Back on November 3, a 52-year-old Chicago man burned himself to death to protest the Iraq War. The reason you haven't heard about it is because the establishment media has ignored the story.
Malachi Ritscher set himself on fire near an off-ramp of Chicago's Kennedy Exprssway, next to a four-year-old abstract sculpture called "The Flame of the Millenium." Drivers passing by on the freeway looked up and saw that the statue seemed to be on fire. When police arrived they found an empty gas can, a video camera, and a body so thoroughly charred that its gender couldn't be determined.
Authorities later discovered Ritscher had left a note which said in part, "I too love God and Country, and feel called upon to serve. I can only hope my sacrifice is worth more than those brave lives thrown away when we attacked an Arab nation under the deception of 'Weapons of Mass Destruction.'"
There was scant mention of the event in Chicago-area local news and none in the national media. I picked up this story from the Rag Blog, and there's a well-researched account of the event and Ritscher's life by Pitchfork's Nitsuh Abebe at electroniciraq.net.
Ritscher was a loner, a divorcee, and apparently had no close friends, although he had many acquaintances from Chicago's jazz and alternate music scene, in which he was well known as a video cameraman and sound engineer. Of course some will ask whether he was a martyr or a mentally troubled suicide. Nitsuh Abebe points out corectly that those are not mutually exclusive categories.
We could ask a similar question about the press coverage, or lack of it in this case. Did the media ignore this event because Ritscher was kind of a nobody, or were they hesitant to expose the public to the full measure of shame and disgrace this war has brought the nation? Is the United States truly evil and homicidal, or just nuts?
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