Special Edition, 5/4/24
Kent State, 54 years later, and today’s nation-wide rebellion on US campuses.
Yesterday’s Planet Waves program was largely about this matter,
SUNY New Paltz arrests 133 on 54th anniversary of the Kent State shootings. Interview with student organizers. Tantra Studio: Are you your lover? Eric Francis Coppolino, 5/3/24.
Go To Program [Link]
Spectrum News was on scene at New Paltz and got excellent video. Their reporter was arrested in the fracas. The Sheriff’s Emergency Response Team also responded at New Paltz. Their usual job is to put down prison riots.[Links]
[. From the linked program’s page at Planet Waves dot FM,….]
[Audio file of full program, three hours and 40 minutes]
Interview below is with Duke and Hassan, organizers of the SUNY New Paltz protest. This was conducted outside at a picnic table in a light breeze, so there is a little distortion. I think it’s still listenable. Interview conducted the night of Wednesday, May 1, 2024. [Audio file, 55 minutes]
Conversation with Laurel Krause on the Kent State massacre. [Audio file, an hour and 4 minutes]
Tantra of Masturbation: The Difference Between Sex and Sexuality. [Audio file, 42 minutes]
My comments at the page.
Jeffrey Strahl, Lockdown Times, 8:45PM, 5/3/24.
Listened to the first half, right through "Ohio." Flashing back on seeing Neil Young drop in on Crosby and Nash doing an acoustic duo, October 14, 1971 [Vietnam Moratorium Day, it so happened] towards the end of the show, doing a few numbers, concluding with that tune. When i first heard it (the electric version) in May 1970 i was outraged by the politics. Within a few weeks, no doubt influenced by my horrible close encounter with the Selective Service System (aka The Draft), i found myself a bunch more sympathetic. By Summer's end, i was totally "Right on."
Great first segment. Very perceptive on your part to note how the protests make at least a partial rollback of digital disembodiment. Scary account of what you saw first hand. Outrageous, the militarization of police and of campuses, the criminalization of dissent based upon, as you point out, the dislike of the decision-makers for the opinions being expressed by these protests. Locking down our minds.
And bless Laurel Krause, for pursuing the matter of justice for her dead sister. Like you, i have never heard of the role that the police provocateur Terry Norman played, firing four shots, creating an echo which made it sound like numerous gun shots, which were then used by the Ohio National Guard as an excuse for opening fire.
And they did so without an audible order, aside from "Alright,": getting them to turn around 180 degrees in unison and fire, choreographed, planned!! And she is pretty convinced Alison, a flower child but still a serious political activist, was targeted, as was Jeff Miller, another of the "four dead in Ohio." She is just getting responses to FOIA requests she made 7 years ago, wow.
Great to hear her side 100% with today's campus activists, the first nationwide campus movement since May 1970. She did not mince words, calling what's happening in Gaza (and been happening for a long while) "GENOCIDE." And Biden is enabling both the genocide and the campus protests repression. Biden, Trump, RFK Jr, no daylight between them on this matter (except Junior is even more stridently pro-Israel than Biden). She did not mince words either when she she used the C word, “CAPITALISM,” to describe the overarching context of all of this.
Thank you so much for broadcasting this, Eric, this particularly made me proud to be part of the Planet Waves team.
[He responded]
Eric Francis Coppolino, Planet Waves by Eric Francis, 8AM, 5/4/24. US Pacific Time,
I thought you might like this episode and I truly appreciate the sharpening stone you provide to keep my political views sharp. I had never heard that individual students were chosen to be shot. That casts the incident in a whole new light for me. If indeed she was a target, it's probable that several of them were told to fire on her, as it's a somewhat long shot at 325 or whatever feet field distance, having to aim quickly like that. M1 Carbines did not have scopes. They are not sniper rifles. They are combat rifles with big magazines.
Here was Laurel's 2018 appearance on the program, when it was on Planet Waves AM/FM on Radio Kingston, WKNY-New York. This is live radio. The other guest is Gerald Casale, the bass player for DEVO. Those men were on the field that day and decided that, based on what they witnessed, they would do something meaningful with their lives. Casale is a fantastic speaker --
[And my response to him]
Jeffrey Strahl
Lockdown Times,9AM, 5/4/24. US Pacific Time,
Thanks. Good points about the M1. And yeah for Casale being on the program. Indeed, the DEVO crew went through the Kent State crucible.
And my comment about the second half of the program.
Jeffrey Strahl
Lockdown Times, 2:10PM, 5/4/24, US Pacific Time.
Listened to the rest of the program. The interview with Joaquin Broughton was HUGE!! WOW. He is incredibly articulate, and only 20, but more articulate than i was at 25. And a gutsy photographer!!
This was emotionally moving, i never thought i'd hear someone of that age speak like that about the world at large!! He said it so well, he and his peers got tired of being ignored, not being listened to. He has had enough being disembodied, being enclosed in social media, enough of "art" which is self-absorbed vs the art he wishes to pursue as a documentary photographer, which documents the human condition and shares it with the rest of the world.
Excellent discussion of BLM, you did well, Eric, relating how it was astroturfed, corporate-funded. Though they did not march mask-less. They were very demanding about masking. But they did violate rules against large gatherings and not maintaining "proper social distancing." And did so without being at all cracked down on. Great discussion of what had happened back at Kent State times. Good brainstorming as to how to proceed. I am really delighted that he is now part of the Planet Waves crew.
Regarding sexuality, you seemed to misspeak for a second. You stated that sexuality is anything except "in-and-out." What you really meant, i think, is anything except "in-and-out aimed at pregnancy," because the vast majority of genital intercourse is NOT intended to create a pregnancy, in fact generally carried out with an intent to NOT create one. Right?
And, a piece Coppolino posted today.
Pres. Wheeler's Missing McNuggets. SUNY New Paltz Pres. Darrell P. Wheeler does not know what an emergency is, and violated a longstanding university tradition of keeping the police off campus. Eric Francis Coppolino, 5/4/24.
MAYBE YOU’VE HEARD those YouTubes of 911 calls for people who don’t really have an emergency — such as when they get just four Chicken McNuggets in a five-piece order. It’s somehow reassuring to know that there’s someone in the world stupid enough to call the police about this — and it’s not you. That is (in part) how I felt Thursday night at SUNY New Paltz, watching a line of New York State Troopers and Ulster County Sheriff’s deputies marching across the campus to remove 133 student antiwar protesters with their arms linked, sitting around a tree.
The panicking 911 caller was Pres. Darrell Wheeler. Under State University of New York governance, only the president can call the police onto the campus — unless there is something like an active shooter incident. It’s a strict tradition, going back generations, not to call the police for a peaceful, lawful protest. I don’t care who told him to do it. I don’t care how much pressure was put on him by the system’s chancellor, the governor or some other part of the New World Order.
The campus is a benevolent monarchy, and the president is its king. If he is told to do something immoral, illegal or stupid, he can refuse, or resign. He has nobody to blame, and must take responsibility for his actions — or be held accountable.
If That is Not Constitutionally Protected, Then What Is?
The students he ordered arrested were protesting the investment of the New Paltz campus in what they consider the apartheid state of Israel, which has been bombing civilians in Gaza since Oct. 8, 2023. More than 35,000, including many children, are estimated to have been killed, and the whole society is lying in rubble — but the bombing goes on. The students, plus some community members and faculty, were “peacefully petitioning the government for the redress of grievances.” If that is not a constitutionally-sanctioned protest — on an open State University campus — I would like to know what is.
The students were breaking no law, so there was nothing for law enforcement to enforce. The camp had rules of conduct and its own security, and the students were not blocking or breaking anything. There were no incidents. I was at the campsite much of Wednesday and Thursday. The scene was chill and friendly. They were initially only in violation of the campus policy against pitching tents. They took the tents down hours before the police arrived. But still, Pres. Wheeler allowed police to proceed.
One of the agencies that responded was the Sheriff’s Emergency Response Team, whose regular job is to quell prison riots. Their website says: “They participate in numerous high risk, high security transports and trials. One of their main functions is to conduct institutional [meaning prison] shakedowns on a regular basis…and are prepared at a moment’s notice to quell problems before they escalate. From time to time SERT is called upon to handle crowd/riot control for requesting agencies.”
New Paltz has an Atrocious Civil Rights Record
This tells us how short the “school to prison pipeline” has become. The campus is now a gulag where the students know they have no rights. After being ordered into their dorms, there were credible reports Thursday night that they were locked into the buildings by the very Siemens electronic security system they are demanding to have removed, as the company does business with Israel.
New Paltz is famous for its crunchy liberal image, but it’s also historically been involved in repeated civil rights disasters. One summer, the campus arrested eight black students for playing their boombox too loud, and charged them criminally — causing a statewide ruckus that went on for months. The charges were all dismissed.
Once campus police were called when a person was acting strangely. He said he was having a diabetic emergency and needed medical attention, and some orange juice. They said he was high on drugs, and handcuffed him to the wall for an hour. When I called to ask about this, L. David Eaton, then assistant vice president for student affairs, called the police action “professional and expert.” The student survived without going into a coma, and won a lawsuit against the college — which has in the past been known as SUE-ME New Paltz.
Today is the 54th anniversary of the Kent State University massacre. Program on Planet Waves FM.[Link, see above]
The Dioxin Dorms — Contaminated Residence Halls [Link]
In 1993, I attempted to interview several campus administrators on video as they walked across the campus. I was asking about PCB and dioxin contamination in the very dorms where the students were protesting last week — the Dioxin Dorms.
Administrators testified in federal court that I yelled questions at them and blocked their progress; the video tape revealed that I was speaking normally and held doors for them. They declared me “persona non grata” and ordered me off the campus. Notably, I was not a student at the time. (Public officials are using the presence of non-students as justification for their panic attack, but they are entitled to be on campus.)
I filed a federal lawsuit against the college president, Alice Chandler, and L. David Eaton (who wrote the letter banning me), earning some honorary law school credit. (The state settled the case and allowed me back on campus 24-hours a day, after taking a year-long beating in the press for trying to have me removed.) The dorms — Bliss, Capen, Gage and Scudder, plus Parker Theater — are still contaminated with hormone-disrupting and carcinogenic chemicals.
SUNY New Paltz has the worst record of violating student rights than any of the 25 or so SUNY campuses I’ve covered. They seem to make a point of sticking it to students. The campus spokesman last week told me that New Paltz was recently upgraded to being a “university” rather than a “college.” Maybe this was their initiation ceremony.
This Was About Israel
Since the protest was not against campus policy, and the students were not breaking any law, then there is just one possibility left: the administration (and higher-ups) objected to the content of what their protests were about — support of the Palestinian people, and demanding divestment and disclosure around investments in Israel. The attack on students had a touch of IDF “total commitment” to it.
The very point of the right to protest against the state is to protect unpopular views. The “redress of grievances” against public officials is precisely what is sanctified by peaceful protest in the First Amendment.
And the place it’s supposed to be honored the most is on a state college campus. It’s often said that campus life is a microcosm of life in the outside world, and that appears to be true. Like other leaders, Pres. Wheeler is missing a few of his McNuggets, and has decided that outright tyranny is the way to run his campus. He has brought the war home, using militarized police against students he’s trusted to protect under the principle of in loco parentis.
If there is any truth to “think globally, act locally,” then Pres. Wheeler must be held accountable for his conduct. It’s time for him to go.
Eric F. Coppolino is a New York-based investigative reporter, and host of Planet Waves FM on Pacfica Radio. He is executive director of Chiron Return, which provides mentorship for journalists. As a grad student at New Paltz, he founded Student Leader News Service and organized student newspapers throughout the State and City University of New York systems into a professional news network.
My comment at the page.
Jeffrey Strahl, Lockdown Times, 11:50AM, 5/4/24, US Pacific Time.
"Since the protest was not against campus policy, and the students were not breaking any law, then there is just one possibility left: the administration (and higher-ups) objected to the content of what their protests were about — support of the Palestinian people, and demanding divestment and disclosure around investments in Israel. The attack on students had a touch of IDF “total commitment” to it…… If there is any truth to “think globally, act locally,” then Pres. Wheeler must be held accountable for his conduct. It’s time for him to go."
You got it. All the attacks across US campuses (and now, France and the UK too) are about maintaining support of tho governments of those nations for the Israeli genocide regime, especially given the possibility (i say high likelihood) of an Israeli ground invasion of Rafah, the last part of the Gaza Strip which hasn't been invaded and flattened by the IDF. Such action would draw very vehement opposition from any such encampments, which would serve as centers for expressions of anger to coalesce around. The war on the people of Gaza is being enforced in our (no longer) safe European and American homes.
Kent State, Jackson State University, James Rector. The powers that be REALLY hate free speech. Was tear-gassed at Cal back in the day. But gotta admit that Berkeley in the 1960s was Big Fun. Berkeley now? Not so much.