Hushed Up Self-Immolation Over Gaza At Boston's Israel Consulate

Scant mention of Matt Nelson's protest in corporate media and this misleading headline by NBC10 was corrected before being shared on social media. 

In a statement remarkably similar to that of Aaron Bushnell, a Boston Globe employee explained why he self-immolated across from the Israeli consulate in that city. 

Why across the street? Perhaps he wanted to avoid having an Israeli consulate guard pointing a lethal weapon at him as he burned, an event now memorialized many, many times over.

In the video he recorded in advance a calm tone prevails in marked contrast to the horrifying act he is about to perform.

My name is Matt Nelson and I'm about to engage in an extreme act of protest. 

We are all culpable in the ongoing genocide in Gaza.

We are slaves to capitalism and the military-industrial complex. Most of us are too apathetic to care. 

The protest I'm about to engage in is a call to our government to stop supplying Israel with the money and weapons it uses to imprison and murder innocent Palestinians, to pressure Israel to end the genocide in Gaza, and to support the indictment of Benjamin Netanyahu and other members of the Israeli government. 

A democracy is supposed to serve the will of the people, not the interests of the wealthy. Take the power back. 

Free Palestine.

Other similarities between Bushnell and Nelson: both are relatively young white men who cite conscience as the catalyst for self-immolation.

But what a contrast in terms of their career paths. Bushnell was an active duty U.S. Air Force airman while Nelson worked for a major newspaper and had a string of professional accomplishments in his career in audio production.

I've seen Nelson referred to as both the third self-immolation over Gaza and the fifth. I'm only aware of one person besides Bushnell, a woman who reportedly acted in Atlanta but whose name and medical condition remain a mystery.

Perhaps the other two were outside the U.S.? 

Matt Nelson's condition is unknown at this time after he was rushed to a hospital with severe burns. We are holding him and the Gazans he stood up for in our hearts.

 

Soft Propaganda, Opiate Of The Masses

The quintessential guilty pleasure of the 21st century may be binge watching shows on platforms like Netflix. Guilty, because your favorite series was probably designed to serve as a smoothly effective soft propaganda vehicle for policing, military funding, and war. Take the case of the BBC's Call the Midwife one of my all time favorites as it combines socialized medicine, public health, disability rights, and the womanly art of midwifery in a setting that has evolved over seasons to resemble my now vintage childhood. 

That Midwife has been doing hasbara for Israel for a few years will probably not surprise you. To be fair, the show also portrays London's Muslim immigrant community sympathetically, but the Holocaust industry is on full display in more than one episode where the word "Israel" is uttered with a reverence that again is reminiscent of my youth. And of course it is the mighty U.S. and the plucky UK that vanquished Hitler. (Red Army? What Red Army?)

So I was more disgusted than surprised when the new season devoted an entire episode plus bits of a few others to glorifying the U.S. space program.

I'm already surrounded by soft propaganda for the "warfighting domain" undergoing the most rapid expansion in funding and mission at the moment.  

Getting students pumped about space begins in preschool 

and runs right through post graduate research at universities on behalf of aerospace profiteers. 

That this is an Anglicized effort is revealed by Australian educators sick of their government injecting science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) curricula with pro-U.S., pro-militarized space content. Also revealed by the rubber bullets fired at resisters to AUKUS and other manifestations of the vassal status of Australia vis a vis the U.S./NATO war machine.

We see Hollywood and professional sports and corporate media and corporate public education work in concert to promote positive views of the military, including Space Force, and the never-admit-it's-military NASA.

All NASA programs are military in nature, no matter what pr they put out to the contrary. You remember how NASA was founded by Nazi rocket scientist Werner von Braun, right? He was one of many who knew that the next world war would undoubtedly be fought using outer space and that space therefore needed to be dominated by the U.S. before Russia or China could gain a toehold.

So it is that the fictional residents of the East End of London gather around the television for breathless witness of the moon landing. Perennial child Sister Monica Joan is the most rapt (and, incidentally, the character most addicted to what we'd now call screen time), her blissed out wrinkled face lit up by the light emanating from the boob tube. 

Some might call it coincidence but the context of U.S. Space Force presently supporting construction of  multiple rocket launch sites in the UK, New Zealand, and Australia seems relevant. RAND think tankers noted that militarizing outer space would be the largest industrial undertaking in the history of the human race. Thus, very expensive. How to get citizens to willingly give up pensions, health care, public transit and other necessities that their corporate overlords have decided they can no longer afford?

https://x.com/TheSurvivalPodc/status/1834300137105227782

Russian President Putin today made crystal clear the role that space technology plays in the current NATO proxy war escalations when he observed that long-range, precision-guided missiles can only be controlled via satellites Ukraine lacks. So, Russia would consider such strikes as evidence of NATO attacking Russia. WWIII immediately began trending on Twitter.

It's what the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space has been saying all along. The GN's latest video "US/NATO Dangerous Alliances" gives the details and invites concerned citizens of the world to join in with Keep Space for Peace activities October 5-12.

Religion was once the opiate of the masses. Television and other forms of digitized entertainment have long since surpassed it. As we face down a potential nuclear Armageddon, keep a clear head if you can.

Whose Lie Was Worse -- Phantom Pets For Dinner Or Phantom Rapes On Oct 7?

I had planned to watch the debate last night with my 97 year old friend but she changed her mind after brief exposure to the pre-debate show, so we went back to watching midwives doing soft propaganda for war in space (more on that next time).

I'll watch the recording eventually I suppose, though the chance I'd vote for either of the lying warmongers that our corporate donors have selected for us is zero.

Prominent in this morning's coverage of the debate are two horrible lies told by the horrible candidates.

Which is more egregious -- Trump lying about crimes that Haitian immigrants in Ohio haven't committed, or Harris lying about crimes that Hamas resistance fighters didn't commit on October 7?

Lying about Black crime is dangerous to not only Haitian immigrants (many of whom were driven out of their home country by Kenyan death squads sent by the good old USA) but dangerous to all immigrants and all Black people. Telling such a ridiculous lie -- that household pets are being stolen and eaten -- is on brand for Trump. Stoking fear and laying the groundwork for racialized violence, also on brand.

Lying about rapes by repeating a thoroughly debunked claim about mass rapes on October 7 is on brand for Harris. In June, Harris hosted a screening at the White House of the documentary "Screams Before Silence" which promotes this particular lie. 

Helping Israel spread lies about October 7 has a purpose, because those events -- which were immediately termed "Israel's 9/11" -- are being used as the pretext for the rapidly escalating genocide since. Other components of this web of lies includes the number of casualties ascribed to Hamas -- as we now know that Israel under the Hannibal Directive killed scores of its own soldiers and citizens that day. Also the beheaded babies that senile POTUS claimed to have seen pictures of and which his own staff chose to refute the next day.

But lies are effective and that's why talking heads for our imperial overlords employ them. As Mark Twain explained, "A lie can travel around the world and back again while the truth is lacing up its boots."

Today is the anniversary of the U.S.'s 9/11/01, an event that never passed the smell test but was used almost immediately to curtail civil liberties and to unleash wars on Afghanistan and then Iraq. There are indeed many similarities between Sep 11 and Oct 7: both appear to have been colossal, unbelievable failures of intelligence in that authorities knew what was being planned yet did not intervene. Both resulted in a surge of actual rape and other forms of torture in gulags for Muslims like Guantanamo and Sde Teiman. Both were the pretext for military responses that had been long planned.

One thing both candidates did tell the truth about: they are determined to display their Zionist allegiance in the hopes of emerging as the most pro-Israel candidate. Harris has taken $5+ million from Israel's chief lobbying arm AIPAC, while Trump has a modest $1+ million. But we know from his first term that Zionists in his family have a big influence and can be expected to reap the benefits of nepotism should he be elected again.

Harris is married to a Zionist who is actively campaigning for her, but her track record on installing family members in key positions is unknown. Certainly her endorsement by forever wars architect and torture czar Dick Cheney does not bode well for her to rein in Israel's death dealing.

But in the end let's keep in mind that it's been a long time since a POTUS was the decider of anything. This debate was really an audition to see who will be selected as the celebrity spokesperson for the donor class. 

Biden flunked out because he could no longer lie coherently or convincingly. Both Trump and Harris bent over backwards last night to assure their sponsors that yes, they can.

Cowards Drop Bunker Buster Bombs On Safe Zone Tents While Ghouls Help & Profit

Abdel Kareem Hana/Associated Press

Bunker buster bombs, aka Massive Ordnance Penetrator bombs, are made by Boeing and designed to be dropped from warplanes flying at great heights.

Thus they were the perfect weapon to kill more hostages while obliterating the tents of Palestinian families sheltering in Gaza's Khan Younis Muwasi refugee camp.

https://x.com/Mahmoud_Bassam8/status/1833290596527604211

We can only assume that this depraved attack on a previously designated "safe zone" intended to reach the depth of tunnels where resistance freedom fighters operate. Hamas has stated that the attempt to keep Israeli hostages alive and safe is hampered by indiscriminate Israeli military attacks.

Also, as reported by Aljazeera:

Hamas, the Palestinian group that governs Gaza, denied that its fighters were in the targeted area and accused Israeli authorities of perpetuating lies to justify their “ugly crimes”.

“The resistance has denied several times that any of its members exist within civilian gatherings or using these places for military purposes,” Hamas said in a statement.

The three crater massacre that killed 40 and injured scores of others will be reported by a complicit press still insisting that Hamas killed 1,200 on October 7, 2023 despite last week's leak of Israeli Apache helicopter dash cam videos showing them executing Israelis under the Hannibal Directive. For now, let's set aside why partygoers at a music festival on October 7 thought that dancing outside the fence of the world's largest concentration camp was a good -- or safe -- idea.

It's not that the Zionist entity can't use targeted strikes when it wants to. Witness the death of American Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi, shot by an Israeli sniper while demonstrating support for Palestinian rights in the occupied West Bank. 

https://x.com/redstreamnet/status/1833115114171502644

That PM Netanyahu shared a map last week with that territory completely swallowed up by Israel has caused several to comment that Israel's current escalation of genocide toward Palestinians was "never about Hamas." The map also makes clear why Israel and its supporters insist that Palestinians and their supporters must never be allowed to use the phrase "from the river to the sea" -- because that is a Zionist land theft slogan.

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/haaretz-today/2024-09-05/ty-article/.highlight/netanyahus-map-shows-israel-from-the-river-to-the-sea-its-no-accident/00000191-c2a8-d09f-ab91-debc90e60000

Meanwhile, in New Hampshire, U.S. families are allegedly celebrating because their loved ones will be sent on refueling missions in West Asia. Because that is what the "National Guard" is guarding -- not our nation, but Israel's. 

https://www.unionleader.com/news/military/air-national-guard-prepares-to-deploy-in-kc-46-refueling-aircrafts-historic-operation/article_a0624d0a-6e1e-11ef-97db-f7becf38ed64.html

It looks to me like this air"man" is embracing her daughter, not the deployment. Big surprise that NH Governor Sununu was all in on sending moms abroad to help Israel kill other moms.

The moral depravity of the collective West will be our undoing.

Preaching Beyond The Choir: My Interview On Pachios On The News

I had no idea that the community television talk show Pachios on the News is sponsored by corporate law firm Preti Flaherty. Had I known I probably still would have agreed to be interviewed there because I welcome opportunities to preach beyond the choir. Nor had I done my homework to watch host Harold Pachios interview luminaries like Governor Janet Mills or Senator Angus King; I had only watched part of his most recent interview with Portland City Councilor Anna Trevorrow.

I probably also should have given more consideration to the fact that the interview started at 7pm -- as an early riser, I'm past my usual bedtime when the show concludes at 8pm. So I misnamed the famous Milgram experiments as Millman, and said they were done at Harvard, not Yale.  Also at no point did I name my blog --  nor did the host, but he seemed aggravated by me and my views and probably with himself for inviting me in the first place. 

At one point he said, "I'm not here to argue with you," and I am proud of myself for not LOL at that gross canard.

Anyway, for what it's worth, here's the interview. And here's a game: guess how many times Harold interrupted me and then keep a tally. Was your estimate over or under?*

*A friend counted 32 interruptions, but that may be an undercount.

Note: The episode hasn't appeared on the show's YouTube channel yet, but when it does I'll swap it out for this version that I uploaded. (My blog could not handle uploading the MP4 file directly due to its size.)

----

On another subject altogether, I always enjoy being published in the Bowdoin Orient. It was one of the early places my writing found a home when I was a student there. Nowadays I write to them about local issues like the foam spill catastrophe at the old Brunswick Naval Air Station:

Why I Support Jill Stein & Why She Doesn't Think Hamas Does "Terrorism"

Dr. Butch Ware joined the team recently as Dr. Jill Stein's VP candidate

If you've never run for elected office I guarantee that you have no idea how insanely time-consuming it is. If you're a corporate-aligned candidate, a great deal of your time is spent schmoozing with wealthy donors. If you're a people-aligned candidate like Jill Stein, a great deal of time is spent getting ballot access -- as the wealthy Democrats try to sue you or cheat you off the ballot in state after state. Then a great deal of time is spent getting out the vote, giving interviews, making appearances, listening to voters, meeting with your team, signing off on communications...the list is almost endless. Oh, and raising some money, too. 

Because as I learned when I ran for the U.S. Senate against Susan Collins under ranked choice voting (RCV) in Maine, paid media is what gets you earned media i.e. interviews, features. Oh, and did I forget debate prep? Anyway, you get the idea.

I say all this as a preface to why I am 100% supporting Dr. Jill Stein in the upcoming presidential election.

Sure, I live in Maine where there is RCV for president and thus no spoiler effect. I will rank Stein first, probably Claudia De La Cruz second, and possibly Dr. Cornell West third. I doubt I'll rank the two corporate servants at all as the genocide in Palestine will continue on steroids if either one of them makes it to the White House.

A problem with one of Stein's early tweets is what I want to address today. Here's the tweet (someone else added the green snake face emojis):

I've reached out to Stein's communications director (full disclosure: was also previously my communications director). I've also heard from her campaign manager. Both agreed that the candidate's tweet intended to expose the hypocrisy of people cheering for Israel cutting food, electricity, and water in Gaza while bombing and invading. In other words, Stein does not think Hamas engaged in terrorism on October 7. However, the tweet's intent would have been much clearer if there had been air quotes around the word "terrorism" both times it was used.

Writing tweets that are clear, concise enough for the platform, and effective is an art. It's what communications professionals get paid to do. Stein is a medical doctor and a very smart, kind, compassionate person. But she does not tweet for a living. 

If we examine Stein's record of, not just subsequent words but also subsequent actions, we can see that she has consistently stood with Palestine. She's been arrested standing with pro-Palestine students at their encampment at Washington University in St. Louis. She's explained why, as a Jewish person, she does not support Israel's violent occupation of Palestine. 

If I were her comms team I might apologize for the missing quotation marks and clarify her intent. It's possible this might still happen.

In the meantime, I went to bat for her after faux progressive congresswoman AOC trashed her this week claiming she is "predatory" and "inauthentic." Most amazing to me, AOC claimed in a Tiktok video that Stein only emerges every four years to run for president and never helps down ballot Green Party candidates.

This led to me sharing some history between my campaign and Stein in a tweet that has generated great engagement in a day and half.

https://x.com/NaturalGuard/status/1830727100845973798

Of course haters are gonna hate -- most ridiculed me for thinking that earning 5% of votes cast was an accomplishment. One commenter pointed out that 5% would earn you parliamentary seats in many European countries, but most just trashed me and ignored the fact that the senate race in Maine in 2020 was more heavily funded -- by tens of millions of dollars -- than any congressional race in the state's history.

So actually the metric I was most proud of was our cost per vote. 

Analysis using data from OpenSecrets by volunteer Brennan Barrington who commented, "As extreme as the difference looks, it's actually an understatement of the cost for the major party candidates, given how much was spent by outside groups not affiliated with the campaigns themselves."

We ended up with 40k+ votes so this analysis was just a bit premature but it makes the point.

Under RCV, the incumbent met the 51% threshold in the first round and thus we'll never know how many voters ranked me second.

But that's not the point. The point is that Stein supported me, she also supported Matt Hoh when he ran for the Senate in North Carolina, and she also supported Dr. Margaret Flowers and Joshua Harris in their campaigns.. you get the idea.

AOC is just playing the mean girl card and spreading lies about a candidate who is now polling even with Harris among Muslim voters according to a recent survey.

In conclusion, here are the states where Stein and/or Greens have ballot access for November.

I'm excited that Maine is one of them, and excited that Stein tweeted on Monday in response to Newsweek still publishing false information about her campaign:

We’re expected to have 517 potential electoral votes, nearly double the 270 to win. 

Support our efforts in the next states: http://jillstein2024.com

I surely will. 

Things Your Corporate Government & Its Media Don't Want You To Know

What, no Labor Day post? You all know that Labor Day was created by the U.S. in order to delegitimize the longstanding international day of worker solidarity, May 1. Right? If you didn't know that, join the crowd. Your access to true facts and reliable information has been constrained since the day you were born. And it's getting worse at warp speed as genocide in Gaza kicks off what is undoubtedly the early stage of a third world war.

Ten things your corporate government and its media do not want you to know:

https://x.com/muhammadshehad2/status/1830159889714315753

1) Hundreds of thousands turned out in demonstrations against the Israeli government's genocide in Gaza taking place amid a general strike that a labor court just ruled must end today, accepting the government's argument that is is "politically motivated." The trigger: six hostages found newly dead by Israeli soldiers, deaths that many in Israel blame on their own government.

https://open.substack.com/pub/husseini/p/israel-wanted-disease-and-genocide

2) Polio vaccinations for Gaza are an elaborate public relations ruse aimed at repairing Israel's reputation in the world, but they are medically unsound due to the oral vaccine being used and the underlying health conditions of Palestinian children.

https://thecradle.co/articles/israeli-troops-expel-palestinians-in-jenin-as-bloody-west-bank-assault-enters-sixth-day

3) Israel has expanded its genocidal attacks to include residences, refugee camps, and schools in the occupied West Bank this week, meeting with fierce resistance.

4) Journalists arrested or harassed by Western governments now include Scott Ritter, Richard Medhurst, and Sarah Wilkinson. Wilkinson was arrested and had her devices confiscated by 16 goons in black balaclavas who accused her of terrorism for two retweets she posted, according to her daughter. And the Cradle reported August 30 on a related arrest:

Richard Barnard, the cofounder of pro-Palestinian activist group, Palestine Action, was charged under the Terrorism Act by UK police on 29 August. Barnard is being accused of “expressing an opinion that is supportive of a proscribed organization contrary to section 12 of the Terrorism Act 2000.” 

VP Kamala Harris shared in an interview with CNN that she favors censorship on the Facebook and Twitter platforms. Meanwhile, Telegram founder Pavel Durov was arrested in France for refusing to allow governments to remove encryption on that popular news-sharing platform. TikTok came under attack in the U.S. earlier this year when Congress ordered it to sell out to Western ownership or be banned.

5) Green Party candidate Dr. Jill Stein with VP Dr. Butch Ware are polling equal to the Democratic candidates among Muslim voters.

6) The Green Party has ballot access for Stein-Ware in 41 states, making it eligible to earn 500+ electoral college votes (260 are needed to win in November). Newsweek magazine published a deliberately false map about this, then revised it under pressure, but the revision is still far from correct.

7) Ukraine continues losing ground as Russia took out much of the country's electricity infrastructure this week. This is retaliation for Ukraine striking civilian targets inside Russia and in the face of Russia's willing to negotiate a ceasefire. Another consequence of NATO/Ukraine escalation is that Russia is reviewing its nuclear weapons use policies.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/C_Y6BOxPDtX/

8) Israeli genocide profiteer Elbit Systems has shut down a facility in Cambridge, Massachusetts due to relentless pressure from pro Palestine activists. 

9) Columbia University protesters who occupied and renamed Hind Hall last spring have had their charges dropped because they masked up and also covered many surveillance cameras, leading a judge to say it was impossible to use the CCTV footage to identify individuals. Colleges are mostly back and arrests are already occurring as students pick up where they left off vigorously opposing their universities' complicity in Israel's genocide.

10) Many of the U.S. Navy's vessels are currently deployed to support the blockade of Gaza. Meanwhile, the Navy is considering sidelining 17 support vessels due to a lack of personnel to operate the ships.

Need better sources of information for yourself? Check out the ones I've linked to in this post. And share good ones you know about in the comments!