Click on the headline to link to a "Bob Feldman 68" blog entry marking the anniversary of the murders at Kent State in Ohio and Jackson State in Mississippi.
Markin comment:
I wrote the comment below the asterisks for a "Bob Feldman 68" blog entry on his marking the 40th anniversary of the murders of Fred Hampton and Mark Clark. With due regard for the fact that the American government carried out a systematic and long term plan of extermination of black militants, as exemplified by Hampton and Clark, the thrust of those remarks are also appropriate here in marking the 40th anniversaries of Kent State and Jackson State.
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The late "Gonzo" journalist, Hunter S. Thompson, once noted in his madman escapades posing as a novel, "Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas", that at some point in the late 1960s the high water mark of the counter-cultural revolutionary possibilities had been met and thrown back. From then on the tide receded. We can quibble over exact dates and events but one of the clearest ones for me politically was the murders in Chicago of Black Panther leaders, Fred Hampton and Mark Clark in late 1969. To be black, especially a black man, or to be different hereafter in any out of the sort way from mainstream politics or culture put one at grave risk. Maybe not the kind of fiendish risk that Fred Hampton faced but some degree nevertheless. And we are still paying for those defeats forty years later.
Markin comment:
I wrote the comment below the asterisks for a "Bob Feldman 68" blog entry on his marking the 40th anniversary of the murders of Fred Hampton and Mark Clark. With due regard for the fact that the American government carried out a systematic and long term plan of extermination of black militants, as exemplified by Hampton and Clark, the thrust of those remarks are also appropriate here in marking the 40th anniversaries of Kent State and Jackson State.
********
The late "Gonzo" journalist, Hunter S. Thompson, once noted in his madman escapades posing as a novel, "Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas", that at some point in the late 1960s the high water mark of the counter-cultural revolutionary possibilities had been met and thrown back. From then on the tide receded. We can quibble over exact dates and events but one of the clearest ones for me politically was the murders in Chicago of Black Panther leaders, Fred Hampton and Mark Clark in late 1969. To be black, especially a black man, or to be different hereafter in any out of the sort way from mainstream politics or culture put one at grave risk. Maybe not the kind of fiendish risk that Fred Hampton faced but some degree nevertheless. And we are still paying for those defeats forty years later.
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