On May 4, 1970, National Guard fired on students demonstrating peacefully at Kent State in Ohio. This singular event is often attributed as one of the events that led to the Congress and President finally withdrawing the U.S. from Vietnam.
In the past week, Police in Riot Gear pepper sprayed, beat, and in other ways sought to break down the Occupy Oakland protests in Oakland, California, efforts that have been praised by the Mayor of Oakland. At Occupy Washington, though some of Occupy Protestors did cross lines of attacking Tea PartyProtestors, an Occupy Protestor was hit by a car, and the police arrested the Occupy Protesters who were keeping the hit and run driver from getting away, rather then the man who hit the protester.
I normally try to avoid directly political issues, focusing on things that have sides I can look for the lesser thought about angles. This case, though, I see the escalation going on, and fear that we are heading for another Kent State. The scariest thought, though, is that if and when that happens, the people of this nation will not feel outrage. That is assuming that something like that has not already happened, but not been covered by the media. After all, we cannot have anything scary on the news(unless it is something that pushes the agenda of those who are in charge).
The truly disturbing thing is that, unless something changes, an event like Kent State might be the only way for the Occupy Movement to truly have lasting impact on the political discourse. Unfortunately, even then, it might not. Look at Representative Giffords from Arizona..for a couple weeks after her shooting, the political discussion in Washington turned civilized, but it has quickly returned to the same as before. Unfortunately, it seems that, as is often the case, Thomas Jefferson was right. So we can but wait and see when the refreshing of the roots of the tree of liberty will be.
