US Politics: Courting Justice...or Disaster?

[Kalbear]

It is interesting to think that some folks do not believe in altruism. 

[kissdbyfire]

Wasn't it the 2nd one? Am I misremembering or was there another one... in the south somewhere?

[Kalbear]

Just now, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

It is quite violent and causes incredible harm to the person who does it to themselves.  

It is not however considered by anyone to be a violent protest. Neither is a hunger strike, which has similar conditions. By your conditions virtually all protests ever done are considered harmful and violent, including basically everything Gandhi did.

[kissdbyfire]

Yes, it was the 2nd one in the US.

Quote

A protester with a Palestinian flag self-immolated on Friday outside the Israeli consulate in Atlanta, injuring a security guard who attempted to intervene, authorities said.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/dec/01/protester-palestine-self-immolate-atlanta-israel-consulate

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Just now, Kalbear said:

It is not however considered by anyone to be a violent protest. Neither is a hunger strike, which has similar conditions. By your conditions virtually all protests ever done are considered harmful and violent, including basically everything Gandhi did.

This isn’t a hunger strike where an individual can end it once it starts after the goals have been achieved.  This is a violent act of immolation performed in public for all present to see.  

[Kalbear]

9 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

This isn’t a hunger strike where an individual can end it once it starts after the goals have been achieved.  This is a violent act of immolation performed in public for all present to see.  

I really don't care to debate with you the technical definition of violent and it doesn't matter, so I'll just concede and say you're 100% right and that is very clever of you to notice.

It is, however, not what people consider a violent protest and falls in the area of nonviolent protests, especially when you are looking for how it will affect others viewpoints and make people see a cause.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Just now, Kalbear said:

I really don't care to debate with you the technical definition of violent and it doesn't matter, so I'll just concede and say you're 100% right and that is very clever of you to notice.

It is, however, not what people consider a violent protest and falls in the area of nonviolent protests, especially when you are looking for how it will affect others viewpoints and make people see a cause.

Wunderbar.

[Craving Peaches]

1 hour ago, Mr. Chatywin et al. said:

Setting yourself on fire is an amazing way to not achieve your goals.

I don't think people are setting themselves on fire to 'achieve their goals' like that though. If you are setting yourself on fire to protest, it is likely you already believe that you as a living individual have no way to achieve those goals, and the best thing you can do is to put pressure on those who are capable of doing something. The other context I've heard involved this type of protest was during the Arab Spring.

[Tears of Lys]

As long as we're dancing on the head of a pin, I'll say this.

Self-immolation is a violent "act," but a non-violent protest.  You're hurting only yourself and your loved ones, and maybe seriously disturbing some gentle souls in the vicinity.

Whether it's useful or not is another thing.  In this case I don't believe anyone on either side's minds have been influenced sufficiently to make them decide to end the bombing.  

[Larry of the Lawn]

1 hour ago, Tears of Lys said:

As long as we're dancing on the head of a pin, I'll say this.

Self-immolation is a violent "act," but a non-violent protest.  You're hurting only yourself and your loved ones, and maybe seriously disturbing some gentle souls in the vicinity.

Whether it's useful or not is another thing.  In this case I don't believe anyone on either side's minds have been influenced sufficiently to make them decide to end the bombing.  

 it's like sending an embassy to a foreign leader and when the emissary is allowed to speak the entire contingent just slits their own throats instead.

More seriously, in less zaudinyanical terms, it shows that someone is moved enough by the suffering of others to kill themselves in a horrific and public way.  It's got people talking about it here, and elsewhere people might even be talking and thinking about the nature of the conflict it was protesting. 

[Zorral]

4 hours ago, BigFatCoward said:

I'm happy to say that if this person was stood outside a hospital where my dying child was being denied medical attention, and they were protesting to get my child that attention, i personally would still think it was dumb. 

But not outside a children's hospital, or any hospital, outside the embassy of a nation which is literally killng babies, children, doctors, nurses, medical personell, women and men in hospitals.

[Zorral]

4 hours ago, Kalbear said:

It is not however considered by anyone to be a violent protest. Neither is a hunger strike, which has similar conditions. By your conditions virtually all protests ever done are considered harmful and violent, including basically everything Gandhi did.

And worst of all, discomforts and/or inconveniences those who sneer, making them aware someone martyrs themselves when, of course, we don't give a darn about the horrors being drawn attention to, how dare they!

Edited February 26 by Zorral

[Fragile Bird]

I suspect that a person who sets fire to themselves to protest a war rooted in centuries of religious conflict is likely mentally ill. I understand Buddhist monks doing it, but neither of them were monks.

[Zorral]

We had to run for nearly a half an hour to fin a location where we cd get a cab to the airport.  All around our hotel was blocked off by Spanish agriculture cohorts protesting EU farm and product regs.  They in turn were surrounded by the police.  This was a blockade for blocks and blocks all around.  This was extremely inconvenient for us -- and we had to go through the demostrators to get to a thoroughfare where traffic was allowed.  So should I call them stupid?  I don't understand/know everything these protestors were objecting to, but you know, they are involved in what I eat -- even make it possible I eat (at least for me, currently in their country). I sure paid attention.  But then, I already was.  Interestingly, the driver of the taxi we got, who rushed us to the airport, was in sympathy.  So was the taxi driver who took us to our Sevilla hotel.

To call the US soldier stupid -- or even mentally ill -- who chose to martyr himself for the cause, when our legislators don't care that stupid and mentally ill USians every day kill others with guns, an this guy only martyred himself, by his own choice, seem tragic for the US and the world.

[DireWolfSpirit]

Ive always considered Waco a pretty effective mass immolation.

[The Anti-Targ]

Supreme Court Rejects Port of Charleston Case in Labor Battle - WSJ

A pro-labour decision (to not hear the case) out of SCOTUS.

Quote

Supreme Court Rejects Port of Charleston Case in Labor Battle

The decision means the South Carolina port will have to use union dockworkers at its new container terminal

The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear a case brought by South Carolina’s ports authority, letting stand a lower-court ruling that effectively requires the Port of Charleston to use an all-union labor force at a new container terminal. 

The decision on Tuesday caps a long-running battle over labor rules at the site and diminishes hopes in South Carolina and Georgia, both right-to-work states, that they can sidestep the International Longshoremen’s Association while expanding cargo-handling at some of the country’s biggest ports.

Semi-pro I guess. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

3 hours ago, Craving Peaches said:

I don't think people are setting themselves on fire to 'achieve their goals' like that though. If you are setting yourself on fire to protest, it is likely you already believe that you as a living individual have no way to achieve those goals, and the best thing you can do is to put pressure on those who are capable of doing something. The other context I've heard involved this type of protest was during the Arab Spring.

Two things can be true at once. It's understandable to burn down your city because collectively you're in pain and also recognized it's a pretty bad idea to do it. I lean with FB, this seems more like mental illness than anything else.

1 hour ago, Zorral said:

To call the US soldier stupid -- or even mentally ill -- who chose to martyr himself for the cause, when our legislators don't care that stupid and mentally ill USians every day kill others with guns, an this guy only martyred himself, by his own choice, seem tragic for the US and the world.

Being a martyr is dumb if you kill yourself for nothing. Then you're even more foolish than a shit legislator. Fight for what you believe in without fear of what might happen like Navalny did. He'll be remembered decades from now. This dude will be forgotten in a day. 

Edited February 26 by Mr. Chatywin et al.

[Craving Peaches]

1 minute ago, Mr. Chatywin et al. said:

I lean with FB, this seems more like mental illness than anything else.

The man concerned did not sound mentally ill to me. He seemed completely lucid in articulating what he was doing and why. I think you can be desperate enough to do things like that without being mentally ill. For example:

Quote

Graham Bamford died on April 29, 1993 after pouring petrol over himself and flicking a cigarette lighter on Parliament Square while MPs were debating Bosnia and Herzegovina in the House of Commons. He set himself on fire to protest Western inaction over war crimes in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The father of one from Macclesfield, who was 48 when he died, had no connection to the Balkans but had become increasingly agitated by television reports first from Croatia and then from Bosnia and Herzegovina. ^[67]

It is not suggested that this man was mentally ill, just that he was incredibly distressed by what was going on. It looks to me like this is a similar situation.

4 minutes ago, Mr. Chatywin et al. said:

It's understandable to burn down your city because collectively you're in pain and also recognized it's a pretty bad idea to do it.

I don't think that is a good comparison, because in that scenario you are likely going to be killing others and causing harm to far more people. Usually, the only person you are directly harming with self-immolation is yourself.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

11 minutes ago, Craving Peaches said:

It is not suggested that this man was mentally ill, just that he was incredibly distressed by what was going on. It looks to me like this is a similar situation.

In what world is it rational to set yourself on fire over something you saw on TV that you have no connection to? 

[Craving Peaches]

3 minutes ago, Mr. Chatywin et al. said:

In what world is it rational to set yourself on fire over something you saw on TV that you have no connection to? 

It's not rational, but being irrational doesn't automatically make you mentally ill. Otherwise, anyone acting on emotion would be mentally ill.