A Prayer for Aaron Bushnell

On Thursday night, I had this notion to pray “for” Aaron Bushnell; that is, to assist him in some way. However, I have never been comfortable with the idea of intercessional prayers. The idea comes laden with all sorts of unprovable assumptions: that Aaron still exists, to be helped; that anything I can do could help or initiate help for him; and last, but not least: if God knoweth all and loveth all what need has he of me tell him what his job should be? So then, who am I really helping here, Aaron or myself and my own disturbed feelings at his distressed feelings which led him to take his life on account of the beneath human putrifaction that rules in Jerusalem, Washington and the decrepit West.

So apart from this jumble of thought and intentions, how should I start my prayer? It seemed to me that I had to envision Aaron going up in flames and hear in my mind's ear his shouting “Free Palestine!” And that is what I did, but no sooner I did it than it seemed too “hot” to get too close too. And “hot” was the least of it... I don't want to say “darkness” but there was a kind a sacra off-limits about what was going on beneath those flames. So then, I thought: am I strong enough for this ... to carry on with this intention? Am I courageous enough to bring the inner essence of his suicide close to my own innermost self?

At this point I just gave up and started to intone silently: have mercy on him, have mercy on him. ... I did not mean have mercy on him for his having done some wrong. I meant “mercy” in the sense of “shower him with your loving kindness.” I had no idea whether what he did was right or wrong. All I knew was that it was an ultimate sacrifice which by nature is beyond ordinary limits and therefore in a place where most of us do not go to.

And then, “have mercy on him” became “have mercy on me.” As for whether any or this helped Aaron... I have no idea. I hope so. I wish him well.

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On further consideration, I have concluded that Aaron Bushnell did the right and noble thing. I am disgusted to the core at MediaControl's attempt to diminish his sacrifice by calling into question his mental stability. At least Madame Gnu was honest enough to forthrightly display her repulsiveness by calling self-immolating monks, “human babacue.”

I get to my conclusion rather simply and by analogy. During the Great War, young men on both sides of the death-strip went “over the top” for God, King and Country. They did so knowing full well that there was an 87.3625% chance that they wouldn't make it

Eine Kugel kam geflogen
Gilt sie mir oder gilt sie dir?

I would not be the first to say that, over those trenches, Christian Civilization committed suicide. Or as Marine Corp sergeant Daniel Daly put it, rather less poetically, "Come on, you sons-o'-bitches, do you want to live forever?"

Either way, we honour the men who chose not to live forever; and we do so, if we are sensible, regardless of which side they were on because what matters is that they chose to give their all. Soldiers understand this. Unfortunately, civilians “bawling allegiance to the state” do not.

I personally agree with the cause for which Aaron Bushnell immolated himself. It is too early to tell if it was a futile act or if it will let loose a chain of consequences that will alter things. But in either case you cannot ask more of a man than that he give his all; and for having given it, he deserves God's rewarding mercy.

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Inner Emigration

During the World War a number of German intellectuals, writers, pastors, professors and even army officers practiced what was later described as inner emigration -- an interior withholding of consent to the policies and actions of the regime.

Inner emigration is not the same as underground resistance. The latter is affirmative action against a regime by stealth, surprise or subversion. Inner emigration, by contrast, is simply a private posture, a kind of “I'm here but not here” thing. Resistance presupposes hope; inner emigration, hopelessness.

Inner emigration was not limited to “good Germans.” In the 1960's large portions of American youth emigrated inwardly -- they were known as “Hippies.” Giving the maximum possible credit where credit is due, hippies realized not only that the system was evil and corrupt but, worse yet, impermeable. Confessing their political powerlessness, they tuned in and dropped out.

The occasional justification for this posturing was that by dropping out they were creating an “alternative” culture and society. But this was a mirage. The evil system quickly found ways to commodify and subsume the alternative; so that, in the end, hippies ended up perusing NiftyStuff Catalogues, buying Volvo's and “sensibly” investing in real estate, all the while assuring themselves that, unlike their square parents, they had (somehow) protested the war.

I don't want to come down too hard on the hippies; for, it has to be said in the 1970's a wave of religiosity also swept over the the United States. The two phenomena were related, but the religious one gave up all pretence of being, or forming or leading to an alernative society. It was simply the Big Drop into Self, most perfectly exemplified by the mindless Hare Krishna chanters on Powell and Market or in airports. Be that as it was, from chanting, to Zen, to Pentecostalism, to the New Jesus Movement, to TM and EST and a hundred obscure spiritual sects people gave up on politics and fell to micro managing their inner selves. The war makers, financiers and mass marketters could not have been happier.

“What is that?” my mother asked. “It's a zafu,” I replied. “What's a zaahfoo?” “It's a meditation cushion.” “You don't need a cushion to meditate,” she scathingly replied. But I'm not meditating! I protested; and, in truth I have never been able to meditate for more than 30 seconds. I just wanted to decorate the house a la japonnaise. But no one should doubt the ability of “the system” to merchandize and hence emasculate anything.

Not surprisingly, in the late 1970's various French historians began to wonder if this all had not happened before; and, of course it had, the result being a series of books on the “interiorization” of “political” life, known as the rise of Christianity and the fall of the Ancient world -- one chapter being dedicated in all seriousness, to the “advent” of private toilets in lieu of public ones.

In Europe, the rise of private toilets did actually lead to the evolution of an alternative civitas, known as Visigothic, Ostro- Gallo- or Germano-Roman depending on one's preference of labels. But in the 1970's the American Empire was far from collapsing and, instead, the forces that be found ways to evolve a totally kitsch politics -- an activism based on symptomatic issues (organic food, smoking and smog) and personal entitlements, sub nom “civil rights.” At the same time, the rulers of the country liberalized the market, exempting corporations from all sense of civic responsibility and enacted an all-volunteer military, thereby exempting individuals from the otherwise minimum obligations of citizenship. The result: individuals could pursue their “entitlements;” business could pursue its profits, and the government could pursue its wars without there ever again being any push-back.

At least until this past October. The announced and blatantly executed genocide carried out by the Trio from Hell was so grotesque that it provoked universal condemnation from the ordinary people and lesser states of the world. Unfortunately, the situation has only served to illustrate how actually powerless the people of democratic societies actually are and how completely entrenched the neo-liberal and neo-con rulership is. Over the past 50 years they have so totally atomized the substance of “civic society” and so completely dominated the levers and avenues of political and cultural power that the protests for all their anger and moral force are but a drizzle over the landscape. The impunity with which Western leaders insult the protestors, blatantly lie to the public and, in Israel's case, say things that would make a Nazi blush (oh yes; oh yes) indicate that they are not in the least worried that their nefarious designs will be interrupted. Even the Yellow Vests provoked a more serious response from the state.

So...we are once again faced with the German question: what to do when one is powerless to do anything? It is a moral dilemma to which I do not have an answer.

I trust it will not sound too effete when I say that there can be no doubt that “exposing” one's self to the horrible images of Israel's brutality in Gaza produces a form of PTSD. It is not as acute as the trauma of actually being there, but it is also a trauma that is not compensated for with adrenaline. The result is a kind of masturbatory fetish where one goes back for more thinking that knowing is at least “being responsible” when in fact knowing does nothing but underscore the impossibility of accomplishing anything. On the other hand, “tuning out” and ignoring the inhuman savagery while one goes about one's life unhindered and unimpeded, traipsing through strawberry fields, is form of indifference that is itself inhumane and criminal... all excuses aside.

So ... 1970's redux. I will only say that if anyone thinks private toilets or chanting mantras on street corners will make an “unseen” difference, I can only say that that is an illusion. Whether one is up to it or not, if one is honest, there is no emigrating from this fight.

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