Activist's Fiery Death Prompts Questions (anti-war)

[NVMojo]

CHICAGO (AP) -

Malachi Ritscher envisioned his death as one full of purpose.

He carefully planned the details, mailed a copy of his apartment key to a friend, created to-do lists for his family. On his Web site, the 52-year-old experimental musician who'd fought with depression even penned his obituary.

At 6:30 a.m. on Nov. 3 - four days before an election caused a seismic shift in Washington politics - Ritscher, a frequent anti-war protester, stood by an off-ramp in downtown Chicago near a statue of a giant flame, set up a video camera, doused himself with gasoline and lit himself on fire.

Aglow for the crush of morning commuters, his flaming body was supposed to be a call to the nation, a symbol of his rage and discontent with the U.S. war in Iraq.

"Here is the statement I want to make: if I am required to pay for your barbaric war, I choose not to live in your world. I refuse to finance the mass murder of innocent civilians, who did nothing to threaten our country," he wrote in his suicide note. "... If one death can atone for anything, in any small way, to say to the world: I apologize for what we have done to you, I am ashamed for the mayhem and turmoil caused by my country."

There was only one problem: No one was listening.

It took five days for the Cook County medical examiner to identify the charred-beyond-recognition corpse. Meanwhile, Ritscher's suicide went largely unnoticed. It wasn't until a reporter for an alternative weekly, the Chicago Reader, pieced the facts together that word began to spread.

more...

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/nat-gen/2006/nov/26/112602668.html

[THUNDER HANDS]

1. suicide as a political statement

is not something that should be glorified.

[stillcool]

2. "Should" it be acknowledged? n/t

[THUNDER HANDS]

5. well, i guess

but you have to balance the newsworthiness of the story with the fact that you don't want people to think they can become famous for killing themselves in order to make a political statement.

[sam sarrha]

6. freedom of speach...

[THUNDER HANDS]

7. ?

I'm not saying don't report it. Just don't glorify it.

[stillcool]

9. It's kind of funny the different...

ways people look at life, and death. Dying for something is what a hero does,...I guess as long as it's the correctly perceived something.

[daleo]

4. I recall Buddhist monks doing this during the Viet Nam war

That may have been his model.

[Monkeyman]

8. The Mormon who set himself on fire in front of DOD

Added fire to the peace movement in the 60'S

[zenturtle]

16. I think he was a Quaker, actually

Don't recall his name, but I read a moving account of his activism and final action some years ago. I think it got more attention than this, but I wasn't around then so I'm not really sure.

[left is right]

10. I have thought about those monks often since the VN War

It was truly shocking to read about the self-immolations. But over the years, I have come to the conclusion that it was that same shock that caused many Americans to begin to think about the horror of war. I know that many will say that it was the level of protest that got us out of VN but in my mind the protests was connected on some gut level with the shock of self-immolation

[EFerrari]

13. Because -- we in our paternalistic wisdom know better?

:eyes:

[Mz Pip]

3. I don't see this guy

as a hero to our cause. Sorry, but I don't. He didn't live to stick around and fight another day.

What we are doing in Iraq is despicable but going out in flames doesn't change anything and sad to say, Ritscher just comes off as a nut case.

He sounds like a guy who was in a lot of pain, and maybe it wasn't just about the war. I hope he is in a better place, if there is such a thing. For me, I'll stick around and advocate for peace as a living human being.

Mz Pip
:dem:

[EFerrari]

11. I hope his death does no harm to your cause. n/t

[EFerrari]

12. More anti-humanism from the LVSun. What a surprise.

Some of us *are* listening, you f#ckheads.

This wouldn't have been a choice I'd make but it is a choice that is and will be honored.

[NVMojo]

14. funny you should say that ...LVSun is considered to be the "Democratic" newspaper

down there in Vegas while its sister paper, Las Vegas Review Journal, is totally Repuke. And if you look, this is an AP story originating from Chicago papers. LV Sun pays to host AP feeds on their website and the AP stories in the newspaper. They come from all over and can't be "edited" by the subscriber who uses them. They are copyrighted content for which an AP subscriber pays a fee to use and run, not edit.

[EFerrari]

15. I stand corrected, NVMojo. God knows, I sure don't want

to deprive a functioning media outlet of their due, and it looks like I did this time.