Neil Young, Stephen Stills No Longer Care About Four Dead in Ohio...And South Carolina...And Everywhere?

I always liked Neil Young and it doesn't matter that I've agreed with many of the causes he's supported. I have nothing against his album blasting Monsanto or his $100,000.00 donation in support of Vermont's GMO labeling law per this article. I've never enjoyed the sound of digital music compared to analog per his decision to remove his music from streaming services due to the sound quality - see this. I don't even mind that he complained about Donald Trump using "Keep On Rockin' in the Free World" in his presidential campaign launch. If the media coverage gets some young people to Google Neil Young and watch a few videos of the music that led to Pearl Jam then it's all well and good. But for the guy who co-wrote "Ohio" in outrage over the murder of four Kent State students by the National Guard, I'm left wondering, "Where is his outrage over the daily murder and brutalization of ordinary Americans by the police?"

Yes, daily. You can track the deaths here.

I didn't see any Neil Young headlines condemning the South Carolina police officer who gunned down the unarmed Ernest Slatterwhite or that the National Guard had orders to shoot to kill looters after Hurricane Katrina. In fact, in a recent Dan Rather interview with Stephen Stills, Young's former bandmate waxed proudly about his role in the protest song that shined the spotlight on the military, the police and the First Amendment - and just as proudly about writing "For What It's Worth", about police conduct during riot control.Yet Stills has been as absent as Young in speaking out against the rise of the police state, the militarization and federalization of neighborhood police forces, and their obvious disregard for our Constitutional rights. The fact that both Stills and Young continue to tour and are offered ample opportunity to talk to the media makes their silence even more deafening.

Sure, it's tough to stay angry about every issue that matters. But the situation is far more oppressive and dangerous today than in 1970 when four students were murdered and Young and Stills have a highly visible, credible platform to bring important attention to the issue. With police officers killing several people every day, surely they can divert some of their outrage from Starbucks, the Keystone XL Pipeline and streaming music?

I hope Mr. Young will remember not to wait 'til the mourning comes.
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Beware Unity

Even at the peak of the American Revolution, barely 1/3 of the colonists were unified behind the fight for independence. In fact, during no time in American history was there ever a period where a super-majority of Americans joined together as a unified nation sharing common goals and beliefs. So why do some presidential candidates and journalists keep harping on the dire need for unity? What’s so great about unity? I don’t want a president who “reaches across the aisle” to pass bills into law that compromise important economic and political principles. Sure, it would be nice if everyone could just get along. But that’s not what the unity people want.

These people define unity as everyone unified under a single belief system - their system. No room for other views, thoughts or opinions. Since the word conformity seems to have lost its edge, I’ll use a better word to describe what the unity people want for America: totalitarianism.

Anyway, beware unity.
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My Tour of Historic Trenton

I went into Trenton last week to walk the path our soldiers took at the Battle of Trenton. From a stop at Washington Crossing State Park on the New Jersey side, a second stop at one of the bridges where our troops hauled artillery down and up a ravine, we walked from the monument to the Assunpink Creek, to the barracks and elsewhere. How sad that Trenton, Mercer County and New Jersey have squandered their rightful places in our history as the site of many of the key Revolutionary War battles.

Most of us know about Washington crossing the Delaware but Pennsylvania - mostly through its marketing efforts and New Jersey’s absence of any marketing at all – has somehow captured the attention, recognition and tourist dollars. It’s the heroic struggle wintering at Valley Forge that’s become lore, not the heroic struggle wintering at Morristown. Sure, Washington had to start from Pennsylvania to cross the Delaware but he landed in New Jersey and the actual fighting was in New Jersey yet it seems as though New Jersey’s political leaders are bent on denying any role in the events or are at least indifferent to the fact such events occurred. Even the event is commonly referred to as Washington Crossing the Delaware, not the Battle of Trenton. I won't even mention there were two battles of Trenton.

We stopped at a cemetery with Revolutionary War period grave stones, including one of Col. Rall, the Hessian commander who died in the battle. Nearby, was a mass grave of Hessian soldiers hidden under a recently paved parking lot. Just baffling. Someone had to decide to pave over it and no one thought this was even remotely noteworthy. Maybe if there were Union soldiers from the Civil War, runaway slaves or veterans of Manzanar under the pavement the site would have earned some media coverage and a sign as a historic marker. Nope. It’s just the American Revolution. Is it ironic that the original bridge over Assunpink Creek, which was the site of intense fighting during the battle, was razed years ago to make room for the Dept. of Human Services building? Odd that the decline in Trenton’s manufacturing base seems to coincide with the rise of the socialist state. It’s almost inconceivable how Trenton could be dotted throughout the city with historic buildings and attractions, and do next to nothing to capitalize on it yet raise taxes year after year while crying about a lack of funds – and certainly a lack of funds for promoting history and tourism.

I’ve attended Trenton Thunder baseball games and Trenton Titans hockey games but the city offers little else as an enticement to stay longer. No cohesion of events and activities. We go to the game. We go home. New Jersey politicians find it so easy to raise taxes with virtually no consequences. Why should they work to strengthen its tourist economy when they can continually tax us and tax us and still get reelected?
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