For anyone who doesn’t want to see Aaron Bushnell’s self-immolation, either again, or not at all, here is the “soundtrack” to this video of it, Roger Waters’ tribute to Aaron (you need to open link to get to video): https://www.facebook.com/rogerwaters/posts/pfbid02Zz22TX8ir6jCuAVsPNKDvrRznusoxTgYjaZ9rWREQUG2TUH8yxina3SCT1T1uDN6l The lyrics are the antithesis of the soundtrack of 21st Century America! And of the world the Palestinians live in, where they do "hear their standard issue kicking in your door,” and not "Where you can speak out loud about your doubts and fearsAnd what's more, no one ever disappearsYou never hear their standard issue kicking in your door” I hope Roger doesn’t mind me sharing this but I got acquainted with him by attending the Russell Tribunal on Palestine in NYC in 2012, with hopes to have a chance to give him a 30 second elevator pitch on an organization 3 people who are known to most of you, and I, were incorporating as the Institute for the Study of American Militarism. We gave it a merciful death in 2018 by dissolving it as a corporation, before our "Conservative” began promoting the “New Right,” as "Right-wing Peaceniks,” and before a Ron Paul libertarian friend of us all brought it to our attention that the Conservative had joined together with an Atlas Network libertarian, to call on Trump to impose killer sanctions on Venezuela for refusing to do the bidding of the US, and resisting US coup efforts! That would have killed the Corporation by itself, had it still existed. But it illustrates as well that I didn’t, contrary to some people’s idea here, just fall "off the turnip truck.” But instead personally know, and was friends with, some of the people I criticize today on this email list; libertarians and Conservatives we all know. Who were really the victims of “Trump Derangement Syndrome,” in that so many believed his cognitive warfare lies! But this “Conservative” friend of mine at the time, and a couple fellow Guantanamo attorneys, were who “taught” me more about Roger Waters’ music, after I had met him, as I was pretty ignorant of it before then. Knowing only that he opposed Israeli war crimes in Palestine, which is what brought him to the Russell Tribunal, and my attention. Having studied the “causality” of “terrorism” with extensive study of the Mideast, including meetings with Avi Schlaim, Ilan Pappe, John Esposito, Noam Chomsky, and others, all with the intent of getting “Expert Witnesses” for the cases I was on, I realized how far ahead Roger Waters was of the vast majority of people in understanding the “causality" of Palestinian Resistance. And U.S. wars. And he learned that by not having a “closed mind,” or having resistance to “expansive thinking,” as most of us do. Which we might all benefit from if we could expand ours. As did Aaron Bushnell, who also had an abundance of the virtue of Empathy! Pardon the personal detail but I write as an “Ethnographer,” of Ethnographic Studies, which I made further study of at the University of Minnesota after I received an M.A. in Political Theory, all with the intent of trying to understand how it was that the U.S. Military could so quickly adopt the tactics of fascism in the use of torture, and Fascist Law (Martial Law) at Guantanamo. Designed in large measure by Claremont Institute’s newest “Scholars,” John Yoo and Robert Delahunty. Waiting in the wings to “Serve America” again, in a Trump administration, and on behalf of “New Fascism” at Claremont. Which I know very well, having once been a personal acquaintance with (now) Hillsdale President Larry Arnn, whom so many here are now allied to. My excuse was that I was ignorant, and it was before they revealed so much of their inner fascism, as “Conservatives.” But no one has that excuse anymore. See beneath the video for some stills, which we should at least do if we don’t, or can’t, watch the video, as tribute for such a high level of morality of someone who would give his own life in service to a higher cause of ending Genocide!                          |
