Monday, March 18, 2024

March issue of Towards ML Unity published

A new issue of Towards Marxist-Leninist Unity was published March 16th, with apologies from the editor for it being delayed and shorter than usual (it is?), and it will be posted at:  www.mltranslations.net   Content for the next issue, to come out in May, should be sent during April; comments and criticism of the are alswelcome 



Contents:



As Israel Continues Its Genocidal Attacks on the Palestinians,
Biden Widens the War in the Middle East

Preliminary Remarks:
The Decline of US Imperialism and the Rise of Trump’s “Make America Great Again

Again on the Rip-Off of Medicare by the Pharmaceutical Companies

Proposal for U.S. Presidential Election: Vote a Blank Ballot

U.S. rice, widely consumed in Haiti, is polluted with heavy metals, study finds

Short: Congestion Pricing to be Implemented this June

Short: The Majority of People in New York City are Living at or Near the Poverty Line

Women's Emancipation and Socialism, Part I

Women's Emancipation and Socialism, Part II

Sección en español

La emancipación de la mujer y el socialismo, Parte I

La emancipación de la mujer y el socialismo, Parte II


From "In a Dark Time:" The words of a US nuclear test observer

This is an excerpt from With Enough Shovels: Reagan, Bush, and Nuclear War, by Robert Scheer, New York:  Random House, Inc., 1982, London:  Martin Secker and Warburg, Ltd., 1983, excerpted in In a Dark Time  (Images for Survival), edited by Robert Jay Lifton and Nicholas Humphrey, Harvard University Press, 1984 (pages 75-76).  

An account from a "U.S. atom test observer, Christmas Island:"



"The birds were the things we could see all the time.  They were superb specimens of life...really quite exquisite...phenomenal creatures.  Albatrosses will fly for days, skimming a few inches above the surface of the water.  These birds have tremendously long wings and tails, and beaks that are as if fashioned for another purpose.  You don't see what these birds are about from their design, they are just beautiful creatures.  Watching them is a wonder.  That is what I didn't expect...

We were standing around waiting for this bomb to go off, which we had been told was a very small one, so no one was particularly upset.  Even though I'd never seen one, I figured, well, these guys know what is going to happen.  They know what the dangers are and we've been adequately briefed and we all have our radiation meters on... No worry....

Anyway, we were standing around, and the countdown comes in over the radio.  And we knew roughly where the designated ground zero would be and about how high.

And suddenly I could see all these birds, I could see the birds that I'd been watching for days before.  They were now suddenly visible through the opaque visor of my helmet.  And they were smoking. Their feathers were on fire.  And they were doing cartwheels.  And the light persisted for some time.  It was instantaneously bright, but wasn't instantaneous, because it stayed and it changed its composition slightly.  Several seconds, it seemed like, long enough for me to see birds crash into the water. They were sizzling, smoking.  They weren't vaporized, it's just that they were absorbing such intense radiation that they were being consumed by the heat.  Their feathers were on fire.  They were blinded.  And so far there was no shock, none of the blast damage we talk about when we discuss the effects of nuclear weapons.  Instead there were just these smoking, twisting, hideously contorted birds crashing into things.  And then I could see vapor rising from the inner lagoon as the surface of the water was heated by this intense flash."



I also have possibly misremembered images in my mind of blackened but hopping sparrows in Hiroshima (depicted in Barefoot Gen Hadashi no Gen?) and one or more blinded eagles after a Soviet (?) nuclear test that survived the explosions but would probably die anyway 'off camera.'  It seemlike the albatrosses were dying or injured dangerously close to the observers.  Were they actually killed by the nuclear flash and/or radiation in the immediate explosion, or only burned and blinded, presumably dying from their injuries or radiation poisoning later?  Maybe it's like an oil spill.  There might be predatory fish, but there is also the image of river fish swimming into the ruins of Hiroshima around August 1945 and immediately turning over dead.  I've wondered how radiation in the water could kill that fast.  I think other Pacific nuclear tests threw up bits of radioactive sea life, but this one evidently exploded in the air.  One or more albatross species, though probably different from those in the Pacific Ocean, forage in the Atlantic off of  North Carolina. 

How far do Biden, Putin, and Xi intend to go?  In a Dark Time, a book of excerpts relating to nuclear warshows how much people both here and in Europe feared and expected nuclear war in the early 80's, under Reagan, and now it is very much out of mind, but the weaponstill exist and are being updated and improved, though there have been the recent scandals with Upersonnel and Britain's hardware.  Are nuclear weapons just for theatre, so the government and the military-industrial complex can scare the American public and other countries, though with extreme expense and danger, or have people foolishly looked away for three decades?  The book quotes Mao saying to Anna Louise Strong in August 1960 that "The atomic bomb is a paper tiger which the U.S. reactionaries use to scare people.  It looks terrible, but in fact it isn't."  The Cuban government isupposed to have been ready, like the US, to go nuclear in late October 1962.  NATO might have wanted to send a message to the world in the 80's, and today, that nuclear war can be limited and "winnable," and the "West" ipreparing for a direct war with Russia and/or China today and is already fighting a proxy war with Russia and preparing the ground around China.  There are also other disputes that could become nuclear wars, in theory without US input.  Governments often bring up the threat of their nuclear weapons, recently in Israel and Russia.  We might find out the degree of terribleness in the 21st century.  I would like to have a bomb shelter, though it might not be of much use in an actual nuclear war.  There are or were at least two historic public fallout shelters with radiation signs in downtown Durham, and an abandoned communication facility hardened for nuclear war in Chatham County.  How sure are we about what would happen to the environment in a nuclear war? 

I thought of this passage with the anniversary of Castle Bravo, the largest US nuclear test, March 1, 1954, at Bikini Atoll (in the Republic of the Marshall Islands), unexpectedly large and resulting in one human death outright and illnesses later on, but this incident seems to be from Kritimati (Christmas Island) in the Republic of Kiribati, where the UK and Uconducted nuclear test(November 8, 1957 to September 23, 1958 and April 25 to July 11, 1962 respectively).  Perhapthis incident is from one of the US tests in the spring or summer of 1962 [Seeen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiritimati and  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_Bravo ].  There is an apparently unrelated Australian ChristmaIsland in the Indian Ocean [ en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_Island ].

Saturday, March 16, 2024

Responses to self-immolation for Palestine and other causes

 More statements might be added in coming weeks.


A woman, 27, who has not been identified in the mainstream media burned herself with gasoline (?) outside Israel's consulate in Atlanta, Georgia December 1st.  "Jane Doe" survived and is at the Grady Memorial Hospital, an "unperson" for the media, as Sam Husseini put it, though maybe it can be justified to protect her privacy.  It was mentioned that she had Palestinian flag with her or a burned flag was found by the first responders.  Afterward her home was searched or ransacked by the Atlanta police – in a 'normal' way, or is she being treated like a terrorism suspect?  How "authoritarian" is government in the Atlanta area? – husseini.substack.com/p/jane-doe-who-immolated-herself-at


Aaron Bushnell burned himself outside Israel's embassy in Washington, DC shortly before 1pm February 25th and passed away around 8pm that day.  NPR could not immediately 'confirm' why Bushnell did this?  After ignoring the anti-war movement for decades they have talked about and even promoted pro-Palestine anti-war events [note that they remain very much with the Biden administration on Ukraine, Haiti, China, Yemen, etc.].  Was the coverage of these two self-immolationstrange?  One factor might be not wanting to encourage suicide, but I don't remember them mention the anti-suicide hotline at any time in covering this:  one.npr.org/?sharedMediaId=1234114390:1234114391 (audio) and www.npr.org/2024/02/25/1233810136/fire-man-israeli-embassy-washington   I think "Jane Doe" in December was only mentioned after Bushnell acted.  Some would condemn individuaacts of sacrificial heroism.  I think there was a lot of debate about this regarding the struggle in Turkey a few decades ago. 


Sam Husseini gave many examples February 26th:  husseini.substack.com/p/ignoring-immolators-lulls-the-society


Also Ann Wright, also on the 26th:  www.commondreams.org/opinion/kill-selves-to-stop-war


en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-immolation_of_Aaron_Bushnell


www.democracynow.org/2024/2/28/aaron_bushnell_self_immolation_gaza_protest


www.wsws.org/en/articles/2024/02/27/alet-f27.html


WSWS chair David North censored by YouTube?  www.wsws.org/en/articles/2024/03/15/rcyp-m15.htmlan-indicatorof-the-profound-change-in-consciousness-in-the-united-states/


By veteran Mike Prysner:  empirefiles.substack.com/p/tribute-to-aaron-bushnell-by-iraq


www.tempestmag.org/2024/03/aarons-sacrifice/


geopoliticaleconomy.substack.com/p/media-israel-bias-aaron-bushnell-gaza-genocide


redphoenixnews.com/2024/03/03/honor-aaron-bushnells-sacrifice-organize-and-resist/


2022 Green US Senate candidate and veteran Matthew Hoh:  twitter.com/MatthewPHoh/status/1762160060975788131


www.thenation.com/article/society/aaron-bushnell-gaza-self-immolation/


By John Parker, Peace and Freedom Party candidate for Congress (California district 37, at the south end of the state):  www.struggle-la-lucha.org/2024/02/28/honor-aaron-bushnell-free-palestine/


informationclearinghouse.blog/2024/02/27/aaron-bushnell-burned-himself-alive-to-make-you-turn-your-eyes-to-gaza/14/


www.counterpunch.org/2024/02/27/us-airman-aaron-bushnells-self-immolation-outside-the-israeli-embassy-in-washington-d-c/


informationclearinghouse.blog/2024/03/02/disgust/14/


By Chris Hedges, condemned by David North of the WSWS?  chrishedges.substack.com/p/aaron-bushnells-divine-violence


english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/from-rachel-corrie-to-aaron-bushnell--sacrificing-for-palest


www.greanvillepost.com/2024/02/27/brian-berletics-moving-homage-to-aaron-bushnells-sacrifice/


theintercept.com/2024/02/28/aaron-bushnell-reddit-fire-protest-israel-palestine/


theintercept.com/2024/03/07/aaron-bushnell-fbi-anarchism-extremist/


The Claudia-Karina 2024 presidentiacampaign highlighted:  www.youtube.com/watch?si=BBiAv568T_VhuVdw&v=0QfPm2izBGU&feature=youtu.be ?


(?) nypost.com/2024/02/27/us-news/aaron-bushnell-claimed-secret-knowledge-of-us-forces-in-gaza/


(?) www.aljazeera.com/podcasts/2024/2/28/the-take-an-extreme-act-why-aaron-bushnell-self-immolated-for-gaza


Rightist associated with the Zionist Tabletthedailyscroll.substack.com/p/february-26-2024-the-peoples-temple  Only a passing reference to Aaron Bushnell, but typical Zionist points from Bernard-Henri Lévy www.tabletmag.com/sections/israel-middle-east/articles/stop-the-war-in-gaza ; not connected to Bushnell but it sounds like the "War on Terror" years on local college campuses under Bush and Obama at UC Berkeley in the mid-2020's:  www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/berkeley-safe-space-for-hate ; the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations fund the alleged linkage of Zoroastrianism, remnants of Iranian monarchism, anti-government Iranian(portrayed as willing tools for the "West" in the media), Zionism, and anti-Palestinian politics on the occasion of Nowruz this week:  www.tabletmag.com/sections/community/articles/deep-roots-nowruz-zoroastrianism ].  At least one Zionist on Facebook was wishing for more burnings after December 1, 2023, and I think that was the first time I heard that someone had burned themselves over Palestine, though even people in the "West" have been facing jail, private and state-sponsored harassment campaigns and doxxing, loss of employment and possibly education, deadly violence, etc.



www.workers.org/2024/03/77428/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=aaron-bushnells-act-sparks-memories-of-mass-resistance-in-u-s-military


A vigil in Portland, Oregon February 28th, one of several across the country:  www.workers.org/2024/03/77324/  and www.workers.org/2024/03/77348/  Green Party candidate Jill Stein spoke at a rally at the UN building in New York March 15th.


Bronx Anti-War Coalition statement:  www.workers.org/2024/02/77193/


A poem by Julia Wright:  www.workers.org/2024/03/77403/


Search:  www.workers.org/?s=aaron+bushnell



From:  www.workers.org/2024/02/77176/ 



The following statements appeared on Resistance News Network on Feb. 26, 2024.



Islamic Resistance Movement


We, in the Islamic Resistance Movement, express our heartfelt condolences and our full solidarity with the family and friends of the U.S. pilot Aaron Bushnell, whose name has been immortalized as a defender of humanitarian values and the plight of the oppressed Palestinian people who are suffering due to the U.S. administration and its unjust policies, like the U.S. activist Rachel Corrie who was crushed by a Zionist bulldozer [March 16th, today,] in 2003 in Rafah, the same city for which Bushnell paid for with his life to pressure his country’s government to prevent the criminal Zionist army from attacking it and committing massacres and violations in it. 

The administration of U.S. President Joe Biden bears full responsibility for the death of Aaron Bushnell due to its policy that supports the Nazi Zionist entity in the genocide war against our Palestinian people, as he gave his life in order to highlight the massacres and Zionist ethnic cleansing against our people in the Gaza Strip. 

The heroic pilot Aaron Bushnell will remain immortal in the memory of our Palestinian people and the free people of the world, and a symbol of the spirit of global humanitarian solidarity with our people and their just cause. 

The tragic incident that cost pilot Bushnell his life is an expression of the growing anger among the people in the U.S. who reject their country’s policy that contributes to the killing and genocide of our people, and rejects their government’s violation of global humanitarian values, by providing cover to ensure the impunity of the Nazi entity and its leaders from punishment and accountability. 



Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine
Central Media Department


The act of a U.S. soldier sacrificing himself for Palestine is the highest sacrifice and a medal, and a poignant message to the U.S. administration to stop its involvement in the aggression.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine affirmed that the act of Aaron Bushnell from the U.S. Air Force by setting himself on fire in front of the Zionist embassy in Washington, D.C., in protest against the war on Gaza, in which he called for the “liberation of Palestine,” confirms the state of anger among the people in the U.S. due to the official U.S. involvement in the Zionist genocide war being waged on the Gaza Strip. 

It also indicates that the status of the Palestinian cause, especially in U.S. circles, is becoming more deeply entrenched in the global conscience, and reveals the truth of the Zionist entity as a cheap colonial tool in the hands of savage imperialism.

The Front expresses its full solidarity with the soldier’s family and all the U.S. sympathizers who took a honorable stance and whose struggle and pressure to stop the genocide on the Strip have not ceased, confirming that the act of a U.S. soldier sacrificing his life to draw the attention of the U.S. people and the world to the plight of the Palestinian people, despite its tragic nature and the great pain it involves, is considered the highest sacrifice and medal, and the most important poignant message directed to the U.S. administration, that it is involved in the war crime in Gaza and that the people in the U.S. have awakened and are rejecting this involvement, calling on the administration to stop this support and bias for the Zionist entity.

The Front sent a message to the Arab soldier to take this U.S. soldier who sacrificed his life for a noble cause like the Palestinian cause as an example and role model, and to leave the trenches of waiting, incapacity, and move to the trench of confrontation in support of Palestine and its people who are being slaughtered, besieged, and starved in full view and hearing of the world and just a few kilometers from Arab lands and meters from the borders.

Palestine will be victorious as long as it has deeply engraved itself in the consciences of the world, and history will record in golden letters the names of all the sympathizers and free people of the world who stood with it and sacrificed their lives for its sake.

These statements were lightly edited [by Workers World and again here]."



Tweets from Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei (?):


February 28th at 8:23am with 62.2k views, 195 comments, 573 re-tweets, 1.9k likes, and 25 bookmarks:

The West’s disgraceful antihuman policies with regard to the genocide in Gaza have reached such a point that a US military officer sets himself on fire. #AaronBushnell

twitter.com/khamenei_ir/status/1762830903410102578


February 28th at 10:39am with 337.5k views, 298 comments, 782 re-tweets, 3k likes, and 63 bookmarks:

The genocide in Gaza is even too much for that young person who was brought up in the Western culture. His conscience was hurting and he set himself on fire. #AaronBushnell

twitter.com/khamenei_ir/status/1762865228121768068


February 28th at 11:04am with 46.5k views, 207 comments, 496 re-tweets, 1.8k likes, and 18 bookmarks:

With regard to the situation in Gaza, Western culture has introduced itself, exposed itself, and revealed how corrupt, how perverted, and how cruel it is.

twitter.com/khamenei_ir/status/1762871443933569404



There have probably been many more responseinternationally.  street was re-named for Bushnell March 10th in Jericho, Palestine.



February 26th:

Statement by ANSWER National Director Brian Becker on the Self-Immolation of U.S. Airman Aaron Bushnell at the Israeli embassy in Washington D.C.


The decision by U.S. Airman Aaron Bushnell to set himself on fire in front of the Israeli embassy while condemning the U.S.-backed Israeli genocide being carried out against the people of Gaza was a desperate act designed to arouse public outrage. He made the ultimate personal sacrifice to end a genocide that the entire world has been witnessing for the past months. 

This was an act of martyrdom by a U.S. service member who was outraged by the actions of a government that speaks in his name. Aaron said as he set himself on fire, “I will not be complicit with genocide”. 

His actions cannot but remind one of the self-immolation of 22 year-old anti-war activist Norman Morrison, who doused himself in kerosene and set himself on fire below the office of then-Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara at the Pentagon to protest the escalating genocidal war waged by the United States against the people of Vietnam. Six months before Norman Morrison took his own life, president Lyndon Johnson had authorized the mass use of napalm against the people of Vietnam and escalated the carpet bombing that was killing thousands of civilians each week. Morrison’s act was also in line with the self-immolation protests carried out by Buddhist monks in South Vietnam to protest the South Vietnamese puppet government. Daniel Ellsberg witnessed Norman Morrison’s self-immolation. He was horrified and cited it, along with the mass anti-war protests sweeping the country, as one of the factors that affected him deeply as he moved into active opposition to the war. He ultimately released the Pentagon Papers to the media, which revealed that the U.S. government had been lying about the Vietnam War for a decade. 

People all over the United States, in the millions, have been involved in mass actions to protest the U.S. support for Israeli genocide against the Palestinian people in recent months. People have also engaged in civil disobedience actions of many types. Many have been arrested and are facing trial, including many whose constitutional rights were violated by violent police repression. 

Aaron Bushnell’s action is a reflection, an indicator, a marker, of the profound change in consciousness in the United States. The previously dominant narrative that backed the Israeli apartheid government is dramatically giving way to a narrative based on the truth: that the Palestinian people have been the victims of dispossession, ethnic cleansing, violence of all types and now a genocidal killing spree in Gaza. And people in the United States and around the world are horrified and are mobilizing on multiple fronts in support of Palestine. 

Aaron Bushnell’s sacrifice takes place on the eve of a planned invasion of Rafah by the Israeli military. People all over the United States are coming together on March 2nd for mass actions in cities and towns across the United States as part of a global day of protest demanding no invasion of Rafah, a ceasefire to end the Israeli killing spree and the lifting of the siege of Gaza.

We send our sympathy and solidarity to Aaron Bushnell's family and loved ones. He has made the ultimate sacrifice in a quest for justice and in solidarity with the oppressed people of Palestine. 

Brian Becker,
National Director, ANSWER Coalition




Veterans for Peace, www.veteransforpeace.org/pressroom/news/2024/02/26/veterans-peace-statement-about-aaron-bushnell-protesting-dea , February 26th:


Madmen Arsonists Strike Again: They as Much as Lit Aaron Bushnell’s Match for Him

 

Aaron Bushnell just couldn’t take any more.

He couldn’t bear to see any more people eviscerated and incinerated by American bombs dropped by Israelis on innocent Palestinians.

So, in his Air Force uniform, he walked determinedly to the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C. and set himself on fire.

What can we say about a young man who would do that to protest his government’s acts of cruelty and genocide?

It is important we say nothing before quoting his own calmly spoken, final words to the world.

“I am an active-duty member of the United States Air Force and I will no longer be complicit in genocide. I am about to engage in an extreme act of protest. But compared to what people have been experiencing in Palestine at the hands of their colonizers, it’s not extreme at all. This is what our ruling class has decided will be normal. Free Palestine!”

You can see Aaron’s last minute of life in this video, blurred out after he strikes the match.

In it, he shouts, “Free Palestine” six times. The last five are combined with screams of agony before he falls silent.

A voice off-camera, shouts repeatedly, “Get him on the ground…on the ground,” which is the correct thing to do when someone is on fire.

People frantically rush in with a fire extinguisher. A police officer or uniformed guard appears and points a gun in Aaron’s direction. Someone calls out “I need a fire extinguisher…a fire extinguisher…another one…I don’t need guns; I need a fire extinguisher.”

Why would Aaron do something this extreme?

More of the “why” may come to light. But what he said in that video is sufficient. He could “no longer be complicit in genocide.”

Aaron’s motivation is strikingly similar to that of Norman Morrison, a 35-year-old, Quaker activist who set himself ablaze in the Pentagon parking lot below Secretary of War McNamara’s office, November 2, 1965.

In a letter to his wife, Morrison had written, “Dearest Anne, For weeks, even months, I have been praying only that I be shown what I must do. This morning with no warning, I was shown … Know that I love thee but must act for the children in the Priest’s village,” in reference to an article he had read in which a Catholic priest described Vietnamese “women and children blown to bits” from U.S. bombing and napalm.

Too many of us in VFP have seen the suffering war creates and it never leaves our memories. All of us agonize over our government’s aiding and abetting the slaughter of innocents.

We prod ourselves, “what is the most, the very best thing, I can do?”

That question moves some to learn the history of Palestine that they’ve too long ignored; some to contact elected officials; some to join a public protest; some to go on fasts; some to block roads or congressional offices and go to jail. But it never feels like enough.

Some may perceive fasting to the death or self-immolation as crazy and extreme beyond measure. Others see it as entirely appropriate because the horror protested is itself insane and extreme beyond measure.

Few who care deeply will have the courage to fast to the death or do what Aaron Bushnell did. But in addition to whatever inadequate things we already do, we can, we must, do two more things.

The first is to consciously let people who are pained and grieving at what our government does know that they are not alone. We should not assume our colleagues and comrades know we are aware of their anguish.

Secondly, we can resolve that we will move beyond simply reacting to bestial policies.

We could call our policymakers “madmen arsonists” because they go around the globe setting fires much faster than we can extinguish them.

These policymakers, swaddled in privilege, take their orders from those who profit from death and suffering. We know who they are: the people who run Boeing, Raytheon, General Dynamics and their fellow merchants of death, and the people who finance what the merchants do.

These madmen arsonists operate on a grand scale internationally but also on a singular, small scale as in front of the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C. They as much as lit the match for Aaron Bushnell. The fire that killed Airman Bushnell was simply the “collateral damage,” as it’s so callously called, of the ongoing conflagration in Palestine.

Our firefighting will never keep up with arsonists who operate on a global scale. We are long overdue to learn the fire prevention skills needed to halt them.

Fire prevention in this context means prohibiting the lobbying, advertising, vote buying, campaign funding and actual legislation writing that corporations do behind constitutional shields given them by the Supreme Court, like free speech and protection.

Until we strip corporations of their shields, they will continue to amass economic and political power to govern us, to set fires large and small, while we run frantically for fire extinguishers until we are exhausted, penniless and gone.

Veterans For Peace is learning the necessary fire prevention skills we need as we continue fighting fires set by the madmen arsonists. It is simply our responsibility to do both at the same time.

 

Millions will be in the streets against the Rafah invasion on March 2; find a demonstration near hyou [March 1st in Durham, to 'greet' the vice president, and March 2nd in Raleigh and elsewhere in NC?]. Vigils will be held across the country for Aaron Bushnell in the coming days.

If you are a member of the US military [and] want expert, confidential advice on how to get out, call the GI Rights Hotline 24/7 at 1-877-447-4487