Robert McNamara had just come out with his book about "how we were wrong in Vietnam" -- mainly arguing that the U.S. should have killed MORE people, etc. Some key Kent State organizers took this as a pat on the head, as if the antiwar movement needed that: "Hey, even Robert McNamara supports us, we must have been right" -- as if there was any doubt.
Mary Travers then took the grassy area serving as an outdoor stage. I never heard her actually give a political SPEECH before. And what she said was reveletory. My paraphrase is, "Many of you are Christians and worried about going to heaven, and in need of martyrs. Well we Jews" -- first I ever knew that she was Jewish -- "We Jews don't have that pacifism problem. I hope McNamara dies and rots in hell for eternity."
Sort of like Dylan's words at the end of Masters of War, where he sings, "And I'll stand on your grave til I'm sure that you're dead." Judy Collins always refused to sing that last stanza in concert, although she did sing it on one of her albums.
Mary Travers is one of the great ones, one of the greatest of the great ones, one of the few who really helped to shape the generations. Here's to you, Mary Travers .... THANK YOU, comrade, and a sweet kiss goodnight.
Mitchel Cohen
At 10:38 PM 9/16/2009, you wrote:
>Mary Travers, one-third of the hugely popular 1960s folk trio Peter, Paul
>and Mary, has died.
>
>The band's publicist, Heather Lylis, says Travers died at Danbury Hospital
>in Connecticut on Wednesday. She was 72 and had battled leukemia for several
>years.
>
>More at: http://newsforgreens.com/
>
>--Roger Snyder