Self-Immolator Matt Nelson Reportedly Alive

Last night I was on Flashpoints with Dennis Bernstein about Matt Nelson, who is by all indications the person who immolated themselves across from the Israeli consulate in Boston on Sept. 11.

I ended the discussion addressing the notion that self-immolators should be seen as having mental issues. It’s actually the culture that has mental issues. The culture that slaughters. And then rolls along day to day as if nothing is wrong. Audio of interview:

Local NBC reporter was told by government investigators of the self-immolator in Boston — presumably Matt Nelson: “He is still alive. It’s a very active investigation.”

It’s remarkable how little media coverage this has gotten. It’s a cliché in media crit circles that the media wants sensationalism, if it bleeds it leads. Bullshit.

In terms of getting more info, my own efforts didn’t lead anywhere. Boston police took all Friday to respond to inquiries and finally just told me they have ten days to give (redacted) information. The fire department was completely unresponsive. The Four Seasons hotel didn’t get back. Mass General, which has a major burn center, said that either no one by the name Matt Nelson was there or that their family had requested they not be listed. So, it seems to me there’s a good chance that Matt Nelson is at the burn center there. The hospital refused to respond to any and all follow-up questions (as if there were any other burn centers such a patient could be taken to).

Update, Sat. evening: I had missed that the Boston Herald reported that the self-immolator had been “transported to Massachusetts General Hospital”.

A woman who apparently very involuntarily witnessed the self-immolation wrote that “It was awful to see him on fire, not fighting against the flames or screaming for help. He was just enduring the pain!”

She added: “As far as I know, he’s still alive with serious injuries.”

The account that originally found the video of Matt Nelson also found his political account:

Self-immolators have typically at best a 50 percent survival rate.

This AP story from 2020 depicts a self-immolation survivor from Tunisia as regretting their self-immolation, particularly because of the social reaction from the appearance of the burns, though it remarkably says there were “hundreds” of self-immolators in Tunisia. To me this brings to mind this Twilight Zone episode:

It’s hard not to be struck by the moral disparities in our culture.

Matt Nelson cared so much about people he never met that he was willing to lay down his life. Meanwhile, our media system and “culture” obsess over two genocidal narcissists vying for political power.

1 John 3:16: “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.”

Jesuit priest Daniel Berrigan: "I think in Christianity that something very great has been lost. Jesus' death, I think, in a very deep sense can be called a self-immolation. I mean that He went consciously to death, choosing that death for the sake of others, reasonably and thoughtfully." Berrigan argues that people who burned themselves protesting the Vietnam War should not be said to have committed "suicide" since "suicide proceeds from despair and from the loss of hope and I felt that [Roger Laporte, a Catholic Worker self-immolator] did not die in that spirit."

Brings to mind “Christ for President” by Woody Guthrie, performed by Wilco and Billy Bragg:

Update — Monday: