August 23, 2010

"The terror is right here in our state, in our city, and on our campus. The terror is not something that happens elsewhere to others."

The Wisconsin State Journal republishes the editorial it ran on August 25, 1970. Tomorrow is the 40th anniversary of the bombing of Sterling Hall, here at the University of Wisconsin.
[I]t isn't just the radicals who set the bomb in a lighted, occupied building who are guilty. The blood is on the hands of anyone who has encouraged them, anyone who has talked recklessly of "revolution," anyone who had chided with mild disparagement the violence of extremists while hinting that the cause is right all the same.

9 comments:

prairie wind said...

And forty years later, right and wrong are still right and wrong. That's comforting.

David said...

[I]t isn't just the radicals who set the bomb in a lighted, occupied building who are guilty. The blood is on the hands of anyone who has encouraged them, anyone who has talked recklessly of "revolution," anyone who had chided with mild disparagement the violence of extremists while hinting that the cause is right all the same.

Nothing more to say, really.

traditionalguy said...

After the Draft freeze announcement and the subsequent lottery 8 months before this bombing, Nixon was fast ending the college anti-war followers' motivation, but not quite fast enough to stop their mentally ill leaders.

Unknown said...

"The revolution" never ended. Pick up a paper or read a headline.

From any point in the last 10 years.

And the editorial is right about who has blood on their hands.

WV "cakeropt" When the devil's food is gone.

JAL said...

Tsk tsk.

Now dead Howard Rewrite-History Zinn would not be impressed.

The violence was rare, didn't they know?

chuck b. said...

What are we talking about? Did something happen in Wisconsin once?

Randy said...

And forty years later, right and wrong are still right and wrong. That's comforting.

And forty years later, apologists are still making excuses for the indefensible.

Jim S. said...

My dad told me that when he was studying law in Boston in the late '60s, the student union was evacuated at least once a month because of bomb threats. It was never acted on though. Eventually he just said the hell with it, and refused to leave when they told everyone to get out. Kind of puts the lie to the claimt that the protestors were peace activists.

Big Mike said...

The bombers murdered a person, but got away with slaps on the wrist. Karl Armstrong was sentenced to 23 years, but served only 7. Karl's younger brother Dwight and co-conspirator David Fine got off even easier: sentenced to only 7 years, served only 3. Leo Burt is still at large; it doesn't appear that anyone is actively looking for him.