The Lethal Media Silence on Kent State’s Smoking Guns

Monday, May 7 2007

The Lethal Media Silence on Kent State’s Smoking Guns


by Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman

The 1970 killings by National Guardsmen of four students during a peaceful anti-war demonstration at Kent State University have now been shown to be cold-blooded, premeditated official murder. But the definitive proof of this monumental historic reality is not, apparently, worthy of significant analysis or comment in today’s mainstream media.

After 37 years of official denial and cover-up, tape-recorded evidence, that has existed for decades and has been in the possession of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), has finally been made public.

It proves what “conspiracy theorists” have argued since 1970—that there was a direct military order leading to the unprovoked assassination of unarmed students. Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) documents show collusion between Ohio Governor James A. Rhodes and the FBI that aimed to terrorize anti-war demonstrators and their protests that were raging throughout the nation.

It is difficult to overstate the political and cultural impact of the killing of the four Kent State students and wounding of nine more on May 4, 1970. The nation’s campuses were on fire over Richard Nixon’s illegal invasion of Cambodia. Scores of universities were ripped apart by mass demonstrations and student strikes. The ROTC building at Kent burned down. The vast majority of American college campuses were closed in the aftermath, either by student strikes or official edicts.

Nixon was elected president in 1968 claiming to have a “secret plan” to end the war in Southeast Asia. But the revelation that he was in fact escalating it with the illegal bombing of what had been a peaceful non-combatant nation was more than Americans could bear.

As the ferocity of the opposition spread deep into the grassroots, Nixon’s Vice President, Spiro Agnew, shot back in a series of speeches. He referred to student demonstrators as Nazi “brownshirts” and suggested that college administrators and law enforcement should “act accordingly.”

On May 3, 1970—the day before National Guardsmen under his purview opened fire at Kent State–Rhodes echoed Agnew’s remarks by referring to student demonstrators as “the strongest, well-trained militant revolutionary group that has ever assembled in America … They’re worse than the brownshirts and the Communist element and the night riders and the vigilantes. They are the worst type of people that we harbor in America….”

Rhodes told a reporter that the Ohio National Guard would remain at Kent State “until we get rid of them” referring to a demographic group that was overwhelmingly white, middle class and in college.

The next day, Rhodes, the administration and the FBI sent those students a lethal message.

Rhodes was the perfect messenger. Bumbling and mediocre, with a long history of underworld involvement, Rhodes was a devoted admirer of Nixon, and of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. Public records reveal that Rhodes was a virtual stooge for the FBI because of the agency’s files tying Rhodes directly to organized crime.

When Kent’s ROTC building was torched on May 2 under suspicious circumstances (student protestors couldn’t get it to light until a mysterious “biker” showed up with a canister of gasoline) it provided the perfect cover for Rhodes to dispatch the National Guard.

But contrary to law, they were supplied with live ammunition. On May 4, in the presence of a peaceful, unthreatening rally, the Guard was strung along a ridge 100 yards from the bulk of the protestors. Earlier, rocks and insults had been hurled at the Guard. But not one of the numerous investigations and court proceedings involving what happened next has ever contended any of the students were armed, or that the Guard was under threat of physical harm at the time of the shooting.

For 37 years the official cover story has been that a mysterious shot rang out and the young Guardsmen panicked, firing directly into the “mob” of students.

This week, that cover story was definitively proven to be a lie.

Prior to the shooting, a student named Terry Strubbe put a microphone at the window of his dorm, which overlooked the rally. According to the Associated Press, the 20-second tape is filled with “screaming anti-war protectors followed by the sound of gunfire.”

But in an amplified version of the tape, a Guard officer is also heard shouting “Right here! Get Set! Point! Fire!”

The sound of gunshots follow the word “Point.” Four students soon lay dead. Two days later, two more would die at Jackson State University, as police fired without provocation into a dorm.

Strubbe gave a copy of the Kent tape to the FBI soon after the shooting (he has kept the original in a safe deposit box). Eight Guardsmen were later tried for civil rights violations, and acquitted. Neither their officers, nor Nixon, nor Agnew, nor Rhodes, nor the FBI, were ever brought to trial. But massive volumes of research—including an epic study by James A. Michener and William Gordon’s Four Dead in Ohio—strongly imply an explicit conspiracy to intimidate the national anti-war movement.

After 37 years, Strubbe’s tape got its first widespread public perusal last week. Six months ago, Alan Canfora, 58, one of the nine wounded Kent students, learned it had been given to Yale University’s archives. Last week he played it to a group of students and reporters at a small university theater.

The fact that the Guard got direct orders to set, aim and shoot flies directly in the face of the official cover story that they were responding in panic to a random shot fired at them, or that they were defending themselves from some kind of student attack.

In fact, it seems highly likely no shot ever rang out prior to the order to fire. Nor could the Guard, who killed a student as much as 900 feet away from the rally, say they were under any serious attack from the students.

The Kent State killings are now prominently featured in virtually every history book of the United States used in American schools. The accounts often include the famous photo of an anguished Mary Ann Vecchio crying for help next to the dead body of student protestor Jeffrey Miller. (They were 265 feet away from where the shot that killed Miller was fired.) Rendered into song by Neil Young’s classic “Ohio,” there are few more definitive moments in the history of this nation.

But meaningful analysis of the implications of this tape has been mysteriously missing from the American media. The Associated Press did carry a widely-runstory about the surfacing of this evidence, as did National Public Radio. But the Columbus Dispatch, in Ohio’s capital, buried the report on page A-5 under the innocuous headline “Victim shares audio tape of Kent State shootings.” Virtually absent from the major US media has been a concerted examination of the fact that the keystone in this monumental American saga has been re-set.

For we now know that a premeditated, unprovoked order was indeed given to National Guardsmen to fire live ammunition at peaceful, unarmed American students, killing four of them. The illegal order to arm the Guard with live ammunition in the first place could only have come from the governor of Ohio. The very loud, very public nod to shoot some “brown shirt” students somewhere in order to chill the massive student uprising against the Southeast Asian war was spewed all over the national media by the second-highest official in US government.

Now the magnitude of Kent State’s impact on American politics and culture, already immense, has been significantly deepened.

Alan Canfora intends to use this tape to re-open investigations into what happened at Kent State 37 years ago.

But the media’s apparent unconcern about confirmation of the official order to carry out these killings may bear a simple message: that we should be prepared for them to happen again.

Source URL: http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/05/07/1021/

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What were the Tuskeegee Experiments? These Links Explain One of America's Greatest Shames. Now New York Is Doing It One Worse!

Wikipedia on the Tuskeegee Experiments

Info Please on the Tuskeegee Experiments

National Public Radio On The Tuskeegee Experiments

New York City's Own Shameful Version of the Infamous Tuskeegee Experiments- Getting Away Clean With the Help of Vera Institute

British Broadcasting System Aired the news back in 2004. They did not know about hundreds of children who were subjected to the experiments.We've been finding out ABOUT THEM PIECE BY PIECE AS aCs STUMBLeS UPoN BOxES aND BoXES Of pREVIOUSLY "lOST" cASE RECOrDS. wHAT kiND oF ASS BACKWARD oRGANIZaTION IS ThIS? HELd tOGETHER BY RUbbER BAnDS, SPiT AND PRAYERS????

CONCERNED DECENT New Yorkers OF ALL WALKS OF LIFE were outraged and tried to be heard.


Even I got an item published by OP ED NEWS that tried to break the media wall of mafiosi style silence.

Speaking of that arrogant little Michael Bloomberg, his emotionally disturbed flunky in charge of kidnapping helpless children, ACS Commissioner John Mattingly, is overseeing a supposed investigation of one of the most shameful chapters in American history, one that is being destroyed more surely than the books the Nazis burnt in Germany many years ago.
Vera Institute is a liberal research organization that gets lots of its funding from New York City and Administration For Children's Services to be exact. They were chosen back in April of 2005 to head up an investigation of the illegal immoral racist abuse of mostly black and hispanic foster children in unknown numbers and of unknown names over the Koch, Dinkins and Giuliani years. After months and months of hemming and hawing, with new "discoveries" of case records of abused children the numbers are now around 657 as opposed to the original number of 67 abused children Mattingly told the public and the City Council about.

Don't take my word for all of this, read Vera Institute's evasions for yourself. By the way many (we don't know just how many) of these experiments were "phase one" experiments meaning they were testing wholing untried and unproven medications not to see if they did any good, but to see how much of them would do harm up to and including killing children. Vera doesn't like to use the expression "phase one" at all.
Clinical Trials Project: Progress Report 7 DATED MAY, 2007

This report is the seventh in a series of quarterly progress reports describing the Vera Institute of Justice's review of issues related to the enrollment of foster children in clinical trials of HIV and AIDS treatments during the late 1980s and 1990s. It covers the quarter running from January 1, 2007, to March 31, 2007. The current report describes:

Progress in reviewing case file documents,

Additions to the list of files that the Administration for Children’s Services has asked Vera to review,

Progress in interviewing key respondents, caregivers, and clinical trial participants,

Progress in reviewing clinical trial protocols and related documents,

Outreach,

Data entry and analysis, and

Next steps.

THIS ONE IS A REAL PIP! THEY SAY THEY'RE JUST GETTING AROUND TO FINDING OUT WHY THE KNOWN VICTIMS (ROUGHLY 667 AT LATEST ADMITTED COUNT) WERE IN THE HANDS OF THE WONDERFUL GOVERNMENT TO BEGIN WITH. MY BET IS THAT LESS THAN FIVE PERCENT WERE IN IMMINENT DANGEROF SERIOUS HARM TO THEIR LIVES OR WELL BEING. MY BET IS NONE OF THE DRUG EXPERIMENTS HAD THE APPROVAL OF A FAMILY MEMBER OR GUARDIAN WHOSE TASK WAS TO PROTECT ONE INDIVIDUAL CHILD'S INTERESTS, AND NOT THE INTERESTS OF THE EXPERIMENTERS. MY BET IS THAT THIS IS AN ENORMOUS CRIME, THAT IF THE VICTIMS WERE EVER ABLE TO GET JUSTICE IN THE COURTS NEW YORK CITY AND STATE WOULD BE BANKRUPTED.BLOOMBERG IS NO IDIOT . HE SURELY KNOWS THAT THE WHOLE CPS INDUSTRY IS A DISASTER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS AND FOR CHILDREN AND FAMILIES. HE CANNOT ADMIT THIS, FOR THE ATTORNEYS WOULD BE LINED UP PAST 125TH STREET FROM CITY HALL.

Progress Report SIX DATED JANUARY, 2007
This report is the sixth in a series of quarterly progress reports describing the Vera Institute of Justice's review of issues related to the enrollment of foster children in clinical trials of HIV and AIDS treatments during the late 1980s and 1990s. It covers the quarter running from October 1, 2006, to December 31, 2006. The current report describes:

Progress in reviewing case file documents,

Additions to the list of files that the Administration for Children’s Services has asked Vera to review,

Progress in interviewing key respondents, caregivers, and clinical trial participants,

Progress in reviewing policy documents,

Progress in reviewing clinical trial protocols,

Progress in reviewing Office for Human Research Protections documents,

Outreach, and

Next steps.

This report is the fifth DATED OCTOBER, 2006
in a series of quarterly progress reports describing the Vera Institute of Justice's review of issues related to the enrollment of foster children in clinical trials of HIV and AIDS treatments during the late 1980s and 1990s. It covers the quarter running from July 1, 2006, to September 30, 2006. The current report describes:

1. Progress in implementing the research design,


2. Additions to the list of files that the Administration for Children's Services has asked Vera to review,


3. Institutional Review Board review of child and caregiver interviews,


4. Outreach,


5. Next steps, and


6. Updated analysis of Child Care Review Service administrative data that includes new cases.

This report is the fourth DATED JULY 2006 in a series of quarterly progress reports describing the Vera Institute of Justice's review of issues related to the enrollment of foster children in clinical trials of HIV and AIDS treatments during the late 1980s and 1990s. It covers the quarter running from April 1, 2006, to June 30, 2006. The current report describes:

Implementation of the research design,

Institutional Review Board review of key respondent interviews,

Activities of Vera's Advisory Board,

Outreach, and

Next steps.

This report is the third DATED MAY 2006
in a series of quarterly progress reports describing the Vera Institute of Justice's review of issues related to the enrollment of foster children in clinical trials of HIV and AIDS treatments during the late 1980s and 1990s. It covers the quarter running from January 1, 2006, to March 31, 2006. The current report describes:

1. Implementation of the document review;


2. Policies to prevent disclosure of confidential information;


3. Vera Advisory Board activity;


4. Institutional Review Board (IRB) developments;


5. Outreach activities; and


6. Next steps.

This report also contains an appendix describing our confidentiality protocol.


This report is the second DATED JANUARY 2006
in a series of quarterly progress reports describing the Vera Institute of Justice's review of issues related to the enrollment of foster children in clinical trials of HIV and AIDS treatments during the late 1980s and 1990s. It covers the quarter running from October 1, 2005 to December 30, 2005. The current report describes:

published: January 2006

1. Lessons learned from the planning process;


2. Development of a research protocol and IRB submission;


3. Advisory Board and IRB member recruitment;


4. Outreach activities;


5. Testimony at City Council hearing; and


6. Next steps.

This report also contains two appendices: charts that describe some of the characteristics of the foster children believed to have enrolled in clinical trials and the testimony of Vera's director, Michael Jacobson, at a recent hearing before the New York City Council.

This report is the first DATED NOVEMBER 2005 in a series of quarterly progress reports describing the Vera Institute of Justice's review of issues related to the enrollment of foster children in clinical trials of HIV and AIDS treatments during the late 1980s and 1990s. It covers the quarter running from July 1, 2005, to September 30, 2005. The current report describes:

Efforts to gain access to necessary information,

Outreach activities,

Preliminary planning to establish our methodology,

The recruitment of an independent advisory board, and

Next steps.

Arrogant little shit Mike "Little Jewish Guy Who Owns A Few Mansions"Bloomberg is full of it on a number of counts.

He marches for gay pride, right? He supports Gay Marriage But...
http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/politics/columns/citypolitic/11075/


He said he would be accountable for improving public education. Later on he explained what he meant when no real improvement was made...

City’s Pupils Get More Hype than Hope
Sol SternTest scores show little payoff for mayoral control

Judge me by the results,” Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced in May 2002 as the state legislature gave him absolute control of New York City’s schools. Everyone who cared about improving education in the city, it seemed, was smiling. After all, under the old Board of Education, with its seven voting members appointed by six different elected officials, it was impossible to hold anyone fully responsible for the city’s dysfunctional school system and its dismal student outcomes. Our new billionaire mayor not only welcomed being accountable for the schools; he also made it clear that he intended to invest political capital in the risky business of education reform.

Unfortunately, it’s now evident that what Mike Bloomberg really meant when he said that we should judge him by “the results” was nothing more than one vote, one time. If New Yorkers believed that the schools had made insufficient progress by the 2005 mayoral election (Bloomberg’s last, because of term limits), they could vote to fire him and pick a new education CEO. That’s a pretty constricted interpretation of education accountability under mayoral control: no one can plausibly argue that last year’s desultory mayoral election was a fair referendum on Bloomberg’s education record. With hapless Freddy Ferrer leading the opposition, New York didn’t come close to having a serious debate on the schools. When asked how people who didn’t like his education policies might express their concerns after Election Day, Mayor Bloomberg quipped: “They can boo me at parades.”

Bloomberg is full of it.


Okay, Boo, motherfucker, boo.

Coming attractions

Giuliani is full of it.

Global postioning.

What's your problem?

Peak Oil - No, Virginia The Sky Is Not Falling.

Sustainable Oil / Magma Oil

Addressing the theory in circulation that oil is not
solely of organic origin, but that there may be another mode of origin as well
from deeper in the crust, involving magma.

See also Peak
Oil

Sterling's Preface:

There is a substantial body of evidence to support this theory. That does
not negate, however, the quest for getting away from dependence on fossil
fuels. The greenhouse gasses produced by the burning of such will continue
to be a pressing matter that must be addressed. Now that the world has
achieved a consciousness about how we treat our planet, this news that we are
not so far from depleting our oil reserves is a welcome breath of fresh air,
removing some of the panic effect that can foster unrest.

Supporting Evidence, Briefly

• Oil being discovered at 30,000 feet, far below the 18,000 feet where
  organic matter is no longer found.


• Wells pumped dry later replenished.


• Volume of oil pumped thus far not accountable from organic material alone
  according to present models.


• In Situ production of methane under the conditions that exist in
  the Earth's upper mantle. (PhysicsWeb;
  Sept. 14, 2004)

Expounding the Theory

b>'Fossil
fuel' theory takes hit with NASA finding - NASA scientists are about
to publish conclusive studies showing abundant methane of a non-biologic
nature is found on Saturn's giant moon Titan, a finding that validates a new
book's contention that oil is not a fossil fuel. (World Net Daily;
Dec. 1, 2005)

• Other Stories by WND
  


• Huge
  natural gas field 'discovered' in Texas


• Abandoned
  oil wells uncapped


• 'Black
  Gold' strikes Big Oil 'nerve'


• 'Hundreds
  of years' of oil available


• Forget
  everything you know about oil





• Stalin
  and Abiotic Oil - Or How Ruppert's 'Peak Oil' Pile is Gaining
  Tonnage; by Dave McGowan (Educate Yourself; March 5, 2005)


• Russia
  Proves 'Peak Oil' is a Misleading Scam - In 1970 the Russians
  started drilling Kola SG-3, an exploration well which finally reached a
  staggering world record depth of 40,230 feet. Since then, Russian oil majors
  including Yukos have quietly drilled more than 310 successful super-deep oil
  wells, and put them into production. Last Year Russia overtook Saudi Arabia
  as the world's biggest single oil producer, and is now set to completely
  dominate global oil production and sales for the next century.


• Article > Sustainable
  Oil? - presents theory and evidence that oil is not solely of
  organic origin. (Rense.com; July 10, 2004) a reprint of Sustainable
  Oil (WorldNetDaily; May 25, 2004
• In situ Production of Inorganic-Derived Petroleum - Scientists in
  the US have witnessed the production of methane under the conditions that
  exist in the Earth's upper mantle for the first time. The experiments
  demonstrate that hydrocarbons could be formed inside the Earth via simple
  inorganic reactions -- and not just from the decomposition of living
  organisms as conventionally assumed -- and might therefore be more plentiful
  than previously thought. (PhysicsWeb; Sept. 14, 2004)


• Peak Oil:
  Can 3D Exploration Postpone The Peak? - Ability to find reserves
  more readily may postpone the "peak" phenomenon; general
  discussion of "peak oil" factors. (MSNBC; Sept. 23, 2004) (Alt
  Energy Blog

This Blog is Coming Back

I'm going to fold other efforts into this one and once again the Fat Old Jewish Guy Who Lives In The Projects will be pissing people off.

After a lot of thought, agonizing even I've come to realize that not only am I Jewish but that what I think and feel is colored by that fact and that what I have to say or what I think is not irrelevant simply because other Jews with other views are so prominently played in the mass media. I'm not with them.