“We Are Slaves to Capitalism” Said Man Who Set Himself Ablaze Near Israel’s Boston Consulate

Plus, Venezuela takes three Americans hostage; Oren Cass’s latest

New details emerging about violent Boston-area anti-Israel protesters suggests they are opposed not only to Israel but also to capitalism.

“We are slaves to capitalism,” says a video posted by Matt Nelson before he set himself on fire on September 11 near the Israeli consulate in Boston. “A democracy is supposed to serve the will of the people, not the interest of the wealthy. Take the power back. Free Palestine.”

Nelson was at least the third known person in the past year to set themself ablaze near an Israeli diplomatic facility in the U.S. In December 2023, a protester self-immolated outside the Israeli consulate in Atlanta, and in February 2024, Aaron Bushnell committed suicide by lighting himself afire outside the Israeli embassy in Washington. 

A New York Times profile of Bushnell reported him "throwing himself into leftist and anarchist activism, talking often about alleviating poverty and opposing capitalism." The article went on, "In November 2022, fresh off a vacation to Hawaii with his younger brother, Mr. Bushnell showed up alone at an event hosted by the Party for Socialism and Liberation in San Antonio, where he quickly made a new group of friends." Wikipedia describes the Party for Socialism and Liberation as a communist party. 

Meanwhile, screenshots taken from a social media account of Caleb Gannon, who was shot Thursday in Newton, Massachusetts, during a fight with pro-Israel activists that he appeared to have initiated, include retweets of an account called the “victims of capitalism memorial foundation.” 

“I’m so ready for the post-American world,” Gannon tweeted on September 10.

On September 11, Gannon retweeted another account’s comment on the Trump-Harris debate: “One worse that the other, they’re both a horror scene, both Warmongers, both Zionists, both will service the interests of Wall St —Why was there no discussion on US imperialism? America is a terrorist state and a cancer to the world.”

Venezuela’s hostages: Three Americans—Wilbert Castañeda, David Estrella, and Aaron Barrett Logan—have been arrested in Venezuela, accused of plotting to destabilize the country, CNN reports.

Given the success that Russia and Iran have had seizing Americans and then using them as leverage to trade for concessions or as part of prisoner exchanges, and given how the Biden-Harris administration has reacted to Hamas’s seizure of Americans, Venezuela’s President Maduro may have figured that capturing some Americans and holding them would only boost his international standing.

It’ll be a sign that America’s national security policy has improved when foreign dictators are afraid to touch Americans because they know they will face devastating consequences. At the moment, kidnapping Americans is a threshold move for any dictator or terrorist who wants to open negotiations with Washington. Until America gets tougher on the hostage-takers, we can expect more Americans to be taken hostage.

Oren Cass on Conservatism in a Secular Age: One could have a Substack entirely devoted to rebutting weak arguments made by Republican intellectual Oren Cass. Cass is billing his latest piece, published in the October issue of First Things, as being about “constructing conservatism in a secular age.” 

““Has a religious argument based in Christian morality won in American politics in the past fifty years?” Cass writes. “I cannot think of one instance.”

Cass is forgetting the biggest win in American politics in the past 50 years, Reagan’s Cold War victory over the Soviet Union. Reagan, in at least six presidential speeches, quoted Whittaker Chambers on the general point that, “Communism’s faith in man alone is going to be outweighed by the faith of the West in God.” 

Cass warns against “conservatives sidelining themselves pending a religious revival that is nowhere in sight.” Nowhere in sight? Check out the Wall Street Journal magazine: “Christian filmmakers have surprised the world with a series of box office hits.”

Cass also denounces meritocracy and markets: “The modern meritocracy selects for those who are relatively more adept at reasoning, and especially adept at getting their way through reason. This aptitude makes them hostile to faith, which might disrupt their monopoly on truth.” I disagree: there are plenty of highly successful people in meritocratic society who are not hostile to faith and who see faith and reason as not contradictory but complementary and consistent. 

“Economics became the domain of a fundamentalism that worshipped the free market and its outcomes as moral ends in themselves,” Cass writes. I disagree: what Cass disparages as “market fundamentalism” is actually a recognition that a free market, rather than state control or central planning, is the best route to prosperity, property rights, and human dignity. 

Anyway, Cass is for “conservatism” but manages to position himself against religion, meritocracy, and markets. I don’t find it particularly resonant or persuasive.

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