Fourty Years Ago Today: Four Dead in Ohio
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Pulitzer Prize wining photo of Mary Ann Vecchio kneeling over the body of Jeffrey Miller. Taken by Kent State photojournalism student John Filo. Used in the same manner as used by Wikipedia. The picture is Lanczos upsized 80% and sharpend 20% with XnView.
Immortalized by Neil Young and Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young [YouTube].
Alison, Jeffrey, William and Sandra were not executed by old men in suits. They were shot by young men of about the same age. Why? Was it their own wish? Or was it to curry favor with old men in suits?
Retrospective by Democracy Now!
The take away message for student activists: Power is very reluctant to show it’s face to you. That’s why the Corporation1 hides in Loeb House2 and sends the President out3. Power is a lie.4 Your weapon is to expose it. But be careful out there.
I have a very long illustrated post of the Bread and Roses demonstration by Slam5. It is started. I also owe Collette et al an apology, but I need to know more to do it right. I’m an ass what? All this must wait while I have yet another highly protracted argument with the Cambridge Housing Authority.
1I assume most Colleges and Universities are governed by a corporation. If you know of exceptions tell me about it. the dot guy dot by dot the dot door at gmail dot com. The Great and General Court of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts originally vested governing power of Harvard in the Board of Overseers. It still exists and is elected by the Alumni Association. But in 1650, the GGCoCoM vested power in the Corporation. The BoO was busted back to an advisory role, whatever that actually means.
2At Harvard, Loeb House once housed the Presidents, but is now known, as the Board of Overseers house. The Corporation meets in the second floor dining room. Mortals may enter under certain circumstances.
3At Harvard, the President hides in Massachusetts Hall. President Drew, to her credit, seems to marginally more accessible than the Late Larry Summers was. For the Late Larry, Mass Hall was the Fortress of Solitude.
4Izzy Stone used to say, “All governments lie …”. Universities are chartered by governments, but are operated by governance. We have to update Izzy. “What governs lies.” I think Noam would agree with my extension to power itself. I do have a nit with him. At one point he allows that there may be cases in parent child relations where authoritarian behaviour is justified. Here’s the thing. Power always says about what it’s doing, “it’s for their own good.” Sometimes it’s not well honed. Take My LaiA. One officer was quoted as saying, “We had to destroy the village to save it.”
5The SLAM website is beautifully done. More importantly it uses DruPal a project of the Free Software movement.
AIt would have been better if “we” hadn’t.
