August 25, 2005
KENT STATE WORKED:
CLINTON'S THE MAN!: August's reading list. (Russ Smith, NY Press)
[N]o one could top Columbia journalism professor Todd Gitlin's escape into fantasy published in the Aug. 21 number of the Washington Post. You might argue that it's unfair to pick on poor Gitlin, an aging hippie who clearly wants to revisit his glory years at least one more time before he's too feeble to shout "Right On!" with any conviction, but his regrettable academic status and access to newspaper opinion pages makes him fair game.He wrote: "A grieving mother—a mother who now has her own ailing mother's concerns at heart—has put the president at bay… Students will be back at school soon, and Sheehan's camp, should it continue, will likely tug at them, offering a focus for their activity. On Wednesday night [Aug. 17], MoveOn.org claimed there were more than 1,600 candlelight vigils supporting Sheehan across the country. In the small town of Hillsdale, N.Y., I counted 60 protesters; many passing vehicles honked in support."
Sorry to disturb Gitlin's daydream, but I don't think this is quite convincing evidence of what he claims is a "growing antiwar movement." It's certainly sensible to debate the Bush administration's success in Iraq, a war that won't be over any time soon, but the notion of a 1960s revival of marching and charging in the streets is simply naïve. The prof's exultation at 60 protesters in a small town is understandable, but it doesn't strike me as a harbinger of greater demonstrations to come. To state the obvious, there's no military draft today, and anybody who believes that the students who shut down colleges more than 30 years ago weren't acting out of self-interest are deceiving themselves.
Here's an inconvenient reminder to those mired in the distant past. The huge Vietnam protests, some of which numbered a half million attendees, were a lot of fun for college students and those of us in high school. You got to cut class, meet up with buddies and smoke joints, scope the crowd for easy chicks, and call cops "pigs." Had the frightening specter of a letter from the draft board not existed, the numbers would've been minuscule, although still dwarfing today's extravaganzas. I do remember a large gathering in Huntington a few days after the Kent State killings in 1970, easily a thousand people wandering around, a little dazed that students were actually knocked off, but mounting a spirited rally nonetheless. I ran into an older friend there, a sophomore at Kent State, and asked about his reaction: "Are you kidding me? I got the first bus home."
I don't think it's a coincidence that the antiwar movement petered out after those days in May, even as the war, as prosecuted by Nixon, was still going strong. It was just getting too real for kids who weren't likely to do any time in boot camp or Southeast Asia.
Nothing stops a youth movement quicker than the realization that your parents don't mind having you shot. Posted by Orrin Judd at August 25, 2005 12:00 AM
Smith said:
"I don't think it's a coincidence that the antiwar movement petered out after those days in May, even as the war, as prosecuted by Nixon, was still going strong. It was just getting too real for kids who weren't likely to do any time in boot camp or Southeast Asia."
I have argued this for years to much opposition and disdain. It seemed pretty apparent to me even as a teanager in 1971 that midddle class college kids would not risk death to protest.
Posted by: Bob at August 25, 2005 2:09 PM
Bob: No opposition and disdain here. I was on campus and getting ready for Quantico in those days, and that's exactly how I remember it. After that handful of Comsymp/peace creeps died of natural causes (it being unnatural to survive when one throws rocks at men with loaded rifles), there was a further adjustment of priorities among the "anti-war" people.
Posted by: Lou Gots at August 25, 2005 6:00 PMI only went to the demonstrations for the chicks. I graduated in 1970, working was a real drag on my social life.
Posted by: Robert Schwartz at August 25, 2005 7:05 PMThe other mitigating factor was when the Weather Underground folks proved themselves to be both would-be terrorists and inept as bomb makerrs by blowing themselves and the brownstone on West 11th Street up in New York just two months before the Kent State incident. Despite what Abby Hoffman might have said, most of the protestors didn't want to take it to the next level and actually kill their parents.
Posted by: John at August 26, 2005 9:25 AMThe protests faded as the troop levels declined. The last protest of any significance was in DC in May 1971.
My brother shared an apartment in the mid-70s with an Ohio guardsman whose unit was dispatched to Columbus at the same time as the KSU incident. He told me that prior to the shooting it was well publicized that the Guard had been issued live amo. Unfortunately, some people foolishly regarded what was happening as mere theater.
As for the older generation's reaction to Kent, I well remember a friend's father saying that they should have shot more.
Posted by: George at August 26, 2005 10:52 AM