Letters: Reader's Bunch of criticisms
COLUMNIST Will Bunch is constantly trying to tie (usually violent) historical events to the modern-day political debate. That is fine, but Bunch always uses these events, such as the tragedy at Kent State, to attack those with whom he disagrees politically.
COLUMNIST Will Bunch is constantly trying to tie (usually violent) historical events to the modern-day political debate. That is fine, but Bunch always uses these events, such as the tragedy at Kent State, to attack those with whom he disagrees politically.
Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell wrote a memorandum that convinced corporate America that the free-enterprise system was being negatively portrayed on America's college campuses. That is all Kent State and the Powell memo have in common; they both involve higher education, to a degree. Kent was not the government "suppressing a revolution," as Bunch dramatically writes. After Bunch ties the Kent State shooting to the Powell memo, which spawned conservative think tanks and conservative talk radio, he mentions Rush Limbaugh. That fast, Bunch ties Rush Limbaugh to the Kent State shootings. Unbelievable. He also refers to the resulting institutions from the Powell memo as an "infrastructure for reaction." However, Occupy Wall Street is just grassroots activism, according to Bunch. You cannot have it both ways, Mr. Bunch, conservative groups or liberal groups, either they are both reactionary or both activism. I know "reactionary" is more of a scary word, which is why you always refer to your opposition as reactionary.
Bunch always leaves out facts that go against his narrative, and a recent The Best of Our Blogs was no different. The Ohio National Guard was called to Kent because radical groups burned down the ROTC Building on campus the night before and then shot at firemen trying to extinguish the blaze. If this was a revolution, then it needed to be repressed, but I don't think Bunch was referring to the acts that brought the Guard to the Kent protest, only what happened once they got there. Even that is up for debate. Bunch's use of the word "murder" is wrong. No charges against the guardsmen ever made it to trial and several reviews of the incident placed blame on both the protesters and the Guard. It was a very volatile time and the 1970 incursion into Cambodia sparked the initial protest. Justice Powell's memo had to do with American business, the same businesses that were threatened and damaged by vandalism by the protesters at Kent State. Again, there are links to the two historical events, but not the ones Will Bunch would like you to hear about.
Kevin Metz
Ridley Park, Pa.