WI: No Kent State

as one flock of butterflies, less distrust of the system

But I think the general trend toward greater distrust of the system would still be going strong, albeit without that particular slaughter to serve as an embodiment.

The Weather Underground's bombing campaign, for example, had already been going on for a few months BEFORE Kent State happened. Though I suppose there could have been a few people drawn to the New Left's armed revolt by what what happened at Kent State, who would not otherwise have gotten involved.
 
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Now I am thinking, almost and I am looking down on myself for even considering it, on a thread or discussion or want alternate headlines and images would be on major newspapers and magazine. As in what would be the other big news of the week. Would the protests at that campus still be headline worthy? Was it famous mostly for the shooting? And did this event give a shock to the system to help avoid future incidents like this?
 
Now I am thinking, almost and I am looking down on myself for even considering it, on a thread or discussion or want alternate headlines and images would be on major newspapers and magazine.
It was the day Kosygin warned the US against escalating the way in Vietnam. The student protests were happening all over the US and soldiers were cursing Nixon's "betrayal". The "excesses of the permissive society" were in the news in the UK.
In Ireland the resignation of Mícheál Ó Móráin as Minister for Justice and the Murray murder trial were major stories, as was the upcoming Spring Show.
In Italy the hunger strike at the Regina Coeli prison continued.
Jean Starkis was expelled from Greece.
 
. . . almost and I am looking down on myself for even considering it, on a thread or discussion or want alternate headlines and images would be on major newspapers and magazine. . .
I think I might know what you mean. Almost like a tragedy's become too much a texture of life and I can't just wish it away.

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And we still need to talk about Jackson State.
 
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http://www2.kenyon.edu/Khistory/60s/webpage.htm

Around 9:30 PM on May 14, JSU students heard a rumor that Fayette, Mississippi mayor Charles Evers, brother of murdered civil rights activist Medgar Evers, had been killed along with his wife. Students again gathered on Lynch Street and began rioting.

The ROTC building was set on fire, a street light was broken, and a small bonfire was built, but the riot was still a small one. Several white motorists called police to complain that students had thrown rocks at their passing cars, but eyewitnesses later proved that it was non-students, known as "cornerboys," who did the rock throwing. Firemen arrived to distinguish the fires, but requested police protection after students harassed them as they worked.
The protestors weren't perfect of course, as you can read, but the later shooting sure sounds like a police overreaction.

A 21-year-old young man was killed, along with a 17-year-old high school student who was coming home after a shift of work at a grocery store and who had stopped to watch the riot.

And this Jackson State (Mississippi) tragedy wasn't covered near as much as Kent State. Jackson State was not as well-known an institution to begin with. There weren't photographs from beginning to end. But it's kind of blurry blendy between these explanations and the fact that the institution and the young people involved are African-American.
 
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bguy

Donor
What does no Kent State mean for Jim Rhodes? If he isn't discredited by the massacre is tere any chance that Nixon picks Rhodes to replace Agnew, or (assuming Nixon still goes with Ford and Watergate isn't otherwise butterflied) that Ford goes with Rhodes instead of Rockefeller or Dole? (Though a Ford-Rhodes ticket might be too Mid-West heavy to be viable.)
 
Probably would have a similar event elsewhere (in addition to Jackson). The NG was called in to quite a few campuses in May 1970.
 
Steven King might not write The Stand (which probably means no Dark Tower series too.) I think I've read that much of the military conspiracy section of the first half of the novel was inspired by the Kent State shootings and King even reproduces a very similar shooting in one of the chapters.
 
Surprisingly, a lot of conservative reaction to Kent State was not revulsion at the National Guard or a reassessment of what they did and how they viewed the youth movements of the Left. Rather, there was a feeling that they had it coming, and that it was their fault.
 
Steven King might not write The Stand (which probably means no Dark Tower series too.) I think I've read that much of the military conspiracy section of the first half of the novel was inspired by the Kent State shootings and King even reproduces a very similar shooting in one of the chapters.

I wouldn't be sure of that.

Like I said, if it wasn't Kent State, it'd likely be another college where the guard was called out.

Imagine what would've happened at Yale had things gone pear shapped with the NG there.
 
Unsurprisingly, a lot of conservative reaction to Kent State was not revulsion at the National Guard or a reassessment of what they did and how they viewed the youth movements of the Left. Rather, there was a feeling that they had it coming, and that it was their fault.
FTFY.:p
 
I wouldn't be sure of that.

Like I said, if it wasn't Kent State, it'd likely be another college where the guard was called out.

Imagine what would've happened at Yale had things gone pear shapped with the NG there.

I might not exist for one.

I think my dad was a Freshman at Yale at that point and protested somewhat heavily against the war.
 
Surprisingly, a lot of conservative reaction to Kent State was not revulsion at the National Guard or a reassessment of what they did and how they viewed the youth movements of the Left. Rather, there was a feeling that they had it coming, and that it was their fault.
What do you mean "surprisingly?" Conservatives react that way every time something bad happens to someone they don't like.
 
Depends on how widely we're drawing 'conservative'. IIRC for all the sound and fury of the 1960s and '70s at the universities and in some parts of society most people were a part of Nixon's silent majority that didn't really hold with the alternate culture folks and just wanted to get on with their lives.
 
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