This is the kind of story that I feel moved to speak about but I’m not at all sure what to say. I want to be able to put this kind of thing in perspective but how do you do that. Over 40 years ago the buddhist monk Thích Quảng Ðức burned himself to death to protest the repressive Diem regime in Vietnam.
Last Friday a man in Chicago (tentatively identified as Malachi Ritscher) did the same thing to protest the U.S. war in Iraq.
I can only hope that his actions do get folks, at least some, to think about what is going on in the name of the U.S. around the world and maybe, just maybe, start working for a change.
- Boing Boing: Protesting Iraq war, a Chicago man sets self on fire and dies.
- Malachi Ritscher’s apparent suicide
- Man sets himself on fire on Kennedy
- Malachi Ritscher on MySpace
- Malachi Ritscher’s obituary (written by Malachi Ritscher)
- Chicago anti-war musician burns himself to death in rush hour traffic
[...] More links are here. [...]
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