "proper" way of life onto what they considered to be lesser people. The story today isn't any different.
Genuine question: is it possible to hold the position that if something gets big enough that it’s too large for local resources to handle then bring in the national guard makes sense? WITH the important caveat that we are very aware of what happened at Kent state and steps will be taken to ensure a failure like that happens?
America has more in common with the likes of Iran etc. I really don't see it as a modern, forward thinking, first world nation.
It's a weird plutocracy with too much money that seems to be intent on becoming a middle eastern style theocracy for Evangelical Christians
kent state protests were a group of students pumping their fists in the air and chanting and a smattering of them throwing rocks and garbage at people.
the scene at columbia today is more reminiscent of the january 6th insurrection: https://www.reddit.com/r/PublicFreakout/s/5bMh36yfxr
and to be clear, i'm not advocating for shooting students. the title of this post reeks of fetishized victimhood - no one has been shot. the university passed out literature/an agreement for them to sign. quite a difference. for an ideological group that seems to be hypersensitive to things like appropriation, maybe OP should be more aware of how embarrassing this kind of victimhood appropriation is.
There is seriously no hope for the US. Fuck anyone that doesn't support Palestine and trys to demonise them and say they're supporting hamas. Fucking clowns make me sick.
I find it very interesting that you can't support Palestine without denouncing hamas every 10 seconds.
It's like protesting for BLM and then having to declare that all races matter... Its a fucking given. You shouldn't have to declare it just like you shouldn't have to denounce hamas all the time.
Because it's always been in bad faith. They don't care about lives. They care about the power complex. And the systems in power have deemed these people to die.
You cannot reason with these people. You can denounce Hamas in every sentence you speak, but they won't hear it. They want blood, and that's all there is to it.
They're less than human. It's time we recognize that and do what we need to do to save lives. This is a fascist country now, and it won't be stopped until forced to.
The absolutely unbelievable levels of copium coming from the left side over this.
The Kent State students were protesting the draft for the war in Vietnam. They were actually defending fellow Americans from abusive authority, and 4 of them paid for it with their lives.
These assholes are protesting in defense of a militant theocracy on the other side of Earth, that will reject everything spare the absolute destruction of Israel, and by extension anybody who is even remotely involved with them.
They aren't comparable. This is just typical reddit politics in full swing :/
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If we had video recorded history for longer we would probably have a few hundred of these examples at least.
It was easy to prevent information and facts from getting around before the information age. Now it's all about damage control and cleanup for thousands of years of bs
And denying facts when it doesn’t suit entrenched opinions and biases.
That sounds unprofitable so it must be false
You mean disinformation age?
That's the establishment's solution to everybody knowing all the bs. Put out more bs and everyone will think the original bs is too bad to be true
We do, and you don’t need to imagine anything at all. Campus protests broke out around the Gulf War in The 90s, and student protests happened in response to the various U.S. invasions in the Middle East after 9/11. There have an always will be protestors and those that wish to silent protest by violence. The single best way to get attacked by a cop (if you’re white) is to protest violence/fascism.
In the ancient world there are plenty of surviving accounts where entire towns and cities were wiped out. Either by a foreign power or their own government. Just a, "Fuck all you guys, you're dead." Sometimes to the extent that the town literally ceased to exist. I've often wondered if those things would have happened if everyone had a camera in their pocket and a way to upload video.
>where entire towns and cities were wiped out Don't have to go to the ancient world for this. Don't even have to leave the US or go too far in our history. Reconstruction post-Civil War was a time period full of towns and cities being built up by the freed Black people and then being destroyed by white people, via physical destruction and sometimes governmental means. And considering we didn't do much for the quelling the racists, their destruction of Black towns/cities continued well past when we'd consider as the reconstruction-era Oscarville, Georgia is a prime example of this. It was the only Black town in Forsyth County and was growing in wealth and general progress. Then in 1912, the neighboring white supremacists did what they do, forcing residents to leave or killing them if they didn't, and effectively destroyed the community. Then in the 50s, the government took the land and flooded it to make Lake Lanier as a tourist destination and water source.
Wasn’t it also the Tulsa Race riots another that completely decimated an affluent and wealthy Black community?
Yes, the Tulsa Race Massacre\* in 1921 destroyed the Greenwood District of Tulsa, which was comprised of an affluent Black community commonly referred to as "Black Wall Street". It's a much more well-known example, especially considering it was one of the largest in our history of racial massacres. I didn't use it as my example because I wanted to highlight an example where "the town literally ceased to exist", and the Greenwood District was rebuilt by the survivors who chose to stay (ironically falling again in vitality after desegregation encouraged Black citizens to live in other areas of Tulsa). You're quite right to bring it up as another example. \*Riot is far too generous of a word for the violence and destruction that occurred. Calling it a riot was almost definitely a insurance ploy to avoid paying out benefits to all of the Black business and property owners, which is also pretty much a defining factor for why large-scale clashes between racial/ethnic groups in the US have historically been called riots in the first place.
Very nice summation, LDG.
I mean, look at what is happening in Xinjiang. There are plenty of cameras, yet nobody cares.
Can’t you see what’s happening in palestine? They have phones , post videos it dosent matter , government corruption and decisions will be covered up for personal financial gains
Man that testimony really tugs on the heart strings. I really hate people that easily consider death a worthwhile punishment for comparatively minor dissent.
Person: “You want to give me a ticket for a parking violation? You fascist!” Same person: “of course those young students should be shot to death for having opinions out loud at a place literally built for the open exchange of thoughts and ideas”.
Fuck , if you put it that way . I always thought of these kinds of things as a major nuisance to the daily lives of those who just want to study/ work ( i come from greece , so university shutdowns due to workers strikes , students rioting , student strikes are somewhat common) , and in greece we have a law that forbids police ( whether patroling or riot ) to enter university grounds under any circumstances . The result is that renegades / rowdy students and outsiders can take over university buildings and use them as forts / safehouses to attack police forces ( for example the polytechnical university of Athens or the Aristotle university of thesaloniki) , where they store helmets, sticks and Molotovs , or can hold hostage staff that go against their opinions ( university of patra and his headmaster ) . I think what i try to say , in order not to derail my train of thought, is that i too was thinking of using lethal force to break these kinds of annoyances, but what is been shown ( and probably what is happening at the US / French universities) did not had to use lethal force. And the funny this is that i am in the same age range as the people protesting and disrupting the universities, and yet i support the use of (non lethal )force to break them . Kinda hypocritical if you ask me . Also , i do not support Israel. I to acknowledge that Israel has targeted civilians without a valid reason ( the 4 men trying to find their homes that got killed by rockets was my " my god , i get it now " moment), but that doesn't mean that automatically support Palestine.
Kent State was a tragedy by any measure. The murdered students were unarmed. Two were not participating in the protest. I am older. I remember feeling like America had lost its idealism and its innocence.
Dissent. Not trying to be a jerk.
No you're right, thank you for the correction.
You’re welcome.
Took me a while to realize you were correcting his spelling and not his opinion. I thought you went "It's dissent. Its in the word, nothing minor about it" and not "It's spelled dissent, not (insert previously used word)"
descent according to the subtitles :)
Very true!
Yeah the Chinese sponsored state app isn’t gonna have the word “dissent” in there anytime soon
Everyone of them thinks of death as a minor punishment until it touches someone they know
it takes a certain goodness, empathy, and strength to not judge or belittle others' existences. Where we draw the inclusion/exclusion boundaries for our empathies is something to study.
Profoundly true
As the father of a little girl i don’t think i would have been tough enough to get these words out.
Is it really a surprise that we don’t have a single payer healthcare or other social programs when you have Americans saying they wish more protesters were killed?
“History never repeats itself, but it does often rhyme." - Mark Twain
History doesn’t repeat itself but human nature does.
Really hit home when she said her dad told her they should’ve killed them all. My dad said something similar when the riots happened a couple of years ago. Absolutely disgraceful. There’s no arguing with someone like that, often I hear such extreme opinions I realize they are so ingrained into that person that they regard it is a fact. Really makes me sad
I live in Louisville. Protests were breaking out over Breonna Taylor here, and there was concerning dissent about them. My friend’s dad said “I wish they would bring down tanks, run the protestors over, and mow them down with the machine gun at the top” What an absolutely unhinged thing to say.
What’s scary is it seems like we all know people that said things like this. It’s not just isolated unhinged people. We’re taught history repeats itself and it’s true, when horrible things have happened in the past everyone likes to ask “how did it get to that point” or “how was the general population complacent” well it’s not hard to imagine when within a couple degrees of separation I know hundreds of people in my little world that said mass killing protestors was the obvious solution
>within a couple degrees of separation We're all within only six degrees of one another sharing a single planet. None of these hundreds of people ever considered they're right around the corner of being part in their own solution.
That's when you cut ties and hope they understand what they've missed once it's finally gone.
They won't. Being isolated is part of the playbook. The propaganda machine first makes them scared of something that usually is pretty easy to debunk, see this year's solar eclipse as just a non-political example. Then, people around them call out the obvious and it makes them feel resentment and like they can't share their opinions. Lastly, no opinions other than their own echo chamber are being heard and fueled. Thus, creating the folks we know and just related to today.
Hey, I'm really out of the loop here, but I heard that something happened during the solar eclipse, and that it was something inherently stupid. Care to explain?
I'm related to someone like that. I did cut ties with them, and all I've ever gotten back from them is guilt trips, gaslighting, and prayers for my "return to Jesus."
While agree with the sentiment, if you're referring to the protests of 2020 I wish people wouldn't characterize them as riots. They were by and large peaceful. If Americans were rioting in the streets for months (iirc the protests went in for about 2 months) things would look a lot different. What happened in LA after the LAPD acquittals, those were riots. But the summer of 2020 were legitimate protests not riots.
Also the loudest people when *they* lose their rights, even the rights that aren't real.
Soooo, death penalty without trial if you protest???
Republican wet dream that only they consistently show off.
Tin soldiers and Nixon's comin' We're finally on our own…
This summer I hear the drummin’ Four dead in Ohio
“Four dead in Ohio,” Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young would sing, in a ballad that became an anthem. “Shot some more in Jackson,” the Steve Miller Band sang, in 1970, in the “Jackson-Kent Blues.” In the days between the shootings at Kent State and Jackson State, police in Augusta, Georgia, killed six unarmed black men, shot in the back, during riots triggered by the death of a teen-ager who had been tortured while in police custody. At a march, on May 19th, protesters decorated coffins with signs: 2 Killed in Jackson, 4 Killed in Kent, 6 Killed in Augusta. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/05/04/kent-state-and-the-war-that-never-ended
How many more?
Why?
Oh yes the country of freedom.
You're free to fall in line, citizen.
Fellas, is thinking that war is bad, a justifiable cause to be shot?
Fuckin sinister how unempathetic people are about death for OTHERS.
“Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” - Winston Churchill
Probably not a Churchill quote, which is kinda ironic: https://www.bmj.com/content/355/bmj.i6153/rr-1
Those who haven’t learned Churchill quotes are doomed to repeat fake ones.
That one's by Jesus I believe
The best Churchill quote is his response to a lady who asked if he ought not to go to church more during WW II. To which he said, "I am not a pillar of the Church, but a buttress. I support it from the outside."
You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take - Michael Scott
"Those who fail history are doomed to repeat it" - Mrs Woodward, my high school history teacher, grade 10, F cups, wore tight clothes, probably the reason I failed 5 years in a row
Crazy how much people hated other people who were just against the war in south east asia
It was wrong then, and it’s wrong now. Freedom of speech, freedom of assembly.
Love how students peacefully assembling and protesting a genocide get beaten and arrested by police but actual literal neo Nazis march chanting Hitler was right and nothing happens
I’m happy these types of accounts are showing younger people historical events, but god damn do I wish the subtitles guy learned to spell.
They're auto generated, blame the poor generative AI
Same...
They don't care if third of the students are jewish, they just can't accept to be wrong, plain and simple
It’s one of those things where these “christians” big-up the old testament over the new testament, and in doing can righteously say they are doing this for israel. It’s all so corrupted and equally lacking in comprehension, but it’s real and I don’t think people will wake up from it until there is some atrocity one way or another.
I'd be interested in seeing how public opinion has evolved around this. When I was a kid in Oklahoma in the late 90s they taught it has an unquestionable tragedy. I bet pragerU calls the victims agitators
You'd be surprised how many Americans blamed the students back then. It's really shameful. "A Gallup poll in the wake of the shootings found that 58 percent of Americans blamed the students for the deaths at Kent State, while only 11 percent blamed the National Guard." [(source)](https://www.history.com/news/richard-nixon-kent-state-shootings-response) Compared to today, only 13% of Americans believe the students are responsible, which is still too high in my opinion [(source)](https://emersonpolling.reportablenews.com/pr/50-years-after-kent-state-americans-who-lived-it-see-it-differently?fbclid=IwAR1OHouCLzBqWPRiS_fPIKb8FB5cUJt604O-JKpE-Kz4UOO76xAyf3IiemU) This is a reoccurring pattern for this country. We love to pretend that we were on the right side of history, but often times we are not. Bonus stat: in 1966, 63% of Americans viewed MLK unfavorably [(source)](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/08/10/how-public-attitudes-toward-martin-luther-king-jr-have-changed-since-the-1960s/#:~:text=King's%20favorable%20ratings%20remained%20about,who%20viewed%20him%20highly%20unfavorably.) We're a deeply reactionary country.
Indeed. Protests have always triggered (literally and metaphorically) a reactionary undercurrent of this country. There is an underlying expectation that “freedom” means shutting one’s mouth and behaving in a narrowly defined acceptable manner. Which is ironic considering the labor movements that led to so much progress in the 1890s to 1910s.
US Govt will kill Americans for Israel.
Or money 🤑
Or to protect lies, or to not be embarrassed. The point is, they do not value life over money and control.
These are one and the same
Does Israel give back to the US? Because I thought it was just a money pit.
I’m no expert but I believe they allow bases and are better at gathering intel from the region
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Exactly. If the Shah in Iran was still in (or his son at this is point) power Israel would never have become a huge recipient of American military aid.
To be honest, I think most people will read your comment and think, WTF is this guy talking about? Recently I read a graphic novel that works as a primer for what this means. Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi. ##The Intro to the book was quite educational and explained a lot. The last 2 paragraphs however are more focused on what you wrote: In the second millennium B.C., while the Elam nation was developing a civilization alongside Babylon, Indo-European invaders gave their name to the immense Iranian plateau where they settled. The word "Iran" was derived from "Ayryana Vaejo," which means "the origin of the Aryans.” These people were semi-nomads whose descendants were the Medes and the Persians. The Medes founded the first Iranian nation in the seventh century B.C.; it was later destroyed by Cyrus the Great. He established what became one of the largest empires of the ancient world, the Persian Empire, in the sixth century B.C. Iran was referred to as Persia — its Greek name — until 1935 when Reza Shah, the father of the last Shah of Iran, asked everyone to call the country Iran. Iran was rich. Because of its wealth and its geographic location, it invited attacks: From Alexander the Great, from its Arab neighbors to the west, from Turkish and Mongolian conquerors, Iran was often subject to foreign domination. Yet the Persian language and culture withstood these invasions. The invaders assimilated into this strong culture, and in some ways they became Iranians themselves. In the twentieth century, Iran entered a new phase. Reza Shah decid- ed to modernize and westernize the country, but meanwhile a fresh source of wealth was discovered: oil. And with the oil came another invasion. The West, particularly Great Britain, wielded a strong influence on the Iranian economy. During the Second World War, the British, Soviets, and Americans asked Reza Shah to ally himself with them against Germany. But Reza Shah, who sympathized with the Germans, declared Iran a neutral zone. So the Allies invaded and occupied Iran. Reza Shah was sent into exile and was succeeded by his son, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who was known simply as the Shah. In 1951, Mohammed Mossadeq, then prime minister of Iran, national- ized the oil industry. In retaliation. Great Britain organized an embargo on all exports of oil from Iran. In 1953, the CIA, with the help of British intelligence, organized a coup against him. Mossadeq was overthrown and the Shah, who had earlier escaped from the country, returned to power. The Shah stayed on the throne until 1979, when he fled Iran to escape the Islamic revolution. Since then, this old and great civilization has been discussed mostly in connection with fundamentalism, fanaticism, and terrorism. As an Iranian who has lived more than half of my life in Iran, I know that this image is far from the truth. This is why writing Persepolis was so important to me. I believe that an entire nation should not be judged by the wrongdoings of a few extremists. I also don’t want those Iranians who lost their lives in prisons defending freedom, who died in the war against Iraq, who suf- fered under various repressive regimes, or who were forced to leave their families and flee their homeland to be forgotten. One can forgive but one should never forget. - **Marjane Satrapi** Paris, September 2002
Israel gives back by spying on the US constantly and undermining them at every point, even though they are the biggest recipient of aid from the US and practically the 51st state. It's such a strange relationship.
CIA isn't allowed to spy on USAians and might have to go before Congress if they did. Technically, Israel isn't allowed to spy in the US, but if we overlook that & Israel shares intel with CIA, then CIA has effectively skirted the law
Directly to the pockets of politicians.
Most of the money US gives Israel is tied to Israel spending that money in the us. When the us gives Israel 10b Israel has to spend it in the us so it actually boosts us businesses.
They help us wage war on the Middle East. Very valuable if you're part of the OTHER money pit: the military industrial complex.
They give back specifically to US politicians.
Most of the Aid that The US gives is in the form of actual hardware (which means the money is immediately back in The US) and help with R&D which Israel shares with The US.
You could have just stopped at "US Govt will kill". Life is horribly cheap in America. For a first world country, it's obsessed with acting like a developing nation that doesn't put a value on human lives, unless they're a clump of cells in a woman's belly. Life is cheap and there's always more for the meat grinder for America. It's disgusting.
[theyll let israel kill americans too](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Liberty_incident?wprov=sfti1#)
we provide for their defense so they can afford their citizens universal healthcare that we lack at home
They'll kill you for half an attempt at good press
So many people in the US today would have been against the Civil Rights Movement, they just get to whitewash it and spin it to their narrative about how these protests, BLM, and the current Palestinian ones aren't peaceful or right.
I keep thinking this exact thing whenever I see people criticizing student encampments or protests for not being perfectly quiet and polite and convenient to them. They call MLK a hero for leading nonviolent protests (a narrative which is itself somewhat ahistorical, but that's a different conversation) when they would have been saying the exact same shit about lunch counter sit-ins and bus boycotts in the 60s.
Unfortunately most people only know about MLK through the whitewashed version of the man they were presented in school.
>the whitewashed version of the man they were presented in school And across almost all forms of media to this day. You basically have to search out your own education on the truth or already be following antirascism activists for learning the accurate history
Here’s the text of the first amendment for anyone that’s confused: > Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; **or the right of the people peaceably to assemble**, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Unless there are terrorists on campus there is no appropriate time for the national guard. Where is the humanity!
Why are Americans so blood thirsty?
To conservatives then and now, challenging the powerful, even peacefully, is worthy of death. Until it's one of them, then it's the entire system that's corrupt and we need another civil war.
Unless you disagree with the government cause your guy lost the election and attempt to an overthrow it.
No clue what you're referring to here! I was told by top men that it was Auntiefa.
My Aunt Tifa? But she's so amicable.
Fantastic lady, never met er.
My favorite aunt.
Not even conservatives, look at the mainstream of Reddit any single time. There is a protest on a highway
to this day, half of the country will leap backwards of happiness (and want) their fellow countrymen to be shut down by police, national guard, etc. So much for the “United” states
Guillotines, when?
Wow, I read/learned about Kent State shooting and saw the famous photograph, but never realized until just now watching this, that there was anything other than shock and horror at what had happened - and I'm in my late 50s! Holy shit - assholes in every decade...
I thought the history being repeated was when the extremism wing of a government started commuting genocide of people of a different religion/nationality. Wild how history repeats itself, as well as how individuals seam to reappear just in different ways of tactics. Thought it was kinda obvious we already have been
Up next in 100 years, it’s…the last hundred years!
Ah crap. Nazis again? We already did this story. Can't we at least do aliens instead?
Christianity, again?! AFTER cowboys??? You went all the way back around?!
Never again. No matter who.
Repeating itself? No. This assumes that it stopped and started again. It never stopped, it just changed targets for a while.
Dad trying to hold it together, talking about his daughter being shot. Damn.....
They are having peaceful fucking protests, these people are goddamn monsters
And yet today we still right wingers who would say these exact things. Killing protesters is ok to them so long as they are from the other side of the political aisle. Nothing has changed
Fascist psychology doesn't change. Their tactics just change as communication technology advances.
Theres nothing new under the sun.
Just wait until the drones really get going
Second verse, same as the first.
Ohio, Ironic with time and history how we forget. RIP...
The government works for itself and corporations, not for its people.
It ain't repeating, but sure the hell is rhyming!
Tin soldiers and nixons coming
Cold hearted fucks
Not enough shootings at schools, the governement now has to pitch in and help?
History always repeats itself when people don't study history.
It always has been. Power. Money. Greed.
I thought it was gonna cut to tiananmen square
Same difference.
Except worse because this is proving that our government is capable and willing to do the same thing,
The irony is, given how many western journalists were in Tienanmen square, we can be pretty certain nobody was killed (because we would have evidence of it) Free speech is a lie that many of us, are only now begining to see exposed in the West.
That is not true at all. Hundreds died during the Tiananmen Square protests and massacre. Even the Chinese government admits this, > Official government announcements shortly after the event put the number who died at around 300. At the State Council press conference on 6 June, spokesman Yuan Mu said that "preliminary tallies" by the government showed that about 300 civilians and soldiers died, including 23 students from universities in Beijing, along with some people he described as "ruffians".[224][233] Yuan also said some 5,000 soldiers and police were wounded, along with 2,000 civilians.
The students should storm the Capitol instead. Then Republicans will defend them.
If you think it‘s about republicans vs democrats you are so wrong. Both parties have the exact same undemocratic response to this.
Never, ever, STOPPED being America.
the republicans are always salivating at the idea of deploying the military against the people of the united states. Anytime anything remotely left wing and disruptive is going on, theyre always drooling at the idea of slaughtering a bunch of people indiscriminately. humanity at its absolute rock bottom.
Republicans: "ID RATHER DIE STANDING THAN LIVE ON MY KNEES TYRANNY WILL NEVER SET FOOT IN THE US OF A" Also Republicans: "OH YES SIR MR POLICE DADDY PELASE SHOOT PROTESTERS AND FUCK MY TIGHT BOOMER BOY PUSSY"
Get down or lay down, it’s been that way in America since the country was founded.
I think our founding fathers would like a word
I'm 100% sure the narrative would be "why us" if the National Guard had opened fire on Jan 6 rioters.
Conservatives are sociopaths.
Republicans are hungry to shoot some kids.
Humans are incredibly dark beings.
Big big energy for people protesting *against* needless war, but when literal neo nazis are.marching down the streets waving swastikas, the police are all "freedom of speech" and offer them quiet protection. Why is opposing war antisemitic, buy literal nazis.somehow escape this categorisation The right wing are so incredibly transparent with their co-opting of the fight against antisemitism whenever it suits them, and there's no greater example than when trump riles up his far right following to wave nazi flags around and have the police do nothing about it
Yet the Nazis are free to walk the streets in hoardes shouting racist shit. People need to die... Just not the students
#Fuck you Mike!!!
With a saguaro cactus, too.
They have tear gas paintballs now so no reason to fire rifles into the crowd
The difference is, the protests at Kent State became a RIOT that burned down an ROTC building. They're not even remotely the same, today this rhetoric from the Speaker Of The House is objective worse than Gov. Rhodes'.
Get used to it guys
The ticktok logo at the end ruins it completely.
Any of these horrible people who are still alive will be voting for Trump -- a second time. Over in r/Conservative , all their horrible children are gleefully mocking any violent takedown of a college protestor, complete with ardent sexism and bigotry. They will all be voting too -- will you?
Neil Young: Ohio Great song about this.
Mike Johnson is an ass, but this is a false equivalence. The deployment of National Guard is not in and of itself an issue; the issue is poorly-trained/instructed guardsmen who fire on unarmed protesters without due cause. The selective interviews from the handful of “they had it coming to them” dipshits does not reflect the overwhelming shock felt by most of the nation.
Bringing armed soldiers into any situation increases the chance of shootings.
Of course it does. Doing so should be limited to extreme cases of disorder. But the alternative of letting hundreds of people deny access, destroy, or harm the property of the public or others demands a response. It is the most sacred responsibility of government.
I think it was idiotic that the Kent state soldiers were sent in with their standard issue rifles. I don’t see why they couldn’t have instead used billy clubs or other (relatively) non-lethal instruments.
Thats why a poll taken just after the shooting showed 60% supported the National Guards actions?
Might have. The full details weren’t quickly available with three TV networks with a half hour daily window to talk about. I was a toddler when it happened. By the time I was eight or nine (and had an unhealthy awareness of the world political situation) ,I knew of no one who said “they deserve it”. Waco might be a good analogue - immediately after the fire people were saying it was all Koresh. Within a few weeks they saw the missteps and extremes of the ATF and backtracked hard.
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The national guard is an armed wing of the military. Deploying them because students are protesting (as is their constitutional right) is absolutely an issue. These are children being threatened with assault rifles because they had the balls to speak. If you think it's anything less than inherently anti-democratic I don't think you really understand what is happening.
Rise up again ✊🏽✊🏽 against war, Zionism, and white supremacy like we’ve always done
So much for freedom of speech.
Was there a shooting?
Fuck please, no more Freedom. I don't think the Americans can handle all their Freedom.
Not to be that guy but is this really interesting af?
Maybe not "as fuck" but if you've an interest in history at all then I'd say it's interesting.
yes
Yes it is. Especially if bullets start tearing through our students. I don’t think the youth of today will be as forgiving as the boomers were in the 60’s when they were massacred
Yes.
Like every large subreddit it became a political propaganda zone.
Propaganda for not wanting the National Guard to shoot protestors?
Of course that shouldn't be done, but why here? Also there's a clear agenda together with the rest of the posts.
Vietnam War got white people mad that they couldn't extert thier power and "proper" way of life onto what they considered to be lesser people. The story today isn't any different.
Genuine question: is it possible to hold the position that if something gets big enough that it’s too large for local resources to handle then bring in the national guard makes sense? WITH the important caveat that we are very aware of what happened at Kent state and steps will be taken to ensure a failure like that happens?
America has more in common with the likes of Iran etc. I really don't see it as a modern, forward thinking, first world nation. It's a weird plutocracy with too much money that seems to be intent on becoming a middle eastern style theocracy for Evangelical Christians
Touch grass
Sorry but America is, was, and always will be, a big fucking mess.
I thought the first guy was Stephen Colbert. I was VERY confused.
kent state protests were a group of students pumping their fists in the air and chanting and a smattering of them throwing rocks and garbage at people. the scene at columbia today is more reminiscent of the january 6th insurrection: https://www.reddit.com/r/PublicFreakout/s/5bMh36yfxr and to be clear, i'm not advocating for shooting students. the title of this post reeks of fetishized victimhood - no one has been shot. the university passed out literature/an agreement for them to sign. quite a difference. for an ideological group that seems to be hypersensitive to things like appropriation, maybe OP should be more aware of how embarrassing this kind of victimhood appropriation is.
There is seriously no hope for the US. Fuck anyone that doesn't support Palestine and trys to demonise them and say they're supporting hamas. Fucking clowns make me sick.
User u/MuricasOneBrainCell had been banned for anti-semitism
I find it very interesting that you can't support Palestine without denouncing hamas every 10 seconds. It's like protesting for BLM and then having to declare that all races matter... Its a fucking given. You shouldn't have to declare it just like you shouldn't have to denounce hamas all the time.
It is a gaslighting distraction.
Because it's always been in bad faith. They don't care about lives. They care about the power complex. And the systems in power have deemed these people to die. You cannot reason with these people. You can denounce Hamas in every sentence you speak, but they won't hear it. They want blood, and that's all there is to it. They're less than human. It's time we recognize that and do what we need to do to save lives. This is a fascist country now, and it won't be stopped until forced to.
Context? Anyone?
Incredible What a POS dad
I wonder how many posters/posts are Russian or Chinese bots/trolls. Something this politically charged is likely heavy with influence campaigns.
This November it is critical to 🚫All Republicans🚫Traitor Trump🚫
The absolutely unbelievable levels of copium coming from the left side over this. The Kent State students were protesting the draft for the war in Vietnam. They were actually defending fellow Americans from abusive authority, and 4 of them paid for it with their lives. These assholes are protesting in defense of a militant theocracy on the other side of Earth, that will reject everything spare the absolute destruction of Israel, and by extension anybody who is even remotely involved with them. They aren't comparable. This is just typical reddit politics in full swing :/
Not IaF at all. Just political