Suicides In Washington Reminder of Taxes and Burdens

This is a reminder for the first part of the article from Daily Kos you'll read below.

Man who set himself on fire on National Mall is identified
NBC News
By M. Alex Johnson, Staff Writer
October 8, 2013

The man who died after having set himself ablaze last week on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., was identified Monday night by police, who gave no indication they had any idea why he did it.

John Constantino, 64, of Mount Laurel, N.J., suffered "significant" burns over his entire body and died at a hospital, D.C. police said. Constantino doused himself with gasoline from a red canister and set himself on fire Friday afternoon near the National Air and Space Museum, further rattling a city that was already on edge a day after a Connecticut woman was shot dead after she tried to ram her car through a White House barrier.

While I know it may be stunning to learn after all this time, it did happen. But there were no protests or marches through city streets for lives of veterans that are supposed to matter at least as much as when we send them off to war.

Well, there was another public suicide. Thanks to the Daily Kos and a friend from Facebook, all of us know about it.

"Tax The 1%": Political Statements by Suicide in DC Shall Not Go Down the Memory Hole
by thirty three and a third
MON APR 13, 2015

Latest DC suicide holds “Tax the 1%” sign as he shoots self/Lapdog media hush reveals complicity/These men didn't die in vain.

When 64 yr old Vietnam Vet John Constantino burned himself to death on the DC Mall in October of 2013 I couldn’t stop thinking about this man and his act. Who was he? What compelled him? What was his life’s story? What were his political views, his life’s station, etc? I wanted to write a blog then but didn’t.

Then Saturday happened.

On the kind of beautiful sunny day when hope springs eternal, an older gentleman wearing a backpack walked over by the fountain in front of the Capitol Building in Washington DC. And a sign. According to people who saw him, it said simply:

Tax The 1%”

The police captain on the scene who addressed the news cameras eerily avoided the question, mumbling that it was “something about social justice,” as if he were annoyed to address any specifics. So, we know nothing else. Not even a name was given. A dog run over by car might have gotten more respect and news coverage than this unknown man.

What kind of a society have we become? A man decides to commit suicide as an act of political courage, and is dismissed by both the police and media as unworthy of further examination?
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