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.

 

The Pratt & Whitney Problem

 

On Saturday we'll turn out early for a protest at the gates of an air show in Maine that will feature the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds. Activists will distribute flyers designed to push back on recruiting kids and to make clear the connection between the U.S. Air Force and Israel’s carpet bombing of Gaza.

U.S. Airman Aaron Bushnell self-immolated at the Israeli embassy in Washington DC last February saying he could not live with his complicity in genocide. He shared how his job in the U.S. Air Force was to provide surveillance and targeting information for Israel’s war planes. Since Bushnell’s death, numerous U.S. Air Force personnel have offered resistance by hunger strikes, burning their uniforms, applying for conscientious objector status, and going AWOL.

The Thunderbirds' proud sponsor is Pratt & Whitney, a subsidiary of RTX (formerly Raytheon). P&W is drenched in blood money as this genocide profiteer makes the engines for the F-15 and F-16 warplanes Israel uses to drop bombs in Palestine, Syria, Lebanon, and now Iran. And it makes many of the drones they use, too. The U.S. Air Force is also a big customer.

On an October 24, 2023 call with investors, P&W CEO Greg Hayes said, “I think really across the entire Raytheon portfolio, you're going to see a benefit of this restocking.” Restocking is the kind of euphemism that genocide profiteers use to conceal that they mean selling weapons to genociders.

P&W's factory in Maine, North Berwick Aero Systems, was on our radar in March when it teamed up with the tax-payer supported community college system to produce workers for the war machine. Some of us stood out at their big pr event announcing creation of the Maine Defense Industry Alliance. Fascism is really the marriage of industry and government to the extent that they operate in tandem to ignore the will of the people or to subvert it by offering "good" jobs.

A "good" job is defined as being one that provides benefits like health insurance, paid time off, full time employment under a union-negotiated contract, and enough income to afford a home plus toys like 4-wheelers and snowmobiles. This kind of job is scarce in Maine, and politicians leverage this to ensure that the war machine always has enough contracts to keep the willing workers engaged.

Air shows recruit future Aaron Bushnells. Not only will the noise and air polluting Thunderbirds enrapture crowds of children brought to the show, but inside there will be flight simulators and video games aimed at creating a desire for future enlistment. Nowhere will the truth about suicide rates among military personnel be shared, nor will attendees learn that the Air Force in particular is experiencing a wave of resistance in its ranks. Turns out that killing children from on high either with a jet or a drone tends to make people suicidal. Who could have predicted that?

P&W doesn't care. It predicts profits, not human suffering. The unholy alliance of P&W with the Pentagon is dangerous. It subverts the will of the people, most of whom don't want genocide conducted at their expense.

Fascism subverts democracy. That's the P&W problem.

Join us to protest while you still can.

Air Force Personnel Join Us In Turning Against Israel's War Machine

U.S. Air Force Airman Larry Hebert began a hunger strike on behalf of children in Gaza being starved to death by Israel with U.S. support. Hebert posted up in front of the White House on Easter Sunday after lobbying Congress while on annual leave from active duty.

The worst nightmare of the Pentagon and its corporate bosses may be upon them: armed forces personnel turning against the  war-for-profit machine.

From the press release put out by Veterans for Peace - National:

[Hebert] was there during the annual White House Easter Egg Roll to remind parents and their children that while they are playing with eggs on the lawn, children all over Gaza need eggs to stave off starvation.

Hebert will be at the White House all next week, April 1-7. Beginning Monday, April 8, when Congress returns from recess, he will be outside Congress.

In mid-March, Senior Airman Larry Hebert, age 26, from rural New Hampshire and a member of Veterans For Peace, took authorized leave from his assignment at Naval Station Rota, Spain to participate in demonstrations demanding a permanent ceasefire in Gaza and to visit Congressional offices to press for stopping weapons shipments to Israel, which violate several U.S. laws.*

Hebert said, “I was deeply touched when I saw that Aaron Bushnell took his own life at the Israeli Embassy for the people of Gaza and knew that I had to raise my voice in opposition to the U.S. government supplying Israel the bombs and rockets to commit genocide in Gaza. Active-duty members are afraid to speak out[emphasis mine] and I hope that my example and that of others, like Aaron, can change that.”

With six years in the Air Force, Hebert joins many hundreds of current and retired military and civilian government officials urging U.S. leaders to stop fueling Israel’s war that has killed well over 32,000 Palestinians, most of whom are children. Starvation and disease are rapidly becoming as deadly as the war itself in the area Israel has bombed to rubble.

New Hampshire caught our attention here in Maine as that's where the governor vowed on talk radio recently to persecute[sic] protesters at Elbit Systems in Merrimack to the full extent of the law. Currently the eight people arrested at Elbit on March 22 are awaiting arraignment but the one who was singled out, Vietnam-era veteran Bruce Gagnon, will be arraigned April 2. Supporters are expected to gather outside the District Court at 4 Baboosic Lake Road around 7:45am on April 2 to express support for an end to genocide in Gaza and opposition to war profiteer Elbit. 

Another group of protesters arrested at Elbit last November were notified in February that Attorney General John Formella would be prosecuting them rather than the local district attorney's office handling it. AG Formella indulged in some chest-beating in an interview with the New Hampshire Journal: “We took these cases because of the important civil rights and public protection interests involved.” 

Wait a minute -- civil rights for corporations that make weapons used in the genocide of Gaza? I can only surmise that this phrase was inserted because pro-Palestine activists stand accused by Formella  and Governor Chris Sununu of antisemitism. Uh huh. Let's ignore the fact that thousands of Jews have protested against the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, including at least one person that I know of who was arrested in Merrimack.

Before and after pictures of one of Gaza's largest hospitals

Meanwhile, as the gears of "justice" grind slowly on, Israel's military withdrew from al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City leaving behind the decomposing bodies of Palestinians shot, run over by tanks, tortured to death, burned, and starved.

Rest in power, Aaron Bushnell.

Welcome to the movement, Larry Hebert.

Here I serve notice from Maine and beyond: the thugs of New Hampshire state government can threaten all they want, but we will NOT be silenced.

* Following is a summary of the laws currently being violated by the U.S. State Department and other officials every time weapons shipments to Israel are authorized. This summary is included in a letter Veterans For Peace sent to the State Dept. Inspector-General Feb. 12.

· The Foreign Assistance Act, which forbids the provision of assistance to a government which "engages in a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights.”

· Arms Export Control Act, which says countries that receive US military aid can only use weapons for legitimate self-defense and internal security. Israel’s genocidal campaign in Gaza goes way beyond self-defense and internal security.

· The U.S. War Crimes Act, which forbids grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions, including willful killing, torture or inhuman treatment, willfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health, and unlawful deportation or transfer, perpetrated by the Israeli Occupying Forces.

· The Leahy Law, which prohibits the U.S. Government from using funds for assistance to units of foreign security forces where there is credible information implicating that unit in the commission of gross violations of human rights.

· The Genocide Convention Implementation Act, which was enacted to implement U.S. obligations under the Genocide Convention, provides for criminal penalties for individuals who commit or incite others to commit genocide.

ERRATA: Corrected to reflect that al-Shifa Hospital was in Gaza City, not Rafah.

Young People In The Empire: This Is Their Vietnam

Still from the livestreamed footage of police pointing a gun at a burning man shouting "Get down on the ground!" repeatedly as others scrambled for a fire extinguisher. Australian blogger Caitlin Johnstone described this as, "the most American thing ever."

It has been said -- but I can't recall now who said it -- that Israel's genocide in Gaza is to young people of today what the U.S. war in Vietnam was to my generation.

I think the volume and intensity of protests calling for an immediate ceasefire and to free Palestine gave rise to this interpretation.

Those of us protesting the many, many, many imperial wars since Vietnam may be forgiven for wondering: why this one? Why not the war in Afghanistan, or either of the wars in Iraq (ongoing), Syria, Sudan, Libya, even Korea -- the war that never officially ended?

Young people alive today did not see the carnage of these wars on their television screens the way I once did.

They do see the carnage of Israel's attempt to eradicate Palestinians to finish stealing their land. Despite Israel cutting Gaza off from communications, electricity, food, or even potable water, they see it. Campaigns raise funds to donate esim cards so Gazans can film what is happening to their loved ones. Despite Israel killing a record number of journalists since October 7, the raw videos and testimonies make it onto social media. Youthful reporters Motaz, now in exile, and Bisan are folk heroes for bringing the gruesome facts to our eyes.

Online personalities like Russell Brand and Lee Camp built a following for their comedy but now college students rely on them for current events reporting and analysis.

Even if the evening news were to show a young girl in Gaza vomiting animal feed -- all that's left to eat after weeks of siege -- and then dying, young people would not be watching.

Young people have given up on corporate "news" and have other ways of finding out that a U.S. airman set himself on fire in front of the Israeli embassy in Washington DC.  Young people will learn of Aaron Bushnell's extreme protest crying "Free Palestine!" over and over as he burned and toppled.

But it probably won't be from the sources where I learned of Buddhist monk Thích Quảng Đức who burned himself to death protesting in Saigon in 1963.

Or the other self-immolations here in the U.S. that I and others saw reported in the news: 

In March 1965, an 82-year-old woman, Alice Herz, protested the ongoing Vietnam War by setting herself on fire on a Detroit, Michigan, street corner. Norman Morrison, 31, ignited himself eight months later outside the Pentagon, beneath the office window of Defense Secretary Robert McNamara. The following week, Roger Allen LaPorte, 22, did the same in front of New York City's United Nations building.

Our imperial managers have decided that such knowledge among the general populace could endanger their hold on power.

They're right about that. Bushnell was intelligent enough to livestream his self-immolation, making it hard to ignore. (For example, what do you know about the person who set themselves on fire in front of the Israeli embassy in Atlanta last December? Exactly.)

Spread the word.

Earlier in the day, Bushnell posted a final message on Facebook, alongside a link to a Twitch stream that has since been taken down.

He wrote: "Many of us like to ask ourselves, 'What would I do if I was alive during slavery? Or the Jim Crow South? Or apartheid? What would I do if my country was committing genocide?' The answer is, you're doing it. Right now."

Rest in power, Aaron.