There has never been Justice yet
(via riverheart)
I was a year old, then; my folks never talked about Kent State that I recall, back in the mid 70s, but it formed, inevitably (along with tanks in the streets of Detroit and the Riots of '68, which were eyewitnessed in some cases) part of the dark apocalyptic feeling of the times, and their general cynicism towards all political systems and politicians and governments, and impulse to drop out in their own way and enlist in eschatalogical/mystical, then-alternative movements. --Which is a not-wholly incorrect response, and less dangerous than any form of my country/party right or wrong (except for the original anti-imperialist response.)
There has never been justice yet; and yet we feel as a nation qualified to look down our noses and sneer at other nations still recovering or not yet facing their own abuses from authoritarian governments of the 1970s. What pride, to be able to say, "At least we didn't shoot/torture/kill/imprison as many of our own as Pinochet/Franco/!"
There has been informal Truth & Reconciliation - no, scratch that. There has been Truth. I'm not sure from what I've read if there's been Reconcilation, yet; there's nothing on if the Guelen National Guards involved have faced up to it, and made a separate peace as have so many veterans of foreign fronts since WWII, in the [a]wake[ning] of the peace movement. But institutionally, the country has not faced our dark side; and victim-blaming as a response to this sort of "tragic mistake" (yah right) has not gone away; and the Dolchstosslegende of how the peacenik students and hippies and liberal professors "emasculated" the country and "made us lose the war we could have won if we'd only beeen hard enough in Vietnam," is still poisoning us to this very hour and minute with its gangrene.
--Peace out.
I was a year old, then; my folks never talked about Kent State that I recall, back in the mid 70s, but it formed, inevitably (along with tanks in the streets of Detroit and the Riots of '68, which were eyewitnessed in some cases) part of the dark apocalyptic feeling of the times, and their general cynicism towards all political systems and politicians and governments, and impulse to drop out in their own way and enlist in eschatalogical/mystical, then-alternative movements. --Which is a not-wholly incorrect response, and less dangerous than any form of my country/party right or wrong (except for the original anti-imperialist response.)
There has never been justice yet; and yet we feel as a nation qualified to look down our noses and sneer at other nations still recovering or not yet facing their own abuses from authoritarian governments of the 1970s. What pride, to be able to say, "At least we didn't shoot/torture/kill/imprison as many of our own as Pinochet/Franco/!"
There has been informal Truth & Reconciliation - no, scratch that. There has been Truth. I'm not sure from what I've read if there's been Reconcilation, yet; there's nothing on if the Guelen National Guards involved have faced up to it, and made a separate peace as have so many veterans of foreign fronts since WWII, in the [a]wake[ning] of the peace movement. But institutionally, the country has not faced our dark side; and victim-blaming as a response to this sort of "tragic mistake" (yah right) has not gone away; and the Dolchstosslegende of how the peacenik students and hippies and liberal professors "emasculated" the country and "made us lose the war we could have won if we'd only beeen hard enough in Vietnam," is still poisoning us to this very hour and minute with its gangrene.
--Peace out.