FumpyAer

Also, one final clarification. I think that this particular incident has a greater chance of being significant historically because he is a member of the US military. I would not recommend or condone a non-military person to follow in his footsteps because I dont think it would be likely to be effective. Like it or not, military members command a certain gravitas and social status in US society that can be used to great effect, as we are seeing here. This amplified the media coverage greatly.

We're all mostly hoping for a revolution... Well, "vulnerable people" die in revolutions. Lots of people usually die in revolutions. Bloodless ones are the exception. Personally, I advocate for diversity of tactics, even if some of those tactics are extreme.

But guess what? Lots of people are CURRENTLY dying in Gaza and in the US (denied healthcare) and all over the world due to LACK OF a revolution in tbe imperial core. It's emotionally jarring to see somebody die in a gruesome way, I understand that. Everyone will have their own reaction. It may even demotivate some comerades. But the status quo has its own gruesome, insidious costs like 2000 covid deaths a week. They're just not "shocking" like this one. Let's not privilege this one life over the possibility of agitating to save the 2 million in Gaza whose lives are in the balance.

If you've watched his last words, this person was clearly of sober mind and thought this was their best lever to pull for change. They probably thought about it a lot before doing so, and it wasn't on a whim.

Speaking personally, I am inspired by their sacrifice, and it is spurring me to do more for the Palestinian cause and do more to move towards communism and away from barbarism.

There are no words left.

I hunger for the snot.

Okay I know this is a Serious Post and very distressing.

But is the German word for famine really "Hungersnot?"

The criticism is the move has too much "flash and pomp" so they're basically saying he's not acting "presidential."

Right? Simply learn to combat "the step."

They don't always cause a chain reaction. I'd have to read a study to find out the exact percentages.

Regardless, what you said above is unproveable. There is no contrafactual situation in which the Thích Quảng Đức self immolation in Saigon didn't happen. You cannot say with certainty it had no effect. And that's just the direct effects.

The knock-on effects of people questioning the US empire after that image of the monk on fire became widespread are impossible to calculate.

It won't do anything significant to change politics on Gaza, but it will magically convince a significant percentage of leftists to follow suit? Doubt.

There is no way of knowing that.

As far as I'm concerned, the best courses of action for US Military members in order are 1) commit treason (godspeed) 2) quit the military and use their social status as former military to advocate against imperialism and 3) exactly what this guy did. There are probably other options, too.

This article has a list of famous self-immolations. Some of them were quite effective. I will concede that there are many more fruitless self immolations that didn't make this list, however. https://time.com/6835364/self-immolation-history-israel-hamas-war/

To carcosa's comment, which was the first top level comment, yes.

That's clearly Adam Driver