![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Almost 40 years ago
May. 6th, 2010 09:12 pmOn Sunday, it will be 40 years since the Hard Hat Riot. As a nine year old, my relationship with the news was spotty. It wasn't for another two years that I would become precociously knowledgable about current events and politics. As it happened, Kent State didn't make an immediate impression on me. But the hard hats four days later did.
It was the hard hats who showed me that I would have to defend my rights as an American from other Americans. And that those who most ostentatiously wrapped themselves in the flag were the ones most likely to support thuggery and dictatorship.
It's too bad (in this limited regard) that Hell isn't real. It would be some consolation to know that Peter Brennan and George Meany were getting their eternal just deserts.
It was the hard hats who showed me that I would have to defend my rights as an American from other Americans. And that those who most ostentatiously wrapped themselves in the flag were the ones most likely to support thuggery and dictatorship.
It's too bad (in this limited regard) that Hell isn't real. It would be some consolation to know that Peter Brennan and George Meany were getting their eternal just deserts.
